Source: https://backtothefuture.fandom.com/wiki/Mr._Fusion
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Mr. Fusion
The Mr. Fusion logo.
"Marty knew those [three] sonic booms all too well. He looked round for the source of the noise, and saw Doc Brown pull the DeLorean into the driveway. / But both Doc and the DeLorean were different! For one thing, the car had a new addition to its rear deck, right above the engine, a white canister labeled 'Mr. Fusion'. And Doc (as white-haired and disheveled as ever — at least that was the same!) was dressed in even wilder clothes than he usually wore; a metallic yellow shirt covered by a long orange robe."
—From Back to the Future Part II by Craig Shaw Gardner (quote, page 9)
" The inventor didn't wait for Marty's answer [to his reply "Back to the future!"], but walked quickly to the garbage can by the side of the driveway. He threw off the lid and began rifling through the can's contents. / "Wait a minute!" Marty called. "What are you doin', Doc?" / Doc picked up a banana skin and a crushed beer can. "I need fuel!" He carried the trash over to the 'Mr. Fusion' canister, dumped in the banana skin and remaining beer, then — after a moment's thought — the beer can, too. "
—From Back to the Future Part II by Craig Shaw Gardner (quote, pages 9 and 10)
Marty: "Wait a minute, what are you doing, Doc?"
Doc: "I need fuel!"
— Marty and Doc, while Doc refuels Mr. Fusion with garbage
The Mr. Fusion Home Energy Reactor (also known simply as Mr. Fusion and the fusion generator) was the name of a power source used by the DeLorean time machine. The actual unit was manufactured by Fusion Industries.
History[]
Mr. Fusion converted household waste to power the time machine's flux capacitor and time circuits using nuclear fusion (it is thought that this is cold fusion), as well as allowing the DeLorean time machine to generate the required 1.21 gigawatts to travel through the space-time continuum. The energy produced by Mr. Fusion replaced plutonium as the primary power source of the DeLorean's time travel and flight capabilities.
On August 8, 2015, Dr. Emmett Brown won first prize at the Hill Valley 1980s Car Expo with his DeLorean, which was 10% off a hover conversion worth $3995.00 at Goldie Wilson Hover Conversion Systems. To get the money he needed for this and the Mr. Fusion, which he had spotted in a store window for $8200 and considered ideal for solving all of his electrical energy needs, Doc searched the internet for the best investment to make, then traveled back to April 18, 1938 to pick up several new copies of Action Comics issue #1.
He sold one copy in 2015 or beyond to get the money he needed, and then traveled to 2015 or beyond, and sold another at Southby's Auction House for $2.5 million dollars.
Mr. Fusion was first seen when Doc returned back from 2015. He rummaged through the McFly residence's trashcan to find a banana peel, a Miller beer can (pouring in the remains of the beer, and then dropping the can in as well), and some other pieces of garbage which he dropped into the unit before closing it. This suggests that the Mr. Fusion unit could run on pure trash.
When Doc, Marty McFly and Jennifer Parker arrived in the year 2015, a few logos are spotted for Fusion Industries on the power generators in the alleyway they landed in. The generators resembled the shape of a very small truck.
Behind the scenes[]
The DeLorean parked in an alleyway near a Fusion Industries power generator (on the far left).
Mr. Fusion was based from a Krups coffee grinder and was a parody of the Mr. Coffee line of coffeemakers.
In an earlier script of Back to the Future Part II, the Mr. Fusion was named the Westinghouse Fusion Energizer.
The ending of Back to the Future suggested that in the future, mankind's energy problems would be solved by a device that would convert any matter into energy, and that the "Mr. Fusion" (seen on the back of the DeLorean) could, in theory, someday be able to power automobiles. However, vehicles seen in Back to the Future Part II don't have a Mr. Fusion, and the Texaco service station in 2015 is still in operation. However, Fusion Industries most definitely did exist in 2015 because, in Back to the Future Part II, Doc parked the DeLorean in an alley next to a Fusion Industries generator. In Back to the Future Part III, Doc confirms that the fusion device only powered the flux capacitor and the time circuits, and that the DeLorean time machine still had an internal combustion engine that ran on gasoline.
