The Prestige (2006)

The Prestige begins with shots of several dozen top hats inexplicably strewn about in a forest.
Cutter (Michael Caine), in voiceover, explains the three parts of a magic trick while performing a disappearing bird trick for a little girl. Part one is the pledge, where the magician shows you something ordinary, like a bird. Part two is the turn, where he does something extraordinary, like make the bird disappear. But this isn't enough. There always has to be a third act, the prestige, where you have a twist, and bring the bird back. Only then will the audience applaud.
Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman), stage name "the Great Danton," attempts a transporting trick that involves walking under a giant electrical machine with a Tesla coil and then disappearing through a trapdoor. Except that he falls straight into a giant tank of water that has been placed under the stage, and is automatically locked inside. A man in the audience, who we shortly learn is fellow magician Alfred Borden (Christian Bale), stage name "the Professor," forces his way beneath the stage in time to see Angier drown.
After this introduction, we follow three timelines at once. In the present day (19th century England), Borden is on trial for murdering Angier, who we learn was his greatest rival. Cutter is revealed to be Angier's engineer, the man who builds the machinery for his tricks, and the little girl is Borden's daughter Jess (Samantha Mahurin).
Cutter confides to the judge in a private meeting that the machine Angier was using wasn't built by him, but by "a wizard," and it legitimately did what it appeared to do.
The trial does not go well for Borden, and he faces execution. Later, in jail, Borden is approached by the solicitor for a collector, Lord Caldlow, who is interested in buying his secrets, particularly the secret of Borden's famous "Transported Man" trick. The same collector has also bought all of Angier's equipment and props. When Borden refuses, the solicitor threatens that Jess is in danger of being declared an indigent orphan and sent to the workhouse unless his patron intervenes. As an incentive, he gives Borden Angier's diary, which documents the time he spent in Colorado trying to learn Bordon's secret.
Borden's reading of the diary in prison frames the second part of the narrative, which is from Angier's point of view. Angier is on a train in the Rocky Mountains, headed to Colorado Springs, Colorado, on his way to see the notorious scientist Nikola Tesla (David Bowie). Disembarking at the train station in town, Angier is taken by coach to the inn, where he gets an unusually warm welcome from the hotel staff. The manager tells Angier that he's their first guest of the winter. Angier asks if a ride can be arranged to take him up to Pike's Peak the next day, but is told that the peak is closed for experimentation.
The next day, Angier is dropped off on a dirt track in the woods, at the farthest point the carriage can take him. He makes his way up to the fence surrounding a clearing. He is immediately thrown back as the fence is electrified. Tesla's assistant Alley (Andy Serkis) comes out of the gatehouse, thinking at first that Angier is another intruder, then recognizes him, saying he's seen Angier's London show. Angier says he's come to ask Tesla to build him a machine like one that he believes Tesla built for Borden -- the machine that allows Borden to do the "Transported Man" trick. Alley says he can't help Angier, and Angier heads back to the hotel, disappointed. Alley takes satisfaction when Angier, back turned to him, correctly guesses that Alley is holding a gold watch in his hand.
Angier sits down in his room and begins decoding a diary he stole from Borden, which is encrypted with a particular five-letter-word passcode (important later).
Borden's diary frames the third thread of the narrative, which goes back to the very beginning.
Angier and Borden are partners, up-and-comers working for an elderly magician named Milton (Ricky Jay). Milton also employs Cutter and Angier's wife Julia (Piper Perabo). Their best trick is an underwater escape act. In this act, Angier and Borden are planted in the audience and called up to the stage to tie Julia's wrists and ankles before she is hoisted up on a pulley and dropped into a water tank. A curtain descends on the tank, and Julia slips the knot around her wrists and escapes using a trick lock on the tank. As a safety precaution, Cutter is positioned stage right, behind the curtains, with a stopwatch and an axe.
Angier and Borden are on friendly terms, though Angier is somewhat concerned that Borden might be using a knot that is more difficult for Julia to slip. We learn that Angier is using an alias so he won't embarrass his prominent family with his theatrical pursuits, while Borden and his engineer Fallon come from a rougher background. Borden is much more ambitious than Angier, isn't afraid to do dirtier tricks, and wishes Milton would try more dangerous tricks, like a bullet catch. Borden claims to have created a trick that will be his masterpiece.
One day, Cutter sends Angier and Borden to watch a Chinese magician, Chung Ling Soo (Chao Li Chi), and figure out exactly how the man makes a heavy goldfish bowl (filled with water and goldfish) appear from under a cloth. Borden immediately deduces that the old magician is really putting up a front: he's holding the bowl between his legs under his skirt, hiding the strength required to accomplish the trick by always appearing frail in public. Borden admires the way the Chinese magician goes to such an extreme that he "lives" his performance at home. Angier is surprised, since when he tries holding an empty goldfish bowl at home, he has a hard time carrying it.
As his prize for working out the fishbowl trick, Borden gets a few minutes onstage assisting Milton during a performance, where he performs a trick where a bird and cage disappear simultaneously, and then the bird reappears. A boy in the audience becomes upset when he realizes the bird in the cage isn't the same as the one that reappears. Borden tries to help the boy's aunt, a woman named Sarah (Rebecca Hall), to console him. After the show, we discover that the bird in the cage has to die to achieve the illusion, as Borden is seen tossing the original bird in the trash. Borden and Sarah strike up an acquaintance and become romantically involved.
Disaster strikes during the next performance of the underwater escape. Borden ties, stops, and then reties the knot around Julia's hands as they prepare to put her on the hoist. She can't manage to slip the knot underwater, and Cutter isn't able to break the glass of the tank in time to save her. Julia dies onstage, leaving Angier devastated and Milton ruined. During the funeral, Angier confronts Borden, asking which knot he tied. His answer is that he "doesn't know," which Angier cannot accept. This is the beginning of their bitter rivalry.
Borden and Angier both strike out on their own, but there are obvious tensions. Borden marries Sarah and starts doing his own act, the climax of which is a bullet-catching trick. The secret, as Borden explains to his pregnant wife, is that the bullet is palmed, so that it's already in the magician's hand when the gun is fired. All that comes out of the pistol is gunpowder. But magicians have died during the trick because of audience members sticking buttons or their own bullets into the guns.
Borden is next seen performing for a very rowdy audience. After whipping out the gun to silence the audience, he asks for volunteers, then hands the gun to a man who is actually a disguised Angier. Angier, knowing the trick, deliberately puts his own bullet into the gun, and confronts Borden again about the knot he tied. When Borden's answer is still "I don't know," Angier shoots him, blowing the ends of two fingers off his left hand and jeopardizing Borden's career. Sarah encourages him to quit magic. She isn't happy that Borden keeps secrets from her as part of his trade. Their marriage is an uneven one, and she claims that when he says that he loves her, she can tell on some days he doesn't mean it. Borden admits this is true and they make a sad little game of it: some days he loves her, some days he loves the magic.
One day at a bar, Angier is approached by Cutter, whom no one will hire because of his association with Milton. They start their own act, with Angier performing as "the Great Danton" (a name suggested by his late wife and rejected at the time for being "too French"). His lovely assistant is a blonde bombshell named Olivia Wenscombe (Scarlett Johansson). Because Angier doesn't want to get dirty, Cutter comes up with a new version of the "disappearing-bird-in-the-cage" trick where members of the audience keep their hands on the cage as it disappears. The trick involves mechanical gadgetry that Angier wears under his suit to fold away and retract the cage. Best of all, the bird is unharmed.
Angier debuts the trick at his show. The audience is negative at first, complaining that they've seen the trick numerous times, but Angier says he'll make it a bit harder. He asks for two volunteers to come up from the audience. Two are selected: an elderly woman and a man who is actually a disguised Borden. Although Angier recognizes Borden the moment he puts his hand on the cage, he is unable to stop Borden from jamming the machinery. The cage malfunctions, causing the bird to be killed onstage and the other volunteer's hand to be caught. The theater owner cancels Angier's booking and Angier's reputation is left in tatters.
Cutter sends Angier to a science lecture to get some new ideas. Nicola Tesla is preparing to demonstrate several huge, fantastic Tesla coils, generating immense electric charges that seem to fill the room. Because of the perceived danger, the demonstration is canceled by the authorities. But Angier spots Borden in the crowd and follows him, learning about Sarah and their new baby, Jessica. Fed by jealousy of Borden's happiness, which Angier feels should have been his, Angier's obsession over the rivalry grows.
Intercut with this storyline are Angier's attempts to meet with Tesla and commission his own transporter machine. Tesla has supplied all of Colorado Springs with electrical service in exchange for being allowed full use of the generators at night (when the residents are sleeping) to conduct experiments. He's even rigged up his own electric fence. When Tesla finally agrees to build the machine for Angier, he warns that it will take a great deal of time and money.
In Borden's diary, we learn that both magicians start performing again. Borden, as "the Professor," has a dramatic new trick called the Transported Man that has been getting him attention. Angier and Olivia, who is falling in love with her magician, watch it repeatedly and are unable to tell how he does it. The trick appears amazingly simple: Borden gets into a cabinet on stage right and gets out of another cabinet on stage left. Cutter insists that he must be using a double, but Olivia insists that she can see the bandaged stumps on his left hand both when Borden disappears and when he reappears, even though Borden wears padded gloves to hide his short fingers.
