# If you play it backwards.... **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 13, 2009, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-play-it-backwards/492945 "2009-04-13T15:42:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![ToeJam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dfb087/32.png) [@ToeJam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ToeJam)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2009, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-play-it-backwards/492945/21 "2009-04-13T19:58:04Z")
If you play American Beauty backwards, you get to see a film about a man given a second chance at life, where he slowly trains himself to become just another cog in the machine. If you play Tommy backwards you get the story of a Christ-like figure that descends into a disabling shell of a man… and man did he suck at pinball! If you play Black Snake Moan backwards you get the story of Sam Jackson basically finding a tiny white-trash girl and chaining her up until she becomes a raving nymphomaniac (hmmm… that’s got potential) If you play Superman Returns backwards, you get Superman Leaves, nothing else really happens. If you play the Dark Knight Backwards… well… the Joker is still pretty crazy. But man, he’s got this ONE trick you won’t believe! Wait’ll you see where he was hiding the pencil! ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Socks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a8b319/32.png) [@Captain\_Socks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Socks)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2009, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-play-it-backwards/492945/22 "2009-04-13T20:22:40Z")
If you play Jaws backwards, you get the story of a shark that keeps throwing up people until they have to open a beach. ---
**Author:** ![johnspartan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a183cd/32.png) [@johnspartan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnspartan)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2009, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-play-it-backwards/492945/23 "2009-04-13T20:37:56Z")
Godfather backwards — Michael opens the door to Kay. Carlo fixes the glass with his feet and the guys are so thankful they help him get the cord off from around his neck. The heads of the five families are magically healed by a baptism. The Corleone family hold a ceremony to resurrect Vito, who takes over the family and gets bullets to leave his body by picking up oranges. Sonny backs away from a tollbooth, Appalonia’s car implodes, Michael sucks the bullets out of a cop and Solozzo and puts his vacuum gun in the bathroom. Tom sews the head back on a prize horse. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2009, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-play-it-backwards/492945/24 "2009-04-13T20:49:23Z")
If you play Battleship Potemkin backwards, you get a warship joining a reactionary regime, sending a baby _up_ a staircase, and ends with a Czarist regime being oppressed by YOU. ---
**Author:** ![ivan\_astikov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2009, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-play-it-backwards/492945/25 "2009-04-13T20:55:53Z")
> [@Hampshire](#): > > Actually you get a story of a man who lives his life in an odd world where everyone around him gets younger as he grows older. I know, I rushed into it. 😃 How about - if you play any Columbo episode backwards, you get the Lt. letting someone out of custody, then following the person around annoying them, until they commit a murder? ---
**Author:** ![panamajack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/47e85d/32.png) [@panamajack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panamajack)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2009, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-play-it-backwards/492945/26 "2009-04-13T21:01:11Z")
If you play **Leaving Las Vegas** backwards, a man escapes from depression and alcoholism, finally managing to leave Las Vegas. If you play **2001** backwards, you get a baby that rather quickly becomes an adult, then fixes up a computer so he can fly to Earth, where he joins a band of monkey-men. ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2009, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-play-it-backwards/492945/27 "2009-04-13T21:12:08Z")
> [@ivan\_astikov](#): > > I know, I rushed into it. 😃 > > How about - if you play any Columbo episode backwards, you get the Lt. letting someone out of custody, then following the person around annoying them, until they commit a murder? And if you play an episode of House backwards, you get an inept group of doctors who take perfectly healthy people and subject them to a series of botched medical procedures until they’re finally wheeled out of the hospital near death a few weeks later. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2009, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-play-it-backwards/492945/28 "2009-04-13T21:16:39Z")
