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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Nancy Groves, Catherine Shoard and Benjamin Lee

Back to the Future day - live, part one

Great Scott! It’s only Back to the Future day, 21 October 21 2015.
Great Scott! It’s only Back to the Future day, 21 October 21 2015. Photograph: Moviestore/REX Shutterstock

This is heavy (to load)

Celebrations are continuing around the globe and you can follow the rest of the action on a new live blog here

Not just a soulless digital board of information but a source of lols too!!1!

A place called Reston in Virginia has officially renamed itself Hill Valley today which only makes us think of the absolute clerical chaos that will take place as a result.

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Back to the Future day has officially became political! After David Cameron’s PMQs lol, there’s an interesting piece here on how it’s being used by candidates in the US who have just released fundraising pitches based on the celebrations. Here’s one of them:

Keep up the good work, brands!

There’s video of David Cameron’s Back to the Future joke if you can get away with booing at your desk.

The slightly depressing story of the Marty McFly impersonator who has lived in the shadow of Michael J Fox is now up, in case you can manage it.

“I hear all the time, hey you’re early! You’re not suppose to be here until the 21st,” said Tyler Dunivan a local Marty McFly impersonator.

“I’ve been told since I was 5-years-old that I look like Michael J. Fox,” he said.

The fun is over - David Cameron has referenced Back to the Future day in PMQs. Twitter is livid:

Actual words: “Today is Back to the Future day and many people think he [Corbyn] should get back in his DeLorean and go back to 1985”

General response:

But how does this relate to the history of Maidstone, you cry! Chill, Kent Online has got you with their detailed long read about how the town has changed over the past 30 years!

The coolest thing to do today is to say you’ve never seen Back to the Future apparently. Oh and to LIE:

We’ve also dug out the Guardian’s original review for the first Back to the Future, calling it “highly entertaining but that’s about it” which is pretty harsh on reflection:

Goodbye cruel world

Random celebrities tweeting about #BackToFutureDay - you got it!

How about a slightly bitter song by the actor who played Biff on the questions he is sick of getting asked about the films? Yeah?

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Classic Surrey Police! Now please get back to work.

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And now for the serious bit: here’s a worthwhile callout from ParkinsonsUK for folk to donate money today:

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OR PLANES THOUGH:

Don’t start a fire in Dublin today because the brigade is busy doing Lego. Well, they’re hopefully not but this is worrying nonetheless:

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A creative agency called Scorch (note: most creative agency names also double up as names of club nights you would never go to) tasked its designers to come up with some themed animations. You can see the full list here but this hoverboard factory one is our favourite

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Has all this madness led you to forget what we’re really here to celebrate? Here’s the official trailer for the reissue of the film, without mention of any insurance firm tie-ins, themed house music nights or overused memes:

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Spotify has created a Back to the Future playlist which has the top songs from 21 October 1985 (a date that isn’t actually included in any of the films), which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense but B- for effort!

Given that the film predicted the laserdisc, this is probably the best way to be watching it tonight. Have hipsters reached the much-dreaded laserdisc rediscovery stage yet? Can anyone lend us a copy?

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Here’s a video of teenagers reacting to the film, making everyone watching it feel like a rotten old pensioner.

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An impressive amount of work over at USA Today to celebrate with a fake cover wrapped around today’s regular paper, featuring tie-in stories. Check out the detail!

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This video tells you how to make a hoverboard at home. Tip before watching: lower your expectations

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And here’s a close look at where we’re actually at with all of the tech predictions in the film. Spoiler: surprisingly good news about flying cars:

If you have anything you would like to add to the blog or you’d like to show off how you’re celebrating please email benjamin.lee@theguardian.com

Back to the question of fashion. Marty isn’t too far off, according to our style experts and Kanye probably owes him a few bob:

Just move along, nothing to see here ...

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Never forget that Back to the Future II is the first film to ever star future Frodo Elijah Wood. He has already celebrated early with Conan O’Brien and is about as happy as we are that wearing a colander on your head isn’t a thing in 2015:

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We’re impatiently waiting for Nike to reveal what the heck this tweet is supposed to mean because surely self-lacing ties couldn’t, wait but, hang on, could they? According to Mashable, Nike filed a patent for them in 2009. We’re keeping an eye out ...

