# 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:** 3
**Author:** ![TWDuke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e495f1/32.png) [@TWDuke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TWDuke)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2009, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-play-it-backwards/492945/41 "2009-04-14T02:47:46Z")
Thanks a lot. You’ve gone and spoiled the beginning. ---
**Author:** ![Spatial\_Rift\_47](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a8b319/32.png) [@Spatial\_Rift\_47](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spatial_Rift_47)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2009, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-play-it-backwards/492945/42 "2009-04-14T02:52:29Z")
If you watch WALL-E backwards, it’s a movie about a plucky little robot who kicks everyone off the planet Earth so he can tidy up. ---
**Author:** ![Kozmik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8dc957/32.png) [@Kozmik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kozmik)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2009, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-play-it-backwards/492945/43 "2009-04-14T02:58:27Z")
If you play _Groundhog Day_ backwards, a talented, charming, well-mannered man in a relationship becomes a dillusional, suicidial, narcissictic maniac. ---
**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, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-play-it-backwards/492945/44 "2009-04-14T03:00:09Z")
If you ever wondered what the bar manager said to Kryters and Rimmer when he chewed them out, well, [here’s the message](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fRYLiuBGRg), they play the original as-filmed scene first, then reverse it “You are a stupid, square-headed, bald git, aren’t you? I’m pointing at you, but I’m not actually adressing you, I’m addressing the one prat in the country who’s bothered to get hold of this recording, turn it round, and actually work out the rubbish that I’m saying. What a poor, sad life he’s got! Frankly, your act’s crap. Anyway, anybody could have done it .I hate the lot of you. Bollocks to you!” ---
**Author:** ![MonkeyMensch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@MonkeyMensch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MonkeyMensch)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2009, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-play-it-backwards/492945/45 "2009-04-14T03:06:45Z")
> [@panamajack](#): > > {quote}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. Monkey-men? Ich bin der MonkeyMensch! ---
**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 14, 2009, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-play-it-backwards/492945/46 "2009-04-14T03:43:54Z")
If you watch _The General_ backwards, a confederate officer resigns his comission, then chases the union army with a train to give them his girlfriend. The union doesn’t want her either, so some spies chase the confederate guy south to give her back. Then, peace breaks out. > [@Spatial\_Rift\_47](#): > > If you watch WALL-E backwards, it’s a movie about a plucky little robot who kicks everyone off the planet Earth so he can tidy up. He wasn’t tidying up, he was tossing crap everywhere. And every now and then he’d take something cool out of his little storehouse and hide it. I think he was setting up some kind of treasure hunt for when the people got back. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2009, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-play-it-backwards/492945/47 "2009-04-14T04:03:14Z")
If you play _The Wrestler_ backwards you have a story about a past-his-prime pro-wrestler risking his life to relive his glory days who takes a job in a deli to pay the bills and then risks his life to relive his glory days. _Citizen Kane_ backwards would be the story, told in flashback, of how a sled symbolized lost innocence to an old media baron. _Romeo & Juliet_ is the tale of two teenaged kids who rise from the dead, split up, and make their parents happy. Pretty much all Shakespearean tragedies would begin with a mass resurrection and end with a rich guy or king walking backwards from a room. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2009, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-play-it-backwards/492945/48 "2009-04-14T04:07:12Z")
Someone must do _PULP FICTION_ and or _KILL BILL_. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2009, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-play-it-backwards/492945/49 "2009-04-14T04:11:56Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > Someone must do _PULP FICTION_ and or _KILL BILL_. If you play either backward you get a huge headache. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2009, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-play-it-backwards/492945/50 "2009-04-14T04:16:16Z")
_It’s a Wonderful Life_ would be the story of how George Bailey avoids financial ruin and possible criminal charges by meeting an angel who shows him what life would have been like without him and convinces him to become respected and upstanding businessman by stealing money from an old man in a wheelchair (and would still be an eye roller to librarians everywhere\*). \*_IAWL_ is a source of humor to librarians because in the dystopian alterniverse where the druggist becomes a homeless drunk and the only Bailey son drowns in childhood and Potter takes over the entire town Mary has the horrible fate of becoming the town librarian, which sends George over the edge. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2009, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-play-it-backwards/492945/51 "2009-04-14T11:08:37Z")
