Episode 39: Back To The Future with Bob Gale
Great Scott, it’s the end of season two so we're going out with a 88mph, 1.21 gigawatt bang. Joining us before we make like a tree and get out of here, as Biff Tannen might say, is none other than Bob Gale –writer of the iconic Back To The Future. Directed by Robert Zemeckis, this 1985 time travel adventure needs no introduction – but trust us when we say it was almost a very, very different movie. In this special season finale, Bob delves into his radically different first draft of the film: one that included a time-travelling fridge (that's right, no Delorean) and Marty McFly and Doc Brown running a VHS film piracy operation out of the back of a rundown cinema. They have a pet chimp and there's even a shootout with the US military. The script climaxes with our heroes driving into the mushroom cloud of an atom bomb explosion, rather than using a lightning storm to get back home, as they do in the finished film.
You'll also hear about the elements of Bob's original screenplay that Robert Zemeckis and Steven Spielberg borrowed for Forrest Gump and Indiana Jones 4 respectively. Bob also shares what it's been like working on the musical retelling of the film that recently hit London's West End, and exactly a film this outlandish – in which a teenager goes back in time and almost gets together with his own mother – took over the world.
As for us? Well, we'll be taking a break while we work on some of our filmmaking projects, and generally try to catch a breather. Don’t worry though – we'll be back with season three and some surprises in the near future so don't go anywhere – we are your density, to quote George McFly.
Script Apart is a podcast about the first-draft secrets behind great movies. Each episode, the screenwriter behind a beloved film shares with us their initial screenplay for that movie. We then talk through what changed, what didn’t and why on its journey to the big screen.
Subscribe to our new spin-off show How I Write here.
Support for this episode comes from Screencraft and WeScreenplay.
Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek, with music from Stefan Bindley-Taylor. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.
Get a free digital copy of the Script Apart Magazine by supporting us on Patreon! 50 pages of interviews with screenwriters, including exclusive conversations you won't find anywhere else. You can also now support the show on Ko-Fi.
