MacFarlane effectively brought a franchise - one everyone thought was finished for good - back to the big screen in a fun, new way. Even Lloyd, who was around 76 years old at the time of A Million Ways' production, proved that he hadn't lost any of his manic magic.

Enough of the accurate details (like Doc's cumbersome ice maker and flowing mane of white hair) are there to spark delight in the audience. It wasn't Back to the Future Part IV, but it didn't need to be. Marveling at how close he came to being discovered as an anachronism, Doc lets out a 'Great Scott!'Ī few bars of Alan Silvestri's twinkling Back to the Future theme carry us over into the next scene, and that's that. Doc's character is never mentioned again - and never mind that A Million Ways takes place in 1882 (not 1885, as in Part III) in the town of Old Stump (not Hill Valley). The sequence runs for less than a minute (yes, I timed it) of the film's 116-minute runtime and has no bearing on the overall plot. It's pure fanboy indulgence on the director's part, but damn, is it absolutely perfect a wish-fulfillment kind of moment you never knew you wanted to see until you see it - like John Hurt reprising the Alien role of Kane in Mel Brooks' Spaceballs.

Alerted to Albert's presence, a flustered Doc covers up the car with a tarp and insists that he's simply working on a 'weather experiment.' Confused, but seemingly satisfied, Albert accepts the story and leaves. Brown, tinkering with his famed time-traveling DeLorean. He heads over to poke his head inside the building, and who should he see but Christopher Lloyd's Doctor Emmett L. No, I want to fast-forward to the tail end of the film's second act when Albert, on his way home from a date, spots a strange blue light flickering from the town's livery. Co-written by MacFarlane, Alec Sulkin, and Wellesley Wild, A Million Ways is an R-rated, Blazing Saddles-type parody of the western genre, centering on Albert Stark (played by MacFarlane), a put-upon sheep farmer with a Deadpool-like knack for calling attention to the horrific lethality of the frontier in the latter half of the 19th century.īut that's not the point of this piece. The movie, which fittingly celebrates its own release anniversary this coming weekend, marked the second live-action directorial effort of Seth MacFarlane. Rather than discussing Part III itself, I want to talk about its far-reaching influence on a much smaller film (one that's fast slipping into obscurity) called A Million Ways to Die in the West. Back to the Future Part III celebrates its 30th anniversary this week, but I don't want to talk about the western-inspired conclusion to Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale's iconic sci-fi trilogy.

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