Back to the Present: A painfully detailed look at how the BTTF2 2015 differs from today
Back to the Future is one of those movies that finds a way into the hearts of many different people. Fans of 1980s nostalgia love it today as one of the biggest films of the decade, even as it opens a window to the 1950s for others. It's a favourite of comedy fans, sci-fi geeks and people who just love very tightly written movies. It's one of my favourite movies, but as a kid I much preferred its first sequel. Of course, now it's 2015, and everyone wants to talk about Back to the Future Part II and all the crazy things it predicted. But we're going way beyond flying cars and hoverboards, although we'll discuss those too. We're taking an exacting, ridiculously specific look at everything we can glean from the 2015 shown to us in Back to the Future Part II, and comparing it against what really exists today.
The film's director, Robert Zemeckis, has said the movie's predictions turned out "about 50 per cent right," but we'll draw our own conclusions. Of course, much of what's in the movie is neither absolutely right or wrong, so with that in mind, and because this is the Internet, we'll be rating each of these predictions on a scale of one to 10, then tabulating the results at the end.
Without further ado, Back to the Future Part II!
The movie itself starts where the first left off, back in 1985, and before we even get to the future we have some stuff to discuss. First we have Doc Brown, who is wearing a loud shirt, large metallic sunglasses and a translucent tie. I can't claim to have ever seen anything like the tie, but I could imagine someone buying that style of shades, even if the mouthpiece apparently attached is a bit out of place. It's worth noting the large Chinese characters on Doc's shirt, which doesn't look particularly out of place in 2015. Otherwise there's nothing I can point to here as accurate to today, but this is far closer to reality than most of the outfits we'll see, so I'm giving this a 5/10.
Doc Brown's clothes: 5/10
We see the films' famous DeLorean, and a number of modifications have been made to the car since the bulk of the first movie, one of which is the addition of Mr. Fusion. It's not made explicit - more detail is provided in the second sequel - but the DeLorean no longer requires plutonium to travel through time because of Mr. Fusion, a Home Energy Reactor that presumably converts garbage into energy. It's never stated that this is from 2015, but the rest of the major modifications to the DeLorean, specifically flight, are current to the movie's 2015, and early in 2015 we see a machine with a sign that says Fusion Industries on it. Matter-energy conversion and cold fusion are both as much science fiction today as when the movie was made, so this gets a 1/10.
Mr. Fusion: 1/10
We also see a bar code on the back of the car in the place of a licence plate. Licence plates work today much the same way they worked in the 1980s, but in the state of California, under some circumstances drivers can drive without licence plates, with a bar code displayed where the plate would normally be. My understanding is this bar code is something the car has coming out of the factory and in no way a replacement for a licence plate, but I'm feeling generous to start so this gets a 3/10, bumped up because there's something of an urban myth to this and it specifically relates to California, where Back to the Future is set.
Bar code licence plates: 3/10
Now we enter 2015 proper as the DeLorean flies down highway in the sky. Advancements have been made in small-craft flight but the flying car is as much science fiction in 2015 as it was in 1989.
Flying cars: 1/10
Doc Brown tells Marty and Jennifer they have arrived at Oct. 21, "Twenty-fifteen." Incredulously, Marty responds, "Two-thousand-fifteen?" This is actually rather prescient. Doc has been to 2015 and pronounces it like we would today: Twenty-fifteen. 2015 is just a made-up date for Marty and Jennifer though, so they refer to it in a clumsier way, not hip to how people pronounce years in the 21st century. An off-hand remark but one of the things that the movie got completely right, whether intentionally or not.
Twenty-fifteen: 10/10
Doc uses a "sleep-inducing algorithm generator" to knock out Jennifer when she asks too many questions. Whether this device is from 2015, further in the future or perhaps invented by Doc himself is unexplained but it doesn't exist now, so if we assume it's a 2015 thing it's a 1/10.
Sleep device: 1/10
When Doc pulls the DeLorean off the highway to enter Hill Valley, we see on a floating digital sign that the highway goes on to Phoenix, Boston and London. I don't say this to rub in the flying cars thing again (I just checked and, yeah, they still don't exist) but to consider the sign. Highway signs like this, displaying distances to the next major city, look pretty similar between 1985 and 2015. But digital signs are common on highways today, albeit conveying less static information that this, and more often things like traffic conditions. However, today's signs don't have the same green digital watch feel seen here, at least as far as I've seen. Still, another win for the movie as the concept exists today.
Digital highway signs: 7/10
The car lands in an alley and the rain stops: "Right on the tick," as Doc Brown says. Modern weather reports are indeed miles ahead of what they were in the 1980s, and while we can't predict the minute the rain will stop, we can formulate some pretty good estimates of how the weather will change by the hour. Well done, movie.
