And story behind the Time Machine

American Craftsman home in Pasadena, California, designed by the architectural firm Greene and Greene.

Gamble House (Pasadena, California) - Wikipedia

THE GAMBLE HOUSE - Built in 1908, the David B. Gamble House is a tribute to the genius of architects Charles Sumner Greene and Henry Mather Greene. Its design represents a unique California lifestyle and is a masterpiece of American craftsmanship. In 1966 it was made a gift by the Gamble family to the City of Pasadena in a joint agreement with the University of Southern Califo

Dr. Emmett Lathrop Brown - American resident of Hill Valley, California.

Biographical information

Date of birth : 1920 (novelization)

Age (1931) 11 (novelization) Age (1955) 35 (novelization)
Age (1985) 65 (novelization) Age (2015) 95 (novelization)

Physical description

Gender Male

Hair color Brown (1931), Blond (1955) White (1985)

Eye color Brown

Behind-the-scenes information

Played by Christopher Lloyd

"Ah! What did I tell you!? EIGHTY EIGHT MILES PER HOOOOOUUUR!!! "

—Doc Brown's exclamation when the DeLorean time machine's test is done

There was no use getting too high, he reasoned.

At sixty-five, he was one of the nation's most talented and unheralded inventors. In fact no one except Marty McFly even knew of his accomplishments, but that didn't matter. Soon all that would change. His lifetime of struggle, of being the recipient of ridicule, would suddenly turn golden. "

"Great Scott!"

—Doc Brown's famous exclamation and catchphrase

"If my calculations are correct, when this baby hits 88 miles per hour, you’re gonna see some serious shit. "— Doc Brown demonstrating the time travel experiment to Marty

He was the inventor of the DeLorean time machine. He is the world's third time traveler (after Einstein and Marty McFly),

The second to travel forwards in time (after Einstein), the first human to travel forwards in time, and the second human to travel through time (after Marty), and is the deuteragonist.

A scientist by trade, Doc was a "student of all sciences" who spent much of his time inventing. He was the son of Judge Erhardt Brown (whose birth name was Erhardt Von Braun)

His dog in 1955, was named Copernicus after Nicolaus Copernicus, the third in a line of pets named after famous scientists, by 1985 his dog was named Einstein after that Albert Einstein.

Doc's role models were scientists, as evidenced by the names of his dogs and the portraits of Isaac Newton, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Edison, and Albert Einstein found in his laboratory (which were on his fireplace mantle in 1955).

Emmett's father - Erhardt Von Braun, was born in Germany, but sought a better life in America. He left home with nothing but the clothes he wore, despite his father's disapproval, and arrived in Hill Valley, California in 1908.

At age 11, Doc discovered the works of his favorite author, Jules Verne. From that point, he decided to dedicate his life to science. About a year later, Doc tried digging to the center of the Earth, inspired bythe 1864 novel Journey to the Center of the Earth.

Personality and traits

Doc is a highly brilliant, quirky scientist who is passionate about science but is quite crazy, almost to be a point of being pretty nuts, as he has taken part in actually stealing plutonium, and having terrorists come after him.

Despite his quirkiness, Doc does care about those he's close to. He's kind-hearted, supportive, encouraging, and plays as a positive mentor to Marty, to a point of actually being quite paternal.

Though Doc is incredibly clever and inventive, he could be absent-minded at times and was regarded by many of Hill Valley's townsfolk as abnormal or as a nutty mad scientist.

As such, he had few friends (the only known friends were his dog, Marty McFly, and Marty's girlfriend Jennifer Parker). Because of this, Doc was often seen as a loner.

However, Doc cared about the people he was close to. Doc did not believe in "love at first sight" until he ended up meeting his future wife Clara Clayton in 1885 since he did not see how such a feeling worked.

As a scientist and a time traveler, he takes his job very seriously. Doc often worked through the night on his inventions and could become obsessed with little things.

He would always try to use a big word rather than a small one if one is available – for example, he referred to a dance as a "rhythmic ceremonial ritual".

He could also be a showoff with his knowledge, as when he saw a dinosaur tooth and identified it as a "third incisor from the apex of the dental bridge".

Doc often used the phrase "Great Scott!" as an exclamation. He also liked jazz music, Jules Verne novels, and Westerns.

Green was his favorite color, one that he found soothing. Although he had a perchance to gamble, he would never use time travel for that reason.

Doc did not usually drink alcoholic beverages since he had a tendency to pass out after just one drink, especially when that drink was whiskey.

He was allergic to all synthetic fabrics.

Doc sometimes went to great lengths, even illegal acts, that would allow him to complete his projects.

He cheated Libyan terrorists out of an unspecified amount of plutonium, and would have died as a result had Marty not intervened.

A Match Made in Heaven?

Emmett and Edna, then in a heavily romantic relationship, began collaborating on a "revolutionary" new invention for Emmett's display at the Hill Valley Expo, the Mental-Alignment Meter, which is designed to measure a person's likes and dislikes in order to gauge their mental condition (with Emmett himself being measured as a "Model Citizen"), when Emmett's friend reappears again while Emmett is visiting the barber shop.

By 1943, Emmett Brown was a professor at the California Institute of Technology. He left his class by telling his students to work on the Jacobian conjecture, knowing that since he didn't teach a math class, they'd be thoroughly occupied.

Emmett is then offered a job on the Manhattan Project.

While working at the institute Leslie Groves noticed Doc's enthusiasm, and his wild hypotheses, including those on time travel, which he called Emmett's "flights of fancy".

However, Groves was impressed with Emmett and believed that if anyone could invent time travel, he could.

After the Manhattan Project

During the 1950s, Doc worked as a professor of physics at Hill Valley University. He dated a woman named Jill Wooster, the Dean's daughter.

She told Doc that she liked Jules Verne and they both went to Pismo Beach. One day Dean Wooster and his cohorts Cooper and Mintz told him that he must participate in one of three projects: the Edsel car, chemical warfare, or Xerox (which Doc pronounced "X-rox").

At some point in 1951, Doc saw the science-fiction movie The Day the Earth Stood Still.

Thirty-four years later at Twin Pines Mall, he remembered the scene where Michael Rennie as the alien humanoid Klaatu stepped onto Earth for the first time.

Doc's family had amassed a large fortune that Doc had inherited by the 1950s. It allowed him to finance his projects and afford his lavish mansion on Riverside Drive.

Also at some point, Doc made several inventions of varying quality, including the brain-wave analyzer, the Static-O-Matic electric hair chair, the automated flapjack maker that used an experimental sawdust pancake batter, and the K-9 cateteria that used an experimental sawdust dog food.

Early time travel experiments

Doc, aged 41 in 1955

On November 5, 1955, Doc came up with the idea of the flux capacitor, which is what made time travel possible, as it dealt with the excess flux energy that was amassed when traveling through time.

The idea came to him in a vision he had after being knocked out after slipping off his toilet while standing on it to hang a clock, and hitting his head on the edge of the sink.

Later that decade, he attended the American College of Technical Science & Complicated Math to earn an additional degree, where he was roommates with Walter Wisdom.

By the 1960s, Doc utilised his ideas of flux compression to develop a time machine that was capable of sending objects through time, but only during the lifespan of the device.

The time machine, known as the temporal field capacitor, was only useful for sending objects into the future. Sending an object even a few minutes into the past caused a buildup of flux energy.

If an object was sent any further back than that, the arrival of the object would overheat the capacitor and start an electrical fire.

On October 24, 1962, Leslie Groves and Colonel Lomax visited Doc, on behalf of the United States military, as they were looking for a way to travel back in time to prevent the Cuban Missile Crisis from ever occurring.

Doc told them about his invention, as he needed funding for his other inventions. He later had worries that he could be ushering in an arms race through time, coupled with his regrets about ushering in the nuclear arms race of the Cold War through his participation in the Manhattan Project.

