DeLorean time machine

A front view of the DeLorean as seen on the Universal Studios backlot tour.

In the Back to the Future trilogy, the DeLorean time machine was the fictional time travelling vehicle used by "Doc" Emmett Brown (Christopher Lloyd), Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) and by Biff Tannen (Thomas F. Wilson) (when he stole it) to travel through the history of their hometown of Hill Valley, a fictional city located in Northern California. In the trilogy, the time machine was built by Doc from a regular DeLorean DMC-12 automobile which used various sources including plutonium and biofuels to generate the needed 1.21 gigawatts to power the critical component, the flux capacitor.

Operation

The time circuits

The operation of the DeLorean time machine was consistent throughout all three movies. The operator sat inside the DeLorean and turned on the time circuits, activating an LED display which showed the destination, present, and last-departed dates and times. After entering a target date, the operator accelerated the car to 88 miles per hour (142 km/h) which activated the flux capacitor (see below). The car vanishes in a flash of blue light, leaving twin trails of fire; observers outside the vehicle see it explode and disappear, while occupants see a quick flash of light and instantaneously arrive at the target date in the same geographical location as when it departed. Upon arriving at the destination, the DeLorean is extremely cold, with ice covering much of the exterior.

Fuel

In Back to the Future, Doc stated that the time machine ran on plutonium, because he needed a nuclear reaction to generate the 1.21 gigawatts (pronounced "jigawatts"). This is the only movie where the plutonium is mentioned. In Back to the Future Part II, we learn about Mr. Fusion, which uses garbage. In Back to the Future Part III, it is stated by Doc that the internal combustion engine of the Delorean runs on ordinary gasoline and Mr. Fusion only powers the time circuits and flux capacitor.

Equipment

Flux capacitor

File:Flux1.jpg

A fan-created Flux Capacitor

The flux capacitor, which consisted of a regularly squared compartment with three flashing lights arranged as a "Y", was described by Doc as "what makes time travel possible". The device is the core component of Doctor Emmett Brown's fictional time traveling De Lorean DMC-12.

The device was located between the headrests of the seats and, as the time machine neared 88 mph (142 km/h), light coming from the flux capacitor pulsed faster until it became a steady stream of light. Doc originally conceived the idea for the flux capacitor on November 5, 1955 when he slipped and hit his head on the sink while standing on the toilet to hang a clock. A smaller flux capacitor appeared in Back to the Future: The Ride at various Universal Studios theme parks.

How it works

It is not described in the films exactly how the flux capacitor worked, though Doc mentioned at one point that the stainless steel body of the DeLorean has a direct and influential effect on the "flux dispersal", though he was interrupted before he could finish the explanation. The flux capacitor required 1.21 gigawatts of electrical power to operate.

Fictional timeline

For most of the first film, the 1.21 gigawatts were supplied by a plutonium-powered nuclear reactor and, with the absence of plutonium, a bolt of lightning channeled directly into the flux capacitor in the film's climactic sequence. At the end of the first film and for the remainder of the trilogy, the plutonium nuclear reactor was replaced by a "Mr. Fusion Home Energy Reactor" generator acquired in the year 2015. An obvious parody of Mr. Coffee, the prop was built from a Krups coffee grinder. The "Mr. Fusion" device apparently converts household waste into electrical power. Due to a "hover conversion" made in 2015, the car also became capable of hovering and flight, though it lost this ability at the end of the second film.

The De Lorean once again came back to 1985 and proceeded to travel to 2015, where it was stolen, taken back to 1955, and returned again to 2015 without Doc's knowledge. When they returned in 1985, they found it was a different present, so they traveled back to 1955 to fix the timeline. The De Lorean was again struck by lightning in the year 1955, this time by accident (and without travelling at 88 mph). The lightning created an overload and destroyed the time circuits, and if you watch closely you will see that the 1885 date was already displayed before the lightning hit but after the LED read-outs flashed. This is a reference to earlier in the film when Doc exclaims that he needs to fix the flux capacitor (it flashes a random date before he hits it and the date is corrected); contrary to popular belief, the 1885 date was not caused by the lightning hitting the De Lorean. The De Lorean was then hidden in the Delgado mine for 70 years, "... because suitable replacement parts will not be invented until 1947," presumably a reference to the invention of the transistor. The De Lorean was recovered from the mine in 1955 and repaired by Doc Brown's 1955 counterpart, thus restoring it to working order. Since both gasoline and garbage were available, the next trip back to 1885 was performed under the car's own power.

Due to a broken fuel line, the De Lorean's final trip from 1885 to 1985 was partially powered by a steam locomotive pushing the vehicle up to 88 mph while using Mr. Fusion to generate the 1.21 gigawatts required to activate the flux capacitor and break the time barrier.