Been asking yourself “But how is that dog from the Churchill ads celebrating?” Frantic without a clear answer? Worry not! Good job, guys!

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Pepsi has also got in on the action with this deliberately obnoxious ad from the future/today/whatever it is. This is not our present, praise be:

In fact Universal’s DVD sales team have outdone themselves with the phoney promos. Here’s their hoverboard ad:

Some commenters are remarking on the movie’s prescience in terms of sequels. We may not be at Jaws 19 yet, but soon we will have Fast & Furious 11 …

Here’s a new mock trailer they made for Max Spielberg’s movie by the way:

As the UK office takes over, a hot tip about a BTTF-themed event tonight in north London from one of our readers:

Remember to let us know how you’re celebrating the day, either in the comments or via Twitter, or by emailing catherine.shoard@theguardian.com (for the next 10 hours anyway).

As Back to the Future memes go, Hadley, how’s this for size?

Yes, Christopher Lloyd has teamed up with the folk at Funny or Die to make another silly vid, this time apologising for giving so many people false hope they could hover on a pink plastic skateboard.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLzHj3aFCaE
Christopher Lloyd: ‘We are sorry’ Photograph: Funny or Die

If we inspire one person into the hover sciences, I consider that a victory. Here’s to hoverboards being real one day.

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Hadley tells John Humphries that, unlike Clem, she’s no fan of the film’s fashion

It’s not so great. And we’re not all wearing two neckties.

(A handy primer on how to tie two at once can be found here)

But Back to the Future is trending in other ways, she says

It’s become such a meme. When it first came out, it got a lot of criticism: it’s very dark. But it came back during the Republican presidential primaries with people saying Donald Trump is basically Biff: a big thuggy bully boy ... If we do another, Marty will have gone back in time for us and taken him out and reduced him to being a car-washer again ... but to his enormous credit, Zemeckis has said he will never allow them to be remade in his lifetime.

Is this what she’s talking about?

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The Today programme is covering Back to the Future day and the Guardian’s Hadley Freeman is the special guest. She says:

I don’t think there’s anyone on the planet who doesn’t like these films. Robert Zemeckis told me he wouldn’t be able to make them now because audiences aren’t sophisticated enough.

These are special effects movies with complicated scripts. Having the mother fall in love with the son ... that wouldn’t happen now.

These kind of movies are made for global audiences now with the emphasis on special effects. But Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale spent a lot of time on the script.

All movies that depict the future get it wrong. And yet, it’s the closest to accurate we have in a movie on the future.

Hadley has written at length about Back to the Future in her book, Life Moves Pretty Fast. And here’s an extract on why the parents in the films were so ahead of their time.

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While you Brits are off to the office, Guardian Australia columnist Clem Bastow is putting the finishing touches to her evening outfit.

Right now I’m here to tell you I just spent five hours assembling a McFly-worthy ensemble to wear to a screening of Back to the Future. It’s a good thing the weather in Melbourne has cooled down, because Marty was the original layering king: to imitate his time-travelling kit, you’ll need a t-shirt, shirt, denim jacket, and the signature “life preserver” puffa vest.

If you want to get truly screen accurate, you’ll need patience and money: the real McFly obsessives once campaigned Shah Safari, the makers of his black and white checked shirt, to do a limited run of replicas (one went so far as to count the number of threads between each check).

But if you’re happy to simply pay tribute to the general je ne sais quois of everyone’s favourite “too loud” guitarist, then any shopping centre can be your Twin Pines Mall: after all, legend has it that when Michael J Fox joined the production in a hurry after Eric Stoltz’s departure, the film’s costume designers bought his entire outfit off the rack, because when it came to designing a new ensemble for their new lead, they were just fresh outatime.

Are you dressing up as Marty or the Doc today? Tweet us your pics @guardianfilm

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And now for the sport report

Chicago Cubs relief pitcher Trevor Cahill
A sad Cub. Photograph: Jerry Lai/USA Today Sports

An update from my colleague Alan Evans:

The hope that the Chicago Cubs would finally win another World Series, as augured by Back To The Future 2, took another blow as they lost game three of the National League Championship Series to the New York Mets, 5-2, falling 3-0 behind in the best-of-seven series.

