While some mad scientists preoccupy themselves with particularly nefarious ends such as reviving the dead or creating a superhuman race, others have far more intriguing ambitions which lack the sinister overtones. Dr. Emmett Brown - Christopher Lloyd's wild-haired inventor in the 80s classic Back to the Future series - is one such scientist, who dreams up what is perhaps the coolest creation in mad scientist movie history: the time traveling DeLorean. As mad scientists go, Doc Brown is without a doubt the most benign on this list - he's also, thanks to Lloyd's flamboyant performance, perhaps one of the most entertaining to watch. One of the joys of watching the Back to the Future trilogy is seeing the various characters in their different manifestations throughout history (and into the future). Brown, in contrast, rarely changes - as grand architect of the time traveling antics which become increasingly out of control he spends much of the franchise pulling the strings, increasingly desperate to resolve the paradoxical messes his invention leads to. Co-writer Bob Gale reportedly came up with the idea for Back to the Future while pondering whether or not he'd be friends with his father if they'd gone to school together, and it is this focus on characters which makes the series such a winner, trumping even the wonderful attention to detail of past and future small town America and giving the action its emotional core.