"Jigowatt"

The power required is pronounced in the film as "one point twenty-one jiggawatts," (as spelled in the script). This pronunciation of "gigawatt" (derived from the SI unit prefix giga- and meaning a thousand million watts) is one of several accepted variants. Many amateur radio operators from that period pronounced "giga-" with an initial soft g, although it is more commonly pronounced with two hard g sounds as in "gig." Some people consider the "jiggawatt" pronunciation amusing.

The closed-caption encoding in home video versions spells the word as it appears in the script. Regardless of the pronunciation, the only correct spelling is "gigawatt".

Mr. Fusion

The Mr. Fusion Home Energy Reactor is the name of a power source used by the De Lorean time machine in the Back to the Future trilogy. It can be seen towards the end of Back to the Future when "Doc" Emmett Brown pulls into the McFlys' driveway after a trip to the year 2015, and is an obvious parody of Mr. Coffee machines, which were very popular at the time of filming. The coffee maker from which the prop was made was actually made by Krups.

The Mr. Fusion Home Energy Reactor converts household waste to power the time machine's flux capacitor and time circuits using nuclear fusion. (It is thought that this is cold fusion.) In the film, Mr. Fusion allows the De Lorean time machine to generate the required 1.21 gigawatts needed to travel to any point in time. The energy produced by Mr. Fusion replaces plutonium as the primary power source of the De Lorean's time travel and flight capabilities, allowing the characters to bypass the arduous power-generation requirements that the plot of the first film hinged upon.

When the De Lorean is parked in a 2015 alleyway, a "Fusion Industries" machine is briefly seen.

Electronics

The phrase "flux capacitor" has appeared in more serious contexts. U.S. patent 6,084,285 describes a "lateral flux capacitor having fractal-shaped perimeters". This device is a capacitor, some of whose capacitance exists between two conductors on a single layer (hence, "lateral"), within an integrated circuit. A hyphen in the name, as in "lateral-flux capacitor," would have made the meaning clearer; as it is a capacitor with lateral flux, not a "flux capacitor" that is lateral.

Flux is commonly used in electronics and electromagnetic theory and application, but rarely in the context of a capacitor. In general terms, flux simply means the rate at which some quantity (such as electric charge) passes through a surface (e.g. charge flux). It is speculated that the movie terminology is used fictitiously to represent a new and unknown type of flux.

While it is not generally called a "flux capacitor", the common inductor is a device whose function in many contexts, such as the switching power supply, is exactly that which a flux capacitor would have - it stores electrical energy as a magnetic flux for later retrieval. This way a pulsing current can be converted to a constant voltage higher or lower than the input voltage. Since the 1890s version of the flux capacitor (mounted on the train) is exactly that (a large coil of wire), it appears that this was not lost on the movie makers.

Translations

• The Spanish (Spain only) dubbing of the film mistranslated flux as the nonexistent fluzo instead of flujo (meaning both flux and flow), adding to the exoticness of a condensador de fluzo. However the Latin American version doesn't have this issue, been translate as "condensador de flujo".
• The Italian dubbing of the film mistranslated the name as "flusso canalizzatore", which roughly means "channeling flux"; however, when Marty reads the letter from Doc in the third movie, it talks about the broken "condensatore di flusso", which is an exact translation of "flux capacitor", but at this point appears to be totally unrelated to the rest of the movies (at least for only-Italian-speaking people).
• In the German-dubbed version, the device was once again mistranslated and called the "Fluxkompensator" ("Flux compensator"). The scientifically correct German translation, however, would be Flusskondensator.
• In the French version, the De Lorean needs 2.21 gigawatts instead of 1.21. The flux capacitor was mistranslated to "convecteur temporel" ("time convector"). The correct French translation for flux capacitor would be "condensateur de flux".
• For the Brazilian version of the movie, the flux capacitor was successfully translated to: "capacitor de fluxo"
• In the Turkish version, the device was called "akı kapasitörü". But correct translation should be "akı kondansatörü".
• In the Finnish subtitled version, the flux capacitor was correctly translated to "vuokondensaattori". However, 1.21 gigawatts was translated to "1,21 jigowattia" instead of "1,21 gigawattia" due to the English pronunciation.
• In the most commonly shown Swedish subtitles, it is translated as "fluxkondensator" (flux condensor), but the word "flödeskondensator" (flow condensor) has also been used in another translation.
• In the Russian version, flux capacitor was translated to "потоковый накопитель" ("flux capacitor") or "накопитель потока" ("capacitor of flux").

Other elements

The DeLorean time machine was a licensed, registered vehicle in the state of California, where the films take place. The vanity license plate used in the film said "OUTATIME" (which is too long for the standard 7 characters on California license plates), and when Doc returned from the future, it was a barcode license plate, which implied that by that year license plates have moved to other more sophisticated means of tracking and registering.

