Monday, May 29

Hovercraft: Nine more years of wait!

Remember in Back to the Future II where Marty goes to the future and uses a Hovercraft in 2015? Well I was looking up trivia for fun and because the fake one had 'Mattel' on, fools thought that was for real!

During a television interview with Robert Zemeckis, the movie's director, he explained that "hoverboards float on magnetic energy". He also added, "they've been around for years, it's just that parent groups haven't let toy manufacturers make them. But we got our hands on some and put them in the movie." He was only joking of course but interesting enough, Mattel (whose logo appeared on the hoverboard props) soon found themselves overwhelmed with callers asking where they could buy one. "In most cases, we make it clear it was made specifically for the movie,'' said Glenn Bozarth of Mattel back in 1989 when the phones were ringing off the hook. "But if they've got a sense of humor, we tell them to wait until 2015.''

The hoverboard props for the movie were just wooden boards stuck to the actors feet and the actors were suspended by cables. This infromation is from IMDB trivia and an Archived weblog. Wikipedia offered some technology basis. When I first saw it (I was 7!), I obviously knew it was fake. It belonged to a girl and was pink--obviously a Barbie version.