Back to the Future 2: Biff Changes Time

Updated
Back to the Future 2: Biff Changes Time
Faneditor Name:
Original Movie Title:
Fanedit Type:
Original Release Date:
1989
Original Running Time:
108
Fanedit Release Date:
Fanedit Running Time:
80
Time Cut:
28
Time Added:
0
Available in HD?
Brief Synopsis:
Back to the Future's sequels were filmed at the same time. It feels that they planned one sequel and realized there was too much material to put it all in one movie. Instead of trimming the story, they padded it to make two cinema-length movies. In today's age of binge-watching, this results in "fast-forward" moments of repetitive exposition and repeating opening and closing scenes. Back to the Future 2 - Biff Changes Time removes the padding to create a stream-lined, less convoluted story that combines smoothly with Back To The Future 3 - Marty Changes History for a double-feature viewing experience.
Intention:
The primary goal is to make BttF2 less convoluted. A tighter narrative with a few less twists help the viewer stay in the movie. The secondary goal is to trim BttF Parts 2 and 3 for back-to-back viewing that clocks in under three hours. They're not merged because so much happens in Part 2, that it's more enjoyable to have a short break before jumping into Part 3.
Additional Notes:
After watching this, enjoy Back To The Future 3 - Marty Changes History for the conclusion.
Other Sources:
Back To The Future 30th Anniversary Trilogy (Blu-Ray)
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Special Thanks:
Thanks to Sinbad for his extensive feedback. Also thanks to SonOf Sinbad, tylerdurden389, The Scribbling Man for his high expectations in my previous fanedit, Theryaney for making the superb cover, and the FE community for sharing their expertise.
Release Information:
Digital
Special Features
Video: 1080p MKV (7.0GB, 1.85:1, 1920x1040)
Audio: AC3 5.1 (640kbps), Director's Commentary (original)
Subtitles: Yes (English, not hard-coded)
Cuts and Additions:
- Remove opening scene which repeats the last scene from BttF1 with Elizabeth Shue. In the world of acting, one role can be played by different actors. No repeat needed. Or, you could replace this scene into the end of BttF1 and it becomes one of the changes from Marty tweaking history in the first movie (cuts 2m20s).
- Remove Doc's "old" make-up reveal. The joke didn't work for me because the difference wasn't noticeable enough.
- Shortened Marty's walk in the 2015 town square to remove product placements (kept the Jaws 19 holo-shark!).
- Shortened Marty's entry into Cafe 80s to remove Ayatollah vs Reagan reference which didn't age well.
- Trimmed young Griff's lame jokes in Cafe 80s, they didn't add to the story (who will really miss "your shoe's unfelt"?).
- Slight trims in the Hoverboard chase, for pacing.
- Removed old Biff's surprise at seeing a flying Delorean again after 30 years (because that scene is cut). Now he's surprised at seeing 2 Marty's.
- Trimmed cops dialog upon arrival in Hilldale, now they bring Jennifer home without dissing the neighborhood.
- Cut Marty Jr watching many TV channels and Marty Sr walking in on that.
- Slight trims to old Lorraine's exposition and the family's dinner conversation.
- Cut Marty Jr complaining about the metal fruit basket. We saw it in an earlier scene, so we don't need to see it come down to understand that it's there.
- [Non-change] I had inserted the Deleted Scene of old Biff fading out of existence after returning in 2015, because it answers the question of why Biff is hurt / exhausted climbing out of the DeLorean. I took it out again upon realizing that it raised more questions than it answered.
- Small trims in Doc's dialog as they fly back to 1985, for pacing.
- Small trims in Marty's escape from "his" bedroom. Again, for pacing.
