6 Insane Fan Theories That Actually Make Great Movies Better
Cinephiles love reading way too much into a films, and 99 percent of the stuff they come up with is bullshit ("what if Haley Joel Osment was also a ghost?") but other times, they turn out to be right (yes, Harrison Ford really was a replicant in Blade Runner).
Well here are some oddball, yet strangely plausible, alternate fan theories that in many cases actually improve the movie quite a bit.
#6.
"James Bond" Is Not a Man, But a Code Name
When the 007 franchise launched in 1962, Sean Connery was 32 when he received his license to kill. That was almost 50-years ago, and James Bond has aged like a fine Beaujolais spiked with antifreeze. How is the same 30-something special agent who fought the Cold War-era Russians now taking on post-9/11 terrorism?
The Theory:
There has been a theory among fans that there is no one single James Bond, but that "James Bond" is a codename passed on from one agent to the next as each retires (just as the titles of M and Q pinball from agent to agent). The theory explains the agelessness of Bond--note that Daniel Craig's Bond became 11 years younger whereas Judi Dench's M aged by four years.
This also explains how James Bond's personality changes dramatically from actor to actor. For example, in one film you have Timothy Dalton's Bond burning a man alive (around the 9:00 mark). Pop in another DVD and you see Roger Moore's Bond is doddering around in a clown costume.
The more you look into it, the more it makes sense. George Lazenby's Bond had his wife murdered in the last film he appeared in, so fans could assume that his 007 retired out of grief. Timothy Dalton's Bond went rogue and was kicked out of MI6. Pierce Brosnan's final outing ended with Bond being abandoned by British intelligence. Next movie, there's a new Bond in the tuxedo and the old one is presumably on a beach somewhere collecting a government pension.
Hell, even the guy who directed Die Another Day believed this theory. Wait, that was the Bond movie with the invisible car, right? Fuck that guy.
Why Does it Make the Film Better?
We like the realism that this theory gives the Bond franchise, particularly since 007 movies have the propensity to fly off the rails every few years (see: Moonraker, Denise Richards as a nuclear physicist, that invisible fucking car).
On the downside, it throws a real monkey wrench in Cracked's patent pending "James Bond Immortality Diet," in which we advise you to hydrate solely with Gordon's and Lillet and to bed at least three secretaries daily.
"C'mon toots. I'm only doing you for my blood pressure."
#5.
Zion Is Part Of The Matrix
Do you remember The Matrix: Revolutions? No? It was, like, the final film in the trilogy? Still no? Hey, we haven't watched it since 2003 either. Wait, you don't even remember it coming out? Dear reader, we think you might have a case of PTSD: Post-Trilogy Stress Disorder. Don't worry; you're not alone in your suffering--it affects Star Wars fans too.
Would it reaffirm your faith in the Wachowski brothers, dear Matrix fan, if we told you the mindfuck from the first movie was just one mindfuck inside one huge matryoshka doll of mindfucks?
Like this.
The Theory:
In Revolutions, Neo's powers from the Matrix have seemingly transferred into the material world. For instance, he can "see" (despite having charbroiled his eyeballs) and also manifests the power to blow up machines with his mind. This has been a pet peeve with fans who note that this makes absolutely zero sense in the context of the Matrix universe.
But one theory posits that Neo's sudden, convenient-to-the-plot superpowers were possible since he never left the Matrix at all.
These fans figure "Zion" and the whole world Morpheus and the other "free" humans lived in was a separate Matrix unto itself, a second layer of the computer program to let some people think they had escaped. Thus it makes perfect sense that Neo would have magical powers in what he thought was the "physical" world.
Why does it make the film better?
The theory keeps the sci-fi film sci-fi and not heavy-handed messianic fantasy. Neo's new powers are never explained in Revolutions (hand-waved away by The Oracle in one sentence) and therefore seem like a cheap cop-out tacked on simply to end the damn movie. This explanation also prevents the now-tarnished Wachowskis from looking like a bunch of lazy jack-offs who are still cruising on the first Matrix film.
"From the team who brought you Speed Racer and Ninja Assassin!"
