It's a movie. With, most likely, one main time period The first episode is roughly 20-25 minutes of cinematic experience, so to speak.
Exactly. Although, seeing as how we're spending the entirety of episode 3 in 1986A and probably part of episode 4 as well, I think we can say there are 1.5 main time periods (at least). But, yeah, 24 minutes of "movie time" per episode to make a 2 hour movie/game overall seems like how this is going to shake out.
You know, I've watched the video game walkthrough (approximately one hour thirty minutes, no optional dialogs or anything), and after trying to make a movie material out of everything in my head, you know, what to cut, what to leave, what to shorten and how, this and that, I can't imagine it being compressed into 25 minutes, there isn't much stuff to leave (unlike, let's say, ToMI, which could be actually trimmed so every episode would take 20-30 minutes and nothing plot-essential would be left out).
But with BttF, you know, there aren't much things that could be easily totally left out (i.e. not stay in their original/trimmed variant). You know, apart from the Biff/Guitar thing at the beginning, recording Tannen to lure out Artie (also recording Emmett, it's possible to make him trust Marty more easily), and maybe calling Brown's residence from the Soup Kitchen (Doc can say straight away that he worked in the courthouse) all the other puzzle/dialog sequences feel important (and should be included, even if in a trimmed way), and that's somewhere 40-45 minutes of footage.
Maybe it's nor a trilogy nor a movie, but a two-parter?
Interesting thing I noticed in BttF's time travel - it seems that the 'past' events stay 'implanted' in history even if you change the future. Like, Marty's still in 1955 even when 1985A is created where Doc DOESN'T create a time machine (he's in asylum) and Marty can't possibly be sent to 1955. Or old Biff - in the future of 1955/1985 he will never steal the DeLorean (the future will be vastly different), yet he will still be implanted in the same 1955.
So as long as you don't change the past from the even further past (when it's the changeable future) - it stays. In the movies the pinpoint year is 1955 which changes everything (1885 doesn't have those big repercussions on the timeline... well, at least we're not shown any, though it might) - it defines the characters and the future of George/Lorraine/Biff, it gives Doc even more reason to continue with science as he'll create the Time Machine, it gives Marty himself some valuable experience etc. etc.
But in the game, this pin-point year will be totally messed up by Marty in 1931, leading to another absolutely new chain of events. Now. What if by fixing 'the future', Marty won't bring back all what happened in the movies? What if Marty will change Arthur's character, making him raise his son differently, making George more confident from the start and rendering Marty 'useless' as a catalyst of the changes. What if Doc learns about building the Time Machine in 1931? We know that Marty and Doc will race through time to fix everything. But 'fix' doesn't mean 'return to the state as it was'. What if the game will end with the Twin Pines Mall scene where Doc, while explaining to Marty how the Time Machine works, will put down the date of his inspiration 1931 (where Marty will accidentally go while being chased by Libyans)? Or some other twist? All those questions pondering... well, we'll see what it will turn into
Maybe it's nor a trilogy nor a movie, but a two-parter?
Maybe it's a five-episode miniseries? People keep trying to associate it 1:1 with something that has already happened in the series, but the fact is that it's totally different from anything that has been done, and I don't think it fits any analogy.
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But with BttF, you know, there aren't much things that could be easily totally left out (i.e. not stay in their original/trimmed variant). You know, apart from the Biff/Guitar thing at the beginning, recording Tannen to lure out Artie (also recording Emmett, it's possible to make him trust Marty more easily), and maybe calling Brown's residence from the Soup Kitchen (Doc can say straight away that he worked in the courthouse) all the other puzzle/dialog sequences feel important (and should be included, even if in a trimmed way), and that's somewhere 40-45 minutes of footage.
Maybe it's nor a trilogy nor a movie, but a two-parter?
So as long as you don't change the past from the even further past (when it's the changeable future) - it stays. In the movies the pinpoint year is 1955 which changes everything (1885 doesn't have those big repercussions on the timeline... well, at least we're not shown any, though it might) - it defines the characters and the future of George/Lorraine/Biff, it gives Doc even more reason to continue with science as he'll create the Time Machine, it gives Marty himself some valuable experience etc. etc.
But in the game, this pin-point year will be totally messed up by Marty in 1931, leading to another absolutely new chain of events. Now. What if by fixing 'the future', Marty won't bring back all what happened in the movies? What if Marty will change Arthur's character, making him raise his son differently, making George more confident from the start and rendering Marty 'useless' as a catalyst of the changes. What if Doc learns about building the Time Machine in 1931? We know that Marty and Doc will race through time to fix everything. But 'fix' doesn't mean 'return to the state as it was'. What if the game will end with the Twin Pines Mall scene where Doc, while explaining to Marty how the Time Machine works, will put down the date of his inspiration 1931 (where Marty will accidentally go while being chased by Libyans)? Or some other twist? All those questions pondering... well, we'll see what it will turn into