- [Major change] When Marty realizes things are wrong, would he really wander into town? No! He runs to Doc's house as fast as he can! Doc is the only person who may be able to fix this, the only person who'll believe him. And Marty has to reach Doc before he destroys the time machine since they'll probably need it to escape this wrong 1985. After many transition try-outs, settled on a hard cut from Marty running to Doc's lab. A) No more Mr Strickland on his porch, now Doc confirms it's 1985. B) No more 80s bikers. C) No more confused stumbling into town, Marty now visits Biff Tower after Doc explains what's happened. D) No more graveyard, so Doc no longer has to wait there for Marty. E) Marty learns George is dead from the newspaper (cuts 3m19s).
- ‎Marty visits Biff Tower only once. He no longer has to get back in after Biff ordered him out. The original first visit is largely retained, now placed as the start of his visit.
- Slight trims to Biff's dialog inside Biff Tower, for pacing. Same for Lorraine.
- When Biff storms out of the room and orders Marty to leave (the end of the original first visit to Biff Tower), we go straight to Biff in the bath (the start of Marty's original second visit). Now, after Marty's initial confusion ("Mom?") and anger (at Biff) he regains his composure and remembers why he came here.
- Small trims to Biff chasing Marty.
- ‎Trim Biff's dialog, removing his claim to murdering George. It's easy script-writing to have all events caused by the main characters, but it doesn't make the story any better. Biff is gross enough for the viewer to cheer against him, without claiming he murdered Marty's dad. This makes George's death less significant in the plot, a symptom of the bad 1985 instead of targeted evil from Biff.
- Small trim in Doc's dialog as they travel back to 1955.
- Small trims to Marty watching Biff's house, following Biff, Biff talking to Lorraine. For pacing.
- Remove Doc meeting himself (from Part 1). Fun in concept, didn't work in execution (cuts 2m28s).
- ‎[Major change] Remove "Oh, La, La" magazine, reducing the misdirection. It does mean we lose most of Mr Strickland. Replace scene of Marty (from Part 1) driving up to the dance with a shorter BttF1 scene of Marty driving up (for continuity). Marty (Part 2) still slips past the car with Marty (Part 1), then bumps into Biff's goons as he turns the corner (cuts 4m18s).
- [Major cut] Marty doesn't run back into the dance, instead he hides from the goons in a classroom. Inserted a wipe to signify passage of time. Now ‎Marty no longer causes the bullies to chase his Part 1 self, and doesn't sandbag them to rectify that. Reliving the song from Part 1 was a fun moment, but it lasted too long. Plus, you watched Part 1 in the past days or even hours, not three years ago. So the song's repeat doesn't have that emotional pay-off anymore (cuts 4m00s).
- ‎Trim Doc's dialog with Marty that referred to cut bits.
- Biff now catches up to Marty when he gets distracted looking at his parents.
- Slight trims to the chase in Biff's car. For pacing.
- Slight trims to the Western Union man's dialog, to remove the misdirection of him starting out creepy.
- Remove the trailer for BttF3. Redundant, because you're going to watch that right after BttF2! (cuts 55s).
- Smoothed out audio transitions throughout. So... Many... Transitions.
- Sped up closing credits by 13 seconds to fit closing FE logo inside BttF2 closing soundtrack.
- Added FE logos at start and end.
- Updated the English subtitles (not hard-coded).
- Added the Director's Commentary. It's shorter than the film and not a scene-by-scene, so no editing required.
Cover art by theryaney (DOWNLOAD HERE)
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Cover art by lapis molari (DOWNLOAD HERE)
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Teaser (Password fanedit.org)

