2015 is a big year for “Back to the Future.” The beloved film celebrates 30 years (a “nice round number”) since its release. October 21, 2015 marks the date that Doc and Marty travel to in “Back to the Future Part II.” Great Scott, this is heavy! Join us here as we count down to the festivities on this red letter date in the history of movies.
Of all the tech Marty, Doc and Jennifer encounter when they travel into the future, none has captured the imagination of generations of “Back to the Future” fans like the hoverboard has.
The trilogy”s writer and producer, Bob Gale, recalls that, after the 1989 release of “Back to the Future Part II,” “we got so many letters from kids saying, ‘Please send me a hoverboard, but don”t send me a pink one.””
October 2015 has arrived, and hoverboards don”t quite exist in reality yet. (While Lexus” maglev-superconductor hoverboard is undeniably cool, a true hoverboard doesn”t need a street paved with magnets.) But hoverboard does, finally, exist in the dictionary.
Yes, the word “hoverboard” is now in the Oxford English Dictionary.
Its former absence in the OED had Gale correcting the folks putting together the upcoming book “Back to the Future: The Ultimate Visual History.”
“The editor and the proofreader wanted to make ‘hoverboard” two words. I explained that it was one word, like ‘surfboard” and ‘snowboard,” despite the dictionary and spell check programs,” Gale told HitFix via email.
Marty and his hoverboard outwitted Griff and his gang, and now the hoverboard has outwitted that swiggly red line!
Here”s how the OED defined this new entry:
hoverboard, n.: orig. and chiefly Science Fiction. A board, resembling a skateboard without wheels, which hovers above the ground and may be ridden like a skateboard.
Gale is, naturally, pretty stoked about the milestone.
“It”s every writer's dream to have a book in the Library of Congress,” he told HitFix. “It”s almost beyond the dreams of Bob Zemeckis and myself to have invented a word that makes it into the dictionary, as wells as a concept that everyone in the world understands.”
Now when can I have my Pit Bull?
For more of HitFix”s coverage commemorating the 30th anniversary of “Back to the Future,” set your time circuits to right on over here.