It's 1-21-2015! The Future is now!

For those of you that are not currently under a rock, the internet is ablaze with all kinds of tributes to Back to the Future. While I won't add an oft repeated  complaints about not having a functional hover-board or flying car to the heap, I do want to point out one interesting bit of Fandom ephemera. Toyota is using today's date to announce the release of their new fuel cell powered auto-mobile with a co-branded Back to the Future themed ad campaign complete with guest appearances by Christopher Lloyd and Michael J. Fox. Since it's an ad I will skip the technical specs and point out what I find interesting. 

There are a couple of things that interest me about this ad. The first is the pure nostalgia that Toyota is using to drum up interest in this product. To this day the brassy opening theme that threads through BTTF or its subsequent sequels takes me back to countless holidays, rainy summer afternoons, or slow weekends.The films' constant rotation through TNT, USA, or any one of the many pay channels turning it into a pleasant sound track for people my age. Much like Star Trek, this movie purposed a future filled with wonder and hope that was just a decade or two away. We even get a glimpse of an alternate future where it seemed like every possible decision had been made with a greedy intention. It gave us hope that our mediocre present could be changed with the right bit of technology and good intentions. 

I was also interested at the center of the ad, Misha. Misha is an engineer at Toyota and is a big fan of the BTTF series and credits it with inspiring him to become and engineer. We watch as he bebops around the fictional Hill Valley on Universal's back lot and to the various locations that were used in the filming of the movie collecting trash to put into the land fill. The video ends with  graphic that explains how Toyota is collecting the methane gas from the landfill and stripping away the hydrogen so it can be used for fuel.

This is an really fascinating application of fandom as a selling tool. We are witness to resultsof Misha's passion for the films, the Toyota Mira. Not only does his work take root in his love of BTTF, but also our trades on the audiences enjoyment as well. Christopher Lloyd says it best in the video when he calls Misha, "a real Doc Brown."  Misha has done what we all wished we could do, change the future for the better, with noting more then a pile of trash and a fantastic car.