GREAT Scott – the day is almost upon us! After 26 years since Doc and Marty went where the DeLorean didn’t need roads, Bolton is readying to mark Back to the Future Day.
October 21 represents the point in time to which Doc Brown and Marty McFly travelled in the trilogy’s second movie to prevent the latter’s son doing a 15-year stretch for theft.
Among a host of events celebrating the occasion, Robert Zemeckis’ blockbuster sci-fi trilogy will be shown in chronological order at Cineworld, Bolton, on Wednesday, with Vue Cinema in Horwich also screening the movie.
Elsewhere, Boltonian singer Danny Jones will perform with McBusted on a Back to the Future Day special hosted by Celebrity Juice’s Keith Lemon at 9pm, ITV 2 tomorrow night.
The Bromley Cross guitarist’s former band, McFly, were named after the trilogy’s main character, played by Michael J Fox, while Busted’s song Year 3,000 explored the possibilities of a working flux capacitor.
Danny Jones told the Bolton News: "Back to the Future is unquestionably one of the best films of all time, if only because it helped name one of the best bands of all time, haha!
"I remember watching it as a kid and wishing I had Marty's hoverboard and those shoelaces that tie themselves up - how good were they!? We had a DeLorean fly over the crowd in the latest McBusted tour and people went mad for it - just shows how brilliant the films are and how they're still entertaining today."
Here we present a list of 5 fanciful technologies that the movie explored and how you can find approximate experiences in and around Bolton.
Massive televisions.
While Jennifer is skulking around Marty Senior’s family home trying to avoid her future self’s family, she sees Marty Jr turn watching a vast TV showing several channels all at once.
Despite many of the film’s fanciful technologies sadly not coming to pass, high street available TVs on the McFly household scale were finally realised with Samsung’s 110 inch behemoth in 2013.
If you’re not prepared to shell out around £20k for one of those, then you can soak up an even vaster experience at the Macron stadium, where Bolton Wanderer’s installed a 20ft tall video screen weighing one tonne.
It’s not been that popular with everyone, mind.
Hoverboards.
In June 2010, French artist, Nils Guadagnin, actually created a shocking pink hoverboard a la Back to the Future II.
Levitated by electromagnetism and stabalised by lasers, the device was, unfortunately, confined to a plinth in an art gallery rather than Hill Valley town square.
While they don’t strictly hover, the latest Segway-inspired spinoffs, controlled by gyroscopes, are probably as close to the experience as you can get. Boards go for between £200-£1,000.
If you don’t want to shell out for one of those, you can have a go on the old-skool style Segways at RideSegway – a short trip from Bolton to Heaton Park, Prestwich.
Time machines.
Einstein left the (gull-wing) door open to the possibility of time travel – but only to the future, not the past. Thankfully, Doc Brown slipped and bumped his head while standing on his toilet to hang a clock and came up with the flux capacitor – the device which makes the DeLorean’s time travel possible.
Though the DeLorean Motor Company, makers of the DMC-12, went out of business, Ford currently claims to offer a flux capacitor option on their models.
Situated where the dashboard air vents would ordinarily be, the device possibly requires an additional Mr Fusion cold fusion nuclear reactor and/or the 1.21 gigawatts from a bolt of lightning – possibly conducted by a lightning strike redirected to Bradshawgate from the Bolton Town Hall clock tower. Bolton’s Ford dealership can be found in Higher Bridge Street, BL1 2HQ.
Food hydrator.
When Grandma Lorraine wants to whip up a quick snack, she removes a tiny, dehydrated Pizza Hut pizza from her fridge and whacks it in her Black and Decker Food Hydrator. 12 seconds on ‘hydrate level 4’ and the now full size pizza pops out piping hot and ready to eat.
Sadly, although there are plenty of food dehydration units on the market, there is currently no device to produce the opposite effect, other than putting the foodstuff in boiling water – which isn’t very appealing for pizza.
However, if you’d like to try dehydrated foods – including shepherd’s pie, chicken curry and the deliciously sounding ‘ultra dessert chocolate cream’ – Decathlon outdoor superstore in Trinity Street has plenty of options.
Holomax movies.
Shortly after Marty’s arrival in 2015, he’s frozen with fear outside the Hill Valley cinema when a hologram of the shark from ‘Jaws 19’ reaches down to devour him. Apparently directed by a ‘Max Spielberg’ the sequence serves as a nod to the film’s executive producer, Steven Spielberg and self parody of Hollywood’s love of a sequel.
3D movies, as well as drones and tablet computers are among the technologies that the movie got right, with both Bolton’s Vue and Cineworld multi-screens holding regular screenings.
3D’s popularity has been on the wane of late, but the latest laser-projected variant of the format was launched in the UK with a screening of The Walk, directed by none other than Robert Zemeckis.
What are your favourite moments from the Trilogy and how are you planning to mark Back to the Future Day? Add your thoughts below.
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