Emmett Brown
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- "Doc Brown" redirects here. For the British rapper, see Doc Brown (rapper).
| Back to the Future character | |
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| Emmett Lathrop Brown | |
|---|---|
| Role | Inventor of time travel |
| Profession | Scientist |
| Original time | 1955 / 1985 |
| Time traveler | Yes |
| Years visited | 1885, 1955, 1985A, 2015 |
| Appeared in | Part I, Part II, Part III, AS, Ride |
| Portrayed by | Christopher Lloyd |
| Voiced by | Dan Castellaneta |
Emmett Lathrop "Doc" Brown, Ph.D. is a fictional scientist and one of the lead characters in the Back to the Future motion picture trilogy. He is played in all three movies by actor Christopher Lloyd, 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. In the Back to the Future universe, he is the inventor of the first time machine, which he builds out of a De Lorean sports car. His earlier inventions met with limited success but he was able to build a large refrigerator and steam locomotive time machine in 1885.
"Doc", as he is referred to by his best friend, Marty McFly, was born in the early 1920s—the novelization says he was 65 (implying 1920), while The Animated Series gives 1922—in Hill Valley, California. A scientist by trade, Doc is a "student of all sciences" and spends much of his time inventing. He usually has a pet dog; in 1955, his dog was named Copernicus, and by 1985, he had a dog named Einstein after Albert Einstein. Doc's role models are 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 a wall in his home in 1955).
Doc can be absent-minded at times, and despite getting around town due to his repair business (see below) he is regarded by many of Hill Valley's townsfolk as strange, eccentric, or crazy (see mad scientist). As such, he has few friends (the only friends of his we meet through the trilogy are his dogs, Marty, and Marty's girlfriend, Jennifer Parker). Because of this, Doc is often seen as a loner even though he cares about the people he is close to. However, it is not known when he would have originally met Marty. The first film does not specify their original first meeting; when Marty goes back in time to 1955 the first meeting is pushed back prior to Marty's birth. Later, after Marty was born and they met again, Doc presumably remembered but kept this memory secret from the "new" Marty of the positively altered timeline until the "original" Marty returns to the altered 1985
Doc does not believe in "love at first sight" until he ends up meeting his future wife Clara Clayton in 1885, since he does not see scientifically how such a feeling works.
Doc often works through the night on his inventions and can become obsessed with little things. He will always try to use a big word rather than a small one if one is available – for example, he refers to a dance as a "rhythmic ceremonial ritual". He often tends to enunciate his words with wide-eyed facial expressions and broad gestures. He is also known for his expression of the catch phrase "Great Scott!" He also likes jazz music, Jules Verne and Westerns. Although he may like to gamble, he would never use time travel for that reason. Doc does not usually drink alcoholic beverages, since he has a tendency to pass out after just one drink. As stated in the original film, he is allergic to all synthetic fabrics.
Doc has been involved in illegal and criminal enterprises within the scope of the films. He cheated Libyan terrorists out of an unspecified amount of stolen plutonium he tricked them into stealing for him, and would have died as a result had Marty not intervened.
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[edit] Pre-Back to the Future
Doc's back story and early life have been considerably elucidated by looking at draft scripts and spin-off series. One draft script suggests that his mother was called Sarah Lathrop, which would explain his middle initial "L" in the films. (Doc's middle name, "Lathrop", is revealed in the animated series). She also has a brother named Abraham and carries a rag doll she named Emma, suggesting she named her son after her doll. Doc's mother's side of the family have lived in Hill Valley since around the 1880s, while his father's side of the family arrived in Hill Valley in 1908, when they were known as the Von Brauns – they changed their name to Brown during World War I. It has been speculated that the fictional Doc is supposed to be a relative of the real scientist Wernher von Braun. Doc's family was presumably from the German Empire or Austria-Hungary. According to the animated series, Doc has an uncle Oliver who lived in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and young Emmett would go to visit him in the summer. The animated series also showed that Doc Brown was a wrestler briefly in the 50s, but never really competed, and that his college roommate was Mr. Wisdom, a man who stole his science fair project, and won first prize for it.
At age 11, Doc discovered the works of his favorite author, Jules Verne. From that point, he decided to dedicate his life to science. A draft script suggests he got into science when he stuck his finger in an electrical socket. Around 1932, one year later, Doc tried digging to the center of the Earth, inspired by the 1864 novel Journey to the Center of the Earth. Robert Zemeckis, co-writer/director of the films, has suggested that during the early 1940s Doc worked on the Manhattan Project, though this is never mentioned on screen (but it would give credence to his knowledge of nuclear physics and plutonium). Zemeckis also mentions that Doc had attended the University of California, Berkeley and MIT.
During the 1950s, Doc worked as a professor of physics at Hill Valley University[citation needed]. Through unspecified means, Doc's family had amassed a large fortune that Doc had inherited by the 1950s. It allowed him to finance his projects and afford the lavish Brown Mansion, played by the real life historic landmark the Gamble House in Pasadena, CA for exterior shots on Riverside Drive (later renamed John F. Kennedy drive), which is one block past Maple street, in Hill Valley, CA, in the movies. In the opening sequence of the first movie, a framed Hill Valley Telegraph newspaper dated Thursday, August 2, 1962 can be seen with the headline, "Brown Mansion Destroyed." It burnt to the ground, presumably on Wednesday, August 1, 1962, the day before the article was printed, and Doc sold it along with a large amount of surrounding land to developers, explaining why he lived in the remaining lab/garage, next to the Burger King in 1985.
