10 Greatest Unspoken Sci-Fi Movie Plot Points

10. Doc Burned Down His Mansion To Fund His Time Travel Research - Back To The Future

In literally the first minute of Back to the Future, we see a newspaper headline which reads, "Brown mansion destroyed," referring to Doc Brown's (Christopher Lloyd) family mansion which was burned to the ground, leaving him to continue his experiments in his garage, which survived the fire.

None of the Back to the Future movies ever bothered to expand upon this, though in the Blu-ray commentary for the film, writer Bob Gale stated that the shot of the newspaper was supposed to imply that Doc has deliberately burned down the mansion as part of an insurance scam.

Basically, Doc torched his own mansion in order to collect the insurance money, which he could then use to fund his time travel research.

Though the Back to the Future comics ultimately contradict this, it's worth pointing out that both Gale and director Robert Zemeckis only regard the movies as canon.

As such, there's no reason to disbelieve that Doc committed arson to further his research. It fits both the story and the character perfectly.