The Hill Valley Civic Committee in the alternate 1973.
The Hill Valley Civic Committee was an organization in Hill Valley. In an alternate timeline where an elderly Biff Tannen from 2015 handed a Grays Sports Almanac to his younger self from 1955 to make himself rich and powerful, George McFly started this secret committee to protest BiffCo, which Biff had founded and was using to construct properties that suited his own interests.
On March 16, 1973, George was to be presented a book award by the committee. In the alternate timeline, George never made it to the ceremony because he was shot and killed by Biff Tannen in an alleyway. Later that year, Lorraine Baines McFly was forced to marry Biff to help her family, who were in trouble due to Biff's actions.
In 1973, in the alternate timeline, the Hill Valley Civic Committee consisted of George McFly, Goldie Wilson, Stanford S. Strickland, Mrs. Blumberg (the editor of the Hill Valley Telegraph), Mark Dixon, Terry, and two other individuals. George was the head of the committee before his death.
In 1981, Goldie was the head of the committee, which Dave McFly joined as its new member. Dave revealed that Biff, now his stepfather, kept a safe in his office of his manor. On a Friday night his family was to go out for dinner, Dave turned off the security alarms to allow Terry to enter to break into the safe. However, Biff, who had remained caught Terry in his attempt to break into the safe, and had the Hill Valley Police Department, which he controlled, nearly beat him to death. Biff then had the police kidnap Dave; as Biff had promised Lorraine he wouldn't hurt her children, the police told Dave to leave Hill Valley and never return.
Having lost several members, things looked bleak for the remaining members. But then, Dr. Emmett L. Brown appeared and revealed that he was their silent benefactor. He let them know that he had let the rumors that surrounded him since his time on the Manhattan Project continue so that he could work on his project in peace, even from BiffCo. He revealed to them that the project that he was in the process of constructing was a time machine.
In 1983, Dr. Brown led the committee members to his lab, where he revealed his project to stop Biff: his time travel chamber. However, he had to cut some corners for immediate use of the project, such as tying the chamber into the Hill Valley Power Station to convert its 465.3-megawatt capacity to flux capacitance energy to send a time traveler to a time set on the chamber's meter, the flux energy dissipating and snapping the traveler back to the chamber after four hours. and that the chamber itself must be immediately disconnected from the power transformers to be transported back to his lab as massive amounts of electricity channeled into the chamber would cause a blackout, alerting the authorities.
Strickland, who recalled witnessing Biff terrorizing kids several times at Hill Valley Elementary School in 1946, volunteered to go back in time to have the 1946 Biff sent to a military academy in Idaho. Dr. Brown and the committee members transported the time travel chamber to be connected to the transformers at Hill Valley Power Station. After Strickland set his destination date—May 16, 1946—and entered the chamber, Dr. Brown channeled electricity to the chamber to send Strickland back to that date, but doing so caused a blackout at Biff Tannen's Pleasure Paradise Casino & Hotel, angering Biff. In Strickland's absence, the other committee members disconnected the chamber from the transformers and transported it back to Dr. Brown's lab. Four hours later, Strickland reemerged from the chamber in Dr. Brown's lab, but left the committee after what he himself witnessed from his visit to 1946, with the remaining committee members unable to reach out to him.
Dr. Brown devised a Plan B and relays it to the committee; he would travel back in time to stop the wedding of Biff's parents, thereby preventing Biff from ever being born. After gathering necessary information from his visit to Biff Tannen Museum, Dr. Brown returned to his lab and rehearsed his dialogue with the committee members before they transported the time travel chamber to the power station to be connected to the transformers again. Dr. Brown then entered the chamber to be transported to the day Biff's parents got married: December 6, 1936. Channeling electricity to the chamber to send Dr. Brown to that date caused another blackout at the Pleasure Paradise, prompting an infuriated Biff to take action. The committee members struggled to disconnect the chamber from the transformers and are then apprehended by the Hill Valley Police Department sent by Biff. Four hours later, Dr. Brown reemerged from the chamber, which had been transported to a storage unit under ownership of BiffCo. He was then confronted by Biff and his henchmen, leading to him being declared legally insane and sent to Mental Ward B in Hill Valley Hospital.
After the timeline was restored by Marty burning the almanac in 1955, using a matchbook taken from Biff Tannen's Pleasure Paradise Casino & Hotel in 1985A, the committee was never formed.
Appearances[]
- Back to the Future Part II (Mentioned in the Hill Valley Telegraph article about George McFly)
- Back to the Future