One of my coworkers pointed out how old I was by saying that if they made a remake of Back the Future froma 2012 persepctive, I’d be there.
I then realized that BTTF is dated for today’s teens. So, in the interest of following Hollywood’s penchant for rebooting films, let’s put together a BTTF 2012.
Here are some things from my addled brain that would present a challenge to the 2012 marty stuck in 1982 with Doc Brown
2012 - Black President
1982 - White President (maybe Marty could meet a young Barack Obama)
2012 - IPad, Ipod, Laptops, Minis, MacBooks
1982 - IBM PC and Apple IIc
2012 - Droid, IPhone
1982 - Rotary Dial Land Lines
Modems in 1982? Well, maybe hobbyists, technology firms, universities and the government had them. But home computers in 1982 were still a novelty - the Commodore 64 came out in August of that year and few people had any reason to have a modem.
VCRs were not overly common either, and many parts of the country were just starting to get cable TV.
IMHO, the far greater challenge for Marty is the changed society, not technology. I believe a 2012 teen could wrap his head around a Walkman instead of an iPod and a landline instead of a smartphone, but as has been pointed out on these boards before, the setup of the movies hit a very unique point in time - 1955 is far more different from 1985 than 2012 is from 1982. The fish-out-of-the-water theme would not work as well, because a 2012 person would not feel that out of place. Society has not changed all that much, except for the shift in communication through the Internet and mobile phones.
In 1982, push-button phones were very common. Our house had a couple. If you wanted to fudge things a little and weren’t too concerned with historical accuracy, (it’s a movie, right?), you could show a Motorola DynaTac, which came out in 1983 (close enough for a movie’s sake, right?), and compare that to an iPhone of 2012.
Also, 2012 - Playstation 3, XBox 360, Nintendo Wii
But a 1982-er would know about video games, so he’s just looking at something that would be considered a natural progression of an already-known product. The implication of the original BTTF scene was that the kids were hearing something entirely new, not just a rockabilly song from the future.
(I will admit the “entirely new” aspect would have worked better if Marty went back to 1945, but that’s not the movie that was shot.)
I think it would be funny if Marty kept making very detailed plans with people, like “meet me on Thursday at 2:45 under the oak tree by the high school” and he would keep getting back “uh, yeah dude, just text me.”
Yeah, dubstep is pretty out there. It’s the first thing I’ve ever heard that made me go, “That’s not music, that’s noise!” And then I realized I was getting old and I wept a little.
HD-quality video games would probably be a pretty good analog to the rock 'n roll scene, although that would require Marty to bring the equipment to actually play it. It’s something 1982 kids would be able to wrap their heads around, since video game consoles were just then rolling out, but I could definitely see one of the more extreme games (Doom 3 or Dead Space for violence, anything by Team Ninja for sex) making them uncomfortable.
That’s going the other way, someone from 1982 traveling to 2012.
2011’s Portal 2, Batman Arkham City, or Skyrim should astonish just as much if not more than Chuck Berry. Imagine if he could show them a FPS deathmatch and explain that he’s playing against real opponents from around the globe.
For music, dubstep I think pretty much any form of electronic music may just seem like a bad version of new wave; instead, I’d love to see something involving the direction of metal. The scene was kind of around, and the black metal scene started shortly after 1982. Metal was still pretty out there in general, and certainly all the the very heavy, polyrhythmic stuff with growling, like Death Metal, Grindcore, or Djent is still way off and would almost certainly come off as noise to someone whose closest comparison would probably be Led Zepplin or some early hair metal.
I think the whole black President thing could work on the same kind of level as Reagan being an actor joke could, especially with his name.
I think videogames would work on the same level that TV did in the original. They had just a black and white TV and he commented on how that was a classic episode. He could see an Atari or go to an Arcade and have the same sort of response to a classic arcade game that was brand new, maybe even go in and just set some amazing score or something. Actually, TV could still work too. Wasn’t cable brand new around that time? They sort of saw the future of TV fairly well in BTTF2, though.
I definitely think the whole cell phone and internet would be the biggest deal. Someone trying to adjust to finding his way around without a GPS or mapquest or find an answer to a question without Google or get a hold of someone without email or text.