Was ‘Back to the Future’ Right?

This is the first in a series of articles that looks back on science fiction movies to see how accurately each predicted future events and technologies.

In the original “Back to the Future” (1985), Marty McFly is transported back to the town of Hill Valley in the year 1955. Among his many escapades, he eludes the bully Biff Tannen by grabbing a “soapbox scooter” from a startled kid. Marty kicks off the orange crate superstructure and then pushes the board with one leg for speed.

The genesis of the skateboard, circa 1955. Yes, skateboarding did evolve from scooters, but the skateboard’s emergence happened a few years earlier, in the late 1940s.

Well, here it is, October 2015, and where is the hoverboard?

What really caught the public’s imagination, though, was a similar sequence in the film’s sequel, 1989’s “Back to the Future II.” That film drops in on 2015, a time when the Cubs sweep Miami in five games to win the World Series and bullies are still chasing McFly. This time he grabs a scooter from a young girl, which turns out to be some kind of levitating device. Just like in the past, McFly takes the steering mechanism off the hover scooter and turns it into a hoverboard.

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Well, here it is, October 2015, so where is that hoverboard? The “Back to the Future” model inspired the current hoverboard-like device that celebrities like Justin Bieber suddenly embrace.

The film also inspired a hoax or two. In March 2014, a company claiming to call itself HUVr put out a video claiming to show “Back to the Future” star Christopher Lloyd, skateboarding legend Tony Hawk, Moby and Terrell Owens riding a hoverboard through a Los Angeles parking lot. Well shot and edited, it was a hoax all the same.

Perhaps the best hope for frictionless radness is being developed by inventor Greg Henderson, who is developing a hoverboard that uses magnetic levitation principles. The board could carry up to 300 pounds and hover an inch off the ground, but the price tag was an eye-popping $10,000. And the hoverboard was just a marketing hook for other applications of his technology — like creating buildings that hover off the ground during earthquakes.

In October 2014, Hendo Hoverboards launched a crowdfunding campaign at Kickstarter to fund the hoverboard concept. In two months, the Kickstarter raised more than half a million dollars from 3,000-plus donors. On the Kickstarter site, Hawk is shown applying his phenomenal skateboard skills to the Hendo Hoverboard.

It reacts like a skimboard in shallow water that never slows down.

“I rode the Hendo Hoverboard … and it was fun, but very hard to control. It only hovers off the ground a few inches, so it is not what people anticipated thanks to ‘Back to the Future’ scenarios,” Hawk said. “It reacts like a skimboard in shallow water that never slows down. Basically you are going whatever direction and/or spin you start with — indefinitely.”

Hawk said he sees progress on the hoverboard front, including additional controls to help with steering.

“I plan to help them along the way pro bono because it’s just cool getting to participate in hoverboards becoming a reality,” Hawk said.

Twenty-six years after “Back to the Future II” predicted Mattel-brand hoverboards would be available by now, there really are hoverboards floating around out in labs and warehouses in America and overseas. The tech is not up to Marty McFly standards, but anything is possible in the 21st century.