# Looking for interconnected films

**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-interconnected-films/203910
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [September 26, 2003, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-interconnected-films/203910 "2003-09-26T04:33:45Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![saintnobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@saintnobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saintnobody)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2003, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-interconnected-films/203910/1 "2003-09-26T04:33:45Z")

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One of my favorite things is movies that are interconnected. Not movies in a series though.  
One major example is  
Chasing Amy  
Dogma  
Clerks  
Jay and Silent Bob

Unfortunantly, i cant think of any more, soo…  
I call on the vast knowledge of the SDMB family to help me on my quest to build my DVD collection.

Any genre is cool, anime would be outstanding.

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### Author: ![Skip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@Skip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skip)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2003, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-interconnected-films/203910/2 "2003-09-26T04:50:08Z")

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Soldier (a damn awful action movie starring Kurt Russell) is supposedly set in the same universe as Blade Runner. The screenplay was written by the same guy and there are references to the Tanhauser Gate in both of them.

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### Author: ![Duderdude2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/cdc98d/32.png) [@Duderdude2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duderdude2)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2003, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-interconnected-films/203910/3 "2003-09-26T05:05:04Z")

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“Chasing Amy  
Dogma  
Clerks  
Jay and Silent Bob”

You forgot to add Mall Rats to that list, and if you really want to get technical, Clerks: The Animated Series (but tha’s a TV show, not a film).

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### Author: ![Hey\_It\_s\_That\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Hey\_It\_s\_That\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hey_It_s_That_Guy)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2003, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-interconnected-films/203910/4 "2003-09-26T05:16:59Z")

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At least in the screenplays, Quentin Tarantino’s movies refer to characters from all the other movies, and many names are reused. For example, Pulp Fiction had Vincent Vega (John Travolta) and Reservoir Dogs had Vic Vega (Michael Madsen). They have been said to be brothers, and there was a strong rumor for a while that Tarantino was planning a “Vega Brothers” prequel to both films.

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### Author: ![scotandrsn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a4c791/32.png) [@scotandrsn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scotandrsn)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2003, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-interconnected-films/203910/5 "2003-09-26T05:21:51Z")

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Kieslowski (sp?) was famous for this.

The films in his “three colors” trilogy (“Blue”, “White”, and “Red”) are all heavily intertwined, although completely different films.

And his “Decalogue”, ten short films based on the Commandments, are all set in the same apartment complex-but I guess that’s more of a series.

Another is Whit Stillman’s films, “Metropolitan”, “Barcelona”, and “Last Days of Disco”, which all star Chris Eigemann.

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### Author: ![Hey\_It\_s\_That\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Hey\_It\_s\_That\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hey_It_s_That_Guy)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2003, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-interconnected-films/203910/6 "2003-09-26T05:37:51Z")

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I believe Michael Keaton played the same character in Tarantino’s Jackie Brown and Soderburgh’s Out Of Sight, which were both based on Elmore Leonard novels (set in the same continuity, no doubt).

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### Author: ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2003, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-interconnected-films/203910/7 "2003-09-26T06:48:28Z")

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In _Enemy of the state_ (1998) the Gene Hackman’s role is an extension of Harry Caul, the character he portrayed in Francis Ford Coppola’s great 1974 film, _The Conversation_; however, the movie shows it was more than an extension: when the surveillance experts need an ID photo of Hackman they USE a photo of Harry Caul!!

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### Author: ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2003, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-interconnected-films/203910/8 "2003-09-26T08:26:29Z")

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Does anime count? If so…

My anime encyclopedia tells me that the series **Nadesico** is “supposed” to be set in the same universe as the series **Silent Möbius**.

More famously, a character named **Captain Harlock** has shown up in quite a few different anime, as well as friends or kin of his. If you include his manga, you get about six more crossovers right off the bat. (Someone more knowledgeable about anime can give details, I’m sure)

The 80s animated series’ _Transformers_ and _G.I. Joe_ both had theatrical movies…and there’s more than a little evidence that they’re supposed to share the same universe.

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### Author: ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2003, 9:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-interconnected-films/203910/9 "2003-09-26T09:31:18Z")

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Apparently _Scream_, _Scream 2_, and _Scream 3_ are set in the same universe as the Kevin Smith films listed above, since Jay and Silent Bob appear in the third film.

Another interesting case is _Trading Places_ and _Coming to America_, since a couple of characters appear in both films.

There’s a website in which someone has a list of all the crossover universes in American TV. In other words, they have made note of every case in which a character appears in several shows. (Consider the character of John Munch, for instance, who has appeared in five different shows.) They then would call any group of shows which are connected by such mutual appearances a crossover universe.

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### Author: ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2003, 9:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-interconnected-films/203910/10 "2003-09-26T09:40:55Z")

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The [Crossovers and spinoffs list](http://www.poobala.com/crossoverlist.html)

It’s a thing of beauty, it is.