The ‘lovable losers’, who last won baseball’s biggest prize in 1908, hit two home runs off Jacob DeGrom, but could not hold off the surging Mets, who now look likely to reach their first World Series since 2000.

Sadly, the ‘prediction’ could never have come fully true, as in the film the Cubs clinch the Fall Classic against Florida. At the time, there was no Florida franchise. The Florida Marlins were created in 1993, but changed their name to the Miami Marlins in 2012. Since they play in the National League with the Cubs, the two teams could never have met in a World Series.

Things are beginning to look up for Chicago, though. After a long period of rebuilding, they have a deep roster of talented young batters and a solid pitching staff. Perhaps 2016 will be the year the curse is finally broken. It’s certainly more likely than all of us having hoverboards.

Here’s some context on the Cubs’ season from David Lengel in the Guardian US office.

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Also available to pre-order for mega fans today, care of Mondo, is a limited edition six vinyl set of Alan Silvestri’s full score for Back to the Future. The adjective “collectible” is certainly overused in this arena, but with artwork by DKNG Studios and liner notes by screenwriter Bob Gale, these really are gorgeous things.

If that doesn’t float your boat, how about a replica Marty McFly hat? Only three left in stock, I’m told.

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Fancy watching a doco on the Doc?

You’re in luck, as director Jason Aron’s film about the trilogy, Back in Time, premieres in Los Angeles tonight at the We’re Going Back event, and will also be available on Netflix and iTunes.

The film, which was part-funded by a $200,000 Kickstarter campaign, includes interviewees with stars Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd, directors Robert Zemeckis and Steven Spielberg, and Huey Lewis.

A still-pinching-himself Aron told BGR: “Once the calm had set in after the hectic setup and we’re right in the middle of it, it’s like, wow – I’m talking to Marty McFly about Back to the Future! And your 9-year-old self wakes up and is like – this is really happening.

“I think the lack of follow-ups certainly created a situation where absence has made the heart grow fonder,” says Aron, whose love for “Back to the Future” dates back to his own childhood. “They didn’t reboot it. They left perfection alone.”

Here’s the official trailer:

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And because you’re probably in need of a good cup of coffee right now (I certainly am), how’s this for froth art?

Good morning Britain!

It’s 6am in the UK, but we’ve already been blogging for seven hours here in the Guardian’s Sydney office. Every day is Back to the Future for us, people. We live there.

So while we’re still full of enthusiasm for all things DeLorean, we’re also enjoying this little rant by the Guardian’s own Stuart Heritage.

Celebrating specific days purely because they were mentioned in a film is fruitless. Take Wednesday, for example. As anyone who grew up watching the Back to the Future films knows, on 21 October 2015 the world was supposed to be full of flying cars and hoverboards. But it isn’t. Instead, it’s full of millions of idiots complaining about the lack of hoverboards via handheld communication devices that are connected to the sum total of the history of human knowledge. That’s nowhere near as good.

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MEME time. Isn’t it about time for a political / pop culture mash-up? This one only comes from God, aka The Good Lord Above (he of the 2,232,280 Facebook friends).

Back to the Future meme from the Good Lord Above.
Bernie, Doc, Donald and Biff. Photograph: The Good Love Above/Screengrab

Thanks to Guardian reader, tommanleysays, for the spot.

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We’ve already heard from Doc Brown today. And a couple of weeks ago from his alter-ego, actor Christopher Lloyd.

But did you know that Lloyd wasn’t always a shoo-in for the part?

A casting list is doing the rounds on Twitter suggesting producers also had in mind Jeff Goldblum, John Cleese, Steve Martin. And, ahem, Bill Cosby.

The list comes from Back to the Future: The Ultimate Visual History, newly published by HarperCollins to mark this special year in the film’s history.

Updated

How is Guardian Australia film critic Luke Buckmaster spending the day in Sydney?

Here’s his dispatch.

Instead of spending Back to the Future day lamenting the non-existence of the flying car or the paucity of the hover board – presumably some rich guy like Marc Zuckerberg is whooshing around on one, somewhere in Silicon Valley, right now, high-fiving androids – I am grateful for two reasons.

Firstly, that I never had to sit through and review 19 Jaws movies. Secondly, that those hideous, clunky, antiquated, anachronistic contraptions known as fax machines are in their last dying days. Do write in if you still use one.

