5 Movie Fan Theories That Make More Sense Than the Movie
At some point, we've all seen the finale of a TV show or movie and thought, "I could have written a better ending than that." (We're still bitter about 24 not ending with Jack Bauer exploding from all the accumulated urine in his body, like our write-in campaign suggested.) That's why there is a thriving culture of fan theories that flood the Internet in anticipation of every show, movie or book.
Though these theories turn out to be wrong approximately 100% of the time, we like to point out the ones that really do seem to improve on what the actual writers came up with. Tell us the below movies or series wouldn't be improved if it turned out...
#5.
Harry Potter Isn't the Chosen One; His Inept Classmate Is
In the world of Harry Potter, Neville Longbottom is the resident doofus. He's not really good at magic, he constantly forgets stuff -- even Rowling hates him, as evidenced by the fact that she included a synonym for "ass" in his name. Neville only seems to be there so that readers who aren't smart, capable or attractive will have someone to identify with.
Also to make Harry Potter look like less of a dork in comparison.
However, just like that shy kid from your school who went on to become a porn actor, later books seem to hint that there might be something more to Neville than meets the eye ...
The Awesome Fan Theory:
Basically, that Harry Potter dude was just a distraction. The "chosen one" was Neville all along.
See, the plot of all seven books revolves around the idea that Harry's life fulfills this prophecy:
"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord [Voldemort] approaches ... born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies ... and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not ... ".
"Also, he'll have a goddamn sword."
The thing is, all that stuff applies to Neville, too. His parents had thrice defied Voldemort, and he was born on July 30, one day before Harry. So what power does Neville know that Voldemort doesn't? According to the theory, that could be either "the power of love" (as in Harry's case) or "herbology."
Or both, considering the way he looks at those plants.
The "Voldemort will mark him as his equal" part was a little trickier, but then again it wasn't clear how it related to Harry, either. Neville had a messed up relationship with his parents, mainly due to the fact that Voldemort had them tortured into insanity. Voldemort had some serious mommy issues, too, so in that sense Voldemort made him his equal.
But the best part of the theory, the part that makes it all come together, is the idea that Dumbledore, the principal of Wizard High, was intentionally allowing Voldemort to think Harry was the chosen one just to protect Neville. While we're not saying they should have just ditched Harry in the last book and turned the other kid into the protagonist, it would have been pretty cool to have Harry find out he wasn't the center of the universe after all, if only because it would have made the character slightly less insufferable.
"Now that I know I'm not the chosen one, I can finally get my dick tattooed."
The later books do flirt with the idea, however briefly. And it would have fit right in with Rowling's habit of pillaging the first three books to turn all the one-off magic items and half-serious gags into game-changing MacGuffins.
*Ahem*
What We Got Instead:
Potter fans of the world were treated to a stunning twist ending in which (spoiler!) Harry kills Voldemort, and then a bunch of random stuff happens because ... you know ... wizards. But even before the last book came out, Rowling actually went on the record specifically shooting the fan theory down, perhaps realizing the ending she had already written wasn't as awesome as the one fans imagined and trying to keep them from getting their hopes up.
#4.
The Matrix: Neo is a Machine
You probably remember the end of the first Matrix movie, in which Keanu Reeves learns that he can change reality with his mind because he's actually living in a giant computer simulation. Later, in The Matrix Reloaded, he kills several sentinel robots with his new mental god-powers --- but he's not inside the Matrix anymore. He's in the real world.
More specifically, in the land of oddly elaborate hairdos and rave sex.
So what gives? Also at the end of Matrix Reloaded, one of the evil computer programs makes its way into the real world by "possessing" the body of a human, which ... doesn't make a lot of sense, when you think about it. What's going on?
The Awesome Fan Theory:
We've previously told you about a popular interpretation which holds that the "real" world of Zion is still part of the Matrix; Keanu had just moved up to another level of simulation, like in Inception. But before the third movie was released, when Matrix fans were still in the denial stage of sequel grief, there was another, more elaborate theory: Zion is a Matrix-like simulation, but one made by humans for the purpose of creating better machines.
The previous generation left something to be desired.
In this scenario, Neo and his "enlightened" fellow humans were actually machines all along, and the baffling, recursive fight scenes they experienced in Matrix Reloaded were software implanted by the humans designed to teach them to understand human pain.
"I understand now ... it sucks ass!"
These dreaming machines would presumably be discouraged from ever declaring war and killing humans in the real world, and everyone would finally be free of the conflict that has plagued futuristic mankind since they decided that a personality was an important thing to have in their coffee machines.
