Back to the Future The Musical – The Biggest Changes From The Movie

So, I’ve just seen Back to the Future The Musical in the West End, and as a huge fan of the movies I can say that I had a brilliant time. It’s possibly the most I’ve ever enjoyed seeing a show, and I would say that if you love the movies that you’re bound to have a great time seeing it.

But this article isn’t a review. Instead, as a huge Back to the Future fan, as I know many of you out there are, I wanted to talk about all the changes I noticed between the film and the stage version.

Now, as a heads up, I’ve only seen the show once, and there’s definitely going to be things I missed, and even a chance I have got something below wrong…but hopefully not!

Either way, here’s all the changes I noticed between Back to the Future the movie and Back to the Future The Musical, and whether I thought the changes were good or not!

If you’d prefer to hear all the changes in video form check out the above video on the new Geek Battle YouTube Channel! Don’t forget to smash that subscribe button!

1: Doc doesn’t have a dog!

Yep, there’s no Einstein in 1985, and no Copernicus in 1955.

This change is understandable as there show is loud and has lots of special effects on stage, so may not be fair to have dogs getting scared. Still, the early realisation that there is no Einstein is a shocker!

2: Doc has invented a device to recognise Marty and leave him voice messages

The opening scene where Marty goes to Doc’s place and blows up a speaker is present in the Musical, but instead of Marty getting a phone call from Doc, Doc has some invention that detects Marty and instructs him to go to the Twin Pines Mall that night.

This change is fine, as Doc having an invention to speak to Marty is more of a Doc like mad scientist thing than just them playing a phone call out on stage.

3: Marty isn’t too darn loud and we now have Uncle Huey

Marty and his band The Pin Heads still try out at the school, but Mr Strickland now has the mega phone instead of the judge played by Huey Lewis in the film. Strickland doesn’t say the ‘You’re just too darn loud’ line that Lewis said in the film.

And with the lack of Huey Lewis here, instead Jennifer mentions that she has a relative – Uncle Huey who she will introduce Marty to the next day. At the end of the show, Uncle Huey shows up and is based on Huey Lewis.

This change is fine and gives a nod and a wink to Huey Lewis and the News, who provided Back to the Future with the songs The Power of Love and Back in Time.

4: Doc is now the world’s first time traveller as Einstein doesn’t exist

As mentioned earlier, there is no Einstein the dog. As such Einstein can’t become the world’s first time traveller. When Doc makes his entrance he does take this honour instead.

Strangely, where as Einstein went forward in time by 1 minute, the Doc went forward 5 minutes (at least I think this is what they said)

This change I’m less OK with, as although it doesn’t mean much as the plot progresses back on track after this, there is something about Doc using an animal, even a beloved pet, as a guinea pig. I also feel something is lost in that Doc already time travelled before the end of the story as making him wait to use his own invention added something that was lost here.

5: There are no Libyan terrorists, and instead Doc dies from radiation poisoning

This one was interesting.

It’s understandable that the makers of the musical in a modern context may have felt they didn’t want to show Doc getting gunned down by middle eastern terrorists. From a sensitivity standpoint I feel that they simply could have changed the nationality, or made them an international group of terrorists.

Maybe this was considered, but the change may have also been that this show had a distinct lack of cars other than the time machine. Certainly, you can understand that having multiple prop cars on hydraulics would be expensive, but the show does great things with projections to show the time machine going places so feel this could have been achieved this way instead.

With no terrorists, Doc suddenly realises that his radiation suit is of poor quality and he starts to die from sudden radiation poisoning. This prompts Marty to jump in the time machine and race to the hospital to get help for Doc and this is how he ends up hitting 88 miles per hour.

I’ll be honest, this one didn’t work for me. Doc being careless with the science and safety part of it made him look a tad foolish, compared to baddies tracking him down which would be less in his control. Also Marty leaving Doc to go get help felt off too.

6: The time machine is voice activated and only works for Doc

This one was both good and bad. The time machine is now voice activated and talks back with some degree of intelligence like Kit from Knight Rider. The wheels on the car light up whenever it talks and this adds a element of the car being more of a character than in the films. This was ok, but not massively used.

The car being voice activated did mean that Marty was unable to start the car on his own without Doc and this was a change that didn’t really add anything to the plot other than a couple of lines and Marty attempting a Doc impression at one point.

The bigger issue with this is that it breaks the plot of Back to the Future Part 2. There is unlikely to be a sequel on stage, so this will likely never arise, but in Back to the Future Part 2, Old Biff steals the time machine and takes the sports almanac back to himself in 1955.

The car only being able to be started by Doc prevents this and therefore the plot of Part 2 wouldn’t be able to happen as it did.

As a fun note here, it’s established in Part 2 that Biff’s car can only be started by himself, so this may be an unintentional reference to that with only Doc being able to start the DeLorean.

