Would the DeLorean have ran completely out of fuel?

[Tosk]

The actual speed of the car actually didn't matter either, there was nothing special or magical about 88 miles an hour. It wasn't like that was the "speed of time" or something. It's the speed Doc had calculated the car would be going when the nuclear reactor had sufficiently charged the time circuits and other components to complete a trip through time. Hell, in Temporal Experiment #1 the car traveling through the parking lot wouldn't have been moving at 88 miles an hour based on the way Doc carries out the test. So it was more to do with just how much time the nuclear reactor had had to charge everything up.

I disagree. Every example (except the front-spin "99" exit Doc makes from 1955) shows that the car needs to be moving at 88 miles per hour.

When Marty takes off to escape the Libyans, he accidentally sets the time circuits on and then drives all over the place, only making the jump when he finally hits 88.

At the end of the film, we see the flux capacitor/time circuits trying to activate as soon as Marty hits 88, but he can't actually time travel 'til the lightning courses into the system. When it does, he instantly jumps to '85.

We see Doc gun it to 88 while flying, even though it only takes him a few moments to get to the right speed.

Heck, the entire point of the end of III is all about forcing the car to be moving at 88mph.

 

[Trekker4747]

I disagree. Every example (except the front-spin "99" exit Doc makes from 1955) shows that the car needs to be moving at 88 miles per hour.

When Marty takes off to escape the Libyans, he accidentally sets the time circuits on and then drives all over the place, only making the jump when he finally hits 88.

At the end of the film, we see the flux capacitor/time circuits trying to activate as soon as Marty hits 88, but he can't actually time travel 'til the lightning courses into the system. When it does, he instantly jumps to '85.

We see Doc gun it to 88 while flying, even though it only takes him a few moments to get to the right speed.

Heck, the entire point of the end of III is all about forcing the car to be moving at 88mph.

Then explain Temporal Experiment #1.

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

Doc showing off? :P

I agree with Tosk, pretty much all the movies' main plots are predicated on the car moving at 88mph. Sure, in the mall parking lot there is literally not enough room for any car to accelerate that much, but there's also a ton of movie magic at work that can't really be explained. In MOST of the time events the car is definitely not moving at 88mph. Heck, the train at the end of III has various physics for its size that would make it impossible to stop within feet of its appearance without the passengers turning into chunky salsa, and I'm not sure Doc was good enough to invent inertial dampeners while building the train.

Mark

 

[Trekker4747]

For the time events where the car is going 88, and we see it accelerate from a complete stand-still, we have to chalk it up to simple movie-making limitations. It's a common trope in all movies that vehicles on screen are not moving at the speeds that are being claimed because filming vehicles at the speed with actors on them is dangerous.

The problem with TE#1 is that Doc stops the DeLorean, accelerates it while it is standing still and somehow this is enough to "speed the car up".... Even though it is standing perfectly still. Accelerating doesn't work that way.

Marty accelerates the car from a 0 to 88 over the course of his fleeing the Lybians. He shifts gears about 20 times which isn't how gear changes and such work.... I mean he goes "Let's see if you bastards can do 90!" and then shifts the gear which is the... "Going 90" gear? Shouldn't he already be in a higher or highest gear? Was it time for him to shift anyway? Shifting gears doesn't work that way.

But like I said originally in TE#1 Doc uses the remote to accelerate the car up to 50-60 something miles an hour, releases the brake, and the car takes off. Guess what guys? It doesn't instantly start going 50-60 miles an hour. It starts from 0.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

The problem with TE#1 is that Doc stops the DeLorean, accelerates it while it is standing still and somehow this is enough to "speed the car up".... Even though it is standing perfectly still. Accelerating doesn't work that way.

In the movie, accelerating DOES work that way because the movie says it does!

 

[Trekker4747]

In the movie, accelerating DOES work that way because the movie says it does!

Then why the whole deal with speeding the car down the street and timing its acceleration and such with wind resistance to time it with a lightning bolt? Hell, Doc watched TE#1 (and I think the novel says he watched it several times to learn all he could about the car and how the time machine aspects work) why not do the same thing as was done at the mall? Instead of painting the line starting "way over there" several blocks away why not just start it at the end of the block and accelerate it "standing" for a time and only have to time things out over a couple hundred feet?

 

[Marsden]

Doc showing off? :P

I agree with Tosk, pretty much all the movies' main plots are predicated on the car moving at 88mph. Sure, in the mall parking lot there is literally not enough room for any car to accelerate that much, but there's also a ton of movie magic at work that can't really be explained. In MOST of the time events the car is definitely not moving at 88mph. Heck, the train at the end of III has various physics for its size that would make it impossible to stop within feet of its appearance without the passengers turning into chunky salsa, and I'm not sure Doc was good enough to invent inertial dampeners while building the train.

Mark

Mmmmmm..... Salsa....


I love this thread but the only thing I really remember about BTF 3 is ZZ Top was in it.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I love this thread but the only thing I really remember about BTF 3 is ZZ Top was in it.

It took me awhile to realize that the song they perform in the movie is an 1885 version of "Doubleback".

 

[Trekker4747]

It took me awhile to realize that the song they perform in the movie is an 1885 version of "Doubleback".

The "DOUBLE BACK written and performed by ZZ Top" credit in the opening credits should have been something of a giveaway.

 

[Tosk]

Then explain Temporal Experiment #1.

