5 Brilliant Clues Hidden in the Background of Movies

Finally, having exhausted every possible option, Neill resorts to simply tying the two ends of the belt together to form a makeshift seat belt.

Amblin Entertainment/Universal Pictures

There you go -- he needed to create something new (a seat belt), but all he had were female ends. So, he improvised. This is exactly what ends up happening with the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. They were left with only one half of the necessary gender pairing to breed, but somehow they are able to create baby dinosaurs. They made it work.

Of course, the specific way that the dinosaurs were able to leap this biological hurdle is never adequately explained (beyond some tossed out rationalization about the geneticists using frog DNA), so we've no choice but to imagine two female dinosaurs tying their vaginas together.

Fight Club is, of course, full of hints about the big twist (that Edward Norton and Brad Pitt were the split personalities of one guy who just beats the shit out of himself for no reason), and most of them are obvious after the fact. Like when Norton beats the hell out of himself in his boss' office and says that it reminds him of his first fight with Tyler Durden (Pitt) -- it seems like an offhand comment on your first viewing, but is obvious in retrospect.

Regency Entertainment/20th Century Fox

However, there's one bit of Brad-Pitt-is-really-a-mind-ghost foreshadowing that we're pretty sure even the most devout Fight Club viewers mining the DVD for senior yearbook quotes didn't pick up on, and that is the freaking pay phone.

The Foreshadowing:

Right after Norton's apartment explodes, he calls Tyler on a pay phone to ask if he can crash on the couch at Tyler's rancid hobo tomb. Tyler doesn't answer, so Norton hangs up. Immediately the phone starts ringing -- Tyler is on the other end, having hit *69 to redial the last number that had called him, because for some reason a man in designer clothing living in a giant decaying shack feels the need to screen his calls.

As soon as the phone starts ringing, however, we are treated to a revealing close-up:

Regency Entertainment/20th Century Fox

It's tough to see, but read that line directly underneath the word "TELNEX" -- it says "No Incoming Calls Allowed." Meaning it is not physically possible for this telephone to receive incoming calls. Meaning Tyler cannot possibly have called Edward Norton back. Meaning Edward Norton is standing in a phone booth with the receiver pressed to his ear, having a detailed conversation with nobody. And of course we find out later that's exactly what he was doing.

Granted, none of this explains why a man beating the shit out of himself in a parking lot would attract a group of disenfranchised males asking if they can join him, but that would be the subject of another article.

Quentin Tarantino's first film is about some professional crooks with color-based pseudonyms (Mr. White, Mr. Blue, Mr. Pink, etc.) who team up to pull off a diamond heist, only to discover that one of them is secretly an informant for the police. None of the crooks had ever met before, and no one can make assumptions based on anyone's reputation because of the pseudonyms. So a complex game of cat-and-mouse begins as the criminals try to discover the traitor in their midst, only to have the movie abruptly reveal that it's Mr. Orange about halfway through in a hail of Michael Madsen-slaying gunfire.

LIVE America/Miramax Films

However, if you're paying really close attention, you can figure out Mr. Orange's duplicity way beforehand.

The Foreshadowing:

There are a few well-known visual hints that pop up before the big reveal that Mr. Orange is the rat, like when Nice Guy Eddie is talking on the phone about how the heist turned into a cop ambush and an orange balloon floats along behind his car:

LIVE America/Miramax Films

Or when Mr. Pink and Mr. White are arguing about who the rat could be in a room full of orange, pink, and white bottles:

LIVE America/Miramax Films

However, the single greatest (and most consistently overlooked) hint comes in the very first scene of the movie, during one of Tarantino's patented 10-minute conversations that sound cool but do not seem to advance the plot in any way. After breakfast, everyone throws in a dollar to tip the waitress except for Mr. Pink, who refuses because he thinks tipping is stupid. When the boss, Joe, comes back from the bathroom and demands to know who didn't throw in for the tip, Mr. Orange immediately tattles on Mr. Pink before anyone else even has a chance to speak:

Joe: Wait a minute ... who didn't throw in?

Orange: Mr. Pink.

Joe: Mr. Pink? Why not?

Orange: He don't tip.

Joe: He don't tip? What do you mean you don't tip?

Orange: He don't believe in it.

Joe: Shut up.

Mr. Pink has no problem admitting it, and he goes on to defend his position to Joe, but the implication is clear -- Mr. Orange simply could not wait to drop the dime on his fellow teammate.

LIVE America/Miramax Films

In fact, that opening scene (including the subsequent debate about tipping) winds up defining everyone's personality (Mr. White is a soft-hearted pushover, Mr. Pink is a cold professional). Mr. Brown's tangential lecture about how "Like a Virgin" is about a guy with a huge dick, however, remains impossible to connect to the rest of the film in any meaningful way.

