Posted in: Movies, Recent Updates | Tagged: Back to the Future Part II, hoverboard, mattel

Mattel Will Be Releasing Back To The Future Hoverboards – But They Don't Hover, They "Glide"

Published Mon, 13 Feb 2012 18:05:17 -0600

Last updated Mon, 13 Feb 2012 18:05:37 -0600

Hey, McFly, you bojo! Those boards don't work on water!

Actually, they don't work on land either.

Yes, despite the fact that science has so far failed to make the Hoverboards from Back To The Future: Part II a reality, Mattel are so excited about the approach of 2015 that they've used the New York Toy Fair to announce their Hoverboard replicas, as portrayed in this poster.

Children of the 80s and 90s seem to have taken to treating Robert Zemeckis as some kind of 20th century Nostradamus, with the result that a lot of people are fully expecting to see his vision of the year 2015 become a reality. Unfortunately for us, technology has failed to keep pace with Mattel's release schedule, and the Hoverboards will be released without their Hoverdrives™ installed.

Already the world has faced the disappointment of the self-lacing Nike sneakers that do not actually self-lace. Now we can expect a Hoverboard that doesn't actually hover. According to the poster it "glides" over most surfaces.

Well, my cat glides if (when) I put her in cotton socks and give her a good shove onto laminated flooring, but I don't think I could charge people several thousand dollars for that invention.

The price of the Hoverboard hasn't yet been named but according to FilmJunk it has been classified as a "high-cost item." Considering that the Nike MAG shoes were auctioned off for around $4000 a pair, it's likely that the gliding Hoverboard won't come cheap either.

Is it unreasonable to demand that toy and clothing companies make items from science fiction a reality and put them on our shelves? No, I don't think it is. They just need to wait for a couple more years for all the huge scientific breakthroughs to happen at once and give us self-lacing shoes and flying cars. And before you scoff at that, think back to 1989 and how strange it was to conceive of video games played without controllers, phone calls made with video, and watching six channels all at the same time.

All hail the mighty prophet Zemeckis. I'll be first in line when the real Hoverboards come out.

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