Back to the Future
Theatrical release poster by Drew Struzan
Directed by	Robert Zemeckis
Produced by	Neil Canton Bob Gale
Written by	Robert Zemeckis Bob Gale
Starring	Michael J. Fox Christopher Lloyd Crispin Glover Lea Thompson Thomas F. Wilson
Music by	Alan Silvestri
Cinematography	Dean Cundey
Editing by	Harry Keramidas Arthur Schmidt
Studio	Amblin Entertainment
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date(s)	July 3, 1985 (1985-07-03)
Running time	116 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$19 million
Box office	$383,874,862[1]

Back to the Future is a 1985 American science-fiction adventure film. It is directed by Robert Zemeckis, written by Zemeckis and Bob Gale, produced by Steven Spielberg, and stars Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Crispin Glover and Thomas F. Wilson. The film tells the story of Marty McFly, a teenager who is accidentally sent back in time from 1985 to 1955. He meets his future-parents in high school and accidentally attracts his future mother's romantic interest. Marty must repair the damage to history by causing his parents-to-be to fall in love, and with the help of scientist Dr. Emmett "Doc" Brown, he must find a way to return to 1985.

Zemeckis and Gale wrote the script after Gale mused upon whether he would have befriended his father if they attended school together. Various film studios rejected the script until the financial success of Zemeckis' Romancing the Stone, after which the project was set up at Universal Pictures with Spielberg as an executive producer. Eric Stoltz was originally cast as Marty McFly when Michael J. Fox was busy filming the TV series Family Ties. However, during filming, Stoltz and the filmmakers decided that he was miscast, so Fox was approached again and he managed to work out a timetable in which he could give enough time and commitment to both; the subsequent recasting meant the crew had to race through reshoots and post-production to complete the film for its July 3, 1985 release date.^{[citation needed]}

When released, Back to the Future became the most successful film of the year, grossing more than $383 million worldwide and receiving very positive reviews. It won the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation and the Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film, as well as Academy Awards, and Golden Globe nominations among others. Ronald Reagan even quoted the film in his 1986 State of the Union Address. In 2007, the Library of Congress selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry, and in June 2008 the American Film Institute's special AFI's 10 Top 10 acknowledged the film as the 10th-best film in the science fiction genre. The film marked the beginning of a franchise, with sequels Back to the Future Parts II and III released in 1989 and 1990, as well as an animated series, theme park ride, and several video games.

[edit] Plot

Seventeen-year-old Marty McFly lives with his bleak, unambitious family in Hill Valley, California. His father, George McFly, is bullied by his supervisor, Biff Tannen, and his unhappy mother, Lorraine Baines McFly, is an alcoholic. Marty's underachieving older siblings, Dave and Linda, also live in the household. When Marty and his band audition to perform at the high school dance, they are rejected. Despite this setback, Marty's girlfriend, Jennifer, encourages him to pursue the dream of being a rock musician. At dinner that night, Lorraine recounts how she and George first fell in love when her father hit George with his car.

The house used as the McFly residence in the Back to the Future trilogy

Marty meets his friend, scientist Dr. Emmett "Doc" Brown, late at night at a deserted shopping mall where Doc reveals a time machine made from a modified DeLorean; the vehicle's time displacement is powered by plutonium, which supplies 1.21 gigawatts of energy to a device he calls the "flux capacitor." Doc explains that the car travels to a programmed date upon reaching 88 miles per hour, using the date November 5, 1955, as an example destination. Before Doc can make his first trip, the Libyan terrorists from whom he stole the plutonium shoot him. Marty attempts to escape in the DeLorean and inadvertently activates the time machine. He is transported back to November 5, 1955, and finds himself without the plutonium needed for the return trip.

While exploring Hill Valley, Marty meets his teenaged father, who is being bullied by Biff. As George is about to be hit by Lorraine's father's car, Marty pushes him out of the way and is knocked out by the impact. Consequently, a teenaged Lorraine becomes infatuated with Marty instead of George. Marty is disturbed by her flirtations and leaves to find the younger Doc of 1955. Marty convinces Doc that he is from the future, and asks for help returning to 1985. Doc explains that the only available power source capable of generating 1.21 gigawatts of energy is a bolt of lightning. Discovering the "Save the Clock Tower" flyer that Marty received in 1985, indicating that lightning will strike the courthouse clock tower the following Saturday at 10:04 pm, Doc makes plans to harness the lightning strike to power the DeLorean's flux capacitor. When they observe a fading photograph of Marty with his siblings, they realize Marty has prevented his parents from meeting, jeopardizing his family's existence.

Marty attempts to set George up with Lorraine. To make his parents fall in love, Marty plans to have George "rescue" Lorraine from Marty's inappropriate advances on the night of the school dance. A drunk Biff unexpectedly shows up, pulls Marty from the car, and attempts to force himself on Lorraine. George arrives to rescue her from Marty, but instead finds Biff, who humiliates George and pushes Lorraine to the ground. Standing up to him for the first time, George knocks Biff out. A smitten Lorraine follows George to the dance floor, where they kiss for the first time, assuring Marty's existence.

Marty arrives at the clock tower where Doc is making final preparations for the lightning strike, and tries to warn Doc of his impending 1985 murder in a letter, but Doc tears it up, fearing it will lead to altering the future. A falling tree branch disconnects Doc's wiring setup, but Doc repairs the connections in time to send Marty and the DeLorean back to 1985. Although Marty arrives too late to prevent him from being shot, Doc is still alive and admits to reading the letter anyway and wearing a bulletproof vest.

