By now we’ve seen plenty of appraisals and listicles of everything Back to the Future II got right and wrong. This is not another one of those. Flying cars make me airsick, I’m too old for hoverboarding, and I’m just now coming around to realizing the potential of biometric scanners in everyday life. About the only technological prediction from the movie that I’m really excited about seeing would be fully automatic waitstaff at retro-themed diners, mostly because I hate seeing people paid to pretend to be happy to serve other people.
I’m more interested in mining the franchise for timeless moral lessons. Here are a few which come immediately to mind:
1) Never build a time machine.
If someone does build a time machine, someone else will come along and try to use it to gain fame, money, and/or power. The idea occurred to Marty McFly, and he’s actually a pretty good kid. You can just imagine what would happen if someone selfish and narcissistic like Biff Tannen had access.
2) Power corrupts, and all that
Speaking of Biff, let us never say that we were not forewarned about what happens when you give an egomaniacal bully too many lucky breaks, such as a monetary windfall from a close relative right at the start of his career.
You’ve already guessed that I’m thinking of Donald Trump, right?
3) Small changes can have huge knock-on effects
When Marty first meets his mother in the original film, he nearly destroys his entire family. When he leaves a sports almanac lying about in the sequel, he nearly destroys his entire family. I don’t remember the third movie all that well, but I bet that he nearly destroys his entire family.
I’m sure there are other salient lessons to be drawn from this epic trilogy, but (ironically enough) I’m out of time. Feel free to leave your insights in the comments.
