Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Back to the Future Day

The day movie geeks like me have been preparing for has arrived. Nearly 26 years in the making as Back to the Future II was released in theaters November 1989. If you don't know the story you shouldn't bother reading any further.

A lot of movies about the future are distopias while BTFII had a brighter vision of the future. The movie gave us something to shoot for and something to believe in. We were going to have flying cars, cool glasses, hover boards, and smart houses. All of those came true though not in the way we expected and none of them are everyday items as shown in the film. Maybe in another 30 years.

There's another side of the whole Back to the Future thing and that's the personal side. Everyone has hopes and dreams and I was the same age as some of the characters when BTFII came out. I had so many ideas of what life in 2015 was going to be like. Like anyone I had good times and bad times leading up to today. I thought I was going to be a rock star like a lot of kids that age and like Marty. Well, I did finally complete that rock album I've been talking about doing since I was 4 years old (at least it seems that long). 2015 has been one of the greatest years of my life. Anyone close to knows my passion for music and this year I did three albums of different genres and a spoken word album. Jazz and classical also in the works. My musical career, check, that came true and like the technology it didn't come true as I thought it would in 1989 but it was as awesome as I had hoped. Poetry, well I dreamed of that too, and some how some way, I was going to publish a book. 2007 I published my first book and yesterday I celebrated the fifth anniversary of the second book with the third book coming soon. The one thing I didn't predict was writing fiction.

I expected to be rich and that one didn't come true, we all expected that, right? I'd like to be a full time writer and musician but that didn't come true. I am doing a lot of commercial work in music along with my own projects. As I look back though 2015 came out pretty much the way I thought it would back in the day. There were a lot of years it didn't look that way and far from it. I'm fortunate to still be around. That being said I'm happy with the way 2015 turned out. Now if I could have that 17 year old body back!

One thing I didn't predict then but was inspired by BTFII was my story “Zarna's Discovery.” That story is my view of the future and was inspired by Back to The Future.

A little comparison:of the technology dreamed up by the BTF writers:

No flying cars and in fact they are not much different than they were 26 years ago. They do have a combo airplane/ car but it's certainly not common place.

Smart houses are the new thing though no thumb print entry. Bio security was nothing new even in 89 being used in many Sci-Fi films. However, it isn't until 2015 that some of those technologies like the thumb print are starting to become common place. It's far from perfect as we saw last year with the iPhones on the day they came out hackers already got around it.

Holograms are still a work-in-progress and like Jaws 15 it still looks fake.

Hover boards are out there but cost $10K plus and have to have a special copper surface to work which is far from what the writers had in mind. I see them fading fast into a dream of the past.

Automatic dog walkers are still a thing of fiction as are neon curbs.

They never foresaw cellphones and the internet.

Well that's it. I'll leave you now so that I can celebrate Back to the Future day. It's a holiday that only comes once, today. So what's your Back to the Future story?