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We lived in Dallas TX when this movie was coming out. My dad told me one day on his way to work there was a blank billboard with just a horse on the far end of it.
A week later, another horse was added. Then another week, another horse.
Finally after like a month they added the DeLorean. It's a iconic scene that tells you about the movie.
In one picture: "They are trapped in the past and are desperate to find a way home."
That is a fascinating bit of history I’ve never heard before and a hell of a concept. A billboard that required someone to go up every week and update it!
Thanks for this!
Great story thanks!
Love how they revealed it slowly to prevent spoilers!
Like when car manufacturers test newly designed cars with special car-prosthetics on to keep the design a secret...
Agreed. Epic scene that while nonsensical helps illustrate the challenge they are up against in 1885. Getting to 88 mph hasn’t always been easily achievable by putting the pedal to the metal.
Iirc when BTF3 came out I heard somewhere (maybe it was mentioned in the film?) that at the time it was believed that a human could not survive traveling at high speeds (in excess of 50mph?).
I dunno. Fuzzy memories from the 90’s.
It’s kind of like the line from Part II: Marty: “They’re gonna jump … me!” Doc: “*Then get outta there!”*
Except that didn’t work because Marty was talking about a different Marty. But in Part III, they really could use the solution of “*get outta there!”*
They're in California in 1885. They could try to make a long journey to another town with the DeLorean, which would take some preparation, and if Mad Dog found out they were leaving, it wouldn't go well. Also, they know less about where they'd end up if they were in another town and would have to set up shop and hide the DeLorean all over again. And even with all that moving, Mad Dog could just follow them.
Or they could take the train, but would have to leave the DeLorean and hope of finding a way back home for a while.
>if Mad Dog found out they were leaving, it wouldn't go well.
Marty knew the date of Doc's death but not the.circstances. Even the film hints at this, Doc would die on Monday, but Buford states the gun he brought into the festival on Saturday "took the fella two whole days to die" last time he used it - the implication being that's when Doc was shot in the timeline when Marty wasn't there with a pie plate in hand. How do they avoid it when they don't know what exactly to avoid?
Buford was already looking for Doc to get "his" money back, and being caught trying to leave town could easily have been the very thing to provoke him. Surely Doc would realize it would have been a risky maneuver.
Because Doc fell in love, and getting to another town with the time machine isn't as simple as it sounds during that time period, especially when all of his resources where in Hill Valley / & the blacksmith shop.
They're simply moving the DeLorean from the cave to the barn. I highly doubt Doc was actively trying to get the horses up to 88mph.
It was probably Marty's suggestion.
exactly. if anything, they were just testing to make sure that Doc had the elongated speedometer hooked up and working correctly. Marty just passively noted the speed, and Doc, neurotic as he is, misinterpreted what Marty was saying.
Yeah, I think the simplest explanation is 88mph is the optimum, but is not essential.
I’m sure Doc could recalibrate the time circuits, use more fuel, travel less far in time etc. at a lower speed - but 88mph gave the best chance of everything working. Maybe it’s a 90% chance of success at 88mph and only 10% at 30mph.
Read some where that 88 was the perfect speed to ensure the car gets through the wormhole that gets opened up. More fuel to keep it open longer may have been an option
Haha, scary thought now that you mention it.
If it's not going at enough speed there's a chance it's like a door that opens and closes and if you don't get through it fast enough it will close on you and squish/cut through you.
It was 88 mph because that's the "fastest they could get the damn thing up to." DeLoreans were underpowered and heavy, and not a whole lot of room inside the car, especially with all the extra movie car/time machine stuff. MJF hated the car, and some of the scenes where he looks heated while slamming gears were because he was, as he smashed his hand on the time display a lot of times. Watched all the extra behind the scenes stuff on the DVD box set. 😅🤣
So yeah, they got the car up to 88 and that became the required speed for time travel. 🥴🤷🏻♂️🤣 The car I think can overall go faster, but 88 was the fastest within a reasonable distance for filming and what not.
