Back to the Future Part II Compliance
Articles November 18th, 2007
With just 7 years left, can we achieve this lofty vision for the future?
In the film Back to the Future Part II, Marty McFly and Doc Brown (and Jennifer) travel 30 years into the future to see Hill Valley, California as it would be in the year 2015. The year we currently live in… is 2007. The film makes some bold predictions. We have just 7 years to meet them.
The good news is, we don’t have to cure world hunger, unite the world in peace and harmony, or even motivate a visit from interstellar travelers. We just need a few new toys. Flying this, self-lacing that, a few Jaws films and a baseball bat.
This is your wakeup call, world. We have seven years to pull it off, and we need everyone to pull together if we’re going to live up to this Zemeckian vision of the future.
Spielberg:
Get to work on some Jaws sequels. We need to get to 19, so we’re off to an okay start. Still, you’ll need to release another sequel every six and a half months so, you’d better get cracking.
Mattel:
Hoverboards? We can settle for the little pink one. It doesn’t need to be able to fly over water, but if it could support a little kid, that would be enough. C’mon, how hard could it be?
Automobile manufacturers:
We’ve all had enough of this hybrid crap by now. How about some flying cars already? I’m really not sure how you’re gonna pull it off, but we can tell you it has something to do with glowing hubcaps. Better get some scientists on that one.
Advertising industry:
Let’s face it, you guys have had it easy. In the last 50 years, the big innovation in outdoor ads has been vinyl. Well, we’re gonna have to ask you to ramp it up a bit. We need holograms that leap out of the board and attempt to eat people.
Tom Wilson:
Age faster. You’ve packed on a few pounds, but where is the grey hair and poor posture? Do you even need the cane yet? Look into it, that gold fist cane is pretty hot. After 2015, you could dye your hair black and get work as a pimp.
Nike:
When are our shoes gonna start lacing themselves? It’s the 21st century for crying out loud! People need some advanced kicks, right now. The shoe industry hasn’t come out with squat since The Reebok Pump. You had better get your act together by 2010, or we’re putting in calls to Puma and Adidas.
Louisville:
We’re going to need to see some telescopic baseball bats. There’s no apparent sporting advantage, but it makes for a good concealed weapon.
Black & Decker:
Yeah, about this food rehydrator… after a few brief consumer surveys, we’ve decided you do not need to bother with this “innovation.” Since the 80s, there’s been something of a revolution in home cooking. People buy organic, they visit farmer’s markets, and they want things fresh. Rehydrated? No thanks. So, if you’ve started development on this product, stop. If you completely forgot about your futuristic product placement, go ahead and keep it that way. Maybe you could give Mattel a hand with that Hoverboard?
“Fruit, fruit please…”
It’s the simplest product in the movie, so that’s probably why we’re so close to having it. The AeroGarden is a small, futuristic garden you can keep in your kitchen. You’ll always have lettuce on the ready! Of course, in Back to the Future Part II, the thing makes grapes… but hey, we’ve got seven years!
Let’s get crackin’. A few other little items aside, we at Critical Oversight think these small innovations, when achieved, could constitute “Back to the Future Part II Compliance.”
Order the Complete Back to the Future Trilogy on DVD
Tags: BTTF, future, innovations
That’s why movies should do everything in their power not to give out specific dates, then they will never become dated. Like “Top Gun”. All they said was “Present day…”, well heck I can watch that movie today and imagine it happening right now.
…Well, except for the fact that planes don’t fight planes anymore. They drop bombs instead. But I guess the movie would be pretty boring if the guys sat in classrooms learning how to drop bombs.
You could still have Kenny Loggins playing and that would be exciting.
So I guess what I’m trying to say here is, when making a movie don’t date yourself by giving dates, or by short changing America’s future dominance as a world super power.
Actually, Tom Wilson doesn’t have too look that old until 2045.
Wait, 2045? I thought the “Old Biff” in the year 2015 is the same Biff at 1955 Biff, only older. Is this a different character? Since regular Biff is about 17 in 1955, he’d be 77 in 2015, accounting for the gray hair and poor posture.
Tom Wilson will only be 56 in the year 2015. I’ll send him some gray hair dye.
The webmaster just sent me an email asking me to clarify what I meant by that. Let’s just put it like this.
1985 Tom Wilson looks like 1955 Biff Tannen (not 1985 Biff Tannen). Therefore, if Tom Wilson is supposed to age at the rate of his Biff Tannen character - then he’d look like a grey-hared old man with poor posture in 2045, not 2015.
I don’t know about that… 1985 Tom Wilson was 26 years old. He needed makeup to look like the high school Biff and the middle-aged Biff.
I sure didn’t attend high school with any 26 year olds.
I don’t think they put make-up on anyone to make them look younger, just older. There are a lot of people in their 20s who look like teenagers.
Now that 2015 has been observed, all other waveforms should collapse. Quantum mechanics says that you will get your hoverboard. Unfortunately, it’ll only be for the span of the time described in the movie, and 2015 will go back to a post-Mayan-calendar nu-consciousness alien-infested non-existing wasteland.
hahahahaha. every 6 1/2 months. that would be absolutely ridiculous.
Actually the writers said that they were not trying to do an accurate prediction of the future, but simply present an over-the-top version just for fun. So in a way it was a spoof of all those futuristic movies that claim amazing inventions in the next few years.
What about abolishing all lawyers??? Isn’t Ron Paul wanting to get rid of the FBI?… thats a start, right?
Don’t forget about Mr Fusion!
I was waiting for that… yes, I did leave out Mr. Fusion. I guess it would really be the most useful too. I just don’t see Sunbeam perfecting and miniaturizing a cold fusion device in 7 years.
UPDATE: Nike is on it with the self-lacing sneakers. http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/26/nike-files-patent-for-auto-lacing-sneakers-marty-mcfly-doth-pro/