Emmett Brown

Emmett "Doc" Brown Dr. Emmett Lathrop Brown Biographical information Date of birth 1914 Age (1885) Not yet born Age (1955) 41 Age (1985) 71 Age (2015) 101 (possibly deceased) Physical description Gender Male Hair color Blonde (1955) White (1985) Eye color Brown Behind-the-scenes information Played by Christopher Lloyd Voiced by Dan Castellaneta
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Dr. Emmett Lathrop "Doc" Brown was the inventor of the DeLorean time machine. He was born in 1914, in Hill Valley, California. A scientist by trade, Doc was a "student of all sciences" who spent much of his time inventing. He usually had a pet dog – in 1955, his dog was named Copernicus after Nicolaus Copernicus, the third in a line of pets named after famous scientists, and by 1985 his dog was named Einstein after 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).

Doc could be absent-minded at times, and was regarded by many of Hill Valley's townsfolk as strange or as a crazy 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.

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" or a tooth 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. 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.

Pre-1955

Emmett Brown in 1931.

All that is certain about Emmett Brown's ancestry is that his father's side of the family arrived in Hill Valley in 1908, and were known as the Von Brauns, and they changed their name to Brown during World War I. It has been speculated that Doc is supposed to be a relative of scientist Wernher von Braun. Doc's family was presumably from the German Empire or Austria-Hungary. In that 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.

Doc had an uncle Oliver who lived in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and young Emmett would go to visit him in the summer. In 1924, four-year-old Emmett fell into a river and developed a fear of fishing. His sons Jules and Verne discovered about this fear after asking their father to go to the Father-Son Big Mouth Bass-Off and traveled, together with Marty McFly, to 1924. They prevented the fishing accident but created another problem, when Emmett cast his line, it got caught on a low flying stunt biplane. When the pilot landed, Emmett was heralded as "Daredevil Brown". Emmett then became very famous doing crazy stunts around the country, inspiring his pilot, Charles Lindbergh, to attempt a flight across the Atlantic.

Around 1923, 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 1924, one year later, Doc tried digging to the center of the Earth, inspired by the 1864 novel Journey to the Center of the Earth.b

In 1931, he met a young man who claimed to be from the patent office in Washington D.C.. Initially wary of the stranger, he opened himself up to him and by nightfall had with his help created a full size model of his rocket-powered drill. Emmett, after years of public denial, told his father that he wanted to be a scientist. The young man, revealing the truth about not being from the patent office, took the rocket drill and left.

When he arrived in Hollywood, movie producer D. W. Tannen proposed a very dangerous stunt, going over Niagara Falls in a barrel, but promised that a dummy would take Emmett's place. In reality, Tannen planned on keeping Emmett in the barrel for the "realistic" look. Verne saved his father by taking his place in the barrel and using a handheld portable flux capacitor, he teleported together with the falling barrel when it reached a speed of eighty-eight miles per hour.

Afterwards, Doc returned home to pursue the life of science he was supposed to have, but this time without his fear of fishing.

During the 1950s, Doc worked as a professor of physics at Hill Valley University. Interestingly, a first draft of the third film said that Doc once dated a woman named Jill Wooster, the Dean's daughter. From Doc we learn that she apparently 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"). Doc however had no interest in any of them and refused to do so. The Dean threatened that his relationship with his daughter would be damaged unless he cooperated with them. The next day, Jill tells him to do it for her, but Doc still refused. Then, Jill angrily walked out of his life, adding that she never liked Jules Verne. Heartbroken after realizing Jill was just using him to work for the Dean, Doc trashed all his photos of himself with Jill.

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.

Birth of a time machine

Doc, aged 35, in 1955

On November 5, 1955, Doc came up with the idea of the flux capacitor (which is what made time travel possible) after slipping off his toilet while standing on it to hang a clock and bumping his head. Doc invented the brain-wave analyzer sometime before he created the flux capacitor, and tested it on Marty McFly the same day. The idea came to him in a vision he had after being knocked out. The time machine project suffered a setback on August 1, 1962 when Doc's mansion at 1640 Riverside Drive burnt down. After the fire, 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 May 23, 1983, he was commended and won an award for unspecified reasons.

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. In return they had wanted a nuclear weapon. Doc had made a fake (non-functioning) one out of used pinball machine parts.

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. 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 clocktower 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. While it is known that he visited October 21st, 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 DeLorean hover-converted, and installed a "Mr. Fusion". The Mr. Fusion reactor eliminated the need for plutonium, and allowed the time machine to operate off 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.

Changing the future

Doc warns Marty about Griff Tannen.

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. 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 Hill Dale an housing estate.

Doc, Marty, & Jennifer arrived back in 1985 only to discover that history had been altered. Biff had taken the time machine back to 1955 and given the sports almanac to his younger self, 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). Assuming that this would also prevent Doc Brown from building the DeLorean Time Machine, this would also be an example of a Grandfather Paradox. It is speculated that since Biff was warned by his older self upon delivery of the almanac that a "crazy, wild-eyed old scientist" would ask about it someday, Biff was the one who had Doc committed, but no concrete evidence is provided in the film. 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).

