More alt-2015 madness from unused ‘Back to the Future II’ concept art

All the talk about Back to the Future II and it’s 2015 predictions have mainly focussed on the once mythical Nike Air Mag shoes. However, there is a tonne of 80s retrofuturistic miscellany that has failed to get a mention, and there is also myriad concepts that didn’t make it past the pre-production stage; and while some of the designs are pretty far off the mark, there are a couple of concepts that are not too far off the mark as far as predictions made back in 1989 go.

Vintage concept art that didn’t make the final cut and to coincide with real time finally catching up on the fictional 2015 from Back to the Future II, the work has now made it’s way online.

Tim Flattery is a veteran concept artist who helped develop a lot of the ideas that we see on the screen when McFly travels to the far future of 2015. Chatting with Newsweek about his experience of working on the film, and the legacy he helped create, Flattery stated that there was only one emotion that sticks with him, and that emotion is terror. The fear that they would create something and get it completely wrong on hindsight, and also the anxiety that they were creating future technology, that seemed like a pretty daunting prospect back in 89:

“I was petrified. I was scared shitless. Whenever you design and build stuff like that from the ground up, something’s going to go wrong on set. It always does. There’s all sorts of stories about things that happened with the police car.”

With [screenwriter] Bob Gale and Bob Zemeckis, they wanted a future that made those things they dreamt of as kids attainable, like flying cars. There’s always going to be an entertainment factor that goes into what you’re designing. [But] no matter what, you’re designing to support the story. And you’re designing to support the director’s vision. Those things are most important.”

We have the artwork below, and as a body of artwork, it’s superb; with a few of the concepts ringing true to the world we live in today (in particular, the flat-screen television, and the wearable technological gadgetry). But is 2015 really all that different from 1989 in a technological sense? Yes, we have managed to make things more compact and smaller, but aren’t we just living the same lives, with the same problems, that are being masked by our growingly distracted minds, due to being immersed in our games of Candy Crush et al,. 

I think that is deep enough for the time being. Check out the images below and let us know what you think! Robo-nanny is a particularly handy concept lazy parents. Enjoy!

Source: Blastr