Doc drops Marty off at home and uses the time machine to travel 30 years into the future. Marty awakens the next morning to find his family changed; Lorraine is happy and physically fit, a self-confident George is a successful science fiction author, Dave is a businessman, and Linda no longer has trouble finding boyfriends. George and Lorraine now have a closer relationship than ever, while Biff has become an auto detailer/washer who is deferential towards George. As Marty reunites with Jennifer, Doc arrives, insisting they accompany him to the future to sort out a problem with their future children. Marty and Jennifer enter the upgraded DeLorean, now a hovercar powered by nuclear fusion, and Doc flies the time machine into the future.

[edit] Development

[edit] Writing

Writer and producer Bob Gale conceived the idea after he visited his parents in St. Louis, Missouri after the release of Used Cars. Searching their basement, Gale found his father's high school yearbook and discovered he was president of his graduating class. Gale thought about the president of his own graduating class, who was someone he had nothing to do with.^[2] Gale wondered whether he would have been friends with his father if they went to high school together. When he returned to California, he told Robert Zemeckis his new concept.^[3] Zemeckis subsequently thought of a mother claiming she never kissed a boy at school, when in reality she was highly promiscuous.^[4] The two took the project to Columbia Pictures, and made a development deal for a script in September 1980.^[3]

Zemeckis and Gale set the story in 1955 because, they claimed, mathematically, a 17-year-old traveling to meet his parents at the same age meant traveling to that decade. The era also marked the rise of teenagers as an important cultural element, the birth of rock n' roll, and suburb expansion, which would flavor the story.^[5] Originally, Marty was a video pirate, the time machine was a refrigerator, and he needed to use the power of an atomic explosion at the Nevada Test Site to return home. Zemeckis was "concerned that kids would accidentally lock themselves in refrigerators," and the original climax was deemed too expensive. The DeLorean time machine was chosen because its design made the gag about the family of farmers mistaking it for a flying saucer believable. The writers found it difficult to create a believable friendship between Marty and Doc Brown before they created the giant guitar amplifier, and only resolved his Oedipal relationship with his mother when they wrote the line "It's like I'm kissing my brother." Biff Tannen was named after Universal executive Ned Tanen, who behaved aggressively toward Zemeckis and Gale during a script meeting for I Wanna Hold Your Hand.^[4]

The first draft of Back to the Future was finished in February 1981. Columbia Pictures put the film in turnaround. "They thought it was a really nice, cute, warm film, but not sexual enough," Gale said. "They suggested that we take it to Disney, but we decided to see if any other of the major studios wanted a piece of us."^[3] Every major film studio rejected the script for the next four years, while Back to the Future went through two more drafts. During the early 1980s, popular teen comedies (such as Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Porky's) were risqué and adult-aimed, so the script was commonly rejected for being too light.^[4] Gale and Zemeckis finally decided to pitch Back to the Future to Disney. "They told us that a mother falling in love with her son was not appropriate for a family film under the Disney banner," Gale said.^[3]

The two were tempted to ally themselves with Steven Spielberg, who produced Used Cars and I Wanna Hold Your Hand, which both flopped. Spielberg was initially absent from the project because Zemeckis felt if he produced another flop under him, he would never be able to make another film. Gale said "we were afraid that we would get the reputation that we were two guys who could only get a job because we were pals with Steven Spielberg."^[6] One producer was interested, but changed his mind when he learned Spielberg was not involved. Zemeckis chose to direct Romancing the Stone instead, which was a box office success. Now a high-profile director, Zemeckis approached Spielberg with the concept, and the project was set up at Universal Pictures.^[4]

Executive Sidney Sheinberg made some suggestions to the script, changing Marty's mother's name from Meg to Lorraine (the name of his wife, actress Lorraine Gary) and to replace Brown's pet chimpanzee with a dog.^[4] Sheinberg wanted the title changed to Spaceman from Pluto, convinced no successful film ever had "future" in the title. He suggested Marty introduce himself as "Darth Vader from the planet Pluto" while dressed as an alien forcing his dad to ask out his mom (rather than "the planet Vulcan"), and that the farmer's son's comic book be titled Spaceman from Pluto rather than Space Zombies from Pluto. Spielberg dictated a memo back to Sheinberg, wherein Spielberg convinced him they thought his title was just a joke, thus embarrassing him into dropping the idea.^[7]

[edit] Casting

Michael J. Fox was the first choice to play Marty McFly, but he was committed to the show Family Ties.^[8] Family Ties producer Gary David Goldberg felt that Fox was essential to the show's success. With co-star Meredith Baxter on maternity leave, he refused to allow Fox time off to work on a film. Back to the Future was originally scheduled for a May 1985 release and it was late 1984 when it was learned that Fox would be unable to star in the film.^[4] Zemeckis' next two choices were C. Thomas Howell and Eric Stoltz, the latter of whom impressed the producers enough with his portrayal of Roy L. Dennis in Mask – which had yet to be released – that they selected him to play Marty McFly.^[2] Because of the difficult casting process, the start date was pushed back twice.^[9]