By this time, having lost his home and having spent most all his fortune to build his time machine, he has a "day job" as something of quasi repair man. As pointed out in DVD commentary to the first Back to the Future film, the van he is seen using to bring the DeLorean to the mall for its first test is marked "Dr E. Brown Enterprises: 24 Hr. Scientific Services." Writer/producer Bob Gale explains "our thinking was that the folks in Hill Valley, if they needed a scientist day or night, could simply call Doc Brown and he'd be there in his truck to do whatever service a scientist would be required for."
Doc may have played the alto saxophone at some point in his life, as evidenced by the instrument lying next to the phone in his garage in Back to the Future.
[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. 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. (However, in the first movie Marty helps Doc put out a garage fire. Although this was in 1955, it may have prevented the later one--or at least alerted Doc that better fire controls were needed.)
After the fire (if it occurred), Doc moved into his former garage (which had been detached from the mansion and as such had survived the fire). 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.
Doc finally finished installing his time machine into a De Lorean sports car in 1985, using plutonium to power it, and was supposedly killed by the group of Libyan terrorists who had given it to him. (They had 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." - a reference to the overly elaborate and colourful nuclear bomb interior seen at the climax of Goldfinger)
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 clocktower 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.
After dropping Marty home, Doc went 30 years into the future. While it is known that he visited October 2015, it is not known exactly how long or during which days he was there for. 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. He also got the De Lorean hover-converted and installed a "Mr. Fusion". The Mr Fusion reactor eliminated the need for plutonium, and allowed the time machine to operate off of ordinary household garbage. Afterwards, 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, Biff Tannen overheard the conversation and later stole the De Lorean and the Almanac while Doc and Marty were rescuing 1985 Jennifer from the future McFly family house.
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.
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 re-setting the Destination Time setting to January 1, 1885. Their mission of stealing the almanac and setting history straight was accomplished. However this success was quickly followed by Doc, in the De Lorean, being sent back to 1885 when a bolt of lightning struck the De Lorean. Once in 1885, Doc set himself up as a blacksmith while trying to fix the De Lorean, but had to give up as suitable parts to repair the De Lorean's destroyed microchip would not be invented until 1947 (the actual date of the invention of the transistor.) He buried the De Lorean in the abandoned Delgado Mine on the outskirts of town and wrote a letter to Marty to be delivered just minutes after the De Lorean was struck by lightning. The letter was held by Western Union for the next 70 years, 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 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. Marty and Doc uncovered the De Lorean and repaired it, but Marty 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. (Yet Doc, strangely enough, is not aware of his impending death even when he had seen his own tombstone in 1955).
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). While making a plan to use a train to push the De Lorean to 88 mph, Doc saved a teacher, Clara Clayton, from falling over 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 by Buford Tannen. 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 De Lorean up to 88 miles per hour (141 km/h). 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 by a modern locomotive coming toward him, 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 visit Marty and Jennifer, before heading off to times unknown.
[edit] Back to the Future: The Ride
Although the ride is not taken as canon by many, 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 has also invented an 8-seater De Lorean, which comes in handy after Biff steals the time machine again and the audience, sitting in one of these 8-seaters, has to help Doc chase Biff through time. The ride was at Universal Studios Hollywood, and Universal Studios Japan. One half of the ride at Universal Studios Florida closed on September 10, 2006. The Universal Studios Florida version had a confirmed close on March 30th, 2007 to make way for the new Simpsons ride, planned to open in 2008. The Hollywood version closed on September 3, 2007, also to be replaced by the Simpsons ride.
[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 in the The Simpsons Ride voiced over by Christopher Lloyd.
[edit] Back to the Future: The Animated Series
Like the ride, the animated series is not considered canon by many fans, but also like the ride, it has the Brown family moving back to Hill Valley in the late 20th century. The series starts in 1991 where Doc, Clara, Jules and Verne now live in a farmhouse outside Hill Valley with Einstein. The family, along with Marty, have travelled through time in both the train time machine and the new De Lorean (which from the outside looks identical to the old one, but is drastically different inside).
[edit] Post Back to the Future
[edit] DirecTV television commercial
After 17 years since his last visual appearance as the character, Christopher Lloyd briefly reprised his role as Doc Brown in a 2007 DirecTV television commercial. In the ad, Lloyd filmed a new scene that was incorporated with pre–existing clips from the first BTTF film. In the newly filmed scene, Lloyd promotes the DirecTV product, exclaiming that it is "TV from outer space."
There is a blooper in the commercial where the mark on Doc's forehead was on the left side of his head, but the mark in the trilogy was on the right side of his head. However, the footage was later found out to be horizontally flipped.
[edit] Microsoft TechEd
Doc Brown's next appearance would be as a guest performer during the opening keynote of Microsoft TechEd on June 4, 2007. He mainly served as a comic foil for Bob Muglia, Microsoft's Senior Vice President, Server and Tools Business. Doc carried with him a squeeze-operated horn touted as his "Vision Speak" disruption device, threatening to interrupt Muglia if he should slip into corporate cliché language.
[edit] O'Neal McKnight
Doc Brown and the DeLorean make an appearance in O'Neal McKnight's video for Check Your Coat featuring Greg Nice.[1]
[edit] External links
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