By-the-minute weather reports: 8/10
Doc then says it's too bad the post office isn't as efficient as the weather service. The post office does still exist, albeit in a much more precarious state than 26 years prior, and it is sorta inefficient, I guess. However, we see shortly after this a post office box plastered with text that brags about "05 Second Service" above the words "FAC FAX." A large machine is hooked up to the box, presumably a fax machine. Mail delivery definitely did not go in this direction, and is much more focused on parcel delivery than in the 1980s.
The current state of the post office: 5/10
Doc takes off his old man mask and says he went to a "rejuvenation clinic" that added years to his life, having had a change of blood, spleen and colon replacements, and other work done. Again, he doesn't say when this was, but while plastic surgery is alive and well no one is changing their blood, so assuming this is a 2015 thing it gets a 2/10. Shortly after this we'll see a plastic surgery clinic across the street offering a sale on breast implants. Could that be where Doc went for his rejuvenation?
Doc Brown's spleen replacement, etc.: 2/10
We first see Marty Jr. as Doc scopes him out through a pair of digital binoculars. Flat and compact, the device looks surprisingly like a smartphone. Actual binoculars don't look like this today, but if someone showed me an app for their phone that did this I wouldn't be all that surprised. The specifics are off but this is something out of science fiction in 1989 that feels normal now, so I'll give it a 9/10.
Doc's weird flat digital binoculars: 9/10
Marty puts on a pair of self-lacing Nikes. The shoes look plausible enough, but they are, of course, self-lacing, and that technology is not commonplace. However - and this is a theme we'll run across again - Nike has sold replicas of these shoes before and intends to sell pairs that work as they do in the film. It's unclear as of my writing this whether they'll get them out this year or not, and certainly Oct. 21 would be a surprise. Either way, nobody has power laces on their shoes, so this gets a 4/10.
"Power laces! All right!": 4/10
Marty puts on a rubbery jacket that automatically adjusts itself to fit his frame. Unlike the Nikes, no one is making a big deal trying to get this thing into stores. Just a 2/10 here, sorry jacket.
Self-fitting jackets: 2/10
Doc Brown tells Marty to pull his pockets inside out because that's what all the kids do these days. Kids do some pretty dumb things but I've yet to see this. 1/10.
Kids going all inside out: 1/10
Doc then puts a rainbow-coloured ballcap on Marty. You can buy a replica of the hat, but it's not the sort of thing I expect to see someone wearing as they walk down the street.
Marty Jr.'s rainbow cap: 5/10
As Marty and Doc move Jennifer out of the DeLorean, we see a pile of trash. Some bundles of silicone are seen, and we see stacks of old CDs and Laserdiscs. A bit of a mixed bag here - a very careful viewer will note that between the large words "Caution" and "Silicone" are two words, one of which is "implants." This movie's really hung up on the breast thing if you really look for it! I'm not sure the plastic surgery industry really results in this much wasted silicone, but I can't find out much about the subject. As for the issue of whether this speaks to 2015, I suppose plastic surgery is more common today than in 1989, although probably not as common as some prognosticators might have guessed.
As for the discs, CDs are no doubt being thrown away in record numbers today as everyone goes all digital with their music, but DVDs spelled the end for Laserdiscs some two decades ago. We'll later see a garbage can full of wires and what looks like other computer parts, which is a reasonable enough thing to see in 2015, I suppose.
2015's pile of garbage: 5/10
Before Marty goes to the Cafe '80s, Doc tells Marty to order a Pepsi and hands him a $50 bill. Thankfully inflation did not rip into the world the way the people behind Back to the Future predicted, and in fact $50 bills aren't used often today due to the prevalence of debit and credit cards as well as counterfeiting concerns. Try buying a Pepsi with a $50 bill, I dare you. Only the fact that paper money still exists keeps this from being a 1/10.
$50 for a Pepsi: 2/10
Doc shows Marty a newspaper from Oct. 22, depicting the events set to happen later this day. There are a lot of things to note here, but we'll ignore that this is apparently the slowest news day ever, with Marty McFly Jr.'s arrest for theft warranting the top half of the front page.
First of all, we see this is the Hill Valley edition of USA Today. This is probably a product placement thing as there is a lot of that in this movie, but it's important to note USA Today doesn't have hundreds of hyper-local regional editions like this. Also, the "3 billion readers" announced at the top, well, USA Today ain't reaching those heights. The $4 price is the most plausible thing about the paper itself, although that's pretty steep.
