Back to the Future...

October 29, 2007 11:55 PM

Where can I find the a photo of the Delorean from Back to the Future streaking off leaving a trail of flames behind it (and preferably with Dr. Emmett Brown standing behind looking dumbfounded)?

Many thanks in advance. I've tried Google image search and Flickr to no avail.

posted by PWA_BadBoy to technology (11 comments total)

Several of the covers at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_to_the_Future_trilogy have the burning tire tracks, but they're cover art and not stills from the movie (which is what I assume you mean by photo). VLC will let you take screenshots while playing a DVD or anything else, so you could get it that way.
posted by finite at 12:21 AM on October 30, 2007

Like this? It's got the Doc, Marty, fire tracks, but no DeLorean.

It seems to me that the shot of the DeLorean+Doc+Fire Tracks is something your head made up...where would the camera have been on that shot? Doc and the DeLorean would be a half mile apart, minimum, so if the shot exists, it can't be very detailed.

Also, the DeLorean flashes out of existence by the time Doc has a chance to react to the fire tracks.

I think the shot you want is a great, keystone mental picture--I have it, too!--but probably never really was put together quite that way.
posted by SlyBevel at 6:35 AM on October 30, 2007

A better, closer crop of the photo above.
posted by SlyBevel at 6:40 AM on October 30, 2007

Assuming we're talking about the first movie, I'm not sure you're going to find all three (car, fire, doc) in one shot. I just single stepped through it and the way they did the effect, the iconic skidmark flames appear after the car has vanished. There are some smaller flames shooting out before the car disappers, but they're not the long skidmark kind. There's plenty of doc+fire ones though. I posted a bunch of the screencaps here, in case any of them are useful. They're from a HD source (1280x720.) Maybe in the other movies there's a better car+flame shot to be had.
posted by Rhomboid at 6:40 AM on October 30, 2007 [1 favorite]

(Whoops, they're not the same photo. Similar, though.)
posted by SlyBevel at 6:41 AM on October 30, 2007

Holy progressive screen caps, Rhomboid!

Yeah, I forgot that Doc had the DeLorean driving right at the two of them. Still, as the caps show, if the DeLorean were still in the frame by the time the fire tracks show up, then Doc and Marty would be dead.
posted by SlyBevel at 6:46 AM on October 30, 2007

My friend has the full size movie poster, which I believe has all three items, but it's not a movie capture or a still frame.
posted by Wild_Eep at 7:08 AM on October 30, 2007

How's this?
posted by sprocket87 at 8:13 AM on October 30, 2007

It's a bit small, but here's an animated gif of the event.
posted by MarkLark at 9:02 AM on October 30, 2007

You can find pictures of the Doc and the DeLorean (approaching) and the Doc and the twin fire trails, but not the DeLorean and the flames together. For that you'll probably need to look at some sort of composite promotional artwork.

Here's an example
posted by Jeff Howard at 9:12 AM on October 30, 2007

Awesome. Thanks guys! This is a wealth of screenshots! :)
posted by PWA_BadBoy at 1:44 AM on November 2, 2007