Lightning hook

Lightning rod — The lightning hook on the DeLorean Time Machine in model form.

"1.21 GIGAWATTS!??!"

—Dr. Emmett Brown after watching Marty's tape in 1955

"As if swallowed up by the earth or a giant hand from above, the DeLorean was gone. All that remained was the trolley pole, which had been wrenched free when the car passed under the cable. Now it dangled limply, buffeted by the rain and wind, the only souvenir of young Marty McFly's sixty-year round trip backward and forward in time."

—From Back to the Future by George Gipe (quote, page 236)

"88 miles per hour!"

—Doc's reaction after the DeLorean Time Machine's departure during the Hill Valley Thunderstorm.

The lightning hook was an alternative power source for the DeLorean Time Machine in 1955 after there weren't any more plutonium fuel cells for the car to use for time travel.

History[]

Lightning rod in the lab — Doc Brown explaining how the lightning hook worked to Marty.

After Marty McFly accidentally arrived on November 5, 1955 after the chase with the Libyans at Twin Pines Mall, he needed a way to get back to 1985 without the use of plutonium. To fix this issue, he consulted the 1950s telephone directory at Lou's Cafe for the current address of Dr. Emmett Brown, who was living at the Brown's mansion, to ask for his aid to get him back to the future.

Marty arrived at the mansion as was taken in by Doc to be questioned with the brain-wave analyzer to determine why he was there.

After Doc failed to predict Marty's intentions, and Marty told him he was from the future and came in the DeLorean Time Machine Doc built, Doc disregarded him, didn't pay attention to Marty's evidence, and ran into his garage. Marty caught up to him provided the backstory for the bruise on Doc's head and how he got the vision for the flux capacitor.

Doc was convinced by Marty's claim that he was from the future, and watched Marty's tape on the JVC camcorder with his television where he observed his older self talking about the DeLorean Time Machine and how it needed a nuclear reaction to generate the 1.21 gigawatts of electricity to achieve temporal displacement.

In 1955, Doc had no way of getting hold of any plutonium, and told Marty that the only thing capable of generating the power would be a bolt of lightning — but no-one knew when or where one would strike. Marty remembered the flyer that he got in 1985 and showed it to Doc, who got the idea to attach wires to the Hill Valley Courthouse down to the street to conduct the electricity from the lighting bolt into the lightning rod, which leads to the flux capacitor.

Use[]

Alarmclock — The alarm clock on the DeLorean's dashboard.

On the night of November 12, 1955 during the Hill Valley Thunderstorm, Doc and Marty prepared the DeLorean by setting the time circuits to October 26, 1985 right after Marty left after the chase with the Libyans. They also put an alarm clock on the dashboard, which was set to go off the moment Marty needed to start driving back to the town square after he had stopped at Blue Bird Motel. Doc also went to the top of the clock tower to fix a detached wire that broke due to a fallen tree.

Before Marty left, he tried to warn Doc of his fate in the future by the Libyans, but he was unable to due to the short time they had left. Once Marty arrived at the white line Doc told him to stop at near Blue Bird Motel and connected the lightning hook to the flux capacitor, the car's engine suddenly stopped and Marty struggled to get it restarted. Meanwhile, Doc struggled to traverse the small ledge of the clock tower and reconnect the cable.

As they both struggled, their time started to run out and Marty's timer went off; fortunately a few moments later, the car sprang to life and he floored it to the clock tower. Meanwhile, Doc was close to reconnecting the wires, but the fallen tree prevented it from moving. Doc was forced to pull the wire out of another connector, but he reconnected the ones he had, zip-lining down the cable and fixing the wires just in time as the electrical current flowed through the wire into the rod and into the flux capacitor. The DeLorean promptly achieved temporal displacement, sending Marty back to 1985, while the lightning hook was left behind, attached to the wire that the lightning's current had flowed through. Due to the heat of the lightning, both promptly lit on fire.