The reason we like this theory is that it would have been a clever play on the old "machines revolt " trope -- instead of humans letting robots take over the world again (apparently nobody in this universe paid any attention to the Terminator movies), the fact that they actually took steps to prevent that sort of shit from happening would have turned the cliche on its head and provided a Matrix-like twist ending for the trilogy.
In addition to giving an in-story excuse for Keanu's acting.
What We Got Instead:
As anyone who watched The Matrix Revolutions knows, the official explanation was that Neo had powers in the real world because fuck you, dear viewer, that's why. At one point someone says something about Neo's powers coming from "The Source," without actually bothering to explain what "The Source" is, which is probably the result of the Wachowskis saying "Don't worry, we'll figure something out in the next movie" while forgetting that this was the final film.
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Above: The "Source."
#3.
Twilight's Bella Is Part Werewolf
Toward the end of the Twilight series, several pressing questions remain in the mind of the reader, the foremost being, "How can I introduce a constitutional amendment to stop the phrase 'sculpted, incandescent chest' from ever being used again?" But there are others: Why can't Edward, a vampire mind-reader, read the thoughts of Bella, a regular human girl? Also, how on earth is Bella pregnant with his half-vampire baby, when vampires can't father children?
What time of the day was this picture taken, and why isn't he engulfed in flames?
The fact that Bella's baby is mysteriously invisible to any kind of scan and even another vampire's precognitive powers (apparently, in Twilight vampires are basically like the X-Men) seems to suggest that something is definitely up with that particular fetus. What could the author possibly be hinting at with all these clues? What amazing plot twist could possibly justify all this drivel?
Bella is revealed to be a T-1000?
The Awesome Fan Theory:
Simple: Bella, the completely uninteresting teenage protagonist, is actually part werewolf. You thought you were reading about a boring, cliched emo girl stereotype, but that's exactly what the author wanted you to think.
The Twilight books tell us repeatedly that vampire powers go haywire when it comes to their ancient enemies, the werewolves. If Bella possessed a weird combination of human and werewolf DNA, it would explain why Edward couldn't read her mind, why the vampires couldn't see her baby's future and possibly how the hell she got pregnant in the first place.
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Everyone knows a werewolf uterus is more resistant than a regular one.
Think about it: That whole "vampire powers go crazy" stuff could easily include making their sperm count go up while inside a werewolf -- sure, why not? They just never found out about it because vampires and werewolves hate each other so much. This could also explain why Jacob, the most eligible werewolf bachelor, has the hots for dull Bella: it's just genetics. Also, Jacob didn't find out he had werewolf blood until the second book, so there's a precedent for this stuff.
Awful tattoos are an early warning sign of lycanthropy.
More importantly, making Bella and Jacob long-lost first cousins would have utilized the time-tested Star Wars Incest Love Triangle Escape Clause. Finally, Bella's human/werewolf/vampire hybrid baby could have ended the vampire vs. werewolf conflict by linking them to a common bloodline, like a significantly more sparkly version of a medieval dynastic marriage.
What We Got Instead:
We sure did get an explanation for Bella's special powers: She is an incredibly unique and beautiful snowflake, and everybody loves her. Seriously -- that's it. It turned out that the vampires couldn't see the baby's future because the fetus was "wrapped in something."
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"There it is. Miss, your son is covered in bullshit plot twists."
As for the mysterious impregnation, the author fixed that plot hole by having some guy walk in and tell everyone that male vampires can in fact impregnate human females, but that it happens so rarely that everyone sort of forgot about it. Apparently, vampires throughout history have been very strict about always using contraceptives and never, ever raping people.
Seriously, why is he not on fire now?
Oh, and the Jacob/Bella/Edward triangle is "solved" when Jacob falls deeply in love with Bella's recently born baby ... but the less said about that the better.
I have a much more interesting Twilight theory. Bella comes from the same blood line as Edward. In short Bella is his great great great niece or cousin. That would explain the obsession with her blood. It's in fact his own blood and the fact that he has this urge to protect her for no reason. Just think about it. What do we really know of Edwards relatives or even Bella's relatives?
ReplyWow, you just made the Twilight saga creepier than it already is. But seriously, good theory.
1983 a young hacker breaks into a top secret military research database nearly kicking off WWIII before learning, through tic-tac-toe, about mutually assured destruction (Wargames).
ReplyThe project is discontinued but the software was purchased by Cyberdyne Systems. Eventually leading to a massive war between the machines and mankind (the Terminator), which mankind very nearly loses. In a last ditch effort to thwart Skynet scientists discover a way to "burn the sky" thus cutting off the mechanical army from solar-power. (leading to the Matrix).