Angier and Cutter copy the trick and add the bit of showmanship and flair that Borden's version is missing. In his version, Angier throws his hat across the stage and walks through a door on one side of the stage, secretly drops through a trapdoor hidden behind the door frame onto a padded cushion, while a double simultaneously is hoisted out of another trapdoor behind the door on the other side of the stage to catch the hat. They hire an out-of-work actor named Gerald Root (also played by Hugh Jackman) to be Angier's double. He's a drunk and a lout, but he can perform.
Their act, dubbed "the New Transported Man," is an amazing success. But there's one small drawback: Angier has to be the one who sells the buildup of the trick, so he's always under the stage during the prestige and misses out on the audience reaction. Root is getting all the glory, even if Cutter makes sure that he keeps a low profile so the secret doesn't get out. Even worse, Angier still doesn't know how Borden does his version of the trick.
Angier decides to send Olivia to work for Borden and spy on him to get the secret. Olivia, who is in love with him, doesn't like the idea, but does as Angier asks and becomes Borden's assistant. To gain his trust, she tells Borden how Angier's trick is done and offers to help him improve on his own act.
Meanwhile, a big problem develops -- with Root, of course. Root realizes that he can control Angier because he's necessary for Angier's biggest trick, and demands money. It turns out that Borden has been influencing him, and Cutter thinks Olivia may have betrayed them. Borden's version of the "Transported Man" has improved, and now includes one of Tesla's electricity-generating machines. Cutter gets Angier to agree to phase out the trick.
Root's performances get more intentionally sloppy, and one night he simply isn't there at all. When Angier goes through the trapdoor, the cushion to break his fall has been removed, and he breaks his leg. He watches Borden pop out of Root's trapdoor and proceed to humiliate him, suspending a tied-up Root from the ceiling with an advertisement for Borden's own act, before running out of the theater to his own show.
Angier confronts Olivia, who insists that Borden's trick is accomplished using a double, because she's seen makeup and wigs lying around. He deduces that such items are planted by Borden as misdirection for her. When he questions her loyalty, she produces Borden's encrypted diary as proof that she didn't betray him. However, the five-letter-word to decrypt the diary is still necessary. Angier and Cutter kidnap Fallon, Borden's engineer, and nail him in a box to hold for ransom.
When Borden comes to the meeting place in a cemetery to get Fallon back, Angier demands to know the secret of Borden's "Transported Man" in exchange. Borden writes down one word, "Tesla," which will decode the diary, and suggests that he's teleporting using a machine Tesla built. Borden is then told that Fallon has been buried alive, and Angier asks him how fast he can dig.
Angier leaves for America to track down Tesla, for the second section of the narrative, while Cutter stays behind. He was shot by Fallon in the shoulder while nailing the box up, and doesn't want to pursue the secret of the trick any further. Tesla refuses to meet with Angier, and the latter learns that Tesla has run out of funding and is being hounded by his rival, Thomas Edison. Angier assures Tesla that money is no object and Tesla tells him in turn that the machine is already being built.
Borden's private life starts falling apart. He's having an affair with Olivia, and his wife is drinking because of their deteriorating marriage. At one point, he instructs Fallon to deal with his family while going to see Olivia. He appears to genuinely care for both women.
Sarah eventually hangs herself in Borden's workroom, after trying to confront her husband about one of his secrets.
In Colorado, Tesla and Alley have been unsuccessfully testing the machine they built for Angier. They've zapped his top hat time after time with an impressive electrical apparatus, but the hat won't move an inch.
Angier comes to the end of Borden's diary and realizes that Olivia actually did betray him. She was in love with Angier, but since he used her as a spy without concern for her feelings, she knew she didn't have a future with him. She gave Angier the diary to prove her loyalty to Borden, who wrote it for Angier. The last entry in the diary tells him that "Tesla" was the keyword to decrypt the writing, which is true, but it's not the secret to the trick at all. Tesla never built a teleportation machine for Borden, and Angier has been sent on a wild goose chase.
He goes back to Tesla's lab several times, where the scientist insists that he is capable of building a teleporter, but he never built one for Borden. He tests the machine again, this time using Alley's precious black cat. Alley warns Tesla not to harm the cat. Alley, using the cat's beautiful collar, chains the cat to the spot for the experiment, as Tesla thinks it may be a matter of needing something living. The cat does not like the procedure and hisses, but is completely unharmed. However, the cat doesn't move at all, so Angier leaves in disgust. Then the cat is freed and runs out the front door.
As Angier walks back through the woods, we revisit the first shot of the movie: a heap of top hats on the forest floor. And this time, there are two identical (proved by the collar) black cats among them. The machine has been working all along, but instead of moving an object from one place to the other, it creates a duplicate at the destination. Tesla and Alley are amazed, moving from hat to hat and measuring them with calipers. When Angier leaves, Tesla tells him to take his hat. He asks which hat is his and Tesla, smiling for the first time, says "They are all your hat."
Tesla and Alley continue to refine the machine now that they know how it works. They have to leave suddenly in the middle of the night when their lab is burned down by Edison's goons. However, in the care of the hotel manager, Tesla leaves a large, trapezoidal wooden box for Angier, containing the components of the machine with instructions in a note. Tesla's note cautions Angier that using the machine is inviting Angier's doom and warns him to destroy the machine rather than use it.
Angier takes the box back to England and reunites with Cutter. He's ready to perform again, but this time he's extremely secretive about his methods, hiring blind stage hands and not allowing Cutter backstage at any time. As he demonstrates to an influential promoter, he is zapped with electricity from the machine's Tesla coil, disappears from plain sight, and then reappears up in the balcony, appearing to traverse the distance instantaneously.
The show is a hit and Borden is mystified. All he can tell is that Angier's trick involves a trapdoor, but he has no idea what's going on under the stage. Every night, he can see the blind stagehands removing a box from the theater.
A few nights later, at another performance, Borden sneaks under the stage, as we saw in the prologue, and watches Angier fall through the trapdoor into the tank and drown. It's clear that Borden didn't have anything to do with it, and he actually tries to save his rival's life by attempting to break through the glass of the tank with a pipe. Cutter runs down under the stage and gets the wrong idea. Borden is arrested. Angier is confirmed dead with Cutter identifying the body.
In his prison cell back in the present day, Borden comes to the end of Angier's diary, which gloats that Borden is being blamed for his death. Borden believes the diary must be a fake, until he's called out of his cell to say goodbye to Jess and meet the collector who wants to buy his secrets.
The collector, Lord Caldlow, is Angier. Borden is dismayed that he would go so far and involve his child in their rivalry. Caldlow/Angier refuses to help clear his name, and won't even take the secret of Borden's "Transported Man" when bribed, telling him "mine is better." Borden swears he'll get out and have his revenge, promising Jess he'll come for her.
Cutter discovers Angier alive when he calls on Lord Caldlow to offer him the machine, hoping to convince him to destroy it. Cutter quickly realizes that Angier is remorseless about framing Borden. He says he's figured out the secret to Angier's version of "the Transported Man" and thinks he's gone too far.
Borden has one last visitor: Fallon. Borden tells him what he's learned, gives him the rubber ball he sometimes uses for tricks, and tells Fallon to go "live for both of us."
Cutter brings the machine to Angier, and as he leaves, we see Fallon arrive to confront Angier. This is intercut with scenes of Borden being hanged. Borden dies just as Fallon shoots Angier. The camera pans up to reveal that "Fallon" has two missing fingers and Borden's face.
Angier finally realizes that the secret of Borden's "Transported Man" was simple: Borden had a twin brother, and they were switching back and forth between the double roles of Borden and Fallon. One of them loved Sarah, and one of them loved Olivia. They both lived half of the same life, never telling anyone in order to maintain the illusion. In a flashback, it is shown that the unmutilated twin willingly let his brother amputate the ring and pinkie fingers on his left hand so that they could make the swaps without anyone telling the difference. Sarah, in a scene we've seen before, is puzzled and worried as to why the wound looks new and bruised again; Borden distracts her by slamming a fist down and saying they can't afford a doctor.
Angier, who only ever cared about the glory of wowing an audience, went to far more terrible extremes. In his "New Transported Man," he knowingly created a double of himself every time he used Tesla's machine, and he rigged the trapdoor to drown the one onstage. He never knew if he would be the prestige or the man in the box. The room where the machine is being kept is filled with water tanks, all of which hold a drowned double of Angier for every time he performed the trick. Several times, he mutters to himself a line we've heard before in a different context: "No one cares about the man in the box."
Angier falls and kicks over the lantern as he dies from his wound, and the resulting fire ensures the machine and all the evidence are destroyed.
We loop back to the trick with the small birds in the opening scene (though this time, no birds are harmed) while Cutter reiterates the three parts of a magic trick. As Cutter has told Jess Borden, "before the audience can clap, you have to make the disappeared man come back." On cue, her father appears to reclaim her. She runs into his arms, and Borden and Cutter exchange nods.

Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015)

Luke Skywalker has vanished. In his absence, the sinister FIRST ORDER has risen from the ashes of the Empire and will not rest until Skywalker, the last Jedi, has been destroyed. With the support of the REPUBLIC, General Leia Organa leads a brave RESISTANCE. She is desperate to find her brother Luke and gain his help in restoring peace and justice to the galaxy. Leia has sent her most daring pilot on a secret mission to Jakku, where an old ally has discovered a clue to Lukes whereabouts.
The First Order, led by the evil Kylo Ren, is landing stormtroopers to attack a small village, as Poe Dameron meets with Lor San Tekka in a hut. He is given a small bag containing the map to Luke Skywalker. Kylo Ren orders the stormtroopers to destroy Lor San Tekka's entire village and takes Poe captive. Captain Phasma, a stormtrooper wearing chrome-plated armor, leads the attack. Kylo Ren wears a black mask and uses a red, fiery lightsaber. Poe's X-Wing is damaged so that he cannot escape, so the pilot puts the map in a rolling droid unit called BB-8. He fires at Kylo Ren, who uses the Force to block a blaster bolt. As Dameron is captured, the troopers massacre the prisoners, but one stormtrooper FN-2187, refuses to fire. Meanwhile BB-8 rolls away across the sands, narrowly escaping capture. The droid runs into Rey, a young scavenger who is barely surviving on Jakku. Rey scavenges parts from old wrecks of Star Destroyers on the sands of Jakku, and exchanges them for food at Unkar Plutt's scrap yard. The marks on the walls of her hut indicate she's been on Jakku for a very long time. She rescues BB-8 from a Teedo scavenger. She can understand his beeps and whistles, and offers him shelter for the night.
On the First Order destroyer, Poe is unsuccessfully interrogated by the First Order. Kylo Ren is called in to use his Force powers to extract information from Poe about the whereabouts of the map. Poe resists, but ultimately divulges that the map is still on Jakku in his BB-8 unit.
Meanwhile Captain Phasma confronts FN-2187 about his behavior on Jakku. She orders him to take his unused blaster in for inspection and report to her division and ultimately reconditioning. Instead FN-2187 decides to run away. He needs a pilot to escape the star destroyer, so he rescues Poe, and the two board a black First Order TIE fighter and escape. Poe renames FN-2187 as Finn, and expertly pilots to an escape while Finn fires the ship's blasters. The fighter is hit by lasers from the destroyer and crash lands on Jakku. Finn has ejected but it appears Poe has gone down with the ship leaving only his jacket.
Finn wanders across the desert discarding his stormtrooper armor. Eventually, he arrives in Niima Outpost, the town where Rey trades scrap for food. While Finn is looking for water in the town, he sees Rey being accosted by two of Unkar Plutt's henchmen who are trying to make off with BB-8. He begins to rush to her aid, but before he gets far, Rey handily fights off her attackers using her staff. Clearly, she can handle herself. BB-8 spots Finn looking their way, and tells Rey that he is wearing Poe's jacket which they assume is stolen. Rey chases Finn down, knocks him to the ground and confronts Finn about the jacket. Finn tells them that Poe was captured by the First Order and that he helped him escape, but Poe was unfortunately killed. BB-8 is saddened and rolls off , but Rey is excited and impressed, and assumes Finn is a resistance fighter. Finn lies, telling her he is indeed with the resistance. Rey excitedly tells Finn that BB-8 is on a secret mission. Finn tells her BB-8 is carrying a map to Luke Skywalker and Rey is even more impressed, declaring that she thought Skywalker was a myth.
BB-8 returns and alerts Finn and Rey that they are in trouble. First Order stormtroopers are now looking for Finn and the BB-8 droid. Stormtroopers chase Finn, Rey and BB-8 through Niima Outpost and TIE fighters are called in and begin to bomb and strafe the town. To make their escape, they steal a "garbage" vehicle to escape the First Order. It is the Millennium Falcon. Rey takes the pilot's seat while Finn mans the guns. Neither is confident in their abilities, and their lift off is rough, destroying a substantial portion of the town as they try to get off of the ground. Finn is able to shoot down a pursuing fighter, but the guns are hit and locked in a position that prevents him from taking out the remaining fighter. Rey flies through the wrecked ships in the desert of Jakku, occasionally scraping through the sands as they try to keep low to confuse the TIE fighter's tracking. Rey takes the Falcon into one of the Star Destroyers and just as the pursuing fighter locks onto their ship, she turns the Falcon out into the open, and performs a flip which allows Finn to fire successfully at the remaining fighter, taking it down. They head off, away from Jakku, and on toward the wider galaxy. Not having flown in years, the Falcon is not in good repair, and almost immediately requires an emergency patch. Rey begins repairing the ship while Finn admits to BB-8 he is not part of the resistance, but is still able to convince BB-8 to tell them where the Resistance base is.
The Falcon is then captured and pulled into a larger ship. Finn is afraid they have been recaptured by the First Order. As the Falcon is boarded, he and Rey hide in a secret compartment, but the boarding party is actually Han Solo and Chewbacca.
Rey knows the history of the ship, and how to repair and fly it. Han is impressed, but the ship is then boarded by two more smuggler parties. Han is trying his hand at smuggling again, this time by carrying some menacing Rathtars. Han tries to talk his way out of his debts with the two smuggling groups while Rey and Finn escape. Rey tries to close blast doors to save Han, but instead opens the doors to the Rathtar containers. The Rathtars attack and eat the smugglers and almost get Finn, but Rey saves him by closing a door on the creature's tentacles, severing them. The heros escape in the Millennium Falcon and leave their attackers behind. The new-found allies travel to the green planet of Takodana to seek help from Maz Kanata, an orange skinned alien. There they are spotted in the cantina by both First Order and Resistance spies. Kylo Ren sends forces to re-capture the map. Finn, still fearful of being recaptured by the First Order, admits that he is not part of the Resistance and decides to run by joining a crew heading for the outer rim.
Meanwhile Rey is drawn to the lower floor of the cantina by the sound of a girl crying and opens a box to discover Luke Skywalkers lightsaber lost at Cloud City. When she touches the lightsaber she experiences a frightening vision. The dream has the voices of old Jedi like Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda. It flashes by quickly. She sees the hallways of Cloud City, a vision of Skywalker and R2-D2, a vision of Kylo Ren surrounded by bodies, thrusting his saber through the chest of a mysterious figure, a vision of herself being abandoned as a child on Jakku and finally she sees Ren pursing her in a snowy forest.
On Starkiller Base, a snowy, mountainous planet, General Hux addresses legions of First Order stormtroopers. He angrily declares the death of the Republic. The planet has a massive trench around the equator, and a continent-sized aperture. The base fires a massive red beam from the center of the planet, traveling across space, and splitting into four separate beams which destroy individual planets. We see crowds of people on populated planets look up into the sky to witness the conflagration as their planet is destroyed.
Rey is frightened by her vision and refuses Luke's lightsaber, running out into the forest of Takodana. Finn and the others look to the sky as the red beams can be seen destroying the other Republic planets. The First Order begin landing troops, including Kylo Ren's V-winged ship. Maz gives the lightsaber to Finn. As the stormtroopers attack Finn uses the lightsaber to fight back, but is knocked down by another stormtrooper (unnamed, but popularly referred to as TR-8R). The stormtroopers capture Han, Chewbacca and Finn.
Rey tries to use the blaster given to her by Han Solo, but inexperienced and frightened she fumbles with the safety and fires wild shots giving away her position. Overwhelmed she runs deeper into the forest. BB-8 follows, and she tells him to go further on while she tries to fight off their pursuers. Kylo Ren tracks down Rey in the woods. He chases her through the forest easily fending off her desperate attempts to fire on him with the blaster. She backs away, but he stops her, using the Force to hold her still. Ren uses the Force to read her mind and discovers that she has seen the map to Luke Skywalker's location. He decides he no longer needs BB-8, so he knocks her out and carries her off in his ship, as Finn watches.
The Resistance X-wing fighters arrive, finishing off the last troops. A troop ship lands carrying General Leia Organa and C-3P0. Han and Leia are reunited, but their relations are tense. It is revealed that Kylo Ren is actually their son. The heroes return to the Resistance Base, where Finn is reunited with Poe Dameron, who was not killed by the crash on Jakku. BB-8 is reunited with R2-D2 and C-3P0, but R2-D2 has been in shut down since Luke left many years before.
The Resistance fighters begin to plan an attack on the Starkiller Base to avoid being wiped out. Finn wants to rescue Rey, and claims he once worked at Starkiller Base and knows how to knock out the shields. Han and Leia say their goodbyes as the X-wings led by Poe Dameron prepare to attack a weak point on the base. As they part Leia asks Han to bring their son home if he sees him.
On Starkiller Base, Rey wakes to find her self locked in an interrogation chair like the one we have seen earlier in Poe's interrogation scene. Kylo Ren and she converse, and he removes his mask, revealing his face to her; he is a young and handsome man. Ren uses the Force to read Rey's mind. He senses her lonely life on Jakku, her dreams of a far away island and the closeness she feels towards Han Solo. She reacts with hostility but seems unable to keep him from reading her thoughts.
When he tries to extract the information about the map from her mind, however, he runs up against an unexpected barrier. Rey is not only able to resist his further probing, but pushes back into Ren's mind, and tells him that he is afraid that he will never be as strong as Darth Vader. Ren is shaken by this and by her obvious strength with the Force, and he runs away to meet with Snoke in search of guidance on how to proceed.
Kylo Ren and General Hux are scolded for not retrieving the droid, and Ren's inability to crack Rey's mind, by the Supreme Leader, who is only revealed as a massive hologram of an old and scarred man seated on a throne towering over them.
Rey now understands that she has some Force talent, and uses the mind-trick power to escape from the stormtrooper guarding her cell. She sneaks through the Starkiller Base to the hanger to escape. Meanwhile, Han and Chewie come out of hyperspace on the planet in order to evade the shields, and crash land in the snowy forest. Finn reveals he does not know how to disable the shields; he only came back to rescue Rey. They capture Captain Phasma and force her to lower the shields.
Finn, Han and Chewbacca head off to find Rey, but quickly discover that she has freed herself when they spot her scaling a wall of the base. They rush to meet her. She is surprised that they would come back for her, and embraces Finn when she learns from Chewbacca that it was Finn's idea that they come to the base to save her.
Poe and the X-Wing fighters arrive and begin to land torpedos on the weak point, but it is not enough. Han and Chewbacca improvise a plan to plant explosives to blow it up instead. They split up to lay explosives in separate locations. Kylo Ren finds that Rey has escaped and is very angry. He searches the base for Rey. He stalks off onto a catwalk where Han spots him. Han approaches him on the catwalk, calling him Ben. He asks his son to return with him, and Ren offers his lightsaber, but then activates it and kills his father, pushing him off into the pit. Chewbacca, having watched the entire conversation, fires on Ren, hitting him in the side, and then detonates the explosives.
Kylo Ren confronts Finn and Rey in the snowy forest. Ren is bleeding from his wound, but ignites his red fiery saber to fight. Rey raises her blaster to fire on Ren, but he throws her against a tree with a Force push and she lies unconscious in the snow. Finn rushes to her aid and then uses the blue lightsaber to fight Ren. Finn quickly finds himself outmatched. He manages to touch Ren with the saber, but this only enrages him.
Rey is revived by the sound of Finn's screams as he is burned by Ren's saber. Ren easily disarms Finn, tossing the saber off into the snow. He then uses the Force to pull the lightsaber to himself. It hurtles towards him but then flies past. Ren turns to discover the saber in Rey's hands. They begin to fight. Rey initially fights unsuccessfully and desperately, and begins to run from Ren. He pursues her and pins her against the edge of a cliff. Ren offers to teach her the Force, but this only ends up reminding her to tap into its power. She closes her eyes for a moment of meditation and then attacks Ren with a new vigor and power. She rapidly gains the upper hand, extinguishes Ren's saber and cuts him on the arm and across the face.
Meanwhile Poe Dameron and the X-Wing pilots fly into the Star Killer base trench, destroying the rest of the base. The planet begins to collapse and explode. A chasm opens between Ren and Rey as the planet continues to fall apart. Chewbacca arrives in the Millennium Falcon to pick up both Finn and Rey. The Falcon and X-Wings escape as the Starkiller Base explodes. Back at the Resistance base, Leia and Rey embrace in sadness, standing apart from the celebration of the rest of the Resistance base.
Back at the Resistance Base, R2-D2 awakens and reveals the missing part of the map to Lukes location. Finn is still unconscious, and Rey tells him goodbye while he rests. Rey and Chewbacca leave in the Falcon, Rey taking the pilot's seat. They fly to the planet indicated by the map, where Rey carefully climbs a rocky island. When she reaches the top, she finds an old cloaked and bearded Jedi with a metal hand. It is Luke Skywalker. Rey wordlessly offers him the lightsaber.

Braveheart (1995)