In _Mind Spotless the of Sunshine Eternal_, a couple in love do everything they can to forget each other, before undertaking a brain procedure to make them remember that they hate each other. Then they fall in love again. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2009, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-play-it-backwards/492945/52 "2009-04-14T12:18:51Z")
If you play _A Christmas Carol_ backwards, three ghosts turn a nice old guy into an old curmudgeon. His old business partner gives him the final shove. If you play _Planet of the Apes_ backwards, an astronaut escapes from the planet and returns to earth…or something If you play _Charley_ backwards, a retarded guy becomes really smart but later goes back to being retarded. In orther words, it makes no difference. ---
**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 14, 2009, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-play-it-backwards/492945/53 "2009-04-14T12:21:27Z")
In Bill Kill, the heroine would use mighty voodoo sword magic to bring her former workmates back to life, only to end up in a coma being molested by her nurse. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2009, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-play-it-backwards/492945/54 "2009-04-14T12:26:33Z")
If you play _Bonnie and Clyde_ backward, you see a heroic couple returning stolen money to many small banks, in spite of fierce police opposition. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2009, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-play-it-backwards/492945/55 "2009-04-14T12:54:44Z")
If you play _Misery_ backwards, a writer with writer’s block forces a woman to hold him hostage so he can write his great novel. Unfortunately, after he finishes it he leaves and gets into a car crash. If you play _Stephen King’s It_ backwards, a big spider kidnaps adults and gives them a special treatment to turn them into children. Hilarity ensues when the clown is added. ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2009, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-play-it-backwards/492945/56 "2009-04-14T13:05:47Z")
> [@Intergalactic\_Gladiator](#): > > If you play country music backwards, you get your woman back, your dog back, your job back… …but you lose Jesus. ---
**Author:** ![palindromemordnilap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/db5fbb/32.png) [@palindromemordnilap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/palindromemordnilap)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2009, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-play-it-backwards/492945/57 "2009-04-14T13:21:00Z")
If you play An Inconvenient Truth backwards you’ll learn we’re in danger of falling ocean levels due to fast-growing polar ice caps, and a frightening increase in the number of polar bears. If you play Roger and Me backwards, Michael Moore starts by asking Roger Smith why GM is destroying Mexico’s economy by moving its assembly plant to Flint, Mich., after which Moore spends the rest of the movie dodging interviews with Smith and sympathizing with repo companies being put out of business by Flint’s rising economy. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2009, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-play-it-backwards/492945/58 "2009-04-14T13:50:33Z")
If you play _The Magnificent Seven_ backwards, you see 7 American gangsters preventing a parade of Mexican horsemen from feeding a small village, untill the villagers pawn everything they own to pay the Americans to leave. If you see _All Quiet on the Western Front_ backward, you see a giant war begun with the sniping of a single soldier. If you see _My Fair Lady_ backwards, you see a beutiful society woman harrassed, berated and reduced to a street urchin by a rich guy on a bet. (I didn’t realize until writing this that _Trading Places_ is basically a remake of this movie.) ---
**Author:** ![BubbaDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bubbadog/32/333_2.png) [@BubbaDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BubbaDog)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2009, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-play-it-backwards/492945/59 "2009-04-14T14:53:59Z")
Independence Day Earth inhabitants discover a way of firing pieces of alien ships into the sky to reassemble them. They also use specially equipped backward flying aircraft to reassemble some of the ships and park them right over their cities. The aliens return the favor by using special energy beams to rebuild and reassemble broken earth structures. Last to be repaired is Washington DC which never was much use anyway. Earth plans a big celebration and uses its satellite communications to synchronize and count up to the time for the big celebration. But the aliens are somewhat humble and quietly leave in the very early morning. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2009, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-play-it-backwards/492945/60 "2009-04-14T15:07:31Z")
If you play _The Straight Dope_ backwards, people become more and more ignorant. Wait a minute… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-play-it-backwards/492945.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-play-it-backwards/492945.md?page=4)