In fashion with the time, Christopher Lloyd thinks Back to the Future 4 would be best served with a message about climate change. Of course! That’s what we want: a preachy fourth film about how we’re destroying the earth. Nothing quite like escaping the hell that is the news cycle by sitting in air conditioned theatre (such a sexist environment) to watch a revamping of one of your favorite series only for Doc Brown to pull you right back into the flames with a melodramatic monologue about climate change. Fantastic! This is art! Lets take a moment to brainstorm some ideas of what Back to the Future 4: Climate Change would be about!
The year is 2014. Antarctica is supposed to be entirely melted. Miami is supposed to be underwater. The DeLorean zaps into Miami. Miami is not underwater. But something isn’t right. CO2 output is highly concentrated in the Nashville area. Why? They drive to Al Gore’s house and find him revving the engines of his private jet and burning thousands of pounds of plastic with fires started using fossil fuels. More than a decade removed from An Inconvenient Truth, Al feels a great sense of shame that none of his predictions have come true. He’s still under the foolish presumption that catastrophic climate change occurs over the course of eleven minutes. He wants to further speed up the warming process and take over the world. Not on Doc and Marty’s watch. They easily subdue him and save the world.
The year is 2031. AOC predicted climate change would end the world. It didn’t. Basically everything is the same. Uderwhelmed by unfulfilled prospects for adventure, Doc and Marty visit a local bar. AOC serves them their drinks.
Alternative: AOC was right! Mankind is the fight of its life! It’s 2031 and World War 3 is underway! All the cows are dead. Massacred. Their corpses litter the fields. Comrade AOC has banned all cars and planes. She is still bewildered by garbage disposals. The DeLorean is confiscated. People frantically fire bullets at the sky to no avail. The situation is beyond desperate. Comrade AOC beheads another gaggle of the 1%. Blood sacrifices to the climate gods. Marty and Doc desperately want to return home. They challenge Comrade AOC to an Olympics of regular person things. So relatable, so inspirational—Comrade AOC is a formidable opponent! Events include mixing drinks and boring snobs with conversations about marginal tax brackets. The odds are in her favor! Winner gets the DeLorean. Biff wins. Marty and Doc steal the DeLorean and get out of dodge.
The year is 2021. Climate change was a big deal until hundreds of thousands of Naruto runners invaded Area 51. They were quickly betrayed. Now an alien power rules the world. Doc and Marty must motivate the people to fight a power they can hardly comprehend. They innovate new ideas, stripping down the DeLorean and using its advanced technology to create new weapons capable of standing up against their alien foe. Mankind wins. Is this a movie about client change? METAPHOR.
Man, I can’t wait for Back to the Future 4. Too bad the series creator, Robert Zemeckis says it will never happen. But it’s fun to speculate what it would be like if it did. Feel free to share your Back to the Future 4: Climate Change ideas in the comment below.
