The wildest ways to travel on-screen

Having just come back from a holiday with friends in Bratislava which required a plane journey and coming off of a cruise with my family over the summer, I have experienced many ways of traveling to holiday destinations. But are these the most efficient and enjoyable? I have often thought of how easy life would be if we could just teleport to our holiday destinations. Of course this will probably never happen, but onscreen, there seems to be loads of crazy ways to travel that can be both enjoyable and rather speedier than our current methods.

The first method of traveling that comes to mind when I think of onscreen travel is via broomstick. Like most people, I was born into the Harry Potter series, reading the books and watching the movies during my childhood, so broomsticks had a big effect on me when growing up. They were not only used for travel, but also for sport with Quidditch players riding them. I always fantasised about owning my own broomstick and just zooming around to my destinations. But it is not only in Harry Potter we see broomsticks being used as a method of travel; other movies use this fantastical method of transport too, such The Wizard of Oz where the Wicked Witch of the West uses the transport method to carry out her plans.

A quick google on the Harry Potter fandom and you can discover that the fastest broomsticks (the Firebolt and Nimbus 2000) can go over 150 mph, faster than you can go in a car. So, for regional travel, a broomstick would prove much more efficient than car travel. The only issue that may arise with this is the lack of storage space on a broomstick – I can’t envision a car boot being installed onto a broomstick! And there will be loads of technical details that would have to be ironed out if broomsticks became a mode of travel. Would we need a broomstick license? Will there be speed limits? Who knows? All that I can say is that I would enjoy being able to ride a broomstick and feeling a bit closer to my childhood heroes.

I would love to be able to travel back in time and witness a Mozart concert or a Shakespeare play

But when thinking about wild ways of travelling, I also do think about the Back to the Future car. This car is able to create a sort of wormhole which allows the car to disappear and then reappear in a new time. In the movies, they travel to many destinations including 2015, 1955, 1985, and even 1885. As a history student, I would love to have been able to use the DeLorean to travel to the past and witness the historical events that I learn about during my lectures. Of course, I would only be there as a witness because, as we all know, changing events in the past can change events in the future. I would love to be able to travel back in time and witness a Mozart concert or a Shakespeare play. I would also fancy going to the future to see if AI really does take over and if robots do rule the world.

It would be so interesting to see what the future holds for us and how different it might be to now. Back to the Future was rather accurate with its 2015 predictions, predicting video calls, smartwatches, and wireless payments. Some things it did get wrong, like flying cars, self-lacing shoes, and robotic dog walkers. But saying that, Back to the Future Part II was filmed in 1989 where mobile phones were still massive brick devices and Nintendo had just released its Game Boy, so for the movie to be able to predict some of the things that would exist in 2015 is still a great feat. It would be so cool to be able to use the DeLorean to witness past and future events, but with great power comes great responsibility, so the car must be used sensibly to avoid creating paradoxes in the timeline.

Hopefully in the future we might be able to time travel and the DeLorean can become a reality!

There are many other ways of travelling that I have not mentioned in this article, such as magic carpets as seen in Aladdin and spaceships, like those in Star Wars that use hyperdrives to travel quickly through the galaxy. I chose to focus on two modes of transport that I feel have the most impact. Broomsticks, because of their importance in the Harry Potter series, a great series that was core to many of our childhoods.  And the DeLorean, the mode of transport I feel like I would enjoy the most, being able to visit events in the past and future. I am sure some of you will have different favourite modes of transport that you have seen on the big screen, but for me, these two are the wildest and maybe even the most useful. Hopefully in the future we might be able to time travel and the DeLorean can become a reality!