Hover Board

Skateboards IN THE FUTURE!

Ulrich: Whoa, how does Odd manage to pilot this thing?
Aelita: [shrugs] He's not afraid of falling...

— Code Lyoko, "Bad Connection"

A Sub-Trope of Cool Board, the main recreational device in the future is the Hover Board. Like an all-terrain skateboard, the hoverboard is totally awesome and likely gained popularity with the movie Back to the Future Part II. Many Speculative Fiction series set 20 minutes or further into the future will have these things fly through the streets. Or even through the air, when it really shouldn't because that's when it stops being hovering and starts being Sky Surfing.

The characteristic that differentiates a hoverboard and Sky Surfing is the altitude range each has. A hoverboard generally has to stay within a certain distance of the ground (though jumping and gliding are acceptable) and can't gain altitude. In Sky Surfing, the vehicle can fly in any direction.

May be accompanied by hover bikes, scooters, and skates as well. Hoverboards are very, very popular in Video Games. Usually a large part of the gameplay in a futuristic platformer involves riding and acquiring these vehicles, although they're just as likely to be temporary power-ups.

Not to be confused with self-balancing scooters, which are also called hoverboards. Those only work on the ground.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Eureka Seven, where even some of the Humongous Mecha use Hover Boards. Unlike most though, they're more analogous to surfboards than skateboards. Curiously, they do have wheels — just one, though, and the axle runs the same direction as the board itself. They seem to be involved in handling, since Renton mentions that a bigger wheel limits the rider's capacity to make sharp turns.
• Wendi's Riding Board from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS, which triples as a cannon and a large shield in addition to its Hover Board capabilities. Subaru's rollerblades are basically this trope combined with Rollerblade Good.
• Soul Eater: Death the Kid has a flight-capable skateboard, whom he named "Beelzebub". Technically though, this is more an example of Sky Surfing, because he generally uses it to outright fly.
• Van from Zoids: Chaotic Century has one.
• Jean in Transformers Victory has one that allows for some degree of levitation — handy, since most of his friends are giant robots.
• Used with hilarious results at the beginning of Manabi Straight! when two of the girls are Late for School.
• Owned by Psy in Heroman.
• Technically, the wave-rider of One Piece is this. Powered by air dials and thus floats above the water/sea cloud the rider is riding on.
• Shinku from Dog Days has Tornada.
• Every duelist in Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS battles in a floating hoverboard where they surf data storms while conducting speed duels.
• The witches of Lapis Re:LiGHTs can fly on magical discs. They're capable of moving at high speeds, floating about 2-3 stories into the air, and can compact when not in use, from the size of half-a-compact car to about the size of a frisbee. They seem to be rather cheap and easy to produce as the characters were able to easily procure one from a store on a student's limited budget.

Asian Animation

• Mechamato: A Mecha-hoverboard can be formed by MechaBot mechanizing with something flat to form the board, and optionally something to form the rockets.
  • In episode 2, Amato combines Pian's skateboard with some hairdryers for the rockets, allowing him to navigate the frozen terrain.
  • In episode 5, Amato uses a mechanized ironing board to traverse a wet hallway. Fittingly, steam comes out the back.
  • In episode 10, Amato uses some wooden planks for the board and some cups to form the rockets, then uses the resulting hoverboard to pursue the fleeing Payapi.

Comic Books

• Marvel's Rocket Racer. And Nighttrasher. And Gaylord.
• The V-Wing used by the Thunderbolts is a rare multi-person hoverboard.
• Skysurfers, most notable Chopper, in Judge Dredd use them.

