Back to the Future Hoverboard and Fashions from 2015

For most of my life, it's been a point of fevered anticipation. I can remember being at a New Year party in 1999, cheering as the century launched anew into 2000. Someone called out, "Just fifteen years until the flying cars!" And a ripple of excitement passed through the crowd, like a Mexican wave of cheesy grins.

We knew it would happen. We'd all watched the Back to the Future series at very impressionable ages.

The countdown has continued in earnest since then.  Ten years, five years, science, what's keeping you?! Four years, three... Now 2015 is practically upon us and I don't see any flying cars in my sky.

So what else had we been led to expect would be upon us now?  Let's refresh our memories here with Marty McFly's arrival into his future.

Until you turn it over and realize that the devil is in the detail. This isn't a hoverboard. It's a cunning disguised electric skateboard.  It has wheels! This isn't the future as glimpsed by Marty McFly. It's merely merchandise inspired by the movies. *sigh*

So did nobody actually give us a proper hoverboard?  Yes! Yes, they did! Enter Mattel with a genuine, floating on the air kiddie craft for 2015!

A full-sized perfect replica of that which we saw Marty demonstrating, it also makes the appropriate whooshing noises. Absolutely perfectly detailed in every way, including the correct stickers as per the movie.

But...

There's always a but, isn't there?  And in this case the issue is weight. The hoverboard does indeed hover. It can even glide over certain surfaces. But not with anything actually placed on top of it.

In short, there is no way that you can escape the local bullies by hovering around the central square. You couldn't even meander around on it with your homies, as any self-respecting child should be by 2015.

It's for putting in a display cabinet, or posing with for photographs only. Disappointing.

To be fair, this wasn't too far out. I mean, I can see anyone passing muster today in those jeans and t-shirt. The jacket is unusual, but not too way out. I might look twice, though I'd not assume that I was eye-balling a time traveler. And I've definitely seen head-wear in those colors at the Glastonbury Festival.

Nevertheless, if we want to start a fashion revolution, in order to avoid some kind of paradox when Marty arrives, then we have the time and opportunity right now. The jacket and psychedelic baseball cap do exist.

Marty McFly's jacket from Back to the Future II did have some features that ours does not. It doesn't alter its own tailoring to fit our body for a start. Nor does it self dry, after being dunked into an ornamental pond.

I can't help feeling that 2015 is somewhat lacking from what we'd been led to believe. But the hat is exactly as advertised. Yay!

There's a huge silver lining in Back to the Future getting 2015 fashions so wrong. We're not all running around dressed like this:

There's been a tendency amongst those of my generation to think of Back to the Future like a documentary. These things were really going to happen to us. We were actually going to have hoverboards and flying cars by next year.

As the countdown turns to months rather than years, it appears that we were lied to. All of the items on sale are replicas inspired by the movie franchise, not everyday objects that we'd all enjoy.

Or perhaps the greatest coincidence occurred to trick everyone involved, including the theater-going public. Marty McFly arrived in the middle of a Back to the Future fan convention in 2015. That square was a replica based on the movie. Those people milling around were all cosplayers.

Now that's a paradox worthy of the fourth in the series. Time to script and film it, Mr Zemeckis!