FILM fans across the world are celebrating one of the most iconic dates in cinema history today – the day Marty McFly went Back to the Future.
In the second instalment of the Robert Zemeckis trilogy, McFly and inventor Doctor Emmett Brown land their DeLorean on Wednesday, October 21, 2015, entering a world of flying transport, automated cafés and, of course, hoverboards.
To quote Doc Brown: “Great Scott” indeed.
Screenings of the 1989 movie are set to take place around Scotland, including the Edinburgh Film House and the country-wide Cineworld chain.
Meanwhile, a showing of all three films at Haddo House, near Aberdeen, will come complete with a DeLorean and cowboys from the third instalment.
But while fans revel in the fiction, “future narrator” Anne Lise Kjaer, founder of trend forecasting agency Kjaer Global, claims the vision presented by Zemeckis is not too far off today’s fact.
Examples include McFly’s “smart” self-drying jacket, his digital shades, the use of multiple screens for media and communication, and even using thumb prints to pay for taxi rides.
Speaking to Newsweek, she said tech-integrated clothing, the rise of digital devices and increasing connectivity are all forecasted in the film.
Kjaer said: “Of course, when they did this film, the internet wasn’t big. They have all the right ideas, with the flat tablet, the thumbprint biometric.
“We have smart materials that are already self-drying. All of this about voice-control channel, multiple screens, then of course the Glass technology – they sit around the table and they have the eyewear already.”
However, Glen Hiemstra, founder of futurist.com, said not every idea was accurate.
He said: “The number one thing they got wrong was the dominance of fax machines in 2015.
“That’s characteristic of a common forecasting pitfall, which is to overestimate the importance of something that is dominant in the current time.
“Fax machines were relatively new in the late 80s. So if you remember when Marty’s getting fired, there’s a fax coming in. And they refer to fax machines several times.
“Some time in the first 30 minutes, Marty and Doc walk past a mailbox out on the street.
“It has a big computer terminal and a sign that says: ‘Fax here.’ Faxes are still around but they aren’t in any way dominant.”
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