This is far from the vision depicted in Back to the Future 2, which shows the technology proliferating to the point where the phrase “read my fax!” is a believeable line in the script. Marty McFly has at least three of them in the space of two square metres in his home office. Getting your phone conversation spied on by your boss is one thing, but to receive a dump of faxed printouts announcing “YOU’RE FIRED!” quite another.

So, yes, I’m spending the day casting general scepticism in the direction of those countless “what Back to the Future got right and wrong” lists. Some commentators have expressed disappointment that we don’t have tiny dehydrated pizzas that balloon out to family size in a matter of seconds. Well, yeah, but we do have 3D printers that can make pizza for astronauts (thanks to The Verge for that link), so that’s something.

As Jacob Brogan writes for Slate: “Obsessing Over What Back to the Future II Got Right About 2015 Misses the Point Entirely.”

If Back to the Future II has a thesis, it’s that nothing is more dangerous than knowing your future—and nothing less productive than worrying over the way things might be.

Just like the Doctor always said.


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More fun Twitter links. Someone’s made a USA Today up for 21st October 2015. How will it compare to the real deal? We’ll have to wait a few more hours for that.

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A musical interlude

When it comes to the music of Back to the Future, most people will be humming its stirring theme (composed and conducted by Alan Silvestri and performed by the Outatime Orchestra, fact fans), or The Power of Love by Huey Lewis and the News (who recently revealed that he almost passed on the gig).

There will soon be live concert screenings of the film in St Louis, Denver and Cleveland in the US; Perth and Melbourne in Australia; as well as Dublin and Mexico City. To whet your appetite, here’s a video of Silvestri conducting the theme music in Vienna.

What are your favourite tracks from the movie? Let me know in the comments below.

Meanwhile, all this talk of Deloreans has given me another earworm entirely, and that’s Neon Neon’s delicious 2008 Mercury prize nominated concept album Stainless Style, about the life and times of John DeLorean.

Here is its catchiest track, Dream Cars. You’re most welcome!

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Meanwhile over in Northern Ireland, Doc Brown’s legendary zip line ride from the Hill Vallery clock tower has been restaged in Belfast, the city that built the famous silver-winged DeLorean cars immortalised in the Back to the Future films, reports PA.

US industrialist John DeLorean brought his car plant to Dunmurry in west Belfast at the start of the 1980s with the lure of significant support from the government. Initially injecting some optimism into Troubles-era Northern Ireland, its stay was short-lived and ultimately ended in failure. Fewer than 9,000 cars rolled off the Dunmurry production line and when the first Back to the Future film was released in 1985, the DeLorean plant had already been closed for three years.

Two local actors have re-imagined the zip line scene, with a comic twist, at the clock tower in the Gasworks area of the city centre. The film stunt was created by Irish lager brand Harp. As Guardian reader KarmaPolice puts it:

User avatar for karmapolice

The movie was stunningly prescient on the dominance of advertising!

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Guardian reader SparkyTheDog has alerted us to this amazing travel feature from Rocketnews24 on a Back to the Future cafe in Ikebukuro, Tokyo.

On the menu:

• Doc’s Favorite Crazy Sandwich Thick Sliced BLT (1,500 yen)
• Marty’s ‘Nobody Calls Me a Chicken’ Vegetable Curry (1,500 yen)
• Travel to the Future! DeLorean Cake Plate (1,800 yen)

But for all you Aussies reading, surely the Back to the Future coffee takes the biscuit. Beats a Flat White anyday!

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Some more science

“The future has arrived – it’s just not evenly distributed yet” (William Gibson)

Guardian Australia’s data editor Nick Evershed, aka Clevershed, writes:

One of the cliched refrains around predictions from movies like Back to the Future, or sci-fi in general, goes along the lines of “where’s my hoverboard?” (or where’s my jetpack / flying car / non-specific futuristic item?). In fact, some of these technologies exist, they just aren’t ubiquitous for reasons of practicality or affordability.

At least two different hoverboards have been built, though admittedly not to the level of hovering seen in Back to the Future. Both rely on magnetism so can’t be used anywhere except on purpose-built tracks. One, reportedly built for an advertising stunt, apparently uses liquid nitrogen-cooled superconductors and a magnetic track. The other was funded via a Kickstarter campaign, and uses magnetic repulsion on a copper track. There is also a rotor-based hoverbike, which is closer in principle to a quadcopter.

