From 1985 to 1955 to 1885, here's Doc Brown's entire Back to the Future timeline explained.
Doc and Marty's time-traveling adventures in Back to the Future all started with a clock.
On November 5, 1955, Doc Brown decided to hang a clock over the toilet in his bathroom.
While balancing on his toilet, Doc fell and hit his head, knocking himself unconscious.
When he came to, he'd had a vision.
"A picture in my head. A picture of this. This is what makes time travel possible. The
flux capacitor."
Over the following 30 years, Doc was successful in creating a working flux capacitor, which
he installed in a DeLorean. Meanwhile, on November 12, a week after Doc fell off his
toilet, the clock tower at the Hill Valley courthouse was struck by lightning.
Three decades after inventing the flux capacitor, Doc finishes his time machine, but there's
just one small problem. In order to run, his machine requires 1.21 gigawatts of power,
which is significantly more than a car battery can produce. Doc's solution? Plutonium.
"Doc, you don't just walk into a store and buy plutonium."
Marty's right, but Doc figures out a way to acquire the radioactive substance by making
a deal with a group of Libyan terrorists to build them a bomb. He steals their plutonium,
and gives them a bomb casing filled with used pinball machine parts.
Obviously, this doesn't end well. On October 26, 1985, Doc asks Marty to come help him
document the first test of his time machine, but no sooner has he conducted a successful
test with his dog, Einstein, than the terrorists show up. Marty hides, but the terrorists open
fire and kill Doc as a traumatized Marty looks on. Marty then tries to escape in the DeLorean,
still programmed by Doc for the day he first invented time travel, bringing him back to
November 5, 1955.
Soon after receiving his vision of the flux capacitor, Doc Brown has just decided to test
out his latest mind-reading invention when there's a knock on his door. When he opens
it, a kid named Marty is standing there, claiming to be from the future.
"I came here in a time machine that you invented. Now I need your help to get back to the year
1985.
At first, Doc doesn't believe him, but not only does Marty know how Doc got the bump
on his head, but he's carrying a videotape that shows a much older version of Doc himself,
testing out a time machine.
Convinced, Doc decides to help Marty get back to the future. Doc is initially stumped by
the power requirements of the time machine, saying the only thing capable of producing
the necessary 1.21 gigawatts is a bolt of lightning. However, Marty happens to know
exactly when and where lightning will strike, the Hill Valley courthouse clock tower, on
the evening of November 12, 1955.
"Next Saturday night, we're sending you back to the future!"
Over the course of the next week, Doc spends his time making models of the town and fine-tuning
his plan to harness a bolt of lightning into the flux capacitor.
"Please excuse the crudity of this model. I didn't have time to build it to scale or
to paint it."
While Doc is trying to make sure all the pieces are in place to get Marty back to the future,
he realizes that Marty has accidentally bungled the timeline, preventing his parents from
ever falling in love. Horrified at the temporal implications of what Marty has done, Doc assists
Marty in making sure his parents get together before Marty is...
"Erased from existence."
After successfully matchmaking Marty's parents, Doc and Marty prepare to channel the imminent
lightning strike into the DeLorean. But before Marty climbs into the car, he tries to give
Doc a letter predicting his future. Furious about the possible repercussions of knowing
his own future, Doc refuses to read the letter and rips it up. Marty is upset, but he doesn't
have time to argue. Lightning strikes, Doc's plan is successful, and Marty disappears in
the DeLorean.
Eventually, Doc decides to tape the torn scraps of paper back together and reads what Marty
wrote. When he does, he learns the truth about his fate.
"On the night that I go back in time, you will be shot by terrorists."
Armed with this knowledge, Doc decides to make some changes. This time, when Doc goes
to test his time machine, he wears a bulletproof vest underneath his coveralls and survives
the shooting. When Marty asks him what made him change his mind about the letter, Doc
gives him an extremely scientific explanation:
"Well, I figured, what the hell."
Having survived his formerly fatal encounter with the terrorists, Doc decides his next
trip in the time machine should be to the future. Accompanied by his dog, Einstein,
Doc sets out for the year 2015.
When Doc arrives in 2015, he takes full advantage of the advanced technology of the future.
He places Einstein in a suspended animation kennel while he modifies the Delorean with
a hover conversion and adds a Mr. Fusion Home Energy Reactor to circumvent the need for
plutonium. Doc also goes shopping for new clothes, picks up a sleep-inducing alpha rhythm
generator, and visits a rejuvenation clinic to receive an "all-natural overhaul," which
promises to add 30 to 40 years to his life.
However, while Doc is enjoying all of the amenities the future has to offer, he learns
some troubling information about Marty's kids. It turns out that Marty's son, Marty Jr.,
falls in with Biff's grandson, Griff, and his gang, and he's with them when they rob
the Hill Valley Payroll Substation. Marty Jr. is arrested and sentenced to 15 years
in prison. Even worse, Marty's sister, Marlene, tries to break him out of prison, and is subsequently
sentenced to 20 years. Unable to abide this future for Marty's family, Doc returns to
1985 to get Marty and change the future.
"Marty, you've got to come back with me!"
"Where?"
"Back to the future!"
Having picked up Marty and his girlfriend, Jennifer, from 1985, Doc pilots the DeLorean
back to the future. Once they arrive, Doc immediately knocks Jennifer out with his sleep-inducing
alpha rhythm generator, saying she was asking too many questions. After stowing her in an
alley, Doc sends Marty into the Cafe '80s with instructions to keep his son from getting
arrested.