In the 13th Century England, after several years of political unrest in Scotland, the land is open to an invasion from the south. King Edward I of England (Patrick McGoohan) has decided to conquer Scotland. After invading Scotland and winning the war by 1280 A.D., Edward (known as 'Longshanks') grants areas of land in Scotland to his nobility which they are to rule, along with the traditional privileges. One of the privileges granted to English lords ruling Scotland was Primae Noctis, the right for the lord to take a newly married Scottish woman into his bed and spend the wedding night with the bride. Longshanks' plan is to breed out the population of Scotland.
In the northern Scottish town of Lanark, a young boy named William Wallace, follows his father and brother to a meeting of Scottish nobles, arranged by Longshanks himself. When Wallace Senior and his older son arrive at the meeting place, they see that the Scots have all been hanged, along with their servants. William also sees the hanging corpses and panics when his father finds him.
Wallace Senior attends another meeting where it's decided that they will go to war with the English. William wishes to accompany his father and brother, however, his father tells him to stay home and mind the farm. A few days later, Campbell Senior, William's best friend's (Hamish) father arrives at the farm. William's father is killed in battle, as was his brother. Following the funeral, William is given a thistle by a young girl. William's uncle, Argyle, arrives on horseback and tells William that he'll be leaving home with him. That night William and Argyle listen to bagpipers play a tribute for William's dead family. Argyle tells William that the pipes are outlawed. He also sees William's interest in his sword and tells William that he'll give him a traditional education and teach him how to fight later.
Ten years later, the adult William Wallace (Mel Gibson) returns home to his father's farm. He reconnects with his old friend Hamish. At a community wedding, Wallace sees the local magistrate take the bride for himself according to "primae noctis." Wallace also falls in love with his childhood sweetheart Murron MacClannough (Catherine McCormack), the young girl who gave him the thistle at his father's funeral, and they marry in secret so that she does not have to spend a night in the bed of the English lord.
The Scots continue to live under the iron fist of Longshanks' cruel laws. Wallace intends on living as a farmer and avoiding involvement in the ongoing "troubles" in Scotland. When an English soldier tries to rape Murron, Wallace fights off several soldiers and the two attempt to flee, but the village sheriff captures Murron and publicly executes her by slitting her throat, proclaiming "an assault on one of the King's soldiers is the same as an assault on the King himself." In retribution, Wallace returns to the village, seemingly ready to surrender. He attacks his captors and joins several villagers as they slaughter the English garrison. Wallace himself brutally executes the sheriff in the same manner that he executed Murron.
Following their triumph, Wallace is compelled to fight against the English who have taken over his homeland and enslaved himself and his countrymen and women. In response to Wallace's exploits, the commoners of Scotland rise in revolt against England. As his legend spreads, hundreds of Scots from the surrounding clans volunteer to join Wallace's militia. Wallace leads his army through a series of successful battles against the English, including the Battle of Stirling Bridge (September 11, 1297) where Wallace's Scots are outnumbered by the English army.
Afterward, the victourious Scots invade northern England and sack of the city of York and kill its lord, the nephew of Longshanks himself. During his campaign, Wallace seeks the assistance of young Robert the Bruce (Angus MacFayden), son of the leper noble Robert the Elder (Ian Bannen) and the chief contender for the Scottish crown. However, Robert is dominated by his scheming father (who suffers from leprosy and lives in seclusion, seen only by his son), who wishes to secure the throne of Scotland to his son by submitting to the English, despite his son's growing admiration for Wallace and his cause.
King Edward Longshanks, worried enough by the threat of the rebellion, poses to send the French princess Isabelle (Sophie Marceau) to try and negotiate peace with Wallace. Princess Isabelle is the wife of Prince Edward (Peter Hanly) the Prince of Wales and Longshanks' oldest son. The King sends her because his son is a weak-willed man and would not be imposing enough to negotiate, but she is a strong leader.
Longshanks also knows that if Wallace kills her, the French king will declare war on Wallace in revenge. Wallace rejects the offer of a title, an estate and a chest of gold that Longshanks has told Isabelle to offer and continues with the fighting. However, during their conversation, Isabelle tells Wallace that she understands his suffering and that she has heard about the death of his wife. They share a moment of understanding and she becomes charmed by him.
For Wallace to continue fighting, he needs the Scottish nobility on his side, contributing troops and food. But Wallace has problems convincing the nobility that they have a real chance to take back their country from the English. The nobles think that the Scots will lose and the English will treat them even worse than they are treated now. Also, the nobles are getting money from England and live quite well. Some of them are more concerned that this money continues to come and that their standard of living continues to be the best instead of looking after their people.
Robert the Bruce is particularly torn over what he sees as his duty to the people to free them and what his father tells him to do to keep in good with the English and earn his crown.
Two Scottish nobles, Lochlan and Mornay, planning to submit to Longshanks, betray Wallace at the bloody Battle of Falkirk the following year on July 22, 1298 as a new and larger English army, led by Longshanks himself, invades Scotland to crush the Scots rebellion once and for all. The Scots lose the battle due to Longshanks' clever use of his long-bowmen and his massive reserves which outnumber the Scots. Wallace nearly loses his life when, in a last desperate act, he furiously breaks ranks and charges toward Longshanks to kill him personally. He is intercepted by one of the king's hooded lancers and knocked from his horse, but gains the upper hand when the lancer dismounts to examine the fallen Wallace. Wallace is set to kill the lancer, but upon taking the lancer's helmet off, discovers his opponent is Robert the Bruce. Bruce is able to get Wallace to safety just before the English can capture him, but laments his actions for some time to come because of what Wallace has stood for, which he betrayed.
Over the next seven years, Wallace goes into hiding and wages a protracted guerrilla war against the English, rallying more followers to his cause. In order to repay Mornay and Lochlan for their betrayals, Wallace brutally murders both men: Mornay by crushing his skull with a flail in his bed chamber and Lochlan by slitting his throat during a meeting of the nobles at Edinburgh and dumping his body on their banquet table.
In 1305, as Wallace's guerrilla war continues, Princess Isabelle of France meets with Wallace as the English king's emissary. Having heard of him beforehand and after meeting him in person, she becomes enamored with him and secretly assists him in his fight. Eventually, she and Wallace make love, after which she becomes pregnant.
Robert the Bruce contacts Wallace to set up a meeting, where the Bruce intends to declare his intent to join Wallace and commit troops to the war. Still believing there is some good in the nobility of his country, Wallace eventually agrees to meet with Robert the Bruce in Edinburgh. However, Robert's father has conspired with the other nobles to set a trap and Wallace is captured. He is beaten until he is unconscious and then handed over to the English. Learning of his father's treachery, the younger Bruce is told that the price of his crown was the the capture and extradition of Wallace himself. The younger Bruce disowns his father.
In London, Wallace is brought before the English magistrates and tried for high treason. He denies the charges, declaring that he had never accepted Edward as his King. The court responds by sentencing him to be "purified by pain." After the sentencing, a shaken Wallace prays for strength during the upcoming torture and rejects a painkiller brought to him by Isabelle. Afterward, the princess goes to her husband and father-in-law, begging them to show mercy. Prince Edward, speaking for the now terminally ill and mute King Edward Longshanks, tells his wife that the king will take pleasure in Wallace's death. Isabelle verbally lambastes her husband and father-in-law, then informs the weakened Longshanks of her pregnancy with Wallace's child and swears that Edward will not last very much longer as king. The mute Longshanks is shaken and unable to tell his son of her plans.
Wallace is taken to a square at the Tower of London for his torture and execution by beheading. He refuses to submit to the king and beg for mercy despite being half hanged, racked, castrated, and disemboweled publicly. Awed by Wallace's courage, the Londoners watching the execution begin to yell for mercy, and the magistrate offers him one final chance for mercy. Using the last strength in his body, the defiant William instead shouts, "Freedom!" Just as he is about to be beheaded, Wallace sees an image of Murron in the crowd smiling at him, before the blow is struck.
Epilogue. On June 24, 1314, nearly nine years after Wallace's death, Robert the Bruce, now a Scottish king and still guilt-ridden over his involvement Wallace's betrayal, leads a strong Scottish army and faces a ceremonial line of English troops at the fields of Bannockburn where the English under their new king, Edward II (who had ascended the English throne upon the death of his father Edward Longshanks in 1307), are to accept him as the rightful ruler of Scotland. Just as he is about to cross the field to accept the English endorsement, the Bruce turns back to his troops. Invoking Wallace's memory, he urges his charges to fight with him as they did with Wallace. Robert then turns toward the English troop line and leads a charge toward the English, who were not expecting to fight.
The film ends with Mel Gibson's voice intoning that the Scottish won their freedom in this battle

Amélie (2001)

Amelie Poulain (Audrey Tautou) is the only child of Raphael and Amandine; a doctor and a schoolteacher, respectively. Raphael (Rufus) is a stoic and distant father, and never makes physical contact with his daughter except for a monthly medical checkup. When Amelie is six, he concludes that she has a serious heart defect (when in reality, Amelie's heart beats faster due to nervousness from her father's rare contact). He declares Amelie to be too delicate for school, and she is taught at home by her mother. Amandine (Lorella Cravotta) is constantly stressed and anxious, and breaks down over strange and minor events such as Amelie's goldfish leaping from its bowl. Given no mental stimulation from her parents and isolated from other children, Amelie develops an intricate imagination to entertain herself. She becomes fairly comfortable in her solitude, but her life is shaken when her mother is inadvertently fatally crushed by a suicidal tourist leaping from the roof of Notre Dame. Her father becomes deeply depressed, and Amelie receives even less parental affection. In her late teens, she moves to her own apartment and takes a job as a café waitress in Montmartre.
Amelie amuses herself with life's simple, everyday pleasures, since her romantic relationships were often disappointing. She takes interest in the lives of others, but does not get involved. Residents of her apartment building include Raymond Dufayel (Serge Merlin), an elderly reclusive artist with very brittle bones; Madelene Wells (Yolande Moreau), the sulking concierge who mourns the death of her cheating husband; Collignon (Urbain Cancelier), the grouchy grocer; and Lucien (Jamel Debbouze), Colignion's clumsy employee. On August 31, 1997, as she watches a news report of Princess Diana's death, chance leads Amelie to discover a small box behind a wall in her bathroom. It contains pictures, toys, and mementos from decades before. Amelie decides to find the box's owner to return it, and if he is touched by the gesture, she will dedicate her life to such acts of kindness.
After consulting Colingion's parents, who had lived in her apartment building around the time the box was hidden (roughly 1950), Amelie receives a possible name for the owner: Domonique Bredoteau. Amelie looks up several Bredoteaus in the city, but to no avail. Her neighbor Dufayel provides her with the correct spelling- Bretodeau- and Amelie is able to track him down. She slyly returns the box to him, and the aging Bretodeau (Maurice Benichou) is brought to tears by his childhood memories. After anonymously trailing him to a bar, Amelie learns that her act had inspired him to visit his estranged daughter and finally meet his grandson. Amelie is delighted.
Amelie decides to encourage her aging and morose father to travel for the first time. She steals his beloved garden gnome and gives it to her stewardess friend, who takes pictures of it in famous foreign locations at her flight stops. Amelie anonymously sends the pictures to her father, hoping to inspire wanderlust. One day at the train station, Amelie encounters Nino Quincampoix (Matthieu Kassovitz), an eccentric young man whose hobby is reconstructing torn-up pictures found underneath photo booths. Nino drops one of his photo albums when chasing a mysterious man through the station, and Amelie looks through it. The man Nino was chasing appears in multiple reconstructed photos throughout the album, and Nino is intent on discovering his identity. Nino himself had an isolating childhood, much like Amelie, and the two grew up only a few miles apart, longing for friends but never meeting.
Amelie decides to return the album, but is interested in meeting Nino. After visiting the pornography shop where he works as a clerk, she learns he has another job at a carnival. She sets up a series of clues for him that would eventually bring them together. Meanwhile Gina (Clotilde Mollet) , a co-worker at the cafe, is plagued by her ex-lover, Josef (Dominique Pinon), who jealously spies on her all day and mutters notes into a tape recorder. Amelie attempts to remedy this by setting him up with another co-worker, the hypochondriac Georgette (Isabelle Nanty). Meanwhile, her cat-and-mouse games with Nino have captured his attention, and he wants to meet her as well.
In the meantime, Amelie steals Madame Wells's letters from her husband (written to her decades before) and cleverly creates a new letter in which he apologizes to his wife for his infidelity. After receiving the false letter, Madame Wells is overjoyed with the news that her husband loved her after all. Amelie also avenges Lucien by playing practical jokes on Colingion (whom she dislikes for constantly insulting Lucien). Amelie has regular visits with Raymond Dufayel, who has been recreating the same Renoir painting for 20 years. He reminds her that, despite her intentions to help others, she is neglecting her own pursuit for happiness. Amelie resolves to meet Nino once and for all, and lures him to her café with a note. He arrives but she is too shy to address him, even when he gently confronts her with the note. While Amelie is out of earshot, her fellow waitress Gina asks Nino to talk with her in private, to ensure that Amelie will not be hurt by him. After speaking with Nino, Gina sees that he is a good man. However, Gina's ex-boyfriend Josef sees the two leave together and, after being dumped by Georgette, reveals his (incorrect) observation that Nino and Gina are dating. Amelie hears this, and is crushed.
At home, Amelie weeps while frustratingly baking a cake. She daydreams of a life with Nino, amid all the current characters in her life. She is startled when her doorbell rings. She hears Nino speaking to her from the hallway, but she is too nervous to answer. Assuming she is not home, Nino slips a note under her door, assuring her that he will return.
A conflicted Amelie finds a personal videotape from Mr. Dufayel, in which he encourages her to pursue the man she loves, or risk eternal unhappiness. Amelie rushes to the door just as Nino returns. She brings him in without speaking, and after finally seeing each other under new circumstances, they begin a relationship. Some time later, Amelie and Nino are still happy together. A narrator encourages the audience to observe the miraculous details of life that occur every moment.

Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of th (1983)

The opening crawl reveals that Han Solo's friends are engaged in a mission to rescue the smuggler from Jabba the Hutt and that the Galactic Empire is building a new armored space station which is even larger and more powerful than the first Death Star.
Near the forest moon of Endor the new Death Star is being constructed in orbit, and a command star destroyer arrives and launches a shuttle with a fighter escort -- a shuttle bearing the Dark Lord of the Sith. Fearing his arrival, the commander of the new Death Star informs Darth Vader (David Prowse, voice: James Earl Jones) that the station will be operational on schedule, but when Vader challenges this "optimistic" appraisal of the situation, the commander admits that he needs more men to accelerate construction. Darth Vader, however, informs the commander that the Emperor (Ian McDiarmid) will be arriving soon, and that he is most displeased with the commander's progress. Shaken, the commander commits to redoubling construction efforts. Vader, pleased, remarks, "the Emperor is not as forgiving as I am."
Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew), Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams), Princess Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher), C-3PO (Anthony Daniels), and R2-D2 (Kenny Baker) return to Tatooine to rescue Han Solo (who was encased in carbonite at the end of "Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back") from the gangster Jabba the Hutt (voice: Larry Ward). Luke sends C-3PO and R2-D2 to Jabba's desert palace to deliver a message: In a hologram projected by R2, Luke offers to bargain with Jabba for Solo himself -- if Jabba does not, he will be destroyed. Jabba laughs at the message and refuses to give up his "favorite decoration:" Han, frozen in carbonite, hangs on a wall in Jabba's court. The two droids are sent to EV-9D9's workshop where C-3P0 is given the job of Jabba's translator and R2 will be a drink-server on Jabba's sail barge.
Disguised as a bounty hunter named Boushh, Leia arrives in Jabba's court with Chewbacca in cuffs. She offers him to Jabba for a sizable bounty. After Leia dickers with Jabba over the amount and threatens him with a small thermal detonator, Jabba happily agrees to pay, impressed with the bounty hunter's nerve, and Chewbacca is imprisoned.
That night, Leia sneaks into Jabba's court and frees Han from the carbonite. However, she and Solo are both captured by Jabba. Solo is imprisoned with Chewbacca and Jabba keeps Leia on display in a metal bikini and chains. Luke arrives with a final ultimatum to release Solo. Jabba again refuses and drops Luke through a trap door into a pit below his throne that houses the rancor, a fearsome beast that Jabba keeps for executions. As Leia watches in horror, she sees Lando Calrissian disguised as a palace guard. After a brief battle, Luke defeats the rancor, enraging Jabba, who declares that Luke, Solo and Chewbacca will be slowly consumed by the sarlacc -- a huge, shark-toothed, tentacled maw at the bottom of the Great Pit of Carkoon.
The group is taken to the pit on Jabba's sail barge fleet and prepared for execution: Luke is the first, pushed out onto a thin plank over the pit. Luke gives R2 a short salute and a small object, Luke's new lightsaber, is launched into his hand. A battle erupts, with Luke steadily taking the fight to Jabba's men. During the battle, Leia strangles Jabba with the chain around her neck and with R2-D2's help escapes from her bonds. Solo accidentally knocks Boba Fett (Jeremy Bulloch) into the sarlacc pit. Lando is also thrown off one of the skiffs, hanging by a few cables until he's rescued from the sarlacc itself by Han and Chewbacca. Luke, having fought his way onto Jabba's sail barge, has the escaping Leia aim the deck cannon at the vehicle and sets it on automatic fire; the sail barge soon blows apart. Our heroes manage to escape before it explodes, retrieve R2 and C-3PO and zip off into the desert. Luke flies off Tatooine in his X-Wing fighter and the rest of the band fly away in the Millennium Falcon to rendezvous with the Rebel fleet near Sullust.
A massive fleet of fighters completely surrounds the boarding bays of the Death Star at the arrival of the Emperor. As Red Guards slowly descend from the Imperial shuttle and flank its ramp, Vader and the Death Star commander kneel to their master, the last to enter the hangar. He insists that Lord Vader will soon capture Luke Skywalker, and Luke will learn of the dark side of the Force when brought before Palpatine himself.
Luke returns to Dagobah to complete his Jedi training, but he finds Yoda (voice: Frank Oz) is ill. He tells Luke that no further training is required and all that remains to be done is to confront Darth Vader. Luke attempts to get independent confirmation of Darth Vader's claim to be Luke's father, but Yoda is evasive. Finally, Luke begs Yoda to tell him the truth, and Yoda, emotional torture clearly evident on his normally serene features, confirms Luke's darkest fears. He correctly infers that Vader has used this information as an emotional weapon against Luke, and criticizes Luke for having faced Vader prematurely, with nearly disastrous consequences. He reminds Luke of the true nature of the Force, and of the soul-corrupting nature of the dark side. Yoda then issues a dark warning, telling Luke how his father fell to the shadow: he was corrupted by the powers and influence of the Emperor. If Luke allows himself to be manipulated by this dark mind, then he too shall become what he most fears.
Finally, Yoda charges Luke with keeping alive the teachings and knowledge of the Jedi and the Force, urging him to start with his own family, with whom the Force is unusually strong. With his final breath, Yoda tells Luke that there is "another Skywalker." Yoda dies at peace, and before Luke's astonished eyes, his body vanishes, passing with his spirit into the Force. The spirit of Obi-Wan Kenobi (Alec Guinness) confronts a distraught Luke, confirming that Vader was once Anakin Skywalker, a Jedi who was turned to the dark side of the Force. Obi-Wan confesses to Luke that he made mistakes in Anakin's training, especially by not deferring to Yoda, and takes responsibility for indirectly creating the evil Darth Vader. Luke counters that even now, all is not lost, that some part of Anakin remains, if only someone can reach it. When Luke asks about the other Skywalker, Obi-Wan tells him that Luke has a twin sister, hidden from Anakin and separated from Luke at birth to protect them both from the Emperor. Luke intuits that his sister is Princess Leia. Obi-Wan confirms it, but warns Luke that in the eyes of the Empire, all bonds of love and caring are potential weaknesses to be exploited.
Meanwhile, the entire Rebel Alliance fleet is massing their near Sullust meeting to devise an attack strategy on the uncompleted Death Star. As part of the attack, Han and his companions must land on the forest moon of Endor and deactivate the generator that projects a protective shield up to the orbiting and incomplete Death Star. The team, led by Han, will use a stolen Imperial shuttle and confirmation code to infiltrate the heavy security measures protecting the construction site before the rest of the Rebel fleet arrives. Luke arrives at the meeting and tells Han and Leia that he'll join them on the dangerous commando mission. The fleet's assault on the Death Star will be lead by Lando Calrissian, piloting the Millennium Falcon, which will fly into the core of the space station and destroy the main power generator.
The team arrives at Endor in the stolen shuttle and uses the confirmation code to sneak past the Imperial fleet. Luke senses that Vader is aboard the Imperial fleet's largest ship, the super-star destroyer Executor, and believes he's endangering the mission. Han tells him not to worry.
When they arrive on the moon, the team happens across a small unit of Imperial biker scouts. Han tries to sneak up on the scouts to disarm them but draws their attention when he steps on a branch. Leia and Luke jump on speeder bikes and pursue two more scouts through the forest at high speed. They overtake them both but are separated; Leia's bike crashes into a tree after she jumps off and she falls unconscious. Luke jumps off his own bike and battles with the the scout he'd been pursuing, forcing him to crash using his lightsaber. When Luke rejoins the team, he finds that Leia hasn't returned. The team looks for her but is captured by indigenous creatures called Ewoks -- short, furry, intelligent forest dwellers. An Ewok called Wicket (Warwick Davis) befriends Leia, but the other Ewoks who captured the rest of the Rebel party decide to sacrifice them to C-3P0, who they believe is a god. Luke, having mastered the Force, levitates C-3P0 to impress the Ewoks with the droid's power and scare them into giving up the sacrifice. With the help of C-3PO, Luke and his party form an alliance with the Ewoks, whose stone-age technology has unexpectedly effective military applications.
Later, Luke decides that the time has come for him to face Vader. He confesses to Leia that he is her brother, and that he has to try to save the man who was once their father. She tells him to ignore his feelings and leave but Luke tells her that he must face his destiny. He surrenders peacefully to Vader but fails to convince his father to abandon the dark side.
They go to the Death Star to meet the Emperor, who reveals that the Rebel Alliance is walking into a trap. On the forest moon, the Rebels led by Solo and Leia enter the shield generator control facility only to be taken prisoner by a large legion of Imperial troops. Once they are led out of the bunker, however, the Ewoks spring a surprise counterattack. In a desperate ground battle, the Rebels and Ewoks fight the Imperial forces. Aboard the Death Star, the Emperor attempts to seduce Luke with the powers of the dark side. The Emperor reveals his plan: the information that Rebel spies had stolen was part of an elaborate plan to draw out the Rebel fleet and command so they could be eliminated in one battle. As Luke's anger builds he attacks the Emperor with his lightsaber, only to be stopped by Vader's crimson blade.
During the strike team's assault, the Rebel fleet emerges from hyperspace for the battle over Endor, only to discover that the shield of the Death Star is still functioning. An intense space battle takes place as the Imperial fleet, in a second part of the Emperor's plan, appears and attacks the Rebel fleet. During the battle, the Death Star is revealed to be operational; its superlaser is fired at the Rebel fleet and obliterates a Rebel star cruiser. Though Admiral Ackbar wants to abandon the attack, Lando convinces him that they must give Han and his party more time on Endor. The fleet regroups and begins to engage the Imperial fleet of star destroyers directly.
On the Death Star, the Emperor taunts Luke to give in to his anger. A ferocious lightsaber duel has erupted between Luke and his father. In the midst of combat, Vader reads Luke's feelings and learns that Luke has a twin sister. When Vader toys with the notion of turning Leia to the dark side, Luke gives in to his rage and furiously gains the upper hand in the battle, slicing off Vader's right robotic hand in a rage in one swift cut, and makes his father succumb to defeat at the mercy of his son's blade. Despite the Emperor's goading Luke refuses to kill his father, realizing that he is traveling down his father's path towards the dark side, and declares himself a Jedi. Realizing that Luke cannot be turned, the Emperor uses Force lightning against him to torture and attempt to kill him. Deeply affected by the sight of his son dying before him, Vader repents and turns on the Emperor, throwing him down a reactor shaft to his death. At the same time, however, the Emperor's Force lightning causes fatal injuries to Vader (Anakin) and short-circuits his breathing system. Stopping momentarily in a landing bay, Anakin asks Luke to take his mask off, knowing that he'll die, but desiring to look at his son's face with his human eyes. Luke removes the helmet, revealing the pale and scarred face of his father (Sebastian Shaw). Anakin says that Luke was right about him, and asks Luke to tell his sister. With those final words, Anakin dies.
Back on Endor, the strike team finally destroys the shield generator. The Rebel fleet seizes the opportunity to launch a final assault on the Death Star in space. Lando leads Wedge Antilles (Denis Lawson) and his fighter group into the bowels of the Death Star, where they fire at the main reactor, causing its collapse. Luke, with the body and armor of Anakin, escapes the Death Star in an Imperial shuttle. Moments later, Wedge in his X-Wing and Lando in the Millennium Falcon emerge from the Death Star just as the space station explodes. On Endor, Leia reassures Han Solo of her love and reveals to him that Luke is actually her brother. That evening, Luke cremates the remains of his father in a funeral pyre on Endor. The entire galaxy celebrates the fall of the Emperor and the Rebel victory over the Empire. Luke, Leia, Han, Lando, and the rest of the rebels, along with the Ewoks, celebrate the victory as well. During the celebration, Luke catches sight of the spirit figures of Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda, and the redeemed Anakin Skywalker, who look proudly upon him.

