Review: Back to the Future: 30th Anniversary Collection

October 21, 2015 – the day Marty McFly arrives in the future. What better time to celebrate a time-travelling DeLorean?

I’m not going to spend time extolling the merits of Robert Zemeckis’ classic movie; if you’ve not seen it yet, you should, and the picture and sound quality on these transfers is exceptional. But for those who know the film already, is it worth (almost certainly) double-dipping for this new Blu-ray set?

If you’ve already got the 25th anniversary release which formed the Blu-ray set previously available, then all you’ll be interested in is the new disc of extras. The set itself has a great deal to commend it. There’s a lot of material that hadn’t been seen before in the documentaries and value added material, with both the fiction and the fact of the series put under the microscope. Commentaries, short featurettes, Q and As with the stars – they’re all here.

The new extras disc has two short features with Christopher Lloyd reprising Doc Brown; the first – a message from the future – is nice but unessential. The second, a neat way of explaining within the fiction why we don’t have some of the inventions that featured in Back to the Future II, is fun. There are a couple of “in-universe” trailers, for Hoverboards and Jaws 19 (that has some great gags in it), and an interesting feature on the restoration of the DeLorean (the results of which those who attended the Albert Hall concert in the summer will have seen).

The main extra is a 2009 documentary on the making of the film which covers some ground dealt with elsewhere, but is still fascinating, including footage from the scoring sessions as well as Michael J. Fox’s musical performances. There are also two episodes from the animated series – the opener and a mid-season two entry – both of which feature a live-action Lloyd opening the show; US readers have the option of buying a set that includes the whole series (and for those really interested, it is region-free!).

Verdict: The best set yet for first-time buyers. 9/10

Paul Simpson

Back to the Future: 3oth Anniversary Trilogy is out now from Universal Pictures Home Entertainment