When Doc Emmett Brown invents time travel in Back to the Future, he’s initially overjoyed at this enormous achievement. Yet he soon regrets his actions as time travel interferes with both the past and the future. At one point in the original movie’s second sequel, Back to the Future Part III, Doc Brown explicitly expresses his wish to the trilogy’s hero Marty McFly that his DeLorean time machine be destroyed. The moment that Marty arrives back in 1985 at the end of the third movie, he jumps out of the DeLorean as it’s hit by a train.
“Well Doc,” Marty says. “It’s destroyed, just like you wanted.” Yet there’s still time for one more act of time travel, as the Doc goes back on his word to visit Marty and Jennifer 100 years in the future. This final timeline change in the Back to the Future movies goes against Doc Brown’s sentiments throughout the trilogy about the dangers of time travel. Like many inventors, he comes to rue unleashing forces beyond his control. Nevertheless, the Doc continues time-traveling in the animated TV series spun off from Back to the Future’s movie franchise, again failing to heed his own misgivings.
Doc Brown Changes His Mind About Time Travel In Back To The Future 3’s Ending
He Regrets His Invention Throughout The Trilogy Until This Moment
If the events of Back to the Future and Back to the Future Part II didn’t make up his mind for him, then the story of Back to the Future Part III, set 15 years before the 20th century had even begun, demonstrates to Doc Brown once and for all that time is not to be meddled with. Not only does the Doc want the DeLorean destroyed once it’s returned Marty McFly to 1985, but he decides against going back to the future himself, preferring to stay in 1885, where he’s fallen in love with Clara Clayton.
Back in 1985, Marty ᴀssumes he’s never going to see the Doc again, until, in one final twist, his time-traveling mentor shows up in a locomotive time machine with Clara and their two sons, Jules and Verne. He explains that he’s changed his mind about the potential effects of time travel on the future, telling Marty’s girlfriend, Jennifer, “Your future hasn’t been written yet – no one’s has. Your future is whatever you make it.”
Having started a family in a time period decades before he was actually born, Doc Brown is apparently no longer concerned about the dangers of time travel. It’s for this reason that he decides to build a new time machine out of a steam train and go back to 1985 once more.
Back To The Future’s Animated Series Confirmed Doc Brown & Marty McFy Kept Time Traveling
They Go Back To Various Time Periods Across History In A Restored Version Of The DeLorean
Back to the Future Part III isn’t the end of Doc Brown’s time traveling with Marty McFly, either. Indeed, the animated spin-off show Back to the Future sees Doc Brown travel back to the Middle Ages and even Ancient Egypt with his family, while he takes Marty along with him to Ancient Rome and Latin America in the 16th century. The show’s exploration of various historic periods seems to explain the last line of Back to the Future 3, in which the Doc tells Marty he’s not traveling to the future again as he’s “already been”.
Given that this TV series features the Doc’s children, it comes after Back to the Future 3 in the chronology of the franchise. The show confirms that Doc Brown and Marty McFly have continued their adventures through time even after the DeLorean’s destruction in the final moments of Back to the Future Part III. In fact, the DeLorean’s appearance in the first episode of the show suggests that the Doc has rebuilt it.
Back To The Future 3’s Train Is So Cool, You Can Almost Forgive How It Hurts Doc Brown’s Arc
This Time-Traveling Locomotive Is Cinema’s Ultimate Steampunk Machine
Doc Brown’s reappearance via his steam-train time machine at the end of Back to the Future 3 betrays his character arc, which seemed to have ended perfectly with him retiring from time travel to stay with Clara. The Doc’s decision to remain in 1885 is the culmination of his misgivings about time travel and his regret at having invented it.
The DeLorean is also the only time machine in the movies up to the moment of its destruction, which brings a sense of finality to the story. The Doc suddenly arriving in the future again via another machine goes against everything that’s come before it, detracting from his growth as a character and the DeLorean’s status among science fiction cinema’s best flying cars. On the other hand, it’s hard to begrudge Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis, the storytellers behind the Back to the Future movies, ending their trilogy in this manner, because the Doc’s locomotive time machine is just so cool.
The vehicle combines the body and coal-fired engine of a 19th-century steam train with wings, a nuclear reactor, and a retro version of Back to the Future’s legendary flux capacitor, in one of the most creative examples of the steampunk aesthetic ever rendered on the big screen. Doc Brown may have ditched his locomotive in the animated series, but it still gives the original Back to the Future trilogy the big finish it deserves.
Back to the Future
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Robert Zemeckis, Bob Gale
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Back to the Future
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Back to the Future Part III
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Back To The Future
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Back To The Future
Summary
“Back to the Future” is a science fiction adventure franchise that follows the time-traveling adventures of Marty McFly and Dr. Emmett “Doc” Brown. Created by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale, the series is known for its clever use of time travel, memorable characters, and iconic DeLorean time machine. The franchise explores themes of causality, destiny, and the impact of individual actions on the future. Its blend of humor, heart, and innovative storytelling has made it a beloved classic in film history.
