# Embarrassing epiphanies about movies **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 4, 2006, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies-about-movies/342966 "2006-02-04T05:14:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies-about-movies/342966/41 "2006-02-05T18:06:23Z")
> [@Speaker for the Dead](#): > > There’re a couple other, but I think that proves my point :D. Not really. Most of your proofs can be put down to Disneyfication. “Based on Hamlet” is still a valid description of _The Lion King_; no one has seriously claimed that there are no differences (you forgot to point out the whole \*lion \*thing). ---
**Author:** ![Askia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Askia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askia)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies-about-movies/342966/42 "2006-02-05T18:12:59Z")
Ooo. I got another one. For years I didn’t realize the term “black comedy” also meant, “movies whose humor draws from a bleak and depressing outlook.” When I worked at a video store, a customer walked up to me with a copy of _Harold and Maude_ and asked me to recommend more black comedies from the seventies, I’m all like, “Well, I never heard of this. Have you seen _Car Wash_ or _Cooley High_?” I :smack: it when :smack: _look_ at me like :smack:. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies-about-movies/342966/43 "2006-02-05T18:22:28Z")
> [@](#): > > Well, it took me quite a few years to realize that The Lion King is just Hamlet with musical numbers. Does that count? In all fairness, it took Disney a long time to realize _The Lion King_ was based on Hamlet. It wasn’t until people began pointing out the numerous simularities to _The Jungle Emperor_ that Disney realized how much it had been inspired by the earlier public domain work. ---
**Author:** ![Speaker\_for\_the\_Dead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@Speaker\_for\_the\_Dead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Speaker_for_the_Dead)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies-about-movies/342966/44 "2006-02-05T18:30:24Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > Not really. Most of your proofs can be put down to Disneyfication. “Based on Hamlet” is still a valid description of _The Lion King_; no one has seriously claimed that there are no differences (you forgot to point out the whole \*lion \*thing). It may have been _inspired_ by Hamlet, but it wasn’t _based_ on it. The basic plot is completely different once you get past the “uncle kills father” part. Even that’s different, since in _Hamlet_, the story begins with King Hamlet already dead. I’ll do the opposite of what I just did, and compile a list of similarities. 1. Scar kills Mufasa like Claudius kills King Hamlet. 2. Scar becomes king. 3. Simba is unhappy with his father’s death. 4. Simba discovers that Scar killed his father. 5. Scar dies. I’m sure I’ve missed some parts that clearly point to the _Hamlet_-_Lion King_ connection. Feel free to fill in the list as you see fit. ---
**Author:** ![Nature\_s\_Call](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nature_s_call/32/19006_2.png) [@Nature\_s\_Call](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nature_s_Call)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies-about-movies/342966/45 "2006-02-05T19:31:08Z")
> [@Lochdale](#): > > Pretty much all of the innuendo in Grease. It came out in Ireland in 79/80 and we all used to sing along to some of the songs on the bus to Fairview. I had no idea…summer loving indeed! I too thought, in my innocent youth, that Grease was nothing but good, clean, wholesome fun. I was shocked! shocked! to learn those parts of “[Greased Lightning](http://www.allmusicals.com/lyrics/grease/greasedlightning.htm)” I always had trouble making out… “…You know that ain’t shit when we’ll be gettin’ lots of tit…” “…You are supreme, The chicks’ll cream…” “…You know that I ain’t braggin’, she’s a real pussy wagon…” ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies-about-movies/342966/46 "2006-02-05T19:36:45Z")
> [@smiling bandit](#): > > Are you sure Shaloub’s character was supposed to be stoned? I think he was just supposed to be so laid-back nothing ever phased him. It’s a Tony Shaloub thing. 😕 You’re describing the anti-Monk! ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies-about-movies/342966/47 "2006-02-05T19:58:20Z")
I used to think Yoda was just a really old human. Marc ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies-about-movies/342966/48 "2006-02-05T20:07:51Z")
No single epiphany – but I saw the 1967 sex comedy _A Guide for the Married Man_ ([http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061736/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061736/)) on television (several times) when I was about 9 or 10 years old. At this time I was vaguely aware of the existence of something called “sex” but largely oblivious to the details, so a lot of the plot points went right over my head – later becoming clear in retrospect. I also did not understand at the time that adultery might have economic repercussions – i.e., divorce and alimony – or that women, at the time the movie was made (not the time when I saw it), were generally eager to find husbands for economic reasons. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies-about-movies/342966/49 "2006-02-05T20:21:57Z")
It was not until long after I saw _Waterworld_ that I figured out Kevin Costner is a pretentious, incompetent dumbass. In my defense, I had not, at that time, seen _Field of Dreams._ ---
**Author:** ![Linty\_Fresh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Linty\_Fresh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Linty_Fresh)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies-about-movies/342966/50 "2006-02-05T20:37:07Z")
It was years after I saw the Batman movies before I realized that the character played by Billy Dee Williams and Tommy Lee Jones was the same guy, Harvey Dent. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Achren](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/898d66/32.png) [@Achren](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achren)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies-about-movies/342966/51 "2006-02-05T21:53:44Z")
