Nike Unveils MAG, Sneakers From Back to the Future II

In 2015, Marty McFly slipped on a pair of Nike Air Power Laces, white-and-gray high-tops with teal specks and wrap-around ankle straps, which self-fastened electronically. Now, four years earlier, Nike is going Back To The Future (er, forward to the past) to re-release the movie's famous sneakers--and from what we've seen, the 2011 Nike MAGs, as they're called, are as slick as the DeLorean DMC-12 they arrived in.

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Teased in a YouTube video uploaded by "DocEmmettBrown88," the clip gives viewers an inside look at "McFly's closet," a warehouse of shelves lined end to end with the glowing kicks. The video has already racked up nearly 200,000 hits in just two days, suggesting that for fans of the film, this shoe is the best news since, well, Huey Lewis And The News.

The actual Nike MAG is almost everything we'd hoped for. Featuring glowing LED panels and an electroluminescent Nike logo on the strap, the 2011 MAG was designed to be a "precise replica" of the original shoe, according to Nike, and an upgrade to the 1989 Nike Air Mag "McFly." The lights can be turned on with a pinch of the high-top's "ear," and each charge will keep the LEDs glowing for five hours--meaning you won't need 1.21 gigawatts of power after all.

Still, the shoe seems to be missing one crucial feature: self-tightening laces. Nike filed a patent for an "Automatic Lacing System" back in 2009, but it appears the technology didn't make its way into the shoe.

McFly's sneaker makes its return at a time when the film trilogy, which just celebrated its 25th anniversary last year, is universally considered a pop culture classic. The 2011 Nike MAG is a retro (rather than sold-out) piece of merchandising that will likely find love all over, from hipster to hip-hop sneaker-snobs--similar to PF Flyers, made famous by The Sandlot, which were resurrected in 2003.

But to get your hands on a pair of 2011 MAGs will be tough: Nike plans to release only 1,500 pairs of the shoes, all to be auctioned on eBay starting tonight at 8:30 p.m. PST. Net proceeds of the 10-day auction will go toward fighting Parkinson's disease thanks to the Michael J. Fox Foundation, which will match all donations up to $50 million.

[Click here to see the eBay auction. Be warned: Prices are already well into the thousands]

This content was originally published on FastCompany.com

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