Christopher Lloyd couldn't have foreseen this 'Future'

Patrick Ryan | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption 'Back to the Future' with Christopher Lloyd Thirty years after 'Back to the Future' captivated audiences, Christopher Lloyd spoke to USA TODAY about the movie’s success, the Chicago Cubs, the DeLorean and the future.

NEW YORK — This month, the Chicago Cubs are one of four teams going to bat in the MLB playoffs. If they win the World Series, it'd fulfill a prophecy made by Back to the Future, Part II in 1989, when Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) time-traveled to Oct. 21, 2015, and discovered that the Cubs had won their first since 1908.

It's an eerie coincidence that isn't lost on Christopher Lloyd, who played kooky scientist "Doc" Emmett Brown in the beloved sci-fi comedy trilogy, which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year.

"It's wonderful. It'd be a real kick if they could pull it off and win the series," says Lloyd, 76, still wide-eyed and wild-haired like his iconic character, but far more soft-spoken.

The date wasn't chosen arbitrarily. "In 1989, there was only one set of baseball playoffs instead of two, so Oct. 21 would have been a likely date for the World Series to end if the Cubs had swept the team from Miami," screenwriter Bob Gale says.

The sequel's other projections are further outfield. In the hypothetical 2015 that Marty and Doc visit, sneakers tie themselves, moviegoers devour Jaws 19 and fax machines aren't yet the relics they are now. In one scene, a bully's "hoverboard rampage" is the top headline on an ultramodern copy of USA TODAY, which uses a drone to snap the front-page photo. Of all the movie's seemingly unattainable gadgets, "hoverboards seem to be on the edge of actually becoming a reality," Lloyd says. "Flying cars? I don't know, that's complicated."

Fans certainly shouldn't cross their fingers for a dimension-bending coupe like Doc's DeLorean, which was introduced in Robert Zemeckis' first Back to the Future on July 3, 1985. Making a star of Fox and becoming the highest-grossing film of that year ($210.6 million to date), the rip-roaring adventure spawned two sequels in 1989 and 1990, and has remained a pop-culture touchstone ever since. Theaters nationwide are hosting anniversary screenings Wednesday, and the trilogy gets its DVD/Blu-ray box-set release this week.

Three decades later, Future has endured because it's "entertaining, funny and crazy," but also because of its relatable themes and emotional resonance, says Lea Thompson, who played Marty's mother, Lorraine.

"I really do believe the central construct is that one moment of courage can change your entire life," Thompson says. "The idea of doing the right thing, to protect someone you love. To kiss someone and know that they are not right for you. To put an end to bullying. Whatever it is that happens in that moment in the movie, it’s a powerful concept and lesson to teach your children."

'Back to the Future' 30 years later: Christopher Lloyd Thirty years after the "Back to the Future" series was released USA TODAY takes a look at where Christopher Lloyd is now.

As for the possibility of a fourth Future, Lloyd says he would consider it — but only if the original cast and creative team returned, and if there was a story worth telling. "There's always the danger of sequels not living up to the original, so it'd have to be something momentous and current: dealing with ISIS or climate change or something radical and have a real urgency to it," Lloyd ponders. "I don't know what that would be."

Sequel or not, that hasn't stopped Lloyd from putting on the lab coat again through the years, voicing Doc in the Future animated series in the early '90s, making character cameos in Adult Swim's Robot Chicken and last year's A Million Ways to Die in the West, and even calling up famous lines when he meets fans on the street.

"People always want to hear 'Great Scott!' and 'Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads,' " Lloyd smiles. "I'm happy to do it, if I'm not in a rush."

Contributing: Bryan Alexander