Movies - Doctor Emmett Brown

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Doctor Emmett Lathrop "Doc" Brown is a fictional character, one of the lead characters in the Back to the Future
motion picture trilogy, played by actor Christopher Lloyd in the three films and the live action sequences of the animated series. He is voiced by Dan Castellaneta in the animated series.

"Doc", as he is referred to by his best friend Marty McFly, was born in 1920, in Hill Valley, California. A scientist by trade, Doc is a "student of all sciences" who spends much of his time inventing. He usually has a pet dog – in 1955, his pet was named Copernicus after Nicolaus Copernicus, and by 1985 he had a dog named Einstein after Albert Einstein. Doc's role models are scientists, as evidenced by the names of his dogs and the portrait of Isaac Newton found in his laboratory.

Doc can be absent-minded at times, and is regarded by many of Hill Valley's townsfolk as strange or crazy (see mad scientist). As such, he has few friends (the only friends we meet through the trilogy are Marty and his girlfriend Jennifer Parker). Because of this, Doc is often seen as a loner. However, Doc cares about the people he is close to. Doc does not believe in "love at first sight" until he ends up meeting his future wife Clara Clayton in 1885, since he does not see how such a feeling works.

Doc often works through the night on his inventions and can become obsessed with little things. He will always try to use a big word rather than a small one if one is available – for example, he refers to a dance as a "rhythmic ceremonial ritual." He also likes jazz music, Jules Verne and Westerns. Although he may like to gamble, he would never use time travel for that reason. Doc does not usually drink alcoholic beverages, since he has a tendency to faint after just one glass.

Although Doc is extremely intelligent, he is rather absent-minded at times. He cheated Libyan terrorists out of an unspecified amount of plutonium without preparing for their inevitable retribution, and would have died as a result had Marty not intervened. He referred to the time machine as a time machine in public, leading Biff Tannen to use it without Doc's knowledge in an attempt to alter history. In 1985, he flew land-based vehicles with hover conversions during the daytime, with no consideration of the possibility of people seeing him.

Pre-Back to the Future

Doc's back story and early life have been considerably elucidated by looking at draft scripts and spin-off series. One draft script suggests that his mother was called Sarah Lathrop, which would explain his middle name (Doc's middle name, "Lathrop", is revealed in the animated series). His father's side of the family arrived in Hill Valley in 1908, when they were known as the Von Brauns – they changed their name to Brown during World War I. It has been speculated that the fictional Doc is supposed to be a relative of the real scientist Wernher von Braun. Another possible relation would be Thomas Townsend Brown, whose work on anti-gravity could explain the existence and operation of UFOs. Doc's family was presumably from the German Empire or Austria-Hungary. According to the animated series, Doc had an uncle Oliver who lived in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and young Emmett would go to visit him in the summer.

Around 1931, at age 11, Doc discovered the works of his favorite author, Jules Verne. From that point, he decided to dedicate his life to science. Around 1932, one year later, Doc tried digging to the center of the Earth, inspired by the 1864 novel Journey to the Center of the Earth. Robert Zemeckis, co-writer/director of the films, has suggested that during the early 1940s Doc worked on the Manhattan Project, though this is never mentioned on screen.

During the 1950s, Doc worked as a professor at Hill Valley University.

==Back to the Future
==

On November 5 1955 Doc came up with the idea of the flux capacitor (which is what makes time travel possible) after slipping off his toilet while standing on it to hang a clock and bumping his head. The idea came to him in a vision he had after being knocked out. The time machine project suffered a setback on August 1, 1962 when Doc's mansion at 1640 Riverside Drive burnt down. After the fire, Doc moved into his former garage (which had been detached from the mansion and as such had survived the fire). There were rumors that he had deliberately burnt it down to claim the insurance money to fund the time machine. Doc moved to his garage and sold the rest of his estate to developers, but he was soon back on track and on May 23, 1983, he was commended and won an award.

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