2015: Yes, Marty, We’re in the Future (But Not Quite)

Last updated on: January 10, 2017 at 2:50 pm by Alan Atchison

2015: Yes, Marty, We’re in the Future (But Not Quite) 2017-01-10T14:50:26-06:00 Alan Atchison

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We’re now a week into 2015 and if you’re anything like me, you might have noticed we’ve finally reached the year that Marty McFly and Doc Brown traveled to in Back to the Future Part II. The crazy unknown they zapped themselves into, aka the future. Back when the film was released in 1989, trying to picture 2015 was nearly as hard as trying to picture 3015. After all, while the world of the 80s saw some advances in technology, namely the VCR, it wasn’t until the early 90s, and now the 21st century, that we began to see major life-changing breakthroughs in the TV, cell phone, and of course, the computer – all of which have, in many ways, been merged into one.

Some of the film’s depictions of 2015 (big video conferencing screens and electronic glasses) are commonplace in today’s world. Other depictions (flying cars, hydrated food, and the Cubs winning the World Series) are probably quite a ways away, if at all. There are also certain fashions the movie portrayed that I thank God do not exist in today’s actual 2015!

And then there’s that other little fictional futuristic gizmo. The one that had both kids and adults alike buzzing after watching the film, both upon its release and straight on through the next twenty-five years.

I’m talking, of course, about the Hoverboard.

Let me make one thing clear: I am absolutely pining for my own Hoverboard. I’ll even take one of those pink Mattel ones over a Pit Bull if I have to. But it’s not coming this year. And that’s where I have a bone to pick with those of you who put out those extremely annoying memes every year for the past three years that ordered scientists to get on their game and make Hoverboards a reality by 2015.

As I said, I’m all for the development of these amazing floating thingies, but you see, here’s where you memers are wrong – you started your campaign too late. We live in a supply-and-demand world, and if you wanted the real thing to match the movie timeline, you should’ve started pushing scientists and manufacturers back in the late 90s. You see, in the fictional 2015, Hoverboards were not only in existence, but were commonly used and came in a wide assortment, leading to the understanding that they’d been on the market for quite some time. The one Marty used was clearly a lower-end kid’s model, as Griff Tannen’s Pit Bull was obviously the new, more powerful version that could travel over water. Perhaps that model was released in 2015, but the pink one Marty used could probably be best compared to using an iPhone 3 today when the iPhone 6 has all the latest bells and whistles.

By this logic, my guess is Hoverboards in the Back to the Future world probably hit the market around 2008 or 2009. Certainly no later than 2010. So your posting of annual countdowns over the past three years was right out! My point is, memers, you missed the boat on this potential game-changer. And now, with so much other technology advancing at such a rapid rate, it’s hard to see Hoverboards becoming a mass production product at the present…I mean future…I mean, oh nevermind.

Also, I know it’s pathetic that I’ve given it this much thought, but sue me, I’m a child of the 80s!

Alan Atchison is a Contributing Writer to The Rogue. He is a Senior Publications Editor at the Center for the Advanced Study of India (University of Pennsylvania), where he also earned a Masters of Liberal Arts in Creative Writing. He lives in Philadelphia, PA with his wife and two daughters. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram.

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