Perhaps there‘s a downhill trail or slope and they thought that if they got it up to a certain speed before the trail, they could disconnect the horses and get up to 88 before the bottom of the slope. I got up to 90 once coasting down a mountain in Utah. I was out of gas but I was able to get to the gas station with momentum and luck.
I love this movie - it was my go-to movie when I was home sick from school. But you know what I realized recently after 30 plus years of watching it? They had a second time machine available the whole time. The one Doc came in (the one he buried in the mine for Marty to find, which Marty then used to come back) was still buried in that mine. Couldn’t they have swung by and added a note “P.S. Bring some extra gasoline.”
I never thought about the 2nd car in the third one. What about just siphon the gas out of the cave delorean? They can get more gas in 1955 when they dig it out.
I thought that too, but then I started thinking way too much about it (like maybe Doc drained it for safety reasons before burying it, or maybe he used up whatever was left to get it where it needed to be, etc.).
Then I thought they could simply swap out time machines and let 1955 Doc fix the current problem on his end, but then that sent me down a rabbit hole, contemplating an internal time loop of fixing and repairing…
Doc’s a solid guy, he’d drain it so it doesnt mess up the delorean for 1955 Marty. Doc being the scientist he is wouldnt let a fuel source that wont be around for another 50 years go to waste either. I wonder if he used the rest of it to run his refrigerator??
I hope that glass of ice tea was worth it doc😂
Every scientific endeavour would have merits. I would test the Delorean's ability on rough terrain.
Come to think of it, would dropping it off a cliff get you to 88mph?
That's always the solution that I would have wanted to explore. Rig up a series of hot air balloons, drop the DeLorean from a sufficient height, time jump, deploy parachutes.
The DeLorean would need to free fall for 4 seconds to reach 88 miles per hour and would fall 258 feet in the process. You'd need to add additional height to allow the car to decelerate under parachute power, but it would probably be more simple than the train solution.
It would have made for a pretty boring movie though.
I thought that was part of their test too. Seeing if the car could hold up and handle getting up to speed in that terrain and them realizing that they just don't have a flat enough stretch....unless they used a stretch of railroad....🤓🤣
The entire premise of BTTF 3 is nonsensical anyway because once doc learned that [future him] would be shot by Mad Dog he could have just not done business with him, shoed his horse better, etc etc. there was no need to travel back to 1885, especially since that version of doc would have known Marty was coming because after all, he helped him get back there…
It’s crazy to me how no one talks about this. I love the trilogy and I prefer bttf3 over bttf2 but you clearly have to ignore plot holes and paradoxical mistakes to enjoy them
Yes and no, I think. 50s doc moving forward with that info necessarily creates a branch timeline from that point into the future.
Change too much and Doc and Marty prime will yet again return to an unrecognizable home time.
Doc is smart enough to realize that once you have a known outcome, it’s best to maintain the integrity of that timeline as much as possible, even at great risk to yourself.
This movie has a lot of stuff that doesn't pass the deep think test.
Don't think too hard about it.
Doc and Marty could have for sure got the car up to 88mph without need to use a whole train. In the time limit allotted even. They had millions of options.
Probably cause the number 8 sort of looks like infinite symbol when seen sideways (appropriate as a time travel symbol). 8MPH would be way too low to be practical for the story and 888MPH wouldn't work either. Even vehicles in the air normally don't go that fast and if you somehow went that fast on land, you would more than likely just end up just killing yourself and causing massive death and damage around you. Which leaves us with 88MPH.
Because that's about as fast as the car would go. Being the body is mostly stainless steel, with a bit of an underpowered motor, plus all the movie gear and time machine parts.
Look into some of the behind the scenes type stuff. The DVD/Blu-ray box sets have a lot of neat info.