The next day, he wrote himself a letter about his plans, and purposefully sent the letter back several months in the past, to August 1, when he knew that he and his dog, Copernicus, would be safe asleep in his fireproof garage.

The Brown family mansion burned down. The military personnel came and left in the new timeline without ever talking to Doc, as they considered him an insurance thief, as the official result was inconclusive. Doc used the insurance money to fund the rebuilding of the temporal field capacitor, as well as his future inventions.

The invention of the temporal field capacitor was a necessary step towards a working time machine, as it showcased the problem of the excess flux energy when traveling to the past, which was solved by the flux capacitor.

After Doc had received the insurance money for his family mansion, he built an improved version of the temporal field capacitor called the temporal field generator Mk II.

Like the original, it could only send objects through time during the time period in which the device had been turned on. However, it improved upon the original device in that it could transport larger objects through time.

It could also send objects many years into the past without causing an electrical fire. However, Doc was careful not to use this device too much, as one test nearly resulted in the destruction of the fabric of reality.

After the Cuban Missile Crisis had ended, General Groves and Colonel Lomax sought out another scientist to research time travel. Marcus Irving was given a lab and government funding to try to develop the necessary technology.

Doc still had to use up most of his family's fortune to fund the creation of his first fully working time machine. By the 1970s, Doc moved to his garage and sold the rest of his estate to developers.

Some time prior to 1972, Doc's father died. Doc's mother then married a man named Carlton Ellsworth. After Carlton died, Doc's mother moved to a house in Hill Valley, and Doc helped her move in.

The DeLorean time machine

When Marty McFly was either 13 or 14, on October 2, 1982, Emmett found that he had snuck into his laboratory. Seeing how Marty found him not to be the mad scientist that others were claiming, and impressed that he was able to overcome the traps that he set up to keep people away,

Doc gave him a part-time job to look after the lab, as his lab assistant and feed his dog Einstein.

Note: The following section is considered non-canon or is disputed in canonicity.

Since he no longer needed to worry about his garage, Doc was able to work on experiments in his secret lab. Doc didn't reveal the location to this lab to anyone, including his assistant. He even went to extreme lengths to keep it a secret, registering the building under his birth name, Von Braun.

In September 1984, Doc purchased a DeLorean DMC-12 and a non-working pinball machine, which were advertised in the classifieds section of the August 11 issue of the Hill Valley Telegraph by Robert and John respectively.

He also purchased another DeLorean DMC-12, apparently as a backup, as he did not modify it as he had the other.

Non-canon or disputable information ends here.

Doc finally finished installing his time machine into a DeLorean sports car in 1985, using plutonium to power it, and was killed by a group of Libyan terrorists who had given it to him.

The Libyan deal was that they had wanted him to make them a nuclear bomb. Doc had made a fake (non-functioning) one out of used pinball machine parts and kept the plutonium for the time machine.

Doc's overconfidence would prove to be his undoing as he said the Libyans were too dumb to discover they were duped. Presumably the Libyans attempted to detonate Doc's bomb for a terrorist act, and when it was a dud they realized the truth.

Doc posing as Marty's uncle.

Fortunately, 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.

Over the course of the week, Doc posed at Marty's uncle and avoided any discussions with Marty about his own future.

Just minutes before the Hill Valley Thunderstorm reached downtown on November 12, 1955, he came across the warning letter Marty had written him.

Doc ripped it up just as lightning struck down a tree on top of the cable. Then Marty tried to shout it to Doc when he was on top of the tower but then the bell rang so Doc told him to get in the time machine. After a race to reconnect the cable,

Doc successfully sent Marty back to the future by harnessing the energy from a bolt of lightning as it struck the Hill Valley Courthouse's clock tower at 10:04pm.

Sometime after these events, 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, Doc wore a bulletproof vest for protection.

After dropping Marty home, Doc went 30 years into the future, to August 8, 2015. At first, he believed that the time machine must have malfunctioned, as he could see no evidence of advances in science or fashion.

However, he soon discovered he had stopped at a 1980s car expo, where he entered his DeLorean and won first prize, 10% off a hover conversion at Goldie Wilson Hover Conversion Systems.

In order to cover the cost of a Mr. Fusion reactor and the hover conversion, Doc traveled to 1938 to purchase several near mint copies of Action Comics #1, which he sold at Southby's Auction House in 2015 for 2.5 million dollars.

To accommodate this money, he set up a bank account under the false name of 'Leroy Brown'. Financially set for the future, Doc took off from Courthouse Square in the upgraded flying DeLorean.

The Mr. Fusion reactor eliminated the need for plutonium, and allowed the time machine to operate off of ordinary household garbage.

It is not known exactly how long Doc remained in the future. 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. After presumably following up on his promise to look up Marty's future self, Doc discovered that Marty's son, Marty Jr., was to go to jail for committing a crime by accompanying Griff Tannen, an event which would end up destroying the McFly family. Doc soon returned to 1985 to pick up Marty (and Jennifer, who happened to be there) to take them to 2015.

TIME TRAVEL

The DeLorean time machine initiates time travel.

" Now, on October 25, 1985, he [Doc] was ready for fulfillment. He had worked out every element of his time-travel theory until it was perfect.

By the end of the century, scientists and historians would be using his device to explore the future and past, and through this exploration, work to improve the present.

His view of time as a dimension was summed up in the simple explanation he once gave to the editor of the Hill Valley newspaper.

"I think of time as spherical and unending," he said. "Like the skin of an orange. A change in the texture at any point will be felt over the entire skin.

The future affects the past and present, just as the past and present affect the future." /

"But the past is over and done with," the editor replied. "How can it be affected?" / "That's just my point," Doc Brown had retorted. "The past isn't over and done with. It's still there. And once we find a way to penetrate it, we'll be able to change things that may happen tomorrow."

The editor didn't buy it, but he printed the interview anyway. Residents of Hill Valley either ignored the article or complained that valuable space had been wasted printing the ravings of a madman. / Such unfavorable publicity once hurt, but now that was all behind him. "If all goes well..." he murmured as he began to prepare for the evening's work. "

—From Back to the Future by George Gipe (quote, pages 26 and 27)

Time travel was the process of traveling through time, and was done with a time machine.

Early experiments

Note: The following section is considered non-canon or is disputed in canonicity.

On November 5, 1955, Doc Brown came up with the idea for the flux capacitor after slipping and bumping his head while standing on his toilet to hang a clock.

The idea came to him in a vision he had after being knocked out. This device would be the key towards making time travel possible. Doc drew up a schematic diagram showing an inverted Y-shape with wires and stated "flux compression".

He also performed some mild calculations on the paper.

Note: The following section is considered non-canon or is disputed in canonicity.

The DeLorean after its first trip.

By 1985, Doc Brown had finished his DeLorean time machine, which was the first time machine capable of transporting living beings through time.

It utilized the flux capacitor, as well as a nuclear reactor that used plutonium pellets to generate 1.21 jigowatts of electricity. This allowed it to break the time barrier in what was called temporal displacement.

It travels along the space-time continuum, bringing the occupant safely to any point in time, but not in space. The original DeLorean time machine could only arrive at the same location from which it departed.

The first successful test of the DeLorean time machine occurred at :

1:20:00 am on October 26, 1985 at the Twin Pines Mall. Doc sent Einstein one minute into the future. After the successful test, he planned to travel to 2010. However the Libyan terrorists managed to track Doc down, and shot him.

Marty McFly, while trying to outrun the terrorists, accidentally traveled to November 5, 1955, the day that Doc came up with the idea for the flux capacitor. He accidentally prevented the moment that his mother and father fell in love, which made a ripple in space-time, and led to his brother and sister slowly fading out of existence as the ripple caught up to the dates of their birth. Marty, being the youngest, was effected last.

Since he was also a time traveler, a time bubble was formed around him when he entered the past, which also temporarily protected him from the ripple effect.