Mr. Fusion was, apparently, was impractical for powering a car engine, which raises the question of how motorists could drive a few thousand miles from Boston to London on Hyperlane Grid 4.
Apparently the Mr. Fusion unit was capable of powering at least two time travels without needing to be refueled. This can be seen in the animated series episode 'Put on your thinking caps, kids! It's time for Mr. Wisdom!' (Walter Wisdom time travels to 127, and then to 1883 without stopping), as well as the comic 'Jurassic Biff', in which Biff does not need to refuel Mr. Fusion to leave 2015.
In the novelization, Doc has to take care in 2015 to keep the DeLorean obscured, citing that many of his modifications — specifically the installation of a Mr. Fusion Home Energy Reactor — are not exactly considered "street legal".
The Krups Coffee grinder model number 223A, marketed under the name Coffina, was visible in the 1979 film Alien, where it served as a futuristic kitchen appliance aboard the spaceship Nostromo.
In the final scene of Back to the Future (1985), the Krups Coffina grinder served as new piece of hardware from the future, the Mr. Fusion Home Energy Reactor, as a throw-away joke at the end of a movie that wasn't expected to spawn a sequel. Mr. Fusion's in-universe purpose was to offer a safer, more energy-efficient alternative to the radioactive and (extremely scarce) plutonium required earlier in the film to power the DeLorean's time circuits. As Mr. Fusion operated on garbage, it was clearly a futuristic, eco-friendly alternative.
The Mr. Fusion was constructed by mounting a Krups Coffina grinder on top of a custom-made base made from the outer shell of a Singer magnetic disc memory core, now obsolete, which was a feature in some computers made in the 1960s. In the film, it's possible to see that the large grey window (the grinds collecting cup) along the trailing edge the unit doesn't lie flush with the housing. During the closeup (before Doc opens the fuel compartment) the control knob from the grinder is visible, including its original number markings on the control knob on the backside of the unit. Visible also, lower down on the back of Mr. Fusion, is the Coffina's on/off switch.
The grey circle behind the Fusion Industries logo is a clear-backed decal applied to the original Coffina's translucent window, which allowed a user to gauge how many unground coffee beans remained in the bean chamber. From the back it's possible to see through the clear collecting cup and see the spout where the ground coffee grains would fall from. (Visible also in the film is the top edge of the camera being reflected in the shiny 2015 barcode license plate.)
The opening scene in Part II employs a few different camera angles from its Part I equivalent. As with other differences between the otherwise identical scenes, someone had the foresight to paint over the numbers on the Coffina's control knob during the Part II filming, and it became a featureless peg on the back of Mr. Fusion; the "Mr. Fusion" decals on the Part II unit had a lot less finesse than in Part I. Near the end of Back to the Future, Part III (1990), a shot of the DeLorean's back deck shows Mr. Fusion prominently, with the translucent grey cap for the Coffina grinder apparently missing, and allowing viewers to see down into to the top of the grinder's shallow bean collecting cup. (If this were a Coffina grinder instead of a Mr. Fusion reactor, one would pour the coffee beans into the top of the unit.) The coffee grind collecting cup, the unit's lid, and the back control knob are missing, and the side window — with the Fusion Industries logo — appears to be blacked out from the inside.
Fun fact: Back to the Future series producer Bob Gale has an extra Mr. Fusion unit sitting on his desk, acting as a lamp.
Appearances[]
Back to the Future trilogy
Back to the Future novelizations
Back to the Future: The Story
Back to the Future Part II first draft screenplay
Paradox script
Back to the Future: The Ride
Super Back to the Future Part II
Back to the Future Part III (video game)
The Earth Day Special (Non-canonical appearance)
Universal Studios: Theme Park Adventure
Back to the Future: The Card Game
Star Trek/Legion of Super Heroes #5 (Non-canonical appearance)
Back to the Future: The Game
Back to the Future: Untold Tales and Alternate Timelines
Issue 4: "Emmett Brown Visits the Future"
External links[]
Free printable Mr. Fusion logo - La La Land Studios
Mr. Fusion - Back to the Predictions
Community content is available under CC-BY-SA unless otherwise noted.
Archived URL: https://backtothefuture.fandom.com/wiki/Mr._Fusion
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