5

Bright -- "So I need you to take your fat, Shrek-lookin' ass back to your vehicle and drive the fuck off to Fiona!"

To help stem the tide of the movies they're losing to other streaming outlets, Netflix threw a lot of money at Bright, which starred Will Smith as a member of the LAPD. But in Bright's universe, he is learning to share the world with orcs, elves, and all other kinds of magical creatures who are on the surface different from him. Sadly, what could've been a decent allegory about race relations gets all garbled up by the fact that Bright's script is about as sound as a basement made of pudding.

At one point, in a confrontation with an orc, Smith says, "So I need you to take your fat, Shrek-lookin' ass back to your vehicle and drive the fuck off to Fiona!" Ya know, like a person would say.

Wait A Minute ...

So, despite the fact that this is a fantasy world with actual orcs, apparently everything occurred in the exact same manner as our real one, up to and including the release of the hit Dreamworks film Shrek? So in the Bright universe, Hollywood made a blockbuster movie -- nay, a goddamn franchise -- based around their equivalent of a crude racist caricature?

4

The Empire Strikes Back -- "Then I'll see you in Hell!"

We're told that the kids of today have in fact not all seen the original Star Wars trilogy, so this explanation is for them. In The Empire Strikes Back (you know, the second one?), Han Solo heads out into a winter storm on the back of an alien kangaroo. When a fellow rebel suggests that it's too cold for either him or his mount to survive, Han answers like a badass: "Then I'll see you in Hell!"

Wait A Minute ...

Things get weird when you borrow common action movie catchphrases for your science fantasy that takes place in another era and universe. How exactly does Han know what Hell is? Are there other Earth religions in the Star Wars universe? Which ones? Was Han raised on a Christian planet?

We guess that, logically, none of these characters are really speaking English, and that the movie we're watching has been translated from whatever language they're actually using (though it does appear to contain some of the same letters, as evidenced by how they name certain ships). So maybe "Hell" has been translated from its original term. We suppose it wouldn't be as catchy if Han had said, "I'll see you in Rabapalu, which is a fiery place you may go to when you die where you receive punishments based on the sins you committed in life. Also, we're all born with original sin because Roogie the Hutt and TR-15 ate a flim-trim fruit."

3

Luke Cage -- "Remember when Obama sang Al Green?"

Barack Obama gets repeatedly name-dropped throughout the Luke Cage TV show on Netflix. In one instance, a journalist tries to convince corrupt politician Mariah Dillard to soften her image by giving a fun interview, referencing Obama singing Al Green at the Apollo Theater. It's good to throw in little lines like that every now and then. It helps ground the universe in some kind of reality.

Wait A Minute ...

It's established in Iron Man 3 that the president of the United States is Matthew Ellis, a generic white dude who is basically there to yell as Tony Stark saves him from falling. This wasn't just mentioned in passing; the president's kidnapping was the central plot.

So this all leads to the question: Why wasn't Obama president anymore? While the MCU timeline can be tricky to nail down, from context, it looks like Iron Man 3 takes place in 2013, the same year it came out. So we guess Ellis won the presidency in 2012, meaning Obama was president from 2008 to 2012?

If so, this means The Avengers' Chitauri invasion was smack dab in the middle of a presidential campaign. Political scholars believe George W. Bush's actions in the aftermath of 9/11 helped him win in 2004. Bush's campaign in 2004 relied a lot on 9/11 imagery to convince voters to trust him to protect them against another terror attack and/or Democrats. It makes sense. A country in fear would stick with what they know and not try to change the system too much.

2

Thor: Ragnarok -- "How many PhDs does Banner have? Seven."

Thor: Ragnarok doesn't try to answer too many outstanding MCU questions. What happened to Jane Foster? Screw it, she and Thor broke up. What's up with the Infinity Stones? Eh, Thor couldn't find anything. Way more time is spent on the answer to where Hulk has been since he flew away at the end of Age Of Ultron. He's been a gladiator on Sakaar for two years, and when Banner finds this out, he gets a little upset. And this is odd, because according to a bit of dialogue, he evidently had no problem wasting decades obtaining the many PhDs he claims to have.

Wait A Minute ...

This line is there to prove that Banner is impossibly smart. That's his other superpower, besides dropping bits of droll comic relief before turning into a CGI monster. Maybe they thought people bragging about having a high IQ was cliche, so they went with this.

1

The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers -- "Looks like meat's back on the menu, boys!"

Merry and Pippin, aka slapstick Frodo and Sam, have been taken by a troop of orcs and Uruk-hai because they believe the Hobbits have the One Ring. As the movie begins, the group doesn't have enough food, and has only eaten "maggoty bread for three stinkin' days." One salivating orc starts eyeing the Hobbits, causing a Uruk-hai to decapitate him and proudly proclaim, "Looks like meat's back on the menu, boys!" Then they ravenously eat his sorry ass.