Photo by Chris Bales, 2007

If you enjoyed Back to the Future (1985), Back to the Future Part II (1989), and Back to the Future Part III (1990) as much as most people, it’s likely you’d enjoy your own time-travel adventure in a DeLorean.

You’re in luck at Yester Universal Studios Hollywood, where Back to the Future - The Ride is one of the most popular attractions.

Photo by Allen Huffman, 2000

Upper Lot attractions

Follow the Studio Directory signs. This park is constantly changing, so you might not recognize it from your last visit. Management here isn’t big on nostalgia, so it’s out with the old, in with the new—unless the old continues to be an exceptionally big draw.

Photo by Allen Huffman, 2000

Doc Brown’s Institute of Future Technology

You arrive at a structure consisting of two large, box-like sections joined in the middle. This is Dr. Emmett Brown’s Institute of Future Technology.

You will recall that in the first movie, Doc Brown made a 1981 DeLorean sports car into a time machine. He did the same with a steam engine locomotive in the third movie. Here at his Institute, he’s created a third time machine. This time, it’s an 8-passenger, remote-controlled DeLorean. Doc Brown needs park guests, like you, as volunteers to test it by flying just one day into the future.

Photo by Chris Bales, 2007

Institute of Future Technology sign

Of course, this is a theme park attraction. The time travel is simulated. A single 8-passenger DeLorean would not provide enough capacity. The attraction has two 80-foot IMAX Dome theaters. Each has twelve 8-passenger DeLoreans—four DeLoreans mounted on motion bases, side-by-side on three levels—facing a huge projection screen.

Photo by Chris Bales, 2007

Attraction entrance

Photo by Chris Bales, 2007

Many warnings

This attraction has a particularly long list of warnings. Simulated time travel is a turbulent experience. The sign doesn’t warn you that you could wind up with a bruised shoulder if you have an outside seat in the back row and you keep banging into the door during the ride.

You’ve been warned!

Photo by Chris Bales, 2007

Queue

artwork © Universal Studios

Back to the Future - The Ride poster art

As you wait to get to your DeLorean, you learn there’s been a security breach at the Institute. Back to the Future villain Biff Tannen from 1955 has found his way into the Institute, fooled the security guards, imprisoned Doc Brown, and stolen a DeLorean time machine. The whole universe is at risk.

You’re finally seated in your 8-passenger DeLorean. Your ride has begun. You experience movement and an unexpected cloud of fog. When the fog clears, you’re facing an immense curved movie screen that fills your field of vision.

Your role has changed. You need to stop Biff. On a video screen, Doc Brown tells you, “Don’t forget. When you see Biff in the DeLorean, accelerate to 88 miles per hour and bump him!”

Your journey begins by flying through the town of Hill Valley in 2015. Your chase through time includes an Ice Age avalanche and even the age of dinosaurs, where you’re swallowed by an oversized tyrannosaurus.

As the ride approaches its end, Biff is pleading for his life because he’s about to die on a lava flow. You accelerate to 88 miles per hour and bump Biff’s stolen DeLorean, sending both vehicles back to Doc Brown’s Institute of Future Technology.

Doc Brown excitedly proclaims, “You did it! Not only did you catch Biff and save the universe, but you proved that my latest invention is a success!”

Photo by Allen Huffman, 2000

Time Travelers Depot souvenir shop

Photo by Chris Bales, 2007

Doc Brown’s Chicken

Perhaps all that time travel has made you hungry. You’re in luck… at least if you like chicken. It seems that Doc Brown is not only a scientist and inventor, he’s also a purveyor of fast food chicken—fried or grilled.

Photo by Allen Huffman, 2000

“The Finest Chicken of All Time!”

Choose between Jigawatts of Chicken in a Basket, a Hill Valley Fried Chicken Dinner, a Clock Tower of Chicken Fritters, or a “Great Scott!” Chicken Sandwich.

Photo by Allen Huffman, 2000

Doc Brown’s beverages

Doc Brown offers a variety of fountain beverages. The taps are self-serve, but that doesn’t mean you can help yourself to refills. Going to the tap twice could cause a chain reaction that would unravel the very fabric of the space-time continuum and destroy the entire universe!

Back to the Future - the Ride opened on the Upper Lot at Universal Studios Hollywood on June 12, 1993. It was advertised with a boastful slogan: “Take the greatest ride of all time.”

© Universal Studios Hollywood / from the collection of Chris Bales

A Los Angeles Times article (“Summer Splash Hold On Tight Universal Studios’ ‘Back to the Future-The Ride’ is a high-tech thriller that may be a glimpse of tomorrow’s movies,” by David J. Fox, May 30, 1993) included these facts about the ambitious attraction:

“The film for Back to the Future - The Ride lasts 4 1/2 minutes and was produced for $16 million. At that rate, a feature-length movie would calculate to be the most expensive ever produced—around $500 million.

“The film is projected inside two side-by-side 13-story tall Omnimax movie domes—arguably the largest movie theaters ever built—which are the latest addition to the Universal Studios Hollywood complex, located off the Hollywood Freeway at Lankershim Boulevard.

“Both domes contain what Universal says are the biggest movie screens in the world. They are four times the size of the large-scale IMAX screen-or 80 feet in diameter. They are curved to the point of surrounding the viewer by 270 degrees, side to side and top to bottom.”

Overall, the attraction was well received, but it had its critics too. Yesterland photographer Chris Bales observed, “It was like cramming yourself into a sardine can, then being violently jostled for four minutes, all the while watching video that never quite matched up with the movements of the car, which made it hard to brace yourself for the next harsh slam against the door or console. Or, at least, that was always how I felt about it. I always wished they would come up with a better attraction for Back to the Future, but it pretty much had to be a motion simulator in a car.”

Photo by Chris Bales, 2007

Final flight display

Photo by Chris Bales, 2007

“Over 14 years”

Although Universal parks are known for quietly closing older attractions, without sentiment, Universal Studios Hollywood spotlighted this ride’s closing. A sign near a DeLorean appealed to guests’ sense of nostalgia:

“Doc Brown’s Institute of Future Technology, better known as Back to the Future - the Ride, has thrilled visitors to Universal Studios Hollywood for over 14 years. Now, after more than 61 million flights, this great ride will be closing its doors forever on September 3, 2007. Join Doc for one last trip across the space-time continuum and get back… before it’s ‘history’.”

Universal had new plans for the two theaters.

Photo by Masrur Odinaev, 2009, under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license, from Wikimedia Commons

Simpsons Ride at Universal Studios Hollywood, reusing the theaters

The Simpsons Ride opened May 19, 2008. It reused the same theaters with a new movie, significant cosmetic changes, updated mechanics, and digital projection. New 8-passenger roller coaster cars replaced the 8-passenger DeLoreans.

Time Travelers Depot (1993-2004) became Kwik-E-Mart, the Springfield convenience store from The Simpsons. Doc Brown’s Chicken became Cletus’ Chicken Shack, also themed to The Simpsons.

Photo by Werner Weiss, 2004

Back To The Future - The Ride at Universal Studios Florida

Two other Universal parks also had Back To The Future - The Ride.

In fact, Universal Studios Florida had it first, with an official opening date of May 2, 1991. There, it closed March 30, 2007. Instead of two “boxes” with the queue between them, a single wide “box” contained two theaters, side by side. As at Hollywood, it was replaced by the Simpsons Ride, forming the nucleus of a new land—Springfield, U.S.A.: Home of the Simpsons.

At Universal Studios Japan, the ride operated from March 31, 2001 to May 31, 2016. It was replaced by Despicable Me Minion Mayhem.

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Updated February 3, 2023