I still remember seeing the first part of the trilogy - I missed out on seeing it at the movies with the family, and had to wait for it to come out on VHS. Still it was a fantastic movie, and even today there's never been another film like it. The story line is so cleverly thought out and meticulously constructed, and the effects still hold up well. The DTS soundtrack on the DVD release is also awesome, with some good surround sound. Buy the trilogy set - it's awesome!

Plot Synopsis:

Marty McFly is an average teenager living in Hill Valley, California. On the morning of October 25, 1985, his eccentric friend, scientist Dr. Emmett "Doc" Brown, calls him, asking to meet him at 1:15 a.m. After school that day, a woman approaches Marty and his girlfriend Jennifer, asking for donations to save the town's clock tower which has not run since it was struck by lightning thirty years previous. When he gets home Marty sees the family car wrecked in the driveway and his neurotic father George being bullied by his supervisor Biff Tannen. That night at dinner, Marty's mother Lorraine recounts how she and George first met when her father hit George with a car.

That night, Marty meets the Doc as planned in the parking lot of Twin Pines Mall. Doc shows him a Delorean DMC-12 which he has modified into a time machine, explaining that it requires 1.21 gigawatts of power, generated by plutonium, and that the car must be traveling at eighty-eight miles per hour to travel through time. Doc successfully demonstrates the vehicle by transporting his dog Einstein 1 minute intno the future. Doc shows Marty how to operate the vehicle, and enters in November 5, 1955 as the target date, explaining that this was the day he conceived of the flux capacitor, which is "what makes time travel possible."

Before Doc can depart for his planned trip twenty-five years into the future, the Libyan terrorists he stole his plutonium from show up in a Volkswagen van and shoot him dead. Marty jumps in the Delorean and is pursued until he hits eighty-eight miles per hour and is instantanously transported into the year 1955. He destroys a pine tree while escaping from Peabody's pine plantation. (This leads to the mall being renamed Lone Pine Mall when he returns later).

The car runs out of fuel shortly after his arrival, so Marty abandons it and, after pushing the car to a secluded spot, makes his way into town, finding that the town square now reflects the popular culture of the 1950s and that his own parents are teenagers themselves. Biff is also a teenager and acts as a school bully, tyrannizing the young George.

In the critical moment when George was about to be hit by Lorraine's father's car, Marty saves his father by taking the hit himself. Lorraine becomes infatuated with him, but Marty is disturbed by her sexual advances and leaves to track down the Doc. After managing to convince the scientist that he is from the future, Doc tells him that, aside from plutonium, the only possible source of enough power to send Marty back to 1985 is a bolt of lightning. Since Marty knows the lightning strike to the clock tower will happen the following Saturday, Doc concocts a way to harness the bolt's power.

More pressingly, Doc deduces that Marty has prevented his parents from meeting. Since Marty will not exist unless his parents fall in love, he finds that he is in danger of being erased from time. After several failed attempts, Marty eventually works out a plan to have George "rescue" Lorraine from Marty's advances on the night of a school dance. Biff shows up and attacks the couple, but George manages to defend Lorraine, knocking Biff out with a single punch. Lorraine and George return to the dance together where they kiss for the first time, ensuring Marty's existence. Doc, meanwhile, has used cables to connect the clock tower to two lamp posts, which he plans to have Marty drive under in the Delorean, now sporting a lightning rod, at eighty-eight miles per hour the moment the lightning strikes.

Before Marty can leave, Doc finds a letter in his coat pocket that Marty had written, warning him about his future assassination by the Libyans. Doc rips up the letter without reading it, knowing the dangers of learning about the future. Marty adjusts the time machine to take him back ten minutes early so he can warn Doc right before he is killed. Upon his arrival in 1985, Marty sees the Libyans shoot Doc again, but Doc then unzips his radiation suit to reveal a bulletproof vest. He pulls out Marty's letter from 1955, which he had taped back together.

The next morning, Marty finds his family has been changed for the better. Most notably, George has become self-confident and is no longer bullied by Biff. Just as Jennifer and Marty reunite, Doc arrives from the year 2015, appearing frantic about a problem with the couple's future children. Marty and Jennifer climb aboard the Delorean and, aided by the future technology, the car flies away into the sky.