American Beauty (1999)

Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) is a 42-year-old father, husband and advertising executive who serves as the film's narrator. Lester's relationship with his wife Carolyn (Annette Bening), an ambitious realtor who feels that she is unsuccessful at fulfilling her potential, is strained. His 16-year-old daughter Jane (Thora Birch) is unhappy and struggling with self-esteem issues. Lester himself is a self-described loser: boring, faceless and easy to forget. Lester is reinvigorated, however, when he meets Jane's friend and classmate, the egotistical Angela Hayes (Mena Suvari) at a high school basketball game. Lester immediately develops an obvious infatuation with Angela, much to his daughter's embarrassment. Throughout the film, Lester has fantasies involving a sexually aggressive Angela and red rose petals. The Burnhams' new neighbors are Col. Frank Fitts, USMC (Chris Cooper), his distracted wife Barbara (Allison Janney), and his camcorder-obsessed son Ricky (Wes Bentley). When confronted with the gay couple living two doors down, Col. Fitts displays a distinctly bigoted attitude.
Over the course of a few days, each of the Burnhams individually makes a life-changing choice. Carolyn meets real estate rival Buddy Kane (Peter Gallagher) for a business lunch and ends up beginning an affair with him, and later takes up shooting lessons (a suggestion of Kane's). Lester blackmails his boss Brad Dupree (Barry Del Sherman) for $60,000, quits his job, and takes up low-pressure employment as a burger-flipper at a fast food chain. He continues to liberate himself by trading in his Toyota Camry for his dream car, a 1970 Pontiac Firebird, starts working out to impress Angela, and starts smoking a genetically enhanced form of marijuana. Jane, while growing distant from Angela, develops a romantic relationship with Ricky, having bonded over what he considers to be his most beautiful camcorder footage he has ever filmed, that of a plastic grocery bag dancing in the wind. Ricky himself quickly befriends Lester and secretly acts as Lester's marijuana supplier.
Col. Fitts, concerned over the growing relationship between Lester and Ricky, roots through his son's possessions, finding footage of Lester working out in the nude (captured by chance while Ricky was filming Jane through her bedroom window)- slowly bringing him to the conclusion that his son is gay. Buddy and Carolyn are found out by Lester, who seems to be mostly unfazed by his wife's infidelity. Carolyn, who is almost more devastated by Lester's indifference than by her being exposed as an adulteress, is further dismayed when Buddy reacts by breaking off the affair. As evening falls, Ricky returns home to find his father waiting for him with fists and vitriol, having mistaken his drug rendezvous with Lester for a sexual affair. Realising this as an opportunity for freedom, Ricky falsely agrees that he is gay and goads his violent father until he is thrown out. Ricky rushes to Jane's house and asks her to flee with him to New York City - something she agrees to, much to the dismay of Angela, who quickly protests. Ricky shoots her down with her deepest fear: that she is boring and completely ordinary and uses her "friends", like Jane, to boost her public image. Broken and dismayed, Angela storms out of the room, leaving Jane and Ricky to reconcile.
Lester finds an emotionally fragile Col. Fitts standing outside in the pouring rain and attempts to comfort him, but is taken by surprise when Fitts kisses him. Lester gently rebuffs him, telling him he has the wrong idea. Fitts, shamed and broken, wanders back into the rain. Meanwhile, Carolyn sits alone in her car on the side of the road, holding her gun and becoming more and more infuriated at the day's turn of events. Moments later, Lester finds a distraught Angela and is on the edge of consummating their relationship sexually, but the seduction is derailed when she confesses that she is a virgin. Now viewing her only as an innocent child, Lester immediately withdraws, his affections shifting to that of a father-figure, and they bond over their shared frustrations with and concern for Jane, Lester seeming to be pleased when Angela confesses that Jane's in love. Angela asks how he's feeling and he realizes, to his own surprise, that he feels great. After Angela excuses herself to the bathroom, a happy Lester sits at the table looking at a photograph of his family in happier times, unaware of the gun being held to the back of his head.
In his final narration, Lester looks back on the events of his life, intertwined with images of everyone's reactions to the sound of the subsequent gunshot, including one of a bloody and shaken Col. Fitts with a gun missing from his collection. Despite his death, Lester, from his vantage point as narrator, is content:
"I guess I could be really pissed off about what happened to me... but it's hard to stay mad, when there's so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too much, my heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst... and then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it, and then it flows through me like rain. And I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life. You have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm sure. But don't worry... you will someday."

Back to the Future (1985)

 
 
The title logo appears on a black background. The scene opens in Dr. Emmett Brown's (Christopher Lloyd) garage/home laboratory as the camera pan over a large collection of clocks. A robotic tin can opener opens a tin of spoiled dog food and empties the contents into an overflowing dog food bowl marked "Einstein". The television set and radio turn on. On the TV, we see the ending of an advertisement, followed by a woman newscaster announcing the recent theft of a case of plutonium.

The front door of the garage opens, and Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) comes in. Marty calls out, then reaches down to partly lift up the doormat. He places a set of keys under the doormat, then drops it back down. Marty enters the garage, calling out for Doc and whistling for Einstein. He comments on the mess the place is in.

Marty puts down his skateboard and it rolls along the floor until it hits a hidden box of plutonium. He turns on Doc's amplifier system, turning all the settings to maximum. A hum grows louder in the background. Marty plugs his electric guitar into a huge amplifier, pauses, and then plucks a string. The amplifier blows up, the impact throwing Marty back against a bookshelf, which falls, causing the books and papers on it to fall off and land on his head. Marty lifts up his sunglasses and we finally get to see his face.

"Whoa... rock and roll," he says, when a loud ringing fills the garage. It sounds like a fire alarm, but then turns out to be just the telephone. Marty scrambles off the ground and answers it. It's Doc, who asks Marty to meet him that night at the Twin Pines Mall at 1:15 a.m. Marty asks him where he's been all week. Doc says that he has been working. Marty tells him that his equipment had been left on all week. Remembering, Doc tells Marty not to hook up to the amplifier. "There's a slight possibility of overload," he says. Marty glances at the destroyed amplifier, and says that he'll keep that in mind.

Just then, every single one of the numerous clocks go off at once, chiming loudly, and Doc asks about them. Marty tells him that it's eight o'clock. Doc is elated at the information, as it means that his experiment has worked and all his clocks are 25 minutes slow....meaning it really is 8:25, and Marty is late for school. He exclaims this news into the telephone, slams down the receiver, retrieves his skateboard and rushes out of the garage. Marty gets on his skateboard and skates through the streets, hitching a ride first on a pickup truck and then on another Jeep to get through town.

Marty arrives outside Hill Valley High School. He hops off his skateboard and flips it up into his hand. His girlfriend Jennifer Parker (Claudia Wells) is waiting for him. She warns him that the principal, Mr. Strickland (James Tolkan) is looking for him. Marty tells her that his lateness is not his fault, because Doc set his clocks slow. Strickland suddenly appears at the sound of Doc's name. He demands to know if Marty is still hanging around with Doc, and hands him and Jennifer a tardy slip each; it is Marty's fourth in a row. Strickland warns Marty that Doc is a dangerous nutcase, and if he continues hanging out with him, he'll get in trouble. Strickland also harshly tells Marty that he is a slacker, just like his father. "No McFly ever amounted to anything in the history of Hill Valley!" he says, bringing his face closer to Marty's until their noses touch. Marty counters that history will be changing soon.

We change to the auditorium, where a band has just finished playing. Four judges sit on chairs before the stage and request the next band. Marty and his band get up on stage and he introduces them as The Pinheads before launching into the opening bars of The Power of Love. One of the judges (the song's artist, Huey Lewis, in a cameo appearance) cuts them off and tells them that they are too loud.

After school, Marty and Jennifer are walking through the Courthouse Square as a mayoral campaign van drives past, blaring "Re-elect Mayor Goldie Wilson!" over its loudspeakers. Marty tells Jennifer about how he doubts he'll ever get anywhere with his music. Jennifer tries to reassure him with her opinion that he's really good, and encourages him to send in his audition tape to the record company, but Marty expresses fear that they'll reject him. He looks up as a new 4x4 Toyota pickup truck is delivered to the Statler Toyota dealership across the street, and admires it, musing about taking Jennifer in it for a weekend trip to the lake. Jennifer asks if Marty's mother knows about their plans for the next night. Marty assures her that his mother thinks he's going camping with the guys, and that she would freak out if she knew the truth. Marty fears his mother was probably born a nun. Jennifer assures him that she's just trying to keep him respectable. Their lips come closer, but just as they are about to kiss, a tin can is shoved in their faces by a woman shouting "Save the clock tower! Save the clock tower!" The woman asks them to deposit money that will be contributed to a fund to save the clock tower, which has been frozen at 10:04 ever since it was struck by lightning at that exact time on the night of November 12, 1955. The mayor would like the clock to be replaced, the Hill Valley Preservation Society thinks that it is important part of their heritage and should be left alone. Marty gives her a quarter just to get her to go away. She thanks him and hands him a flyer, before going off to target more unsuspecting passersby.

Marty and Jennifer, now rid of the collection lady, are about to kiss when a car pulls up and beeps its horn loudly. It's Jennifer's father, coming to pick her up. Jennifer hastily scribbles her number on the back of the clock tower flyer with "Love You!!!" next to that. She gets into the car. Marty looks at the back of the flyer. He smiles.

Marty gets back on his skateboard and grabs a police car to tail behind. He makes his way back to his home neighborhood, Lyon Estates. Marty lets go of another car and skims down this opening towards his house.

As Marty rides up to his house, he passes a wrecked BMW sedan being pushed back into the driveway by a tow truck. Inside, Marty's father George McFly (Crispin Glover) is arguing with his supervisor Biff Tannen (Thomas F. Wilson). Biff is exasperated that George loaned him a car without warning him that it had a blind spot, leading him to have a head-on collision with another vehicle. George insists that he never knew the car had a blind spot. He sees Marty and gives him a weak greeting, as Biff demands to know who is going to pay for his cleaning bill, seeing as he spilled beer all over his coattails. Biff then asks George if he's finished filling out Biff's reports. When George admits he hasn't done them yet, an annoyed Biff taps him several times on the head, reminding George that he needs time to retype them because he'll be fired if he hands in his reports in George's handwriting. He expresses despair that all they've got in the fridge is "light" beer, and helps himself to a beer before leaving. After Biff leaves, George hesitantly admits to Marty that he isn't good at confrontations. Marty asks about the car, which he had been planning to drive up to the lake with Jennifer. George apologizes.

The whole of the McFly family later sits down to dinner - George, his wife Lorraine (Lea Thompson), and their children Marty, Dave (Marc McClure) and Linda (Wendie Jo Sperber). Lorraine drops a thin cake onto the table. It says 'Welcome Home, Joey', next to a picture of a bird flying out of jail. Uncle 'Jailbird' Joey has failed to make parole, again. Linda chides that he's an embarrassment to the family. Lorraine reminds her that everyone makes mistakes in life.

Having enough of the conversation, Dave leaves for his job as a Burger King cashier, while Linda tells Marty that Jennifer called asking for him. This upsets Lorraine, who lectures Marty that 'any girl who calls a boy is just asking for trouble.' When Linda tries to defend Marty, Lorraine grows upset, insisting that when she was Linda's age she never 'chased a boy, or called a boy, or sat in a parked car with a boy.' Linda asks how she's supposed to meet anyone if she is to go through life like Lorraine did. Lorraine explains that it will happen just like she met George. Linda rolls her eyes, as Lorraine once again relates the story of how they met: supposedly, George was up in a tree (just what he was doing, George has never explained), when he slipped, fell into the street and was hit by Lorraine's father's car. After taking him inside, and taking care of him, Lorraine felt sorry enough for George that she asked him to the Enchantment Under The Sea dance, which happened to be the same night the lightning bolt struck the clock tower. When they had their first kiss at the dance, she knew she was going to spend the rest of her life with him.

Sometime after midnight, Marty is awoken by a call from Doc, who asks Marty to stop by the lab and pick up his video camera that he forgot. Marty does so, and heads to the Twin Pines Mall. When he gets there, he finds Doc's van sitting in the parking lot, with his dog, Einstein, sitting nearby. When Marty goes down to greet Einstein, the rear of the van opens up, and a heavily modified DeLorean DMC-12 sedan is backed down the ramp. The driver's door lifts up, and Doc emerges from the vehicle, greeting Marty, then instructs Marty to start recording.

Doc places Einstein in the DeLorean and buckles him in, having Marty note the time on the watch around Einstein's collar, and in Doc's hand. Both are synchronized to the same time. Doc then closes the DeLorean's door, and pulls out a remote control, that he uses to maneuver the DeLorean around the parking lot. When the vehicle is a specific distance away, Doc puts its brakes on, and starts ramping up its speed, before turning off the brakes, sending the DeLorean streaking right towards him and Marty. Suddenly, a bright light is seen from inside the DeLorean, as additional fire and lights are set off around it, and suddenly, upon hitting 88 miles per hour on the speedometer, the car vanishes in a puff of light and electricity, leaving a pair of fire trails behind from the red-hot tires. Doc excitedly cheers, but Marty is in shock, as it seems that Doc has just disintegrated Einstein.