Marty had to convince his father, George McFly, to stand up to the high school bully Biff Tannen, in order to convince his mother, Lorraine Baines, to choose him rather than Biff. The plan succeeded, and on November 12, 1955, the couple fell in love at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance, as they did in the original timeline.

Marty gave Doc's 1955 counterpart a letter warning him of his death; however, Doc tore it up. Ultimately, Doc's 1955 counterpart was able to hook a cable up to the clock tower on the Hill Valley Courthouse, which was struck by lightning that night.

The lightning rod on the DeLorean hit the cable at the moment of the lightning strike, powering the nuclear reactor and successfully sending Marty back 1985, ten minutes before he left.

In the new timeline, Doc revealed that he taped the letter back together, and wore a bulletproof vest, enabling him to survive the shooting. Doc left Marty at home that night, and accomplished his original goal, by becoming the first person to travel to the future.

The next morning, Marty woke up to discover that more things had changed in the new timeline. Due to his newfound courage thanks to Marty's guidance, George McFly was a successful writer, and his mom was more confident in herself. Biff no longer rode on George's coat-tails, forcing him to write reports for him to advance his career. Because of this, Biff now ran his own auto detailing business, and George was a client. Marty now owned the 4x4 truck that he had dreamed of owning, and had made plans to go with his girlfriend to the lake.

Note: The following section is considered non-canon or is disputed in canonicity.

While in the future, Doc discovered that Marty's son was framed by Griff Tannen for the robbery of the Hill Valley Payroll Substation. This set up a chain of events that led to the imprisonment of Marty's daughter, as well as her suicide.

Doc traveled back to October 26th, 1985 to pick up Marty, just as Jennifer and Marty were going to head to the lake, so he could help fix the future for his children

They traveled to October 21, 2015. Marty posed as his son, and he succeeded in stopping the robbery. Griff Tannen and his gang instead crashed into the Courthouse Mall, after chasing Marty on hoverboards around Courthouse Square, and were arrested.

However, before they headed back to 1985, Biff Tannen stole the DeLorean time machine. He took a Grays Sports Almanac, detailing every sporting event from 1950 to 2000, back to 1955 to make his younger self rich.

Biff gave his 1955 counterpart the almanac. After spending time in 1955 revisiting his youth, Biff traveled back to 2015, dropping the DeLorean off where he left it. However, his actions in the past had caused him to no longer live to be an old man, and he began to fade from existence. Marty and Doc went back to the DeLorean with Jennifer and Einstein, so they could go back to 1985, not knowing that Biff had changed the past.

They found themselves in a nightmarish alternate reality where Biff controlled Hill Valley, Marty had been sent to a boarding school in Switzerland, and Doc was committed to an asylum. Doc found the handle of Biff's cane in the DeLorean, and realized that Biff had stolen the DeLorean to change time. He spotted the almanac in Biff's pocket in an old photograph he found at the closed Hill Valley Public Library, and realized that he had taken it from 2015 to the past to make himself rich.

Marty then went to Biff Tannen's Pleasure Paradise Casino & Hotel to find out the moment where he got the almanac. After getting the information, Doc and Marty traveled to November 21, 1955. They had to be careful not to let their younger selves see them, as there were now two versions of both of them in that time period. They were able to successfully get the almanac back and burn it. However, the DeLorean was struck by a bolt of lightning in the air, and was sent spinning on its axis up to 88 m.p.h. Due to the malfunctioning time circuits, it was sent back to January 1, 1885 with Doc inside.

A Western Union man showed up, giving Marty a letter that his office had received seventy years ago with instructions to deliver it to Marty at his exact location on November 12, 1955. Marty discovered that Doc ended up in the Old West, and that he had left the DeLorean in the Delgado Mine.

While retrieving the DeLorean, Marty discovered Doc's tombstone at Boot Hill Cemetery. With the help of Doc's 1955 counterpart, he was able to fix the DeLorean, which needed repair due to the lightning strike as well as decades of disuse while buried in the mine.

When Marty traveled back to 1885 to save Doc, he discovered that Doc fell in love with a woman named Clara Clayton. Doc ultimately ended up saving her life with the hoverboard that Marty had kept from 2015. Marty traveled back to 1985, and the DeLorean was destroyed by a diesel locomotive upon its arrival. Doc and Clara remained in 1885.

Note: The following section is considered non-canon or is disputed in canonicity.

Trying to return to the 20th century

Doc was happy in 1885, as his job as the town blacksmith allowed him to conduct scientific experiments, but he didn't have to worry about being tempted with altering the space-time continuum.

However, Clara wanted to travel through time. She had seen her mother struggle with fighting her rebellious nature to present herself as a proper 19th century housewife, and she didn't want that life for herself.

While Doc had found a happy life in the past, she wondered if she would have been happier in his time period, where she would be allowed by society to pursue her interest in science.

When Doc and Clara had their two sons, Jules and Verne, Clara saw how happy he was reading them stories and telling them tales of his adventures. She didn't want to upset his happiness, but she was becoming less happy herself as time went on, as his stories made her want to travel to the future even more

In the 1890s, Doc began to become homesick for his own time. He wanted to visit Marty and pick up his dog, Einstein. He began to build a time machine out of a steam locomotive.

He was initially unsuccessful with his experiments to generate the amount of electricity needed for time travel.

However, he was able to use the technology from the hoverboard that was left behind to create a frictionless dynamo that was able to store multiples of the 1.21 jigowatts needed to power the flux capacitor

So, he paid some railroad workers to set up 50 yards of track and continued building the train.

In 1893, he had deemed the train finished, but feared telling Clara the news. He didn't know that she wanted to travel to the future so badly, and was worried about making her unhappy just to please him.

Clara eventually told Emmett that she knew that he was inventing another time machine, telling him that he couldn't hide anything from her. She said that she would be happy to travel to the future with him and their sons.

Doc, feeling his burden being lifted, decided that it was time to attempt to travel back to the future.

On June 12, 1893, the Brown family attempted to travel in the Jules Verne train to 1985. Doc calculated that 50 yards would be enough to reach 88 m.p.h, since he had improved the performance of the presto logs used to heat the boiler of the steam engine.

The trip failed however, as the train didn't achieve temporal displacement, and crashed.

Doc had intended to give up his quest for time travel at that point, as he was happy in the 19th century, and didn't want to put his family in unnecessary risk.

However, Clara finally told him that she had wanted to travel to the future ever since she found out about the DeLorean time machine.

Time travel wasn't just his dream, it was hers too. Jules and Verne also told him that they wanted to go as well. Since his family wanted to travel through time so badly, Doc decided to try another approach towards accomplishing time travel.

The steam time car

After seeing a steam tricycle driver driving a Serpollet steam tricycle, Doc decided to use one as a time machine.

He used the flux capacitor, the frictionless dynamo, and the time circuits from the prototype Jules Verne Train in his steam time car. He had intended to travel to 2015 to pick up everything he needed to finish the Jules Verne train.

However, the stresses of space-time and the temperature variation would wreak havoc on the cast-iron frame of the steam time car.

In addition, the car provided no protection for the driver, so Doc had to wear a diving suit when he traveled through time in the time car in order to survive.

He left his family for the future in the steam time car on August 13, 1893, and had intended to arrive back seconds after he left. The time travel was a success, however due to the 19th century parts he had to use, there was a fluctuation in the space-time continuum.

Doc ended up in 2035 instead of 2015, and didn't return home for days.

Doc's wife Clara then wrote Marty a letter letting him know that Doc was missing, and left it with the Western Union office with instructions to be delivered to Hill Valley High School in 1986.

Marty McFly got the letter, and looked for Doc in a secret lab that he was able to find, with the help of his girlfriend Jennifer.