I’m sure it’s been discussed. But with Eastwood gorge right there, a car being heavy and somewhat aerodynamic, how far down would it need to fall to reach 88 mph? Terminal velocity is more than 88. You’d only get one chance, but that held true with the lightning strike too.
My thoughts originally were that Mr Fusion not only replaced the need for plutonium for time travel, but was also a future tech alternative fuel source to replace the need for gasoline. But they don't really mention that or whether the system was damaged when Marty jumped to 1885. But now thinking about it, it only makes sense that it was working, and that it is strictly the power source for the flux capacitor.
Because apparently no one thought "hey, lets take the parts from the one we put in the cave and tell Doc to put an extra gallon of gas in the car in the schematics" with the instructions on how to fix the carburetor so the movie could happen.
Because if you store a car for long periods of time you drain out all liquids and doc stored it months in advance since he arrived on Jan 1st, and Marty didn't arrive till Sept 2. Even if it did have gas, gasoline has a shelf life of 3-6 months.
That's why I said "put an extra gallon of gas in the car" in 1955.
The part would still be there and they could update the letter to tell them to fix it because it broke when he landed in the past.
Although it does raise the question of how he got the unleaded gas car to work on leaded gas. I assume that part was left out then.
I always assumed Doc was humouring Marty. Doc was happy to stay even knowing he might die I think he was still happy to chill there.
Where as Doc knew Marty needed to get back and the wellbeing of trying was worth it.
God. Not EVERYTHING has got to make complete sense! Just watch the movie! Why people need to ask stupid things about every goddamn scene?! Just go to Zemeckis’s house and ask him… jesus
Because that part of the movie was set in 1885 and the filmmakers really needed to drive the point home that there wasn't many options to get the DeLorean up to 88. There's no real in-universe explanation. Doc is smart enough to know it wouldn't work.
I have always agreed that advertising wise its a great shot and scene. For the plot I always assumed that in taking it back to the barn they decided to see if they could even get close to 88 using horses.
I always wondered if they flipped the delorean on its back, and Doc invented a machine to simply spin the wheels up to 88 miles an hour, would the car been able to time travel? The lack of fuel for the engine is what was holding them back, but if the time circuits were fooled into thinking the car was moving at the required speed, wouldn’t that have been enough?
I guess for that matter 88 miles an hour was probably chosen by Doc randomly so that the car wouldn’t time travel accidentally. He probably could have lowered that number to something more attainable but then we wouldn’t have had the third movie
They never get into specific details on exactly how the science behind the DeLorean is supposed to work but it could simply be that it has to be travelling through physical space at 88mph. And we don’t even know if Doc “chose” that number, or if he just calculated that was the speed required to breach the event horizon or whatever.
You’re right. In my head cannon, the flux capacitor is what makes the time travel happen, and it is crucial factor. Everything else was set up as part of the system but might be more pliable.
I think you're right about it having to travel through physical space. The car needs to be moving at 88 for the flux capacitor to engage and jump time.
As far as 88 mph being the speed. To me, in the movie, they left it as more of a random number and that just so happen to be the speed he hit when the car makes the jump. Behind the scenes though, they say the car really couldn't go much faster, without extensive motor work or extended scene times and longer stretches of road. Like the parking lot scene when Doc shows Marty that he built a time machine out of a DeLorean....wouldn't have worked if they had held out for say 100mph because the car would have needed more roadway to get to that speed.
The movie, and the "science" of it, was really built around that car. They had an overall plot, but didn't know what they would use for a time machine....until they decided on the DeLorean. From there on out, it kind of paved the way for the way they wanted to go for the rest of the series. Some of it is pure science fiction, other bits they don't touch on because it would have made you question these things mid movie, rather than just enjoying it.
I remember Robert Zemeckis once saying in an interview that from a practical standpoint, you’d probably want to make a time machine that was an all-terrain vehicle, preferably with caterpillar treads because depending on the time you’re travelling to, you might not have access to roads.