Four weeks into filming, Zemeckis determined Stoltz had been miscast. Although he and Spielberg realized reshooting the film would add $3 million to the $14 million budget, they decided to recast. Spielberg explained Zemeckis felt Stoltz was too humorless and gave a "terrifically dramatic performance." Gale further explained they felt Stoltz was simply acting out the role, whereas Fox himself had a personality like Marty McFly. He felt Stoltz was uncomfortable riding a skateboard, whereas Fox was not. Stoltz confessed to director Peter Bogdanovich during a phone call, two weeks into the shoot, that he was unsure of Zemeckis' and Gale's direction, and concurred that he was wrong for the role.^[4]

Fox's schedule was opened up in January 1985 when Meredith Baxter returned to Family Ties following her pregnancy. The Back to the Future crew met with Goldberg again, who made a deal that Fox's main priority would be Family Ties, and if a scheduling conflict arose, "we win." Fox loved the script and was impressed by Zemeckis and Gale's sensitivity in releasing Stoltz, because they nevertheless "spoke very highly of him."^[4] Per Welinder and Bob Schmelzer assisted on the skateboarding scenes.^[10] Fox found his portrayal of Marty McFly to be very personal. "All I did in high school was skateboard, chase girls and play in bands. I even dreamed of becoming a rock star."^[8]

Christopher Lloyd was cast as Doc Brown after the first choice, John Lithgow, became unavailable.^[4] Having worked with Lloyd on The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai (1984), producer Neil Canton suggested him for the part. Lloyd originally turned down the role, but changed his mind after reading the script and at the persistence of his wife. He improvised some of his scenes,^[11] taking inspiration from Albert Einstein and conductor Leopold Stokowski.^[12] Brown mispronounces gigawatts as "jigawatts," which was the way a physicist said the word when he met with Zemeckis and Gale as they researched the script.^[10][13]

Crispin Glover played George McFly. Zemeckis said Glover improvised much of George's nerdy mannerisms, such as his shaky hands. The director joked he was "endlessly throwing a net over Crispin because he was completely off about fifty percent of the time in his interpretation of the character."^[4] Due to a contract disagreement, Glover was replaced by Jeffrey Weissman in Part II and Part III.^[14]

Lea Thompson was cast as Lorraine McFly because she had acted opposite Stoltz in The Wild Life. Her prosthetic makeup for scenes at the beginning of the film, set in 1985, took three-and-a-half hours to apply.^[15]

Thomas F. Wilson was cast as Biff Tannen because the producers felt that the original choice, J. J. Cohen, wasn't physically imposing enough to bully Stoltz.^[4] Cohen was recast as one of Biff's cohorts. Had Fox been cast from the beginning, Cohen probably would have won the part because he was sufficiently taller than Fox.^[10] Conversely, Melora Hardin was originally cast in the role of Marty's girlfriend Jennifer, but was let go after Eric Stoltz was dismissed, with the explanation that the actress was now too tall to be playing against Michael J. Fox. Hardin was dismissed before she had a chance to shoot a single scene and was replaced with Claudia Wells.^[16]

[edit] Production

Courthouse Square as it appeared in Back to the Future.

Following Stoltz's departure, Fox's schedule during weekdays consisted of filming Family Ties during the day, and Back to the Future from 6:30 pm to 2:30 am. He averaged five hours of sleep each night. During Fridays, he shot from 10 pm to 6 or 7 am, and then moved on to film exterior scenes throughout the weekend, as only then was he available during daytime hours. Fox found it exhausting, but "it was my dream to be in the film and television business, although I didn't know I'd be in them simultaneously. It was just this weird ride and I got on."^[17] Zemeckis concurred, dubbing Back to the Future "the film that would not wrap". He recalled that because they shot night after night, he was always "half asleep" and the "fattest, most out-of-shape and sick I ever was".^[4]

Lyon Estates set used in the film

The Hill Valley town square scenes were shot at Courthouse Square, located in the Universal Studios back lot (34°08′29″N 118°20′59″W / 34.141417°N 118.349771°W / 34.141417; -118.349771). Bob Gale explained it would have been impossible to shoot on location "because no city is going to let a film crew remodel their town to look like it's in the 1950s." The filmmakers "decided to shoot all the 50s stuff first, and make the town look real beautiful and wonderful. Then we would just totally trash it down and make it all bleak and ugly for the 1980s scenes."^[17] The interiors for Doc Brown's house were shot at the Robert R. Blacker House, while exteriors took place at Gamble House.^[18] The exterior shots of the Twin Pines Mall, and later the Lone Pine Mall (from 1985) were shot at the Puente Hills Mall in City of Industry, California. The exterior shots and some interior scenes at Hill Valley High School were filmed at Whittier High School in Whittier, California, while the band tryouts and the "Enchantment Under The Sea" dance were filmed in the gymnasium at Hollywood United Methodist Church. The scenes outside of the Baines' house in the 50s were shot at Bushnell Avenue, South Pasadena, California.^[19]

Filming wrapped after 100 days on April 20, 1985, and the film was delayed from May to August. But after a highly positive test screening ("I'd never seen a preview like that," said Frank Marshall, "the audience went up to the ceiling"), Sheinberg chose to move the release date to July 3. To make sure the film met this new date, two editors, Arthur Schmidt and Harry Keramidas, were assigned to the picture, while many sound editors worked 24-hour shifts on the film. Eight minutes were cut, including Marty watching his mom cheat during an exam, George getting stuck in a telephone booth before rescuing Lorraine, as well as much of Marty pretending to be Darth Vader. Zemeckis almost cut out the "Johnny B. Goode" sequence as he felt it did not advance the story, but the preview audience loved it, so it was kept. Industrial Light & Magic created the film's 32 effects shots, which did not satisfy Zemeckis and Gale until a week before the film's completion date.^[4]