The state of USA Today in 2015: 2/10
In the sports teases at the top, we see that the slamball playoffs are starting and that someone has run a three-minute mile. (There's also a bit about the World Series that will be discussed at length later.) Slamball, a variation on basketball played on trampolines, didn't exist when the movie came out and while it was never important enough to get to the front page of a major newspaper like this, it is neat to see a fictional sport turn into a real one. A lot of people could see the newspaper in the movie and assume slamball existed in the 1980s. Let's give this a 6/10.
Are you ready for some slamball?: 6/10
Meanwhile, no one has even managed to run a mile in three and a half minutes, so that one's a bust.
Three-minute mile: 1/10
In the top right corner and the Newsline column down the left, we read about Queen Diana's visit to Washington, D.C. While it seems crass to hold Diana's divorce and death against the movie, let's not forget this is actually a prediction of another death: that of the reigning Queen Elizabeth. Still, the monarchy is intact so let's nudge this up to 2/10.
Other bits under Newsline include a story about the threat of terrorists in Switzerland, which I'll give a 7/10 (we don't know much about it, but as a headline it's more plausible today than in 1989), and a story about a woman who is the U.S. president, which obviously isn't the case but appears much closer today than then, so that'll get scored 3/10. There's also a bionic controversy involving a baseball pitcher, which I'll have to give a 1/10 as that's just not realistic. If only the movie had been set 10 years earlier and they went with steroids instead.
Queen Diana goes to Washington: 2/10
Terrorism in Switzerland: 7/10
A woman in the White House: 3/10
Big league bionic controversy: 1/10
So how did this stack up against the real Oct. 22 issue of USA Today?
Not really well. No mention of Hillary Clinton on the movie's USA Today (unless we count the complaining president mentioned down the side) but as Bill Clinton wasn't president yet, that's not too surprising. Funny enough there is a mention of a Cubs sweep of a different sort at the top of this paper, too. And of course there's a lot of Back to the Future Part II stuff all over. The drones story at the bottom looks like it could be from BTTF2!
Also of note, USA Today is selling replicas of the movie prop newspaper, but they've changed a ton of stuff, like one of the down-page stories that we'll get a look at later, all mentions of Queen Diana and the terrorists in Switzerland. If you still want to buy one for some reason, they're selling them here.
Anyway, enough USA Today stuff. Back to the film.
Marty reads in the paper that his son was sent to prison for a lengthy term after two hours in court. Doc tells him that lawyers have been abolished. Lawyers are still kicking, so this dubious prediction gets 1/10.
They've abolished all lawyers: 1/10
Finally we leave the alley, and we and Marty are confronted with a lot of visual information. First of all, at Marty's right is a set of futuristic phone booths. Phone booths don't look fundamentally different today than in 1989, but they are much rarer. There are also some funky changes made to the parking meters on the street, but we don't get a good look at them or how they work, so we'll give the movie a pass on those.
Futuristic phone booths: 2/10
We see some cars both in flight and parked on the street and while we've established our cars don't fly, this is our first chance to get a good look at 2015's vehicles. The designs are very round and swoopy, and while regular cars don't look like this they seem close to modern concept vehicles and arguably look more at home today than they would in the '80s. Still, if you made a movie about the future today, the far-off futuristic cars would probably look like these, so I guess they still look more like science fiction than contemporary vehicles.
The swoopy, flashy cars of 2015: 4/10
Marty spies a double-decker Texaco station that checks the oil of a car using robotic arms. This is certainly possible today, but I've never seen this sort of maintenance done on a car by a robot, and mechanics are as commonplace now as they were in 1989. Meanwhile, the Texaco brand is seen quite a bit less today than in 1985, but there are still Texaco stations in parts of California, so the station in Hill Valley in plausible. However, it's worth noting this world of flying cars and new technology still has cars that run on gas: in Back to the Future Part III, Doc explains that despite all the 2015 modifications made to the DeLorean, it still runs on gasoline. It would be very easy in 1989 to predict all cars would be electric by 2015, but the movie didn't do that. Smart choice.
All in all, the Texaco station is kind of a wash. I've seen in some behind-the-scenes stuff that the Texaco station supposedly lists gas prices about double what they would be today, which would seem a smart prediction even two years ago. However, I've looked pretty closely and I can't see those signs clearly enough in the film itself to verify that, so the movie doesn't get any points either way there.
Texaco station circa 2015: 5/10
A giant holographic shark bites down on Marty outside a theatre showing Jaws 19 (and only Jaws 19). Where do we even begin here? Holograms don't work like this. There hasn't been a Jaws movie released since Jaws 4 in 1987, let alone 15 of them (although Universal has put together a fake teaser trailer for Jaws 19 that talks briefly about all those missing sequels). Steven Spielberg's son Max is listed on the marquee as the film's director, but he's never directed a movie. Single-screen theatres are a rarity today. If there was anything I'd give a 0/10 to, it'd be this, but the floor is 1/10, so this gets a big fat 1.
