Now that the New Year has arrived, we’re officially in The Future, or at least The Future according to Back to the Future Part II. And while you may, with your eyes that do not belong to a young Michael J. Fox, be able to look around and see that no, we’re not in an awe-inducing late 80’s vision of the future (unless you’re currently listening to Blood Orange), Newsweek brought together a group of futurists to discuss what, exactly, the film got right and wrong. And who knows? We still have a whole year to become the Jaws 19-watching, hovercraft-centric civilization the film humorously predicted. And, oh look! The Daily Dot, The Guardian , and Time did something similar! It seems that Back to the Future Part II‘s greatest crime was not predicting the reign of the “listicle.” And, much to its discredit, it also didn’t predict that in 2014, people would think Paul McCartney an unknown musician generously given a chance at fame by Kanye.
If all of that Back to the Future future stuff just seems too quaint for words, The Atlantic has provided a somewhat more disquieting old look into the future: here’s what US Intelligence predicted would be going on in 2015 just before September 11.
One thing can certainly be said for New York, at least, in 2015 — if it’s anything like 2014, this certainly won’t be a most violent year. No, that was 1981, the year of 2,166 NYC homicides, the year on which the much-acclaimed new film starring Jessica Chastain and Oscar Isaac is based. UPROXX details the actual climate that fueled the film’s grandiose title.
While we’re still on the subject of the relationship between the era of high waisted jeans and the current…era of high waisted jeans, it was recently announced that Judd Apatow’s spec script for The Simpsons, which was written in 1990 (just 6 episodes into the series), but never picked up, is finally being made into an episode. In it, Homer gets hypnotized and believes himself to be 10 years old — afterwards, he has a hard time returning to adult life; Apatow has said (but didn’t really need to say) that all of his work has been tied to this idea of apprehending adulthood. Huffington Post has more details.
Returning to what is very much a present concern/curiosity, our country seems to be moving deeper and deeper into the most “2015” international conflict imaginable: one centering around jovial comedian Seth Rogen and ever-trolling humanoid actor(ish) James Franco. Buzzfeed reports that today, Obama imposed new sanctions on North Korea “in response to the Government of North Korea’s ongoing provocative, destabilizing, and repressive actions and policies, particularly its destructive and coercive cyber attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment.”
Meanwhile, North Korea “watcher” Barbara Demick provides a glimpse of the accuracies of The Interview at The New Yorker:
From my viewpoint, what the film gets most right is the psychology of North Korea. The regime is held together by the myth that members of the Kim family are gods, ruling by divine providence.
Happy 2015, everyone! May yours be more hovercraft-dominated than totalitarian-regime-dominated.