[edit] Music

Alan Silvestri collaborated with Zemeckis on Romancing the Stone, but Spielberg disliked that film's score. Zemeckis advised Silvestri to make his compositions grand and epic, despite the film's small scale, to impress Spielberg. Silvestri began recording the score two weeks before the first preview. He also suggested Huey Lewis and the News create the theme song. Their first attempt was rejected by Universal, before they recorded "The Power of Love".^[17] The studio loved the final song, but were disappointed it did not feature the film's title, so they had to send memos to radio stations to always mention its association with Back to the Future.^[4] In the end, the track "Back in Time" featured in the film, playing during the scene when Marty wakes up after his return to 1985, and again during the end credits. Huey Lewis himself cameoed as the school teacher who dismisses Marty's band for being too loud.^[17]

Although it appears that Michael J. Fox is actually playing the guitar, Music Supervisor Bones Howe hired Hollywood guitar coach and musician Paul Hanson to teach Michael J. Fox to simulate playing all the parts so it would look realistic, including playing behind his head. Veteran session musician Tim May played the actual guitar parts with Mark Campbell doing the vocal work on "Johnny B. Goode" and Paul Hanson played the section at the beginning of the movie during the high school dance audition scene^{[citation needed]}.

The original 1985 soundtrack album only included two tracks culled from Silvestri's compositions for the film, both Huey Lewis tracks, the songs played in the film by Marvin Berry and The Starlighters (and Marty McFly), one of the vintage 1950s songs in the movie, and two pop songs that are only very briefly heard in the background of the film. On November 24, 2009, an authorized, limited-edition 2-CD set of the entire score was released by Intrada Records.^[20]

The movie features an Eddie Van Halen guitar track which Marty uses to convince George to ask Lorraine to the Enchantment Under the Sea dance.

[edit] Reception

[edit] Release

Back to the Future opened on July 3, 1985, on 1,200 screens in North America. Zemeckis was concerned the film would flop because Fox had to film a Family Ties special in London and was unable to promote the film. Gale was also dissatisfied with Universal Pictures' tagline "Are you telling me my mother's got the hots for me?" Yet Back to the Future spent 11 weeks at number one.^[4] Gale recalled "Our second weekend was higher than our first weekend, which is indicative of great word of mouth. National Lampoon's European Vacation came out in August and it kicked us out of number one for one week and then we were back to number one."^[6] The film went on to gross $210.61 million in North America and $173.2 million in foreign countries, accumulating a worldwide total of $383.87 million.^[1] Back to the Future had the fourth-highest opening weekend of 1985 and was the top grossing film of the year.^[21] This film received a 25th anniversary theatrical re-release in the U.K. and the U.S. in October 2010 to coincide with the Universal Studios Home Video 25th Anniversary DVD and Blu-ray Disc releases of the trilogy.^[22][23] For its re-issue, Back to the Future was restored and remastered.^[24] The Blu-ray release however was criticised for its packaging which made the discs difficult to safely remove without being damaged.

[edit] Critical response

Back to the Future was reviewed very positively. Roger Ebert felt Back to the Future had similar themes to the films of Frank Capra, especially It's a Wonderful Life. Ebert commented "[Producer] Steven Spielberg is emulating the great authentic past of Classical Hollywood cinema, who specialized in matching the right director (Robert Zemeckis) with the right project."^[25] Janet Maslin of The New York Times believed the film had a balanced storyline: "It's a cinematic inventing of humor and whimsical tall tales for a long time to come."^[26] Christopher Null, who first saw the film as a teenager, called it "a quintessential 1980s flick that combines science fiction, action, comedy, and romance all into a perfect little package that kids and adults will both devour."^[27] Dave Kehr of Chicago Reader felt Gale and Zemeckis wrote a script that perfectly balanced science fiction, seriousness and humor.^[28] Variety applauded the performances, arguing Fox and Lloyd imbued Marty and Doc Brown's friendship with a quality reminiscent of King Arthur and Merlin.^[29] The BBC applauded the intricacies of the "outstandingly executed" script, remarking that "nobody says anything that doesn't become important to the plot later."^[30] Back to the Future appeared on Gene Siskel's top ten film list of 1985.^[31]

As of April 2011^[update], review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 97% of critics have given the film a positive review, based on 61 reviews, certifying it "Fresh", with an average rating of 8.6/10 and the consensus: "Romantic, funny, and action-packed, Back to the Future is rousing entertainment for all ages."^[32]

[edit] Awards

Back to the Future won the 58th Academy Awards for Best Sound Editing, while "The Power of Love", the sound mixers (Bill Varney, B. Tennyson Sebastian II, Robert Thirlwell and William B. Kaplan), Zemeckis and Gale were nominated. In addition, Back to the Future was nominated for Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.^[33] The film won the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation^[34] and the Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film. Michael J. Fox and the visual effects designers won categories at the Saturn Awards. Zemeckis, composer Alan Silvestri, the costume design and supporting actors Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Crispin Glover and Thomas F. Wilson were also nominated.^[35] The film was successful at the 39th British Academy Film Awards, where it was nominated for Best Film, original screenplay, visual effects, production design and editing.^[36] At the 43rd Golden Globe Awards, Back to the Future was nominated for Best Motion Picture (Musical or Comedy), original song (for "The Power of Love"), Best Actor in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy (Fox) and Best Screenplay for Zemeckis and Gale.^[37]