As an aside, I've heard a number of people, including the movie's screenwriter Bob Gale, saying BTTF2 predicted 3D movies. First of all, 3D movies existed well before the 1980s, and second, do all those people see that shark biting Marty in the middle of the street and think, "Oh yeah, just like Avatar"?
Jaws 19: 1/10
We then see an antique store selling stuff from the 1980s like video games, a Roger Rabbit doll and a Dustbuster. While stuff like old video games and the Roger Rabbit toy have value for collectors today, we don't call them antiques. 6/10 as it sorta gets things right.
Blast from the Past antique store: 6/10
Now we enter the Cafe '80s, and while I've never been to a place like this, I can certainly believe it could exist. You've got Michael Jackson music, a DARE sticker on the wall and some arcade cabinets. The TV screens on robotic arms aren't believable but otherwise this is a pretty good guess at what '80s nostalgia would look like from within the decade. It's definitely a bit too heavy on the Ronald Reagan stuff, though.
Cafe '80s: 9/10
Marty asks the Max Headroom-style Reagan and Ayatollah for a Pepsi. A futuristic plastic bottle, with a label that reads Pepsi Perfect, shoots up from within the counter. Nothing about the bottle or the way it is delivered is recognizable today, but Pepsi is making some of these bottles available for purchase, because of course they are. 2/10, but I'll bump this up to 3/10 if I ever drink one of these.
Pepsi Perfect: 2/10
Through the window behind Marty we can see the Pontiac logo on a car dealership. GM retired the brand in 2009 so this is clearly out of place in 2015.
Pontiac dealerships in 2015: 1/10
We see old Biff sitting at a table with a small TV fixed against the wall, and it appears all the booths in the cafe have one. I've been to restaurants with these before, so I'll give this a 10/10.
TVs in the booths of a restaurant: 10/10
Now we see some little kid and Elijah Wood messing around with the video game Wild Gunman. It's worth noting that Wild Gunman was never an arcade game like this, but whatever. Marty plays and the non-Elijah Wood kid says it seems like "a baby's toy" because it requires the use of one's hands. In a post-motion control, post-Xbox Kinect world, I can imagine there might be some kid of this age today who hasn't played a video game with their hands, I guess, so let's say 6/10.
"You mean you have to use your hands?": 6/10
However, I can't imagine anyone ever wearing those damn hats. 2/10.
Dumb kids hats: 2/10
Speaking of video games, on the other end of the cafe is a Pac-Man cabinet with a sign warning people not to touch as it's a priceless artifact. Ignoring how ridiculous it is to have a video game not meant to be touched on display in a restaurant like this, Pac-Man cabinets are sought after but hardly priceless so this one gets a 3/10.
Very rare Pac-Man: 3/10
Now we get our first look at Griff and his gang, who are wearing shin pads and helmets and such as some sort of fashion statement. One gang member has computer circuits or some such thing drawn on his face with makeup. That's pretty stupid, but that aside what they're wearing almost looks plausible. Griff has some collection of wires on his wrist, possibly to make his arm stronger, but that's just speculation on my part given the weird hydraulic sound effects that play during the fight scene. (That could be related to those bionic implants Doc mentioned in the alley, or perhaps he was only using a figure of speech?) Griff's ridiculous spiked boots, which we see a lot of during the hoverboard scene, actually look like something I could see a high school kid wearing, although maybe not the sort of typical tough guy bully that Griff is. Maybe those kids' hats messed with my mind but I'm giving the gang's clothes a 7/10.
Griff's gang's clothes: 7/10
The guy with the circuit face is wearing some sort of computerized vest that lights up and can make chicken noises and presumably do other things. Taken separately from the clothes this is pretty laughable in the age of cellphones, so I have to give it a 2/10 - a giant wearable computer vest could exist, but it doesn't and there is no demand for it.
Griff's flunky's computerized vest: 2/10
Griff has a Kirk Gibson Jr. bat. Kirk Gibson does have a son named Kirk, and Kirk Gibson does have a son who was drafted this year, but they are not the same son. (His son Cam Gibson is a Detroit Tigers prospect, and not the sort of player to have his name on a bat - not yet, at least.) The bat is also telescopic, and extends. Never seen that. Is that how the Cubs won the World Series?