After humanity escapes from the virtual world of the matrix they flee to the stars and over the centuries Earth becomes a legend. Until the machines find them (Battlestar Galatica). After the dregs of humanity recover their legacy and defeat the machines for the last time a new law is passed that eventualy becomes a religious taboo "Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind." (Dune)
Beavis and Butthead have a good alternative theory for Twilight. Bella is a zombie. All she does is stand around with her mouth open, looking vacant. It even makes sense in the "mashup of classic horror film creatures" thing, even if they missed a great opportunity to have Bella fall in love with a Mummy when she got over the vampire and the werewolf.
ReplyThe battle droids were hilarious. Like laser- toting retarded sloths or something...
ReplyAt #1: Obi-Wan totally recognized R2 and spoke to him (while Luke as unconcious) like an old friend. He just wasn't about to blow everything out of the water just yet, not until he knew what R2 was playing at. Also, since he was keeping Luke's parantage a secret from Luke, it actually makes sense that he'd keep all the connections as much in the dark as possible, because then Luke would start asking questions.
ReplyBut, yeah, while that's probably not what Alec Guiness intended, it's a testiment to his subtle acting that you can totally read his perfromance that way.
Okay, I really don't want to jump to Twilight's rescue, and I'm probably going to die a little bit saying this, but the books do actually answer those questions better than the fan theory.
ReplyAlice can't see the baby because she can only see the future of things she is or was. She can see vampires most clearly, because she is one, humans sort of murkily, because she was one, and werewolves not at all, because she's never been one. She's also never been a half-vampire half-human...whatever you'd call that, so she can't see the baby.
The pregnancy thing is solved because vampires (Meyer's vampires, not cool vampires) only stop changing once they become vampires. Meaning women can't get pregnant because pregnancy requires the body to change, but men can impregnate because they likely had sperm in their testicles when they were changed and the little buggers don't die off. As for Bella's 'superhuman' resiliency, she doesn't seem to have any. She's able to carry the thing to term, but the pregnancy itself nearly kills her and she actually dies almost immediately following the impromptu C-section it takes for Edward to get the thing out of her.
Lastly, the werewolf thing doesn't really explain Bella's powers. Edward can read the mind of every werewolf, so it shouldn't protect her from that. In the books, where she's not a vapid waste of space capable of only one facial expression, I got the impression that it's more of a manifestation of her intense awkwardness. She's so damn embarrassed all the time that it forms a mental defense that keeps everything out. The same thing is true of Alice--it's revealed that she was clairvoyant during life and that ability carried over into her vamp life in a stronger form.
tl;dr: Oh my god, I just defended Twilight. I should probably just kill myself now.
#2 still leaves the massive plot hole that CYLON BLOOD CURES CANCER. Literally. They injected cylon blood into a dying cancer patient, and the cancer went away. Nothing else. So, with this massive defining feature, how is it that someone being a cylon is a surprise, when you have this failproof cylon detector:
ReplyCulture some cancer cells.
Get a blood donation from the testee.
Throw some blood on the cancer, see if it dies instantly, as cylon blood is shown to cause it to do.
On the other hand, the knowledge that the series was done on the fly justifies the occasional hasty plot and embarrassing hole. Also, the fact that they managed to make quite a good show despite the rush.
You see, utilizing #3 and a focus on larger issues of vampire/werewolf politics would have been rather compelling, if you took a meat cleaver to the script to remove some of the horrifically wangsty dialogue. Sure, it would have butchered the source material... but hey, any objections to that?
ReplyI think you have missed a trick on the Twilight theory. In the book it explains that just as a person's emotions of love, hate and sorrow are amplified if they become a vampire, so can the unique traits they embody.
ReplyEdward was known to be very perceptive as a human so can read their minds as a vampire; Jasper had a knack for persuasion so this amplified his ability to change people's moods. Even Alice was put in a mental hospital because of her visions.
Bella is an introverted person who rarely shares her thoughts with others, so it works that Edward can't read her thoughts especially with the strength of this "shield" once she becomes a vampire. You have to allow some artistic licence when dealing with supernatural subject matter but suggesting she is part-werewolf doesn't fit.
You forget Alice can see Bella's potential future, and Edward can read the wolves minds so Bella's immunity to Edward's mind-reading her unique to her because of the gift. It's only when Renesmee is growing inside Bella and they are connected in this way that Alice can't see her future, because Renesmee, as part-vampire, is in between two species. This future-telling blank could also be because Renesmee's future is intertwined with Jacob's, and as we said when a werewolf is involved Alice pulls up short!
