Back to the Future (1985) - 1.21 Gigawatts Scene | Movieclips 

Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd have fantastic onscreen chemistry. No one ever questioned why a teenage skateboarder and an elderly scientist were hanging out together, seemingly with no other friends of their own!

When Marty says 'what did you say?' Doc Brown says 'Bolt of lightning...' in the exact same cadance, pitch and tone as he literally just said it... Doing exactly what Marty just asked. Love it!

So glad this is a movie has never been remade, a true classic

Doc looking at the picture of Thomas Edison and calling him “Tom” is absolutely priceless.

"No wonder your president has to be an actor. He's got to look good on television." Joking aside. One needs to remember that in 1955, television was still a new medium. Harry Truman had been the first president to make ocassional televised speeches, and even have his inaugural address covered by TV stations. His successor, Dwight Eisenhower slowly inched things further with more TV addresses, but it was really five years after 1955, when the JFK era really ushered in the age of television being essential to a politician's career.

2:45-I like how Doc points at the direction of the audience when he says that. Kind of looks like he's breaking the fourth wall.

Doctor Brown: “Look at me! I’m an old man” Me: “Well you look exactly the same”

I like how Doc just assumed there would be atomic wars in his lifetime.

A gigawatt is equal to one billion watts, and most of us are familiar with a watt. The light bulbs in our homes are typically between 60 and 100 watts. So 1.21 gigawatts would power more than 10 million light bulbs or one fictional flux capacitor in a time-traveling DeLorean.

"We're sending you back to the future!!!!!!!!"

These movies are LEGENDARY, and the timing between Michael and Chris is a big reason for that.

Best movie of all time!! I could watch it a million times and never get bored of it🔥

Marty: "I can't be stuck here, I got a life in 1985, I got a girl." Doc: "Is she pretty?" Marty: "Eh, kinda thinking of replacing her with another Jennifer as soon as I get back."

0:33 The JVC was so futuristic, it just lost the black cable and still transmitted the video to the TV.

I got electricuted on a job once. While i was stuck there being electrified, this scene kept playing over and over in my head. Lol.

This movie is pure heart and optimism.

1.21 gigawhatts. And next it runs on trash. What masterpieces these films are cinematic genius ❤

My God this movie is so good, it's truly timeless. What a wonderful movie, everytime I watch it I feel so good.

For those of you who don't know, 1.21 GW is enough to power an entire city area.

It's a cool director's trick to make Doc look the same in 1985 and 1950s.

10:04 PM. But, by what second? Just because you link the car with the lightning at the same time doesn’t mean you caught it at the right time.

Fun fact: in 1955, there actually was a power source capable of generating >1.21 GW of electricity, and it wasn't even that far away. The Grand Coulee Dam in Washing State had a nameplate capacity of 2.28 GW starting in 1949. However... there's no way they could convince the authorities to just *give* them that much power, even for a little while, since that would cause a blackout and mess up the grid in the region (and they'd laugh the idea of a time machine out of the room, and then a Federal agent would show up to confiscate the car for ARPA, the predecessor to DARPA). And there'd be no hope of assembling enough money to purchase that much and all the equipment necessary to then channel it to the car. The dam generates its energy with a series of turbines, so the moment their transmission lines started to blow out, the electricity would disperse, causing their plan to fail. With the lightning strike, it's going to more or less keep going roughly where they channel it, and presumably once they get it into the time machine's systems, it can convert the energy into time travel instead of heat, avoiding the issue.

The movie so timeless nothing can campare to original and to think nobody wanted to produce this masterpiece ❤ who wouldn't want to time travel

Fun Fact : Christopher Lloyd has also played Judge Doom in Who Framed Roger Rabbit in addition to Emett Brown in Back to the Future

DUde. Watching this makes me want to rewatch it.

Just cant stop smiling! What a great movie.

"Why is everything so heavy in the future, is there a problem with earth's gravitational pull?"...

No worries, all you need is about 10% of the average daily power consumption of New York City as a whole. (Yeah, I was bored one day and decided to figure that out. And yes, yes, that's also dependent on a number of variables, I know)

00:53 1.21 GIGAWATTS?!?!

2:44 the movie title drop!

THE 1ST BACK TO THE FUTURE IS MY FAVORITE 🤔

1.21 gigawatts!

1:01 GREAT SCOTT!!!

Size of a Nintendo GameCube disc 1.21 Gigabytes!!!

Look at me I'm an old man yet looks basically the exact same now😂😂😂😅

"What the hell is a Gigawatts!" LMFAO.

Fun Fact: Doc is 35 in 1955 (Born in 1920 according to the novelization) meaning his hair shouldn't be going white yet, however, my personal headcannon is that one of his experiments damaged his hair, causing it to begin turning white.

"She's crazy about me, look what she wrote here Doc" Literally nothing on the back of the paper written that Doc looks at, lmfao

I love doc’s double wrist game 😎 looks like an elgin and a waltham!

"What the hell is a giga watt??"

