Back To The Future Day: Did Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale get any 21 October 2015 predictions right?

It is finally Back To The Future Day – 21 October 2015 – the day Doc Brown takes Marty McFly and his girlfriend Jennifer 30 years into the future, where he encounters a whole host of wacky inventions, many of which have not yet been realised.

But alongside self-lacing shoes, automatically drying jackets, drones that walk dogs, home reactors, video conferencing, flying cars and hoverboards, Back To The Future II's scriptwriters Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale also came up with a whole host of predictions about current events, celebrities, politics and entertainment.

Join IBTimes UK as we see which ones have come true:

1. Queen Diana visits Washington, DC

In the 1980s, Princess Diana was a hugely popular style icon, partly for being a princess and partly for having a fairytale wedding that was watched by 750 million people around the world on TV. She had more media attention than her husband Prince Charles and became the first famous person to be photographed touching someone with Aids, in 1987.

Of course, sadly Diana died in a car accident in 1997, but it is no wonder that back in 1989 when BTTF was made, the scriptwriters assumed that by 2015, Queen Elizabeth II would have either died or abdicated, and Diana would have been crowned queen with Charles as king.

2. Jaws movie franchises hits 19<sup>th instalment

With the popular trend of making successive instalments of popular films, the scriptwriters supposed the popular Jaws shark thriller films might continue being successful and even perhaps make it to Jaws 19 in 2015.

In reality, there were only four Jaws blockbuster movies and one made-for-TV movie. If there truly had been 19 films about the famous shark, this would have earned it third place in the list of longest running movie franchises, behind the Carry On films (31) and James Bond (24), with Pokémon in fourth place with 13 movies.

3. Chicago Cubs win the World Series in 2015

Perhaps one of the most interesting predictions made by BTTF's scriptwriters related to the sports almanac, which stated the Chicago Cubs would win the World Series in 2015. The Cubs, by the way, have not won a World Series since 1908, or even appeared in one since 1945.

It is said the Cubs have suffered from the Curse of the Billy Goat since 1945, which was placed on them by a tavern owner who was asked to leave a World Series game because his pet goat's odour was bothering other fans in the audience. However, the team has done so well this year that it is finally back in the World Series, having won the National League Division for the first time in 12 years on 13 October, but the jury's still out as the Cubs still need to win 12 more games.

"Being a baseball fan, I thought, 'OK, let's come up with one of the most unlikely scenarios we can think of'. Back in the day, seeing the movie with an audience, that always got a laugh," Gale told the Chicago Daily Herald on 9 October.

"Whether the Cubs make it or the Cubs don't make it, the joke will still be funny," Gale said recently from his Southern California home. "And if the Cubs do make it, then I'm a visionary."

4. A woman is the first ever president of the US

Another forward-thinking prediction by Gale and Zemeckis was that by 2015, a woman would have been appointed president of the US, either from winning presidential elections supposedly held in 2009 or 2013.

In reality, Hillary Clinton did run for the Democratic Party's nomination for president of the United States in the 2008 US elections, but she lost to Barack Obama, who went on to become the first African American to hold the top title. However, Clinton is a candidate for president in the 2016 presidential election, so this could still come to pass – just not to the deadline of the film.

5. Lawyers have been abolished by the year 2015

This one is definitely not true, thank goodness, but in Back To The Future II, all lawyers have been abolished, meaning the justice system is able to process convictions for crimes a lot faster than today. Of course, this is not a good thing, as in the film, Marty Jr is coerced by Griff into participating in a robbery on 21 October 2015.

The next day, on 22 October 2015, Marty Jr is tried, convicted and sentenced to 15 years in jail for his part in the crime, with the whole legal process happening in one day, while Marlene McFly is sentenced to 20 years in jail on 28 October 2015 for attempting to break her brother out of prison.