Composition in a New Genre
With this new project, I hope to illustrate the influence movies have had on the car culture and the auto industry. For this particular assignment, I will focus on the DeLorean from Back to the Future. When the first movie came out in 1985, an association with the DeLorean was instantly created. It’s hard to think of the movie and not think about the DeLorean, as well. When talking with a few DeLorean owners, they all mentioned how much attention the car gets when they bring it to car meets or when they’re just driving it on the streets. This same kind of attention would’ve been there regardless of the movie. But while people might’ve been attracted to the car because of its completely uncovered, stainless steel exterior and gullwing doors before, it now is the center of attention for a different reason, and that reason is because it was the time machine in the movies that everybody loves. The car was more desireable now. According to the Huffington Post, “one of the original DeLorean DMC-12 cars used as time machines in the "Back To The Future" movie trilogy was put on auction and sold for a high bid of $541,000” (“DeLorean Sells For $541K”, 2011). (To put that in perspective, a normal DeLorean can be bought for as low as $30,000 now). Lauren J. Riley, a DeLorean owner, says, “Having a DeLorean is like 5 percent being a rock star. Back to the Future definitely helped the car rise above its merits” (Chang, 2008, p. 6). All of the DeLorean owners I interviewed all bought their cars because of the movie. When asked about how people react to seeing a DeLorean on the streets, everyone said people go crazy over it. “Just last week I had a guy stop me on the way to work to get a picture of the car and two different cars take pictures on the way home all on the same day. People love it” says LightningTH, “One delorean will turn heads, two deloreans will slow