While Marty goes to meet up with Griff, Doc intercepts Marty Jr. and uses the same sleep-inducing
device on him to keep him from interfering in Doc's plan. Doc then picks up Einstein
from the suspended animation kennel. After meeting back up with Marty, Doc learns that
he's purchased a sports almanac that covers the years 1950-2000. Doc berates Marty for
even thinking about meddling with the timeline, and forces him to throw the almanac away.
Doc and Marty then pick up Jennifer and return to 1985.
When Doc and Marty get back to 1985, the timeline has already split thanks to Old Biff's tinkering
in the past. Unfortunately, the Emmett Brown native to this new timeline has been declared
legally insane and committed to the mental ward of Hill Valley Hospital.
The Doc Brown who's just arrived back from 2015 realizes that something must've happened
to alter the timeline, and he heads to the library to do research. Through studying old
newspapers, he learns of the unfortunate fate of his present-day counterpart and deduces
what's caused the divergence in the timeline, the sports almanac Marty purchased in 2015.
As it turns out, when Marty tossed it aside in 2015, Old Biff grabbed it, stole the DeLorean,
traveled to 1955, and gave it to his younger self, ensuring a future where he could become
tremendously wealthy.
Doc explains the concept of diverging timelines to Marty, who decides to head to Biff's massive
casino hotel to ask when he acquired the almanac.
"November 12, 1955, that was when."
While Marty is talking to Biff, Doc pilots the DeLorean to hover just below the roofline
of the towering building. Biff follows Marty up to the roof, where he intends to kill him,
but Marty jumps on top of the DeLorean, and Doc uses the car's gull-wing doors to knock
Biff unconscious. Armed with the pivotal date, Marty and Doc head back 30 years to restore
the timeline.
Returning to 1955 once more, Doc and Marty work together to steal the sports almanac
from Biff in order to restore the timeline. While there, they also have to work to avoid
previous versions of themselves, who are still living through the events of the first film.
"There are now two of me here and there are two of you here."
After a few failed attempts, Marty is successful in retrieving the sports almanac from Biff,
grabbing it from the bully's moving car while riding on a hoverboard. Marty narrowly avoids
becoming roadkill when Doc drops a rope down to him from the flying DeLorean and pulls
him to safety. Doc tells Marty to burn the almanac, which he does, and they confirm that
the timeline is restored.
However, before Doc can land the DeLorean and pick up Marty to return to 1985, the car
is struck by lightning, causing the time circuits to go haywire and transport him to 1885. After
he disappears, the 1955 version of Doc helps Marty figure out how to repair the DeLorean
that has been stashed since 1885 so that Marty can go after him.
After realizing that the DeLorean has been so damaged by the lightning strike that there's
no hope of repairing it, Doc resigns himself to remaining in 1885. First, he hides the
DeLorean in an abandoned mineshaft, and he leaves a letter with the Postal Service for
Marty, telling him how to fix the time machine so he can return to the future. Doc gives
the Postal Service specific instructions to hold the letter for 70 years, then to deliver
it to the person they'll find at a precise location at a precise date and time.
Satisfied that Marty will be okay, Doc begins building a life for himself. He becomes a
blacksmith, and after establishing himself in town, Doc is asked to pick up the new schoolteacher,
Clara Clayton, from the train station. He saves her when she loses control of her horses,
and the two quickly fall in love.
Tragically, not long after meeting Clara, Doc shoes a horse for Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen,
which later throws Tannen off, causing him to break a $5 bottle of whiskey. Tannen shoots
the horse, and demands Doc pay for both. Doc refuses, and in retaliation, Mad Dog shoots
him in the back, killing him.
Once Marty's arrival splits the timeline into an alternate 1885, Doc rescues Marty from
Mad Dog and his gang. Initially, Doc is irritated that Marty came back for him, rather than
returning to 1985, but after learning about his death in the previous timeline, he agrees
to return with Marty.
Returning to 1985 proves easier said than done, since Marty nicked a fuel line in the
time machine when he arrived in 1885. Without a way to self-propel the car, Doc hatches
a plan to hijack a train to push the DeLorean up to the necessary 88 miles per hour. However,
after Clara and Doc meet and fall in love, she attempts to follow Doc onto the speeding
train and winds up nearly taking a catastrophic tumble onto the tracks.
Instead of joining Marty in the DeLorean, Doc saves Clara, missing his window to return
to the future. Marty goes back to the future alone, and Doc remains in 1885 with Clara.
Fortunately, before stealing the train, Doc and Marty foiled Mad Dog's plans to kill Doc,
enabling Doc and Clara to live their lives free of tragedy.
Some time after Marty departs for the future, Doc and Clara get married and have two sons,
Jules and Verne. During this time, Doc acquires a new locomotive engine, converts it to steam
power, and modifies it to become a time machine.
Doc, Clara, and their children ride their new time machine all the way through the timeline,
including a trip to the future where they upgrade the train engine with hover technology.
When Jules and Verne are a few years old, Doc and Clara make a stop in 1985 to pick
up Einstein and to introduce Marty to their children. Doc gives Marty a framed photograph
that they took together back in 1885, and leaves Marty with some last words of wisdom
before taking off for places and times unknown.
"Your future is whatever you make it. So make it a good one."
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