In today’s reboot-swamped Hollywood, it might come as a surprise to people that Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale have no intention of rebooting the series. They’ve even gone on record that they won’t be singing on to a reboot for the rest of their lives, and since they hold the rights, it’s not happening.
Zemeckis even hopes his estate will continue the tradition, and let the series rest where they are. He has said that it would be like remaking Citizen Kane: “Who are we going to get to play Kane? What folly, what insanity is that? Why would anyone do that?”
Not a Real Train
In the climax of the third film, Doc Brown, Marty, and Doc Brown's lady Clara Clayton (Mary Steenburgen) have to drive a train into a canyon in order to reach the requisite speed required to get Marty back to 1985 with all problems finally corrected.
While it might have been pretty cool to send an entire steam locomotive shooting into a canyon in what must only result in a huge explosion, it's just not feasible. For both economical and shooting reasons, the filmmakers went with a model that topped out at about fourth the size of a real train.
Just Like the First Film
In the final scene of the trilogy, Doc Brown and Clara Clayton jump into their time-traveling train with their two children, Jules and Verne, and head into their next adventure. The train lifts into the air, flies away, spins a hundred and eighty degrees, and shoots straight into the camera.
It should be a familiar sight for fans of the series, since it's pretty much the same way the first movie ends, though the vehicle in question in the first film was the DeLorean, and this time, the series was over for good (unless you count the animated TV series).
Lightning Never Strikes Twice?
Since the set was far different from the first two films, the third film had to find a new place to set – somewhere a little more wild, dusty, and Western. The cast and crew took their story to Jamestown, California, the perfect place to set a movie set in the late eighteen-eighties.
In a strange twist of fate, six years after the movie came out, Jamestown was struck by lightning and destroyed – an especially weird coincidence, given that lightning bolts play a big part in how Marty gets back to his time period in the first film.
Back to the Same Place
If you're a big fan of Westerns, you might recognize the Hill Valley from 1885. It was the same place where Clint Eastwood shot his box office hit "Pale Rider", which leads us to a few amusing coincidences. First off, the first "Back to the Future" film knocked "Pale Rider" out of the top spot at the box office.
In addition, Marty calls himself Clint Eastwood when he lands in 1885 in order to avoid suspicion. It's currently unknown if this was because it was the same set as the town in "Pale Rider", or if it was just the most recognizable Western name at the time.