“We Don’t Need Roads: The Making of the Back to the Future Trilogy”, by Caseen Gaines

 

288 pages, Plume, ISBN-13: ‎ 978-0142181539

When you read as much as I do (he said without the slightest hint of humblebragging) you sometimes just have to step out and have a little brain-candy – like We Don’t Need Roads: The Making of the Back to the Future Trilogy by Caseen Gaines, for instance. As the title explicitly states, Gaines chronicles the making of three of the 80s (and 90s, I suppose) iconic movies and bastions of my youthful memories. And it was, good, too: informative, chatty and, more often than not, engaging – although I could never shake the notion that it was also rather lightweight. I mean, many of the stories told within I was familiar with already: the Eric Stoltz firing; the issues with Crispin Glover; the stuntwoman injury; the DeLorean. That they were all brought together in one place in less than 300 pages was convenient, I suppose, but I guess I just wanted more detail, more untold tales, more behind-the-scenes secrets exposed by Gaines rather than other authors to be collated by Gaines.

It was also obvious that, while Gaines was able to talk to a great many people about the movies, he wasn’t able to talk to everyone involved. We have substantial discussions with the likes of Harry Waters, Jr. (known to you and me as Marvin Berry) and Mark Campbell (that would be Michael J. Fox’s singing voice) and others, besides – Huey Lewis, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson and even Bob Gale (one of the “Two Bobs” and half the creative force behind Back to the Future). But there is no Michael J. Fox, no Steven Spielberg and, according to the Introduction, a mere half-hour with Bob Zemeckis (the other of the “Two Bobs”). Naturally, there was NO WAY Crispin Glover would be involved. While I can’t fault a relatively new author from being unable to get past the bigger star’s gatekeepers, direct input from the major movers and shakers of the series makes the whole book feel incomplete and lacking somehow; Bob Gale was important, but so was Bob Z, and having extensive talks with the former but not the latter just makes We Don’t Need Roads seem rather incomplete.

All told, I liked We Don’t Need Roads as the nostalgic reawakening of a film trilogy near and dear to my heart, as with most 80s kids. But I just wish there was more there there.