During a recent call out of the “garbage” films and sequels Hollywood has been churning out, film critic and personality Chris Gore issued a plea to the ‘revival’ obsessed film industry to stay away from Back to the Future.
As seen in a now-viral clip from Gore’s recent interview with filmmaking-centric YouTube channel Film Courage, the film critic begged, “Please if you are an executive and you are watching this, do not ruin Back to the Future.”
Specifically, Gore emphatically asked, “Do not ruin Back to the Future by making a FEMALE [emphasis added] Back to the Future. It would be terrible. Think about it deeply, this is not a good idea.”
Pointing to the disastrous attempts to gender swap a franchise already undertaken by Star Wars, Terminator, and Ghostbusters, Gore explained that such an idea would be bad because it would be particularly creepy.
“That’s a franchise where I don’t think you could ever gender-swap the lead,” he stated. “Calling that lead, like, ‘Mandy McFly’ and having a weird relationship with a younger version of her father would be very awkward.”
Related: Netflix Censors ‘Oh Là Là’ Magazine Cover in Back to the Future II
Gore added, “I mean, that just doesn’t work,” – which, objectively in the post-#MeToo and #TimesUP era, it certainly wouldn’t.
When the interviewer countered that it might be interesting to see a female Biff bullying a Marty or George McFly analog, Gore replied she was thinking like an executive.
Related: Back To The Future Creator Bob Gale Throws Shade At Star Wars And Old Man Luke Skywalker
Noting how gender-flipping happens all the time nowadays, Gore went on to discuss how such a concept occasionally works, heralding George Miller’s focusing on a female protagonist in Mad Max: Fury Road.
He then argued that Fury Road “did it more the right way” through its creation of a strong, unique character in Charlize Theron’s Furiosa, despite how her role essentially demoted Max (Tom Hardy) to a side character in his own sequel.
Related: Charlize Theron Campaigns For Lesbian Version Of Die Hard
In contrast, said Gore, Terminator: Dark Fate “might’ve been the wrong way” of doing it.
“I’m not sure who loved that movie,” Gore said, acknowledging that the reboot didn’t do very well commercially before adding that the franchise didn’t need to “flip things and gender swap” because Terminator already has “an amazing character” in Sarah Connor.
“I think audiences see right through that,” he added.
Gore would further opine that, whether the tactic they use is gender-swapping or queer baiting, Gore finds such demographic tactics “lazy” and believes the people would agree.
“If you’re simply just changing the gender or race [without any regard for originality]”, Gore observes, before asserting that not only are audiences “not really in favor of it,” but they are much savvier than the executives give them credit for.
“It really seems to not be working,” he continued, before sharing his belief that “if Hollywood leaned a bit more into originality – and took some risks – with new creators”, both the industry and those creators could profit from ideas and characters that cross the spectrum.
Related: Noah Hawley Claims The Upcoming Alien TV Series Is A “Story About Inequality”
According to the critic, who makes it clear that he identifies with characters that are nothing like him, such as Alien’s Ripley or Amelie from the French film of the same name, such originality in both characters and the stories at the heart of these types of movies would serve as a chance for audiences “to identify with someone who is not them”
“I don’t need to see myself reflected in a film,” Gore said. “In fact, I prefer not to [be].”
In conclusion to his interview, Gore encouraged studios to seek out new ideas from new creators so he wouldn’t have to make another one of the videos above.
Do you think Gore is right? How weird do you think a gender-swapped Back to the Future would be? Let us know your thoughts on social media or in the comments down below.