Films — Animation

• Astro Kid: Willy has a hover board at the start of the movie, and uses it for a holodeck-videogame. His hover board skills become a Chekhov's Skill later one when he makes an improvised skateboard.
• In Barbie: Star Light Adventure, Barbie and her friends use hover boards to get around. Sal-Lee is even a hover board champion.
• The Jetsons:
  • Jetsons: The Movie: Elroy plays basketball on Hover Boards.
  • Rockin' with Judy Jetson: In this movie Judy Jetson can be seen riding a hoverboard.
• Daniel has one in Transformers: The Movie, but he crashes it almost straight away and then rides in Hot Rod instead.
• In Pinocchio 3000 Mayor Scamboli, Marlene, Cabby and Rodo can be seen riding round hoverboards at Scamboland Amusement park as they get out of their flying car.
• Treasure Planet. Jim Hawkins can be seen riding his hoverboard called the Solar Surfer doing daredevil tricks.
• Wreck-It Ralph Sergeant Caulhorn and Fix-It Felix can be seen riding a jet-powered hoverboard into Sugar Rush.

Films — Live-Action

• Back to the Future Part II, as noted above. The hoverboard also plays a major role in the climax to Back to the Future Part III.
• In Future Sport, the title sport is played on hoverboards.

Literature

• Scott Westerfeld's Uglies series features these quite prominently.
  • Uglies play around with them recreationally — they really can't hurt themselves because the boards are magnetic and adhere to the magnetic grid underneath the city, and they wear a device to track their center of gravity and special "crash bracelets" that will pull them back onto the board if they fall off. Interestingly, the center-of-gravity device clips onto their belly-button rings, a fact that the characters all seem to take for granted. Apparently belly-button piercings are mandatory for young people in the utopian/dystopian future.
  • Pretties generally can't ride hoverboards due to their reduced reflexes caused by the brain lesions that come with the operation. Zane and Tally, however, are able to ride hoverboards as pretties when they consciously try to "stay bubbly" and fight the influence of the lesions.
  • When Tally is sent to perform her undercover mission in Uglies she is given a special hoverboard that has lifter fans that enable it to function away from magnetic substances for a period of time and solar cells to provide power for the fans. This type of hoverboard is later used by the Cutters when they turn into Specials.
  • In Extras hoverboarding is again presented as a recreational activity. It's actually the extreme hoverboard-riding known as "mag-lev surfing" (in which participants use their hoverboards' magnetic properties to surf atop a mag-lev train outside the city) practiced by the clique known as the Sly Girls that attracts Aya to them and gets the plot rolling.
• One of the Sinthians, slug-like aliens in the Phule's Company series by Robert Asprin, solves his mobility problems by riding a kid's "glideboard". The other main Sinthian character, who is from a higher caste, can't get the hang of the board and declares it undignified. As an obvious homage to Back to the Future (see above), the water makes the boards to move more quickly.
• Not quite a hoverboard, but Y.T.'s skateboard from Snow Crash is the next best thing, using "smartwheels" made up of dozens of tiny pad-footed spokes to glide down staircases, through potholes, or over grass without a jolt. Plus, it's equipped with a glass-shattering sonic blast weapon.
• In Galaxy of Fear, Zak Arranda starts off with a skimboard which partially requires good balance, partially relies on "stick strips". Chewbacca takes a minute to modify it and give it more power, raising its cruising height to two meters. This helps Zak use it to escape with his sister and their droid DV-9. Unfortunately, it was lost at the end of the book, and he wasn't able to get another.
• In Dante Valentine, Dante is highly proficient with a slicboard, as is her ex-boyfriend Jason Monroe. Dante in particular is shown using one to unwind after a session of raising a ghost for a probate case.

Live-Action TV

• The secondary mode of Kamen Rider Agito's Cool Bike, Tornador, is a hoverboard. Then, thanks to Kamen Rider Decade, Agito himself is transformed into Tornador.
• On the show MythBusters, the gang actually created a vacuum-propelled hoverboard that once levitated about 2-3 millimeters or so off the ground. Here's a fan's recreation of the device.
• In the premier of sitcom A to Z, Andrew is convinced hoverboards from Back to the Future are real because of a documentary. Lea Thompson even makes an appearance to tell him they aren't. The Stinger showed her riding on one.
• Used in Power Rangers Ninja Steel, by Pink Ranger Sarah. The kicker is that she built it.