LIVE America/Miramax Films

One of the running themes in Back to the Future (aside from how Marty stole the Civil Rights movement from black people) is the juxtaposition between how the characters behave in 1985 versus how they were in the '50s: Marty's conservative mother used to be a sex fiend, the aloof mayor of Hill Valley used to be a friendly janitor, and Marty's loser dad was ... well, a slightly younger loser.

And when Marty meets the younger Doc Brown, he sees that the Doc wasn't always a genius -- he's a rambling lunatic who wastes his time building ridiculous inventions that cannot possibly work. For example, the instant young Doc meets Marty, he tries to read Marty's thoughts using a Mind Helmet that looks like it was built from a shoebox full of old K'Nex he bought at a yard sale connected to a suction cup.

Amblin Entertainment/Universal Pictures

After Doc sticks the suction cup to Marty's head, he makes three guesses, which are as follows: "You've come here from a great distance," "You want me to buy a subscription to the Saturday Evening Post," and "Donations! You want me to make a donation ... to the Coast Guard Youth Auxiliary!"

The Foreshadowing:

Actually, Doc's mind-reading helmet totally works, which is the film's subtle way of telling us that he is, in fact, a genius -- he just doesn't realize it yet.

Amblin Entertainment/Universal Pictures

If you give that thought-reading machine a little flexibility and some loose interpretation, then everything the Doc said is true. Marty really has come a great distance -- the dude just got chased 30 years into the past by terrorists in a microbus. That's one. And what day of the week did Marty arrive in 1955? On a Saturday, which we see when he checks the date on a newspaper:

Amblin Entertainment/Universal Pictures

Boom, that's two. Finally, every person Marty speaks to keeps asking him if he's in the Coast Guard, mistaking his vest for a life jacket, which is fair because Marty himself has mistaken a down vest for something that people are supposed to just casually wear.

One could argue that Doc is simply making the same error and letting it influence his guesses, but if that's the case, prepare to have your naysaying mind blown -- Doc senses that Marty is there about a donation, right? Well, later on in the same scene, Marty hands Doc the love letter his girlfriend wrote, which is on the back of a donation flier for the Hill Valley clock tower from 1985. The only reason Marty and Doc know when and where the bolt of lightning necessary to fling the DeLorean back into the Reagan administration is going to strike is because of this flier.

Amblin Entertainment/Universal Pictures

Doc couldn't have been aware of any of this -- he's literally only known Marty for 10 seconds when he rattles off his mind-reading guesses. And it stands to reason that those three things would be at the front of Marty's mind -- his time-traveling journey, the shocking discovery of what date he'd arrived in, and the love letter from the girlfriend he's trying to get back to. The movie is using this scene of apparent bumbling pseudo-science dumbassery to tell us that everything the Doc builds does actually work -- just not necessarily in a way that makes any kind of sense.

Captain America looks around like everyone in the room just farted six times:

Marvel Studios/Walt Disney Pictures

But other than that, no one really reacts. The scene continues, and we get a nice little button at the end of it showing us the unseen crew member who was, in fact, playing Galaga:

Marvel Studios/Walt Disney Pictures

It's a fun throwaway joke that, incidentally, gives away the film's climactic final sequence.

The Foreshadowing:

In case you're not a student of video game history, Galaga is a shooter game wherein you play as a single space fighter defending the Earth from seemingly endless waves of alien invaders that pour down from the top of the screen. You can play it right here.

Namco

Now, if you remember the movie at all (which, if you are reading this website, chances are you probably do), you know that it ends exactly the same way: Seemingly endless waves of alien invaders pour down from the top of the screen, and Iron Man zips around blowing them up.

Marvel Studios/Walt Disney Pictures

Marvel Studios/Walt Disney Pictures

In the end, Tony Stark even flies directly into space to face the oncoming swarm alone, effectively becoming the heroic little ship from Galaga:

Marvel Studios/Walt Disney Pictures

When Tony drops the initial joke, we have no idea what Loki's plan is yet. We know he's going to do ... something. With aliens. But the seemingly innocuous video game reference was actually priming our brains for the movie's finale. If only the aliens had themselves gotten hold of a copy of Galaga, they would have realized that aimlessly flying around in formation and waiting to get shot is actually a terrible invasion strategy.

J.F. Sargent has been dropping hints about you following him on Tumblr, Twitter, and Facebook throughout the whole article. Dennis Fulton is now dropping an obvious hint for you to check out his friend's Web series.

For more things you completely missed in films, check out 7 Movies That Put Insane Work Into Details You Didn't Notice and 7 Insane Easter Eggs Hidden in Movies and TV Shows.

If you're pressed for time and just looking for a quick fix, then check out 3 Amazing Details of the Most Embarrassing Spy Scandal Ever.

And stop by LinkSTORM to see how the ending of Cracked is discretely hidden in Ross Wolinsky's columns.

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