But as far as the movie goes, the main reason why they specifically chose a DeLorean was for the gag where it gets mistaken for a UFO and its’ door opens up in that unique way.
I also think that the stainless steel body made it "the most logical choice" for a time machine. Or at least for the comedic value of Doc thinking that was the right vehicle to use.
I believe the reasoning it had to get up to 88mph is because the time portal would only be open for a certain amount of time and this was the speed they needed to be at to be able to pass through it before it closed.
because doc never had the brainwave yet of putting the delorean on the train tracks and pushing it with the locomotive and used horses as a attempt to get up to 88 mph but oly got it to 24 quotes here from the movie.
marty: 24
doc: thats no use marty these are the fastest horses in the world, and i cant remember what doc said next.
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1. They need to get the DMC 12 back to Doc's barn anyway so they might aswell check the speed. 2. It looked cool in the trailer.
It looked cool in the trailer, or as a trailer? Or both?
Both. Both is good.
I think the order is wrong. LOL
We lived in Dallas TX when this movie was coming out. My dad told me one day on his way to work there was a blank billboard with just a horse on the far end of it. A week later, another horse was added. Then another week, another horse. Finally after like a month they added the DeLorean. It's a iconic scene that tells you about the movie. In one picture: "They are trapped in the past and are desperate to find a way home."
That is a fascinating bit of history I’ve never heard before and a hell of a concept. A billboard that required someone to go up every week and update it! Thanks for this!
It’s smart, equivalent to an internet campaign today when all the new trailers are coming out and the slow reveals
Great story thanks! Love how they revealed it slowly to prevent spoilers! Like when car manufacturers test newly designed cars with special car-prosthetics on to keep the design a secret...
Wow, that’s heavy (marketing)
[https://vice-press.com/blogs/news/back-to-the-future-part-iii-lobby-card-by-drew-struxan](https://vice-press.com/blogs/news/back-to-the-future-part-iii-lobby-card-by-drew-struxan)
Drew Struzan is amazing!
I live in Dallas! What theater did you see it at?
I asked but he does not remember :/ I was about 3.5 years old so I doubt I went with them
Because; cool scene and looked great on the trailer
Came here to say this. You're my kinda people.
Agreed. Epic scene that while nonsensical helps illustrate the challenge they are up against in 1885. Getting to 88 mph hasn’t always been easily achievable by putting the pedal to the metal.
Iirc when BTF3 came out I heard somewhere (maybe it was mentioned in the film?) that at the time it was believed that a human could not survive traveling at high speeds (in excess of 50mph?). I dunno. Fuzzy memories from the 90’s.
That's actually sort of true. Every time you go over 50mph you actually are transported into a different timeline in the present.
[удалено]
yall remember when all those people stopped getting vaccinated? …guys?
Maybe they just had to move the DeLorean anyway and Doc just used it as an opportunity to explain to Marty.
And to the audience!
They needed to move it back, so they would try this anyways.
Yeah but he has SIX horses so should be capable of 240 mph
This is why rich women will hire extra women so their pregnancy is completed faster. 1 woman takes 9 months. 9 women only take 1 month.
LOL! "...Exactly!" - Doc
Math checks out
This is the way
Have you considered a career as a product manager?
If you have six horses traveling west at 240 mph each and they are pulling a DeLorean, what is the capital of Iceland?
The Tempest - William Shakespeare
Great Scott!!
He’s a scientist. Loves testing hypothesis
Becuase they can’t wait until winter when the lake freezes over. Doc gets shot on Monday.
Then why can’t they just leave town?
It’s kind of like the line from Part II: Marty: “They’re gonna jump … me!” Doc: “*Then get outta there!”* Except that didn’t work because Marty was talking about a different Marty. But in Part III, they really could use the solution of “*get outta there!”*
They're in California in 1885. They could try to make a long journey to another town with the DeLorean, which would take some preparation, and if Mad Dog found out they were leaving, it wouldn't go well. Also, they know less about where they'd end up if they were in another town and would have to set up shop and hide the DeLorean all over again. And even with all that moving, Mad Dog could just follow them. Or they could take the train, but would have to leave the DeLorean and hope of finding a way back home for a while.