Marty and Jennifer had no idea when and where Doc had gone, so Marty wrote Doc a letter and left it in the secret lab. Doc found it in 2035, while going back to the lab to pick up the clothes he wore in 2015

However, Doc soon found himself pursued by officer Griff Tannen, after he tried to retrieve his safety deposit box from the bank.

Tannen had been given a sage implant and a level one personality rewiring after he was released from prison.

As he was deemed rehabilitated, he became an officer of the Hill Valley Police Department. However, the new personality implant didn't work, and Griff retained his violent tendencies. He was known to disobey orders, to use excessive force, and to use equipment that he was not authorized to use, such as a flame thrower.

He was also reprimanded in the past for taking bribes

The police were after Doc as the biological scan of Doc's age did not match that of the false identity he set up in 2015. Doc had intended to travel back to 2015, to pick up the parts he needed, at a time that his false identity would still be valid.

However, Griff shot an electrical surge at Doc as he was about to head back in the steam time car.

This surge was meant to disable his bionic implants, but since Doc didn't have any, he suffered amnesia due to the jolt.

He saw Marty's letter in his pocket, and headed to the time and place that was written there, since that was his only clue as to what was happening. Doc arrived at the date on the letter, March 3, 1986, in his secret lab.

However, upon arriving there, he had no memory of who he was, and he was confused about the date and the location of which he had arrived.

He also did not recognize Marty and Jennifer. Marty and Jennifer decided to help the amnesiac Doc find the vehicle that had transported him there, not knowing which time machine he had used.

They went to the spot where Doc had crashed into a STOP sign, but the steam time car was gone. They discovered that the towing service, Lee Bros. Towing & Repair, had left a flyer with their company name, as they had wanted the owner of the car to know where it was towed.

They then traveled to the towing service, and discovered that a man who worked for the company, Jack, already had a buyer for the car. He stated that he would sell it to them instead for $300.

Since they didn't have the money, they sneaked into the lot, and found the car still hooked up to the tow truck. Knowing that they didn't have any way to get the money, Marty decided to steal the car, tow truck and all.

Douglas J. Needles arrived and threatened to smash the car, so Marty started the tow truck and sped away from Needles, who pursued him in his Ford F-150.

Marty managed to outrun Needles, who crashed into a delivery truck loaded with eggs. Jennifer and Doc, who had split up from Marty once Needles arrived, joined back up with Marty, and they headed to the Lone Pine Mall to inspect the steam time car. They discovered that Doc had arrived in 1986 from 2035.

The time parachute

Since the steam time car would be battered by the rigors of space-time, Doc surmised that it would not survive a return trip.

Thus, he had come up with a plan to travel without a time machine. He devised an idea for a time parachute, in which a person would ascend in a balloon to a distance of half a mile, and then would be released from the balloon.

The person would fall at a rate of 35 feet per second per second, and would reach 88 m.p.h. between four and five seconds. Since the time circuits, frictionless dynamo, and flux capacitor are connected to the parachute, the person, who would be protected from the rigors of space-time and the temperature variation by wearing a protective suit, would travel through time.

The time traveler would then pull the ripcord of the parachute once they traveled through time, and arrive safely on the ground in that time period.

Since the steam time car had surprisingly survived two trips, Doc and Marty knew it wouldn't survive another trip through time. Marty grabbed a radiation suit and traveled via the time parachute with Doc to September 16, 2035. There Marty hoped that they would discover what had happened to Doc, and why he lost his memory.

The time parachute was a success, and they crashed into the glass roof of the Lone Pine Fli-Drome once they arrived in 2035. They arrived in the middle of a fliderb, a hoverboard roller derby.

As they arrived in a radiation suit and a diving suit, and had crashed through the roof, the fliderb players thought they were terrorists, and called the police.

While on the run, Doc and Marty ran into officer Griff Tannen, who caught them in Bistro Twenty/15. This restaurant was themed on life in 2015, as Cafe 80's was modeled after the 1980s in 2015.

Officer Tannen recognized Doc as the person who supposedly stole the identity of Leroy Brown. Once he saw the diving suit, he realized that Doc and Marty were the two people who were the cause of the disturbance at the Fliderb.

Tannen chased them in his police vehicle while they fled on hoverboards. While they were being chased, Doc fell backwards on his board and hit his head. This shock caused him to remember everything, and he told Marty all about how he had found himself in that situation once they reached Doc's secret lab.

It seemed like the two were cornered, however Marty discovered that the machine that he had turned on out of curiosity in 1986 was actually the temporal field generator Mk II.

Although the device could only transport objects through time during the time in which the machine had been turned on, since it was turned on nearly fifty years prior, time would not be a factor. Doc donned the diving suit and went back to 2015.

The second DeLorean time machine

Marty and Jennifer found another DeLorean DMC-12 in Doc's secret lab in 1986. Although it wasn't adapted for time travel, Marty and Jennifer took it to escape the police, who had been alerted when the alarm was tripped in the secret lab.

Later, Jennifer drove it when chasing after Marty, who stole the tow truck that had the steam time car hooked up to it, and was trying to outrun Needles. At the parking lot, Jennifer ran towards the DeLorean when she spotted an incoming vehicle, but stopped when it turned out that it was Doc.

Doc had purchased a Mr Fusion in 2015, and had brought the time circuits and flux capacitor from the time parachute. He installed all of these devices into the spare DeLorean, and Jennifer and Doc headed to 2035 to rescue Marty.

When they had arrived, Commissioner Wilson had arrested Griff Tannen. She had also arrested Marty for his actions at the Fliderb, and told him that he'd likely get the same sage implant and personality rewrite that Griff Tannen had received.

Griff broke free and attempted to run them all over when Jennifer and Doc arrived in the DeLorean and knocked his hovercar out of the way. Marty got into the DeLorean and Jennifer attempted to outrun the police, who were in pursuit, along with Griff Tannen.

Doc informed Marty and Jennifer that every person in 2035 wore a suit outfitted with a hover technology protection that acted as a force field and made them bounce when hit.

Knowing that the people would be unharmed, Jennifer sped full speed into a crowd of people. As the bouncing pedestrians blocked Griff's view, he did not see the sewage reclamation project ahead, and crashed into it. Jennifer sped up to 88 m.p.h and traveled back to 1986.

She informed Marty that the steam time car, minus the equipment for time travel, was in the back of Marty's truck.

Marty walked Jennifer home, then Marty returned to his own home. Before Doc left, he gave Marty a bag containing several canisters, telling him to leave a note in Doc's secret lab if he ever needs help.

The Jules Verne train

Doc picked up Einstein, and they both traveled from 1986 to August 14, 1893, hours after Clara dropped off the note addressed to Marty at the Western Union office.

Later in the 1890s, Doc was able to successfully complete the Jules Verne train, using the technology he brought back from 2015. He then traveled to October 27, 1985.

There, the Brown family met up with Marty McFly and Jennifer Parker in the most likely place that they might be at that given time, the site of the DeLorean's destruction.

He introduced his family, and explained to Jennifer how the fax that showed that Marty had been fired in 2015 disappeared after Marty chose not to drag race Douglas J. Needles in 1985.

The future hadn't been written yet, so he told Jennifer and Marty to make it a good one. He also gave Marty the picture that was taken in 1885 of Marty and Doc in front of the clock that had yet to be installed in the Hill Valley Courthouse.

Marcus Irving's time machine

In January 1986, the United States government terminated the funding of Marcus Irving's time travel research, as his time machine wasn't complete since the final step had eluded him for the past 24 years.

When trying to learn more about the government's research into time travel, Irving discovered that he had not been their first choice for building a time machine. Irving became jealous of Doc Brown being their first choice, and also angry at Brown for denying the offer and causing him to waste 24 years of his life.

Thus, Irving set out to gather information on Brown. Upon reaching Doc Brown's lab at 1646 John F. Kennedy Drive, he discovered it to be deserted. He conducted more research and learned of a close friend and assistant of Brown's, Marty McFly.

