‘Back to the Future’ is Now

Certain aspects of the 1980s have recently invaded my life. First, there’s a vibrant-blue Members Only jacket (my favorite piece of new clothing) hanging in the closet already showing signs of wear and tear. Second, I’m knee-deep in Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One, a dystopian novel jam-packed with ‘80s references to Family Ties, the Pac-Man arcade game, WarGames, John Hughes, a Delorean, etc… Last, it’s October 21, 2015—when Marty McFly lands in the future. This means about 50,000 articles have already flooded the internet, scrutinizing what Back to the Future Part II got wrong and what it got right.

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You see, I’m a bit of a poseur ‘90s bitch because, somehow, I write for Project-Nerd and yet I’ve gone my entire life having never seen this classic trilogy. That is, until a week ago. For the past few days, my apartment has been ringing with the notes of Alan Silvestri’s iconic movie score, the brilliant raving of Dr. Emmett Brown, and the oft-repeated tone of Biff calling Marty a chicken.

Now I appreciate how awesome the Delorean really is as a time machine—it looks so sleek and futuristic! It’s probably the only thing in existence in which something called a Flux Capacitor could truly ever belong. And it’s absolutely one of the coolest time-traveling devices in pop culture, second only to the Tardis but a step above the Time Turner. I’m really looking forward to the Delorean’s return to the movies in Spielberg’s 2017 adaptation of Ready Player One; the movie will not be complete without it.

Additionally, since I’ve finally seen the future in these movies, I can say Back to the Future Part II did get a few things right. For one, the streets today in the real world actually are crowded with hipsters—many in bright colors and maybe even some tweaking, like Biff’s grandson and those in his gang. I can also say some things a few of us already know; I can say that hoverboards are a thing, Pepsi is selling 6,500 bottles of Pepsi Perfect for 20 bucks a pop, and the Cubs may actually win the 2015 World Series. No flying cars, though. Sad face.

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Yet at the end of Back to the Future Part III, Dr. Emmett Brown gives a perfect explanation as to why the October 2015 we saw in the movie isn’t like the one in our own world. Having returned to 1985 and fixing the damage they had done by time traveling in the first place, the Doc says, “Your future hasn’t been written yet. No one’s has.” It’s as if to say, “Now that the time continuum is restored, we’re free.”

Another thing I noticed that I wasn’t expecting during my time with the Back to the Future trilogy: the Delorean never leaves the fictional Californian town of Hill Valley. It travels among four different time periods—1885, 1955, 1985, a dystopian alternate 1985, and 2015—but never crosses town lines. I guess traveling in space would just have been too much to do in this spiraling quest to correct the time continuum.

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So in a way, it really is as though the McFlys and Dr. Brown are trapped by an imbalance in the flow of time. They’re trapped in toxic relationships with familiar villains, and they’re trapped in Hill Valley. When you think about it, the beauty of Back to the Future (along with the Delorean) is its gentle reminder that if we put our minds to it, we can go anywhere and do anything we want (within reason). In clichéd terms, the world is our oyster.

But in some of the last, immortal words we hear from the Doc, “Your future is whatever you make it, so make it a good one!”


RT is a TV and Film enthusiast, speculative fiction writer, and editor at Project-Nerd. Follow him on Twitter @RTBudhram!

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