Why Back To The Future Was Banned In China

While moviegoers around the world are usually able to enjoy the blockbuster films produced by Hollywood, it's not unprecedented for one of those films to be met with a proverbial stop sign. Films are banned from foreign cinemas and sales on occasion, usually due to differences in social, political, or governmental standards, as well as elements deemed offensive in other countries. Even high-profile films can receive this treatment, including "E.T." being banned in Scandinavia, or non-American films like "Akira" being banned in Russia. While most of these bans are somewhat understandable, there are some unusual exceptions. For example, you probably didn't know that "Back to the Future" was banned in China for being "frivolous" and "disrespectful" of history.

"Back to the Future" is, of course, the classic 1985 film about Emmett "Doc" Brown (Christopher Lloyd) creating a time machine from a DeLorean, which could've been an even more ridiculous vehicle, and Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) accidentally traveling back to 1955 where he encounters his parents in their youth, inadvertently changing history in the process. This changing history part is why the Chinese government decided to ban films depicting time travel, on the grounds that one's history should be considered sacrosanct and unalterable.

In 2011, the Chinese government ruled that science-fiction films specifically depicting the act of traveling through time and experiencing, examining, and altering past events would be banned from shows and sales in the country indefinitely. The cited reason for this ban was that, while time travel obviously isn't real, hypothesizing about its use and, by extension, the critical examination of the past is "disrespectful of history." More specifically, according to The Hollywood Reporter, China's State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) stated: "Producers and writers are treating serious history in a frivolous way, which should by no means be encouraged anymore." 

In short, the concern was that these kinds of films would encourage people to observe real-life past events in a critical fashion and speculate on what the world would be like if the course of history were different. Coincidentally, this ruling was made during the 90th anniversary of China's ruling political party. Since the ban in 2011, the China's SARFT has not commented on the matter of time-travel, so in all likelihood, this genre of films is still prohibited. In addition to the "Back to the Future" trilogy, this ban presumably applies to other time-traveling, history-altering movies such as "The Terminator," "Source Code," "Frequency," and, yes, even "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure."