The DeLorean explanation (merged threads)

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  • edited December 2010
    Wellllll, that's one of the clear conceits of the films's logic: The car travels through time and NOT space. Which is why it's a time machine and not a matter transporter. It's also why there's no controls to choose where in the world you want it to teleport you.

    If you want to get technical, then Marty couldn't have travelled back and altered his past.

    This popping into space thing should be made into an animated "How it should have ended." Einstein the dog would have made it because he was transported only a minute later, but Marty... Well, it's a short movie after all. lol
  • edited December 2010
    This popping into space thing should be made into an animated "How it should have ended." Einstein the dog would have made it because he was transported only a minute later, but Marty... Well, it's a short movie after all. lol

    Haha!
  • edited December 2010
    This popping into space thing should be made into an animated "How it should have ended." Einstein the dog would have made it because he was transported only a minute later, but Marty... Well, it's a short movie after all. lol

    Einstein might NOT have been okay. Think about how fast the galaxy actually rotates per minute. Besides, not taking that into effect, the time machine might have materialized inside that hill. ;) I think the flux capacitor is able to take the time machine the the same relative location in the space/time continuum, otherwise the DeLorean's first test run could have been disastrous.
  • edited December 2010
    I thought it was great.
    I thought it'd be a bit more of a plot point with more intrigue surrounding it.....maybe it still will be, if Doc is lying or if another Doc exists.
  • edited December 2010
    if the DeLorean was duplicated, then wouldn't Doc have been duplicated too?

    I'd love it if it turned out that Doc was duplicated too, it would make for a great episode and maybe it's even the plot of Citizen Brown? Doc's clone being some kind of evil dictator in the future?
  • edited December 2010
    I thought the DeLorean explanation was probably the worst part on an otherwise flawless game.

    They've respected the mythology perfectly in every other aspect and replicated scenes brilliantly, however I cannot believe that with the wealth of options available to them (in a time traveling movie series no less) the best they came up with was a sudden duplication of vehicles.

    I mean for those who say that it would've been a cop out for Doc to have just built a new one in his future, I disagree. Although it would've been out of character for a guy so intent on destroying it in the first place...he did build a TIME TRAVELLING TRAIN...so he clearly has changed his opinions since becoming a family man. In my eyes I can't see anything more of a cop out than simply saying "uh...there's two of them?"

    I would've simply gone with the idea that maybe Doc built a new one so he could show mankind his world changing invention the way he originally meant to. Or maybe he wanted to build one for his sons who were going to college in a different time period, so they didn't have to take the train everytime they go time traveling to meet their parents at the weekend in the future (apparently they do a crapload of time hoping now according to Doc in jail).

    Or even go as far as to say that Doc wanted to show the kids his first time traveling invention, and so took them to 1885 after the original Time Machine was buried, took it out of the cave and repaired it with every intention of putting it back there in the 70 years it took for Marty to find it in 1955. This would've lead to a great "race against the clock" paradox, because if Doc suddenly lost the car, him and Marty would cease to exist because it needs to go back in that cave for Marty to find and for everything to play out.

    The sudden appearance of a second time machine just doesn't work right in my head.

    (a lot of rambling there, but still, the rest of the game is flawlessly executed)
  • edited December 2010
    Actually, this works out better than a new DeLorean. As someone did point out, DeLoreans aren't cheap, even in 2010 although they are being "newly built". And Doc would've had to return to 1985-86 to get one and utilize his primary lab. And he would've needed his notebook. As for taking the DeLorean from the mine, that would've caused a paradox. Even with the intention of returning it, he would've had to intentionally destroy the time circuits.
  • edited December 2010
    I don't see the issue in intentionally breaking the circuits again when he puts it back. Afterward he can then just hop back in his train and head to whatever time period he wanted. Bear in mind he built that train in the 1880's with Clara.

    And DeLoreans might not be cheap, but if your son is going to college in the 1960's, you're probably going to want to give him a time traveling car so he can get back to you. And the DeLorean had it's reasons to be THE car to time travel in (other than just "doing it in style")
  • edited December 2010
    And the DeLorean had it's reasons to be THE car to time travel in (other than just "doing it in style")

    According to Doc, DeLorean's stainless steel construction makes something very good with/for the flux dispersal. He didn't specify what good in particular, he kinda was interrupted :p
  • edited December 2010
    On one hand its kind of a cheap weak explanation... On the other... with all that time travel gear in a car made of exposed steal who knows how it would react getting zapped directly with that much electricity....

    But arguing this sort of stuff in a SCIFI movie/game makes us a special kind of NERDY!
  • edited December 2010
    You know, a lot of people will call BS on it, but I think it's perfectly acceptable. It's time travel after all, and having such a one in a million circumstance overloading the circuits could of easily just completely destroyed the DeLorean in all times as it could of created a second one. I'd like to know though, is it at all possible that the DeLorean in the first film could of been sent back to 1925? A sctretch, I know, but how much power DOES lightning generate? We know it's over 1.21 Gigawatts, but how much would it take to overload the circuits?
  • edited December 2010
    Guy.. wrote: »
    I don't see the issue in intentionally breaking the circuits again when he puts it back. Afterward he can then just hop back in his train and head to whatever time period he wanted. Bear in mind he built that train in the 1880's with Clara.

    There's also the fact that the car would need to be in the exact condition it was in when Doc put it in the mine in the first place. That means intentionally shorting out the time circuits with lightning.

    Why is the given explanation so hard to swallow? If you listen to the letter, Doc refers to a "gigawatt overload" that was what activated the flux capacitor. If you think about it, the raw lightning probably sent way more than 1.21 gigawatts into the car, and might even have hit double that. That, I think, would be enough to make the flux capacitor double the DeLorean. And since it was sent 70 years forward and back through time, there's a nice symmetry. And Doc was probably glad to find the second DeLorean, the train can't be a great way to time travel. It's not exactly quiet.
  • edited December 2010
    @GooGuy
    As I pointed out earlier, the main difference between the lightning hitting the DeLorean in part I and part II is that in the first film the DeLorean actually doesn't get hit by lightning.
    The lightning rod directly 'channeled and harnessed' the lightning into the flux capacitor.


    @Shadowknight

    Yes, I agree. As the flux capacitor is directly responsible for displacing a molecular structure through time, it could easily be accepted that doubling the energy needed for the Flux Capacitor to do this could result in sending the same molecular structure into two times at the same time.
  • edited December 2010
    I don't really mind the explanation given, it's not really essential for it to make sense, it is science fiction remember.
    There's no way you can tell a BTTF story without the DeLorean, so in my book any explanation is a good explanation.

    But..... since we know that the DeLorean was flying at the time of the lightning strike we can only assume that the DeLorean+Doc that went back 70yrs had a rough/controlled crash landing when it arrived in 1885 (Doc mentions in his letter in Part 3 that the flying circuits were damaged).

    So taking into account the "duplication" we can consider the following possibilities:
    A) Both Doc and the DeLorean were duplicated, one sent to 1885 and one sent to 2025, which means we have a second Doc somewhere in 2025.

    B) Only the DeLorean was duplicated and sent to 2025, and since it was flying at the time, with damaged flying circuits, must have somehow survived a crash landing with no driver/pilot!

    Wow, time travel really is a subject that never ends!
  • edited December 2010
    Origami wrote: »
    @GooGuy
    As I pointed out earlier, the main difference between the lightning hitting the DeLorean in part I and part II is that in the first film the DeLorean actually doesn't get hit by lightning.
    The lightning rod directly 'channeled and harnessed' the lightning into the flux capacitor.

    How do we know that that energy wasn't funneled into the flux capacitor directly? 1955 Doc merely said it will give the DeLorean power, never saying exactly to where the power would be directly, merely that it would power the time circuits. And how could the steel coating of the vehicle be connected to the flux capacitor anyways?

    EDIT: I just remembered for Part III, where Doc says that he put gas in the tank of the DeLorean, and that becoming the obstacle in that movie. There are two sources of power on the DeLorean, the gas and the time circuit power. Why would the flux capacitor be powered separately?
  • edited December 2010
    BrendanK wrote: »
    I don't really mind the explanation given, it's not really essential for it to make sense, it is science fiction remember.
    There's no way you can tell a BTTF story without the DeLorean, so in my book any explanation is a good explanation.

    But..... since we know that the DeLorean was flying at the time of the lightning strike we can only assume that the DeLorean+Doc that went back 70yrs had a rough/controlled crash landing when it arrived in 1885 (Doc mentions in his letter in Part 3 that the flying circuits were damaged).

    So taking into account the "duplication" we can consider the following possibilities:
    A) Both Doc and the DeLorean were duplicated, one sent to 1885 and one sent to 2025, which means we have a second Doc somewhere in 2025.

    B) Only the DeLorean was duplicated and sent to 2025, and since it was flying at the time, with damaged flying circuits, must have somehow survived a crash landing with no driver/pilot!

    Wow, time travel really is a subject that never ends!

    Well, I'd assume that the flying circuits have a safety feature that automatically puts the wheels back down in case of a failure. And the car wasn't too high up, so if the wheels were down, then yes, heck yes it could have survived. Though part of me thinks it'd be awesome for there to be another Doc running around. :D
    GoodGuyA wrote: »
    How do we know that that energy wasn't funneled into the flux capacitor directly? 1955 Doc merely said it will give the DeLorean power, never saying exactly to where the power would be directly, merely that it would power the time circuits. And how could the steel coating of the vehicle be connected to the flux capacitor anyways?

    EDIT: I just remembered for Part III, where Doc says that he put gas in the tank of the DeLorean, and that becoming the obstacle in that movie. There are two sources of power on the DeLorean, the gas and the time circuit power. Why would the flux capacitor be powered separately?

    "Meanwhile, I've outfitted the time vehicle with this big pole and hook that runs directly into the flux capacitor." The other DeLorean that was flying had so much current flowing through it that it probably activated the flux capacitor easily.

    The flux capacitor is powered by the nuclear reactor because, except for lightning, a nuclear reaction is the only thing Doc could find that would generate the 1.21 gigawatts of power needed for temporal displacement.
  • edited December 2010
    Well, I'd assume that the flying circuits have a safety feature that automatically puts the wheels back down in case of a failure. And the car wasn't too high up, so if the wheels were down, then yes, heck yes it could have survived. Though part of me thinks it'd be awesome for there to be another Doc running around. :D

    If there is a second Doc then he is a total scumbag. Second or not, he knew Marty was still trapped in 1955, and it would've been easier for him than ever to fix the Time Machine and come back immediately.
  • edited December 2010
    Sounded acceptable to me, knowing how picky i am about stuff that fits into a films universe. Not everyones going to be happy with it though, but I can imagine a stream of criticisms on the forum if they'd have went for either of the other explanations.

    What made it acceptable to me was the notion that the lightning overloaded the time circuits of what was an already malfunctioning time machine (Doc: "Damn! Gotta fix that thing!" *hits the Date Display"). The fact that the dates glitched in Bttf 2 added more leverage to the possibility of one object being transported to 2 places from one point in time, and since the lightning bolt/glitch was merely a plot device to send Doc to 1885 for the 3rd film I think its cool that there exploring this idea more.

    Duplication is silly and a stretch of the imagination but i can see myself clicking through the dialogue of a different game:

    Marty - "Doc Where'd the car come from?"

    Doc - "Oh I build another one"

    Marty - "Ah."

    Me: *sigh*

    ...or...


    Marty - "Doc Where'd the car come from?"

    Doc - "Well as You and Jennifer walked off into the sunset and the track was clear, me and the boys got a vacuum cleaner, a pan and brush..."

    Marty - "Forget I asked Doc."

    Me: *sigh*
  • edited December 2010
    Duplication is silly and a stretch of the imagination but i can see myself clicking through the dialogue of a different game:

    Or it could've been
    Marty - "Doc, where'd the car come from?"
    Doc - "Marty, it's not important at the moment!"
    Or something like that.
    And everybody would've been happy.

    That is, if duplication is not used for some kind of a plot device. Because if it's not, I would've been quite happy with actually no real explanation.
  • edited December 2010
    Farlander wrote: »
    Or it could've been
    Marty - "Doc, where'd the car come from?"
    Doc - "Marty, it's not important at the moment!"
    Or something like that.
    And everybody would've been happy.
    That would have been a cop out. A major, major cop out. No way I would have been happy with that. Just having Doc saying "it's not important" would be terrible writing, and people wanted to know where the new DeLorean came from. Well, most people. I guess you didn't. *shrug*
  • edited December 2010
    markeres wrote: »
    That would have been a cop out. A major, major cop out. No way I would have been happy with that. Just having Doc saying "it's not important" would be terrible writing, and people wanted to know where the new DeLorean came from. Well, most people. I guess you didn't. *shrug*

    I wanted it to be a new one.
  • edited December 2010
    Geez, I think this is why they didn't talk about it until the game came out. It makes nobody happy. Sheesh.
  • edited December 2010
    Although I think I get the idea of the duplicate DeLorean, I'm not sure what happened after it went to the future, to 2025. I would be more smiles if someone drew a picture.
  • edited December 2010
    weak, but a writer can pretty much do anything with a story. The difference is doing it believably or doing it not so believably.

    Delorian splits in two. Why not two Marties? Why not two Docs? Why only another Delorian? How does Doc know there aren't 100 Delorians scattered in the future... the past...?

