On October 26, 1985, Doc Brown took Marty McFly to the future which happens to be today: October 21st, 2015. Around the world people are celebrating “Back to the Future Day” with various references from the 1989 blockbuster hit, Back to the Future II. Naturally a lot of guessing took place in how to depict what the world would look like 30 years in the future (the film took place in 1985 for those that didn’t already know), let’s see how well the writers did with their guesswork.
Back to the Future of Fashion
The most easily identifiable prediction was the clothing everyone was wearing in BTTF‘s 2015 but unfortunately (or fortunately?) it was sort of hit and miss. Marty McFly rocks the self-drying bomber jacket, jeans with the pockets inside out, and self-tying shoes for his foray into the future.
Marty
The bomber jacket has survived the test of time staying fashionable for men but also for women. The self-drying part is less spot on since the actual quick-dry technology is less of McFly’s built-in dryer/water vacuum and more like moisture wicking fabric, which might be cooler overall. The auto-adjusting part is also still a manual process rather than a built-in feature.
Jeans: still in. Even though we’re in a strangely mixed era of skinny jeans, jeggings, and 
what are now considered “retro jeans.” Coincidentally these “retro jeans” would probably be considered “mom jeans” to McFly. However, we still wear our pockets correctly and not inside out.
The self tying shoe style is eerily accurate as shoe fashion has evolved from standard high top sneakers to Air Force One style to more of McFly’s Air Force One Boot style (which actually peaked back in 2007, so he’s a little late on that trend). Also, rainbow hats are more than fashionable, though the other hats in the movie are waaaay off.
Doc Brown
Doc Brown cooly navigates 2015 in a long, mustard yellow long coat, matching pants, a red shirt with Japanese symbols, and a plastic transparent tie. The suit isn’t terribly far off in current fashion trends and the shirt definitely would not draw any questions. The transparent tie is the part that doesn’t match up with current necktie trends, although they shockingly do exist.
Everyone Else
Biff, Griff, and the gang could definitely pass as cosplayers (and not as themselves) for a
convention, but in the normal day to day scene, we haven’t quite gotten up to helmets, chainmail, and other assorted body armor. The facial markings not so much a thing, unless you’re a huge Kiss fan, at a fair, or a Juggalo/Juggalette. While there are some wicked cool ways to tie neckties nowadays, wearing more than one at a time definitely hasn’t caught on yet.
Back to the Future of Technology
Hoverboard
The hoverboard has definitely been on a geek’s ultimate wishlist, unfortunately the scientists and inventors over the last 25 years have not quite figured out how to get boards to legitimately hover. We get fairly close with things the Lexus Hoverboard but it uses magnets and requires a special surface to travel on or the Omni Hoverboard which uses propellers. Otherwise we have the Smart Segway which is just a two wheeled platform of panic-inducing battery operated travel.
Self Tying Shoes
Again, no self tying shoes…or are there? Nike sent Michael J. Fox a letter today saying not only that they’ve developed the technology but also that they are sending the first pair to him.
The letter I received from Tinker today. Thanks @Nike pic.twitter.com/UIolXrkUVC
— Michael J. Fox (@realmikefox) October 21, 2015
Television
Televisions were also giant and thin in BTTF‘s rendition of 2015 and they were pretty spot on, with a 100″ TV from Samsung currently holding the record for the world’s largest TV screen. Though current 3D technology doesn’t quite give us the pop out shark that tries to eat you from a movie advertisement. We still need special TV’s and glasses to view things in the third dimension.
Hands Free Video Games And Video Glasses
Speaking of other dimensions, Marty’s hands-free video gaming broke the fourth wall and we definitely have the technology today with devices like Oculus Rift and other Virtual Reality devices. They’re not quite in every household as the technology is fairly new, but it’s there and well on its way to being just as good if not better than Marty had it back in his version of 2015.
Marty’s kids also all had video glasses, if nothing more than to cause trouble. Google Glass absolutely qualify as video glasses, although the Glass project is viewed as a major failure and has very limited use mostly among IT professionals and techie adults. Definitely far too expensive for some loud mouth kids to be running around with on other people’s lawns.
Video Conference Calls
Other video features like the video conference calls have actually surpassed BTTF‘s estimations as video calls. Not only are video conferences available in a desktop/TV situation, but we’ve graduated beyond the limitations of needing a TV screen and instead we can do mobile video conferences on our phones with features like FaceTime and Hangouts.
News Drones
While USA Today still exists, they don’t have drones flying around to capture newsworthy things (they even have a little tribute to the movie on their front page today). In fact at the moment no media outlet has drones being used for that purpose, though drones do exist and 15 major media outlets are researching the prospect of using news drones.
Back to the Future of Pop Culture
Doc Brown took Marty to Cafe 80’s and gave him a $50 bill to get a soda – Pepsi Perfect. 
Thankfully inflation hasn’t completely skyrocketed and sodas are only a few dollars, but Pepsi Perfect is only around as a limited time thing in honor of BTTF.
Jaws 19…not a thing. The Jaws franchise only went to Jaws: Revenge, the fourth movie and it aired in 1987. Apparently the writers for BTTF were a little over enthusiastic on how good it was. But they didn’t predict the next Star Wars movie. Go figure. Though Universal Pictures were good sports and put out this fake trailer:
And probably the hottest Back to the Future II prediction: The Chicago Cubs winning the World Series. Hilariously, the Cubs have made it to the National League Championship this year, a feat that has been done by them in 2003, 1989, and 1984. The last time they saw a World Series was in 1945, but the last time they won a World Series was in 1908. Right now they need to win the next four games of the seven game series to make it to the World Series. With how the rest of the predictions from Back to the Future II went, it could go either way.
Did any of the 2015 predictions surprise you? If you were Marty McFly would you go with Doc Brown to go back into the future? Let us know in the comments!
[button type=”link” link=”http://backtothefuture.wikia.com/wiki/Clothing” variation=”btn-danger” target=”blank”]Source: Back to the Future Wikia[/button]Last Updated on November 27, 2018.