[edit] Legacy

The retrofitted DeLorean DMC-12

President Ronald Reagan, a fan of the film, referred to the movie in his 1986 State of the Union Address when he said, "Never has there been a more exciting time to be alive, a time of rousing wonder and heroic achievement. As they said in the film Back to the Future, 'Where we're going, we don't need roads.'"^[38] When he first saw the joke about his being president, he made the projectionist of the theater stop the reel, roll it back, and run it again.^[2] George H. W. Bush also referenced Back to the Future in his speeches.^[39]

The movie ranked number 28 on Entertainment Weekly's list of the 50 Best High School Movies.^[40] In 2008, Back to the Future was voted the 23rd greatest film ever made by readers of Empire.^[41] It was also placed on a similar list by The New York Times, a list of 1000 movies.^[42] In January 2010, Total Film included the film on its list of The 100 Greatest Movies of All Time.^[43] On December 27, 2007, Back to the Future was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".^[44] In 2006, the original screenplay for Back to the Future was selected by the Writers Guild of America as the 56th best screenplay of all time.^[45]

In June 2008, the American Film Institute revealed the AFI's 10 Top 10 – the best ten films in ten "classic" American film genres – after polling more than 1,500 people from the creative community. Back to the Future was acknowledged as the 10th best film in the science fiction genre.^[46]

American Film Institute Lists

• AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies (1998) - Nominated,^[47]
• AFI's 100 Years... 100 Laughs (2000) - Nominated^[48]
• AFI's 100 Years... 100 Thrills (2001) - Nominated^[49]
• AFI's 100 Years... 100 Songs (2004):
  • "The Power of Love" - Nominated
  • "Johnny B. Goode" - Nominated^[50]
• AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes (2005):
  • "Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads." - Nominated^[51]
• AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) (2007) - Nominated^[52]
• AFI's 10 Top 10 (2008) - #10 Science-fiction Film^[53]

Back to the Future is also among Film 4's 50 Films to See Before You Die, being ranked 10th.^[54]

When the film was released on VHS, Universal added a "To be continued..." caption at the end to increase awareness of production on Part II. This caption is omitted on the film's DVD release in 2002.^[12]

In 2010, episodic video game publisher Telltale Games announced that they were creating a new five-part title based on the films.^[55] Bob Gale was a consultant for the game's script, and Lloyd provided voice work for the character of Doc Brown. The new game is set six months after the events of Part III, and was created for PC, Mac, PS3 and iPad.^[56] The first episode was released in December 2010.^[57]

[edit] References

Footnotes

Bibliography

[edit] Further reading

• George Gipe (July 1985) (Paperback). Back to the Future: A Novel. Novelization of the film. Berkley Books. ISBN 978-0-425-08205-8. 
• Shail, Andrew; Stoate, Robin (2010). Back to the Future. BFI Film Classic. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1-84457-293-9. 
• Ni Fhlainn, Sorcha (2010). The Worlds of Back to the Future: Critical Essays on the Films.. McFarland Publishers. ISBN 978-0-7864-4400-7. 

[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Back to the Future

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	Quotations from Wikiquote
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• Official website
• Back to the Future at the Internet Movie Database
• Back to the Future at AllRovi
• Back to the Future at Rotten Tomatoes
• Back to the Future at Box Office Mojo
• February 24, 1981 draft of the screenplay
• Futurepedia: The Back to the Future Wiki on Wikia

This film-related article describes a work or element of fiction in a primarily in-universe style. Please help rewrite it to explain the fiction more clearly and provide non-fictional perspective. (October 2009)

Doctor Emmett Lathrop "Doc" Brown, Ph.D. is a fictional character and one of the lead characters in the Back to the Future film trilogy, in which he is the inventor of the first time machine, which he builds out of a DeLorean sports car. The character is memorably played by actor Christopher Lloyd in all three films, as well as in the live action sequences of the animated series. He is voiced by Dan Castellaneta in the animated series. The character's appearance and mannerisms are loosely inspired by Leopold Stokowski and Albert Einstein.^[1] In 2008, Dr. Emmett Brown was selected by Empire magazine as one of The 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time, ranking at #76.^[2]

[edit] Character background

According to Back to the Future: The Game, Emmett was born in 1922.^{[episode needed]} He refers to himself as a "student of all sciences", and is shown to be a passionate inventor. Scientists are his role models, as evidenced by the names of his pet dog, whom he calls Copernicus in 1955, and his later dog, whom he calls Einstein in 1985, and the portraits of Isaac Newton, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Edison, and Albert Einstein found in his laboratory (which were on a wall in his home in 1955), and his favourite author is Jules Verne. When looking through his ancestral history, he reveals to Marty that his family name was originally von Braun, indicating a German background (and possibly alluding to a relation to the real-life and contemporary rocket scientist Wernher von Braun, who was brought to America after the Second World War).

