there is in Astronomical year numbering
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomical_year_numbering
which as a scientist Doc Brown might actually have a reason to use.
Unimportant Back to the Future Observations
- Thread starter Argus Skyhawk
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there is in Astronomical year numbering
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomical_year_numbering
which as a scientist Doc Brown might actually have a reason to use.
Wouldn't then that pretty much throw off everything else? Meaning punching 1955 in the car would really take them to 1956?
Couple things I noticed while watching the recent AMC marathon over the holidays...in part 1 during the cafeteria scene with George and Marty, one of the kids looks right into the camera. I also noticed (and now I know everybody has known this, I guess) that the guy who hits Marty up for a clock tower donation in 2015 is the guy who fixed Biff's car in 1955 after hitting the manure.
One little detail that always bothers me about the second movie, is how exactly Doc is performing all those complex flying maneuvers (swooping up and down, on the side, doing barrel rolls) when all he really appears to be doing is turning the freakin steering wheel the whole time. lol
There may be some pedal action to effects how the car maneuvers or the steering wheel is "pressure sensitive" so how much "push" or "pull" he puts on the wheel effects the car's maneuvers. (Similar to pulling back or forward on the yoke of a plane only the DeLorean's case the "yoke" (the steering wheel) doesn't move doesn't move and just gets a "driver intent" from how Doc pushes/pulls on the wheel.)
I kind of wonder what the hover-conversion guys thought when Doc pulled into the shop with the DeLorean to get the conversion?
Also, some note has been made in the past about the "Gas Prices" at the Texaco station in 2015 Hill Valley (hovering around $5 a gallon, IIRC) and remarking how the Gas prices where "high."
Considering Marty's Pepsi in the Cafe '80s was expected to cost $50 ($45 with a "cash use surcharge" in the book, IIRC, actually leaving him with $5 to) buy the book) and "thumbing $50" was considered a simple donation.
So from all of this we can look at it like this:
Doc gave Marty $50 for the Pepsi. (Which Marty never paid for, BTW)
Today a Pepsi in a cafe-style restaurant in the 90s likely would've cost someone around $1 or $1.50. So there's a 33x increase in the cost of Pepsi over the course of 30 years.
In 1985 Marty's 25-cent "donation" is considered worthy of praise (and judging by the jiggling of the coins in the can probably an average donation, too.) Since $50 was consider a shrug-off worthy donation by 2015-Terry this suggests a 200x increase of prices!
Biff's cab-ride from Hill Valley to Hilldale is around $176. The cost of either almost four Pepsies or almost four pithy donations.
The gas in the Texaco in Hill Valley in 1985 is, IIRC, around 80-cents a gallon. In 2015 it's around $5 a gallon a little over a 6x increase. So ten gallons of gas (about what it'd cost to fill an average car up) costs as much as a Pepsi, as much as a forgettable donation or a 1/4 as much as a cab ride between two local communities. (Downtown to a nearby suburb.)
So, really, it seems like gas in 2015 (or whatever fuel they're using) is really damn cheap. That or Pepsi is really expensive and a lot more is expected out of you as far as donations.
I also recently rewatched these movies (LOVE the first one, second one was okay... third one.... BLECH!) Anyway, a couple things popped in my head. One. When Marty arrives at Twin Pines Mall, Doc backs the DeLorean out of his van. First off, how did he get in the car? The van was barely big enough for the car to fit in. Did he get in the car, then drive it into the van? Then how did he get the van door to close? I guess remote control. And did he have a fog machine set up inside the van for dramatic effect? If so, why didn't Doc tell Marty in his earlier phone call to train the camera on the back of the van so the aforementioned fog machine wouldn't just be a waste of money? 
In my car (and most others I'd assume) there is a lever under the steering wheel that unlocks it for adjustment to the size of the driver. this allows for forward and backward, up and down and rotational motion of the wheel. Unfortunately, that leaves us with 2 ways to do pitch and one for either yaw or roll but not both. In the movie we have to assume the movements are too subtle for us to notice, and I do like your pressure sensitive steering wheel idea.
I'm not sure tilt steering wheels were available on the DeLorean.
As for the yaw of the car, again, it's possible the car's pedals play a role here. In a plane there's two pedals on the floor that control the plane's rudder (the yaw/side to side movement) and "toe brakes." So you press the pedal to do the yaw movement or you press with your toes to activate the brakes. It's possible the DeLorean had a similar set-up on the gas/bake pedal.
As for the yaw of the car, again, it's possible the car's pedals play a role here. In a plane there's two pedals on the floor that control the plane's rudder (the yaw/side to side movement) and "toe brakes." So you press the pedal to do the yaw movement or you press with your toes to activate the brakes. It's possible the DeLorean had a similar set-up on the gas/bake pedal.
I always knew that the "save the clock tower" guy was made up to look old. I knew there must have been some reason but I never knew untill now. Thx.
