In Back to the Future 2, how did the delorean travel back in time when it was just floating still in the air?

Question

I thought the flux capacitor needed to be going 88 miles per hour AND be charged with 1.21 Jigawatts (SP) of electricity in order to work. If that is not the case, they could have just as well parked the delorean in front of the clock tower in the original and ran a cable down into the flux capacitor from the clock tower and waited until 10:04 PM and it would have worked then. My point is just that when DOC went back to 1885, he wasnt going 88 miles per hour, he was just floating in the air when the lightning struck.

Answer 1

You are absolutely right. I have never really thought about it. I bet the people that wrote it are soooo emmbarased right now. The only possible explaination would be that when they upgraded the Delorean in the future that they also upgraded the flux capacitor so that it no longer needed those requirements. I never did understand how the flux capcitor worked and made them go back/forward in time. Doc sure was smart.