What Back to the Future Part II Got Right and Wrong...

My favorite part of the Back to the Future trilogy is the first half hour of Back to the Future Part II where Doc and Marty travel to 2015. Seeing them in the past was fun, seeing them in the Wild West was eh, but seeing them in the future remains, for me, the most entertaining and memorable part of all three movies. With 2015 a mere hours away, let's take a look and see how well the movie reflects reality.

The Right Stuff

1. Watching multiple TV channels simultaneously. When Back to the Future Part II came out in 1989, there were only a limited number of cable channels available. We were many, many years from multitude of Discovery channels, SoapNet, SyFy and whatever the hell the RT is. So when Marty McFly Jr. comes home and turns on six channels on his flat-screen TV... some of which had channel numbers in the hundreds... this was a far-fetched view of how we might watch TV in the future.

Since then, everyone has hundreds of channels (and flat-screens). Picture-in-picture came... and basically went. And watching multiple shows simultaneously isn't a fantasy anymore... several years back DirecTV debuted their Game Mix feature that let you watch eight NFL games simultaneously. Although why anyone would want to do that is beyond me.

2. Pervasive advertising. When Marty is in 2015 Hill Valley, a video screen pops up in the town square and starts playing an advertisement for converting regular cars to flying cars. Today, omnipresent video advertising is a legit factor in our lives.

Old standard billboards are starting to be replaced by video billboards. TVs are cheap enough that companies are putting them everywhere, and blasting us with advertisements. And, again, there's the Internet, where we're constantly looking at video ads on our screens.

And I, personally, am okay with that. I like the video billboards that tell me what song different radio stations are playing. I like when I'm in line at the grocery store and there's a TV screen running sports scores and celebrity gossip headlines underneath an advertisement for diapers. And I like when a mall kiosk ad switches so you have to go, "Wait, did I just see that there's a new Zac Efron movie coming out? Damn, now it's already on to an ad for Cinnabon... and I don't have to be informed about Zac Efron. Win-win!"

3. Video conferencing. Why were people in the past so obsessed with video conferencing? It's in every science fiction movie and book and on every future predictions list. Video conferencing has to be the number one thing science fiction begged for... we got... and then we all instantly got over.

We have free video chat capability now and we don't really use it. And you know why? Most of the time, we humans look like shit. It happens to all of us the first time we video chat -- we turn on Skype, connect with our friend, turn on our laptop's built-in camera... and recoil in horror at ourselves. The lighting is bad and the angle the camera shoots you is somehow worse. It's hard to focus on a conversation when all you can do is remember how much work it takes you on a day-to-day basis to be presentable to society.

So, yes, it's 2015 and we humans can Skype video chat whenever we want. But we don't. And for those who do... at least 90 percent of those video chats are primarily about one person trying to convince the other person to get naked.

Other correct predictions: a baseball team in Miami, video games without hands, and cameras everywhere.

The Wrong Stuff

1. Hoverboards. Of everything from BBTF Part II that we're not going have in 2015, this is definitely the biggest disappointment. We don't have hoverboards. The technology just isn't there yet.

According to Hovertech, an R&D company that focuses on developing hovering products, without either an engine or a track, there's no way to currently make BTTF Part II-style hoverboards.

2. Flying cars everywhere. I've written about this topic before, but in BTTF Part II, there were flying cars everywhere. Even though there are prototypes for flying cars, the reality is that we probably will never have flying cars and I'm okay with that.

3. Food hydrators. Another thing science fiction always has a hard-on for: Compact food. Whether it's meals in pill form, strange nutrient supplements or, like in this case, food that needs some kind of rebigulator, there's eternally an inexplicable obsession with tiny food.

As it plays out in Back to the Future Part II, a tiny Pizza Hut pizza is inserted into the Black and Decker Hydrator, and then, seconds later, out pops a full-size, steaming hot, half-pepperoni, half-green pepper pizza.

Yyyyyeah, that's not happening in real life any time soon. And even if it was available... would you really want this? We're starting to realize that eating food that's jammed with chemicals might not be the smartest long term decision... how many unnatural elements would be involved in making a two-inch diameter pizza one hydration session away from edible? 

Other incorrect predictions: thumbprint currency and keys, laserdiscs, people working out while they eat, and auto-dry/auto-tailored clothing.

Still to be determined

There's one last prediction that is still to be determined: the Cubs winning the World Series. Part of this prediction is still incorrect. The Cubs cannot possibly play the Miami Marlins in the World Series because they're both in the same league, but will 2015 be the year the Cubs break their 106 year losing streak?? My belief is that come October, we'll be adding this prediction to the things BTTF Part II got wrong list. Sorry, Cubs fans. I just don't see it happening this year for you. Or maybe that's just the obnoxious Yankee fan inside me which won't allow any team other than the Yankees to have a chance. Go Yankees!

Nah!