Marty goes to Oak Park Cemetery with a flashlight to search for his father's grave.
- "Marty! George... your father is in the same place he's been for the past 12 years. Oak Park Cemetery."
- —Lorraine Tannen
- " Marty ran. / He raced across the cemetery in the bright moonlight, darting wildly from row to row of gravestones, barely avoiding dead trees and marble monuments in his panicked scramble to know the truth. He scanned the names etched in marble as he ran, half of him searching for the gravestone with his father's name, the other half still somehow hoping, wishing, praying that his mother had lied, that there would be no gravestone, that his father was still alive. / He stopped, and took a step backward. / There it was. A simple, granite marker, smaller than most of the others around it, with three lines etched in the stone: / IN LOVING MEMORY / GEORGE DOUGLAS McFLY / April 1, 1938 - March 15, 1973 / "1973!" Marty shouted to the sky. "Please, God, no! This can't be happening!" "
- —From Back to the Future Part II novelization by Craig Shaw Gardner (quote, page 121)
Oak Park Cemetery was a burial ground in Hill Valley.
History[]
In 1985A, the cemetery was located near industries owned by BiffCo. In this timeline, it was the burial place of George McFly, who had been secretly murdered by Biff Tannen in 1973A.
Marty McFly and Dr. Emmett Brown both knew the location of the cemetery, suggesting that it also existed in the regular timeline of 1985.
Behind the scenes[]
- It is possible that Oak Park was a location that lent its name to the cemetery, though this is never confirmed on-screen.
- The Oak Park Cemetery scene was filmed at Wilmington, California, where several oil refineries are located. A small park on company property was dressed with prop tombstones in order to create the cemetery, and one of the refineries can be seen in the background.
- Instead of the Boot Hill Cemetery, the Paradox script would establish the Delgado Mine to be near the Oak Park Cemetery.