Rather than just generically geek out over Back to the Future, I’d like to take a moment to appreciate a theme throughout the movies about how the good old days weren’t that great, and things really do trend toward getting better.
In 1885, and to a lesser extent 1955, people believed a lot of very foolish things and were ignorant of a lot of basic health concerns that were well-known by 1985. The past eras showcase many negative social attitudes that are easy to overlook when you view the past with tinted glasses. You might even to be tempted to claim that things have gotten worse, like when Loraine tries to sell the 1950′s to Marty as thought it were a forgotten golden age, only for him to go to 1955 and see how ugly it could be.
It’s also interesting that around the time Back to the Future Part II came out, most movies about the future were very dystopic , but that movie went for a more bright and optimistic view of where the world was headed. Hover technology and strange fashion choices aside, its prediction of the future turned out to be not that far off.
