Marty’s girlfriend Jennifer also has a brief moment of consciousness as she’s dropped off at her future self’s house and learns about Marty’s rather disappointing life. No fame and fortune for him; instead he toils at corporate middle management at best, until getting abruptly fired for some unexplained dirty doings. However, Fox pulls off an acting coup by portraying 4 McFlys - younger and older Marty, plus Marty’s son and daughter. Special effects has them all at the dinner table together (minus younger Marty). Although his middle-age makeup isn’t that great, there’s no need for snickering at Fox in drag as his daughter - he looks, sounds and acts like a teenaged girl.

And finally old Biff puts it all together - a flying DeLorean in 1985 AND 2015? He does what any of us would do with a time machine: uses it to get rich. Hell, I would. Can we say Big Bucks lottery numbers? His instrument here is Grey’s Sports Almanac, which he takes back to his younger self in 1955. Not knowing about Biff’s errand, Our Heroes return to 1985, where Doc plans to dismantle his machine. The neighborhood has changed a bit, though. Street gangs run the place, the high school had burned down long ago, and ex-Vice Principal Strickland still wages war against slackers. Biff is super-rich and powerful thanks to his older self and Grey’s Sports Almanac. George is dead, Biff has somehow forced Lorraine to marry him, and her kids are all pretty much screwed up, including Marty, whose Biff-world counterpart is in Switzerland.

Naturally this is a rather dark sequence and is meant more as a bridge back to 1955 than as a nice bit of entertainment. It’s also the last time we see Jennifer in the film, who’s now officially unconscious for the remainder of both films. Up to the men to save the day again. In 1955, scenes from the first movie are either recreated or shown entirely. Apparently Crispin Glover got all bent out of shape about his shots being reused, for reasons unknown (unless he wasn’t paid or credited, which would be reason to balk). Still, Marty cannot interact with himself in any way or risk the total desctruction of the universe, according to Doc Brown. This was actually the most entertaining of the “acts” for me. It played almost like a first-person computer game where one can explore offshoots of the main storyline, such as the sequence in Strickland’s office. As usual, human beings’ “sixth sense” about being in the presence of other humans is switched off so that Marty can be in his office undetected. Meanwhile the main storyline of the first movie plays in the background. What’s odd about this sequence, though, is that Biff becomes something of a wimp by 1985, presumably as a result of George decking him with one punch. Yet when interacting with Marty immediately afterwards, it’s clear he hasn’t learned a thing. One wonders what else had to happen to reduce Biff to running a car-detailing business.

With the mission accomplished (destroying the Almanac), the final surprise is a lightning bolt that sends the DeLorean back… somewhere… without the 88 mph requirement. Time travel is possible without forward momentum, then, but this is never further explored. Immediately afterward, Marty is met by Joe Flaherty, an actor I’m always glad to see, who delivers a very old Western Union letter, dated 1885 from… Doc Brown.

The movie ends in an unusual fashion, meaning with scenes from the coming Part Three. What some may already know is that Parts Two and Three were filmed back-to-back, which would explain why they could already show a trailer. I don’t know the story of how Robert Zemeckis got the backing for this. Offhand I can’t think of any movie sequels made that way prior to BTTF. But at least it gave us Universal Studios tour guests something to see the last time I went there.