In the beginning it seems that Doc Brown had little choice but to use plutonium to activate the flux capacitor, a chemical element known more for nuclear fission, rather than nuclear fusion. This cost him his life as he was shot in the Twin Pines car park by those he “stole” it from. Supposedly those he stole it from stole it themselves from a US facility, so no interested party here really can be said to be as white as snow in and amongst all these shenanigans.
As by happy accident, this led to Marty to go back to 1955, when Doc Brown first conceived of the flux capacitor. But not only was this special for Doc Brown, Marty also was able to create a different future for his family, which he discovered when he returned back to the “optimised” future of 1985. To get back to that future, to harness the 1.21 gigawatts required to activate the flux capacitor, required impeccable timing to coincide with a single lightning strike which was known to hit the clock tower at 10.04pm on November 12th, 1955. This lightning strike represented a “natural” way by which to time travel.
By the end of the first movie, we see Doc Brown returning from the future well beyond 1985, now with a Mr Fusion processor which seemingly can draw the power of nuclear fusion from any everyday object. This is the quantum leap. From plutonium, to “external” lightning strikes, to quantum power which taps into the “storms” which exist within subatomic action.
We’ll see here that there’s more than meets the eye, a lot more, once we start to discuss this leap from accessing natural “external” power to accessing natural “internal” power.
BIG BANG >>>