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Originally Posted by LuigiHann
He analyzes both the Terminator and 12 Monkeys, you should check those articles out. In his model, the "predestination" model is effectively an illusion created when the timeline resolves into a self-consistent loop. Basically, every time travel story must have an original timeline that leads up to the initial time travel departure, and most stories do end up in a consistent self-resolving loop, and so the main difference between the apparently different models is just, which iteration is the movie showing us? BTTF-style movies tend to show the first iteration with more drastic changes, and Terminator-style movies tend to show a late iteration with more self-consistency, but every story must have an alpha timeline in its past, and the fascinating parts of his articles are his attempts to piece those alpha timelines together.
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I'm a great admirer of MJ Young's site, though I agree that he is a bit TOO rigid in his analysis-applying his own 'replacement theory' on every movie analyzed. Then again, that's his prerogative.
MJ Young's analysis of the BTTF movies is quiet interesting insofar as it highlights most of the logical paradoxes in the movies, BTTF2 and 3 in particular. According to Young, BTTF1 is more or less plausible as per his theory, as he believes that the timeline will eventually resolve into a self-consistent loop indistinguishable from a predestination paradox (basically, we'd end with Marty going back to 1955 and becoming the 'Calvin Klien' he'd heard about all his life!) This even answers thew age-old TP/LP argument by simply stating that Twin Pines Marty would simply cease to exist in the next iteration of the timeline and would be completely replaced by Lone Pine Marty.
BTTF2 and 3 understandably fall apart in his analysis. He points out no less than TWO anomalies associated with Marty and Jennifer's initial trip to the future, and dismisses the whole Almanac and 1985-A subplot as being paradoxical enough to destroy time completely. And he believes the tombstone paradox would simply kill the logic of BTTF3.
So obviously, his theory is not the best theory around to explain the logic of most time travel movies like BTTF, but it IS an interesting explanation for the creation of stable time loops.