7: We don’t meet old man Peabody and so Marty leaves the car in the barn

As Marty can’t start the car without Doc, we don’t get Old Man Peabody shooting at Marty and thinking he’s an alien who kills one of his pine trees.

Instead, Marty crashes in the barn and leaves the car there until he takes Doc to it.

This change is fine as it limits how much Marty has to drive the car on stage and the number of locations and sets required.

It’s of note that this is the second point in the story where we lose the usage of guns.

8: Marty doesn’t have a radiation suit so no Darth Vader from the planet Vulcan

Old Man Peabody thought Marty was an alien as he was first seen in his radiation suit. Marty isn’t given one by Doc (and this only serves to make Doc look more careless for safety) but I can accept that it wouldn’t have been easy for Marty to do the costume change in and out of the radiation suit on stage.

The lack of suit does mean that later on in the story he can’t don it again to convince his father George, that he is Darth Vader, an extra-terrestrial from the planet Vulcan.

As a reference to this, we do get Marty using a lightsabre in a fight with Biff, and Doc has a dream sequence/song where he is basically sat in the captain’s chair from Star Trek.

Unfortunately this change is for the worse as these references don’t add anything to the story. It also means that George’s book ‘A Match Made in Space’ which was clearly based on Marty dressed in the radiation suit being the person who lead him to ask Lorraine out gets lost. But more on George’s book later.

9: George lands on Marty instead of Marty pushing him out the way of Lorraine’s dad’s car.

Another victim of the lack of non-time travelling car action in the show is that Marty no longer pushes George out of the way of Loraine’s father’s car. Instead when George falls out of the tree into the road, he lands on Marty which knocks Marty out.

This change is for the worse as in the film Marty is able to gain some trust from George by pointing out that he saved his life. Instead Marty now involuntarily broke his fall.

10: Jerry Lewis is swapped for Daffy Duck

When Doc asks Marty who the President is in 1985, Marty tells him that it is Ronald Reagan. Doc doesn’t believe him as in 1955 Ronald Reagan is simply an actor, and scoffs as Marty by asking who the Vice President is, and suggests it may be Jerry Lewis.

In the musical, Jerry Lewis is swapped out for Daffy Duck.

I don’t mind this change as Daffy Duck is more universally known today than Jerry Lewis is.

11: Biff now only has two henchmen

In the movie, Biff has three henchmen – Match, Skinhead and 3-D. In the musical from what I remember observing he only had two. One of them was definitely 3-D, recognisable by wearing the 3-D glasses, but I couldn’t tell you who the other was supposed to be.

12: George now asks Lorraine out at school instead of in the diner

Even though the diner set is part of the show, they chose to have George ask Lorraine out in a scene which was combined with Marty and Biff’s run in at school. This change probably mostly relates to the next change…

13: Biff now chases Marty and George through the school instead of the skateboard and car chase

Once again we get a change relating to vehicles, and instead of Biff’s gang chasing Marty in their car through the streets, they chase him and George on foot through the school which leads into the interval.

With no car chase, Biff now falls into a big bin and ends up with a pot of spaghetti on his head instead of crashing into a manure truck. Whilst this effect may have been difficult to produce on stage, the lack of the famous manure joke from the series is a real shame here.

14: The photo of Marty and his siblings is different

To display the photo large enough for the audience to see, the photo is mostly placed into an overhead projector. There is one scene where it randomly appears on a wall and we hear Marty’s sister’s voice with it, but this is harmless.

An interesting change is that the photo now goes out of focus before people disappear instead of body parts getting cut off. This is a good change as it relates better to Marty’s hand fading out in the movie (which they can’t actually do on stage and instead have flashy lights).

The photo also seems to be taken in front of Monument Valley where Back to the future part 3 was shot as a neat reference to that movie.

Overall these are positive changes.

15: Lorraine and Marty park in an invisible car

OK, so they don’t park in a car that is meant to be invisible, but there is no physical car on the stage and there is just two chairs and a light to mark out the area where the car is supposed to be.

This kind of thing is common in a lot of productions, but does stick out here as the only example of a prop or set not being realised physically in this show.

It does also beg why other vehicles couldn’t be done in the same way, or with projection. Either way, this isn’t that big a deal and the scene still works.

16: Lorraine doesn’t smoke but others including Strickland and Marty do

When Marty and Lorraine are parked in the movie, Marty is shocked to see his mother smoking and drinking. In the stage version she only drinks and doesn’t smoke. No telling why there is this change as an earlier scene had multiple girls come out with cigarettes and Marty even took one for a brief moment. Later on in the musical we even get a moment where Strickland is caught smoking in a locker for comic effect which obviously didn’t happen in the movie.

17: Marty ends up locked in a bin rather than in the trunk of a car

In the film, Marty gets dumped into the trunk of a car that belongs to the band playing at the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance. In the stage show he gets thrown into a dumpster with a latch still trapping him inside.

