Editor’s Note: In honor of October 21st, a look at what Back to the Future got right … and wrong.
Future Week keeps on ticking. In honor of the 30th anniversary of Back to the Future, we’ll be celebrating the entire time-traveling trilogy with features throughout the week. On Monday, Senior Editor Matt Melis explored how the series’ extensive use of product placement helped make the films instant classics. Today, the film staff takes an exhaustive look at the trilogy’s inventive technology and tries to connect them to reality.
When you scrape away all the heart and soul out of the Back to the Future trilogy, and there’s a lot of that tasty, gooey stuff, you’re left with a shiny heap of ingenuity. Director Robert Zemeckis, screenwriter Bob Gale, and production designers Lawrence G. Paull and Rick Carter really connected together to carve out a vision of the future that was both marvelous and accurate. What’s more, they had to convince their audiences that Doctor Emmett Brown was not only a brilliant man of purpose but an unprecedented genius.
Most would agree they succeeded on all counts. Together, the three films sparkle from a bold concoction of magic and science that never looks too hokey or out of touch. And here we are, 30 breezy years later, already playing with some of the toys that were once considered impossible or out of reach. It’s puzzling, to say the least, that so much time has gone by, yet even more mind-blowing at how accurate Zemeckis and co. were back in the late ’80s. One might even argue they did a little time traveling themselves.
It’s time for you to do the same. That’s why we’ve assembled this chronological history of all the technology seen in the Back to the Future universe — from archaic ice machines to automated dog walkers! Mind you, we skipped the gadgets and wizardry of the Telltale Game from a few years back, and also left out whatever popped up in the ’90s animated series. Instead, we focused on the silver screen trinkets that so many fans have pined for over the past few decades. So, get your time circuit on and your flux capacitor fluxing….
–Michael Roffman
Editor-in-Chief
Ice Maker
After a long day of smithin’, gun fighting with Mad Dog Tannen, and saving Mary Steenburgen from plunging train-first into a ravine, who wouldn’t want to come home to a cold one or seven?
Year Designed
1885 (though commercial ice makers became available as early as the 1870s)
Inventor
Doctor Emmett Brown
Usefulness
Turn that hot tea into an ice tea. Build yourself an igloo. It’d be nice if the machine didn’t take up half the house, though. More than one cube at a time would be swell, too.
Did It Happen? Would It Work?
Mother Nature’s been doing it for ages. Columbus Iron Works made this convenience available to the public in the late 19th century. Motel owners have been utilizing this technology to keep guests awake all night long ever since.
–Matt Melis
Frisbee
Ultimate frisbee? Something like that. What starts out as a quirky sight gag — see video above — turns into another trademark tag back in the Back to the Future universe as Marty McFly readily tosses the dirty pie pan at Mad Dog Tannen’s gun. He saves Doc’s life and inevitably tips off the start of an extreme college sport and the ultimate joy of infinite poochinskis for years to come.
Year Designed
1885 (prototype); 1938 (officially)
Inventor
Marty McFly; later by Fred Morrison
Usefulness
For recreation. For fun.
Did It Happen? Would It Work?
Are you blind, McFly? Have you ever been to a beach? Or a college campus? Better yet, ask your local pooch.
–Michael Roffman
The Breakfast Machine
Just because your DeLorean time machine gets accidentally struck by lightning and sends you back to 1885 after you’ve defeated Biff and restored the space-time continuum to its rightful order doesn’t mean you can just skip the most important meal of the day. So, how do ya like your eggs, sailor?
Year Designed
1885
Inventor
Doctor Emmett Brown
Usefulness
Well, it’s an upgrade over the original breakfast machine (aka mom) in that you don’t have to thank it afterwards. Let’s be honest, though. If you’re a teen like Marty, you’re gonna sleep through your machine-made breakfast and just grab a Poptart anyway. And after that machine slaved over a hot itself all morning. Kids, sheesh.
Did It Happen? Would It Work?
Yes. Pee-Wee Herman perfected the breakfast machine in 1985.
–Matt Melis
Wake Up Juice
Drink too much as a result of heartbreak? Not good at holding your liquor? Knocked out cold from one little shot? Well has the Wild West got something you. Wake-Up Juice! Made from the spiciest, nastiest ingredients, to help you overcome whatever it is that ails you. Wake-Up Juice: May be deadly in 2015!
Year Designed
>1885
Inventor
Chester the Bartender
Usefulness
Well, it woke the Doc up, but it didn’t quite cure his broken heart.
Did It Happen? Would It Work?
Oh, there are so many hangover cures these days. A Bloody Mary. Greasy brunches. Wake-Up Juice is in the belly of the burdened.
–Blake Goble
The Bulletproof Vest
Oh sure, this “bulletproof vest” is just a stovetop refurbished and strung around Marty’s neck, but the thing stopped a bullet from Mad Dog Tannen. Who knew you could learn so much from watching Clint Eastwood films. Well, if you watched them, and utilize their tricks in the past, today, this likely wouldn’t work.
Year Designed
1885
Inventor
Marty McFly (underwritten by Clint Eastwood)
Usefulness
Well, not only did it prevent Marty from getting shot, but it made for a hell of a blackjack. Perhaps we should all conceal and carry stovetops with us in self-defense?
Did It Happen? Would It Work?
The bulletproof vest is very much a common form of protective clothing, and it seems to work. Better than chainmail.
–Blake Goble