Tabletop Games

• Warhammer uses demonic hoverboards called disks of Tzeentch. These days they are more like sky surfing as they actually fly, but they once had a lower flying speed and it was called floating or hovering. And in the MMORPG based on Warhammer, they follow this trope to a T.
• Dark Eldar Hellions of Warhammer 40,000 use bat-shaped bladed hoverboards that can decapitate infantry.
• In Rocket Age Rocket Boards are basically just reinforced metal surfboards with a rocket engine attached to the bottom. Most consider them too dangerous to use, but several gangs in New York have taken to using them for skyjackings and to escape the police.

Video Games

• Marty McFly in Back to the Future Part II & III can get a hoverboard from Biff Tannen to ride around on, but it only lasts for a short while before it disappears.
  • In the Japan-only Super Back To The Future Part II, the hoverboard is basically Marty's main form of transportation throughout the game.
• Subverted in Backyard Skateboarding. The developers said there would be a hoverboard in the game, and Dmitri says in-game that he wants one, but there is none.
• Beam Breakers is a 2002 PC game that features a hoverboard advertisement in the skyscraper city with flying hovercars.
• Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure: A few levels in the first and third episodes have each a high-tech scooter with luminous green lights that allow the eponymous alien to freely travel in the air (it helps that the scooters work entirely with anti-gravity). They're absent in the second episode, however.
• One of the futuristic heroes in Empire Earth rides around on a hoverboard. In the campaign, he gives you the Grigor II robot.
• Eyetoy: Antigrav released in 2004. In this Playstation 2 game, the player uses the motion sensor camera to control the movements of the hoverboard rider who rides his or her hoverboard in the skyscraper cities dodging flying hovercars and catching tokens on rails for score points and flying through hoops and doing hoverboard daredevil stunts earning score points.
• Final Fantasy:
  • Zell uses one in Final Fantasy VIII in a single scene, after which it's confiscated. Later however, when you're allowed into his room, one of the characters comments that he has another to which he replies he's got several.
  • Appears both in Final Fantasy XII, sort of (more like a hover-motorbike), and weaponized in Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings.
• In I Was a Teenage Exocolonist, Cal used to have a hoverboard as a kid, but ends up breaking it later in life. Sol can try fixing it for him if they're knowledgable enough in Engineering, but it's damaged beyond repair.
• Kingdom Hearts:
  • Ventus, of Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, has his Keyblade transform into a hoverboard for its Glider form.
  • Aqua's keyblade glider is some sort of cross between hoverboard and a scooter (hover-scooter?)
• Kirby Air Ride has plenty to choose from. One of them, Dragoon, appears as an item in Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
• Mario Party: Island Tour: The minigame Blown Hover has all characters drive hoverboards across a straight-lined racetrack build above the clouds. The speed the hoverboards can reach as they accelerate is high, so the characters have to keep an eye on the obstacles they're approaching, and depending on the case they have to either jump over them or move beneath them (clashing will deplete a big part of the speed, making the character waste a lot of time recovering and making the hoverboard regain speed). Whoever reaches the goal first wins.
• In No Umbrellas Allowed, hoverboards are popular forms of transport in Ajik City, with several big-name brands producing them. Besides buying and reselling them to your customers, you can get one for personal use to speed up your movement in the overworld.
• Used to skate around a giant bowl in the futuristic ball game Pararena.
• Ratchet & Clank and the Jak and Daxter series (where it is called a JET-board) use them. In Jak and Daxter, the hoverboard is used in several Tony Hawk style missions where the player has to get a set number of points.
• Sonic Riders has "Extreme Gear", which is usually these. However, sometimes it's other various things like shoes or brooms. The first Extreme Gear was a flying carpet. The main defining trait of Extreme Gear seems to be that it floats and can go fast enough. One gear in the "board" category is actually called the Hoverboard (well, Hovercraft). It looks like a cloud.
• In Space Quest, the aliens can be seen riding round hoverboards.
• Streak: Hoverboard Racing released in 1998 is a Playstation 1 game that features young adults racing on hoverboards riding through parks and highways.
• Zack "Half-Pipe" Boyd in Teenage Zombies: Invasion of the Alien Brain Thingys can turn his skateboard into one with the hover disc.
• Most of the Tony Hawk games feature a hover board cheat that simply takes the wheels off your board. Also, unlockable character Iron Man in THUG rides a hoverboard anyway.
• TrickStyle, a Dreamcast hoverboard racing/stunt game, is a snowboard game where the boards float and you're boarding through a city rather than a snowy mountain.
• Unreal Tournament III: Every player has an un-losable one of these in the vehicular game modes, allowing players on foot to get into the action reasonably quickly. Weapons can't be used while riding it and any damage will make you fall prone (and vulnerable) for several second, but a tether can be attached to friendly vehicles, allowing you to be towed around faster.
• Warframe has K-Drives, which, with right modes, can be weaponized.

