6 Insane Fan Theories That Actually Make Great Movies Better
#3.
The Little Brother Dies In Radio Flyer
In this 1992 film, Elijah Wood and that kid from Jurassic Park play two young brothers who live in fear of their abusive stepfather. The non-hobbit son concocts a plan to escape on his Radio Flyer wagon. At the end of the film, he and his wagon careen off a cliff, only to fly up, up, and away from his crappy life.
The Theory
There are a couple theories floating around here. One is that the younger brother is a mental fiction created by Elijah Wood's narrator to cope with the abuse--it's notable that no one except the narrator's family interacts with the younger brother. Another theory (which even Roger Ebert suggested) is that the younger brother plummets to his death or is beaten to death by his stepfather.
Furthermore, the narrator's final lines ("Now do you understand what I mean about history being in the mind of the teller? [...]'Cause that's how I remember it.") lend further credence to all of these totally depressing scenarios.
You're a goddamned liar, Tom Hanks!
Why does it make the film better?
Radio Flyer was panned for its saccharine and frankly retarded ending, and the fan theories give the film a more poignant twist. However, we at Cracked find both of these endings wholly unsatisfactory and instead choose to believe that the kid was shanghaied away by Falcor.
Fact: Every movie should end like this.
#2.
A Shitload Of Films End In The Heroes' Heads
Quick quiz: What do Minority Report, Taxi Driver, Total Recall and Observe and Report have in common? If you said "that hooker with three boobs," we dig your style, but no dice.
Give up? The final act of all of these movies takes place entirely in the protagonists' minds.
The Theories
Minority Report and Total Recall are based on the works of Phillip K. Dick, a sci-fi author notorious for exploring human perceptions of reality. In Total Recall, the entire point of the film is that you're not quite sure where the simulation Arnold purchased ends and begins (and a major plot point involves the bad guys trying to rescue him from the simulation, or claiming they were). So it's plausible, and even likely, that the ending (or even the entire damn movie) occurred in the brainwashed Arnold Schwarzenegger's mind.
Less obvious is the shiny, happy ending of the neo-noir Minority Report, with the three rescued psychics living out their lives in an idyllic cabin right out of a Thomas Kinkade painting. It feels so out-of-place that it could very well be a delusion of Tom Cruise's Xenu-infested skull. Remember, Cruise's character was briefly imprisoned in that futuristic iJail where the prisoners' brains remained free to dream. It's possible that the "escape" and heroism was all part of the fantasy that keeps the prisoners from escaping (just like the "Zion is also the Matrix" theory).
On a similar note, critics have interpreted the weirdly cheerful ending of Taxi Driver as the dying thoughts of Travis Bickle. Hell, even Scorsese admits that the film's overly happy ending is a cipher. This same theory applies to Taxi Driver homage Observe and Report: After Seth Rogen stops taking his medication, his schlubby bipolar mall cop saves the day and gets the girl through a series of grossly improbable events (including Rogen beating a dozen policemen and shooting a guy with no consequences).
Paul Blart ends this way too.
Why Do They Make These Films Better?
The final scenes of each seem to clash with the movies' overall message. These fan theories reaffirm the films' darker themes while offering the audience twists of Shyamalanian proportions.
These theories also give us hope for other films too. For example, we have our own theory that The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull occurs entirely in Indiana Jones's mind--he hallucinates the whole goddamn mess while slowly dying from radiation poisoning in a lead-lined fridge.
We actually hope that Indy is dead. Just so this never happened.
#1.
Chewbacca and R2-D2 Are Secret Rebel Agents
When George Lucas introduced his magnum opus, Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace, he tried to shoehorn in perhaps every damn character from the original series, the obese Rancor keeper from Return of the Jedi notwithstanding.
Third Year Consecutive Tatooine Spring Break Wet T-Shirt Contest Champion.
By plopping beloved characters as R2-D2 into the thick of previous events, many fans realized that Lucas had created Chrysler-sized plot holes. For example, R2-D2 and C-3PO basically witnessed Anakin's transformation into Darth Vader, but this fact is never mentioned in the original trilogy. Neither is the fact that Yoda and Chewbacca knew each other (seen fighting alongside one another in Episode III), making it a spectacular coincidence that Luke and Obi-Wan just happened to run into him when looking for a ride off Tatooine in Episode IV.
The Theory:
Lucas tried to cover the "why in Episode IV does C-3PO seem ignorant of everything he saw in the prequels" plot hole by having Bail Organa wipe his memory. But one incredibly detailed theory suggests that someone in the Star Wars universe realized that rebooting the droids was a godawful idea. After all, R2-D2 and C-3PO had just witnessed the rise of the Galactic Empire firsthand. Why the hell would the Rebels delete this precious intel?
According to this theory, R2-D2 must have convinced Yoda and Obi-Wan Kenobi to spare him a memory wipe, whereas C-3PO was not so lucky. During the 20 or so years between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope, the two robots travel undercover; Threepio suspects that he and R2 are affiliated with the Rebels, but unbeknownst to the golden dandypants, R2 has been in communication with the Rebel Alliance the whole time.
He also never tells Threepio that he's really a tiny man in a can.
In RoTS, Chewie is good friends with Yoda and a high-ranking warrior during the defense of Kashyyyk. Why would a second-in-command of the Wookiee army suddenly slum it with Han Solo, a smuggling lowlife? Because Yoda--who's holed up on his toilet planet--needed Chewie to be his eyes and ears.
The theory further states that Chewbacca convinces Han to work with Jabba the Hutt; this way Chewie can frequently visit Tatooine and keep tabs on Luke Skywalker. We further presume Chewie's other unofficial title was "Incest Cop," and he shoved Han into the mix whenever Luke and Leia capered off to play "Hide The Womp Rat."
Why does it make the film better?
The theory bestows the series' sidekicks with a much greater narrative dignity. It also makes Chewbacca's cameo in Revenge of the Sith something more than a totally crass reason to introduce the "Kashyyyk Resistance Fighter Chewbacca" action figure.
"Medals? Oh, yeah, no thanks. We're good."
The theory adds some fascinating subtext to the original films, and also makes the prequels, well, worth watching. Most importantly, if this theory was true, George Lucas would get some serious critical cred. And Lord knows, he could use it.
Pic offered without comment.
Do you have something funny to say about a random topic? You could be on the front page of Cracked.com tomorrow. Go here and find out how to create a Topic Page.
For great movies that shouldn't have been tampered with, check out 5 Awesome Movies Ruined By Last-Minute Changes. Or allow Swaim to show you some directors that skipped their History classes in school, in 11 Movies Saved by Historical Inaccuracy.
And stop by our Top Picks (Updated 1.8.2010) to see how boobs make the Internet more awesome.
And don't forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter to get dick jokes sent straight to your news feed.
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. ;-)
Reply