If you play \*The Wizard of Oz \*backwards, you get the story of an intelligent scarecrow, a sentimental tin man, a brave lion, and a little girl . . . who emerge from the Emerald City, and lose their respective brain, heart and nerve . . . are horrified to see a witch emerge from a puddle of water, with winged monkeys descending from the sky . . . then one by one, the three abandon the little girl . . . so she goes home, barely escaping a crowd of “little people,” only to have her house sucked up into the sky and deposited in a bizarre place called “Kansas,” where everything is in shades of brown, and a nice neighbor lady brings the girl a little dog in a basket. ---
**Author:** ![Reno\_Nevada](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Reno\_Nevada](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reno_Nevada)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2009, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-play-it-backwards/492945/29 "2009-04-13T21:34:04Z")
> [@pravnik](#): > > And if you play an episode of House backwards, you get an inept group of doctors who take perfectly healthy people and subject them to a series of botched medical procedures until they’re finally wheeled out of the hospital near death a few weeks later. Isn’t that more or less what you get when you play an episode of House forwards, as well? ---
**Author:** ![TWDuke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e495f1/32.png) [@TWDuke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TWDuke)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2009, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-play-it-backwards/492945/30 "2009-04-13T22:14:41Z")
If you play the **Exorcist** backward, you see a little girl heal a serious dermatological condition by consuming pea soup. ---
**Author:** ![MacTech](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@MacTech](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacTech)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2009, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-play-it-backwards/492945/31 "2009-04-13T22:26:47Z")
If you play The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (original BBC miniseries) backwards, you see Arthur and Ford on prehistoric Earth, they help the Cavemen (who don’t live in caves) get rid of the Golgafrinchams, sending them back to their own planet, taking Ford and Arthur with them they then teleport into a Disaster Area stuntship in the middle of a sun-escape stunt, reuniting with Zaphod, Trillian and Marvin, they take the ship to Milliways, where Marvin spends 530,000,000 years stealing (well, un-parking) cars, Ford, Zaphod, Arthur and Trillian have a nice meal at milliways, regurgitating four rare steaks which reassemble themselves into the Dish of the Day they then are sucked backward through time by an imploding hyperspatial field generator, onto Magrathea where they cower behind the generator while Galactic Police save their lives by sucking energy bolts out of it, then they go and watch a holovid showing how Deep Thought had a planet named Earth turned into a galactic computer in order to prove that the number 42 was The Answer they then climb out of the catacombs of Magrathea, get back into the Starship Heart of Gold, where they encounter a Sperm Whale and Bowl of Petunias miraculously appearing on the planet’s surface, reassembling themselves and flying off into space Onboard the Heart of Gold, they escape from Magrathea, in the process, the Probability Drive changes the Sperm Whale and Petunias into a pair of nuclear missiles that then rapidly retreat from the HOG and land back in their launch tubes Ford and Arthur are then, without warning, ejected back out into space by the Probability drive, thankfully, they’re picked up by a freindly Vogon Destructor Fleet (which, contrary to it’s name, actually _creates_ planets), Ford and Arthur compliment the captain on the wonderful poem he is about to create, and just to be extra nice, the Vogons rebuild the planet Earth and allow Ford and Arthur to hitchhike back to it (most helpful, these Reverse-Vogons) Ford and Arthur end up back in the pub, where they each regurgitate three pints of beer, and vomit up some peanuts, Arthur hears Prosser and the bulldozer crew rebuilding his house, so Ford escorts Arthur back to the bulldozer crew led by Mr Prosser, where Arthur lies down in the mud and demands that they stay after a few squelchy minutes in the mud, Arthur goes back into his house, regurgitates some asprin, then goes back upstairs and gets back into bed with a hangover from tomorrow’s party ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2009, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-play-it-backwards/492945/32 "2009-04-13T22:44:21Z")
If you play _Schindler’s List_ backwards, Oskar Schindler kidnaps a bunch of Jews from a train coming out of an SS reincarnation camp, forces them to work for him for a while, then fires them all. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2009, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-play-it-backwards/492945/33 "2009-04-13T23:11:57Z")
