Emmett Brown
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| Back to the Future character | |
 Dr Emmett "Doc" Brown |
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| Dr. Emmett Lathrop Brown | |
|---|---|
| Date of birth | 1920 |
| Age (1955) | 35 |
| Age (1985) | 65 |
| Age (2015) | 95 (presumably) |
| Gender | Male |
| Hair color | Blonde (1955) White (1985) |
| Eye color | Brown |
| Played by | Christopher Lloyd |
| Voiced by | Dan Castellaneta |
Doctor Emmett Lathrop, "Doc" Brown is a fictional character, one of the lead characters in the Back to the Future motion picture trilogy, played by actor Christopher Lloyd in the three films and the live action sequences of the animated series. He is voiced by Dan Castellaneta in the animated series. The "Doc" Brown character's appearance and mannerisms are loosely inspired by Leopold Stokowski and Albert Einstein.
"Doc", as he is referred to by his best friend Marty McFly, was born in 1920, in Hill Valley, California - the novel states him to be 65 in 1985, although an episode of the animated series claims he was born in 1922. A scientist by trade, Doc is a "student of all sciences" who spends much of his time inventing. He usually has a pet dog – in 1955, his pet was named Copernicus after Nicolaus 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 portrait of Isaac Newton found in his laboratory.
Doc can be absent-minded at times, and is regarded by many of Hill Valley's townsfolk as strange 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. However, Doc cares about the people he is close to. 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 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 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. He is allergic to all synthetic fabrics.
He cheated Libyan terrorists out of an unspecified amount of plutonium without preparing for their inevitable retribution (other than a small revolver that didn't work), and would have died as a result had Marty not intervened. 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.
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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 name (Doc's middle name, "Lathrop", is revealed in the animated series). Also she has a brother named Abraham and carries a rag doll she named Emma, suggesting she named her son after her doll. His 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 had an uncle Oliver who lived in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and young Emmett would go to visit him in the summer.
Around 1931, 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.
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 likes Jules Verne and they both went to Pismo Beach. One day Dean Wooster and his cohorts Cooper and Mintz tell him that he must participate in one of three projects: the Edsel car, chemical warfare, or Xerox (which Doc pronounces "X-rox"). Doc however has no interest in any of them and refuse to do so. The Dean threatens that his relationship with his daughter will be damaged unless he cooperates with them. The next day, Jill tells him to do it for her, but Doc still refuses. Then, Jill angrily walks out of his life, adding that she never liked Jules Verne. Heartbroken, Doc trashes all his photos of himself with Jill.
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 his lavish mansion on Riverside Drive.
[edit] Back to the Future
On 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 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.
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. Doc did not want to know too much about his own future and ripped up a 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 November 12, 1955 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, even though the actual re-assembly is never shown. 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 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. 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. 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.
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 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 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 monitary possibilities.
[edit] Back to the Future Part III
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, strangely enough, 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). 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. 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 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 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, and 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 (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 fans, 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 DeLorean, 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 is 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 October 1, 2006 to make way for another attraction.
[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 DeLorean (which from the outside looks identical to the old one, but is drastically different inside).
[edit] Trivia
- Doc's first name Emmett comes from the word "time", spelled backwards and pronounced as syllables (em-it). His middle name Lathrop spelled backwards (without the h) spells "portal," making his full backwards name "time portal".
- "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 the anime series Sonic X the character Chuck Thorndyke bares an uncanny resemblance to Doc.
- In the anime series Magical☆Shopping Arcade Abenobashi the character Masayoshi Asahina "Grandpa Masa" becomes Dr. Emmett "Doc" in a skit in the 12th Episode(The Hollywood Parady World.) Ironically the voice actor for Grandpa Masa also dubbed as Doc in the Japanese Dubbing of the Back to the Future movies.
| Back to the Future Characters | ||
| The McFly Family Marty McFly | George McFly | Lorraine Baines McFly | Jennifer Parker | Seamus & Maggie McFly | Dave McFly | Linda McFly | Marty McFly, Jr | Marlene McFly |
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| The Brown Family Dr. Emmett "Doc" Brown | Clara Clayton Brown | Jules Brown | Verne Brown | Einstein |
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| The Tannen Family Biff Tannen | Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen | Griff Tannen |
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| Other Characters Mr Strickland | Marshall Strickland | Match, Skinhead & 3-D | Goldie Wilson | Douglas J Needles |