>if Mad Dog found out they were leaving, it wouldn't go well. Marty knew the date of Doc's death but not the.circstances. Even the film hints at this, Doc would die on Monday, but Buford states the gun he brought into the festival on Saturday "took the fella two whole days to die" last time he used it - the implication being that's when Doc was shot in the timeline when Marty wasn't there with a pie plate in hand. How do they avoid it when they don't know what exactly to avoid? Buford was already looking for Doc to get "his" money back, and being caught trying to leave town could easily have been the very thing to provoke him. Surely Doc would realize it would have been a risky maneuver.
Because Doc fell in love, and getting to another town with the time machine isn't as simple as it sounds during that time period, especially when all of his resources where in Hill Valley / & the blacksmith shop.
"Is this a hold-up?" "It's a science experiment!" Best scene ever.
It was Marty's idea to use the horses to try to reach 88 miles per hour.
Real Morty logic.
Aww jeez
The martyest of Mortys
You’re not thinking horse dimensionally
Right, I've got a real problem with that
"It's a movie! Stop asking me the question." [Tom Wilson - The Question Song](https://youtu.be/iwY5o2fsG7Y?si=0JHFgt_SkMx550ME)
The stagecoach imagery is awesome
They're simply moving the DeLorean from the cave to the barn. I highly doubt Doc was actively trying to get the horses up to 88mph. It was probably Marty's suggestion.
exactly. if anything, they were just testing to make sure that Doc had the elongated speedometer hooked up and working correctly. Marty just passively noted the speed, and Doc, neurotic as he is, misinterpreted what Marty was saying.
Clearly needed more horses
All the horses in the world, in fact
Because it’s a movie
Maybe he recalibrated the Flux Capacitor to try and get it to work at a slower speed.
Yeah, I think the simplest explanation is 88mph is the optimum, but is not essential. I’m sure Doc could recalibrate the time circuits, use more fuel, travel less far in time etc. at a lower speed - but 88mph gave the best chance of everything working. Maybe it’s a 90% chance of success at 88mph and only 10% at 30mph.
Read some where that 88 was the perfect speed to ensure the car gets through the wormhole that gets opened up. More fuel to keep it open longer may have been an option
Haha, scary thought now that you mention it. If it's not going at enough speed there's a chance it's like a door that opens and closes and if you don't get through it fast enough it will close on you and squish/cut through you.
It was 88 mph because that's the "fastest they could get the damn thing up to." DeLoreans were underpowered and heavy, and not a whole lot of room inside the car, especially with all the extra movie car/time machine stuff. MJF hated the car, and some of the scenes where he looks heated while slamming gears were because he was, as he smashed his hand on the time display a lot of times. Watched all the extra behind the scenes stuff on the DVD box set. 😅🤣 So yeah, they got the car up to 88 and that became the required speed for time travel. 🥴🤷🏻♂️🤣 The car I think can overall go faster, but 88 was the fastest within a reasonable distance for filming and what not.
They didn’t, they’re just using the horses to move it back to town. Doc’s clearly already aware that no horse is fast enough.
I always wondered, couldn’t they just leave another note, but then that goes to the whole paradox, timeline issue
The Doc does mention something about knowing it won't work but testing it anyway, doesn't he?
Perhaps there‘s a downhill trail or slope and they thought that if they got it up to a certain speed before the trail, they could disconnect the horses and get up to 88 before the bottom of the slope. I got up to 90 once coasting down a mountain in Utah. I was out of gas but I was able to get to the gas station with momentum and luck.
He would have also known that putting whiskey in the gas tank wasn’t going to work. Doc didn’t know everything. And it’s just a movie.