    Simple solution is best. Either Doc builds another, which he was against in the last movie, but he seemed to reconsider when he built the time-traveling train, or have Doc pick a timeline in which he knows the delorian's whereabouts, it's in working order and he can borrow for the amount of time he needs it, but must return it in order not to create another major time paradox if that timeline's Marty/Doc find the delorian missing.

    Great Scott! This is heavy!
  • edited December 2010
    There's also the fact that the car would need to be in the exact condition it was in when Doc put it in the mine in the first place. That means intentionally shorting out the time circuits with lightning.

    Why is the given explanation so hard to swallow? If you listen to the letter, Doc refers to a "gigawatt overload" that was what activated the flux capacitor. If you think about it, the raw lightning probably sent way more than 1.21 gigawatts into the car, and might even have hit double that. That, I think, would be enough to make the flux capacitor double the DeLorean. And since it was sent 70 years forward and back through time, there's a nice symmetry. And Doc was probably glad to find the second DeLorean, the train can't be a great way to time travel. It's not exactly quiet.

    It wouldn't have to have been in the "exact" condition at all really. All it needed to be was in the cave for Marty to pick up. The important part is Marty using it to get to 1885. The repairing of the time vehicle didn't have a major effect on the lives of any of the characters. As long as it wasn't able to fly, it wouldn't matter if it was fixed or if Doc just tore the a few wires out for 1955 Doc and Marty to fix. Marty still would've gone back to 1885 and tore a fuel line either way. So as long as the car is there for Marty, I don't believe his need to fix it is an issue (and is still one that could be explained by having Doc remove the circuits that needed replacing in 1885 anyways, so they could still replace them if he's THAT picky about it).

    The idea of a second car just appearing somewhere in time just doesn't physically make sense in the context of these movies. The car is a singular object that skips over periods of time. It just makes no sense for a system built to travel through time, to suddenly become an apt cloning device. Plus the one in a billion odds that Doc would ever come across the second car in his journeys through infinite time periods. It's just a single line of dialogue that makes a sudden mess of the established rules of the saga.

    Again, with them having so many options to go from about how Doc got a new time machine, they chose the one that is the most unimaginative and still most convoluted and non-sensical. I feel that's a shame when they could've stuck the rules of the universe, the way the have with the rest of the game and not had that black mark on the story.
    Farlander wrote: »
    Or it could've been
    Marty - "Doc, where'd the car come from?"
    Doc - "Marty, it's not important at the moment!"
    Or something like that.
    And everybody would've been happy.

    That is, if duplication is not used for some kind of a plot device. Because if it's not, I would've been quite happy with actually no real explanation.

    This is exactly it, I mean everyone's going on about it perhaps coming into play with Citizen Brown later on in the game. But the more I look at that episode's description, the more I feel it's to do with changing the time-line of the teenage Doc in 1931 and how that affects his ego into the future (1986). I don't think we're going to find a duplicate super-Doc later in the game. Which really does make this a throwaway line that could've been a bit more fitting with the movies established canon.
  • edited December 2010
    The whole explanation went way over my head, which is a good thing. :) It means it's brilliant enough to make sense in this universe! I approve. :D Besides, all dem big words make mah head hurt sumtum fierce.
  • edited December 2010
    I thought for sure it was because Doc got it wet... at least he didn't feed it after midnight..

    I suppose the enigmatic pseudoscience explanation will have to do.
  • edited December 2010
    I do not see how it "breaks the rules" of the BTTF universe. For probably the billionth(and for me, last time, I'm tired of having to explain this), when the lightning hit the DeLorean, it wasn't channeled through an insulated cable and the pole like it was at the clocktower. There was no protection, so the lightning caused a gigawatt overload that supercharged the flux capacitor. It's entirely plausible that the overload was enough to cause the flux capacitor to have a short out, creating a second time machine. And Doc probably realized what happened later if there was any damage to the space/time continuum. He probably would have backtracked it, found the DeLorean, and prevented Griff from using it. It really isn't that farfetched, and quite frankly, it's a lot more interesting than just building a new one. As for everyone saying "He could have taken one from another time" as soon as he passed 1955 with it, Doc would have died. He would've passed the point that Marty would've taken the time machine out of the mine, it wouldn't have been there, and Doc would've died in 1885, therefore he would've faded. The space/time continuum doesn't anticipate "I intend to put this back". Especially since if something went wrong, Doc probably wouldn't have been able to get the time machine back in time. There are far too many problems with using a time machine other than the duplication theory.
  • edited December 2010
    I do not see how it "breaks the rules" of the BTTF universe. For probably the billionth(and for me, last time, I'm tired of having to explain this), when the lightning hit the DeLorean, it wasn't channeled through an insulated cable and the pole like it was at the clocktower. There was no protection, so the lightning caused a gigawatt overload that supercharged the flux capacitor. It's entirely plausible that the overload was enough to cause the flux capacitor to have a short out, creating a second time machine.