The scene with a drone walking a dog is also possible today. Small multi-rotor drones are now relatively common, and can be programmed to follow a person (or dog) either by using image tracking, or by carrying a GPS tracker. Open-source software has been available for several years already that could allow a drone to be programmed to follow a dog-walking path. However, most multi-rotor drone batteries don’t last that long (around 20 minutes for small commercial drones, give or take), and it’s doubtful whether the carrying capacity for a smaller craft would be enough to hold back a decent-sized dog on a leash.

Incidentally, we also have jet packs, prototype flying cars, and laser guns.

So now you know!

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The Guardian's original review

And a special treat: we’ve dug the Guardian’s original review of Back to the Future II out of the archive! Bad news: Derek Malcolm didn’t really like it. Here’s what he said (he’d just reviewed Field of Dreams, slightly more positively).

Besides, in the week of Back To The Future II (Empire PG), with its trailer for the third episode shamelessly tacked on to the end, and dozens of trade names shamelessly glaring through its mise-en-scene, Field Of Dreams seems positively purist in its appeal.

There is very little to say about the new Robert Zemeckis film that hasn’t been said about the old one. Except that it was made back-to-back with a third episode, and there is an extraordinary air of expediency about it.

The only difference I can find lies in the darker, more spiteful vision of the new film, and the fact that the cast seems almost manically inclined to get through it all as fast as possible and at as high a pitch as the Dolby Stereo can cope with.

Unless the sound setting at the press show was a mistake, I have seldom heard a noisier film nor one which seems to require its stars (Michael J Fox and Christopher Lloyd again) to bellow their lines so startlingly over the din.

Whipping off in the Doc’s DeLorean time machine to find 2015 in Hill Valley, California, a purgatorial version of its former self, with the old labouring under hormonal treatment that has fuddled their brains while rejuvenating their bodies and the young equipped with weapons of world-destruction, Marty McFly returns to discover the mid-Eighties in even worse disarray.

Blacks (perish the thought) now inhabit his old house and pitched battles between gangs and police make the streets untenable. But the trouble with the picture is that it does absolutely nothing with its various prognostications except play the fool with them.

Oh dear. Still, if it’s any consolation, he did like the final part a little more. Here’s that review, too.

It was bold of Robert Zemeckis to persuade Hollywood to make Back To The Future II and III back to back, and to put both out within a few months of each other. But from the latest returns it looks as if the trick hasn’t worked at the American box-office. Be that as it may, Back To The Future III (Empire, PG) is considerably better than the noisy second edition which was plastered with product placement and remorselessly lacking in real coherence.

This one goes back to first principles and, in particular, to a mythical West where Michael Fox as Marty McFly, looking younger and smaller than ever, arrives bursting in the magical old DeLorean through a hoarding depicting a redskin charge, only to land in the middle of the very same thing in real-life. But the Indians are not chasing him. The US Cavalry is only two furlongs behind.

Abandoning the vehicle to a predatory bear, he swaggers in ludicrous Western get-up into a frontier town saloon and announces he is Clint Eastwood which, of course, makes nobody’s day very much at all. The whisky literally sizzles on the bar, and some grizzled and vaguely familiar faces from the days when Westerns were essentially more nourishing stare at him from the tables.

But did I say real-life? This is not that. It is well-honed and by now rather over-familiar fantasy, through which we are clearly asked to imagine what we might do under such stressful circumstances ourselves. As the first film showed, part of the magic of this sort of thing is to make Fox into young Mr Everyman, and mad scientist Christopher Lloyd into everyone’s idea of the eccentric neighbour whose time, and time-machine, has come.

Zemeckis plugs away at this theme hoping that familiarity will breed content, and varies it this time by making McFly more or less Emmett Brown’s sidekick as the story progresses, deferring to him even in the matter of love interest. This is provided by Mary Steenburgen’s schoolmistress, a fellow admirer of Jules Verne who likes the old boy’s piercing eyes but thinks he’s telling fibs.