The theory gives a somewhat credible explanation instead of a deus ex machina plot device. Interestingly enough, deus ex machina literally means "god from the machine." Double whoa, brah.
#4.
Ferris Bueller's Day Off Was All in Cameron's Head
This beloved 1986 John Hughes teen comedy tells the story of three good friends playing hooky; the affable and impossibly popular Ferris Bueller, the chronically depressed Cameron and Ferris's girlfriend, the stone-cold Sloane. Together, they embark upon the most exciting non-sex-and-booze-and-pot filled day a bunch of attractive American teens could ever wish for.
The Theory:
Cameron creates Ferris in his mind. Ferris is the total opposite of Cameron: he's fun, spontaneous and has a loving family and foxy girlfriend. At the beginning of the film, the imaginary Ferris convinces a bed-ridden Cameron to "borrow" his dad's Ferrari 250 GT California and cruise all over Chicago. Given Cameron's crushing social incompetence, it's likely that Sloane is fictional too and represents a girl that he has a crush on.
This theory explains the more fantastic elements of the film. For example, the whole city of Chicago rallies around the "sick" Ferris. This represents Cameron's miserable home life and how he yearns for friends and family who give a shit. Or, perhaps Bueller is a guy Cameron knows but isn't friends with, and his fantasy is based on what he imagines life to be like for the "popular" kids at school--everything is easy and the world revolves around them.
Or maybe it's a secret metaphor for how Cameron wants to grow up to be Inspector Gadget.
"Gotta get home before my parents do!"
When Cameron accidentally trashes his father's Ferrari at the film's climax, he realizes that he needs to stick up to his father and take responsibility for his own life. At this point he "disposes" of Ferris and Sloane. Both of his fictional friends receive happy endings: Sloane is left pondering marrying Ferris, whereas Ferris safely returns home, where he can break the fourth wall for eternity.
Why does it make the film better?
It transforms Ferris Bueller into a Brat Pack version of Fight Club. Remember when Ferris keeps pestering Cameron to pick him up? Let's watch that scene again...
Holy shit. That kid is fucked up. He needs a friend. A friend who is everything he is not, a friend who can liberate him from all of his self-imposed limitations. Somewhere, there's probably a rejected script for a sequel where "Bueller" convinces Cameron to climb up a clock tower with a rifle.
The last one can be canonical. R2 never was mind wiped.
ReplyTook me a bit to get into the star wars one but it actually makes alot of sense
ReplyThat Judex guy will just not stop bitching about James Bond. I think "Floating Timeline" might just be his favorite phrase.
ReplyThe ending to Taxi Driver is not happy. In the commentary with Scorsese and Paul Schrader (the writer) recorded by Criterion, they say that the ending is not happy at all and shows that he is just a ticking time bomb and that the events in the film are just going to happen again.
ReplyI have to admit I actually enjoy watching the Star Wars prequels occasionally, but I LOVE #1.
ReplyThat the kid dies at the end of Radio Flyer is hardly an "insane theory" in that the narrator strongly implies that he's changing the story he's telling his sons at the beginning of the movie, then, just in case the audience missed that part, tells them again at the end.
ReplyI personally interpret it as his plunging to his death after going off the barn roof (not a cliff as the article says). The older brother interprets this as a form of escaping from the stepfather as a means of dealing with the events as they actually occurred.
That Zion is part of the Matrix, just one level up, does work better than what we actually got, but only if we ignore the sequels. This is what I choose to do, save a couple of cool scenes from the second one. I think they didn't go with that twist because it had been used in two other movies that came around at around the same time. I won't mention them so as not to spoil the twists, but you know which movies I'm referring to if you've seen them. And if you haven't, you'll probably see the twists coming from a mile away now anyway.
The Matrix is one of those movies that works perfectly fine as a stand-alone and is only diminished by the sequels. Back to the Future is another, even though the sequels there are much better than the Matrix sequels.
Most movies, even those that imply a sequel is on the way (as in the Matrix and Back to the Future) work best if we leave the implications regarding what happens next to the imagination of the fans.
...Is one of them The Thirteenth Floor?
As I said, it's obvious if you've seen it.
