Christopher Lloyd credited as playing...
Doctor Emmett Brown
- Jennifer Parker: Dr. Brown, I brought this note back from the future and - now it's erased.
- Doc: Of course it's erased!
- Jennifer Parker: But what does that mean?
- Doc: It means your future hasn't been written yet. No one's has. Your future is whatever you make it. So make it a good one, both of you.
- Marty McFly: [Marty wraps his arm around Jennifer] We will, Doc.
- Doc: Marty, you're going to have to do something about those clothes. You walk around town dressed like that, you're liable to get shot.
- Marty McFly: Or hanged.
- Doc: What idiot dressed you in that outfit?
- Marty McFly: You did.
- [last lines]
- Marty McFly: Hey, Doc! Where you goin' now? Back to the future?
- Doc: Nope. Already been there.
- [Doc and Marty load the DeLorean onto the train tracks]
- Doc: Marty, I've made a decision. I'm not going with you tomorrow. I'm staying here.
- Marty McFly: What are you talkin' about, Doc?
- Doc: There's no point in denying it. I'm in love with Clara.
- Marty McFly: Oh, man. Doc, we don't belong here! Neither one of us! You know, it could still be you that gets shot tomorrow!
- [shows Doc the photo of the blank tombstone]
- Marty McFly: This tombstone could still be in your future!
- Doc: Marty, the future isn't written. It can be changed. You know that. Anyone can make their future whatever they want it to be. I can't let this one little photograph determine my entire destiny. I have to live my life according to what I believe is right in my heart.
- Marty McFly: Doc, you're a scientist.
- [points to Doc's heart]
- Marty McFly: So you tell me: What's the right thing to do?
- Marty McFly: [points to his own forehead] Up here?
- Doc: [sighs and looks again at the photograph] You're right, Marty.
- [they release the DeLorean onto the tracks]
- Marty McFly: Wow, that worked great.
- Doc: I've at least gotta tell her goodbye.
- Marty McFly: C'mon, Doc. I mean, think about it. What are you gonna say to her? "I gotta go back to the future"? I mean, she's not gonna understand that, Doc. Hell, I'm in it with you and even I don't understand it.
- [pause]
- Marty McFly: Doc. Listen, maybe we could - I don't know. Maybe we could just take Clara with us.
- Doc: To the future?
- [shakes his head]
- Doc: As you reminded me, Marty, I'm a scientist, so I must be scientific about this. I cautioned you about disrupting the continuum for your own personal benefit. Therefore, I must do no less. We shall proceed as planned, and as soon as we return to 1985, we'll destroy this infernal machine. Traveling through time has become much too painful.
- Doc: So, it may not be my name that's supposed to end up on this tombstone. It may be yours.
- [Marty and Doc exchange expressions they have each been saying throughout the trilogy...]
- Marty McFly: Great Scott!
- Doc: I know, this is heavy.
- Doc: You're just not thinking fourth dimensionally!
- Marty McFly: Right, right. I have a real problem with that.
- Young Doc: [looking at a tiny circuit under a magnifying glass] Unbelievable that this little piece of junk could be such a big problem. No wonder this circuit failed. It says "Made in Japan".
- Marty McFly: What do you mean, Doc? All the best stuff is made in Japan.
- Young Doc: Unbelievable.
- [in a drive-in, in 1955. The theater screen shows a still picture of a group of Native Americans riding horse in a desert]
- Young Doc: All you have to do is drive the time vehicle directly toward that screen accelerating to 88 miles an hour.
- Marty McFly: Wait a minute, Doc. If I drive straight towards the screen, I'm gonna crash into those Indians.
- Young Doc: Marty, you're not thinking fourth dimensionally. You'll instantly be transported back into 1885, and those Indians won't even be there.
- Marty McFly: Right.
- Young Doc: Well, good luck for both our sakes. See you in the future.
- Marty McFly: You mean the past?
- Young Doc: *Exactly*!
- [after a few minutes, when he drives the DeLorean to 1885, an actual group of Native Americans is literally running towards his location]
- Young Doc: [shouting frantically]
- Marty McFly: Indians!
- Doc: Marty, why are you wearing that gun? You're not considering going up against Tannen tomorrow?
- Marty McFly: Doc, tomorrow morning, I'm going back to the future with you. But if Buford Tannen comes looking for trouble, I'm gonna be ready for him. You heard what that son of a bitch called me last night.
- Doc: Marty, you can't go losing your judgment every time someone calls you a name. That's exactly what causes you to get into that accident in the future.
- Marty McFly: What? What about my future?
- Doc: I can't tell you. It might make things worse.
- Marty McFly: Wait a minute, Doc. What is wrong with my future?
- Doc: Marty, we all have to make decisions that affect the course of our lives. You've gotta do what you've gotta do. And I've gotta do what I've gotta do.
- Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen: You owe me money, blacksmith.
- Doc: How do ya figure?
- Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen: My horse threw a shoe. And seein' as you was the one that done the shoein', I say that makes you responsible.
- Doc: Well, since you never paid me for the job, I say that makes us even!
- Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen: Wrong! See I was *on* my horse when it threw the shoe and I got throwed *off*! And *that* caused me to bust a perfectly good bottle of fine Kentucky red-eye. So, the way I figure it, blacksmith, you owe me five dollars for the whiskey and $75 for the horse.
