The Most Intense Climactic Film Scene of the Last 40 Years
- Brian Fishbach
- 4 days ago
- 4 min read
There’s a moment near the end of Back to the Future Part III where everything that made the trilogy work gets pushed into one sequence. A train is barreling forward, a time machine is barely holding together, and three different eras collide in real time. I saw it in the theater in 1990. My mother still looks back and talks about how tightly she gripped the armrests as we watched the scene unfold for the first time.
Even with over five hours of the trilogy behind it, the stakes in this scene literally build from green ('we will be okay'), yellow ('we might have some trouble'), and red ('we're in trouble').
And as per usual, YouTube has perfected a comment algorithm so powerful that the best most potent comments are at the top of the comment thread. Too often the sassy comments and "yeah but..." and the plot hole hunters get tons of attention. But there's a digitally human harmonizing camaraderie that can happen when you see and feel the comments from someone you'll never meet, about a video that still makes you feel something after all these years. The comments can hit you with an analysis that you never realized before, but somehow your body and subcouscious always felt it. Now your present mind gets to feel it forever, and love the scene all over again from an even better seat in the theater than before.
Here are some comments from a video clip of the most gripping, intense climactic film scene I've watched in the last 40 years:
“That hoverboard is almost a character itself, the way it’s nudging Marty’s leg like it knows it’s needed in that moment.”
👍 1.5K
“Love BTTF 3. This is where Doc and Marty switch roles. Marty thinks more like a scientist while Doc dances with and gets the girl, and gets to ride the hoverboard.”
👍 1.1K
“What I love about this part is that we get to see 3 machines from all 3 different years of the movies into this one sequence. Time machine Delorean car from the 1985, futuristic hoverboard from 2015 and the steam locomotive from all in one scene. It’s pretty awesome combo together and every piece is needed to pull off this action scene. 👍”
👍 3.5K
“Such an unlikely combination, and yet it creates one of the most thrilling climaxes in cinema history. You don’t see this level of creative brilliance in films nowadays.”
👍 1K
“The Delorean is arguably the best character in the trilogy. The very first jump we see was very deliberate and clean, the second was an accident, and the third needed lightning.
Here in the third movie, you can see and hear it actually struggle to make jumps, being over 70 years old across 130 years, it takes a toll on a car”
👍 1.4K
“Seeing the Delorean get destroyed in the next scene always makes me a bit sad”
👍 434
“A Delorean doing a wheelie on a train track. Something you will never see in a movie again.”
👍 1.4K
“Dunno how about you, but I always feel moved by that scene. So much tension, Marty coming to terms with the fact that his friend is in love and that ultimately his happiness is all that matters, Doc being uplifted by love… it all is just so good, feels genuine. Zemeckis is a genius.”
👍
“I love how the tasks that were problems were different based on the movies, the task for the first movie was electricity, the task for the second was the timeline itself and the task for the third movie was speed all coming together for a perfect time travel jump”
👍 166
“When Clara sails away on the Hoverboard I get the feeling of immediate validation…that the Doc & Marty were telling the truth. The technological feat of the Hoverboard.
Over the next 5-7 years they were able to use the technology in the Hoverboard and repurpose it into a flux capacitor and rig it to operate it on steam.”
👍 291
“This sequence is just as good as the original ‘Weather Experiment’ sequence in the first movie. Filled with suspense and action… you had love, friendship, explosions, an awesome steam locomotive pushing it’s speed to it’s limit and then falling to the ground in a spectacular wreck and then… the final time we see the Delorean time machine travel through time. What a thriller.”
👍 472
“I didn’t really appreciate this movie until I was older. Doc and Marty both have their character arcs finished and it ends really well.”
👍 142
“What I absolutely love about this scene is when Doc is stood on the front of the train, the DeLorean is right in front of him, and Clara is in the locomotive behind him. Doc has a choice to make. The time machine and 1985, or Clara and 1885. The framing is perfect.”
👍 38
“My grandfather was like Dr. Emmet Brown. He took the engine of an old laundry machine and put it as his water pump for his house. He never had the opportunity to attend the school everything that he knew was just reading books. I miss him a lot.”
👍 91
“A great ending to my favorite movie franchise of all time. Probably my favorite action scene in any movie. Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd just play off eachother so well in this whole franchise”
👍 61
“[After sailing away on the hoverboard with Clara,] I’m sure Doc was thinking ‘Well it looks like I’m stuck here forever…unless I can build another time machine’” 👍 74
“I’m 42 and I feel the same way I did back in the 80’s watching this trilogy I love it !!”