I was really into the star wars universe when I was younger and i remember someone, somewhere mentioning that Threepio had had his memory wiped every 5 years, while do to artoo's cunning/luck he was never wiped. This was in a book (or game maybe?) made By Lucas, so he may be supporting the whole "They where spies" theory. Either way, it's fun to speculate :D
ReplyThe only decent theory is the Matrix-within-a-matrix and unfortunately that falls apart as soon as you think about it. If none of the characters were ever unplugged, then the agents are completely pointless and the entire series loses its tension. The machines could literally kill all the main characters any time they wanted, and every motive and event that occurs during the 7 hours of screentime is rendered moot. Not really an improvement, infact it makes the best entry in the series a complete waste of time.
ReplyWhat about in Die Another Day - stick with me, I know the film is terrible - when Bond meets R in the abandoned train station, and he is looking through all of the relics of his old missions: the jetpack, the shoe with the knife in it, etc. - all things that were in the older films, i.e. Connery and Craig. I've always thought James Bond was one man, continuously, played by different actors. If the whole "Bond's age vs. M's age" thing were true, then M would have been dead a good while ago, and Bond would be fully out of commission. My apologies, Mr. Connery.
ReplySo many Cracked movie articles are base don the "Fact" that the Matrix sequels and Star Wars prequels are bad. Well I for one love all 5 of those films, and don't consider any weird internet fan theories an improvement. Revealing Zion was another Matrix would have been criticized as too Predictable if they'd actually done it.
ReplyI actually thought the Bond one was how the books are written. Granted, I haven't read them, and I've only seen the movies (all of them) because my husband is a huge fan, but I thought the "code name" thing was a given. *Shrug*
ReplyI guess it depends on perspective; I'm a big Bond fan and to my eyes it's blindingly obvious from the movies that it's not a code name, and the notion that someone considers it a "given" is something of a shock. But I guess if someone's only casually watching them and not catching all the references (like Roger Moore standing at the grave of George Lazenby's wife, or George Lazenby reminiscing about Sean Connery's adventures), they might think it's a code name. Because unless they go back to find rationalizations for all that (and let's be honest, that would be cheap and contrived), the code-name theory doesn't make the movies "make sense," it makes them complete and utter nonsense. (And after all, they're only movies, it's what's called a "floating timeline.")
I'm not so sure that these theories add any creedence to any movies other than the prequel trilogy, otherwise they just seem to be things that are plausible
ReplyI suppose these "insane" but saddo theories don't do any actual harm; these people seriously devote huge amounts of their time to figuring out the relevance of several shite movies to the original three good ones, or making the highly entertaining but shallow 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off' into a movie really about the psychotically depressed, hallucinatory angst of a "Billie No Mates", or being completely unable to cope with the standard "movieworld possible" / "realworld impossible" divide by the usual mechanism known as "suspension of disbelief", and need to come up with a 'proper' reason why different actors play the same character across a film franchise that has lasted for 50 years. The question "why do they need to do this?" does flit across my brain but disappears rapidly as a psychological study to far.
ReplyStar Wars Empire vs. Rebel Alliance debate anyone?
ReplyThe Matrix theory really isn't a theory, it's the plot of the movie. First off, the Oracle and the Architect say that Neo is another form of control with-in the Matrix and Neo questions why the Oracle is helping him, helping Zion exist she has no real answer. Secondly, the fact that Agent Smith can leap from the Matrix into the real world, proves that the real world is yet another level of the Matrix. Third, the machines have the power to eliminate Zion at any time, which is mentioned by the Architect and the Oracle. The various versions of the Matrix and Zion are also mentioned.
ReplyActually, Chewbacca was already explained. He was captured by the Empire, although spared by a young Lieutenant, a pre-smuggler days Han Solo. Han defected and rescued Chewbacca from slavery soon after, and because of that, Chewbacca swore a life debt to him (pretty much, it means Chewbacca is completely loyal to him and will follow him until one of them dies). Oh, and Chewbacca is over 200 years old and gets killed by having a moon dropped on him. Yes, a moon.