User reviews

5 reviews
Overall rating
 
9.5
Audio/Video Quality
 
10.0(5)
Audio Editing
 
9.8(5)
Visual Editing
 
9.4(5)
Narrative
 
9.2(5)
Enjoyment
 
9.0(5)
Overall rating
 
10.0
Audio/Video Quality
 
10.0
Audio Editing
 
10.0
Visual Editing
 
10.0
Narrative
 
10.0
Enjoyment
 
10.0
This is exactly what this film needed. Gone are the attempts at padding the runtime and we're left with a much stronger pair of sequels. Absolutely recommended!

User Review

Do you recommend this edit?
Yes
Format Watched?
Digital
B
Top 100 Reviewer 55 reviews
Report this review Comments (0) | Was this review helpful? 0 0
Overall rating
 
9.0
Audio/Video Quality
 
10.0
Audio Editing
 
9.0
Visual Editing
 
10.0
Narrative
 
9.0
Enjoyment
 
7.0
For the goals this edit tried to achieve, I believe it was very nicely done. BTTF2 has a lot of my favorite scenes of the trilogy and some were cut to achieve this. So I might be a bit more harsh than I would otherwise. Cutting any frame in 2015 was upsetting as that was my favorite part of the film and I feel it's too short to begin with. The reording of scenes in Hell Valley worked very well. It's a shame the scene with George's tombstone had to be axed in the process. This causes the scene with the newspaper to be the first time we hear of George's death. As such it feels uncomfortably glossed over compared to the actual time it should be given. I really disliked the wipe to cut the sandbag scene. I think using the wipe was worse than just leaving the scene be. Though understandable for the purpose of the edit, loosing the scene where Doc interacted with his pass self was a bummer. However, the cut was seamless as I didn't even realize until the film ended.

An edit I don't necessarily prefer over theatrical, but still a good one.

User Review

Do you recommend this edit?
Yes
Format Watched?
Digital
I
Top 1000 Reviewer 5 reviews
Report this review Comments (0) | Was this review helpful? 0 0
(Updated: February 08, 2019)
Overall rating
 
9.4
Audio/Video Quality
 
10.0
Audio Editing
 
10.0
Visual Editing
 
9.0
Narrative
 
9.0
Enjoyment
 
9.0
The editor had a nice concept here aiming to get both BTTF2 and BTTF3 under 90 mins each to enable them to be watched back to back in a single sitting. The first film is most definitely a sacred cow I personally couldn't remove a second from with the intention of improving it but parts 2 and 3 are definitely more fair game. The editor speeds the whole film to 88mph pretty much from the outset, nips and tucks are made throughout and are handled both technically and narratively very well, the pacing however I would say is completely down to ones personal taste or mood. I don't really have too many issues with the original cut of part two so theres cuts I certainly wouldn't have made but as the intention of the edit is to speed things up I envisage I might watch this version again if I were to binge the trilogy in a single night. The biggest difference between this and the original takes place during Marty's visit to alternate 1985 and its here where the viewer will notice the cuts most obviously if like me you've seen it a gazillion times. It's a little jarring at first but knowing what the editor is going for it does make sense narratively and as a streamlined version of part two for binge watching the edit as a whole is just the ticket! I was also very impressed with the audio and in particular the video quality on this one too which to my eyes looked identical to the original Blu-ray.

A fine edit indeed!


Report this review Comments (0) | Was this review helpful? 0 0
(Updated: January 09, 2019)
Overall rating
 
9.0
Audio/Video Quality
 
10.0
Audio Editing
 
10.0
Visual Editing
 
8.0
Narrative
 
8.0
Enjoyment
 
9.0
This was a very good edit. Although sometimes it would abruptly go to another scene and some scenes were cut that I think shouldn't have been cut. For instance, seeing George Mcfly's tombstone I know why it was cut because the way you reordered scenes it made sense yet I remember being a kid a feeling the gravity of it all as Marty on his knees saying oh god no. Just wish you could have found a way to keep that in. The principal's office scene is very butchered I remember this being nail-bitingly intense wondering if he was going to be caught for all that suspense to be edited out. every other complaint I have is more nitpick, but when Marty is in the cafe 80's his son in the original movie gets hurt in the nether regions. yet in the movie, this is edited out leaving a plot hole where you can see his pants are red with blood but you'd be unsure why. last thing when Marty first arrives in the '50s again in the original movie when he finds Biff and sees him throw a ball up to the roof he then says oh yeah that's biff alright I know it wasn't needed but I liked that line it's an appropriate response to the situation. besides these complaints, I highly enjoyed this and highly recommend it to any back to the future fan out there. Yet I would stick to stick to the original for the definitive way to watch it.

User Review

Do you recommend this edit?
Yes
Format Watched?
Digital
H
2 reviews
Report this review Comments (0) | Was this review helpful? 0 0
Overall rating
 
10.0
Audio/Video Quality
 
10.0
Audio Editing
 
10.0
Visual Editing
 
10.0
Narrative
 
10.0
Enjoyment
 
10.0
A much quicker BTTF 2 with repetitious scenes and other distractions removed to bring you the plot at a brisker pace. Sound mixing was fine and I love opening the movie right as the travelers arrive in the future, it's a perfect binge-watch and you need'nt feel restless or pick a spot for a bathroom break. The film, and edit, holds your attention.
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