Hoping to find out just how much success Brown had had with time travel, Irving went to Marty's house, only to see Emmett Brown in the DeLorean time machine reach temporal displacement, at the moment Doc left the canisters with Marty and Jennifer.

At this point, Irving decided to try and contact Brown, leaving a message in Brown's second laboratory. On April 14, 1986, he came face-to-face with Marty McFly, who was also looking for Doc in an attempt to find out why his memories did not reflect the current timeline. He informed Marty that he had built a partially working time machine using a Yugo, and warned him that his conflicting memories could mean he could be erased once the current timeline caught up with itself.

Marty sent a message to Doc, who arrived shortly afterward. While Doc and Marty were talking, Marcus secretly removed the tires from the DeLorean, and used Doc's flux capacitor to solve his problem with flux energy, which was the final step needed for time travel.

He was afraid of altering time too much, so he had spent years driving around with the flux capacitor in his trunk, worrying that someone might steal it from him.

Eventually, he decided to travel into the future to make himself rich. Since he was afraid of altering time too much, he decided to only time travel in "baby steps", so he could better prevent any major changes to the timeline. He decided to take 2008 technology back to 1997 in order to make himself rich.

By this point, he had upgraded his Yugo with steel panels to help with the dispersal of flux energy. He also upgraded the tires, as the polymers used in 1980s rubber tires aren't suited for the rigors of the space-time continuum.

Once he began his plan, he realized that he could be confronted by Marty and Doc at any time, as unlike himself, they were time cowboys who weren't afraid to travel many years into the past and future, making large changes to the time stream.

Irving searched the internet for pictures of Marty and Doc from the 1980s. He then used those pictures to build several doppelgangers using futuristic parts and sent them back to 1986.

Several of the Marty doppelgangers appeared soon after Irving had stolen the flux capacitor and kidnapped Marty. They tried to kidnap Doc as well, but he escaped in the DeLorean.

It was still able to fly despite lacking tires, since the hover technology in the rims were untouched. One of Marty's doppelgangers held onto the DeLorean while it was in the air. This surprised Doc, as he thought that it would be very unlikely that Marty could have survived such a trip.

Doc explains that they can't just go back and stop Marcus from taking the flux capacitor, since the effects on a time traveler aren't instant, pointing out that it took a week for Marty to begin to fade from existence in 1955. Marcus and Doc could get in a reverse time race, with each vehicle going further back in time to try to prevent the other from making changes.

Marty realizes that his fear of being all alone is what drove him to find Marty in the first place. They decide to take Marcus to his younger self, traveling in the DeLorean back to 1986.

In 1986, Marcus Irving is traveling in his Yugo GX, happy that he has taken the flux capacitor. Marty and Doc arrive from 1997 in the DeLorean, followed by the older Marcus in the Yugo.

The temporal duplicate DeLorean

On May 14, 1986, a DeLorean time machine arrived at Doc's garage, six months after Doc's original DeLorean was destroyed.

This DeLorean was a temporal duplicate, which had been created when the original DeLorean was hit by lightning in 1955. While the original DeLorean was sent seventy years in the past, the temporal duplicate DeLorean was sent seventy years into the future.

Doc traveled to the future and discovered that DeLorean. He was able to get it back from Griff Tannen before he caused damage to the time stream

As it was an exact duplicate of the original DeLorean, it had all the additions that the original DeLorean had when it was hit by lightning in 1955.

It also had some additions that Doc had made since then, including an automatic retrieval system which would send the DeLorean to the future to retrieve Marty in the event that Doc didn't use the DeLorean for an extended period of time.

Marty played a tape of Doc explaining this feature, and realized that Doc was in trouble. He traveled to June 13, 1931 to rescue Doc. Things didn't go as planned, and Doc was erased from time due to Marty accidentally causing a young Emmett to fall in love with and marry Edna Strickland. Doc never created the time machine, so he wasn't able to get the rejuvenation treatments that extended his life

Marty was able to convince the alternate Doc from this timeline to repair the time machine. This Doc, who went by the name Citizen Brown, traveled back to 1931 with Marty to try to fix the timeline.

As they arrived at a later date then they had intended, Citizen Brown repaired the time circuits of this DeLorean, which were unstable. He used flux emitters to calibrate the time circuits to ensure that the DeLorean arrived at the right time

When Marty proved that Edna was the arsonist who burned down the Hill Valley speakeasy, the timeline was repaired. Young Emmett never married Edna, so Citizen Brown faded from existence.

Edna Strickland stole the DeLorean and accidentally headed into the past, while trying to avoid Officer Danny Parker. Marty gave young Emmett a newspaper clipping from 1986 and told him not to look at it until he was awarded the key to the city.

At that point, Doc arrived in 1931, as he had received the key and then understood who had given him the newspaper clipping. This Doc had arrived in a different DeLorean, which was from the new timeline, so it didn't contain the modifications that Citizen Brown had made.

Once Hill Valley faded from existence, they realized that Edna Strickland had seriously damaged the time stream at some time in the past. Marty's great grandfather William McFly, told them about an old woman named Mary Pickford, who he thought would know about the town that used to be there.

It turns out that Mary Pickford was actually Edna Strickland, who had traveled back to 1876 and accidentally burned down the town when she tried to set fire to the Palace Saloon. After she gave them the date of the arson, Marty and Doc traveled to July 17, 1876 to stop her.

Doc used flux overrides to control the flux emitters on Edna's DeLorean. They were able to remotely control her DeLorean, accelerating to 88 mph before that DeLorean faded from existence once the time bubble protecting it popped and time caught up with itself.

When Marty and Doc returned to 1986, Doc revealed that, unlike the original timeline where the bank was foreclosing his lab due to his absence, he and Clara live part time in 1986. He also explained that he went to 1931 to investigate Marty's family lineage so that he could give Marty a book on his ancestry.

The new DeLorean

Also in 1991, Doc Brown built a new DeLorean. This DeLorean had many improvements, including audio activation of the time circuits, and spatial displacement. This feature, which Doc also installed into the Jules Verne train, allowed it to travel to any place on Earth at any time period.

This DeLorean also had the ability to transform into a suitcase, which prevented it from being stolen and allowed it to hidden more easily. (As seen in the Film Ready Player One)

By 1991, Doc improved upon his temporal field experiments with the remote control mail delivery time machine, which could send objects through time, beyond the lifespan of the device.

When the Brown family were visiting the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt in 1000 BCE, a spear damaged the flux capacitor of the Jules Verne train.

The time train was sent to 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts. Doc used the remote control mail delivery time machine to send a scratch and listen postcard to 1991 to let Marty know the situation.

Marty used the new DeLorean to travel back to September 23, 1692 with a spare flux capacitor. He crashed in a lake, and another addition that Doc made to the new DeLorean was revealed when an inflatable device was automatically triggered, bringing the DeLorean back to the surface. After several days, Doc was able to repair the train, and they were able to take both the Jules Verne train and the new DeLorean time machine back to 1991.

In 1992, Doc Brown's old college roommate, Walter Wisdom, hosted a children's television show about science. Doc's son Verne was a fan of the show, and tried to talk to Walter Wisdom backstage.

Once Wisdom found out that Verne was Emmett's son, he sought to find out if he had made any more inventions that he could steal.

He found out that Doc had realized his vision for time travel, and stole the new DeLorean. He tried to pass it off as his own design and reveal its existence on live television, but Doc was able to reveal that he was a charlatan and thief by proving that he knew everything about the inventions that Walter Wisdom stole, while Wisdom himself knew very little.

Additional time travel without a machine

Like Doc's time parachute, his son Jules devised a similar plan. After traveling from 1991 to August 5, 1926, Jules discovered his father, who was a child at the time, was going to be in a barrel going over the Upper Yosemite Falls while movie producer D.W. Tannen filmed it.