Kirk Gibson Jr.'s telescopic baseball bat: 1/10
So now we come to the famous hoverboards, which everyone has always wanted to exist but, sadly, they don't. Unlike some of the other modern technology that we see in the movie, the demand for a working hoverboard is not a coincidence: The development of hoverboard technology is fuelled by interest in the movie. But again, the technology we see here, with an electromagnetic board floating across the ground, does not exist. The hoverboard Lexus has shown off only moves across metal tracks, and is much larger than what we see Marty riding - not to mention that it's not for sale and is apparently incredibly expensive to manufacture. The so-called hoverboard Wiz Khalifa was arrested for refusing to get off of at an airport two months ago is in fact an idiotic thing with wheels. This would get a 1/10 because it simply doesn't exist but the relentless need to try to make the hoverboard a real thing bumps this up to 5/10.
Hoverboards!: 5/10
Griff and his gang crash into the open, glassy atrium of the courthouse, and it's here we might as well discuss some of the architecture we see in the square. The courthouse's open, bright entrance looks sufficiently modern enough. There's a shopping area below the courthouse accessible via a staircase in the park, which is indeed something you might expect to see in a new building today, even if it might be out of place in a small city like Hill Valley. There's a large blue building shaped like an inverted ziggurat in the square as well, but that's just as futuristic now as it was then - I know of a building that looks like that, colour aside, but it's notable for how different it is, and it existed when the movie was filmed anyhow.
The buildings we see in the square don't feel out of place in 2015, as they aren't all super modern and domed or anything like that. Many of the buildings we see in 2015 would have existed in 1985 and possibly before, which is true of the real 2015. There are also some funky-looking public benches along the sidewalk, one shaped like an egg and the other more like an old couch. While that's unusual, it's not unheard of for municipal governments to opt for some of their benches to be a bit of public art like this. The only truly strange thing here is the double-decker 7-Eleven/Texaco station. Let's give this a 7/10.
The buildings of the future: 7/10
The aftermath of the hoverboard scene sees a bunch of extras standing around, so this is a good point to talk about what the regular folk of 2015 are wearing. We don't get to see many of them up close, but while their clothes are all a little more colourful and streamlined than what you'd see on the street today, there's very little so ostentatious that it strikes me as incompatible with the real 2015. The only piece of clothing that really seems odd is the guy with the blue jacket with the Cookie Monster/shark mouth on it, but I could almost see someone wearing that in real life. One person is carrying a surfboard shortly after the alley scene, which is probably the single weirdest thing here, but who's to say he's not about to fly down to the beach? Also of note, the girl with the hoverboard (not the one Marty steals his pink hoverboard from, the other one) has what appears to be a large ceramic Slurpee cup. I haven't seen one of these, but there are premium cups given away for all sorts of drinks, so it seems plausible enough, I guess?
The fashion of 2015's extras: 7/10
After Marty's jacket dries him off (1/10) we see an old man trying to get Marty to donate to save the clock tower. For some reason the man is wearing two neckties. Man, this movie can't even get formal dress right. We don't get a really good view of this, but his white dress shirt has some markings on the back, perhaps denoting his role in trying to save the clock tower. His getup gets a 2/10 if only because other than the ridiculous tie they didn't screw much else up.
Self-drying jacket: 1/10
Two neckties: 2/10
Now we see what some of us noticed in the USA Today scene: the Chicago Cubs have won the World Series. We won't hold it against the movie that the World Series hasn't even started yet - that's on Major League Baseball, which should've changed the schedule to accommodate Back to the Future Part II, obviously. However, we'll recall USA Today said the Cubs swept the Series in five games. Whether an oversight or a prediction of a nine-game World Series in the future, the movie did get that detail wrong, so that's a 1/10.
The two-tie man says the Cubs were a "hundred-to-one" shot to win the Series. This year's young Cubs team never faced odds that long, but they are something of an underdog, so perhaps we'll accept that's an exaggeration on his part. The implicit joke here for the 1989 audience is that the Cubs haven't won a World Series since 1908 or even appeared in one since 1945, and even in the future they won't be winners. Sadly for Cubs fans, that part is still true. We'll give this a 6/10.
Of course, all Marty is interested in at first is the fact there is an MLB team in Miami. In 1985 (and 1989 for that matter) there were no Florida teams, and until 2012 neither Florida team identified as being a Miami team. Of course, the Marlins are a National League team, and could never meet the Cubs in a World Series. (They were also pretty terrible this season.) Also worth noting: the team is not called the Gators, or whatever that Alligator logo would indicate. Still, the bet on a Miami team is a pretty good one, so this one will shake out to an 8/10.