Web Animation

• Barbie: Life in the Dreamhouse has some hoverboards resembling the one Marty received in Back to the Future Part II. Fitting, since that hoverboard apparently came from Mattel, the same company that produces Barbie dolls and merchandise.
• RWBY: Despite knowing that Remnant is full of Improbable Weapon Users, it my still come as a surprise to find out that one of the more unique weapons belongs to Reese Chloris: a (you guessed it) Hoverboard which can transform into Dual Revolvers equipped with Bayonets.

Web Comics

• In this Sluggy Freelance strip, during a parody of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Torg "inherits" an enchanted serving dish that is essentially a hoverboard.

Web Videos

• HUVr Board. And they got Tony Hawk to test it. Too bad the video is a hoax. Doc Brown apologizes. Leading to a mass Dude, Not Funny! from pretty much everyone, including OTHER SCIENTISTS.

Western Animation

• Ben 10 has a Petrosapien ("Diamondhead") bounty hunter named Tetrax who usually uses these. (In fact, he was originally credited as Hoverboard in his debut episode.) Ben received one from him as a gift, and has used it several times during the series.
• Kit Cloudkicker's "airfoil" on TaleSpin, sort of.
• In Futurama, Amy gets her hoverboard converted into a ironing board when her parents find out that her boyfriend Kif is knocked up.
• Code Lyoko gives us the standard (Overboard), hover-scooter (Overwing) and hover-bike (Overbike) varieties.
• The 1990s teenage version of Flash Gordon.
• In ThunderCats, WilyKat and WilyKit have hover boards which are constantly getting demolished, to Panthro's chagrin. This is resurrected◊ in the 2011 reboot.
• Ratz has ratboards, which are basically flying racecars seemingly made out of looted mousetraps.
• In Skysurfer Strike Force, this is the title heroes' signature vehicle.
• The Specialists in Winx Club use these to fly around when they need to.
• In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003) series, Mike can be seen riding a hoverboard in the sewers.
• PAW Patrol: Rubble receives one in the "Air Pups" special, with twin air duct fans on either side, and a miniature jet booster at the rear.
• ReBoot: Many of the inhabitants, in Mainframe, travel on zip-boards. Zip-boards are hover boards that are designed to hold feet, each on a separate plate.
• Angel Wars: Angels in training are called "anawim", and they need to use "wing boards" to fly until they manage to earn their wings and graduate from being anawim.

Real Life

• It happened. But you can't stand on it. And it needs a special stand. Ain't life a bitch? It's also a Back to the Future replica.
• Lexus have one that uses magnets
• Subverted by self-balancing scooters, a.k.a. "hoverboards". They neither hover nor are a board.
• As of now, they actually do exist. These real-life hoverboards are powered by small electric propellers of the same kind used on drones, or by miniature jet engines.

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