In the 1989 film “Back to the Future Part II,” Marty McFly and Doc Brown landed their time-traveling DeLorean on Oct. 21, 2015, touching down in a world full of flying cars, hovering skateboards and cops with LED text scrolling across the front of their hats.
Movie theaters nationwide are marking “Back to the Future Day” on Wednesday, Oct. 21, with screenings of the “BTTF” trilogy. Locally, the Mark Twain House & Museum in Hartford is holding a Back to the Eighties Masquerade Dance Party on Oct. 24, and a bar in New Haven is hosting an ’80s cover band playing hits from Marty and Doc’s era.
Everyone’s focus will be on the second film, what it got right and what it got wrong about the future. It got most of it wrong. The movie has no epic fails: No references to the World Trade Center, no statues honoring O.J. Simpson. The closest thing to a tragic inaccuracy is a newspaper headline about a U.S. visit by Queen Diana. We all know Princess Diana never became queen. She divorced Charles in 1996 and died in 1997. Even if she hadn’t, Queen Elizabeth is alive and well, and Prince Charles, a senior citizen now, is still waiting to be king.
There are, however, a series of amusingly misconceived predictions. In the real world of 2015, there’s no cop-hat scroll-text, although plenty of police officers have body cameras. There are no hoverboards or flying cars. Where we’re going, we still need roads.
Let’s forget about the horrid fashions, which say more about slavish devotion to trends than about futurism, and about Doc’s crazy inventions, because those are about Doc’s quirky brilliance, not about the future. Here’s a primer.
That Newspaper
Movie 2015: Doc shows Marty a copy of USA Today covered with headlines including “Slamball Playoffs Begin,” “Cubs Sweep Series In 5,” “President Says She’s Tired,” “Cholesterol May Be Cancer Cure” and other stories about a pitcher with a bionic arm, someone running a three-minute mile and the rise in kelp prices. We learn later in the movie that the Cubs sweep Miami in that series.
Real 2015: We still have had no female president. Cholesterol is not a cure for cancer. The current record for a mile run is a measly 3:43:13. No baseball pitcher has a bionic arm, that we know of, although some ballplayers got better through chemistry. If slamball is a sport and if kelp prices are rising, it’s not exactly front-page news. One unintentionally funny thing is seeing a teenager holding a print copy of a newspaper, something no longer seen in the real world.
The World Series is still a best-of-seven, not nine, so no team would “sweep in 5.” One thing the movie got right is that in 2015, Miami woud have an MLB team. The Cubbies still haven’t won the series since 1908. There’s still a chance this year for the Cubs but not the Marlins. However, the Cubs and the Marlins are both National League, so a Cubs-Marlins series would never take place. Another unintentionally funny thing is the assumption that the World Series would be over by Oct. 21. That hasn’t happened yet in the 21st century.
That TV
Movie 2015: In Marty’s house-of-the-future, a flat-screen, wall-mounted, voice-activated TV shows six shows at once, alternating with works of art, and puts them on hold when someone calls on the phone. Callers’ pictures appear on the screen along with their names, addresses, spouses’ names, food and drink likes and dislikes, professions, hobbies, etc. People can send each other money by swiping a credit card in a book-sized scanner while talking on TV. Outsiders can monitor private calls, as when Marty’s boss eavesdrops on a shady deal and fires Marty.
Real 2015: TV sets are wall-mounted and flat-screen. Score! And they can show multiple images, like picture-in-picture, and cable systems offer on-screen caller ID. But we know now it’s the smartphone, not the TV, that has all the multitasking capabilities, including credit-card scanners about the size of a thumbnail. Smartphones don’t exist in “BTTFII.” Government agencies can monitor phone calls, but it’s doubtful they’ll admit they’re doing it. Voice-activated TVs exist, but do you know anybody who owns one?
That Jacket, Those Shoes
Movie 2015: Marty is given a jacket that’s too big. With the touch of a button, it fits. After he falls into a fountain, he pushes a button and his jacket is instantly dry. Marty’s shoelaces close and tighten by themselves and the Nike logo glows.
Real 2015: We all must still go to the store to try on clothes. When they get wet, we still need a dryer. In 2011, Nike produced 1,500 pairs of the “Nike MAG” shoe and sold them on eBay to benefit the Michael J. Fox Foundation, which benefits research into Parkinson’s disease, a condition that the “BTTF” star has. Those shoes looked just like Marty’s shoes but had no power laces. Nike is still working on Nike MAGs with power laces, reportedly shooting for release by the end of the year.