His character is one who can be absent-minded at times, and despite being seen around fictional Hill Valley, the setting for all three films, evidence in the three films indicates that he is regarded as strange, eccentric, or crazy. He often enunciates his words with wide-eyed expressions and broad gestures ("Great Scott!" being one of the character's well-known catchphrases), and tends to use large words or phrases over short ones: for instance, referring to a school dance as a "rhythmic ceremonial ritual" in the first film.

The only friends the character is shown to have are Marty, and Marty's girlfriend, Jennifer. The films do not depict how Doc originally met Marty, however production notes and word from creators Bob Zemeckis and Bob Gale have stated that they met several years prior to the events of the first film when Marty sneaked into his lab after being warned to stay away from Doc by his parents. Doc was happy to be revered as being cool and hired Marty as his part-time lab assistant.^[3]

Doc has been involved in illegal and criminal enterprises within the scope of the films—albeit as a means to obtain items he could not purchase legally—but shows naïveté over the repercussions of his actions, excitedly telling Marty how he cheated Libyan terrorists out of stolen plutonium, saying "they wanted me to build them a bomb, so I took their plutonium and, in turn, gave them a shoddy bomb casing full of used pinball machine parts!"

The character begins the trilogy somewhat innocent and very enthusiastic over the possible applications of his discovery, and actively tries to alter the past or future of various principal characters, in efforts to improve their lives. However, events throughout the story, particularly in the second film, bring him to the conclusion that time travel should not be used because of the hazards involved, and that the time machine should be destroyed. In the third film, after realizing he has unwittingly altered history by preventing the death of Clara Clayton in 1885, Doc expresses regret for inventing the time machine at all, remarking that it has "caused nothing but disaster."

However, after being left behind in 1885 when Marty departs in the DeLorean for 1985, Doc starts a family with Clara. He creates another time machine and builds it into a steam locomotive, which he uses to transport his family to 1985 (to collect his dog, Einstein) after having traveled to an unspecified point further in the future (presumably 2015 in order to give the locomotive a hover conversion akin to the DeLorean and to show his wife and children society beyond their natural years, which is also reinforced by Doc's answer to Marty's question if he is going "back to the future", and Brown answered in the negative, stating they have "already been there!"). The trilogy ends with Doc and his family departing 1985.

[edit] Events from Back to the Future series

[edit] Back to the Future

On Saturday, November 5, 1955, Doc came up with the idea of the flux capacitor (which is what makes time travel possible) after slipping off his toilet while standing on it to hang a clock and bumping his head on the edge of the sink. The idea came to him in a vision he had after being knocked out. The time machine project suffered a setback on Wednesday, August 1, 1962 when Doc's mansion at 1640 Riverside (later John F. Kennedy) Drive burnt down.

In the original movie, after the fire Doc moved into his former garage (which was down the hill from the mansion and was not affected by the blaze), addressed as 1646 Riverside Drive. There were rumors that he had deliberately burnt it down to claim the insurance money to fund the time machine. Whether or not that was the case, Doc still had to use up most of his family's fortune to fund the creation of his time machine. Doc moved to his garage and sold the rest of his estate to developers, but he was soon back on track. On Monday, May 23, 1983, he was commended and given a civic award for unspecified reasons. Another indicator of Doc's moneymaking could have been a large truck he owned which was advertised as "Dr. E. Brown 24-Hour Scientific Services". This truck may simply have been used to transport cumbersome materials, however it also suggests Brown offered himself as a contractor to those in need of technical and scientific help in order to make money to defray the cost of building the time machine.

Doc finally finished installing his time machine into a DeLorean sports car in 1985, using plutonium to power the time circuits and the flux capacitor, and was apparently killed by the group of Libyan terrorists who had given it to him as they wanted a nuclear weapon in return, but Doc, in an act of either extreme courage or extreme foolhardiness, merely gave them "a shoddy bomb casing full of used pinball machine parts."

Marty, who had witnessed the first time travel experiment, was accidentally sent back to 1955, where he tried to warn the 1955 version of Doc about the terrorists. Doc did not want to know too much about his own future and ripped up the warning letter Marty had written him. Doc successfully sent Marty back to the future by harnessing the energy from a bolt of lightning as it struck the Hill Valley clock tower on Saturday, November 12, 1955 at 10:04 pm. Sometime after these events, one can surmise, Doc decided to take the risk, taped together Marty's warning letter, and discovered the truth about that night in 1985. When 1985 rolled around again, it turned out the Doc wore a bulletproof vest for protection, apparently modified to resist rifle fire. After dropping Marty home, Doc went 30 years into the future. He went to October 21, 2015 and while he was there, he observed a chain of disastrous incidents that destroy Marty's life, and then skipped back in time to find the origin, tying it to a specific incident in 2015 that occurred between Marty's son, Marty Jr. and Biff's grandson, Griff. While there, he got an "all natural overhaul" to his body which added 30 or 40 years to his life and made him look younger, just like back in 1955. (This had little effect on his appearance, and was written into the script to allow the actor not to wear "old" makeup through the second and third films). He also got the DeLorean hover-converted and installed a "Mr. Fusion". The Mr. Fusion reactor eliminated the need for plutonium, and allowed the time machine to operate off ordinary household garbage. Afterward, Doc returned to 1985 to pick up Marty (and Jennifer, who happened to be there) to take them to 2015.