To keep his father safe, Verne Brown took his place in the barrel, and Jules put a spare flux capacitor inside. As Doc had improved time travel at that point to allow for travel through both space and time, once the barrel reached 88 m.p.h., it was sent safely towards land.

Unspecified DeLorean time machines

Doc used a DeLorean time machine several times after he returned from 1885. It's unknown which time machine was used in these instances, but since they appeared similar to the original DeLorean, they were likely either the second DeLorean, the temporal duplicate DeLorean, or a new time machine.

On May 15th, 1986, a future version of Marty arrived outside Doc's garage in a DeLorean time machine.

In 1988, Doc traveled to Orlando, Florida on May 1, 1990 to visit Universal Studios Florida. He was able to have an experience beyond that of usual theme park visitors, as he was able to actively participate in the rides

In 1989, in Hill Valley, California, two young men discovered and stole a DeLorean time machine and used it to travel to 2015. They asked a police officer where they could find pizza, and she pointed them to a Pizza Hut restaurant.

In 1991, Biff stowed away in a DeLorean time machine when the scientists from the Institute of Technology traveled to 1955. Biff stole this time machine and traveled to the future and the past, while being pursued by time travel volunteers in an 8-passenger DeLorean remotely piloted by Doc Brown.

Non-canon or disputable information ends here.

Doc traveled to 2045 or beyond, where he witnessed the devastation caused by a nuclear holocaust which was accidentally triggered by an overload of the Mr. Fusion network by a signal sent out by Griff Tannen's ThingMeme social media application.

Doc successfully traveled from 2015 to an unknown point the past to prevent the the Mr. Fusion, hover conversion, food hydrator and self-tying shoes from being available by 2015.

Changing the future

Doc warns Marty about Griff Tannen.

Doc devised 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. Unfortunately, Doc failed to realize that since he used the sleep inducer in Jennifer, there wasn't enough power to knock out Marty Jr. for a full hour, thus complicating the plan.

Nonetheless, Marty is able to improvise, causing Griff and his gang to crash into the Hill Valley Courthouse. The changes to the timeline became apparent as the newspaper displaying tomorrow's article changed from Marty Jr.'s arrest to Griff's.

As they prepared to go back to 1985, Doc then discovered that Marty had bought a sports almanac to take back to 1985 with him.

Doc lectured Marty about abusing time travel for financial gain. But before he could adequately dispose of the almanac, they spotted two female police officers discovering an unconscious Jennifer.

By analyzing her thumbprint, which didn't change over the years, they simply assume her to be the Jennifer of 2015. Doc devised a plan to get Jennifer after she is dropped off at her future home. But he then feared that if she ran into her future self, then she'd either faint from shock or cause a paradox that would destroy the universe.

Unknown to Doc or Marty, Biff Tannen overheard the conversation and later stole the DeLorean and the Almanac while Doc and Marty were rescuing the Jennifer from 1985 from the future McFly family house in Hilldale, an housing estate.

As expected, when both Jennifers encountered each other, they both fainted from shock. As they carried the unconscious 1985 Jennifer back to the DeLorean, Doc declares that when they get back to 1985, he'll destroy the time machine, seeing as it's brought nothing but disaster and misfortune. That way, he can focus on the other mystery of the universe: women. Doc even regretted that he would never fulfill his dream to see the Wild West. Ironically, both dreams would be fulfilled once Doc was accidentally sent back in time a few days later.[11]

Note: The following section is considered non-canon or is disputed in canonicity.

The Actions of the Alternate Doc Brown in Hell Valley

When the elderly Biff Tannen brought the sports almanac from 2015 back to 1955, he had quickly managed to amass a great fortune.

By 1973, Biff had begun to buy up all the land in Hill Valley, which would soon become known to its residents as Hell Valley. George McFly turned the Hill Valley Civic Committee into a secret committee dedicated to stopping BiffCo. Unbeknownst to anyone in the Civic Committee, Emmett Brown was their silent benefactor.

When George McFly was secretly murdered by Biff Tannen, and Biff married his widow Lorraine Baines McFly later that year, Doc Brown began to work even harder on his time machine project.

He allowed the rumors about his madness to spread so that he could work under the nose of everyone in Hill Valley, including BiffCo.

Doc had come up with a time travel chamber built from a 1952 Sears Coldspot refrigerator. Since the only way to reliably get power was to hack into the city's power grid, the 1.21 Jigowatts necessary for time travel could not be sourced. Instead, Doc cut some corners in order to allow it to function.

The 465.3 megawatt capacity of the power grid would be converted to flux capacitance energy, which would send the time traveler to the date set on the time circuits displayed on a meter inside the chamber door.

The limitations of using less than half of the energy needed to properly power the chamber meant that there was only four hours of flux energy available before the time bubble protecting the time traveler would burst.

This would cause the time traveler to fade from existence in the past and re-appear back in the chamber in the present.

After Biff had Terry murdered for trying to break into the safe in Tannen Manor in 1983, Biff had his stepson Dave McFly forced out of town, Doc revealed himself and his time machine to the remaining members of the Hill Valley Civic Committee.

Stanford S. Strickland recalled a time that, while he was attending Hill Valley Elementary School, Biff was going to be sent to a military academy in Idaho after assaulting other children for the third or fourth time. He remembered the date, May 16, 1946, as it was the day after he celebrated his birthday

Doc connected the chamber to the power grid, and used his JVC camcorder to capture the moment. Stanford S. Strickland, wearing a suit that his father owned, stepped into the chamber and disappeared into the past.

The remaining members of the Hill Valley Civic Committee unhooked the chamber and put it in a truck to get away before Biff realized where the blackout occurred.

Mr. Strickland arrived in the past. He walked to the school, and witnessed Biff picking on a smaller child. George McFly stuck up for the child, and Biff punched George, causing his nose to bleed.

Lorraine Baines informed a senior teacher, Miss Hodges, about the bullying, just as the younger Strickland apprehended Biff, calling him a slacker.

The elder Strickland tried to stop Miss Hodges from intervening, but he was surprised to find out that she was the one who wanted to ship Biff to Idaho, and his younger self stopped her as he believed that Biff could become a good student with the proper guidance.

as Hill Valley High School burned down in 1979 and wasn't rebuilt until at least some point after 1985). He blamed himself for everything and didn't want to interact with anyone.

The committee decided that the best attempt to stop Biff would be to prevent him from being born, by stopping the wedding of his parents. The only problem was that no records were available before 1950, since everything was lost after Biff bulldozed the Hill Valley Courthouse to build his casino and hotel.

Goldie Wilson realized that they would be able to determine the date by going to the Biff Tannen Museum inside Biff's casino.

Upon arriving at the museum, Doc Brown was required to buy a cigarette and hold it in his hand, due to the museum's "smoking required" policy.

He was already disgusted by the museum, but he pressed himself to go on. He learned that Biff's parents, Myra Benson and Kid Tannen (going by Thomas Tannen after being released from prison), married at the Hill Valley Church of the Heather on December 6, 1936.

Doc went back to the committee, and they developed a plan. Doc would arrive at the wedding, and object to the marriage, stating that the bride is already married to his son "Melvin", and that he thinks that she is pregnant.

The committee then travels once again to the power grid, where the chamber is hooked up. Doc enters the chamber, disappearing into the past, and the city's power goes out again. This time

Biff demands his gang to stop whoever is causing the blackouts.

In 1936, Doc takes a taxi to the church. He is about to object to the wedding, when he hears a baby crying. When the babysitter calls him Biff, Doc realizes he made a mistake. Myra had become pregnant earlier that year. Kid wanted her to have an abortion, but she wouldn't do it, as it was illegal, and she felt that her mother would kill her if she did.

Kid and Myra married simply for the purpose of making it seem like Biff wasn't born out of wedlock. The two parted ways immediately after the wedding, and neither parent wanted Biff. Because of this, Kid's mother, Gertrude Tannen, took custody of him. Before he left his son, Kid gave Gertrude a forged birth certificate that stated that Biff was born on March 28, 1937.

