Six Back to the Future Innovations We’re Still Waiting For

Anyone who is anyone has seen Back to the Future. You’ve seen the weird gadgets that were invented by the “Doc” and used by Marty McFly. But we can’t help but wonder where some of those gadgets that were dreamt up have been in our lives. We haven’t seen many of them yet. But we want them — we are still waiting.

So here’s a recap of some of the most memorable innovations from Back to the Future II:

1. Cars that Fly

The DeLorean is a staple of the movie’s success. But when they gave it wings, with its nuclear propulsion system and the necessary 1.21 gigawatts of energy to propel the car into time travel, the car became an emphatic view of the future we all envision: one with flying cars that don’t need roads. While there have been successful (and unsuccessful) tests of flying cars, we still don’t see them in the sky, which is utterly disappointing!

2. Fast Food, Really Fast

The hydrator machine was something that was easily forgettable, but not for a hungry guy like me who loves his pizza. The hydrator cooked up a pizza in mere seconds, revealing a yummy, cheesy, delicious delight that was too good to be true. While today’s microwave is fine and dandy, I think we really want our hydrators instead.

3. Weather With Accuracy

I don’t know about you, but I don’t trust weather forecasts — for the most part, they seem to be horribly inaccurate, and I seemingly do much better than professional meteorologists when taking a look at weather maps (okay, I’m bragging). But in the future, as it was envisioned in Back to the Future, we have extremely accurate weather forecasts that get it right to second. How amazing is that? Is it too much to ask for to have a little bit more accuracy?

4. From Wet to Dry

Speaking of the weather, remember when McFly’s vest automatically dried itself after the rain scene? That was impressive. And while I don’t think it is necessary to have all our clothes upgraded with auto-drying technology, it would be nice to have raincoats and jackets with a solution to going from wet to dry very quickly — perhaps without the dramatic blow-dryer effect.

5. Skateboarding, Without the Skates

But one of the coolest devices in the movie is, without question, the hoverboard. Granted, I would have been happy with a different color (or perhaps the kick-ass “Pitbull”), but the hoverboard that McFly managed to get his hands on was wicked cool. While there have been attempts at this sort of thing, it just isn’t the same as what was portrayed in the movie. But we are sure that one day we will see hoverboards. It’s only a question of when.

6. Breaking the Space-Time Continuum

Finally, the most important and problematic invention of the movie was the Doc’s discovery of time travel and the flux capacitor. Time travel is the one thing that truly might be impossible to ever be developed, but it is the ultimate power that anyone could ask for. While we won’t be visiting 1885 anytime soon, it is still a nice to think that, one day, we might be able to experience the past or future anytime we wanted.

[Images Courtesy of Universal Pictures]