Remember when Marty shows the kids of the future how good he is at the arcade game with the plastic six-shooter? Remember what one of the kids (a very young Elijah Wood) says? It's this: "You have to use your hands? It's like a baby's toy." This implies the level of future tech in Back to the Future II is so advanced that little kids are used to what - telepathic video games? These movies are, first and foremost, comedies, and the proof is that nearly nothing about the technology, or rate of technological advancement in Back to the Future II makes any sense. Flying cars and weather that is magically controlled by some mysterious service aren't meant to be taken seriously. Arguably, Marty and Doc don't travel into any kind of realistic future, because the entirety of the faux-2015 is so clearly designed to mimic and mock pre-existing science fiction. One of the reasons Back to the Future III is such a great science fiction film - and the only true cinematic classic of the steampunk subgenre - is that it approaches its sci-fi problems naturalistically and, yes, I'm going to say it, realistically.Įverything about the "future" presented in Back to the Future II is almost certainly an attempt at satire on the part of co-creators Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis. There are no other good steampunk movies, and if you try to pretend Wild Wild West is a good movie, much less, a good steampunk movie, I'm sorry, you're wrong. In other words, "real" steampunk just presents anachronistic tech and doesn't explain its presence through other science fiction plot devices like time travel. Plus, because Back to the Future III doesn't present an alternative past, but instead a "real" version of the Old West, it also doesn't really qualify as steampunk because the time travel is what caused the anachronistic tech. Some might say Back to the Future III isn't really steampunk because true steampunk is supposed to take place in an anachronistic, alternative version of the Victorian Era, and setting your story in the Old West doesn't count. It may not be your favorite film in the Back to the Futuretrilogy, but it's the only good movie in existence that can call itself steampunk. 30 years ago this week, on May 25, 1990, Back to the Future Part III traveled back in time and used literal steam to power science fiction contraptions. There are just too many great options to choose from.ĭebating the origins of the genre of steampunk is equally hard, but debating the very best steampunk movie ever made - perhaps the only good steampunk movie ever made - is very easy. Debating the best steampunk comic book or novel is almost impossible.
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