But what about the final point of all this: the Cubs winning it all? They did make it to the NLCS, but they never got anything going against the New York Mets and lost in four games. Still, I personally wouldn't have picked them to make the NLCS in the first place, so I'm sticking with my original 6/10 score, as while they weren't exactly knocking on the door of the World Series they did get pretty close.
Five-game World Series sweep: 1/10
Cubs a hundred-to-one shot: 6/10
MLB comes to Miami: 8/10
Cubs win first World Series since 1908: 6/10
Now we see Marty buying Grays Sports Almanac, which purportedly has every score from several sports over 50 years. (The filmmakers in the commentary note a real version of this would be enormous, not the slim little book we see here. I'd also question the demand for this today with these facts easily available on the Internet, but looking up stats online wouldn't serve the movie's plot anyway.) If you freeze frame you see the back of the book says there are stats on several sports, everything from football and hockey to slamball and surfing. However, basketball is not mentioned, although there is a basketball player on the front. Is he a slamball player? Has slamball usurped basketball's place completely? Whether prediction or oversight, basketball is as significant as ever (sorry, slamball) so the whole thing gets a 1/10.
Grays Sports Almanac: 1/10
The woman in the antique store says the almanac was made before the advent of "dust-repellent paper." This doesn't exist, and sadly there's just about no interest today in creating new, exciting kinds of paper with people reading everything on phones and e-readers. Sorry lady, 1/10.
Dust-repellant paper: 1/10
Marty Jr. almost gets hit by a car and calls the driver a "low-res scuzzball." HD is a big deal today and part of the common vernacular, although I think using low-res to insult a human being is a bit far.
Low-res scuzzballs: 4/10
We finally see Doc again, and he's changed outfits for some reason, but what he's wearing now isn't futuristic enough to go over (although the trains on his shirt are a nice nod to BTTF3). This time Doc's brought his dog Einstein, who he says he left in a suspended animation kennel. Doc can travel through time so it's unclear whether this took place in 2015 or in the future, but he's being pretty unguarded about it, so let's say that it is current to 2015. Kennels are ever more opulent these days, but cryopreservation of large animals remains unfeasible. Still, if suspended animation were a thing, some kennel somewhere would offer it at the right price, so this gets a 3/10.
Suspended animation kennels: 3/10
We see USA Today again and nothing changes except the main story, which now carries a slightly less pathetic headline: "Gang Jailed; Hoverboard Rampage Destroys Courthouse." We'll ignore the fact the word gang is used three times in the display copy and I'll point out that below the photo, it says "Gang Leader had Bionic Overloads." This movie just won't give up this bionic thing, hunh? Not sure what it's referring to exactly, but hoodlums don't have bionic implants, so 1/10.
Breaking news: Griff had bionic overloads: 1/10
We also see a flying USA Today photographer robot get the shot. That's one newspaper job that they aren't talking about automating yet, although the concept of drones taking photos isn't complete fiction, so 4/10.
News photographers replaced with drones: 4/10
We can't quite see what's below the fold on the newspaper as Doc shakes it, but one headline ends with the words "cancer cure." Cancer is of course not yet cured, but studies about cancer run in newspapers pretty well daily. Let's say a 2/10, since we're left to assume the rest of the headline is something pretty sensational. The other story is about "auto rebels" forming some sort of organization, but since I have no clue what it's about, we won't score that one.
A cure for cancer?: 2/10
Doc freaks out about the almanac and we see a trash robot called a Litter Bug moving around, with arrows pointing to the hole at the top where people are supposed to place garbage. These don't exist so far as I know, but it doesn't seem technologically impossible. It's sort of like an outdoor Roomba, with a garbage can on top.
The Litter Bug: 3/10
On the wall nearby we see a billboard that reads "Surf Vietnam." Tourism is indeed an important industry to Vietnam today, with 2014 seeing an all-time high in visitors and the U.S. supplying the most tourists from outside Asia, according to government data compiled on Wikipedia. People today might be more interested in the food than the surf, but the natural beauty, including of course Vietnam's many beaches, is a big part of the draw. This would have been unthinkable in an era where the country was still synonymous with its long war, so this is one of the cases where Back to the Future Part II absolutely nailed it.
Vietnam tourism: 10/10
As Jennifer is taken away by the police, Doc looks at the traffic report on a nearby sign. The sign describes some other things, such as the direction of the wind, the humidity and other stuff I can't comprehend, and also an ozone rating. Much like acid rain, the ozone is an environmental concern we don't focus on too much anymore, so that gets a 2/10.
