The differences can be seen in the people and places of Hill Valley, but especially at its centre point. Court- house Square. At the begin- ning of Back To The Future the square is run-down, but still clean and tidy. It was once the heart of the small city, a meeting place for Hill Valley's residents. By 1985 the square has been concre- ted over and turned into a car parking area. The central meeting place is now Twin Pines Mall, with all the mod- ern shops and chain stores. Courthouse Square is still dominated by the Court- house itself but around it the shops are struggling to sur- vive - several are boarded up, their awnings torn and dusty. The Essex cinema, once a state of the art picture- house, now shows porno films like Orgy American Style XXX twenty-four hours a day. Its old rival the Town Theatre is now an Assembly of Christ Church. Lou's Cafe was a thriving business thirty years before, the hip place for local teenagers to meet. In 1985 it has become Lou's Aerobic Fitness Centre. Stat- ler car sales used to deal vehicles like "The Car of the Future! The Advanced '55 Studebaker" - now it is "making the best deals of the year" in its October inventory sale as Statler Toyota. The people of Hill Valley are mostly middle class, dressed casually in jeans and T-shirts. Once a farming service town, it is now a suburban satellite to a much larger city. But it still has its own mayor, Gol- die Wilson, who is seeking re- election on a platform of honesty, decency, integrity and progress.

The second 1985 is simi- lar, except for the McFly family. When Marty returns to 1985 at the end of Back To The Future, Courthouse Square seems much the same. But nearby Twin Pines Mall has become Lone Pine Mall - because Marty ran over one of Old Man Peabody's twin pines back in 1955! The biggest change is the McFly family, who have been transformed from working class losers into affluent, popular winners. The third 1985 appears in Back To The Future Part II and is very different, trans- formed by the actions of one person. Biff Tannen. His 2015 self goes back 60 years and gives his teenager self a sports almanac. Young Biff uses the book of sports results to have a decades- long winning streak and become "The Luckiest man on Earth".

Biff uses his wealth to change Hill Valley for the worse, making it into an evil 1985. Carloads of gun-toting hoodlums drive the suburban streets, murdering and ter- rorising the residents. When Marty stumbles into Court- house Square, he is dumb- struck by the transformation.

The courthouse has been converted into a gigantic Las Vegas-style high rise hotel and casino complex, called Biff Tannen's Pleasure Para- dise. A huge neon sign adver- tises its wares - "Hotel - Resort - Casino - Girls". Where the old clocktower would have been is a neon portrait of Biff lighting a cigar with a burning $100 bill. Next door is the Biff Tannen Museum. Both places are doing great business. Big industrial smokestacks fill the horizon, belching smoke and flames into the smog-laden sky. A toxic waste collection centre even spews out onto the square itself.

The whole square is a sleazy nightmare of bars, adult book stores, pawn shops, bail bondsmen and porno theatres, a dirty halo of neon and vice. The centre square is still a concrete car park but Hill Valley is hosting a bikers' convention. The motorcycle gang members roar up and down the streets, rowing their Harleys. The whole city centre is filthy and disgust- ing. Even the welcome sign "Hill Valley-A Nice Place To Live" has been knocked to the ground and is riddled with bullet holes.

Evil 1985 has also had a terrible effect on the McFly family. Marty's father is dead, secretly murdered by Biff Tannen. The "Luckiest Man on Earth" is now married to Marty's mother, Lorraine. The time traveller's brother Dave is a drunken tramp on probation, his sister in money trouble with banks. And Doc Brown has been committed to a mental asylum!

Marty describes the situation aptly to his friend Doc Brown:

"It's like we're in hell or something."

"No, it's Hill Valley," replies Doc, "although I can't imagine hell being much worse."