Never Much Liked Anyone Other Than Marty and Doc

I saw Back to the Future on opening night in 1985. I remember finding it rather "small" for a Spielberg-produced picture. Very clever in the time travel structure of things -- and queasy-making as Marty's young mother started falling in sexual love with him -- but just rather OK.

Boy was I wrong about that one. Its a classic now and it has those two sequels to keep its universe going across the decades. And we've already lived through 2015.

Still, revisiting the film today, I think I've put my finger on what I didn't much like about it then.

Marty McFly is a great character -- it made a short-range movie star out of Michael J. Fox(at the time, a likeable TV star). Doc is a great character -- is this Christopher Lloyd's greatest role? He's a surrogate father for Marty, and smart enough to figure things out and "go along" with Marty's time travel (accept it and believe it) pretty much from the get go. Which gives Marty a valuable ally.

No...my problem is with most everybody else in the story.

George McFly is such a wimp. Lorraine McFly is kind of ...weak and not much there, mentally. And this is the case whether they are young and looking their best, or encased in not terribly convincing old age make-up(as both "bad" and "good" versions of those older people.)

And Biff. He seemed well developed and cast in his 1955 version as a 50s's high school bully. But he wasn't a particularly entertaining character and -- sorry -- the actor who played him kinda went nowhere, didn't he? He didn't really have shelf life as a character actor. And he, too, looked rather ridiculous in HIS old age make-up.

Anyway, not to rain too much on a beloved classic but...I always felt that pretty much everybody in it OTHER than Fox and Lloyd weren't very fun to spend time with. Or to look at in bad old age make-up.

Good thing Fox and Lloyd are in it a LOT.