Many years passed before I realized that [Jock offered to marry Lady](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048280/) because she was pregnant. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies-about-movies/342966/52 "2006-02-05T22:01:34Z")
The first time I saw _Diamonds Are Forever_, I was around 12 and I didn’t realize that the two hitmen, Mr Kidd and Mr Wint, were gay. ---
**Author:** ![robardin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies-about-movies/342966/53 "2006-02-05T22:27:58Z")
> [@Speaker for the Dead](#): > > It may have been _inspired_ by Hamlet, but it wasn’t _based_ on it. The basic plot is completely different once you get past the “uncle kills father” part. Indeed. Overall I feel the core theme of the movie is much more evocative of _Henry V_ and the other “King” plays than _Hamlet_: “irresponsible boy-prince learns the meaning of being king”, mixed in with the whole divine right/favor of heaven thing (i.e., the whole country suffers when the ruler is not the rightful king). ---
**Author:** ![robardin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies-about-movies/342966/54 "2006-02-05T22:32:44Z")
As for replying for the OP’s topic: I remember experiencing “a moment of clarity” while watching _Back To The Future II_, when 50s-Biff tells Future-Biff to “make like a tree, and get outta here”, as he had to Marty in the original BTTF. This line puzzled me then, and I had walked around for 2-3 years thinking it was just supposed to be an example of how incoherently stupid Biff was. But then Future-Biff raps 50s-Biff with his cane, saying, “It’s **leave** … Make like a tree and _leave_! You sound so stupid when you say it wrong!” About 3/4 of the audience watching BTTF2 laughed. The remaining quarter (myself included) quite audibly gasped, “Ohhhhhhhh… Now I get it!” ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2006, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies-about-movies/342966/55 "2006-02-07T02:10:36Z")
When I saw the movie _Malcolm X_ I had somehow never heard the term [ofay](http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=ofay). Everytime it was said I thought Denzel or Spike was saying “that ol’ fag”, and it made very little sense hearing about “ol’ fags coming down to buy black women” or “she married that ol’ fag she’s been running around with”. For some reason I didn’t realize Bruce Willis’s girlfriend in _Pulp Fiction_ was French. I could have sworn, both times I saw it in the theater, that she was Asian (and assumed that her accent was perhaps due to being Vietnamese or from some other French Asian colony). No idea why I thought this, but one of the people who saw it with me also thought she was Asian. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2006, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies-about-movies/342966/56 "2006-02-07T03:38:56Z")
> [@aurelian](#): > > I completely missed the rape in _A Streetcar Named Desire_…when I read the play, then saw the movie…still didn’t get it until my high-school English teacher mentioned it…and I was just shocked! So, did the end of the movie just make zero sense to you? Why did you think she went crazy? Not mocking you, just genuinely curious. She -was- a bit fragile before, I know. ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2006, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies-about-movies/342966/57 "2006-02-07T15:12:46Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Their arguments fell on deaf ears. So, they came up with the idea of a dick joke as part of the title. When they proposed “Bigger, Longer and Uncut” as the new title, the ratings board was satisfied, thinking thy’s cleaned up the title… when in fact, they’d gotten a much WORSE title. You know what’s really embarassing? I didn’t get the joke, it _whooshed_ me so completely I didn’t even realize they were making a joke , until I read that comment. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2006, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies-about-movies/342966/58 "2006-02-07T15:23:19Z")
When I watched Napoleon Dynamite, I inadvertently turned on the director’s commentary. When the movie started, everybody was like “Why’s the director talking over everything” and I was like “Shut up, it’s irony.” After about 15 minutes we had enough of irony and discovered the problem. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2006, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies-about-movies/342966/59 "2006-02-07T15:38:19Z")
> [@](#): > > Quote: > Originally Posted by Speaker for the Dead > It may have been inspired by Hamlet, but it wasn’t based on it. The basic plot is completely different once you get past the “uncle kills father” part. > Indeed. Overall I feel the core theme of the movie is much more evocative of Henry V and the other “King” plays than Hamlet: “irresponsible boy-prince learns the meaning of being king”, mixed in with the whole divine right/favor of heaven thing (i.e., the whole country suffers when the ruler is not the rightful king). I’ve felt the same way (although the “Hamlet” influence was pretty obvious). I’m totally surprised that no critic or commentator ever mentions the obvious similarity between Timon and Pumba and Prince Hasl’s drinking companions (especially Falstaffe/Oldcastle) from the _Henry_ plays. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2006, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies-about-movies/342966/60 "2006-02-07T15:47:50Z")
It took several viewings of _Minority Report_ before I realized that the three “pre-cogs” - Agatha, Arthur and Dashiell - were named after mystery writers, as their job is to detect crime. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies-about-movies/342966.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies-about-movies/342966.md?page=4)