That's easy. The car was traveling at 88 miles per hour. Whether or not you could really get the car up to that speed that quickly in real life is irrelevant. In the context of the story being told, that car is going 88 when the time displacement occurs. If anything, I wouldn't be surprised if the "revving to 60" is there specifically to be a bit of a cinematic cheat due to the short distance involved.

I'd argue that the disparity between that trip and the one in the finale is simple dramatics. Just like the two minutes it takes Marty to escape the Libyans the first time, and only 40 seconds when we see it again later.

If a speed of 88mph is not needed (despite it being explicitly stated that they do), then why do they have to drive at all? Why not just start the reaction and then patiently wait to time travel? Why did Doc let the brake off at all, rather than simply revving all the way up to 88?

 

[Turd Ferguson]

Every example (except the front-spin "99" exit Doc makes from 1955) shows that the car needs to be moving at 88 miles per hour

When Marty takes off to escape the Libyans, he accidentally sets the time circuits on and then drives all over the place, only making the jump when he finally hits 88.

Back to the Future Part III always bugged me for a couple of reasons. In Part I and II, the time displacement effect only happened once the DeLorean reached 88 mph. In III, both times we see the car time travel, the time displacement effect starts taking place (albeit SLOWLY) once the car reaches about 50/60 mph, but the car doesn't actually displace until 88. I guess it could be argued that the 1955 components take from 50/60 to 88 to warm up and kick in.

The other thing is in the first two movies, Doc punches the destination time into the keypad and then hits a button and the date/time then appear on the "Destination Time" display. In Part III, the date/year/time appear on the "Destination Time" display AS Doc is inputting it. Call me a little nitpicky, but little errors like that grind my gears ESPECIALLY if the same director is making the movies.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I’m numb to those kind of issues with BTTF.

If you can accept that keeping your parents from meeting wouldn’t instantly erase you or that your father completely changing his personality wouldn’t result in such major ripples he would never have the exact same kids.

Or that erasing yourself from existence wouldn’t create an infinite “A implies not B, not B implies not A” paradox.

Or that old Biff came back to the same 2015.

How can you question anything about them? Yes, you are right that doesn’t make sense. But you have already accepted more ridiculous things.

 

[Turd Ferguson]

Maybe I'm weird, but nitpicks or plotholes like that don't affect me at all. In fact, I love to come up with in-universe explanations for them. Technical issues with props bug the shit out of me though

 

[Tosk]

Back to the Future Part III always bugged me for a couple of reasons. In Part I and II, the time displacement effect only happened once the DeLorean reached 88 mph. In III, both times we see the car time travel, the time displacement effect starts taking place (albeit SLOWLY) once the car reaches about 50/60 mph, but the car doesn't actually displace until 88. I guess it could be argued that the 1955 components take from 50/60 to 88 to warm up and kick in.

The other thing is in the first two movies, Doc punches the destination time into the keypad and then hits a button and the date/time then appear on the "Destination Time" display. In Part III, the date/year/time appear on the "Destination Time" display AS Doc is inputting it. Call me a little nitpicky, but little errors like that grind my gears ESPECIALLY if the same director is making the movies.

Luckily, as you say Doc has had to do work on the DeLorean between Parts II and II, so it's easily chalked up to those alterations.
The time displacement effect in III certainly seems intentionally altered from the previous versions. The VFX when Marty leaves for 1885 are messier/more chaotic, with extra sparks shooting off all over the place.

 

[Push The Button]

that was proof that the DeLorean already had a heavily modified engine and drivetrain. DeLoreans couldn't actually go 88 mph

If you dropped one out of a C-130 ..

 

[XCV330]

If you dropped one out of a C-130 ..

There you go, the delorean was wildly oscillating during that storm and at the exact moment it was struck by lightening its relative velocity was 88mph.

 

[Ovation]

Storing a vehicle for even as short as a few months requires you to drain it of fuel since as the fuel ages it becomes a thick varnish that'd clog all of the engine and fuel line components.

This is demonstrably untrue. I routinely store my convertible for six months with a FULL tank of fuel (on the advice of my highly qualified mechanic) and the only “precaution” necessary is to burn off the fuel in short order when I put it back on the road. No varnish, no clogging, no damage to the engine (been doing it for over a decade). There is a stage where it is better to drain the fuel, but it is significantly longer than “a few months”. [/pedantic mode]

You may now resume your regularly scheduled nitpicking.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

All these questions and more will be answered in the new Disney+ series, The DeLorean.

 

[Lord Garth]

Jumping into this late. I don't think the tank would've emptied immediately, but over the course of the nine hours Marty was unconscious, it probably would've. And being 17 and probably not having driven for long, he probably didn't think to check before he went on his way into Hill Valley. By the time he finally had a chance to tell Doc about the leaking gas, it probably would've been too late anyway.

 

[Silvercrest]

All these questions and more will be answered in the new Disney+ series, The DeLorean.

Wait, I thought it was supposed to be ....

This is demonstrably untrue. I routinely store my convertible for six months with a FULL tank of fuel (on the advice of my highly qualified mechanic) and the only “precaution” necessary is to burn off the fuel in short order when I put it back on the road. No varnish, no clogging, no damage to the engine (been doing it for over a decade).

Clearly this is true because on The Walking Dead, they're years into the zombie apocalypse and there is no issue with old gasoline. I'm certain that a TV show about zombies wouldn't show us anything unrealistic. Neither would a movie series about time travel.