ReplyOh, and as for the parsec thing, the Kessel Run is a trade route that gets extremely close to a black hole. He was less than 12 (about 11.5, to be more exact) parsecs away from the black hole. The normal route is 18 parsecs away. 1 parsec = 3.26 lightyears. He was 37.49 lightyears from a black hole.
*is a SW pedant* The Kessel Run doesn't just skirt *a* black hole, it skirts a damn SWARM of the things. That whole sector of space is just a nest of them and it's dealing with that clusterflarg of gravitic disturbances (which are a Very Bad Thing when travelling through hyperspace. The "mass shadow" of a small asteroid can cripple a ship in transit, so the sector of space the Kessel Run passes through is basically the equivalent of steering your ship through a whirlpool to make it pick up speed.) that makes Han's boast so effective. If you assume that he's talking about making the trip in a shorter amount of time due to the Millenium Falcon's speed, then he just sounds like an idiot. But if you assume that he actually IS talking about parsecs, it becomes apparent that he's bragging about the accuracy of the ship's hyperdrive, navicomputer, and his own astrogation skill.
And that's more than anyone (least of all me) needs to know about the Kessel Run.
Personally, I can explain the whole problem with ret-conning Star Wars as simply "George Lucas is a hack writer who should have quit while he was ahead". I refuse to accept the second trilogy at all, in any shape or form, and I certainly do not accept that it has anything to do with the first trilogy. Just because Lucas found a way to milk his cash cow for decades doesn't mean the damn thing has any legitimacy. I saw the first film when it came out, and not only did it NOT have that stupid "Episode IV" title when it was first released, it was obvious from the moment that Lucas started yammering about those "nine parts" that he'd had nothing of the kind in mind when he made the original. The incredible clumsiness of his trying to shoehorn in stuff that made no sense makes it clear, and the folks slavering after every crumb he produces are just being ripped off.
ReplyThis is actually a pretty valid point, considering the failure to even predict the success of the first movie. I believe it was even on Cracked where they had an article about the worst toys and the "place holder" for the Star Wars toys was sold before Christmas since the toys weren't ready.
However, I'm glad George has milked it but more so I am glad that unlike J.K.Rowling he opened up his own personal universe to everyone. Sure the games are made by Lucas Arts and the books probably go through some sort of approval process, but it isn't like George is reading through every one of these stories and approving them. Especially considering George has even come right out and said that "his" story is only the 6 episodes and that he doesn't care about the rest. Specifically even stating something along the lines of "Luke doesn't train more Jedi, Han and Leia don't get married and have kids. My story is just about Anakin's fall into Vader, that's it."
This leads in to everyone being able to basically do whatever they want with the Star Wars universe. Leading in to great pieces of story telling in various time lines in the same universe. My favorite being the Old Republic time period.
Now I like Harry Potter, but imagine being able to read a story about a wizard in America, or Africa or Asia. Especially one occurring in the same time line as the 7 HP books.
"It transforms Ferris Bueller into a Brat Pack version of Fight Club."
ReplyAnd that's precisely why the theory sucks. It's classic overthinking. Face it - not everything in a movie has to make f*****g sense. Some silly teen movies are just silly teen movies.
Evidence for and against the Bond theories can be found in the film. Against: Moore visiting Tracy's grave, Lazenby's retirement reminiscence referencing previous missions through music cues. For: Lazenby outright saying "This never happened to the other fella!" in the cold open, Ms, Qs and Moneypennies being consistent while Bond keeps getting replaced, M being a new character whenever there's a new M - only really became obvious with Judi Dench, since the previous Ms were similar looking.
ReplyIt's pretty clear that it's something the producers weren't thinking of, but honestly they should embrace it, it makes retroactive sense.
Not to mention, we had a very miffed Connery Bond searching the world for Blofeld during the opening for Diamonds Are Forever (to avenge the wife of the "other fellow").
There's no reason the Rebels couldn't have backed up C-3PO someplace, retaining the valuable intelligence he holds. As for the reason why R2-D2 was spared and C-3PO wasn't, that's easy: R2-D2 is a hell of a lot more useful and less annoying. R2-D2 can hack the Death Star; C-3PO just gets shoved into a closet. ;-)
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