In the previous column, we saw Marty McFly and Emmitt “Doc” Brown land in Hollister. They stopped for Doc’s favorite Mansmith’s tri-tip before a trip back to Hill Valley, Calif., 30 years after the October 1985 setting in the iconic “Back to the Future” trilogy. In this sequel, we join Marty and Doc on the downtown Briggs Building roof eating sandwiches with the DeLorean parked around a ledge.
An aging version of Biff Tannen, the villainous bully in the movies, sneaks into the DeLorean and levitates upward. Doc and Marty hear him and turn to look.
“Great Scott, Marty!” Doc says. “The old version of Biff is stealing the DeLorean!”
Biff rotates the time machine to look out his window from above. He carefully enunciates his words through the glass as they watch.
“Butt…Heads,” he mutters with a wide smile, before zipping off and abruptly disappearing in the time machine.
“Doc,” a stunned Marty says, “what just happened?”
“Marty, I think we’re about to find out,” Doc replies.
Seconds later, small bolts of energy strike and the time machine returns above them before levitating back to the roof. It appears Biff reconstructed the DeLorean into a flying SUV.
“Great Scott! What has he done with my DeLorean?” Doc says.
Biff opens the SUV’s vertical scissor doors.
“It’s a 2022 Beemer SUV,” Biff responds. “I forced you at gunpoint to reconfigure it seven years from now. Marty Greenwood hooked me up with the frame.”
“Marty … That’s your name, too, pipsqueak,” he says to the younger McFly.
Biff points a pistol at the two and scowls.
“Now get in and let me take you on a tour of the new Hollister,” he says.
They fly off in the SUV and disappear into clouds, while Biff equipped his Beemer with an invisibility application because registered flying cars are still 63 years away.
Marty and Doc look out the windows high above the first transformation—both Highways 25 and 156 are four-lane freeways with frontage, commercial roads along pockets. They descend on Highway 156 past one of the bigger businesses beside the highway—Biff’s Organic Restaurant & Pub—among nine locations in the region.
“Now that looks like the future,” Marty says.
“That’s nothing,” Old Biff replies.
He describes how the Highway 25 expansion made way for three of his signature developments locally.
“Here’s the first one ahead,” Biff says.
They approach flashing lights along Highway 25 reading “Children’s Fund Casino” and Biff explains.
“Everyone was furious when they found out I’d purchased 100 percent of shares in the casino shortly before groundbreaking, so I worked out a deal to contribute some proceeds to local charities for disabled children and they were all happy.”
Biff says he gets 90 percent of profit and charities get 10—then gauges their reactions.
“Don’t feel bad about their take,” he says, becoming perturbed. “They get enough in a year to pay for an Oprah school in Paris and some.”
Biff brags how the casino employs 202 people but that the figure actually includes five deputized guard dogs.
“We’ve hosted The Blowfish without Hooty twice and the internationally renowned Blue Man Group knockoff, Dazzle. They dress up in Christmas lights and, for the finale, start on fire. Everyone loves it.”
The camera pans across as Marty nods his head with a curious smile and a paralyzed Doc looks terrified. Biff flies off to the next destination and they hover over a new city surrounded by a Tetris-like configuration of strip malls.
“This 8,000-home planned community is known as El Rancho San Benito by Tannen. It’s surrounded by the Fort Knox of retail gold—the Rancho Outlets.”
Biff recalls how his younger self, after seeing success from the neighboring outlets, launched a similar operation. Tying promotions to his casino—and accepting only fair-trade retailers—his business boomed and squeezed out the Gilroy Outlets.
“That’s right, boys,” he says. “Hollister has the outlets, all because of Biff.”
“This is insane,” Marty replies.
Adds Doc, fatigued by the consequences of Biff’s rendezvous: “No—it’s a total disaster.”
Biff signals for timeout.
“Morons, this is just a few things,” he says. “I’m diversified in accomplishment.”
He lists off some of his achievements in the three prior decades. Biff prevented the nationwide E. coli scare from starting here by launching the Wild Pig Hunt & Luau Festival, which drew outdoorsmen from around the world and shrank the boar population enough to genetically erase the beast whose tracks would contaminate local crops.
He stole the Hyperloop idea from Elon Musk—the highly pressurized tubes transport people underground in a fraction of time taken by automobiles or aircraft—connecting the Children’s Fund Casino with the Monterey Wharf, Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, Pinnacles National Park and Santana Row.
Biff won chamber of commerce man of the year 14 consecutive times until 2000 when he disqualified himself in what the Free Lance newspaper called “a chivalrous display of humility.”
Biff had been too busy at that time for accolades. Animal-rights activists were at his neck over the plummeting wild pig population, so he came up with an idea to appease them while preventing another monumental disaster for Hollister.
Biff created the county’s first-ever National Gopher Asylum, a place where mentally unstable gophers could seek refuge.
He believed in former City Manager Clint Quilter’s theory that a gopher hole caused the 15 million-gallon sewer spill in 2002, leading to a state-mandated building moratorium and a decade of economic ruin for San Benito County. Confining the most erratic gophers, Biff figured, would minimize risk to the plant. Just in case the gopher theory was as wacky as Biff suspected, he had the city invest $45 million to expand sewer capacity and add green components before the expected spill, Old Biff explained.
With the gopher asylum and sewer security, environmentalists cheered.
“Last but not least, buttheads,” Biff grumbles, “you’re going to crap your pants when you see what I’m working on.”
Biff flies above the Diablo Range and over the county’s highest peak, San Benito Mountain. Marty and Doc look down at three brontosaurus dinosaurs tromping through the valley. Biff pushes a button on his phone to play symphony background music.
“Welcome, buttheads, to Triassic Park,” Biff says, chuckling. “I picked one of the other dinosaur periods for the name. And don’t worry. They’re just holograms—for now.”
Biff turns the flying SUV and heads back toward the casino.
“How did you do all this?” Marty says.
Biff describes how he followed Marty into Cheap Beer & Cigarettes when they arrived to town and noticed the Powerball jackpot had been over $150 million. It sparked his idea to steal the time machine, retrieve future lottery numbers and give them to his younger self.
“In the end, I win,” he summarizes. “Now don’t try anything funny while I go use the John. The Beemer has a thumb-recognition starter anyhow, so there’s no hope.”
Doc looks paralyzed in desperation. Marty has another perspective and seems sort of amused.
“Maybe Biff wins this time,” Marty says. “But you know, I don’t really mind this Hollister all that much.”
He goes on: “Mansmith’s and a dinosaur show?”
Doc pauses before a verdict.
“To be honest,” he says, sighing, “I’d prefer the casino.”
Column Dedication
This column is dedicated to Crispin Glover (George McFly) and Claudia Wells (Marty McFly’s girlfriend, Jennifer), actors from the original Back to the Future movie. Producers left out Glover and, in classic 1980s form, replaced Wells with Elisabeth Shue in the sequel. Wells was, inexplicably, much better in the role. Glover, to his credit, created an American icon.
