Eric Stoltz in Back to the Future

No, Eric Stoltz has been complaining about this trilogy for almost 40 years. It was a huge success because of the suspension of disbelief involved in the absurd notion that the outcome was plausible. The audience knows it's pure fantasy, so why play it as the depressing outcome Stoltz envisioned? We want Marty to succeed in changing his destiny just as as we wanted George Bailey to change his in, "It's a Wonderful Life". I don't believe Stoltz's version would have been nearly as successful and apparently neither did the producers who switched to Fox's light-hearted version. Stoltz was wrong and he needs to move on 😠

Stoltz has had a weird career .

Pretty good one for a ginger though.

There's a story about a female executive at Amblin who responded to a Hollywood Reporter in 2010, claiming that Spielberg told Zemeckis not to give Stoltz any direction so that Sheinberg would let Zemeckis recast him with Fox. Could be true. I know Zemeckis told a story about Spielberg manipulating Sheinberg into letting them keep the Back to the Future title. Sheinberg preferred "Space Man from Pluto" and felt the world "Future" was not marketable.

According to his stunt double, Eric Stoltz was actually good at skateboarding (which writer/producer Bob Gale claimed he wasn't).

If you read the book about Dreamworks, you learn Spielberg was good at having others play bad cop. But he was sketchy.

I think even Stoltz himself said he wasn't even any direction, but other people have different recollections.

The 1984 dated script was apparently a bit edgier and had more drama. Parhaps it was revised to better fit Stoltz, but he just couldn't bring the broad comedy?

I've heard so many different stories and theories from everyone and everywhere, so who knows.

It's rare that a movie, much less a trilogy brings cast, writing and direction together to make a super-hit. Best to leave the "what ifs" at the door and appreciate the "what is".

I know I'm in the minority here, but I think Eric Stoltz was, like, super hot back in the day. Just watched Some Kind of Wonderful. He is dreeaaaaaaamy.

One theory (with decent evidence) is that they couldn't make up their mind on whether or not to go the comedy or drama route. When they felt they had a disaster on their hands with the drama take - and Fox became available - they decided on a full-blown comedy version and most likely a hit with Fox in the lead, whether it was good or not. Eric Stoltz was basically the fall guy.

They were going to play the "guy attracted to his own mother" stuff as drama? Yuck.

I've only seen a few brief clips of Stoltz in the role, but he was making a completely different movie.

Stoltz was even dressed in black for Marty's 1985 clothes.

Eric stoltz was very hot in House of Mirth

Never found this trilogy the least bit entertaining or funny.

Fox was always everyone's first choice from the beginning but he wasn't available because of Family Ties. The Family Ties producers refused to re-arrange their shooting schedule or make any kind of accommodation to make him available. So they went with Stoltz.

After shooting for weeks with Stoltz. with what everyone involved considered unsatisfactory results, the film's producers realized that the Family Ties shooting season was almost over. So they dumped Stoltz and Fox went straight from shooting the season's last Family Ties episode into retaking all of Stoltz's work on the film.

[quote] We want Marty to succeed in changing his destiny just as as we wanted George Bailey to change his in, "It's a Wonderful Life"

But the difference in BttF is that Marty’s family becomes rich, successful and sophisticated. In It’s aWonderful Lige George doesn’t become transformed. He’s still George, living in the drafty old house with Mary and too many kids. George has been rescued from jail because of his own goodness.

Back to the Future is a post-Reagan movie. The hero becomes financially successful as a reward. The office girl marries the financial wizard as her reward for being honest and down-to-earth. The poor girl makes herself a pretty dress and wins the heart of the scion of the town’s millionaire. The school kid is rich enough to pull elaborate pranks on his school’s teachers, who are vexed but powerless to do anything about it because he’s rich and cool and they’re petty middle class losers. . The poor kid who’s neglected and abused at home gets the pretty rich girl.

Frank Capra celebrated the common man and said “he’s good enough as he is.” A pure heart and good deeds save the day.

But IRL George would’ve gone to jail or else he’d have been financially ruined years before. The Baileys were never any good at making money.

It’s a Wonderful Life is a postwar film where the rich guys are old fashioned, wearing their ties atop their high collars (an early 20th century fashion). Potter sits in a room in front of brocade scalloped drapes, an early 20th century decor. Potter is an old fashioned robber baron and George is America’s new way - honest, hardworking guys doing the right thing who have a right not to live in slums. They have a right to pretty little houses obliterating the rabbit hunting fields. (Rabbit hunting was another old fashioned thing. Americans were now wealthy enough they didn’t need to scrabble in the fields all day for a supper if rabbit stew. The Baileys enjoyed big slices at dinner from joints of beef.)

IaWL is post war America. BttF is post-Reagan America, all way down to middle eastern terrorists exacting revenge for late 20th century oil wars.

R14 watches endless loops of the SAW franchise.

Frank Capra was a fraud on every level.

But what do ZuZu's petals mean?

And who calls their child, Zuzu?

@r14, "Never found this trilogy the least bit entertaining or funny. "

Of course not, Debbie 🙄

People who ec9 e rich and successful often hate bankers, R18. Bankers usually came from wealthy and politically connected families a banker wanted his sons to be bankers and the position was handed down for generations. I don’t see anything unusual in an Italian immigrant hating bankers. In IaWL Mr Martini says he’d never have a house except for George. The banker sees Martini as a “garlic eater.”

As for Gerald Ford …he pardoned Nixon and that sucked. He was told to do it and he did it. He was also part of the Warren Commission. I wonder what would’ve happened to anyone on the Warren commission said, “This is a complete cover up. Oswald was CIA. He was CIA when he lived in Russia and he was CIA when he came back and pretended to be pro Castro. He was not smart, but we used a lot of uneducated, dumb people as informants. We did it because if one of them said, “I’m with the CIA,” nobody would believe them.”

So would Gerald Ford be the guy to blow the whole thing wide open? Hell no. Neither would I. I like being alive. I like my family not being threatened.

And though Ford was from a family of bankers his mother left his domestic abuser father right after Ford was born. He took his stepfather’s last name, people thought Ford was an idiot but he went to Yale Law School and he got there after being accepted to and doing a semester at Michigan State Law. He was a college football player (was scouted by NFL) and a WW2 veteran who saw a lot of active duty in the Pacific. People generally liked him and thought he was a nice guy because he preferred bipartisanship. He was kind of a peacemaker in Congress.

So yeah. Capra was a football fan and people of his generation greatly admired WW2 veterans who saw combat. I think he probably personally liked Ford. People in my generation don’t see Ford the same way people who were young people during WW2 saw him. We see Ford as the guy who started the “GOP presidents can’t be held accountable” belief that has led to the calamity of today.

I don’t see why successful people can’t hate bankers, though. If I am successful, am I supposed to give away my money because I don’t like bankers? Capra’s dislike of bankers was political. They were involved in propping up dictatorships abroad and scamming working people. They denied loans to people who needed them and gave loans to those who didn’t need them. They caused the Great Depression. They later caused the 2006 debacle from which the middle class housing market has never recovered. They’re not humanitarians.

[quote]Sheinberg preferred "Space Man from Pluto" and felt the world "Future" was not marketable.

What is he, retarded?