If you play _Titanic_ backwards, it’s about a giant, luxury submarine that comes to the surface so the passengers can get some fresh air. And there’s a woman who really screws over this nice guy from steerage to start seeing his rich best friend. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2009, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-play-it-backwards/492945/34 "2009-04-13T23:13:45Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > If you play \*The Wizard of Oz \*backwards, you get the story of an intelligent scarecrow, a sentimental tin man, a brave lion, and a little girl . . . who emerge from the Emerald City, and lose their respective brain, heart and nerve . . . No they don’t - they simply forget they have them. … Actually, for the Scarecrow and Tin Man you have a point. The Scarecrow’s clever plans get them INTO trouble and the Tin Man STOPS crying when bad stuff happens… Heartless bastard. ---
**Author:** ![chaoticbear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f07891/32.png) [@chaoticbear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chaoticbear)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2009, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-play-it-backwards/492945/35 "2009-04-13T23:28:26Z")
Any of the _Saw_ movies, dead people get up and solve a puzzle to escape to their previous life. Night at the Roxbury, two fun-loving guys decide to stop living as playboys in an exclusive club to go help their dad at the fake flower shop. ---
**Author:** ![BellRungBookShut-CandleSnuffed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bcef8e/32.png) [@BellRungBookShut-CandleSnuffed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BellRungBookShut-CandleSnuffed)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2009, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-play-it-backwards/492945/36 "2009-04-14T00:43:38Z")
> [@MacTech](#): > > Ford, Zaphod, Arthur and Trillian have a nice meal at milliways, regurgitating four rare steaks which reassemble themselves into the Dish of the Day Arthur ate it in the BBC? That seems so… unArthur. ---
**Author:** ![Darwins\_Finch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darwins_finch/32/20304_2.png) [@Darwins\_Finch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darwins_Finch)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2009, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-play-it-backwards/492945/37 "2009-04-14T00:57:22Z")
If you play **Superman** backwards, you get the tale of a dickish superhero who flies around the Earth really fast in order to kill his girlfriend. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2009, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-play-it-backwards/492945/38 "2009-04-14T01:12:38Z")
If you play **Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas** backwards you…err…no, no I reckon it works just the same as forward. Although you can’t pause it, man, this is bat country. ---
**Author:** ![Randy\_Seltzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ee7513/32.png) [@Randy\_Seltzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Randy_Seltzer)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2009, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-play-it-backwards/492945/39 "2009-04-14T02:08:26Z")
If you play Disney’s _The Little Mermaid_ backwards, you see a woman get turned into a fish by an angry man right after her wedding. Then an octopus turns her back into a human. But the girl never properly thanks the octopus, instead remaining silent for three days. Annoyed at the ingratitude, the octopus turns her back into a fish, and she spends the rest of her teen years moping about it. If you play [Michel Gondry’s “Sugar Water” music video](http://mmbase.submarinechannel.com/content/pause/musicvideos/videos/SugarWater.mov) backwards, you get basically the exact same thing. ---
**Author:** ![MacTech](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@MacTech](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacTech)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2009, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-play-it-backwards/492945/40 "2009-04-14T02:34:12Z")
If you play the **Red Dwarf** episode **“Backwards”** backwards… Lister and Cat land on a parallel Earth where time is moving forwards, Cat stops to relieve himself in the bushes, then he and Lister go to a pub, meet with Kryten and Rimmer who have this hillarious novelty act of doing seemingly mundane things _backwards_, they get into a bar room brawl, Kryters and Rimmer get fired, they read the want ads to find a job, then leave the bar, go back to Starbug 1 and get spat out of a Time Hole, Kryten then botches his spacecraft piloting licence exam and lands back in Red Dwarf, where it turns out Lister and Cat are already in a deep discussion about how loyal Wilma Flinstone is to Fred and how she’ll never leave Fred and go out with them [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-play-it-backwards/492945.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-play-it-backwards/492945.md?page=3)