In a few days time it will be exactly three decades since the Back to the Future movies first hit screens, and The Picture Show marked the occasion by chatting to the movie's director, Robert Zemeckis.
It's also only a few short weeks before the date that Marty McFly traveled to in Back to the Future II, which is October 21st, 2015, although you can fool people into believing otherwise with a quick look on the internet.
In anticipation of the event, Christopher Llloyd reprised his role as Doc Brown for a short teaser to announce a special Blu Ray and DVD box set of the movies.
There were plenty of futuristic predictions in that particular movie that made for interesting viewing back in 1989, but how many of those fevered dreams of science fiction junkies have become reality since the movie was made?
3D cinema
Michael J. Fox was attacked by a giant shark coming out of an ad for the Jaws 19 movie, and while we haven't gotten that far yet, Piranha 3DD proved that fish lend themselves well to the world of IMAX in 3D.
Fingerprint scanners
In the movie, Biff pays for his taxi using his thumbprint, which suggests that there is some form of huge database where everyone's bank account information is linked to their fingerprint somewhere in the cloud. A nightmare when it comes to the likelihood that it would get hacked, but still pretty useful on not too far off the reality.
Image: The Mary Sue
Fingerprint scanning technology is pretty ubiquitous, so much so that it's even on our phones. Thanks to apps like Hailo and Uber, you can use your phone to pay for taxi rides now, so once again they were more or less on the mark with this one.
Video phones
Our phones are TVs, our TVs are phones, what a time to be alive. As seen in the movie, you can now call people from your Smart TV and have a video chat with them, or face time them from your iPhone without a problem, unless your WiFi is down.
While we haven't yet gotten to the point where a person's likes and dislikes are displayed on the screen, you could have a quick browse through their social media pages to get that information.
Hoverboards
This is one of the more tricky ones, but Lexus seem to think that they've cracked it, just in time for our reality to reflect that portrayed in the movie. The team behind this particular device were clearly fans of the franchise, as they did their best to make sure that it would be waterproof.
While a statement from Lexus assured everyone that his wasn't a hoax, they did say that it would remain a prototype and not go on sale.
Self-lacing shoes
Again a tie-in with the movie, Nike's Tinker Hatfield announced earlier this year that they would be bringing out a replica of the shoes that Marty wore, complete with self-tying laces. You need not spend any more time bending over to worry about untied laces, but given that they will be an extremely limited edition whenever they do come out (no details were given on that front) you might not be in luck if you really want a pair.
If you can't get your hands on them, then maybe these comfortable slippers will suffice.
Image via NY-ish
There were also a few things that the movie didn't quite get right too.
Futuristic food
Thankfully, we haven't yet gotten to the point where we're re-hydrating our grub, and if anything we're moving away from processed foods. Still, being able to cook a pizza in about four seconds would be great.
Flying cars/Time Travel
The DeLorean was a real car, many of which were produced in Belfast when they were hugely popular. While they never did crack the whole time travel element (which comes with its own problems), some people have figured out a way to turn garbage into fuel, just like Doc Brown in the movie has.
You can listen to Robert Zemeckis talk about his new movie The Walk, as well as the anniversary of Back To The Future from The Picture Show, and tune in every Saturday at 6pm for more movie news, reviews and exclusive interviews.