Yeah I suppose.... although how in the hell old Biff was able to figure out this complex system (let alone the time travel thing), I'll never know. lol
Asking how Old Biff was able to drive the flying DeLorean is like asking how your grandmother is able to use the Northstar system. Old Biff knew how to fly the DeLorean because he lives in a time where flying-cars are common. Whatever the system is for driving a flying car it's standard in all of them and the DeLorean was no different.
Operating the time-travel aspect is another issue. But a theory I have is that he landed the DeLorean somewhere in 2015, found the cam-corder in the car (either behind the seats or in the trunk) and watched the tape of Temporal Experiment #1 where Doc explains to the camera how to operate the time machine.
So Biff likely knew how to use the time machine because he may have, literally, seen the manual.
Here's an observation, and more "unimportant" that some of these other topics (keeping within the theme of the thread title.)
In the future we see a cab the (real-life) car that the cab is made of is a Citroen DS of the 1955-1975 vintage. These cars were mostly sold in Europe but some did make it over here to the states during their original production run (though modified to meet US standards. The 2015 car we see is the European version (with the "aerodynamic" head lights.) They are, however, not popular here or even all-that common. They're classic cars now bought and held by collectors and taken to shows. Yet in 2015 a car that is half a century old has been modified (both physically and mechanically) to serve as a taxi. Which doesn't seem likely to me considering not many classic 1960s cars today serve as taxis. (IIRC the last '57 Chevy taxicab company in NYC was retired in the early part of the last decade. But may be worth nothing that, I believe, those cars entered service as taxis as new cars and not brought in once the cars became sought-after classics.)
So, it's up to you to decide if the European version of a 50-year old or so, rare and classic car will be serving as a Taxi.
Ok, so you may think that maybe the car isn't supposed to be a Citroen but rather a futuristic car that simply "looks like one" is based off them or that the Citroen DS didn't exist in BTTF's universe? Nope. When Marty is exploring 1985-A just before he happens upon Strickland's house he passes a burned out wrecked hulk of a car. That car? The shell of a 1955-75 Citroen DS.
So not only are these very rare collectors cars flying taxis some 60 years or so after their construction but Marty also happens across two of them within the same day! (Same day for him.) (There was one of these taxis around the town-square when Marty is exploring it.)
Operating the time-travel aspect is another issue. But a theory I have is that he landed the DeLorean somewhere in 2015, found the cam-corder in the car (either behind the seats or in the trunk) and watched the tape of Temporal Experiment #1 where Doc explains to the camera how to operate the time machine.
So Biff likely knew how to use the time machine because he may have, literally, seen the manual.
Here's an observation, and more "unimportant" that some of these other topics (keeping within the theme of the thread title.)
In the future we see a cab the (real-life) car that the cab is made of is a Citroen DS of the 1955-1975 vintage. These cars were mostly sold in Europe but some did make it over here to the states during their original production run (though modified to meet US standards. The 2015 car we see is the European version (with the "aerodynamic" head lights.) They are, however, not popular here or even all-that common. They're classic cars now bought and held by collectors and taken to shows. Yet in 2015 a car that is half a century old has been modified (both physically and mechanically) to serve as a taxi. Which doesn't seem likely to me considering not many classic 1960s cars today serve as taxis. (IIRC the last '57 Chevy taxicab company in NYC was retired in the early part of the last decade. But may be worth nothing that, I believe, those cars entered service as taxis as new cars and not brought in once the cars became sought-after classics.)
So, it's up to you to decide if the European version of a 50-year old or so, rare and classic car will be serving as a Taxi.
Ok, so you may think that maybe the car isn't supposed to be a Citroen but rather a futuristic car that simply "looks like one" is based off them or that the Citroen DS didn't exist in BTTF's universe? Nope. When Marty is exploring 1985-A just before he happens upon Strickland's house he passes a burned out wrecked hulk of a car. That car? The shell of a 1955-75 Citroen DS.
So not only are these very rare collectors cars flying taxis some 60 years or so after their construction but Marty also happens across two of them within the same day! (Same day for him.) (There was one of these taxis around the town-square when Marty is exploring it.)
Well the time circuit part is pretty obvious, it's the fact that you have to know to go 88 miles an hour to travel through time. But, if Biff was driving through the air he was probably going faster then 88 anyways. He would also have to know to put garbage in Mr. Fusion for the return trip to 2015, that was not on the camcorder, but maybe he figured it out.
When Doc speeds the DeLorean up to 88 on the skyway we can see him closing in on the car in front of him, suggesting 88 is over the legal skyway speedlimit.
That was another thing I thought watching part two... what happened to the poor bastards in those two cars when the DeLorean went back to 1985? I hope they weren't epileptic!
Alos, he is Charlie Fleischer - the voice of Roger Rabbit - another Zemeckis film.
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