For 'Future,' Emerson students parody until the wee hours

Since its creation a month ago, the movie-trailer parody known as ''Brokeback to the Future" has been downloaded millions of times, posted on numerous websites, and e-mailed across the country and back. And all it took to create it was two 21-year-old Emerson College students pulling two late-nighters in a row with a laptop computer.

Patrick De Nicola and Jonathan Ade said they consider the spoof a tribute to both ''Brokeback Mountain," the favorite to win the best-picture Oscar next weekend, and the ''Back to the Future" trilogy. ''We do respect 'Brokeback Mountain,' and we love 'Back to the Future,' " said De Nicola, a film and theater major. ''We wanted to play it like the more classic love story, nothing crude."

For those who haven't seen the fake trailer (which can be viewed at chocolatecakecity.com and other websites), it goes like this: A bright green screen unfolds with the familiar Motion Picture Association of America trademark. The sad strum of the guitar calls to mind that certain gay cowboy movie. An aerial rooftop shot swoops downward and focuses on two horseback riders. The words ''From the producers who brought you Brokeback Mountain" appear. Then the camera returns to the cowboys as they sit by a fire and exchange seductive glances. ''I'm from the future," says Michael J. Fox. ''I came here in a time machine you invented." The story hints at a forbidden love between Marty McFly, the DeLorean-driving high school student played by Fox, and Doc Brown, the time-traveling scientist played by Christopher Lloyd.

The parody, which has been viewed more than 2 million times at YouTube.com and another million at www.ifilm.com, is the latest of the homemade mock trailers making the rounds, as novice film editors take footage from movies and twist it. One popular spoof takes scenes from the horror movie ''The Shining" so that it appears to be a family comedy called ''Shining," with Peter Gabriel's uplifting ''Solsbury Hill" playing. ''Top Gun 2: Brokeback Squadron" has Tom Cruise's Maverick and Val Kilmer's Iceman sharing flirtatious looks in the locker room and from their fighter jets to the mournful guitar plucks of the ''Brokeback Mountain" score.

Once it occurred to the Emerson duo to create ''Brokeback to the Future," they watched all three ''Back to the Future" movies in one night in January. They jotted notes about which scenes they could cut and paste. The following night, beginning at 8, they hunched in front of Ada's laptop in their Beacon Hill dining room and began pairing scenes from the movies with the soundtrack from ''Brokeback Mountain." The fact that the last ''Back to the Future" movie was set in the Old West made it all the easier. They finished by 2 a.m. The result was a 2 1/2-minute trailer that made them bust out laughing with each viewing.

They unveiled the short on a big screen at an Emerson event on Jan. 27. It was such a hit among the crowd of 200 students that Ade and De Nicola launched chocolatecakecity.com so that friends and other students could check out their work. The website is named after the 18-member school comedy troupe that includes Ade and De Nicola. They perform sketches at the end of each semester around the city, and they've been working to take their show on the road. On Feb. 12, they performed in New York's National Comedy Theatre. (The group takes it name from chocolate cake treats provided to anyone who attends a performance.)

Almost like instant messaging, word of the trailer spread around campus and began popping up on other sites. ''After a while, we sort of lost control of where it ended up," said Ade, who's a film major.

With ''Brokeback to the Future" fame very much in their present, the co-editors are looking to their own future. They plan to make another spoof, possibly using the ABC television series ''Lost" as the centerpiece.

''We are just hoping to make each other laugh and everybody else," De Nicola said, ''and get our stuff off campus.

''The trailer has been a pretty good springboard for us."

Johnny Diaz can be reached at jodiaz@globe.com.