Hold on to your hoverboard: 'Back to the Future' is now

October 21, 2015 is the date "Back to the Future" professor Doc Brown and Marty McFly journey to in their time-traveling DeLorean in the second installment of the much-loved movie trilogy.

 The world as imagined by director Robert Zemeckis -- with hoverboards, self-lacing sneakers and flying vehicles -- seemed a long shot when "Back to the Future Part II" came out in December 1989.

 Fans of the series are marking Wednesday's landmark date by celebrating some of the predictions that came true in the futuristic saga -- and some that didn't.

 The films follow the time-travelling adventures of young Marty, a teenager living in small-town America in the 1980s played by Michael J. Fox. He sets out in a DeLorean car converted to voyage the space-time continuum by his eccentric inventor friend Doc Brown.

 "I was a teenager when the film was released. I remember thinking it will be fun to watch it later when I have a family," said Brad Russell, founder and president of the Washington West Film Festival, which is organizing a retrospective on the series in the suburbs of the US capital.

 "We watched it this year with my family. It was rewarding."