[edit] Back to the Future Part II

Doc had discovered that Marty's son, Marty Jr, was to go to jail for committing a crime, an event which would end up destroying the McFly family. Doc devises a plan for Marty to pose as Marty, Jr. (since the father-son resemblance was uncanny), as well as to prevent the crime from occurring. Doc then discovered that Marty had bought a sports almanac to take back to 1985 with him. Doc lectured Marty about how he had not invented the time machine for financial gain (though, ironically, he had mentioned in the first movie that he would go ahead in time 25 years and one of the things he would do is find out the next 25 World Series winners. Even so, it is never said that he would use it for gambling, or any other profitable trick.) Unknown to Doc or Marty, a now-elderly Biff Tannen overheard the conversation and later stole the DeLorean and the Almanac while Doc and Marty were rescuing 1985 Jennifer from the future McFly family house. Later in the film, it is revealed that Biff went back to November 12, 1955 and gave the Almanac to his 1955 teenaged self. On their way back to the DeLorean Doc had become convinced of the profound hazards involved in time travel and decided once they return to 1985, he would destroy the time machine, as time travel is just too dangerous to be used.

Doc, Marty, and Jennifer arrived back in 1985 only to discover that history had been altered. Biff's wealth had led to a total alteration of Hill Valley to Biff's wishes and supposed alterations to the entire world's history (such as Richard Nixon still being in office and the Vietnam War still being fought in 1985). In this version of history, Doc has been committed to an insane asylum since 1983 (he was committed on the same day he won his award in the "proper" history). It is speculated that since Biff was warned by his older self upon delivery of the almanac that a "crazy, wild-eyed old man who claims to be a scientist" would ask about it someday, Biff was the one who had Doc committed, but no concrete evidence is provided in the film. It is also possible that Doc actually went insane due to the changes in the timeline, which only he would be aware of and be unable to reconcile with how he knew history should have unfolded.

Doc and Marty headed back to 1955 to correct the timeline, and while Marty tracked down Biff to get the almanac from him, Doc attempted to make repairs to the time circuits, which had developed a fault and kept re-setting the Destination Time setting to January 1, 1885. When Doc discovered Marty had got the Almanac, he orderd Marty to destroy it. Using matches from "Biff's Pleasure Palace," Marty burned the almanac in front of the same billboard he used to hide the time machine in the first movie. He also accidentally switched on the time circuits, which was set at 1885. Their mission of stealing the almanac and setting history straight was accomplished. However this success was quickly followed by Doc, in the DeLorean, being sent back to 1885 when a bolt of lightning struck the DeLorean, causing a gigawatt overload. Once in 1885, Doc set himself up as a blacksmith while trying to fix the DeLorean, but had to give up as suitable parts to repair the DeLorean's destroyed microchip would not be invented until 1947 (the actual date of the invention of the transistor.) He buried the DeLorean in the abandoned Delgado Mine on the outskirts of town and wrote a letter to Marty to be delivered just minutes after the DeLorean was struck by lightning. The letter was held by Western Union for the next 70 years, 2 months and 12 days, and given to Marty in 1955.

It also appears that Doc has made other travels to different time periods before coming back for Marty in 1985 because he has a suitcase full of vintage money for, as he calls it, "all monetary possibilities."

[edit] Back to the Future Part III

Marty received the letter and ran to the 1955 Doc, who had just sent the younger Marty back to the future. He initially disbelieved that Marty had returned, but eventually came to his senses. Marty and Doc uncovered the DeLorean and repaired it, but Marty discovered that on September 7, 1885 (one week after he wrote the letter), Doc would be murdered by Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen, Biff's great-grandfather. Marty headed back to September 2, 1885, the day after Doc wrote the letter and five days before Doc's death, to save his friend.

Marty located Doc, and once again Doc had to make repairs to the time machine after it ran out of gas (hard to come by in 1885 since cars wouldn't exist in the United States until 23 years later) when its fuel line was ruptured. While making a plan to use a train to push the DeLorean to 88 mph, Doc saved a teacher, Clara Clayton, from falling into a ravine after a snake spooked her horses. The ravine was, in the proper timeline, called Clayton Ravine after Clara fell into it. They fell in love at first sight, much to the despair of Marty who saw Clara as a distraction. Doc and Clara danced at the town festival on September 5, where Marty managed to save Doc from being shot early by Buford Tannen (It is also possible that this was supposed to have been the fatal event - Tannen told the Doc that the last man shot with the gun took two days to die along with that with his small gun, he predicted Doc would be dead by suppertime Monday). Doc and Clara also had their first kiss that night.

Later, Doc realized he would have to leave Clara behind when he went back to the future with Marty on Monday. He said goodbye to her and told her the truth about where he came from. Naturally, she did not believe him and slapped him. Broken-hearted, Doc went to have a glass of whisky at the Palace Saloon, where Marty found him next morning (Monday) with the same glass of whisky. After drinking the whisky, he immediately fell down drunk. Marty and Chester the bartender managed to revive Doc with an extremely spicy concoction called "wake-up juice" which included tabasco sauce, and afterwards Doc and Marty hijacked a train to use to push the DeLorean up to 88 miles per hour (141 km/h). Clara reappeared, having seen Doc's train model plan and realized Doc was telling the truth, but nearly fell off the train. Doc managed to save her, with help from Marty's hoverboard (a piece of technology from 2015), but decided to stay behind with Clara in 1885 (or that he realized he had not enough time to get in the time machine and attempting to do so might strand Marty in 1885 as well). Marty managed to get home, but the time machine was destroyed less than a minute after his arrival by a modern locomotive plowing through it, meaning he could not go back to rescue Doc and Clara from the past.

