SEATTLE - It was 1989. Part two of the time travel trilogy, Back to the Future, sent star Michael J. Fox all the way to the year 2015. Now that that once-distant date is finally upon us, let's take a look at how things turned out, with a little help from Seattle futurist Glen Hiemstra, founder of the Futurist.com website.
First, the wild predictions that actually came true.
For instance, the sort of fingerprint scanning now available on mobile devices was first featured in a scene where one of the characters unlocks her front door.
Hiemstra said, "They really got a lot right."
Robots may not be gassing up our cars as the movie depicts, but here in the real 2015 Amazon just purchased a whole fleet to use around the warehouse, and drones of every type are beginning to take flight.
Virtual reality? We got that. Smart traffic signs? Ditto.
How about video phone calls? Yes. These days we call that Facetime or Skype.
"It was a future prediction which we all anticipated and now we actually have it," Hiemstra said.
A huge, wall-mounted TV screen featured in the movie was just a fantasy 25 years ago.
Hiemstra said, "We didn't really have flat screens yet."
The invention that captured so many young moviegoers' imaginations, the hoverboard, is finally here, although the real-life version currently in development
requires a specially built metal surface.
Hiemstra said, "You hover an inch off the ground and you can move in all directions."
Some predictions missed the mark.
We're still waiting for a personal fusion machine like the one in the film. Dust-repellent paper has also yet to arrive. But we've already surpassed some of the movie's wildest expectations.
For example, the filmmakers seemed to anticipate a 2015 full of futuristic-looking public phone kiosks.
"They had a lot of them," noted Hiemstra.
And, in the movie, fax machines are everywhere.
It turns out, we have the internet and mobile devices instead. The filmmakers didn't see that coming.
Hiemstra said, "They missed the cell phone completely."
Makes you wonder what 2040 has in store.
