The 'Back To The Future' Trilogy Is A Big Chiasmus, But What Is That? [Video Essay]

Longtime fans of the Back to the Future trilogy know that there are many parallels that run between all three of the films. For example, one of the biggest parallels between all three films is a big chase that happens in the middle of Hill Valley's town square. There's also Marty McFly waking up from what he thinks is a dream in every single movie, only to realize that he's not dreaming when some form of Lea Thompson is in front of him. But it turns out there might be more than just shared sequences, plot points, etc.

A couple years ago, Back to the Future fan Robert Lockard proposed the theory that the entire sci-fi trilogy from director Robert Zemeckis is actually one big chiasmus. What's a chiasmus? A video explains the Back to the Future chiasmus theory after the jump so you can better understand.

As Robert Lockard explains, a chiasmus is "an ancient writing structure in which ideas are listed in one order and then repeated in the opposite order to form a complete idea." Any fans who have watched the entire Back to the Future trilogy countless times can already see how this applies, but the above video explains a little more clearly for those who might need some examples.

Netflix put together the adorable little animated video above, but Robert Lockard deserves the full credit for this theory. In fact, the above video only touches upon some of the pieces of the trilogy that support this theory. You can see Lockard's entire list of evidence supporting this theory over at his blog Deja Reviewer right here. He's even applied this theory to several other movies such as WarGames, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, The Empire Strikes Back and more.