McFly is left to cope with Thomas F Wilson’s Mad Dog Tannen, a distant relative of Biff, the usual villain, by himself. Fox also has to play his Irish forbear Seamus, which he does with an accent that is about as convincing as the part itself.

There’s a suitably hi-tech flourish at the finish to bring us all back to 1985, where we started, and there are copious references to the other episodes to satisfy the cogniscenti. But a sharper script would have been a benefit and the longueurs of the two hours we spend at the frolic are more noticeable than before, since there are few tricks left even for Zemeckis to pull off all that freshly.

But he remains a director of much professional ease and fluency, and the film has the advantages that flow from that. If Back To The Future III no longer contains its initial element of surprise, it never seems totally bound by formula.

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Guardian reader Niallsh is celebrating in more ways than one today. With a party. A BIRTHDAY PARTY.

User avatar for niallsh

An even bigger day for me than most film fans as Back to the Future Day is also my 21st birthday, so I think you'll probably be able to guess what my party theme is? (Hint: it involves me wearing a red gilet).

It's been on the cards since I watched the film yonks ago, so if someone else turns up dressed as Marty McFly, they're dead to me.

And Niallsh is not the only one. Also born on this day: Kim Kardashian (34), Carrie Fisher (58), Judge Judy (72), Rick Rubio (24), Benjamin Netanyahu (65), not to mention the departed Dizzy Gillespie, Alfred Nobel and Hernando Desoto (the 16th century Spanish explorer, not the modern-day Peruvian economist).

To all of them, past and present, we wish a Happy Birthday via this cute DIY stop motion animation by Jez Whitworth.

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College Humor’s Back to the Future in ACTUAL 2015 video is lots of (pointed) fun. Some sample dialogue:

Marty: “Let’s load up the car’s fusion reactor with garbage and find my kids.”

Doc: “What? Are you CRAZY? Most cars still run on fossil fuels and the ones that don’t are prohibitively expensive for most people.”

Marty: “Hasn’t the government made meaningful investment* in clean energy?”

Doc: “No, Marty, it’s got so bad that carbon emissions have irreversibly changed the planet’s climate.”

Marty: “Heavy.”

And don’t get them started on CROCS.

(* COUGH, here is a link to the Guardian’s Keep it in the Ground campaign)

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It seems like lots of people out there are planning to mark the day with a tattoo. This call out from Twitter got us thinking ...

(Or rather the 2015 version of thinking ... we had a good Google. Didn’t predict the big G, did ya, Zemeckis?).

Anyway, it turns out there’s already some superlative artistry going on in this area.

Check out these 18 tattoo tributes to Marty and the Doc for inspiration (plus some you might regret).

Are you giving or receiving Back to the Future tattoos today? Let us know in the comments below.

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Doc Brown's message to the world

The future has finally arrived. Yes, it is different than we all thought. But don’t worry. It just means your future hasn’t been written yet. No one’s has. Your future is whatever you make it. Just make it a good one.

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One of today’s main sports, of course, is going to be seeing how Back to the Future’s vision of the future measures up to reality.

Here’s our A to Z guide of what it got right and wrong, but we’re not the only people to have placed the film’s pseudo-science under scrutiny.

Australian website Junkee have had a good hipster go and let’s say they’re underwhelmed by the present.

Self-drying jackets? Self-tying shoelaces? Pizza-expanding ovens? Uh-uh.

Meanwhile, ABC radio have gone all serious and talked to an actual scientist, Dr Denny Oetomo from the department of engineering at the University of Melbourne, who says Zemickis was surprisingly close to the mark. Even if, as he says: “A lot of people are still waiting for hoverboards to happen.”

Back to the Future: prophecy or fantasy? – you can listen to the whole episode here.

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As spotted by my colleague Claire Phipps, Queensland Police Service are having some Hoverboard fun today.

'The darkest film I ever made'

Mike Baird has clearly watched his Back to the Future II, but in case you haven’t, here is our esteemed film editor Catherine Shoard faxing in to explain why you should. You might be surprised by her summation.

“This is a mainstream action comedy whose plot happens to hinge on incest, rape and existential terror. Robert Zemeckis called it the darkest film he ever made.”

Be warned. Revisiting the future can have grave consequences.

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The morning commute

The day has got off to a cracking start in Sydney, Australia with New South Wales state premier Mike Baird arriving to work in ... what else .. a DeLorean, Marty McFly and Doc Brown’s time machine of choice.