Although the DeLorean was destroyed at the end of the trilogy, a new flux capacitor enabled the Doctor's second time machine (fashioned from a 19th century steam locomotive) to travel through time. Unlike its predecessor, the locomotive's flux capacitor was steam-powered and located on the front of the vehicle rather than within the passenger area. The locomotive also has the ability to fly and hover, much like the DeLorean at the end of Part I and throughout Part II, and the future (2015) era cars in Part II.

In the animated series, Doc rebuilt the DeLorean, restoring most of its features, including Mr. Fusion and the hover conversion. He also seemingly added the capability to travel through space in addition to time (i. e., appear at a different location that the one it departed).

Interesting note: When Doc and Marty first return to 1955 in BTTF II, for a brief point there were three copies of the Delorean in 1955 at the same time, although never seen together. The first one was the one that the original Marty (his "other self") drove to 1955. The second one was the one that Doc and Marty had when they returned to 1955. Finally, the third one was the one that Old Biff had stolen and brought back to 1955. Interestingly enough, Biff never really was shown how to work the time machine. There was another Delorean in the old mine toward the end of the film (only we don't find out about it until BTTF III), and the other copy is the same one that Marty is about to drive home to 1985 just moments after Marty gets his letter from Doc.

Behind the scenes

Development

The time machine went through several variations during production of the first film, Back to the Future. In the first draft of the screenplay, the time machine was a laser device that was housed in a room (like the time machine featured in Deja Vu). At the end of the first draft the device was attached to a refrigerator and taken to an atomic bomb test site. Director Robert Zemeckis said in an interview that the idea was scrapped because he did not want children to start climbing into refrigerators and getting trapped inside. In the third draft of the film the time machine was a car, as Zemeckis reasoned that if you were going to make a time machine, you would want it to be mobile. The specific choice of vehicle was a DeLorean DMC-12 for the purposes of it looking like an alien spaceship due to its characteristic gullwing doors. However, in order to send Marty back to the future, the vehicle had to drive into a nuclear test site. Ultimately this concept was considered too expensive to film, so the power source was changed to lightning.

File:Back To The Future - DeLorean concept side behind.jpg

An exterior side view of the DeLorean as designed by artist Andrew Probert.

When the filmmakers arrived at the point where the time machine would be built into a car, the art department was instructed to come up with designs for the DeLorean. The first artist to explore the subject was Andrew Probert, but his original designs were deemed "too perfect" for the look the producer wanted, which was to make it look as if it had been built in a garage by Doctor Brown. The idea was that it had been constructed with parts found in a hardware and electronics store, so it couldn’t look too sophisticated. It also had to look dangerous, as Producer Bob Gale noted in the DVD commentary for Back to the Future . So the task was also approached by Ron Cobb. It was Cobb that added the coils to back of the vehicle. The nuclear reactor was also a design choice made by Cobb. This choice proved to be important given the direction the script had taken. Cobb complemented the nuclear reactor with one vent on the back of the car, since it was generally known at the time that nuclear reactors had vents, but to balance the design another vent was added to keep a symmetrical aesthetic. After Cobb made these changes Probert returned to finish the design to its final form. At the end of the first film of the trilogy these vents become the propulsion system for the improved DeLorean, which now had hovering abilities and could reach the time-traveling speed of 88 miles per hour flying. The production design team added other buttons and lights inside the car to make it look more appealing and complex in order for the audience to have something attractive to look at.

File:Back To The Future - DeLorean concept inside.jpg

An interior view of the DeLorean as designed by artist Andrew Probert.

Different parts from three 1981 DeLoreans were used in the film. Liquid nitrogen was poured onto the car for scenes after it had travelled through time to give the impression that it was cold. The base for the nuclear-reactor was made from the hubcap from a Dodge Polara. Aircraft parts and blinking lights were added for effect. Ultimately, six real DeLoreans were used in the filming of the trilogy; one of which was a 'process' car built for interior shots. A 7th DeLorean was used in the filming. However, this one was merely a full-sized, fibreglass model used for exterior shots where the vehicle hovers above the set and actors interact with the vehicle. The PRV engines of the cars were dubbed over with Porsche recordings.

In popular culture

See also: Back to the Future trilogy § References in popular culture

Because of the popularity of the Back to the Future films, there have been many references made to the DeLorean and/or flux capacitor as means of time travel. These references are as diverse as the cartoon Family Guy, sci-fi series Stargate, different incarnations of Star Trek, various comics, video games, and even songs.

External links

• DeLorean Time Machine Rental Service from BTTF.com
• Officially-licensed Flux Capacitor Prop Replica from Diamond Select Toys