When one sequel isn’t enough to preserve the watershed success of the original, Hollywood tends to apply the rule of three’s almost automatically in these cases. Though it seems fairly clear Zemeckis was not interested in doing more sequels to capitalize on the success of his first major hit, the man has always shown that he knows how to play the game, and sometimes, pursue a few personal indulgences while doing so. This time he gets to play around inside the western genre, something he seems to have been wanting to do since he shot the opening for ROMANCING THE STONE. Marty, at the end of PART 2, finds out Doc somehow ended up in the old west of 1885, and so he journeys even further back in time to locate him. While he is there, not everything is as it seems, as he first perceives a marauding group of indigenous warriors as hostile, only to find out moments later that they were actually fleeing an assured massacre by the U.S. Cavalry, a throwback to a newspaper article spotted in PART 2. The plot hinges on many of the recycled beats of the original BACK TO THE FUTURE, but the adoration its director clearly has for the western is shown through a few scenes he shoots in the legendary Monument Valley, a show-stopping locomotive train chase finale, plus cameos by western-regulars Pat Buttram, Dub Taylor, and Harry Carey Jr., who previously voiced the cowboy bullets in WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT.