Why Michael J. Fox ‘abandoned’ Michael Jackson, Mick Jagger’s scene in ‘Back to the Future’ revealed
Michael J. Fox imagined a perfect dance scene for Back to the future and made sure everything happened the way he wanted.
The scene in question occurs when his character Marty is forced on stage at a school dance where he performs Chuck Berry’s song. Johnny B. Goode.
In his new memoir about the making of the film, titled Future boyFox revealed that the original script included dancing in the styles of Michael Jackson and Mick Jagger, but scraped it.
“I worked harder on the Johnny B. Goode scene than any other part of the movie,” he wrote of “my favorite scene in the movie.”
The original script read: “Marty starts frolicking euphorically like Little Richard. Marty takes off his sports coat and throws it into the crowd. Now Marty rips off his shirt and does some Elvis pelvis moves! The girls scream. Marty’s moves become Mick Jagger moves, then take on a Michael Jackson style.”
However, the actor changed almost the entire sequence.
“I abandoned the idea of imitating Michael Jackson and Mick Jagger (not the guitarists!) and replaced them with homages to my own rock guitar gods,” he explained.
He designed the movements with the help of choreographer Brad Jeffries.
Fox breaks down the moves in the memoir as follows: “As the song progresses, Marty holds the bass guitar and drops to his knees without missing a chord (Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page);
Michael J. Fox added “intense right-hand hammering, an homage to Eddie Van Halen”, and finally, “added some Slash (Guns N’ Roses), with a descending growl along the E string.
