Review Detail
8.7 9 10
Overall rating
9.4
Audio/Video Quality
10.0
Audio Editing
8.0
Visual Editing
10.0
Narrative
10.0
Enjoyment
9.0
QuackAtomic has taken what seems like a boring, exhausting journey on paper into something surprisingly fluid and engaging. At just under two and a half hours, he whips you through a fast-paced BTTF tour.
The idea is not merely showing the trilogy in chronological order, or merely to present an approximation of the "final timeline," but to present a mind-bending narrative about these two guys that keep appearing and disappearing throughout time. It works surprisingly well, and QuackAtomic crafts a narrative that generates curiosity at the unexplained weirdness the audience is seeing, which is followed up with just enough exposition at the right time to let us get a sense of what is happening. And even that happens just in time to have a monkey wrench thrown into it by the arrival of a second Doc and Marty.
I found myself genuinely enjoying the experience, which I did not expect from a BTTF edit. QuackAtomic keeps things brief, gutting the 1885, 1985, and 2015 sequences in favor of focusing on the parts that would be most interesting from a chronological perspective and make narrative sense from a non-linear storytelling point of view. Many plot elements and references are trimmed away in order to present a streamlined story that doesn't hint at too many things that it doesn't pay off. It would be fun for me, as someone with an extreme familiarity with these movies, to show this to someone who has never been exposed to them.
For all the creativity of this edit, it does not, however, feel like a fully polished film release in its own right. I don't think someone who came out of a coma they've been in since 1984 would believe that this hadn't been tampered with, but assuming you are sensible and understand that something like this is a fanmade re-edit and are willing to go along for the ride, it works. There are a few moments that don't seem to make dramatic sense, such as the dramatic music when Marty sees his future neighborhood in 1955. It's good that we see it, because we will see it again later, though the music doesn't fit. Also, there are several points where the music has to be creatively edited in order to cut between rearranged sequences. It is not seamless, though there would be NO way to do it flawlessly. That being said, it is not overly jarring, and a necessary byproduct of doing this.
Overall, I recommend this edit to anyone who enjoys BTTF, wouldn't mind seeing some of the trilogy's highlights in one comfortable sitting, and is open to pretending to forget what they already know. Or if you just want to take in a condensed account of the final, 'Eastwood' timeline.
The idea is not merely showing the trilogy in chronological order, or merely to present an approximation of the "final timeline," but to present a mind-bending narrative about these two guys that keep appearing and disappearing throughout time. It works surprisingly well, and QuackAtomic crafts a narrative that generates curiosity at the unexplained weirdness the audience is seeing, which is followed up with just enough exposition at the right time to let us get a sense of what is happening. And even that happens just in time to have a monkey wrench thrown into it by the arrival of a second Doc and Marty.
I found myself genuinely enjoying the experience, which I did not expect from a BTTF edit. QuackAtomic keeps things brief, gutting the 1885, 1985, and 2015 sequences in favor of focusing on the parts that would be most interesting from a chronological perspective and make narrative sense from a non-linear storytelling point of view. Many plot elements and references are trimmed away in order to present a streamlined story that doesn't hint at too many things that it doesn't pay off. It would be fun for me, as someone with an extreme familiarity with these movies, to show this to someone who has never been exposed to them.
For all the creativity of this edit, it does not, however, feel like a fully polished film release in its own right. I don't think someone who came out of a coma they've been in since 1984 would believe that this hadn't been tampered with, but assuming you are sensible and understand that something like this is a fanmade re-edit and are willing to go along for the ride, it works. There are a few moments that don't seem to make dramatic sense, such as the dramatic music when Marty sees his future neighborhood in 1955. It's good that we see it, because we will see it again later, though the music doesn't fit. Also, there are several points where the music has to be creatively edited in order to cut between rearranged sequences. It is not seamless, though there would be NO way to do it flawlessly. That being said, it is not overly jarring, and a necessary byproduct of doing this.
Overall, I recommend this edit to anyone who enjoys BTTF, wouldn't mind seeing some of the trilogy's highlights in one comfortable sitting, and is open to pretending to forget what they already know. Or if you just want to take in a condensed account of the final, 'Eastwood' timeline.
H