Back to School 5—The Fantastic

In working to create back to school films that break new ground, let’s take a look at a category I call The Fantastic. Generally, films that fall into this category are time travel films or films that put the characters in a new time or place as their ‘at school’ stories unfold.

The three films we’re going to look at all have one thing in common—they take their main character to school in a different time or place. Back to the Future [1985], by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale, takes its main character back to school when his parents were alive; Peggy Sue Got Married [1986], by Jerry Leichtling and Arlene Sarner, takes the adult Peggy back to her school when she was a teenager—but she goes back in time with all the knowledge she has as an adult…though everyone sees her as the young girl she was back then; and Harry Potter & the Sorcerer’s Stone [2001], by Steve Kloves, takes Harry to a magical school that turns his life—and who he thinks he is—upside down.

Back to the Future shows us very little of our main character’s school in the present day, but shows a great deal about his parent’s school experience when he goes back in time and finds them. This film really resonated with audiences when it came out and spawned two sequels. It plays into everyone’s musings about what their parents would have been like in high school—and it’s great fun.

Peggy Sue Got Married has us imagine what it would be like to go back to high school with the knowledge we have as adults. And it asks us the question—could we right a wrong we think we’re stuck with in the present day by doing something different in high school? Can we change our own future?

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is, of course, an adaptation of J. K. Rowling’s novel, and it’s quite a faithful adaptation. In it, Harry discovers he’s more than he always thought he was when he’s sent to a magical school for wizards. The cool thing about Harry’s new school is that it’s so unlike most of the schools we’ve all grown up attending. Sure, the relationships are the same between students, but the subjects and goals of the students are quite different. But going to this school, we, like Harry, get to enter a new world.

Whether you take your characters into a fantastical new school, or perhaps to one back in time—or maybe forward in time?—it’s really fun to play with the fantastical. It’s a genre that lets you create all your wildest dreams, and what could be more fun than that?

Next week: Dramas

Copyright © Diane Lake

07Oct18

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