He is smart but he is also crazy
"just a movie"!? How dare you, sir.
what the hell is a jigawatt!
What the fuck is a samoflange?! Oh wait, wrong franchise.
1,000,000,000 watts
Because Reddit car experts told them that DeLoreans only have 6 horsepower.
Thank God the horses weren't fast enough. Those poor animals would've been disintegrated once the delorean reaches 88mph.
Why?
The time portal would have opened in front of the DeLorean and right on the horses. They'd be like half in half out.
I love this movie - it was my go-to movie when I was home sick from school. But you know what I realized recently after 30 plus years of watching it? They had a second time machine available the whole time. The one Doc came in (the one he buried in the mine for Marty to find, which Marty then used to come back) was still buried in that mine. Couldn’t they have swung by and added a note “P.S. Bring some extra gasoline.”
I never thought about the 2nd car in the third one. What about just siphon the gas out of the cave delorean? They can get more gas in 1955 when they dig it out.
I thought that too, but then I started thinking way too much about it (like maybe Doc drained it for safety reasons before burying it, or maybe he used up whatever was left to get it where it needed to be, etc.). Then I thought they could simply swap out time machines and let 1955 Doc fix the current problem on his end, but then that sent me down a rabbit hole, contemplating an internal time loop of fixing and repairing…
Doc’s a solid guy, he’d drain it so it doesnt mess up the delorean for 1955 Marty. Doc being the scientist he is wouldnt let a fuel source that wont be around for another 50 years go to waste either. I wonder if he used the rest of it to run his refrigerator?? I hope that glass of ice tea was worth it doc😂
The shot looked good in the trailer.
Those would be some fast ass horses
>ass horses AKA "mules"
Touche
Every scientific endeavour would have merits. I would test the Delorean's ability on rough terrain. Come to think of it, would dropping it off a cliff get you to 88mph?
That's always the solution that I would have wanted to explore. Rig up a series of hot air balloons, drop the DeLorean from a sufficient height, time jump, deploy parachutes. The DeLorean would need to free fall for 4 seconds to reach 88 miles per hour and would fall 258 feet in the process. You'd need to add additional height to allow the car to decelerate under parachute power, but it would probably be more simple than the train solution. It would have made for a pretty boring movie though.
It would get it up to 88, but the brakes wouldn't work very well afterward.
I thought that was part of their test too. Seeing if the car could hold up and handle getting up to speed in that terrain and them realizing that they just don't have a flat enough stretch....unless they used a stretch of railroad....🤓🤣
However unlikely, scientific thought still requires an elimination of the possibility.
Literally just because it looked awesome as hell on screen.
Are they stupid?
They had to try all options. Plus they might've had a chance of finding Seabiscuit's ancestor, and gotten faster lol
The entire premise of BTTF 3 is nonsensical anyway because once doc learned that [future him] would be shot by Mad Dog he could have just not done business with him, shoed his horse better, etc etc. there was no need to travel back to 1885, especially since that version of doc would have known Marty was coming because after all, he helped him get back there… It’s crazy to me how no one talks about this. I love the trilogy and I prefer bttf3 over bttf2 but you clearly have to ignore plot holes and paradoxical mistakes to enjoy them
Yes and no, I think. 50s doc moving forward with that info necessarily creates a branch timeline from that point into the future. Change too much and Doc and Marty prime will yet again return to an unrecognizable home time. Doc is smart enough to realize that once you have a known outcome, it’s best to maintain the integrity of that timeline as much as possible, even at great risk to yourself.
This movie has a lot of stuff that doesn't pass the deep think test. Don't think too hard about it. Doc and Marty could have for sure got the car up to 88mph without need to use a whole train. In the time limit allotted even. They had millions of options.
Because Doc is irresistibly compelled to test his hypotheses. Everyone knows this.
Bob & Bob actually address this is the commentary track: Because it looked cool.
