Those Commodore commercials below brought me back to the 80s. Sometimes when I walk around, I think, “I am in the future. I am in the year 2011.” And I think of this scene from the movie Back to the Future II:
When I saw this in theaters, I was amazed. The reason why we are interested in the future is because we’ll end up there. We all want to know what is going to happen. Those flying cars were awesome. When I’m stuck in traffic, I dream that if I hit a button, my car becomes a flying rocket car that hovers and flies away. (After 9/11, I knew that the dream of ‘flying cars’ would forever be dead.) The car, especially to a teenager, represents freedom as it allows you to be almost infinitely mobile. With a flying car, hell, you’d be able to hope from continent to continent in a flash. It was so appealing because we, the consumer, would be able to do so much with a flying rocket car.
The Back to the Future trilogy really does contain the 80s within it. The optimism depicted in the future was the fruit of that period of time. (Today, if such a movie was made, the future would be dystopian.)
Perhaps I should make an 80s Cafe like the one shown below. And perhaps I can somehow cram Super Mario Brothers 3 into an arcade cabinet. I’d have a NES and Atari there. People would come in and ask, “How do I play online with that NES and Atari?” I would tell them back then multiplayer was done with the same person in the room. They would respond, “You have to have someone in the same room!? What is this? A Wii!?”
If you brought someone from the 80s to the present, the thing they would be in shock over would be the Internet. Another thing they would notice is how artificial most things are in both communities and behavior. It’s as if men no longer have testosterone anymore.
Just as this clip depicts the future is filled with wimps and ‘buttheads’, it seems that way today.
When I saw this clip, I realized something I never did before. Since the future is filled with wimps and ‘buttheads’, it takes the 80s badass to go to the future to ‘fix things’.
I supposed today I would be the old man Biff. Constantly cranky at how much things I thought would get better in the future (like gaming) are now just made of fail. Every time I make a post here, am I that old Biff rattling the cane yelling, “Hello McFly! Hello! Think McFly, think!”?
