The Story Archive

Back to the Future

Robert Zemeckis · 1985 CE · Film · Modern / American · Contemporary

A teenager helping an eccentric inventor test a converted sports car in a shopping mall car park at midnight is thrown thirty years back into the town where his parents grew up. His mother at seventeen takes an interest in him rather than in his father, and the machine needs a bolt of lightning to get home. Zemeckis and Gale built the tightest plot mechanism in mainstream American entertainment.

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Attributes

Genre
Science FictionComedyAdventure
Theme
Memory & TimeFreedom vs FateComing of AgeThe American Dream
Archetype (Jung / Campbell)
HeroMentorTrickster
Plot structure
Voyage and ReturnIronic Reversal
Symbol / motif
The ClockThe MachineThe Dance
Conflict
vs Fate / Godsvs Person
Mode / tone
ComicAdventure
Culture / tradition
Modern / American

Closest analogues