Over the next 10 years, Doc and Clara married (they marry on December 15, 1885 according to the animated series episode, "Solar Sailors") and had two sons, Jules and Verne, named after their favorite author. Doc also built a new time machine, this time using a steam locomotive. The Brown family take off to visit the future (to get the train hover-converted) and then back to 1985 to pick up Einstein (his dog), and visit Marty and Jennifer (when and where Marty thought he would never see Doc again due to the time machine being destroyed), before heading off to times unknown.

[edit] Back to the Future: The Ride

Although Back to the Future: The Ride is not taken as canon by some,^{[citation needed]} it reveals that the Brown family eventually moved back to the 20th century and that by 1991, Doc had set up the Institute of Future Technology. He modified a time-traveling DeLorean to seat eight, which comes in handy after Biff steals the time machine again and the audience, in their own time-traveling DeLorean, must help Doc chase Biff through time. The ride was featured at Universal Studios in Hollywood, Florida and Japan. The Florida and Hollywood versions closed in March and September 2007 respectively and were both replaced with The Simpsons Ride, which opened in May 2008. There is only one version remaining

[edit] Back to the Future: The Animated Series

This series starts in 1991 after the events from Part III and the Ride, where Doc, Clara, Jules and Verne now live in a farmhouse outside Hill Valley with Einstein the dog. The family, along with Marty, have traveled through time in both the train time machine and a rebuilt and improved DeLorean (which looks the same externally as before it was rebuilt, but is drastically different inside).

[edit] The Simpsons Ride

In The Simpsons Ride, in a tribute to the ride it replaced, Back to the Future: The Ride, Emmett Brown has a brief cameo voiced over by Christopher Lloyd. It should be noted that in the animated series of Back to the Future, Brown was voiced by Dan Castellaneta, also the voice of the Simpson family patriarch Homer Simpson.

In the cameo, Professor Frink, Doc's colleague as it is revealed in the ride, is shocked to discover that Doc's Institute has been turned into Krustyland, a theme park built by Krusty the Clown. So, he drives a DeLorean time machine back in time to save the institute, where, two years earlier, Doc is about to sign a contract with a banker, named Mr. Freidman, to save the Institute. However, as Doc is about to sign, Frink drives the DeLorean into the banker. Doc becomes upset at Frink, and complains that he has to sell his Institute to "that mercenary clown", who happens to be Krusty. Krusty then appears and puts a Krustyland sign in front of the Institute, and Frink complains that he created a time paradox. Doc asks Krusty if there's anything he can do for him, to which Krusty responds he can sell tickets at the front gate if he "gets a haircut". Doc says it takes him three hours a day "Just to get it like this!". It is then presumed that the Institute of Future Technology became Krustyland.

[edit] Back to the Future: The Game

Christopher Lloyd reprises his role as Dr. Brown in Telltale Games' Back to the Future: The Game. As of July 2011, five episodes have been released. Set 6 months after the end of Part III, Marty is missing Doc as the bank sells his belongings. Suddenly, the DeLorean arrives and Marty finds he is imprisoned in 1931, destined to be gunned down by a mob. By collaborating with a younger Emmett Brown, (voiced by James Arnold Taylor), Marty is able to rescue Doc, as well as ensure the safety of his grandfather, Arthur McFly. However, their meddling inadvertently changes the future of Young Emmett, and Marty winds up in an alternate 1986 ruled over by Doc, who is now Hill Valley's First Citizen. Marty is able to convince Doc to go back to 1931 and try to fix the timeline, but in 1931 Doc changes his mind and attempts to stop Marty from fixing it. The original timeline was restored, however, and he was erased from existence, but later events cause the entire city of Hill Valley to be erased, back in 1876. Marty and Doc fix the timeline once more, but upon returning to 1986 three alternate versions of Marty appear.

[edit] In other media

Doc is a playable character in the first level of the video game of Back to the Future Part III. In the game, he must ride his horse to prevent Clara Clayton from falling into the ravine, using a pistol to fend off enemies.

In 2011 American Singer Britney Spears joked that Dr. Emmett Brown was her favorite scientist for "I Am FIRST: Science is Rock and Roll".

Doc Brown has made several non-canon appearances. Lloyd first reprised the role for the 1985 Huey Lewis & The News "The Power of Love" video. In the mid-2000s, Lloyd reprised the role of Brown in commercials for satellite giant DirecTV, in newly-filmed footage interspersed with clips from the first Back to the Future film. In one variation of the commercials, Lloyd runs down the fiery trail left by the Delorean in a scene taken directly from the film, while in a newly-recorded voiceover Lloyd hails the service as being "TV from outer space!" In 2011 Lloyd appears as Brown in commercials for the Argentine Electronics Store Garbarino and for Nike.

In September of that year, Lloyd reprised the role for an eBay charity auction promotion. Nike had produced 1500 reproductions of the 'futuristic' trainers Doc gave Marty McFly in 2015 (Back to the Future Part II), with all net proceeds from the auction going to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for research into Parkinson's disease.

Back to the Future Part III footage of Lloyd was incorporated into the 1990 ZZ Top "Doubleback" video.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Emmett Brown

• Emmett Brown at the Internet Movie Database