Jack Tame: Back to the future revisited, again

At least the reality of Back to the Future Day was much closer to its onscreen projection than other fictional futuristic worlds. Photo / Supplied

Opinion

Where we're going, we won't need roads!" Whomp whomp.

Thirty years after Back to the Future first screened, you can't blame Doc Brown for being a bit misguided. The '87 crash was yet to hit. Europe was fussing over banning CFCs.

The internet was nothing and some lowly newspaper scribblers hadn't been born.

At least the reality of Back to the Future Day - October 21, 2015 - was much closer to its onscreen projection than other fictional futuristic worlds. 2001: A Space Odyssey was ambitious beyond measure.

And although NCEA English classes will keenly compare elements of George Orwell's 1984 with the modern information-and-observation state, we can at least agree the world hasn't reached full-blown dystopia just yet.

Even for those writing academic theory rather than movie scripts or novels, the future hasn't proved much easier to foresee.

John Maynard Keynes founded modern macroeconomics, but 85 years ago his vision of life today was a world where most would work little more than 15 hours a week.

Yes, if the past has taught us anything it is that the future is hard to predict.

Pessimism and restraint are probably advisable but without the pressure of the box office, I've added another 30 years to Back to the Future Day to foresee our life in October 2045:

• The Middle East will still be a mess.

• Man will not have set foot on Mars.

• Political leaders will face unprecedented pressure to deal with climate change.

• Sir Richie McCaw will endorse the 2045 equivalent of deer velvet capsules.

• Driverless cars will be the norm, but only Marty McFly will ride a hoverboard.

• New Zealand will have had a homosexual Prime Minister. Australia won't.

• Online passwords and keys will be a "Remember when?" joke. Facial scans will open the world.

• And of course in 2045, chances are this won't be read on newsprint.

At least that might mean no one will point out my Back to the Future vision was all wrong.

Jack Tame is on Newstalk ZB, Saturdays, 9am-midday