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. Their mission of stealing the almanac and setting history straight was accomplished. However this success was quickly followed by Doc, in the DeLorean, being sent back to 1885 when a bolt of lightning struck the DeLorean. 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 (this matches the real-life date of the invention of the transistor.) He buried the DeLorean in the abandoned Delgado Mine on the outskirts of town and wrote a letter to Marty to be delivered just minutes after the DeLorean was struck by lightning. The letter was held by Western Union for the next 70 years, 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.

In the Old West

Doc and Marty in the Old West hear someone in trouble.

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 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 (Doc, probably because of a slow ripple effect, is not aware of his impending death even when he had witnessed his own tombstone in a photograph 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)and accidently blew out the DeLorean's fuel injector as a effect from using a 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 snake spooked her horses. The ravine was, in the original timeline, called Clayton Ravine after Clara fell into it and was originally called shonash ravine. 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.

Doc and Clara talk about Jules Verne under the stars.

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. 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. Afterwards Doc and Marty hijacked 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.

Over the next 10 years, Doc and Clara married 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 took 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. Doc's parting advice to them was "Your future hasn't been written yet. No one's has. Your future is whatever you make it, so make it a good one, both of you." Emmett Brown had come a long way from the time when he believed that "No man should know too much about his own destiny".

1986

At this point in time, Doc had been away from his residence long enough that George McFly took it upon himself to make sure that his possessions were turned over to good hands. Marty had not seen Doc for over six months from his last appearance on the train tracks, but suddenly the DeLorean time machine appeared outside his house, as part of an automatic retrieval feature, with Einstein inside. Doc had left Marty a recording of his voice instructing Marty to locate him. Using a shoe left in the floorboard of the car, Einstein was able to sniff the owner of the shoe, and led Marty to meeting up with Doc in 1931. Doc had previously sought to solve the mystery of a speakeasy that burned down in Courthouse Square, however ended up caught during the explosion and knocked out with a brick to the head. Upon coming to, Doc woke up behind the bars of a jail cell, and Kid Tannen, a notorious gangster, was blaming him for the explosion. Tannen would kill Doc, unless Marty intervened.

When Marty arrived in 1931, Doc told him of the events that led to his arrest, and instructed Marty to encounter his younger self, the young Emmett Brown working for his father Judge Brown in the Hill Valley Courthouse. While Marty and young Emmett concocted a plan to get 190 proof grain alcohol for a drill that would bust Doc out of jail, Kid Tannen picked up Doc and hauled him away to outside of Hill Valley. Marty caught up with the van, and foiled Kid's attempt to murder Doc.

1990s

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.

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).

2000's.

Little is known of Doc in the 2000s, prior to Time Travel, he would have been into his 90s and almost 100 in 2015.

After his trip however, he explained to Marty that he went to a clinical rejuvenation clinic, replacing, amongst other things, his colon and spleen.

Doc, however 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.

Behind the scenes

Doc illustrating one of his more antic moments.

• 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 novelization states him to be 65 in 1985, although an episode of the animated series claims he was born in 1922. Then there is the game. In Back to the Future: The Game Emmett is 17 in 1931, which means that he must be born in 1914. Since Bob Gale had something to do with the game, this must be the year Emmett was born.
• "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.
• The exterior of Doc Brown's 1955 house at the beginning of the film is actually the Gamble House in Pasadena, California.
• The interior of Doc Brown's 1955 Mansion is the Blacker House. It was built by architects Charles Greene and Henry Greene; the same architects that built the Gamble House.
• 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.
• In a 2002 question and answer session at USC for the DVD of Back to the Future, Zemeckis said that John Lithgow had been considered for the role of Doc Brown, but Lithgow was unavailable. Producer Neil Canton, who had recently worked with Lithgow on The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, suggested Christopher Lloyd, who had been in the film as well.
• In the 2009 documentary Looking Back to the Future, one of the features on the 2009 DVD re-release of Back to the Future, Zemeckis said that Jeff Goldblum, who had also been in Buckaroo Banzai, was the next choice if Lloyd declined the role.
• Lloyd, interviewed 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 portray 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.

See also

• List of references to Back to the Future
• Doc's perspective

Appearances

• Back to the Future
• Back to the Future novelization
• Back to the Future Part II
• Back to the Future Part II novelization
• Back to the Future Part III
• Back to the Future Part III novelization
• Back to the Future: The Animated Series
  • "Brothers"
  • "A Family Vacation"
  • "Forward to the Past"
  • "Witchcraft"
  • "Roman Holiday"
  • "Go Fly a Kite"
  • "Time Waits for No Frog"/Einstein's Adventure"
  • "Solar Sailors"
  • "Dickens of a Christmas"
  • "Gone Fishin'"
  • "Retired"
  • "Clara's Folks"
  • "Mac the Black"
  • "Put on Your Thinking Caps, Kids! It's Time for Mr. Wisdom!"
  • "Marty McFly PFC"
  • "Bravelord and the Demon Monstrux"
  • "The Money Tree"
  • "A Verne by Any Other Name"
  • "Hill Valley Brown-Out"
  • "My Pop's an Alien"
  • "Super Doc"
  • "St. Louis Blues"
  • "Verne Hatches an Egg"
  • All live-action segments (as portrayed by Christopher Lloyd)
• Back to the Future: The Ride
• The Simpsons Ride (Non-canonical appearance)
• Back to the Future: The Game
  • Back to the Future: The Game - Episode 1: It's About Time