‘Terrorists’ Left on Cutting Room Floor of ‘Back to the Future’ TV Showings Infuriates Viewers

Marty McFly tried to return to the year 1985. In a recent TBS broadcast of Back to the Future, he made it only to 1984.

TBS recently aired the bestselling movie of 1985 minus some consequential but hardly controversial lines referencing terrorism.

“Dear Dr. Brown,” McFly says aloud in reading a letter to his inventor friend, “on the night I go back in time you’ll be shot. Please, please take whatever precautions are necessary to prevent this terrible disaster.”

The original version includes two words bowdlerized from the movie played on TBS.

“Dear Dr. Brown,” McFly says aloud, “on the night I go back in time you’ll be shot by terrorists. Please, please take whatever precautions are necessary to prevent this terrible disaster.”

Even the visual of the letter includes an awkward white space where “by terrorists” once appeared. Like Dave and Linda McFly disappearing from a photograph, “terrorists” evaporated from Back to the Future‘s future.

The Daily Caller and numerous Twittericans blamed TBS for the mush-headed decision.

And here’s the awkward Back to the Future edit. First clip is movie in original form on Spike, then TBS version excising “by terrorists” pic.twitter.com/yHEVonF8P7

— David Rutz (@DavidRutz) June 4, 2017

TBS digitally removed the word “terrorist” from Marty’s letter to Doc in “Back to the Future”, but allows Samantha Bee to trash the POTUS

— Freedom U.S.A (@freedomusa27) June 5, 2017

@TBSNetwork altering history by editing movies. Removed “terrorist” from #BackToTheFuture – time travel does work! https://t.co/hvpIfdXkdI

— TrumpGuy (@TrumpGuyTV) June 6, 2017

A read of the Futurepedia website suggests that rather than political correctness run amok at the cable channel in the wake of recent events, the Back to the Future sanitized version dates back to the late 1980s when the producers messed with the original movie in advance of its 1988 showing on network television. Futurepedia explains:

Before the introduction of the process of looping, “clean” versions of certain scenes were shot during filming for use on television or airline prints. As well as removing profanity, these versions often used different camera angles. These days, with looping, the film actors redub lines that include profanity or might be offensive, and a “clean” version has been shown on television for nearly twenty years. Although words like ‘damn’, ‘hell’, and ‘bastards’ were tame enough by the late 1980s, Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd and the other players re-recorded some of their lines for redubbing, but the original movie footage remained intact….

After the events of September 11th, 2001, nearly every television broadcast of Back to the Future has the entire “Escape To The Past” scene in the beginning abridged quite heavily, resulting in discontinuous background music. Omitting the scene of Doc being shot (the sound effect is heard in the next scene), and any Libyan face shots or dialogue, the entire sequence is about 40 seconds, rather than three to five minutes as in the film.

In 1955, bookstores sold Lolita and theaters played Blackboard Jungle. But in 2017, television stations continue to leave “terrorists” on the cutting room floor. The Orwellian present does much to explain why no one from 1955 visits our future anymore.

As George McFly could tell you, it’s not our destiny. It’s our density.