Doc excitedly exclaims that he actually sent Einstein into the future... one minute into the future, to be exact. He also remarks excitedly that he built the time machine out of a DeLorean because it has style and because the steel body panels were a good conductor for the flux energy that propels the car through time. As if on cue, exactly one minute later, the DeLorean materializes where it disappeared, still traveling at the same speed as it was before, and screeches to a stop, now iced over. As Doc opens the door, Einstein is revealed to be alive and well, with his watch now one minute behind Doc's. Doc explains that Einstein likely believes that the trip was instantaneous, unaware of any change in time at all. Doc shows Marty a device in the cabin called the "flux capacitor" which makes time travel possible. Doc explains that, after an accident in his bathroom in 1955 where he hit his head, he had a vision of the flux capacitor. Though it took 30 years of research and most of his family's fortune to develop it; the project is a success and Doc plans to travel through time. As he talks to Marty, Doc absently sets the vehicle's destination time to that date, November 5th, 1955.

When Marty asks what the DeLorean runs on instead of gasoline, Doc tells him it needs plutonium, explaining that a nuclear reaction is necessary to generate 1.21 gigawatts to power the flux capacitor. Marty is alarmed, asking where the Doc could possibly have gotten such a substance and Doc tells him that he hired a couple of Libyan terrorists to steal it for him with the promise of building them a bomb. Doc, however, cheated them, delivering a fake bomb.

Doc and Marty, clad in yellow radiation suits, load another pellet of plutonium into the DeLorean and Doc begins his farewell address to Marty and the camera.

Just then, a Volkswagen van races into the parking lot. A man pops out of the roof with an AK-47 and begins shooting . Doc yells for Marty to run; in the van are the Libyans that Doc cheated. Doc tries to hide as well but that is when the Libyans' van comes to a stop in front of him. Doc throws away his revolver, showing that he intends to surrender, only for the Libyan to shoot him full of holes. Marty screams and tries to hide but is found as well; when the Libyan tries to shoot him, his rifle jams. Marty jumps into the DeLorean and races off, the van close behind. As Marty swings back into the parking lot, he decides to see if the van can do 90 mph.

As he races towards a photo kiosk, Marty fails to see the speedometer creeping toward 88 mph or the fact that the time clock is set to November 5, 1955. Suddenly, there is a flash of light and the kiosk and parking lot are replaced with an empty grassy field, and the car plows through a scarecrow. Marty is startled, loses control of the DeLorean, and crashes into a barn full of cows. The noise wakes up Otis Peabody and his family, who live in the farmhouse next door, and they come outside to investigate the noise. When they open the barn doors, they are shocked at what they find: what appears to be an airplane without wings has crashed on their property. Peabody's son Sherman decides that the DeLorean is actually an alien spaceship, showing his family a comic book depicting an alien arrival. Just then, the driver's door lifts up and Marty climbs out, still clad in his radiation suit. Peabody and his family scream in terror, thinking Marty is an alien, and flee towards the house.

Marty attempts to apologize for the damage, when suddenly Peabody returns with a shotgun and begins shooting at him. Marty jumps back in the DeLorean and speeds out of the barn, Peabody continuing to shoot at him. As Marty flees down the dirt path leading to the road, he inadvertently plows through one of two small pine trees lying next to the path and protected by a picket fence. Peabody shoots at the car, in the process destroying his own mailbox, shouting, "You space bastard! You killed our pine!"

Marty reaches the two lane road and speeds off, muttering that the experience must be a nightmare, heading for home. When he gets to Lyon Estates, he finds the stone gates marking the entrance to the neighborhood, but to his surprise, instead of a street lined with houses, there is just an empty grassy field with several construction vehicles sitting idle and a large billboard advertising the future housing development that is breaking ground that winter.

Marty, still clad in his radiation suit, sees a car coming along the road and attempts to hitchhike, but the occupants are scared by Marty's suit and continue driving. Discovering that the DeLorean is out of gas, Marty removes his radiation suit and pushes the DeLorean back behind the billboard to hide it from passing motorists, then notices a sign reading "Hill Valley: 2 Miles."

Marty is next seen walking into the courthouse square of downtown Hill Valley. Hill Valley of 1955 is a lot different to Marty. The courthouse square is an actual garden instead of a parking lot. The Essex movie theater is showing "Cattle Queen of Montana" instead of a porno film. The town's record store advertises new records: 16 Tons by Merle Travis and The Ballad of Davy Crockett by George Brun. The Texaco station is a full service station where attendants not just fill up the tank but also wash the windows and check the customer's engine and tires. A mayoral campaign car drives around the square, blaring announcements to remind residents to "Reelect Mayor Red Thomas!" Most importantly, the clock tower is still functioning, as indicated when Marty is surprised to hear its half hour chime. Marty still believes that he is in a dream, but realizes this is reality when he picks up a newspaper tossed into a trash can and sees the date "November 5, 1955" on the top of the paper.

Marty steps into Lou's Diner (which is the outlet for an aerobic class in 1985), at this point only inhabited by Lou Caruthers, the owner, and another customer eating breakfast at the counter. Marty goes to the phone booth and looks up Doc's address in the phonebook, tearing the page out so he can look it up later. As Marty tries to ask for directions, Lou demands that Marty either order something or leave. Marty gets himself some decaf coffee after misunderstandings about Pepsi Free and Tab.

After Lou sets a coffee cup down in front of Marty, we now notice that the customer Marty is sitting next to is his future father. Just then, the doors fly open and in walks Biff and his friends Match, Skinhead and 3D, who have come to harass George. It turns out that Biff has been forcing George to do his homework, something George has been slacking off on. When George admits that he hasn't completed Biff's homework, figuring that it is not due until Monday, Biff gets annoyed, and raps George on the head, reminding George that he will get expelled if he hands in his homework in George's handwriting. George finally agrees to finish up Biff's work and hand it over the next day, and Biff and his friends leave.

After Biff and his friends leave, the diner's busboy, Goldie Wilson (Donald Fullilove), chides George for letting Biff harass him all day. George insists that Biff is bigger than him, while Goldie points out that he doesn't expect to spend the rest of his own life working as a busboy, and he plans on becoming someone famous one day. Marty immediately recognizes Goldie and before realizing it, blurts out to Goldie that he's going to be mayor in 1985. This plants the idea in Goldie's mind and he begins to think about how as mayor of Hill Valley, and how he will clean up the town (to which Lou responds by giving him a broom and telling him to start sweeping the floor).

After George leaves the diner, Marty's curiosity is piqued and he follows him into another neighborhood. He momentarily loses track of him until he finds George's bike parked beneath a tree. He looks up and notices George on a tree branch, using a pair of binoculars to spy on a girl getting undressed in her bedroom across the street -- Marty is shocked to find that George is a Peeping Tom. As he strains to get a better look, George suddenly slips and falls out of the tree, landing in the street in front of an oncoming Cadillac. Marty instinctively rushes out and pushes George out of harm's way. The car slams on its brakes, but it hits Marty, who hits his head on the pavement and is knocked unconscious. George gets on his bike and rides away as Sam Baines, the driver, yells to his wife that another kid has jumped in front of his car.

When Marty comes around, it's night time and it is raining outside, and he is lying in an unfamiliar bed. His mother's voice tells him that he's been out for nine hours. Marty, still semi-conscious, quips about having a dream that he went back in time. Lorraine's voice reassures him that he's safe and sound in 1955. This prompts Marty to bolt upright just as a lamp is turned on, and he is dumbstruck to see Lorraine, in 1955 a very attractive teenage girl. Lorraine begins to hit on Marty almost immediately, thinking his name is "Calvin Klein" (due to that being the brand of underwear Marty is wearing). Marty instinctively panics when Lorraine tries to make advances on him and looks like she is trying to kiss him. Fortunately for Marty, this is interrupted when Lorraine's mother Stella calls her down for dinner.

At dinner, Marty meets the rest of Lorraine's siblings, including her brothers Milton and Toby, her sister Sally, and in the crib nearby, little baby Joey. Stella admits that Joey loves his crib, and cries every time they try to take him out. Marty recognizes Joey as the future prison inmate, and can't resist the urge to joke to the baby to "Better get used to these bars, kid..." The family eats while watching an episode "The Honeymooners" on the new television set that Sam has just brought home. Marty immediately recognizes the episode they are watching as one he has watched in 1985, which he explains by saying that he saw it in a rerun, a word that puzzles Lorraine's younger brother. Marty asks how to find Doc's address, which Lorraine's father says is over on the east end of town. Marty knows that area as "John F. Kennedy Drive", a name that Lorraine's father doesn't know. As Marty leaves the house, Sam says that Marty's an "idiot" & warns Lorraine that if she ever has a kid like Marty, he will disown her.

Marty makes his way over to Doc's house (which will be destroyed in a fire sometime in the next 30 years, which is why Doc lives out of his garage in 1985). When Doc, who does not recognize Marty, answers the door, we see that he has a bandage on his forehead from where he hit his head trying to hang a clock above his toilet. Without saying a word, he immediately hooks Marty up to his newest invention - a thought reader. Doc determines that Marty comes from a great distance, and wants him to make a donation to the Coast Guard Youth Auxiliary.

Frustrated, Marty tells Doc directly that his time machine works and he is from the future. Doc is skeptical, even when Marty shows him his future driver's license and a family photo. Doc comments that the photo must have been forged as Dave's hair is missing from the picture. However, Marty is able to convince Doc of the truth by mentioning the wound on his head that prompted the vision of the flux capacitor. To prove that Doc has invented it, Marty has Doc drive him out to the place where he's hidden the DeLorean. Doc is overly delighted when he compares the drawing he made of a flux capacitor and sees the real device installed on the DeLorean.

After returning to Doc's estate, they manage to plug in Marty's "portable television studio" to see the video Marty had filmed in 1985. Doc becomes quite excited and panicky when they reach the point on tape where he will say that time travel requires 1.21 gigawatts of energy from the plutonium to power the flux capacitor. Doc explains that plutonium is very hard to come by in 1955 and that the only energy source capable of that amount of power is a lightning bolt. Predicting the strike zone of a lightning bolt is impossible and Doc tells Marty he may be stuck forever in 1955. But then Marty remembers the flyer the woman gave him about the lightning bolt that is going to strike the clock tower at exactly 10:04 PM next Saturday night and hands it to Doc.

Now that he knows a date, Doc begins working on a plan to harness the power of the bolt and send Marty home. When Marty says he can hang out in 1955 for a week, Doc objects, warning him that it could be detrimental to future history and jeopardize his entire existence. He asks Marty if he had any interaction with anyone in the last few hours and Marty drops the bomb about preventing the first meeting between his father and mother. Doc asks to see the photo of Marty and his siblings again; Dave's head is now completely gone. This means that in order to go back to 1985, Marty first needs to make his parents fall in love and have their first kiss within a week.

Doc takes Marty to the high school the next morning. Marty is amazed to find that there is no graffiti on the building, unlike in 1985. After peeping through a classroom window and watching Lorraine cheating on a test, they spot George in the hallway during a passing period, seeing him being picked on (in part because of the large "KICK ME" note taped to his back). George is further demoralized when Strickland (who in 1955 is down to his last dregs of hair) appears and tells him he's a slacker. Doc is baffled that Lorraine could fall in love with someone like George, and Marty admits that his best guess is she originally felt sorry for him after her dad nearly killed him. Doc recognizes their relationship as a version of the Florence Nightingale effect, which happens when nurses develop romantic feelings for their patients.

