By Courtney Pappas ’16 | 

“Uh, Jennifer, um, I don’t know how to tell you this, but I… you’re in a time machine.”

“And this is the year ‘2015’?”

“October 21st, 2015.”

In the iconic movie “Back to the Future,” Marty McFly traveled 30 years into the future, which is now the present, of 2015. After decades of waiting to compare the film’s predictions to what would actually during that time, we have finally made it. Shockingly enough though, Marty McFly’s foretellings weren’t too far off from reality.

He indicated that TVs would be flat, which is what we see in basically every home today, on plasma screens. On the TVs he thought we would use them to video chat. While we may not video chat through the TV, the use of Skype and Oovoo has been used for the past 10 years through our computers, as well as the more recent FaceTime.  

McFly was also able to guess that we would create 3D images on the screen. Now 3D is seen in theaters, homes and in video games. The last prediction to come true was the use of drones.

Recently, drones have been used to film events such as live concerts from a bird’s-eye view angle. While hoverboards are not here as McFly predicted, they are in the process of becoming a reality. International Lexus launched a tester hoverboard in June.

The project took 18 months to create this floating skateboard. While the product is not complete and perfected yet, it is in the making. While his prediction for hoverboards was a few years shy, his other projections were much more accurate.

While McFly did have some good predictions, not everything could come true. When most people predict the future, they picture flying cars but in reality, what would be the benefit of that? It would just cause harm so this dream will most likely never come true. 30 years ago though, McFly made predictions about what would be seen by Oct. 21, 2015 and he came pretty close to the truth.

Now, 30 years later seeing how 2015 turned out, the next thought is what is coming for 2045. West Essex students will be in their late 40s and who knows what possibilities and potential innovations the future has to offer.