    Oooh, this reminds me of a Darkwing Duck episode! Man, Darkwing Duck owned! Otherwise no. Flux capacitor only lets DeLorean to skip timelines.

    Except... That skip Doc mentions about (70 years later into the future) is ALSO in the timeline it has to go through before being demolished by the train in the finale of the third movie. But would THAT explain the tweaks Doc made on it are seemingly not just THERE in the third movie? Well, in the third movie DeLorean can't even accelerate itself therefore they weren't even addressed, so it makes sense.

    So I believe Doc DID use his time travelling train to steal a DeLorean in a timeline and put it in another time just to use it later on, for putting it back a second later in that previous timeline so that the lifetime of the DeLorean won't be disturbed.
  • edited December 2010
    You can´t be sooo picky with this kind of scientific explanation. If we deal with BTTF that way we would not even buy the first movie also, which I think everyone believes its great writing!

    We could also say that Marty couldn´t change the Mcfly´s family destiny in BTTF 1 been the one who participate in his parents first date because the moment her mother gave birth to her third son, and by the time she sees the astonishing resemblance with that Calvin Klein boy with whom she fall in love with... well, massive paradox right there. But who cares! we are happy with it because it is a fantasy, a really great one.

    Two exact Delorean machines by a struck of lighting! Ok! We just have another BTTF experience!
  • edited December 2010
    The DeLorean explanation must make sense, Bob Gale was working with them so im sure he had some input into how it was back, and he knows how time travel works in the BttF universe.
  • edited December 2010
    The space/time continuum doesn't anticipate "I intend to put this back". Especially since if something went wrong, Doc probably wouldn't have been able to get the time machine back in time. There are far too many problems with using a time machine other than the duplication theory.

    Your opinion, not a fact. The duplication theory is just made-up hooey.
  • edited December 2010
    Your opinion, not a fact. The duplication theory is just made-up hooey.

    And time travel isn't?:rolleyes:
  • edited December 2010
    prizna wrote: »
    The DeLorean explanation must make sense, Bob Gale was working with them so im sure he had some input into how it was back, and he knows how time travel works in the BttF universe.
    This is pretty much what it boils down to. The reason for the appearance of a new DeLorean is such a major piece of information that Telltale had to have passed it by Bob Gale, and he obviously signed off on it (heck, he may have even suggested it himself, who knows?). Bob Gale is the utmost authority on the BTTF universe and how time travel works in that universe (since he, ya know, created it and all) so I'm certainly willing to play by whatever rules he sets for the BTTF universe.
    Your opinion, not a fact. The duplication theory is just made-up hooey.
    And time travel isn't?:rolleyes:
    Heh. That too. :D
  • edited December 2010
    It's like what I've seen in someone's sig on a Star Trek forum. "Canon is what people argue exists on ships that don't exist." :D
  • edited December 2010
    Its a downright shame that Gale approved it. Its an even bigger cop out than the "Its not important right now" scenario.

    The car should not been there for the majority of the series. And they should've developed a paradox scenario resulting from the prologue.
  • edited December 2010
    Mino_Dan wrote: »
    Its a downright shame that Gale approved it. Its an even bigger cop out than the "Its not important right now" scenario.

    The car should not been there for the majority of the series. And they should've developed a paradox scenario resulting from the prologue.

    The car should not have been there?! Then how do you expect Marty to time travel, put a flux capacitor on his skateboard?

    And IMO, you can't call it a cop out if hardly anybody thought of it.
  • edited December 2010
    Doc still has that train. Okay, its difficult to hide something that big but he could've built the time machine into another vehicle.

    A cop out means "An excuse made in order to avoid performing a task or duty."

    Pretending that a lightning strike through the time circuits would cause the Delorean to multiply does definatly fall under that category!
    Building a new Delorean Time machine would've made a lot more sense.
  • edited December 2010
    It's probably gonna be explained in the next games.
    But the way I see it, it's probably a timeline stuff.
  • edited December 2010
    It makes sense to me. Im just curious if their is going to be a duplicate Doc or not.
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