This change works surprisingly well as the lid slams onto Marvin Berry’s hand to cause Marty to need to play guitar just as happened when Marvin injured his hand freeing Marty from the car trunk in the film.

18: Marvin Berry doesn’t call his cousin chuck

You know that new sound you’re looking for? Well Chuck Berry can’t listen to the stage version. Simple reason is that his cousin Marvin Berry doesn’t call him as Marty plays Jonny B. Goode in the stage show.

In the film this is a nice little nod to the idea that Marty inspired the creation of the song he was playing. It’s a wibbly wobbly timey wimey paradoxical moment, but is good fun. In the musical it doesn’t happen so there can be more focus on the song, and I guess it also means the fabric of time won’t rip in half. So there’s that.

19: Doc gets Goldie Wilson to help him rig up the wires to the clock tower as Doc now has a fear of heights

Unless I completely missed this in the film, it was just Doc who rigged up the “weather experiment” to the clock tower, but in the stage show he employs the help of Goldie Wilson. This gives Goldie another scene and it’s explained that the money Doc paid him to do it will help pay for his night school to help him in his goal towards becoming Mayor of Hill Valley.

It’s also explained that Doc needs this help because he has a phobia of heights.

Both of these details help connect some dots with future events in the story so we’ll say that these are a positive addition.

20: Doc sends Marty back 10 minutes after he left in 1985

This one was odd. In the movie, Marty tries to give Doc a letter warning him that he’ll get shot in the future, but Doc doesn’t want to know information about his own future so rips it up.

Doc still rips up the letter in the stage show, but in unlike in the movie where Marty gets the idea to just time travel back in time a few minutes early to save Doc’s life, Doc purposely decides to send Marty forward in time to 10 minutes after he left 1985.

This is to avoid paradoxes it would seem, and although 1955 Doc’s logic is odd, the reason for it is explained by our next point…

21: Doc just turns up to greet Marty in 1985

Marty does attempt to go back early to save Doc, but as the car can only be activated by Doc’s voice Marty is unable to go back earlier. Then when Marty arrives just past the clock tower in 1985, he is supposed to rush back over to the Twin Pines Mall to try to save Doc, but this would have been extra scene changes or car driving effects which would have been an extra hassle for little payoff.

Instead, Doc just runs onto stage and says that since he knew where Marty was going to be he jogged over. This explains why they sent Marty back 10 minutes after he would have left, as it would now make sense that the Doc would have time for Marty to go back to 1955 and then for Doc to jog over.

22: Doc would have to fake dying in the musical

The implication of Doc knowing to have a better radiation suit is that doc would have had to have pretended to be dying from radiation poisoning just so Marty would go back to 1955 and keep the time loop in order to avoid paradoxes.

This change is slightly worse than the original as in the original film Marty’s letter warned Doc that he would be shot so he wore a bullet proof vest to protect himself.

This meant that when Doc was shot he would survive and Marty would still end up going back in time which was necessary, as if he didn’t get shot Marty wouldn’t have gone back in time to be able to warn Doc that he was going to get shot and he would end up getting shot again…this is a paradox which was only solved by Doc allowing himself to get shot as originally happened which lead to the complete loop of Marty heading off back in time.

In the musical Doc would have needed to pretend to die from radiation poisoning as otherwise Marty wouldn’t end up going back in time and Doc would have been poisoned again. So, whereas in the movie Doc got shot either way, in the musical he just had to do his best fake dying action…

23: No Lone Pine Mall

As the musical doesn’t return to the Twin Pin Mall we don’t learn that when Marty arrived back in time to 1955 that he knocked over one of the pine trees which would lead to the mall being named the Lone Pine Mall instead.

24: Linda ends up with a boyfriend called Craig

Linda has a significant part of one of the early songs in the show where she expresses that she wants a date. At the end of the show she is shown to have a new boyfriend called Craig which is a nice nod to the movie where Dave says that Linda had a phone call from either a Gregg or a Craig and both names were potentially correct.

This is a cool moment in the show as it’s the first time a previously only mentioned character gets seen in the flesh. We also know that Craig won out over Greg.

25: There is now a George McFly Day

Instead of Biff just running into the McFly house with George’s new book, the whole town is now celebrating George McFly Day for his new book launch which is changed from A Match Made in Space to Back to the Future Part 4…in an obviously nod to the trilogy of films.

26: Doc doesn’t say that Marty and Jennifer’s kids need something done about them in the future

Doc arrives in the time machine to interrupt George McFly Day and says Marty needs to go with him back to the future, but doesn’t say why. They also don’t take Jennifer with them this time.

27:  The plot of Back to the Future 2 now can’t happen

Because Doc’s car can only be activated by his own voice it means that Old Biff would be unable to steal the car in part 2. Meaning the plot of part 2 can’t happen unless they explain that there is some reason or future device where Biff is able to change his voice to be like the Docs.

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