That's why Meyer's ending fits much better, tying up all the loose ends nicely. That's my theory.
I will sue you for using the words "Meyer's", "fits" and "nicely" in the same sentence.
I actually prefer the real BSG one to the fan one.
ReplyI LOVE the Star Wars one... Now we have the plot to the non-suckish prequel remakes!
ReplyVampires can impregnate human girls it's just most don't sleep with there food and if they do the women don't live long enough to give birth
ReplyPunctuate. It helps, it really does.
george lucas is a peice of s**t
ReplyOnly when he directs. When he just throws money at a project and work on the special effects, he's not too awful.
Personally, I thought Bella was part-succubus. It would explain why everyone obsesses over her(she's part-living aphrodisiac), and how she can have a kid(demons are supernatural)
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesI'm not entirely sure that Twilights fans could understand what a Succubus is.
I love this theory so hard. That would have made it so much better.
Impossible Bella was a mary sue , thus making her too pointlessly annoyingly flawless to be a seductress
I'm going to ignore how ridiculously unresearched the Neville one was...
ReplyAlso, why is the morality of building the clone army never brought up, in the Star Wars universe? The Jedi's whole governing doctrine seems to be based on the philosophy of respecting all living things, and yet here they are sending the clones to the battlefield to be massacred. Also, in Episode II when Obi-Wan goes to Kamino to see the republic's new army, and the alien is explaining to him that the clones are designed to obey orders without question, why don't they see the potential misuse of that feature? Seems like they should have seen that one coming. It really seems like the Jedi deserved to be gunned down by the clone troopers at that point.
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesJedi aren't "good guys"; they work to maintain peace and order, not goodness and happiness. They accepted the clones because they needed soldiers to put down the various separatist armies rising up all over the galaxy, most notably the armies of battle droids working for the former trade federation. Considering that they probably viewed the clones as artificial lifeforms (apparently unable to develop force sensitivity, thought I could be wrong about that) and tools, which they were created to be, it seems fully conceivable that they would use them as intended.
As for the "obey orders without question", the obvious implication was that they would obey orders from the Jedi and the Republic alone- and yeah, part of the issue was that Jedi had come to believe they were somewhat invincible, so they never stopped to consider what could happen. That doesn't mean they deserved to die for it.
From what I can tell, it seems that a Jedi turns to the dark side about every other week, so they really fucked themselves over on that one. They really should have just had a standing army to begin with, cloned or not. But the point I'm trying to make here is that using the clones as soldiers is completely unethical. Just because the clones were grown for the specific purpose of warfare doesn't mean that you get to take away their rights as human beings, whether that's through genetic modification or not. So maybe they didn't deserve to die for it, but building the clone army was unjustifiable.
I agree that Ep. II should've made this point, but the animated series (The Clone Wars) does more with that premise. The Jedi frequently tell the clones that they're also living beings, no different than themselves.
But if the Jedi tell the clones they are no different than themselves why don't they have the same human rights as them? Even if the Jedi are just enforcers of peace, they still believe in (or at least defend) democracy. For example in Episode III right before Obi Wan and Anakin duel, Obi Wan tells Anakin he believes in democracy and not a militaristic empire. So again I don't know why the ethics of all this are never brought up in Star Wars, but I think the Jedi are total hypocrites and actually a bit evil for using what is essentially an army of warrior-slaves for their military.
Neville COULD have been The Chosen One. Voldemort just decided that it was going to be Harry. Really, Voldy could have picked either of them, but it was Harry he chose.
ReplyAnd it would have been SO MUCH COOLER if Bella had been part werewolf. Werewolves are way cooler than vampires, anyway.
muahaha "Voldy" might just be the best word I've heard related to the Harry Potter series
All right, tell me what you think of my fan theory: I thought of it this morning. The reason why Yoda talks funny and is so short is that he's 900 years old. Think about it, language changes over time, and people (and I guess aliens too) get taller every generation, but Yoda's speech and height remains the same as it did 900 hundred years so that's why he has such a distinctive accent and is so short.
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesLet me know what you think about the theory.
Cant tell if serious or bad troll.
No I just wanted to know what you thought of it.
Plausible.
i heard that after they reach 40 years old, people get 1 cm lower each 10 years.
this would account for 86 cm lost.
If the cylon thing was true Baltair would definitely be a cylon. He had sex with at least 3 different cylons numerous times.
Replywell yea but tori found out she was a cylon before she had sex with baltar so that doesnt make sense. Also starbuck would have had to be a cylon too as she slept with anders
I just think the "Bella is part werewolf" thing might have been too complicated for Stephanie Meyer and her readers to understand.
Reply