Those Hovering Things
Movie 2015: A news-gathering device hovers over the scene when Griff Tannen and his gang are arrested. A few scenes later, a dog is seen, being walked by a hovering contraption.
Real 2015: We might as well call those things drones. Drones aren’t routinely used to walk dogs, but we’re sure they could do it, if the dog is well-behaved. And drones take photos and record what is going on around them. Those hover-bots — and the flat-screen TV — are the nearest the movie got to accurate technological predictions.
Those One-Off Things
In “Part II,” a doughnut-sized disc can be “rehydrated” in seconds, turning it into a hot large pizza. Dogs can be left in suspended-animation kennels so they won’t miss their owners. A soft-drink order of “Pepsi Perfect” pops out of the restaurant table in seconds. George McFly enters a room upside-down, inside a hovering traction device. A movie billboard for “Jaws 19” turns into a hologram shark and jumps Marty.
We haven’t seen anything like these lately, although Pepsi is selling limited-edition bottles of “Pepsi Perfect” to mark the “BTTF” day, and Universal Pictures just released an online trailer for “Jaws 19” as a joke to mark the day.
There are a few other random sight gags, most of them more off-base than the 2015 Miami Marlins.
Movie 2015: A mailbox boasts “.05 Second Service.”
Real 2015: Snail mail still doesn’t go that quickly. That’s why it’s called snail mail.
Movie 2015: A talking Texaco station tends to a car without human attendants.
Real 2015: Most gas stations don’t offer full service, let alone human-free full service.
Movie 2015: An antiques store clerk talks about the days before books had “dust-repellent paper.”
Real 2015: There’s no such thing as dust-repellent paper, but if there was it still would be outsold by Kindle books.
Movie 2015: A billboard promotes Vietnam as a vacation surfing destination.
Real 2015: In 1989, just 14 years after the fall of Saigon, this must have gotten a big laugh. And it probably was a jokey reference to the surfing scene in “Apocalypse Now.” Today, Southeast Asia has a healthy tourism industry. Da Nang is a surfers’ hangout now. Vietnam is officially tubular. So this is futuristically accurate.
Movie 2015: Cops and locks use thumbprint ID to identify people, and taxis use thumbprint scans as a form of payment.
Real 2015: Fingerprints, of course, are used to ID people. However, thumbprint-scan technology is not widely used, and that’s probably good, considering another headline in That Newspaper, about “thumb bandits.” Ouch!
Movie 2015: One of Marty’s children wears a visor that flashes when a phone call comes to the house. The visor is hooked up to a landline.
Real 2015: That looks like a clunky version of Google Glass, which could place and receive calls if paired with a smartphone, a thing that doesn’t exist in the movie.
Movie 2015: There is a bank of pay phones on the street.
Real 2015: What’s a pay phone?
There’s one other element of “BTTFII” that’s uncanny. In the alternate-universe of the ’80s, Biff Tannen is an arrogant gazillionaire bully with atrocious blond hair, his name on a skyscraper, married to his third wife and prone to outbursts of juvenile insults. The filmmakers could very well have been predicting the early 2015 GOP front-runner.
THE “BACK TO THE FUTURE” TRILOGY will be shown Wednesday, Oct. 21, starting at 4:30 p.m. at Cinemark Buckland Hills in Manchester, Cinemark Enfield, Cinemark North Haven, Connecticut Post 14 in Milford and AMC Plainville; starting at 5 p.m. at Brass Mill 12 in Waterbury; and starting at 5:30 p.m. at Criterion Cinema in New Haven, Marquis Trumbull and Bow Tie Palace 17 and BTX in Hartford.
THE FUTURE HEAVIES will perform ’80s cover tunes at an ’80s-dress event at Stella Blues, 204 Crown St., in New Haven, in three sets starting at 8:30 p.m.
BACK TO THE EIGHTIES MASQUERADE DANCE PARTY will be at the Mark Twain House & Museum, 351 Farmington Ave., in Hartford, on Saturday, Oct. 24, from 7 to 11 p.m. Tickets are $25, $20 for members. marktwainhouse.org.
Editor’s note: This story has been edited to correct the address of Stella Blues.
