Given that Back To The Future has been so widely covered by journalists in the 30 years since its release, perhaps it’s not surprising that hardly any ‘making of’ books have popped up over the years. But after reading We Don’t Need Roads our main question is, why didn’t this book come out sooner? 

It’s very well written with a pace that zooms right along like some sort of vehicle, possibly one connected to the franchise that goes at 80-odd miles per hour. True, it reads like an extended feature article but this is no bad thing. Before you know it, you’re 200 pages in and engrossed in one of the Crispin Glover horror stories.
Part of this clearly comes from a place of love; the introduction states that Gaines saw it in his formative years and it had a huge impact on him. As such, we expected a fawning and shallow approach. But on the contrary, this doesn’t protect the films from criticism as one of the key strengths of this book is acknowledging the things that went wrong during the production of the trilogy. More importantly, he puts effort into understanding why these decisions or events came to pass in the way that they did. For example, there is a lengthy description of the trouble endured by one of the stuntwomen on the set of BTTF II when a stunt goes wrong. He examines what everyone involved was thinking and how the incident could have been averted. The way he tells the story is intelligent and makes for a thrilling narrative.
We’ll put our cards on the table now, this is the Back to the Future book we’ve always wanted to read (other than George Gipe’s famously batshit insane novelisation of the first film). It is very well researched and filled with tons of new stories about the trilogy. It is that rarest of things, an in-depth book that feels like a light read. We only wish it could have gone on for longer.

WE DON’T NEED ROADS: THE MAKING OF THE BACK TO THE FUTURE TRILOGY / AUTHOR: CASEEN GAINES / PUBLISHER: PLUME / RELEASE DATE: JULY 9TH