In this game, you will recount the events of a movie backwards, incorporating them into a coherent (but possibly nonsensical) narrative!
I shall start with “Shaun of the Dead.”
As the movie opens, we find that many people have become zombies, exploited for cheap labor and entertainment. Zombie corpses litter the countryside. Starting at the Winchester Pub, Shaun and his friends go on a Messianic crusade resurrecting and curing deceased zombies. They use all manner of implements to carry out these resurrections, including a magic gun, a magic shovel, and even a magic cricket bat! These zombies and ex-zombies scatter throughout the countryside, spreading their cure until the entire population is healed. Shaun returns to the pub for a good time with his new ex-zombie friends, and even goes home to a new girlfriend!
Batman brings Ra’s al Ghul back from the dead using a flying train. Sargent Gordon fixes the train tracks with special rockets. A mass condensation event occurs, bringing lucidity to the insane people of Gotham, until the League of Shadows’ microwave emitter makes it stop. The drawbridges lower, allowing the entire Gotham police force to disperse from the Narrows and return to their normal business.
The escaped inmates of Arkham Asylum enthusiastically return to their cells. Bruce Wayne crawls under a fallen support beam. Alfred asks “What is the point of doing all those push-ups if you can’t even lift a bloody log?” Bruce then thrusts the support beam back up into the ceiling of his mansion. Ra’s al Ghul thoughtfully rebuilds Wayne Manor using magical fire; in thanks, Bruce throws him a party.
Meanwhile, Alfred kidnaps Rachel Dawes from her home while she is sleeping and brings her to the Bat Cave, where Batman injects her with a chemical that makes her crazy. Batman then takes her to Arkham, performing several public works projects throughout Gotham on the way. At Arkham, Batman interrupts the Scarecrow’s water purification project, forcing him to cure Rachel’s insanity. The Scarecrow then cures Carmine Falcone and convinces him to unslit his wrists. Meanwhile, the League of Shadows uses the microwave emitter to repair a Wayne Enterprises cargo ship before resurrecting the entire crew.
Carmine Falcone, now sane, is released from prison. After a consultation with the police, Batman helps him improve his tan. Falcone then returns to his life of collecting and exporting illegal drugs. Bruce disassembles and returns all of his Batman gear.
Bruce then travels to Bhutan, where he returns Ra’s al Ghul’s favor by reconstructing the League of Shadows training facility using similar magical fire. Ra’s throws Bruce a ninja party in thanks, before briefly training him and escorting him to a Bhutanese prison. Bruce Wayne then brutalizes several men, eats breakfast, and goes to sleep.
A miraculous story where a bunch of freezing and drowning people are saved by a ship that rises out of the depths to save them and take them back home.
(credit due to an unknown high school student out there somewhere)
Finding Nemo:
Nemo and his dad are together. Then they’re no longer together. Dad goes on a long trip looking for his son, and finally they’re back together again.
After miraculously uncrashing a plane and getting it flying again, a group of passengers and airline crew convince terrorists to give up on their plot to crash the plane into a building, and everyone goes home pretending nothing ever happened.
Star Wars Trilogy:
A small group of rebels helps repair and restore a galactic empire which has dedicated itself to benevolent missions such as creating entire planets out of nothing with something called a “rats htaeD”
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest - After doctors stitch the two halves of his brain back together, McMurphy causes so many problems at a mental institution the administrators send him to a general prison.
LofR Trilogy - Evil hairy-footed hobbits, aided by the nefarious Gandalf and some shady Ranger, resurrect the Dark Lord Sauron by rescuing his magic ring from the fires of mount doom and taking it to a safe location. Meanwhile, the benevolent Saruman uses his diplomatic skills to persuade an orc army to undertake a tree-planting project in Fangorn forest.
The Godfather - Soul-less mafia boss redeems himself by pardoning his enemies, quitting the family business and enlisting in the army.
Frankenstein: A monster emerges from the Arctic and is antagonized by local community to the point of electrocution by an eccentric doctor, and then the monster’s organs are donated to various people.
Kill Bill, Part 2: Uma Thurman brings David Carradine back to life, triggering a mad zombie apocalypse.
The Aviator: Howard Hughes decides not to piss in mason jars any more, punks Alan Alda on the senate floor, gradually cleans up his act and snags Katharine Hepburn away from Spencer Tracy.
Citizen Kane: The events of Charles Foster Kane’s life unfold in roughly the order they actually happened.
Marty McFly gets back from the future to discover his family is happy and successful, sure as Doc Brown is alive and well; our hero then uses his buddy’s experimental time machine to journey to the 1950s, where he pulls his dad into the path of an oncoming car and soon returns to the present – where he finds Doc Brown’s bullet-riddled corpse before seeing why his mother is now miserable.
I preferred the original - from 2009, ye Gods I feel old - which was “if you watch Jaws backwards, it’s a movie about a shark that keeps throwing up people until they have to open a beach”.
The genius part is the mental image of a shark throwing up people, which is pure comedy gold.
If you watch Pretty Woman backwards, it’s a film where Richard Gere transforms Julia Roberts into a prostitute.
The Bridge on the River Kwai – the sudden assembly of a bridge in the wilderness, followed by its gradual disassembly by a host of British POWs in WWII.
This was a line on some comedy show, but I don’t remember which. “When you watch the Rodney King video backward, you see a group of policemen helping an injured motorist back into his car and sending him on his way.”