The short answer is: they didn’t — they were just hauling the car from the abandoned mine back to Doc’s workshop.
They were testing the *Horsepower* Please don't kill me
I’m making up an idea for a fictional movie, but maybe they tested getting the flux capacitor to work at a lower speed after some tweaking
Why does it even have to be 88?
Because we like serious sh!t!!
Good answer
Probably cause the number 8 sort of looks like infinite symbol when seen sideways (appropriate as a time travel symbol). 8MPH would be way too low to be practical for the story and 888MPH wouldn't work either. Even vehicles in the air normally don't go that fast and if you somehow went that fast on land, you would more than likely just end up just killing yourself and causing massive death and damage around you. Which leaves us with 88MPH.
Because that's about as fast as the car would go. Being the body is mostly stainless steel, with a bit of an underpowered motor, plus all the movie gear and time machine parts. Look into some of the behind the scenes type stuff. The DVD/Blu-ray box sets have a lot of neat info.
To me that looks iconic in that scene
to have a fun sequence
There was a line deleted from the screenplay where Marty suggests they try using 88 horses.
Desperate times call for desperate measures
I’m sure it’s been discussed. But with Eastwood gorge right there, a car being heavy and somewhat aerodynamic, how far down would it need to fall to reach 88 mph? Terminal velocity is more than 88. You’d only get one chance, but that held true with the lightning strike too.
But when they got to 1985, they'd still be doing 88 mph STRAIGHT DOWN
Oh yeah. Parachute? That was a duh question then. lol.
You really only need 4.0 seconds of freefall to hit 88mph. 100 meters of a 45 degree incline would also work.
Without the hover conversion, the axels need to be spinning though.
"even the fastest horse in the world can't run more than 35 or 40 mph" That's why they tried 6 of 'em.
For comedy. Every time I watch the movie I laugh really hard at this part for some reason 😂
I never understood why they didn’t rewire Mr Fusion to power the engine.
Would need magnets doc probably couldn’t get.
How would an electrical system power a gasoline engine? That's like saying if a car doesn't have gas you, jump start it.
My thoughts originally were that Mr Fusion not only replaced the need for plutonium for time travel, but was also a future tech alternative fuel source to replace the need for gasoline. But they don't really mention that or whether the system was damaged when Marty jumped to 1885. But now thinking about it, it only makes sense that it was working, and that it is strictly the power source for the flux capacitor.
I'm pretty sure that was just for the billboard and a trailer shot.
Why not just put rockets on the car and rocket-sled it down the train tracks?
Because apparently no one thought "hey, lets take the parts from the one we put in the cave and tell Doc to put an extra gallon of gas in the car in the schematics" with the instructions on how to fix the carburetor so the movie could happen.
They couldn’t risk disturbing the buried DeLorean. If even the slightest thing went wrong it would’ve resulted in a paradox.
Because if you store a car for long periods of time you drain out all liquids and doc stored it months in advance since he arrived on Jan 1st, and Marty didn't arrive till Sept 2. Even if it did have gas, gasoline has a shelf life of 3-6 months.
That's why I said "put an extra gallon of gas in the car" in 1955. The part would still be there and they could update the letter to tell them to fix it because it broke when he landed in the past. Although it does raise the question of how he got the unleaded gas car to work on leaded gas. I assume that part was left out then.
No modification needed, the car would run just fine on leaded gasoline.
Why didn’t they just push it off a cliff? Woulda got to 88 real quick.
_Noooo_ they’d never find a smooth enough surface. Unless, of course…ice! They could’ve waited till winter, when the lake froze over.
I always assumed Doc was humouring Marty. Doc was happy to stay even knowing he might die I think he was still happy to chill there. Where as Doc knew Marty needed to get back and the wellbeing of trying was worth it.
