“It’s taken me nearly thirty years and my entire family fortune to realize the vision of that day.”
In August 2002, just over 12 years ago, I purchased the domain name “cityofhillvalley.com” with the intention of creating a BACK TO THE FUTURE fan site. It was something that had I dreamed up during my high school years, stemming from the fascination of BTTF that grew in me as a 7 year old during a first-run theatrical screening of Part III in July of 1990, 12 years earlier.
It was not meant to compete with the preeminent BTTF fan site, BTTF.com (now BackToTheFuture.com) -which was the main destination for all BTTF fans on the internet, and as a stopgap for Universal’s failure in having an offical online precence for the franchise- but to catalog and report on and discuss the less-official, and more fan-centric aspects of BTTF: fan fiction, fan gatherings, fan art, and so on.
“What the hell is going on here?”
In the ensuing years I attended and participated and organized more and more BTTF events, meeting more and more BTTF fans, and becoming more and more entrenched in the world of BTTF and it’s burgeoning fan community. I never gave up on the idea of launching this site (even acquiring more domains, including “hillvalley.net”), even though I was never super clear on what I wanted to do with it.
Then suddenly was 2015 (“…the big one, the one [we’ve] been waiting for all [our lives]…”) and I knew that it was now or never. Being the year of the 30th Anniversary, and the year of “Future Day”, and the year of “We’re Going Back” and the year of the BTTF Cruise, and the year that marked the pinnacle of BTTF being in the public consciousness, I felt it also had to finally be the year of “The City of Hill Valley”.
But we have big plans in store, but for now this site will function as a blog, where we will share interesting news and draft (hopefully) thought provoking write-ups focusing on the world of BTTF and it’s fans, and allowing for other fans to discuss and interact .
“Why do we have to cut these things so damn close?”
So here we are, the last day of 2015. I’m posting this during New Year’s Eve not just to have this site established during the most important year of BTTF, but also to counter the argument that we, as BTTF fans, have nothing else to look forward to. 2015 didn’t just symbolize the future; it was the START of the future. The future is now, and there are many other great things to come still, 2016 and beyond!
cityofhillvalley 