The Morning After: 'Back To The Future II' DeLorean Time Machine
Capitalism is just fine with me, but I have to say I was put off just a little by the glut of corporate cross-marketing tie-ins yesterday to Oct. 21, 2015, the date in the future to which Doc Brown and Marty McFly travel in the second Back To The Future movie.
Not that I have anything against the BTTF franchise: the trilogy is clever, charming and obviously inspires passionate fandom. Christopher Lloyd is crazy gifted in a Jonathan Winters manner and I have no objection to him making a few bucks appearing in ads with Michael J. Fox. Fox has a family to support, too.
I’m not naive and many of yesterday’s marketing efforts, from Nike’s self lacing shoes, to USA Today’s headline about Marty’s arrest only reflect product placement deals in the original films.
Maybe it was just the glut, the shear volume of BTTF references and spinoffs, that got to me. Either that or I didn’t realize that I had an opportunity to exploit the situation with my own BTTF post. You see, last year I was able to get up close and personal with the star of BTTF II, the main reason why we’re discussing the movie at a car site, Doc Brown’s Mr. Fusion powered DeLorean DMC12. I remembered it while reading about an autonomous DeLorean doing donuts.
I’ve done a few posts on movie and TV cars recently, including one on a possibly authentic Batmobile that Covisint had on display this year at a telematics conference and trade show. Cars from the big and little screens must be a good draw because, at last year’s media preview for the North American International Auto Show, Covisint had one of the BTTF II DeLoreans on display in Cobo Hall’s concourse.
With movie and TV cars, when it comes to possible replicas and show cars, you never know if it’s real baby seal. DeLorean enthusiast and BTTF obsessive Matt Farah of The Smoking Tire questioned its authenticity when I checked with him — the tires are apparently not correct to the film. Covisint’s reps and their literature, though, insisted it was the real deal, restored to how it was in the film (other than the tires, I guess) and on loan from the Universal Studio Museum.
When you can buy replica flux capacitors and Mr. Fusion reactors, it’s kind of cool to see the real props. My favorite touch is the “Important: This Vehicle is Negative Ground” warning plates, located near the time machine’s supplemental wiring.
Photos by the author.
Ronnie Schreiber edits Cars In Depth, a realistic perspective on cars & car culture and the original 3D car site. If you found this post worthwhile, you can get a parallax view at Cars In Depth. If the 3D thing freaks you out, don’t worry, all the photo and video players in use at the site have mono options. Thanks for reading – RJS
Ronnie Schreiber edits Cars In Depth, the original 3D car site.
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"I ee all this potential, and I see it squandered. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables - slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy sh!t we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our great war is a spiritual war... Our great depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars, but we won't." "We're consumers. We are by-products of a lifestyle obsession. Murder, crime, poverty, these things don't concern me. What concerns me are celebrity magazines, television with 500 channels, some guy's name on my underwear. Rogaine, Viagra, Olestra." "F**k Martha Stewart. Martha's polishing the brass on the Titanic. It's all going down, man. So f**k off with your sofa units and Strinne green stripe patterns." "When deep space exploration ramps up, it will be the corporations that name everything, the Microsoft Galaxy, the IBM stellar sphere, Planet Starbucks..." "You're not your job, you're not how much money you have in bank, you're not the car you drive, you're not the contents of your wallet, you're not your fucking khakis, you're all-signing all-dancing crap of the world." "Now, a question of etiquette - as I pass, do I give you the a$$ or the crotch?"
I was amazed that the date in the movie made such a splash, it just seemed a strange thing for some many outlets to latch on to. The date wasn't even really made important until the 2nd movie, which most would say was pretty mediocre.