- Marty McFly: [hoarsely] That's the $80.
- Doc: Look! If your horse threw a shoe, bring him back and I'll reshoe him!
- Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen: I done shot that horse!
- Doc: Well, that's your problem, Tannen!
- Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen: Wrong! That's yours. So, from now on, you better be lookin' behind you when you walk. 'Cause one day you're gonna get a bullet in your back.
- [Buford and his gang gallop away on their horses]
- [first lines]
- Marty McFly: Doc! Doc! Doc!
- Young Doc: [not paying attention] What?
- Marty McFly: Doc!
- Young Doc: What?
- Marty McFly: Doc!
- Young Doc: [finally seeing him] Aaaah!
- Marty McFly: Okay, relax, Doc, it's me! It's me, It's Marty!
- Young Doc: No, it can't be! I just sent you back to the future!
- Marty McFly: Oh, I know you did send me back to the future. But I'm back, I'm back *from* the future.
- Young Doc: Great Ssscott!
- Doc: [reading a letter his future self wrote] I never knew I could write anything so touching.
- Marty McFly: I know, Doc, it's beautiful.
- Marty McFly: Bartender says that's the strongest stuff they got.
- [Doc begins to pour alcohol into the DeLorean's gas cap]
- Doc: Try it, Marty.
- [Marty is trying to start the engine in the DeLorean. The engine begins to sorely start as he keeps turning the keys to work the engine]
- Doc: Give it more gas...
- [the DeLorean sounds as if its about to start until the fuel-injection manifold blows apart from the car with a lot smog as the car dies; Doc picks it up]
- Doc: Damn! It blew the fuel injection manifold. Strong stuff alright, it'll take me a month to rebuild it.
- Marty McFly: A month? Doc, you're gonna get shot on Monday!
- Doc: I know, I know...! Wait, I've got it! we can simply roll it down a steep hill... no, no, we'd never find a smooth enough surface. Unless... of course, ice! We'll wait until winter, when the lake freezes over we'll...
- Marty McFly: Winter? Doc! Monday, it's three days away!
- Doc: Okay, okay, let's think this through logically... we know that it won't run under its own power and we know we can't pull it, but if we could find a way to push it up to 88 miles per hour...
- [a whistle blows in the distance and Doc looks out the window at the arriving train]
- Doc: That's it!
- [in a library in 1955]
- Marty McFly: [reading a short biography about Buford Tannen] "Buford Tannen was a notorious gunman, whose short temper and a tendency to drool, earned him the nickname 'Mad Dog.' He was quick on the trigger and bragged that he'd killed 12 men, not including Indians or Chinamen."
- Young Doc: Does it mention me? Am I one of the 12?
- Marty McFly: [Puts up his finger] Just a minute. "However, this can not be substantiated since precise records were not kept after Tannen shot a newspaper editor who printed an unfavorable story about him in 1884." That's why we can't find anything.
- Young Doc: [Brings over a set of books] Look. "William McFly and family." Your relatives?
- Marty McFly: My great-grandfather's name was William.
- [Points to William]
- Marty McFly: That's him, good looking guy.
- Marty McFly: Maybe it was just a mistake, Doc. Maybe that grave wasn't yours. There could've been another Emmett Brown back in 1885.
- Young Doc: No.
- Marty McFly: Did you have relatives here back then?
- Young Doc: The Browns didn't come to Hill Valley until 1908. Then, they were the Von Brauns. My father changed our name during the first World War.
- Marty McFly: [discovers a picture of Doc] Doc, look.
- Young Doc: Great Scott. It's me! Then, it *is* true. All of it. It is me who goes back there and gets shot.
- Marty McFly: It's not gonna happen, Doc. After you fix the time circuits and put new tires on the DeLorean, I'm gonna go back to 1885 and I'm bringing you home.
- Clara Clayton: Emmett, do you think we'll ever be able to travel to the moon like we travel across the country on trains?
- Doc: Definitely, although not for another eighty-four years and not on trains. We'll have space vehicles, capsules to sail off in rockets, devices that create giant explosions, explosions that are so powerful that they...
- Clara Clayton: [finishes Doc's sentence] "They break the pull of the earth's gravity and send their projectile through outer space."
- [Doc stares at her in shock. Clara laughs]
- Clara Clayton: Emmett, I read that book too. You're quoting Jules Verne, "From the Earth to the Moon".
- Doc: You've read Jules Verne?
- Clara Clayton: I *adore* Jules Verne.
- Doc: So do I. "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea", my absolute favorite. The first time I read that when I was a little boy I wanted to meet Captain Nemo and...
- Clara Clayton: [laughs] Don't tease, Emmett. You couldn't have read that when you were a little boy, it was only first published ten years ago.
- Doc: Oh, yes, well... I meant it made me *feel* like a boy. I never met a woman who liked Jules Verne before.
- Clara Clayton: I never ever met a man like *you* before.
- [Doc and Clara kiss as a shooting star falls from the sky]
- Doc: Marty, you can't go losing your judgment every time someone calls you a name. That's exactly what causes you to get into that accident in the future.