Back to the Future II and 2015

So we are in 2015 already. Yikes!! This is frightening and poignant for me because when I was a teenager I loved all thing Michael J Fox - Family Ties I watched every night at 5.30pm on Channel 4 and even managed to tape several episodes which I still have on VHS today. I was so obsessed with Teen Wolf, before I was able to save up and buy my own copy I rented the video over a weekend for the longest period I could and would get up super early so I watch the film before my family got up and disturbed my euphoria at watching such delights as Michael turning into a werewolf for the first time. I watched it so much and so many posters on my bedroom wall my dad started calling the actor Michael J Wolfy!

And then there were Michael's other great films Back to The Future, II and III. Oh how I loved watching the vulnerable young man finding himself in the past and running to his mum and dads defence against the town bully - Biff Tannan. I waited an absolute (or what seemed like) an absolute age for Back to The Future II to be released in 1989 and naturally I went to the cinema (alone cos I'm nerdy like that) to indulge in my guilty pleasure of watching what Robert Zemeckis' vision of the future would be in October 21st 2015!

I was actually really impressed and I do remember thing to myself then, "God I'll be 42!" But I think I've aged a lot better than the make up used for the characters 35 years into the future. Haha!!
So as a homage to the wonderful Michael J Wolfy and to the Back to the Future Franchise that has given me some AMAZING cherished memories of my misspent youth, I have decided to make comparisons to Marty McFly's 2015 and my own.

Similarities:

1. We are obsessed with cosmetic surgery and making ourselves look young. (Doc Brown's Rejuvenation clinic)
2. 3D and 4D films are all the rage. (The 3D Jaws 19 film advertised when Marty first arrives in the future)

3. TV screens to advertise things in city and town centres.
4. Multiple TV stations. (Marty Jnr watching television at home).
5. Voice activated technology. (When Jennifer is taken back to their future home).
6. Video phones. (Old Marty's conversation with Needles and his boss).

7. Griff has bionic implants and although we don't have things fitted to make us better or stronger, implants are used for people with disabilities, (Hearing, pacemakers, prosthetic limbs. etc...).

8. We are slow on the uptake but we do recycle a lot of our rubbish these days. (Mr Fusion recycle).
9. The weather service... Attempting to forecast the weather and still get it wrong!
10. Nostalgia for 80's retro. (Cafe 80's)

Differences:

1. We don't yet use our thumb prints to pay for things.
2. Pepsi Cola doesn't cost fifty dollars just yet.

3. We don't have hover boards or flying cars or skyways.

4. We don't have hydrate cooking machines that cook food in a seconds. (Grandma Lorraine bringing a tiny dried up pizza for tea).

5. Although they have video phones in their sun glasses there wasn't any reference to touch screen phones that we carry around.

6. Home computers/Tablets etc. wasn't mentioned, but the house had an auto fax machine in every room.
7. Self walking dog devices.

8. Self tying shoe laces and self adjusting and drying clothes.

9. Petrol Station Robots.
10. We don't have fingerprint recognition door locks or indoor garden centres that drop from the ceiling.

This is actually just a few of the ideas Zemeckis came up with, but if Doc Brown had had a Sat Nav he wouldn't have flown into oncoming traffic on a skyway (Motorway for flying cars!) and who would've thought that in the 1980's we'd have gone nuts for the internet...  I wonder if some of these film inventions will one day become the norm for us. Well we've got until October 21st at 7.28am to find out. Think I'll have another look on New Years 2030!!!

I think Michael looks far better now than what the make department predicted he'd look like in 1989.