“I’ve just seen the future for NSW. It looks fantastic,” said Baird, stepping out of his ride before sharing the video on his Facebook and Twitter feeds, not missing the chance to score a transport policy point.

Reaction to the stunt was varied from the NSW electorate.

A particularly salient point from this Tweeter:

How many other politicians will follow Baird’s lead today?

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This is heavy

Biff Burger

We’ll have write-ups and video from both those: but we want your reports too. Tell us how you’re spending this seminal day. Tweet @guardianfilm – or post in the comments. Maybe you’re already 20 days into the celebrations in Nantes? Perhaps you’ve made an (inessential) reservation at Margate’s Diner to enjoy a Biff Burger?

Either way: wherever you are, if you’re marking the day, let us know about it.

The time-continuum explained

Maybe you’re excited about the event but have time to kill and are slightly foggy on what it all means. Here’s some further reading for your research:

• What Back to the Future II got right and wrong about 2015: an A-Z guide
• Christopher Lloyd and Lea Thompson talk about the day, and about the 30th anniversary of the first film, and also about Isis, rape and climate change
• Why the first film is so great
• Why the whole trilogy is so great
• Why the depiction of the parents in the first film is so great
• What the world might look like in 30 years from now
• Michael J Fox praises BTTF fans in London this summer, meets Hadley Freeman in 2013 and is Edward Tew’s role model
• Previous interviews with Christopher Lloyd and Crispin Glover (2008, 2011, 2015)

Ahead of the game … an event in Sao Paulo, Brazil on 17 October 2015. This is not Michael J Fox and Christopher Lloyd.
Ahead of the game … an event in Sao Paulo, Brazil on 17 October 2015. This is not Michael J Fox and Christopher Lloyd. Photograph: MIGUEL SCHINCARIOL/AFP/Getty Images

Time circuits on

Hello! It’s almost midnight in London and already the morning in Australia, which means it’s time to welcome you to the Guardian’s cross-continent Back to the Future day liveblog.

We’re here to mark in as many timezones as possible the moment (16:29, 21 October, 2015) to which the heroes of the Back to the Future sequel travel in the 1989 movie.

Anticipation about the advent of this date has been high for years among fans – check out the countdown clock – and that hoax back in July 2010 was fooling nobody.

Back to the Future Pepsi

Celebrations are planned round the globe. In London there’s a Pepsi-sponsored (Marty’s tipple) screening in Leicester Square, complete with DeLorean and a replica of Café ‘80s.

In Los Angeles there’s some official screenings attended by cast and crew, as well as a tour round some of the locations, kicking off at the Burger King from which Marty begins his commute to school.

Updated

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The Fashion Central
Kelly Osbourne Before And After Weight Loss Photos: Ozzy's Daughter Gets Flak For Alarming Look During Brit Awards
Kelly Osbourne's appearance at the 2026 Brit Awards sparked online discussions about her weight loss, leading her to address body-shaming comments on Instagram.
International Business Times UK
International Business Times UK
What Happened To Kelly Osbourne? BRIT Awards Appearance Sparks Frenzy As She Slams 'Ozempic Face' Speculation
Kelly Osbourne confronts body-shaming comments following her appearance at the 2026 BRIT Awards, addressing speculation about her weight loss and health.
International Business Times UK
International Business Times UK
SNL Was Forced To Change A Sketch At The Last Minute And Complained About It On The Air
Fear. Rage. Chaos.
Cinemablend
Cinemablend
Woman sees her favorite singer started following her on Instagram and jumps with excitement. Then she opened their account: ‘This is humiliating’
TikTok creator Paloma (@whor3chata_) is sparking a massive wave of sympathy (and second-hand embarrassment) on TikTok with her recent grwm story. The creator shared the “before and after” of being followed by one of her favorite singers on Instagram. Sadly, the “after” is humiliating.
The Mary Sue
The Mary Sue
Harry Styles, fake stage invaders and a censored Peter Mandelson joke: the biggest moments at the Brit awards
The ITV censors had their work cut out in a protest-filled, relatively edgy ceremony that hosted ultra-expressive performances from Rosalía, Wolf Alice and more
The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
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