What did he think of Back to the Future?

Hi franscutchy,
I saw this conversation on this page and thought I should copy our conversation over here because it seems pertinent. By the end of the conversation I think you can see why it was a good idea for Crispin to not appear in the BTTF 2 mainly noticing how the producers treated Jeffrey Weissman who was hired to impersonate Crispin in BTTF 2. By the way the producers treated Weissman and the negativity they continue to harbor one can read between the lines and see why Crispin did not appear in BTTF 2. What follows is your and my conversation from another thread on another board"

franscutchy wrote:

Wow! Thanks for all that insight. I always appreciate it when I come across people like you here on these boards who actually have information about a subject and can fill me in :) Thanks.

Things do make a little more sense now. But I still don't understand why they were so rude to poor Jeffrey Weissman. I've read an interview with him on his website where he says all the drama over the sequels led to him having a nervous breakdown and it destroyed his marriage, the poor guy. However, I've met Jeffrey Weissman a couple times (I'm also subscribed to his YouTube channel) and he's a great guy, very down to earth.

What I will add to all this is one thing -- this subject does create a big, thick cloud of negativity. Yes, people were unjustly wronged, something illegal happened, lies were said. In spite of all this, I don't hold any animosity against Bob Gale. In fact, there's one area where all fans of Back to the Future can be VERY grateful to him -- he and Zemeckis specified in their contracts that Universal cannot tweak the trilogy or make any sequels/prequels without Gale and Zemeckis's permissions. So, yeah - Back to the Future, happily, will never suffer the fate Star Wars suffered. :)

I've met Bob Gale a couple times, he didn't seem unpleasant to me. Maybe I'm looking at the whole thing through rose colored glasses, but I'm just grateful to him for writing/producing these movies and not allowing them to be George Lucas'd.

http://franscutchy.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d32vv6x

Speaking of fan reunions, I helped organize the event that you see in that picture (all proceeds went to Team Fox); among other things I tried as hard as I could to invite Cripin Glover to it. I sent numerous emails to his company and finally wrote him a letter (also to his production company), explaining that what Bob Gale did was wrong but the past is the past and nobody holds anything against Crispin, he is more than welcome to attend, etc.... no dice. But Crispin's main passion clearly is his film "What Is It?", which he tours with - it doesn't appear that his career has suffered, he does precisely what he wants to do. I also wonder if Crispin and Michael still keep in touch?

We don't see Tom Wilson at any Back to the Future events these days because he wants nothing to do with it :( *COUGH* typecast *COUGH*

What I personally think would be the best - and most, heaven forbid, mature - thing for everyone to do would be for Spielberg (who has actually been my biggest influence, as I now write screenplays), Bob Gale and Crispin to all sit down, talk everything out and right the wrongs. Granted, that will never happen, but that would be great.

Thanks again for the info :)

....

I replied:
Hi franscutchy
The main reason people were so rude to Jeffrey Weissman is because he was hired to fool audiences in to believing that he was Crispin. The producers did not like Crispin. This is clearly shown by the way they treated Jeffrey Weissman on the set of BTTF2 and by committing copyright infringement rather than paying Crispin the original actor fairly. The negativity comes from the people behind their cute public persona masks. That very specifically goes for Bob Gale who orchestrated this act of copyright infringement. The fact the Spielberg was involved in the petty actions of torturing Jeffrey Weissman while hanging upside-down in the so called future back alignment machine is all pretty telling of the behind the scenes cruelty that Crispin rightly sidestepped by not being in the sequels. Here is what Bob Gale's Wikipedia page currently states about this:

Wikipedia
>
Film
As screenwriters, Gale and Zemeckis have collaborated on films including 1941, I Wanna Hold Your Hand, Used Cars, and Trespass, the last set in East St. Louis, Illinois near Gale's home town.
In 1985, both Gale and Zemeckis were nominated for an Academy Award in honor of their screenplay for Back to the Future. In 2002, Gale debuted as a feature-film director with Interstate 60. He had previously directed and wrote the 45-minute theatrical release Mr. Payback: An Interactive Movie.
Bob Gale was the prime architect for the copyright infringement concepts involving Crispin Glover's face and likeness in Back to the Future II. The producers hired the actor Jeffrey Weissman and applied prosthetics to his face that were modeled from casts of Crispin Glover head from the original film. The producers then interspliced footage of Crispin Glover from the original film with the performance by Jeffrey Weissman pretending to be Crispin Glover in order to fool audiences in to believing the character was played by Glover. After Steven Spielberg was found complicit in the copyright infringement lawsuit Bob Gale's screenplays were purchased by Spielberg. Bob Gale's screenplays were never produced by Spileberg and after that Gale worked infrequently in entertainment industry.
Bob also wrote the novelization for his movie 1941 and helped develop the arcade game Tattoo Assassins.<

It seems apparent from this description as to why Bob Gale seems to feel the necessity to make the sort of things up that he has about Crispin. Please remember Bob Gale is the person who is the architect for the copyright infringement and therefor motivated to make things up to make Bob Gale's illegal ideas/actions seem OK.