Doc planned to come up with a "Plan C" once he arrived in 1983; however, the chamber was now in BiffCo, as the other members of the committee were caught by the Hill Valley Police Department when they couldn't unhook the chamber from the power grid. Biff wanted to know what the refrigerator did, and why it took so much power. Doc refused to tell him, and was committed to Mental Ward B at the Hill Valley Hospital. Sometime prior to 1985, Doc was given a lobotomy, and was placed in permanent residency in the County Asylum.

Non-canon or disputable information ends here.

The Actions of the Original Doc Brown in Hell Valley

Doc, Marty and Jennifer arrived back in 1985 only to discover that history had been altered.

To make sense out of all the madness, Doc went to the local library, which was boarded up and shut down, and 'borrowed' some newspapers.

As he deduced, Biff had taken the time machine and given the sports almanac to his younger self somewhere in the past, who then became a millionaire by placing bets on the chronicled sporting events. As a result,

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 a psychiatric ward since 1983 (he was committed on the same day he won his award in the "proper" history). Doc visited his other self at the asylum, hoping that they would be able to put their heads together to find a solution. Unfortunately, Doc's 1985A self had been lobotomized, and could no longer be communicated with. Since this had prevented this universe's Doc Brown from building the DeLorean Time Machine, this would also be an example of a Grandfather Paradox.[12]

Once the time bubble burst, Doc, Marty, Jennifer and Einstein would be erased from existence.

Biff also married Marty's mother Lorraine in a sham marriage after Biff killed Marty's father George McFly, of which Biff was never convicted due to corruption in Hill Valley's police force (where Biff literally "owned" the police due to his wealth and/or powerful influence).[11]

Doc perceived this alternate reality as proof how time travel can be abused and why the time machine had to be destroyed, after they corrected the timeline.

Marty suggested that they go back to the future to stop 2015 Biff from stealing the time machine, but Doc shot down that plan, for they'd only be going into the future of this reality. After Marty is able to discern that 2015 Biff went back to November 12, 1955, the same day he returned to 1985,

Doc commented that date either has some cosmic significance for the whole space-time continuum or an amazing coincidence.

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 kept resetting the Destination Time setting to January 1, 1885.

Doc also advised Marty to wait until old Biff gives his younger self the almanac so that he could go back to the future with the DeLorean. Unfortunately, Marty was locked in Biff's garage when Biff of 2015 gave 1955 Biff the almanac.

Doc commandeered a bicycle to rescue him, only for Biff to leave for the Enchantment Under the Sea dance, with Marty still in the back of his car. While making his way back to the DeLorean, Doc came by his past self preparing for the past Marty's return to the future. He gave his younger self a few pointers before walking away to avoid being seen.[11]

Ultimately, Marty succeeded in retrieving the almanac. Doc then started the DeLorean to fly to his position. Marty called Doc over the walkie-talkie, stating that Biff's gang is about to jump his past self singing Johnny B. Goode.

Doc advised Marty to covertly stop them otherwise his past self wouldn't make it to the clock tower, thereby resulting in a paradox.

Marty was successfull in protecting his younger self, but lost the almanac to Biff as he was leaving the gym.

Doc picked up Marty and stealthily tailed Biff as he was driving home. They are able to once again snatch the almanac before having Biff slammed into a manure truck for the second time. After that, Marty burned the almanac, setting history straight.

However this success was quickly followed by Doc, in the DeLorean, being sent back 70 years to 1885 when a bolt of lightning struck the DeLorean. Simultaneously, a temporal duplicate DeLorean was created and sent forward 70 years to 2025.

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, with the invention of the transistor.[4] 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, and given to Marty in 1955.[11]

In the Old West

Marty received the letter and ran to 1955 Doc, who had just sent the younger Marty back to the future. Marty and Doc uncovered the DeLorean and repaired it, but his orignal pet, Copernicus discovered that in 1885, Doc would be murdered by Buford 'Mad Dog' Tannen, ancestor of Biff.

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 (Doc of 1885, who had been born in Timeline 2, is not aware of his impending death.

Doc of Timeline 7, born more than 30 years after the 1885 death of Timeline 2 Doc, has seen the tombstone in 1955. Given that the ripple effect does not alter a time traveler's memory-- Marty's memory of his impoverished life is not replaced by memories of growing up in altered timelines -- Doc of 1885 would not know what would happen in the days ahead.[4]

Marty located Doc, and once again Doc had to make repairs to the time machine after it ran out of gasoline (hard to come by in 1885) and accidentally blew out the DeLorean's fuel injector as an effect from using an unusually strong bottle of liquor from the Palace Saloon as a substitute for gas.

While making a plan to use a train to push the DeLorean to 88 mph, Doc saved a woman, Clara Clayton, from falling over a ravine after a rattlesnake spooked her horses. 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 by Buford Tannen. Doc and Clara spent the rest of the night looking at the stars with her telescope and discovered that they both loved Jules Verne. They then had their first kiss that night.[4

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 shot at the Palace Saloon, where Marty found him next morning (Monday) with the same shot. After drinking the shot, 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, however it took until Buford Tannen arrived for his duel with Marty out in the streets.[4]

Doc was taken hostage by Buford's gang after a failed plan to escape the saloon, however, Marty manages to save Doc from being killed just in time for the Marshal Strickland's deputy to arrest Buford and his gang, which caused the image on the photo of the tombstone to erase. Afterward, Doc and Marty hijacked ("borrowed", as Doc says) a train to use to push the DeLorean up to 88 miles per hour.

Clara reappeared, having seen everything 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 got left behind with Clara in 1885. Marty managed to get home, but the time machine was destroyed less than a minute after his arrival, meaning he could not go back to rescue Doc and Clara from the past.[4]

Finding a way home

Over the next 8 years, Doc and Clara married and had two sons, Jules and Verne, named after their favorite author.

Doc began to build a new time machine, this time using a steam locomotive.

By 1893, the new time machine was complete. Doc and his family attempted to travel to the future, but in an unexpected turn of events, the train was unable to do so.

Doc considered giving up, but was inspired by a steam tricycle to build a smaller, temporary time machine - the steam time car.

He planned to travel to 2015 and pick up hover technology to upgrade the train back in 1893. Anticipating that the vehicle would fall apart after its first temporal displacement,

Doc devised the time parachute as a backup plan, which used the time circuits from the steam time car as a backpack that would allow the time traveler to fall to temporal displacement. Doc promised his family that he would return safely, and set the time circuits for 2015

Amnesia and reuniting with Marty

Immediately after arriving, Doc crashed into a person, who bounced away as a result of their personal forcefield. This was the first clue that something was not quite right, and after exploring some more.

Doc realized that he had overshot and missed 2015, instead time traveling to 2035. Surprisingly, the steam time car had survived the trip, and Doc hid it for later use.

He visited his lab to change into more contemporary clothes (though still 20 years out of date), and noticed a note left by Marty McFly dated March 3, 1986. The note specified that Doc had never returned to 1893, which confused him, as he was in no such danger.

Seeing no cause for concern, he headed into town to withdraw money. The bank account had been set up under the alias 'Leroy Brown', but improvements in security technology meant that the bank identified his true genetic age, and concluded that he could not be the same Leroy Brown.

Now wanted by the police, Doc ran back to where he had hidden the steam time car, officer Griff Tannen of the police force in pursuit. Griff sent out a signal designed to incapacitate mandatory futuristic head implants, but since Doc had never had them installed, it damaged his memory instead.

Dazed and confused, Doc remembered the date he had seen on the letter - March 3 1986 - and managed to reach temporal displacement.

Still unsure of his surroundings, Doc crashed into a STOP sign, and left the steam time car there while he returned to his secret lab.

He set off a trap on his entrance, alerting a surprised Marty and Jennifer, who had been investigating his 'disappearance' after receiving a letter from Clara.