Ozone reports: 2/10
Now we're at Marty and Jennifer's home and the cops get Jennifer inside by placing her thumb against a touchscreen. This technology certainly exists in some form, but I've never seen it on the front door of a home. Certainly it hasn't replaced regular house keys, and we know that Marty and Jennifer don't live in a good neighbourhood, so there's no reason to believe they'd have household items that aren't relatively common. There's also no doorknob, which is something I really can't imagine. We start out visiting their Hilldale home by giving this a 2/10.
Thumbprint entry at your front door: 2/10
The cops have glowing batons (I don't suppose those work like Tasers!) and digital displays on their hats. Pretty ridiculous, and their uniforms look a bit too much like what you'd expect from a flight attendant, but they look like cops otherwise. Their car, while capable of flight and as swoopy as most of the rest of the vehicles in the film, actually looks reasonably close to what police cars look like today, too.
Hill Valley police, circa 2015: 3/10
We hear the cops refer to "tranks" and "getting tranked" in this scene, as in tranquilize (and presumably tranquilizers). I haven't heard this in the vernacular so no, 1/10.
Everybody's getting tranked: 1/10
As Jennifer pulls herself together on the couch, we see a broadcast of the Scenery Channel projected against a window blind. People don't project images on the wall in place of a window like this, but in a world where you can watch a burning log on TV at Christmas, the channel itself could exist.
Scene Screens replacing windows in the living room: 3/10
Marty's daughter comes down the stairs and we get a look at her outfit: a pastel puffy shirt, a flashy skirt and a chunky belt with big music notes on it. Ignoring the fact that this is Michael J. Fox in a skirt, this doesn't look especially out of place. With that being said, this would be thought of today as a decidedly '80s look, although not altogether out of fashion. (As an aside, Marty's daughter is referred to as Marlene in the deleted scenes, but I don't think they ever call her by name in the film so I'll follow suit and keep calling her Marty's daughter.)
Marty's daughter's fashion: 6/10
Lorraine and George visit and we see George McFly is held aloft upside-down to help with his bad back. I've never seen anyone flying upside down, no matter what their back is like.
George McFly's floating chiropractic thing: 1/10
We also see George is wearing two watches. George is pushing 80 at this point so he's not necessarily up with the times, but how many people today wear one watch, let alone two?
Two watches: 1/10
Biff gets out of a cab, which is decked out in several different colours of paint and has ridges on the roof, and the cabbie, wearing an enormous hat and with a parrot on his shoulder, charges him $174.50. Biff pays by placing his thumb against a portable touchpad. This is actually several different things here at once, but they're all equally ridiculous, so the whole scene gets a 1/10. If only the filmmakers tried to predict Uber, they might have scored some much needed points here.
2015 cabs, in their entirety: 1/10
In the kitchen we see what appears to be a hydroponic garden descend from the ceiling. I've never seen anything like this, and it seems ridiculous that the McFlys would devote the room above the kitchen to housing this thing, but urban gardening is more common in parts of the world today than in the 1980s, so let's charitably give this a 4/10.
The descending Garden Center: 4/10
Marty Jr. notices Jennifer's pants and then goes to the TV. The TV is as wide as Marty Jr. is tall, but it's thin and mounted on the wall. Marty Jr. puts six channels on the screen at once by voice control, the highest being number 247. Now, this TV is very large, but it wouldn't raise my eyebrows if I saw this in a lower-middle class home today. The sort of mosaic view Marty Jr. is using isn't often used in this way, but people will sometimes do this to watch multiple sporting events at once. And indeed, while this sort of voice control isn't common, it's not science fiction either. It's certainly possible a family like the McFlys might splurge to be on the cutting edge when it comes to watching TV. One of the channels shows a commercial for some sort of breast augmentation (yes, more of this) and Marty Jr. later remarks about the Atrocity Channel. While those two things might seem a bit much, there is a lot more explicit content broadcast on TV today than in 1989. The only hard-to-believe thing here might be that a kid of Marty Jr.'s age even cares to watch TV. Easily one of the better predictions in the movie, this gets a 10/10.
The McFlys' giant wall-mounted TV, in all its splendour: 10/10
Marty Sr. comes home (wearing two ties, but we won't ding the movie for that twice) and is greeted by digitized speech from one of the home's systems. He then adjusts something called "Lithium Mode" on a device against the wall. The movie is vague about just what is happening here, but it seems like Marty is interacting with a smart themostat, which most certainly is an existing technology. The Nest thermostat, for example, can be controlled remotely and via voice commands. These might not be commonplace, and certainly not in old houses like the McFlys', but we have to be generous sometimes. Another 10/10 for the movie.
Perhaps related and perhaps not, we see panels around the walls of the home with displays showing different graphs and lights, and eventually a pair of air tanks against the bottom of a wall. There's no way to know what the air tanks are about, but we'll assume those display panels are part of the smart thermostat system.
