Crispin Glover Had A Brutally Honest Take On His Back To The Future Sequel Exclusion

The "Back to the Future" trilogy is chock-full of iconic characters. From the too-cool-for-school Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) to the wiry yet lovable Dr. Emmett Brown (Christopher Lloyd) to the big, bad bully Biff Tannen (Tom Wilson), there's no shortage of memorable faces that inhabit this beloved franchise. One of the more entertaining characters from the first film is Marty's father, George McFly, played to perfection by Crispin Glover.

In 1985, his father is nothing more than a nerdy wimp, working under and getting bullied by the tyrannical Biff. When Marty is whisked back in time to 1955, he runs across his father during his high school days, where he learns that George has always been picked on by Biff. But after accidentally preventing his parents' initial meeting, Marty must convince George to ask Lorraine (Lea Thompson) out to the school dance before he is erased from existence. In the end, George builds up the courage to punch out Biff and winds up with Lorraine. Not only does it save Marty, but it also gives their family a better, wealthier future, where George is a successful author and Biff now works for him.

Starting off as endearingly geeky and meek and ending as confident and successful, Glover's arc is the film's strongest, and he plays each part perfectly — so perfectly, in fact, that fans will certainly notice his missing presence in the next two entries. But just why did Glover exit after such a fun performance in the first film? While it's easy to assume he might have wanted more money, the actual reason reveals some dark truths behind the beloved '80s classic.

In an interview with SiriusXM, Crispin Glover discussed why he did not appear in either sequel. He said, "I was asking questions that the producers [and] director didn't like. ... There are things in [the ending] that could, particularly in this day, be thought of as offensive. ... It had to do with money and what the characters were doing with money." While Glover didn't go into too much detail, when asked about Biff's involvement at the end of the movie, he responded, "That's part of what the change was from what I originally read in the screenplay. ... It wasn't Biff [who] was the servant to the family." What Glover mentioned paints an uncomfortable picture of some painfully outdated ideas that the film thankfully dropped.

Even then, Glover still had issues with the final ending. "I thought it was not a good idea for our characters to have a monetary reward because it basically makes the moral of the film be that money equals happiness," he said. "What I was arguing for was that the characters should be in love and that the love should be the reward, and [Robert] Zemeckis got really mad at me when I said this."

As a result of this and an unfair salary deal, Glover didn't return. However, this didn't stop the team from trying to imitate his likeness. In "Back to the Future Part II," prosthetics made from molds of Glover's older face makeup were used on the face of actor Jeffrey Weissman to portray George McFly in the then-future 2015. Glover filed a successful lawsuit against the team that helped usher in rules in the Screen Actor's Guild that ensure producers are unable to do such a thing again.