Back to the Future Predictions That Became Reality (or Not)

Remember Back to the Future Part II? That 1989 sci-fi flick where Marty McFly zips around in a flying DeLorean with his pockets turned inside out? Well, turns out those movie folks weren’t just making stuff up for laughs. Some of their wild predictions about the future actually became our boring everyday reality. These days, we’re all doing video calls like it’s no big deal – just ask the 80% of workers who spend their days staring at coworkers’ faces on screens.

The movie threw a bunch of crazy tech ideas at us, stuff that seemed about as realistic as Doc Brown’s time machine back then. But here’s the funny part – we’re actually using some of these things now. Those fingerprint scanners? Yeah, we’ve got those on our phones now. Though, I’m still waiting for my self-lacing Nikes to show up in the mail.

The really impressive part isn’t just the gadgets they got right. It’s almost like the writers had their own time machine hidden somewhere. Let me walk you through the coolest predictions that jumped from movie magic to “guess I need to charge that thing again” reality. At least we don’t have to worry about accidentally erasing ourselves from existence while using any of this stuff. Let’s go down the list of Back to the Future predictions that became a reality.

Flat Screen Televisions

In 1989, every television had a bulging backside so big that the TV was sometimes deeper behind it than the damn screen length in the front. These heat-generating monstrosities would attract your pet cat to sit on top of it to keep warm in the winter. They were so heavy that Sylvester Stallone used one as a weapon in Demolition Man. Dials, switches or buttons would be next to the screen, wasting even more space. But not in the McFly household. Marty McFly Jr stands in front a huge, thin television that hung on the wall like a picture frame. This prediction was the most astonishing, as it looks exactly how televisions turned out to be. No buttons are visible as well, a modern day inconvenience that I wish would make a comeback.

Although flat-screens seem great now (and certainly saved my back and knees from carrying the old heavy ones up the stairs) but there are always downsides. That extra space that was saved? It just makes it more convenient for your pets to swirl around it like a playground jungle gym and cause the paper-thin TV to fall down and smash into modern-day trash. The days of simply pressing the “on” button are over, since it’s often behind the television or not there are all. Plus, so-called “smart” TVs can’t even remember to stay on the channel or HDMI output you left it on last time.

In 1989, I never would have predicted that my television from the future would have to be connected to the internet, and demand I sign up for a Roku or an Amazon account, followed by my name, address, and credit card number. Leave these details out, and your fancy new boob-tube is now a 72-inch paperweight that consumes power. Let’s not forget the “privacy policy”, which grants the device permission to record your data and spy on you with the remote’s built-in microphone. Might as well go full-blast and make it a Telescreen from Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Voice Commands for Electronics

When we see Marty McFly Jr use the idiot box, he feeds it vocal commands like it’s his servant. It’s actually astonishing how many futuristic movies used this concept, and yet it took so long for a reliable device to make use of this. Movies like Minority Report and Demolition Man have also predicted these features. It seems so effortless and convenient, yet today we have to prefix every command with “Alexa”, “Siri”, or most frighteningly, “Google”. Using voice controls these days is like summoning the gods of the big-tech companies that know everything we do, from how dark we like our toast, to how often we touch our private parts. It’s a shame that voice commands can’t simply help us without a spoonful of “spying”. Hey Siri! Delete my data and stop selling it to marketers!

Digital Money

Why walk around with credit cards or (gasp!) untraceable paper money when you can just pay with your fingerprint? In Back to the Future Part II, the bad guy pays for his cab ride with his fingerprint, which is comically $174.50. Although we have had credit cards and PayPal for a long time, these days we can use Apple Pay or Google Pay or even Bitcoin through our personal smartphone. This is a great idea, since now that your money is a part of the same device that has all of your personal information, getting the phone stolen or dropped to the bottom of a lake means that you are now totally screwed.

Although convenient, digital money becomes problematic when you tend to buy things, ahem, “under the table”. Those who think that all money should be digitized have seriously underestimated the amount of illegal transactions that take place, and I am not just talking about crack addicts or mobsters. Thanks to swap-meets, flea markets, or even selling stuff out of your garage means that Uncle Sam can shove his taxes where the sun don’t shine. But all of this is only possible as long as we don’t have to rely on digital money.

Stuff We Wish Would Come True

Sure, the future predictions of Back to the Future Part II that became reality are pretty sweet. But what is even sweeter are the once that did not become true. Let me give you some examples

Self-Fitting Clothes

Why, oh why, has no one sold and marketed self-tying shoes yet? Tying your shoes every morning sucks. You take a piece of string and tighten your shoes, as if it’s still the era of tightening girdles. This is the 21st century, and it is time to make my shoes need batteries. And why not? Even your books through your e-reader or phone need to be charged.

Don’t forget having to try on clothes to see if they fit you, thanks to every clothing manufacturer making the sizes slightly different. Will we ever be able to simply grab the item we need off the rack and just buy it? Or will we have to continue to try on twenty pairs of pants until we find the perfect one that fits right? No wonder so many people wear yoga pants to work like a true professional.

Dog-Walking Robots

Let’s be honest here: we love our pets until we have to clean up their poop. Dogs are especially bad, since they leave huge dumps and don’t particularly care where it lands while it falls out of their butt. In Back to the Future Part II, A drone can be seen going doing down the street as it walks the dog around the block. You should take note that the drone doesn’t have any sort of means to pick up or dispose of the dog’s excrement. But then again, humans tend to not pick it up neither and prefer to leave it on a neighbor’s lawn for good luck. Regardless, we need these damn robots.

How Back to the Future Shaped Our Tech Dreams

The folks behind Back to the Future Part II had quite a task ahead of them back in 1989. Armed with a modest $40 million budget (that’s like pocket change for today’s CGI-heavy blockbusters), they had to dream up what life would look like in 2015. Surprisingly enough, they didn’t do too shabby a job predicting our tech-obsessed future.

The movie’s vision of 2015

Rather than going full Star Trek with their vision, the creators took a pretty clever approach. Instead of plastering every scene with flashy computer screens (like most sci-fi movies love to do), they thought about how regular stuff from 1985 might naturally evolve. This led them to predict some pretty spot-on developments.

The movie didn’t stop at just gadgets and gizmos. They nailed bigger ideas too, like video calls becoming as normal as breathing (like in the movie The Island) and those massive wall-mounted TVs. They even got the whole fingerprint security thing right – though nowadays we’re using it more for unlocking our phones than our front doors.

The smart home stuff really takes the cake though. Voice-controlled everything and automated systems – sound familiar? Though I’m still waiting for that automatic food maker to descend from my kitchen ceiling. (My microwave just doesn’t have the same wow factor.)

Why these predictions mattered

Here’s where things get interesting. The movie ended up creating what the tech folks call a “self-fulfilling prophecy”. All those wide-eyed kids watching Marty McFly zip around on hoverboards? They grew up to become scientists and designers, probably still bitter about not having their own flying skateboard.

The genius part was how they made all this future tech seem totally normal and not scary at all. No killer robots or dystopian nightmares – just cool stuff that made life easier. Though, they did miss some pretty big boats – like the internet and smartphones. (Imagine trying to explain TikTok to someone from 1989.)

The movie’s real magic wasn’t in getting every prediction right – it was showing how technology sneaks into our daily lives without us even noticing. Sure, we’re not all cruising around in flying cars yet, but at least we’ve moved past those awful fax machines. Though sometimes I wonder if Doc Brown’s DeLorean might have been more reliable than my smart home system when it’s having one of its moments.