Most people would admit that living in a world where machines do almost everything for you would make life easier and worth living. If someone is looking for a life like this the world of “Back to the Future II” might be just what they’re looking for. The setting of this movie is less than a year away, so our wishes may come true earlier than expected.
This futuristic world of 2015 may be a little hard to imagine looking from 2014, but when the movie was created in 1989 people believed that flying cars, skyways, hoverboards, and powerlacing shoes were all within their grasps in less than 30 years. Many of these inventions have come true though, which means humanity is on the right track.
So what exactly has come true so far? How about hands free video games? The Xbox has recently (although many do feel this is old news already) released a little thing called the Kinect. A Kinect is a box that picks up the players movements so they can interact and play video games without a controller or wand. PlayStations attempt to rival the Wii with their PlayStation Move Motion wand, but both function using the same premise. Another correct prediction is the installment of 3D movies. Many people complain that these movies shouldn’t cost more than a regular movie, but can’t argue that they are indeed more entertaining to watch. Marty McFly while walking down the street is attacked by a 3D “Jaws” trying to promote the new “Jaws 19” movie. Thankfully we have not made it to 19 “Jaws” movies, but God only knows how many more superhero movies Marvel and DC are going to make. The predicted idea of being able to watch multiple things on television at once has also become an invention that has come and gone with picture-in-picture television. Being able to pause live TV, rewind it, and watch it again through a DVR is something that many people don’t fully appreciate. What better to watch movies, pause live TV, and play video games on than a huge flat screen TV, which again, was predicted to be a real thing by the time 2015 rolled around.
McFly’s father is communicating through the flat screen to his business partner who lives across town. Many people prefer to talk face-to-face, and with the invention of Facetime from Apple Corporation, this idea has really boomed. Teleporting to your associate’s house to have a conversation seems to be the next logical thing, but we may have to leave that to Mr. Spock “beaming up” in “Star Trek”. Although “Back to the Future” does hit the mark on many things, it also misses on just as many, including the most evident, flying cars.
Although “The Jetsons” gives us until 2062 to develop flying cars, McFly wasn’t that generous with time. Cars that turn into planes and cars that drive themselves are in the works, but we will not be seeing the packed skyways predicted for a while now. Most people also don’t use fax machines on a daily basis any more. Although in 1989 many thought faxing was the most efficient way to send information, and nothing would ever surpass it, they have been sadly mistaken. Sending emails and text messages makes fax machines ancient history although they only became immensely popular about 30 years ago.
A big blunder was the assumption that the car dealer Pontiac would still be around. Although this company was going strong in the late 1980’s, after a recent government bailout of bankruptcy, General Motors decided to kill Pontiac and not bring it back. Many Pontiacs are still on the road and though the Firebird and Fiero will go down in the history books, new cars will probably never be made. Composite fuels, which were shown in the film, are also being developed. Although we cannot just dump our trash into our gas tanks, alternative fuel sources like methane and other natural gases are being explored along with the booming industry of electric cars, which the writers of “Back to the Future” never saw coming.
The year 2015 for many will just be another year marked by another year older. Sometimes it is good to look back and see how far we have come and make goals and predictions about the future just so we can strive for them. Although the movie predicts the Cubs winning the 2015 World Series, and that seems highly unlikely (sorry Cubs fans), we never know what is in store for us just around the corner.