Marty tries encouraging George to talk to Lorraine, however, an attempt to simply introduce them to each other fails because Lorraine is already smitten with Marty. Doc finds that the situation is more serious than they'd thought; George lacks the self-confidence to ask Lorraine out, as he fears that he couldn't handle a rejection if she said "no", and getting them together permanently could be impossible. Over lunch, Marty tries again to convince George by saying Lorraine has been talking about him and that he should ask her to the Enchantment Under the Sea dance. George spends his lunch by himself writing science fiction short stories. Marty asks to read one of them and George refuses, saying he's afraid people would be critical. He also suggests that Lorraine may want to go with someone else to the dance, namely Biff, who we see is across the cafeteria, sitting with Lorraine and trying to grope her. Marty immediately marches over to them and pulls the much larger Biff off his mother. Biff begins pushing Marty, however, Marty, unlike his meek father, begins pushing back and is about to fight Biff when Strickland breaks it up.

Marty follows George home and begins pleading with George to ask Lorraine out. George continues to refuse and tells Marty that no one in the world will make him change his mind. That night, Marty sneaks into George's room in his radiation suit, places his Walkman headphones on George and gives him a blast of ear-splitting Eddie Van Halen guitar riffing. Marty claims he is Darth Vader, an extraterrestrial from the planet Vulcan, and intimidates George into asking Lorraine out, threatening him with a "brain melting gun" (actually a hairdryer). To keep George from calling for his parents, Marty chloroforms him, before jumping out the window and into Doc's car.

The next day, George rushes up to Marty at the Texaco station, disheveled and frantic, having overslept, while Marty is trying to open a Pepsi -- George pops it open with the bottle hook on the machine. George knows he needs to ask Lorraine out but he doesn't know what he should say. Marty takes George back to Lou's diner, where Lorraine is hanging out with her friends. Marty suggests to George that he tell Lorraine, "Destiny has brought me to you." George orders a chocolate milkshake to calm his nerves before approaching Lorraine. It gets off to a shaky start when, in a fit of nervousness, George accidentally mangles the lines Marty gave him. Though Lorraine seems charmed by him, George's attempt comes to a grinding halt when Biff and his friends come in to toss him out. As Biff demands money from George, Marty, sitting at the counter, "accidentally" trips Biff. Biff turns his anger on Marty, and is about to punch him when Marty tricks him into looking away, giving Marty the opportunity to shove Biff and bolt out the door.

Once outside, Marty grabs a passing girl's scooter, tears off the crate and turns the bottom into a skateboard. Biff and his goons chase Marty in Biff's car around the town square. Marty is able to avoid serious injury. While riding on the hood of Biff's car, he distracts them by suddenly jumping up, jumping over the hood, the windshield and the backseat, and then hopping off onto the waiting skateboard at the rear. Biff and his friends are confused, and then see they are barreling towards a manure truck parked on the curb. They can only shout "SHIIIIT!!!!!" as the car slams into the back of the truck, which dumps its entire load of manure on them. Watching the chase from the diner, Lorraine becomes even more attracted to the adventurous Marty.

Back at Doc's shop, the inventor shows Marty how he'll use the lighting bolt to power the DeLorean. He'll string heavy cable down to the street, building a circuit. A long hook attached to the back of the car will channel the energy from the bolt directly into the flux capacitor. The timing will have to be precise. The demonstration goes well, though it sets a garbage pail on fire. As Doc uses a fire extinguisher to put out the flames, they are interrupted by a knock at the door. To Doc's shock, it's Lorraine, who has followed Marty. Doc and Marty quickly cover the DeLorean with a tarp before letting Lorraine in. Lorraine asks Marty if he wants to be her date to the Enchantment Under The Sea Dance. Marty attempts to back out, suggesting she go with George, but Lorraine balks at the idea, saying a real man stands up for the woman he loves, referring to the fight Marty just had with Biff.

Marty suddenly sees a way to get George to win Lorraine's heart. Marty approaches George while George is doing his parents' laundry, and tells him to find him with Lorraine in Doc's car in the school parking lot at a certain time, where Marty plans to appear to "take advantage" of her, which he believes will make her angry. George is to pull Marty out of the car and pretend to beat him up, proving that he's the bigger man.

The night of the dance arrives. George is already there, in a tux, waiting for his cue, as the all-black band known as the Starlighters performs on the stage. At Lou's Diner, Marty writes Doc a letter on a piece of stationary warning. He slips the note into the pocket of Doc's coat while Doc is in the middle of using $50 to bribe a cop who asks him if he has a permit for his "weather experiment".

Marty arrives at the dance in Doc's car with Lorraine. As they stop, he asks her if they can "park" for a while. To Marty's astonishment, Lorraine produces a small bottle of whiskey and begins to smoke, two bad habits she has in 1985. Marty warns her she may regret it later and Lorraine dismisses it, exasperated that Marty sounds like her mother. She also is aggressive in coming on to Marty in the car, much more than Marty had anticipated, though when she kisses Marty rather hard on the lips, she admits afterwards that she feels like she's kissing her brother.

Just then, the door is opened and Marty is pulled roughly from the driver's seat. But to Marty's shock, it's Biff, drunk, and seeking revenge for the $300 in damages Marty inflicted on his car in the manure truck accident. When Biff sees Lorraine in the car, however, he throws Marty to Match, Skinhead and 3D, climbs into the car, and begins to molest her. Match, Skinhead and 3D take Marty out behind the school and toss him into the open trunk of the first car they see, then slam the lid shut. Unfortunately for them, the car belongs to Marvin Berry and the Starlighters. They scare Biff's gang off and they realize that the keys are in the trunk with Marty.

George arrives at Doc's car, opens the door as planned, and delivers the lines Marty told him, but is taken off-guard realizing that he is not only dealing with Biff, but his "rescue" is now the real deal. He takes a half-hearted punch at Biff, who grabs his arm and begins to twist it. When Biff roughly pushes a pleading Lorraine off and begins laughing, George summons up the strength and courage, curls his left hand into a fist, and punches Biff squarely in the jaw, knocking him out. Marty, freed from the trunk thanks to Marvin Berry himself, races to the scene just in time to see Biff slump to the ground at George's feet. George takes the grateful Lorraine's hand and the two go into the dance hall.

Marty, knowing that his future isn't sealed until George kisses Lorraine, goes back to the band and finds that Marvin is unable to play guitar having injured his hand while freeing Marty from the trunk. Marty agrees to play guitar in Marvin's place and the band strikes up again, playing a romantic song ("Earth Angel"). Marty, already weak because his parents' love is not confirmed, begins to fade into non-existence when a fellow student cuts in between George and Lorraine on the dance floor, however, George regains his courage, takes Lorraine back and kisses her passionately. Marty is instantly revived and finishes the song and sees his mother and father happily in each others arms.

Berry asks Marty to play another number with the band. Reluctant at first, Marty can't resist the opportunity and launches the band into "Johnny B. Goode". While Marty plays, Marvin Berry calls his cousin Chuck (the soon-to-be-famous rock n' roll star), telling him that he found the "new sound" Chuck was looking for. Marty does Chuck Berry's trademark duck walk, and then gets carried away imitating other guitar heroes - windmilling his arm and kicking over his amplifier in imitation of Pete Townshend, lying on the stage kicking his legs in imitation of Angus Young, playing behind his head like Jimi Hendrix, and tapping in the style of Eddie Van Halen. In the face of uncomprehending stares from the audience, while lost in heavy metal riffing, Marty stops and tells the students "I guess you're not ready for *that*. But your kids are gonna LOVE it." Marty turns to leave the dance and runs into George and Lorraine. Lorraine asks if it's OK for George to take her home and Marty heartily agrees. He also advises them that if they have a son who accidentally sets fire to the living room rug when he's eight years old, to go easy on him, implying that he's talking about himself

At the town square, Doc waits impatiently for Marty. Marty arrives, saying he needed time to change back into his 1985 clothes. As they prepare for the event, Doc discovers the note from Marty in his pocket. Refusing to know too much about his future, he tears up the note without reading it. Just then, a falling tree limb disconnects the cable he has installed from the clock tower to the street. Doc climbs again to the clock tower and has Marty feed him the cable. Marty also tries to warn Doc about his death but is drowned out by thunder. Marty runs back to the DeLorean and races off to the starting point Doc has painted for him. While waiting for the timer to go off, he resets his destination time to arrive 11 minutes earlier than he left so he can warn Doc. Just then, the car stalls and Marty frantically tries to start it again. When it does restart, after the timer goes off, Marty begins speeding toward the town square. Despite some difficulty, Doc reconnects the cable just as the lighting bolt surges through the line and the DeLorean speeds off into the future, leaving behind a pair of fire trails. Doc celebrates joyously in the street.

Back in 1985, around 1:19 AM, a homeless bum is seen sleeping on a bench in the town square when he is woken up by three sonic booms, just as the DeLorean materializes and slams into the porno theatre just down the block. The bum, Red, quips "Crazy drunk drivers." Marty backs the DeLorean out and turns around, only for the car to promptly ice up from the time travel trip. Just then, the Libyans' blue VW minibus passes by, driving recklessly. Marty jumps back into the DeLorean only to have it stall on him.

Marty is forced to run to the mall where the initial experiment is taking place. As he arrives, we see that the sign now reads "Lone Pine Mall," another indication of how Marty has accidentally altered the past when he crushed Peabody's pine tree. He sees Doc get shot, again and watches from a distance as the Libyans chase his previous self around the parking lot. When the DeLorean vanishes and Marty's counterpart goes back to 1955, the Libyans lose control of their van, which and crashes into the photo kiosk & tips on its side, trapping the Libyans. Marty runs down to Doc. Marty is devastated that he couldn't arrive in time to save Doc. Doc, however, suddenly sits up. Marty is stunned until Doc opens his shirt, revealing that he's wearing a bulletproof vest. Marty asks him about the consequences of changing the future and the space-time continuum and the Doc admit, "Well, I thought, 'What the hell!'". Doc drives Marty home and tells him he plans to venture about 30 years into the future. He then ramps the DeLorean up to 88 mph and drives off into the night in a flash of light.

Marty wakes up the next morning to find that the furniture in his house is arranged differently. Dave is wearing a suit and working an office job. Linda seems to be having trouble keeping track of all the teenage boys who keep calling her for dates, much to Dave's exasperation. George and Lorraine arrive home from a tennis match, happy and even a bit frisky. Lorraine asks Marty about the camping trip he has planned with Jennifer, to which Marty mentions that the car is wrecked. Everyone starts barking about it until George shows them that Biff is waxing the car, a late model BMW, in the driveway. Biff now runs an auto detailing service and now is working for George, rather than the other way around. George seems amused at Biff's efforts to get away with as little work as possible (but now confronts Biff to complete the work he was hired for; two coats of wax instead of only one). Biff jokingly says that he'll complete the work properly.

Moments later, Biff comes into the house carrying a box filled with copies of George's first published book, the cover of which resembles Marty's appearance in the radiation suit. Marty is unsure how to take everything in when Biff hands him a set of keys. They are for the Toyota pickup truck he'd been thinking about purchasing with Jennifer back at the beginning of the movie. As Marty goes into the garage and looks at the truck, quite astonished that the future had been altered so dramatically for himself and his family, Jennifer appears behind Marty. He's relieved to see her and happy that his family is happier as well.

Suddenly there is a burst of electricity and the DeLorean screeches to a halt. Doc gets out, dressed in wild clothing and tells Marty he needs to come with him to the future; something is wrong with his and Jennifer's kids. Doc gathers "fuel" by rummaging through a garbage can and loads it into a new addition to the car's engine called Mr. Fusion. All three pile into the DeLorean and it backs out of the driveway. Marty tells the Doc he needs to back up further to get up to 88 mph, as they have no road. Doc replies, "Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads!" Doc has converted the car to a hovercraft. The car takes off, and flies at the camera... and the words "To be continued..." flash on the screen.