Smart thermostats, presumably: 10/10
Marty (1985 Marty, that is) is lured away from the DeLorean by the sight of a passing dog, walked by what appears to be a low-flying drone. Dog walkers remain human today, but drone technology could conceivably automate this eventually. Still, this is as much a sci-fi thing today as it was then, so 2/10.
Robotic dog-walking drones: 2/10
We also get a look at a futuristic white-panelled bicycle in a neighbouring driveway. (We briefly saw one near the courthouse, but this is a better angle.) We don't know if it flies, but it doesn't look much like any regular bicycle you'd see today.
The bike of the future: 4/10
This is also a good time to examine the neon lights everywhere outside the McFly house. Each of the Hilldale homes has strips of neon light on the exterior, and there are neon bars on the curbs on the street. Is this all to help flying cars to see obstacles at night, like warning lights atop skyscrapers? Is it the latest architectural fad? There's no way to know, but it's not something we see here in 2015.
There's also what appears to be a communal garbage area in the neighbourhood, with trash receptacles and bundles of garbage. I'd love to get a much closer look at this and see if there's really anything futuristic, but as it stands it seems like just a place where people take their garbage bags, which isn't so much a prediction for the future as just recognizing the need to take out the trash.
Neon neighbourhood: 1/10
Lorraine opens up a tiny silver packet containing a pie from Pizza Hut, places it in a hydrator and a few seconds later the pizza comes out fully cooked and full size. This is a movie with flying cars and giant holographic sharks and the thing that impressed me the most as a kid by far was the expanding pizza - but even today it's still just a wild idea.
Hydrated expanding pizza: 1/10
As the family sits down for dinner, Marty and Jennifer's kids are both wearing large sunglasses that appear to work as video screens - we see the home phone is hooked up to them, and a deleted scene clarifies that Marty Jr. is in fact watching TV on his glasses. Things like Google Glass exist today so this technology is real, but it's not the sort of thing you'd see two teenagers sitting around the dinner table wearing. 6/10 because while implausible, this could conceivably happen.
Those kids with those head things: 6/10
As Marty Sr. talks to Lorraine, we see a large device behind them bolted to the wall labelled Master Cook. It has a large screen and appears to display recipes. This could exist in theory, but I can't imagine someone having something so bulky in their kitchen, especially in the age of smartphones.
Master Cook: 3/10
Marty Sr. talks to Needles on the big screen while personal details about Needless pass at the bottom of the TV. The idea of video phones didn't pan out the way people might have envisioned in the 1980s, with things like Skype based on the Internet, but the fundamentals of what we see on the screen do exist. I'll give this a 7/10, as the tech is right but the implementation is off.
Video phones: 7/10
During the call Marty Sr. scans a card, about the size of a credit card, in a bulky but portable machine as part of some dirty deed Needles has talked him into. Online shopping and banking are very common today and both require the use of cards, but nobody I know has the means to scan them in their own homes.
In-home credit card scanning: 2/10
Ito Fujitsu immediately calls Marty Sr. afterward to tell him he has been fired. I'd like to think Mr. Fujitsu comes from a cyberpunk Neo Tokyo in 2015 where people are named after Japanese companies like Nissan, Nico Nico and Lotteria, but the filmmakers have admitted that naming him Fujitsu, which is not a last name but the name of a company, was a mistake. Fujitsu sends Marty faxes reading "YOU'RE FIRED!" to at least three fax machines around the den.
It's funny how the movie gets the idea right but the execution all wrong: We're much more connected today than 26 years ago, but almost no one would have a fax machine in their home anymore, let alone several.
Faxes, faxes everywhere: 3/10
The last new thing we see in 2015 is old Jennifer meeting her younger self and other than a big pink oval on her wrist presumably meant to be a futuristic watch (a smart watch?) her clothes aren't really notable, probably because she's in the movie so briefly and we're not meant to be distracted by her appearance. I'd score this higher but this watch seriously looks like something out of the Jetsons.
Old Jennifer's clothes: 5/10
With that Marty, Doc, Jennifer and Einstein are soon back in 1985, which itself is another really cool part of the film, but there's nothing left to compare there. So how did the movie do? The filmmakers might think they got about half their predictions right, but our final score is 305/800, or just over 38 per cent. But if we're going to continue to be generous, I can pretend 38 per cent qualifies as Robert Zemeckis's "about 50 per cent." Hardly perfect work, but who can say they'd really do better?
Thanks for reading, and if you like what you read or want to tell me what an idiot I am, my email address is justin@meetjustinholmes.com. See you in the future - hopefully we'll have flying cars by then!
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