GREAT Scott!
Remember when it was all pimped-up DeLoreans, running away from Libyan terrorists and getting caught by Mr Strickland after sleeping in? Those were the days. Now it’s all hoverboards, self-drying clothes, dust-repellent paper, video consoles and self-tying shoes that are all the range in 2015 – or is it?
Yes, you’ve guessed it, today marks Back To The Future day. The exact day that Marty McFly, his then girlfriend Jennifer and Doc Brown travelled from Hill Valley in 1985 and wade through the skyways on 2015, narrowly avoiding flying cars before landing and attempting to stop things happening in the future, namely evil Biff Tannen taking over the world, one dodgy casino at a time.
If you’ve never seen the Robert Zemeckis classic then, frankly, you weren’t doing the 80s right. It was the staple diet of every teenager, young (and old) adult in the decade, and a trilogy that has rarely been bettered since. While the original film saw Marty travelling back to 1955 to make sure his mum got together with his dad the sequel saw him forward from present day 1985 thirty years later. The world had changed and the Doc hadn’t. But what did they get right? Was it all flying cars, hologramatic Jaws coming out of cinemas multiplexes and hydrated pizzas that could feed a small army? Surprisingly, they were spot on with some of their predictions.
Plasma-screen TVs – Unseen when BTTF2 was made in 1989 but now they are everywhere, from lounges to luxurious hotel suites and the bigger the better. They will pretty much do anything you need them to, from being interviewed to getting fired, in full-on technicolour.
Hoverboards – They might not be as garish as the one one Marty flies around Hill Valley on but segways are here as a popular pastime. However, they do have wheels so we are not quite there yet.
Eye scans and fingerprints – The iPhone generation know all about finger prints to access their apps while eye-scanning has now become an essential weapon the the battle against terror, both on and off-line.
Drones – Consumers consume content in various ways and new technologies are allowing us to have it in different ways. Drones are being used heavily by news corporations now to capture new images and, despite sparking a privacy debate, it seems drones are here to stay.
Wearables – They may not look as funky as the ones Doc is sporting in the DeLorean but with the advent of Google specs they are a definite item for the tekkers guy about town. You do look a bit silly in them, mind. And rather anti-social. While the specs might look silly next year sees the launch of Oculus Rift, a consumer-targeted virtual reality headset which allows the user to step into a virtual world, pretty cool stuff.
Voice-activation – OK, so we can’t order the fruit bowl down from the ceiling but Siri on the iPhone can remind you to go and buy some fruit and pay for it by waving your Apple Pay at it.
Flux capacitor – No, we are joking on that one.
Only a disturbance in the space-time continuum would prevent everything from the BTTF 2015 becoming a reality but the fact some of the things are very real just shows how far ahead of time its producers were. However, no mention of the internet is strange when you consider all the future-like inventions which are mentioned above rely on some sort of modem-related medium. This is but a glitch though seeing as the vision is already there. Who knew that 30 years later our world would be ruled by social media, mass marketing and celebrity culture?
It’s creativity led the way in Hollywood producing bigger and (some might say) better sci-fi series but the Back to the Future trilogy remains one of the films that showed a little of what 2015 could look like. Aren’t we all just pleased the fashion decided to be more Downton Abbey than down-town Hill Valley, although self-tying shoes would be great.
Nick Hyde is PR & Content Manager (and a self-confessed sci-fi geek) at Happy Creative, a full service marketing and creative agency based in Blackpool, Lancashire. To learn more or contact us please go to www.happy-creative.co.uk
*All images courtesy of Universal Pictures
