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
Flying Time Machine Train
In the grand, heartfelt finale of Back to the Future Part III, Doc Brown connects with Marty in 1985 in perhaps the grandest fashion of all. A large, Willy Wonka and Jules Verne-esque miracle machine: a flying train time machine. It’s a miracle invention, a beautifully designed and articulated vessel, that speaks to the spirit of adventure and invention.
Year Designed
Some time after 1885…
Inventor
Emmett Lathrop “Doc” Brown, Ph.D.
Usefulness
Sure, a flying train time machine is really cool and stuff, but there’s a serious lack of practicality to the whole thing.
Did It Happen? Would It Work?
No. Never. We’re not crushing dreams here, just, it’s so much!
–Blake Goble
Mind Reader
The mind reader was the latest in a long series of failed inventions at the time Marty met Doc in 1955. How’d it work? Suction cup to the head connected by wires to a metal jungle gym-looking helmet. By far the Doc’s creepiest contraption.
Year Designed
1955
Inventor
Doctor Emmett Brown
Usefulness
If it worked, it would apparently be a great way to weed out paperboys and those collecting donations for the Coastguard Youth Auxiliary. As it stands, it’s a questionable piece of 1950s fashion headwear.
Did It Happen? Would It Work?
Thought identification is a rapidly growing field of research. In 2008, an Indian woman was even convicted of murder after a brain scan allegedly revealed she had knowledge of the crime. Are we really that far away from being found guilty of committing thoughtcrimes? Again, creepy.
–Matt Melis
Flux Capacitor
We all know that it’s what makes time travel possible. How it works? Well, you’ll either have to ask the Doc or fall off your toilet and hit your head on the sink while hanging a clock to find out. Time circuits on!
Year Designed
Conceived (November 5th, 1955); Realized (1985)
Inventor
Doctor Emmett Brown
Usefulness
Sure, it’d be great to see the future, live beyond our years, and see the progress of mankind, but as we all know, the road to Biff Tannen’s Pleasure Paradise is paved with noble intentions. Best embrace the present.
Did It Happen? Would It Work?
Mankind has likely always dreamed of traveling through time. However, the concept of a time machine was first thrust into the mainstream imagination in 1895 by author H.G. Wells’ sci-fi novel The Time Machine. Over a century later, we’re still waiting and struggling to think 4th dimensionally.
–Matt Melis
Skateboard
Why was Marty McFly so obsessed with that damn 4×4? The kid had some sick moves on the skateboard, enough that he could break off a rudimentary wooden scooter and impress all of Hill Valley’s Class of 1956 by rolling around their town square, dodging Biff Tannen’s goons, and even taking out a poor government secretary. Who the hell needs a Toyota when you can do that? And who the hell is John F. Kennedy?
Year Designed
1955 (Hill Valley); 1944 (France)
Inventor
Marty McFly (Hill Valley); The French (according to Betty Magnuson)
Usefulness
“I feel like skateboarding is as much of a sport as a lifestyle, and an art form, so there’s so much that that transcends in terms of music, fashion, and entertainment.” –Tony Hawk
Did It Happen? Would It Work?
You bet your ass it did. Although no one knows for sure who created the first deck, the aforementioned Magnuson claimed to have seen French children in Paris’ Montmartre section riding on boards with roller skate wheels attached to them as early as 1944. By the ’50s, however, California surf shop owner Bill Richard had already started commissioning the sleek boards for what was then considered “sidewalk surfing.” The rest is history, man.
–Michael Roffman
DeLorean Time Machine
“You built a time machine? Out of a DeLorean?” “The way I see it, if you’re gonna build a time machine into a car, why not do it with some style?” How right you were, Doc. By using John DeLorean’s uncanny frame, the film’s signature invention not only looked sleek but also resembled something extraterrestrial, which best explains why the Peabodys lost their shit when Marty drove it through their barn that early November morning in 1955. Eventually, the DMC-12 would be reconfigured with a number of upgrades, from hovering capabilities to nuclear sustainability (see: Mr. Fusion).
Inventor
You’re the doc, Doc.
Usefulness
The three films accurately depict the wonders and dangers of time travel. While it would be useful to see the past and prepare for the future, any changes could, as Doc warns Marty, “create a time paradox, the results of which could cause a chain reaction that would unravel the very fabric of the space time continuum, and destroy the entire universe!” Yeah, pretty heavy.
Did It Happen? Would It Work?
Would we ever know? That’s the real trip. According to renown genius Stephen Hawking, there’s a possibility for time travel using potential wormholes, as he states: “I do believe in time travel. Time travel to the future. Time flows like a river and it seems as if each of us is carried relentlessly along by time’s current. But time is like a river in another way. It flows at different speeds in different places and that is the key to traveling into the future. This idea was first proposed by Albert Einstein over 100 years ago. He realised that there should be places where time slows down, and others where time speeds up. He was absolutely right. And the proof is right above our heads. Up in space.” Read his full analysis here and start packing.
–Michael Roffman