They realized that he could not recall his identity, and helped him retrieve the steam time car from a junkyard that it had been towed to in his absence.

Having read the last time departed readout, Marty decided to return to 2035 with Doc, to find out what had caused him to lose his memory. They used the time parachute to go to September 16 2035.

Doc and Marty decided to rest at Bistro Twenty/15, as it provided at least some degree of familiarity compared to the otherwise alien era.

Unfortunately, Griff was also present at the bistro, and recognized Doc as the criminal he had chased earlier. Doc and Marty quickly returned to Doc's secret lab, where Doc fully recovered his memory and attempted to find a way to escape 2035.

Marty noted a machine in the center of the room, which had been humming and charging ever since he activated it in 1986. Doc realized that this was the Temporal Field Generator Mk II, which allowed one occupant to return to any hour between its activation and the present.

Having no choice but to leave Marty behind, Doc traveled to 2015, where he collected supplies for converting the half-finished DeLorean time machine into a working one. He then traveled once again to 1986, arriving at the mall as Jennifer witnessed his previous self and Marty depart via time parachute. He managed to finish the new DeLorean within a few hours, and returned to 2035 with Jennifer.

They arrived back at the secret lab in time to stop Marty from being arrested by Commisioner Wilson. With Jennifer at the wheel, the three of them escaped Griff, and finally traveled back home to 1986.

Doc drops Marty and Jennifer off at the McFly residence. He gives Marty a bag of canisters, telling him to leave a note in one of them in his secret lab if he ever needs help. He then departs for August 14, 1893, where Clara, Jules and Verne are happy to see him safe.

He informs them that he only arrived a day late because wanted to make sure that Clara would write the letter that got Marty's attention about his disappearance. He has brought Einstein with him, who happily jumps on Clara, as Doc hugs his sons, Jules and Verne.

The anniversary present

On September 7, 1893, Doc was still working on upgrading the Jules Verne Train to a hover-converted version.

Clara reminded him that the date was their anniversary, and offered him a gift. Doc, realizing that he had not bought anything for her, hastily retreated to the DeLorean time machine and traveled to 2017, unaware that Verne was hiding in the vehicle.

In 2017, Doc left the DeLorean to find a suitable gift for Clara, eventually purchasing a copy of Jules Verne's 'The Lighthouse at the End of the World' from Blast from the Past. But as he prepared to leave, he noticed that Verne had come with him to 2017.

Searching for his lost son, Doc discovered that he was safe, and had managed to prevent a robbery while he was gone. Despite Verne's irresponsible behavior, Doc was proud of his son for preventing a crime.

Arriving back in 1893, Doc gave his present to Clara, and received his own gift: a notepad and a fountain pen, ironically intended to stop Doc from forgetting important dates.

Note: The following section is considered non-canon or is disputed in canonicity.

The Brown family eventually moved back to the 20th century and by 1991, Doc had set up the Institute of Future Technology. He also invented an 8-seater DeLorean, which came in handy after Biff stole the time machine again, and visitors to the Institute, sitting in one of these 8-seaters, had to help Doc chase Biff through time.[15]

On April 22, 1990, Doc arrived at St. Terra Hospital in Anytown after Mother Nature became ill due to the heavy pollution on Earth. Once there, he shared knowledge of the details causing her illness and what could be done to help her with Doogie Howser and several other doctors on staff.[16]

Also by 1991, Doc, Clara, Jules, and Verne lived in a farmhouse outside Hill Valley with Einstein. The family, along with Marty, traveled through time in both the Jules Verne train time machine and the new DeLorean (which from the outside looked identical to the old one, but was drastically different inside).[17]

21st century

Emmett Brown as rendered in the style of The Simpsons for a video in The Simpsons Ride during 2007.

Little is known of Doc in the 2000s and 2010s, prior to time travel. Assuming he aged normally in one timeline, he would have been into his 90s and almost 100 by 2015.

After his initial trip to the future, however, he explained to Marty that he went to a clinical rejuvenation clinic, replacing, amongst other things, his colon and spleen. This most certainly would have extended his lifespan some.

Doc may have spent some time in the 2000s with his wife Clara and sons Jules and Verne, although the family never settled on one decade, instead choosing to spend their lives in multiple decades, moreover the old West. In 2006, his Institute of Future Technology was replaced by another building.[15]

Non-canon or disputable information ends here.

Although he was usually careful about being discreet with the DeLorean, he referred to the time machine as a time machine in public, leading Biff Tannen to use it without Doc's knowledge in an attempt to alter history.

In 1985, he flew land-based vehicles with hover conversions during the daytime, with no consideration of the possibility of people seeing him.

Writer Bob Gale has denied the rumor that the name Emmett Lathrop was derived by spelling the words "time" and "portal" backwards.

He and Robert Zemeckis simply chose names that sounded good and were out of the ordinary, as a contrast with the common last name "Brown".

The "L" in Emmett L. Brown's name stands for "Lathrop", it has been speculated that this may have been his mother's maiden name, although there is no evidence for this.

The novelization and screenplays states that he is 65 in 1985, although an episode of the animated series claims he was born in 1922. In Back to the Future: The Game, Emmett is 17 in 1931, which means that he was born in 1914.

"Christopher Lloyd says that his model for creating the character was actually the conductor Leopold Stokowski, with the hair that way, and the big, broad gestures. Doc Brown walks around like he's conducting the orchestra of the world." - Bob Gale In addition, Albert Einstein was an influence to the character.

Doc's family was presumably from the German Empire or Austria-Hungary.

First Citizen Brown's balding and spectacled appearance in the game looked similar to Christopher Lloyd's real-life appearance as in the 2010s.

Robert Zemeckis, co-writer/director of the films, has suggested that during the early 1940s, Doc worked on the Manhattan Project (which could explained the reason why the Libyan terrorists specifically picked Doc to build them a nuclear weapon), though this is never mentioned on screen.

Lloyd, in the 2009 documentary, said that he had an offer for an off-Broadway theatrical production at the same time that he would be filming Back to the Future, and debated whether to appear on stage, or portraying Doc Brown.

Doc owns a clock that is shown at the beginning of Back to the Future Part I that shows an old man in a jacket and a hat hanging on to the minute hand just like the 1955 Doc later on in the movie and also resembled Harold Lloyd (no relation) in "Safety Last".

If one looks very closely at each time Doc is shot by the Libyans, the second time has a very obvious difference to show that he didn't really die.

The first Doc (with no knowledge) gets fired upon so much, he literally balances on one foot before toppling over backwards. The second Doc (with the foresight to wear the vest) merely waves up his arms and then falls backwards using his arms for some cushion.

Strangely enough, the first time Doc is shot by the Libyans, there is no blood at all, when it should have painted Doc's van (one could conclude he had the vest because it could have been a predestination paradox.

However, one likely explanation is that when Doc first died, he was sent recoiling by the gunfire and landed on the parking lot pavement, thus any blood could have seeped there.

However, the film producers likely did not want to focus on blood as that was not that crucial to the plot, only that Marty must now go back in time to warn the younger Doc. Other likely explanation is not wishing to jeopardize their overall family-friendly image of the film by risking it getting rated "PG-13" or "R".

Christopher Lloyd got nominated for Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor for Doc (BTTF1).

The brief "Hi" that Doc and Lorraine give each other, after Lorraine follows Marty to Doc's garage (besides being the only time in any of the three films that Christopher Lloyd and Lea Thompson share a scene), is the only time that Doc directly interacts with any member of the McFly family, aside from Marty, on-screen.

Doc did also incapacitate Marty McFly, Jr. with his sleep inducer in 2015, but this was only mentioned and never seen.

So now your fully upto speed with the past (88mph in the case) please make your present adventure to head over to our DeLorean Time Machine Hire page to book your Back to the Future experience with us. As without your booking your Future is not set, but we can make it a good one !

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