If Marty didn't pocket that "Save the Clock Tower" flyer...he would never have found a Jigowatt lightning for Doc to use!

Love the music at 2:15

Those were the days mate. 🙏🏽

Huge back to the future fan ❤

Imagine being stuck in 1955. Would have been older than my parents!!

I like to imagine that the mispronunciation of gigiwatts was caused by a closed loop, considering Doc first said the word gigiwatts as a knee jerk reaction after hearing it from his future self.

Its sad when you sit back and realize we will never get movies this good ever again

I did an oil painting of Doc on my channel. Awesome trilogy.

0:31 that's right, you're looking at the future right there!

“1.21 GIGAWATTS?! GREAT SCOTT!” “What the hell is a Gigawatt?!” 😂

Old Doc: No no no no, this sucker’s electrical. But I need a nuclear reaction to generate the 1.21 gigawatts- Young Doc: What did I just say? Old Doc: The flux capacitor stores- (REWIND) this sucker’s electrical. But I need a nuclear reaction to generate the 1.21 gigawatts- Young Doc: 1.21 GIGAWATTS?! 1.21 gigawatts! Great Scott! Marty: Wha- What the hell is a gigawatt?!

I was only 15 then. This movie is a load of fun!

I always find it funny how Doc asks if Marty’s girlfriend is pretty. Its so random.

I love this film as a kid and it partly inspired me to learn electronics. The funny thing is that I now know what flux is and what a capacitor is and I know it sure couldn’t create a time machine! 😂😂😂

Eric Stoltz was supposed to play Marty but they found his acting to be far too serious for a comedy.

doc, youre my only hope... nice nod to steven's friend

It'll strike at 10:04! (and how many seconds? You've got to be *really* precise for this to work)...

0:44 what did I just say?

It’s wild that they shot this scene with Eric Stolts. And then WENT BACK and shot it again with Michael J Fox. The series deals with changing things, back in time, and different people taking roles. And then that’s EXACTLY what they did with the lead character. And he was ERASED from the film’s timeline. It couldn’t be more perfect if they tried.

1:17 Tom Edison right, what about Benjamin Franklin? he got a gigawatt of power when his kite was struck by lightning

Life wasn't fair with M. J. Fox. Such a shame...

0:22 Predicting Fallout? God bless everyone.

"Gigawatt" is my new catch-phrase! Giga-giga wat-wuuut? Yeah! Say that all the time

you say gigawatts, I say jigowatts lol

2:43 Doc breaks the fourth wall.

I'm pretty sure they said it wrong and it's Gigawatt (hard G) not "jiggawatt"

1:25 "in 1985 plutonium is available in every corner drugstore" NO WAY, the U.S. government would never allow plutonium to be available in any drugstore

Is it me or can anyone else not tell how old Christopher Lloyd is at any time

IS SHE PRETTY?

doc: look at me i'm an old man! me: you literally look the same, doc

Oct 5 1965

😢

> What the hack is a kilometer?!!

It’s funny that this revaluation gets fixed in part 2 with Mr. Fusion. Then in Part 3 the opposite effect happens where they desperately need gasoline to get the car moving to make the Mr. Fusion give it the power it needs.

Roll credits! *ding*

All we need is a little Plutonium.

2:41 Don: Next Saturday night, we're sending you back to the future! Peter Griffin: Ah! Ah! He said it! He said it!

This is heavy, the time space continuum is at risk.

Just set the flux capacitor to 1.21 Gigawatts. Issue resolved 😂

0:53

Any behind the scenes story about that 1.21 Gigawatts?

I never noticed until just now, when Marty is fast-forwarding the tape, how the scene pans up so that the TV screen isn't in view and we can't see the sped up footage...lets the filmmakers not need to recreate Einstein's time jump again.

Roll credits!

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂what the hell is gigawatts 😂😂🤣🤣🤣😹😹😹🤣Michael J fox is truly a truly a great actor...

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" … precisely 10:04pm … " lol 🙄

Fine, I will watch this movie for the 2,000th 😅

0:53 0:55 0:57 0:59 1:05 1:06 1:10 1:12

Giga-what?!

0:53 0:54 1.21 Gigiwatts

ONEPOINTTWENTYONEGIGAWATZ?!

Can a 1955 TV set really have an input to playback video recording from a 1985 video casette camera??? If yes, then again it is truly amazing how exponential the jump in tech are... because I can't imagine any TV in 1993 is able to somehow read video data from today's phone memory. Heck, even today's dslr camera or video camera, I doubt they still have output jack for RCA connector.

Thank god they recast this with MJF. It would have been a disaster otherwise

I always wondered how did Marty could up a 1980s camcorder to a 1955 tv with only antenna inputs

We have a prediction we like to make.

Doc, get the DeLorean. We figured out how to get 1.21 gigawatts!

He said the title, lol

The lightning strikes exactly 10:04PM on Saturday night. :D Yes, this is a very inportant information, but what was the seconds and the milliseconds ???

Could a 1985 video camera really playback?

Lol if plutonium was available in every corner drug store people would be making their own mini nuclear bombs XD