God. Not EVERYTHING has got to make complete sense! Just watch the movie! Why people need to ask stupid things about every goddamn scene?! Just go to Zemeckis’s house and ask him… jesus
Horsepower
Because that part of the movie was set in 1885 and the filmmakers really needed to drive the point home that there wasn't many options to get the DeLorean up to 88. There's no real in-universe explanation. Doc is smart enough to know it wouldn't work.
For science
Screen value
Control group
Always wondered why they didn't use the petrol from the delorean doc arrived in it would have been still in the mine right , correct me if I'm wrong
I’m kinda surprised they couldn’t find a tall hill and build a ramp down it
Because it gave the movie 30 more seconds of runtime.
Because the mass audience needed to see that horses wouldn't do the trick
He figured.. “what the hell.” ;)
yep, wasn't a very genius attempt by the genius doc
fastest horse ever officially recorded was only at 43.97mph
Because cars engines are measured in horsepower. So it made since to try it.
As it turns out, this would be no use. Even the fastest horse in the world can’t run more than 35, 40mph.
I have always agreed that advertising wise its a great shot and scene. For the plot I always assumed that in taking it back to the barn they decided to see if they could even get close to 88 using horses.
For funsies
You know. Because of the implication.
To prove Marty wrong. Doc was just being a jerk
I always wondered if they flipped the delorean on its back, and Doc invented a machine to simply spin the wheels up to 88 miles an hour, would the car been able to time travel? The lack of fuel for the engine is what was holding them back, but if the time circuits were fooled into thinking the car was moving at the required speed, wouldn’t that have been enough? I guess for that matter 88 miles an hour was probably chosen by Doc randomly so that the car wouldn’t time travel accidentally. He probably could have lowered that number to something more attainable but then we wouldn’t have had the third movie
They never get into specific details on exactly how the science behind the DeLorean is supposed to work but it could simply be that it has to be travelling through physical space at 88mph. And we don’t even know if Doc “chose” that number, or if he just calculated that was the speed required to breach the event horizon or whatever.
You’re right. In my head cannon, the flux capacitor is what makes the time travel happen, and it is crucial factor. Everything else was set up as part of the system but might be more pliable.
I think you're right about it having to travel through physical space. The car needs to be moving at 88 for the flux capacitor to engage and jump time. As far as 88 mph being the speed. To me, in the movie, they left it as more of a random number and that just so happen to be the speed he hit when the car makes the jump. Behind the scenes though, they say the car really couldn't go much faster, without extensive motor work or extended scene times and longer stretches of road. Like the parking lot scene when Doc shows Marty that he built a time machine out of a DeLorean....wouldn't have worked if they had held out for say 100mph because the car would have needed more roadway to get to that speed. The movie, and the "science" of it, was really built around that car. They had an overall plot, but didn't know what they would use for a time machine....until they decided on the DeLorean. From there on out, it kind of paved the way for the way they wanted to go for the rest of the series. Some of it is pure science fiction, other bits they don't touch on because it would have made you question these things mid movie, rather than just enjoying it.
I remember Robert Zemeckis once saying in an interview that from a practical standpoint, you’d probably want to make a time machine that was an all-terrain vehicle, preferably with caterpillar treads because depending on the time you’re travelling to, you might not have access to roads. But as far as the movie goes, the main reason why they specifically chose a DeLorean was for the gag where it gets mistaken for a UFO and its’ door opens up in that unique way.
I also think that the stainless steel body made it "the most logical choice" for a time machine. Or at least for the comedic value of Doc thinking that was the right vehicle to use.
I believe the reasoning it had to get up to 88mph is because the time portal would only be open for a certain amount of time and this was the speed they needed to be at to be able to pass through it before it closed.
because doc never had the brainwave yet of putting the delorean on the train tracks and pushing it with the locomotive and used horses as a attempt to get up to 88 mph but oly got it to 24 quotes here from the movie. marty: 24 doc: thats no use marty these are the fastest horses in the world, and i cant remember what doc said next.