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### Author: ![widdershins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f0a364/32.png) [@widdershins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/widdershins)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2003, 10:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-interconnected-films/203910/11 "2003-09-26T10:48:55Z")

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The Japanese blind swordsman/masseur Zatoichi and the wandering nameless samurai from _Yojimbo_ and _Sanjuro_ crossed paths naturally in _Zatoichi Vs. Yojimbo_.

The _Friday the 13th_ and _Nightmare on Elm Street_ series apparently are set in the same universe since the crossover film.

For some reason I can’t open up the IMDB right now, but the Bob Hope comedy _Son Of Paleface_ featured numerous cameos by many TV and film western heroes in character, among them Tonto (Jay Silverheels) of Lone Ranger fame. So they could possibly count.

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### Author: ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2003, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-interconnected-films/203910/12 "2003-09-26T11:41:48Z")

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The TV shows _Cheers_ and _Wings_ had mutliple crossovers, mostly characters from the former vacationing on the latter.

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### Author: ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2003, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-interconnected-films/203910/13 "2003-09-26T12:33:12Z")

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“The Great McGinty” and “Miracle of Morgan’s Creek,” both by Preson Sturges. In the former, Briany Donlevy and Akim Tamiroff played a crooked politician and his political boss, respectively. Donlevy ended up as governor. In “Miracle,” they are shown as the governor of the state and his political boss.

There’s a brief cameo in “Coming to America” that connects it with “Trading Places.”

Miss Jane Marple does a cameo crossover in “The Alphabet Murders,” connecting her with Hercule Poiorot.

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### Author: ![groo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecd19e/32.png) [@groo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/groo)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2003, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-interconnected-films/203910/14 "2003-09-26T14:44:01Z")

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Morgan Freeman played the same character (a policeman who’d authored a book on profiling or something) in **Kiss the Girls** and **Along Came a Spider**.

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### 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: [September 26, 2003, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-interconnected-films/203910/15 "2003-09-26T14:52:59Z")

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I was gonna do the Sturges and the Tashlin!

The Sturges connection is odd, though: In McGinty, both men ended up in Mexico; in Miracle, it’s as if they’re still in power.

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### Author: ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2003, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-interconnected-films/203910/16 "2003-09-26T15:01:47Z")

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Although both were originally stage plays, they have been made into movies: _Hamlet_ and _Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead_, in which minor charcters from the Shakespeare play become the focus of the story.

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### Author: ![aleong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4af34b/32.png) [@aleong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aleong)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2003, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-interconnected-films/203910/17 "2003-09-26T15:05:19Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Big Bad Voodoo Lou \*  
> \*\*At least in the screenplays, Quentin Tarantino’s movies refer to characters from all the other movies, and many names are reused. For example, Pulp Fiction had Vincent Vega (John Travolta) and Reservoir Dogs had Vic Vega (Michael Madsen). They have been said to be brothers, and there was a strong rumor for a while that Tarantino was planning a “Vega Brothers” prequel to both films. \*\*

Everybody also eats at Big Kahuna Burgers.

In the Tarantino-produced “Curdled”, there’s a reference made to the Gecko brothers of “From Dusk 'Til Dawn”.

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### Author: ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2003, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-interconnected-films/203910/18 "2003-09-26T16:01:45Z")

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[Jabootu](http://www.jabootu.com/) theorizes that the movie [**The Holcroft Covenant**](http://www.jabootu.com/holcroft.htm) is connected to **Ronin** through a reference to the “man in a wheelchair”. Might be right; John Frankenheimer directed both films.

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### Author: ![Hey\_It\_s\_That\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Hey\_It\_s\_That\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hey_It_s_That_Guy)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2003, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-interconnected-films/203910/19 "2003-09-26T16:03:29Z")

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Two of my favorite shows, Law and Order and Homicide: Life On the Street, had two crossovers. Then Munch (Richard Belzer’s character on Homicide) became a regular cast member of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. So all of them are in a shared universe.

(And I suspect Oz, the prison show, is in the same continuity too.)

We know Superman and Batman are in the same continuity from a few throwaway lines from the latter two Batman movies (“He must be halfway to Metropolis by now,” “Now I know why Superman works alone”), but all DC characters inhabit the same shared universe.

And the Marvel characters share their universe too. Even though different studios made the movies, Spider-Man, the X-Men, the Hulk, Daredevil, and Blade are all in the same continuity, and often interact with each other in the comic books the movies are based on.

X-Files and Millenium had a crossover once as well.

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### Author: ![aleong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4af34b/32.png) [@aleong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aleong)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2003, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-interconnected-films/203910/20 "2003-09-26T16:09:42Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Big Bad Voodoo Lou \*  
> \*\*Two of my favorite shows, Law and Order and Homicide: Life On the Street, had two crossovers. Then Munch (Richard Belzer’s character on Homicide) became a regular cast member of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. So all of them are in a shared universe.
> 
> X-Files and Millenium had a crossover once as well. \*\*

Munch also showed up in an episode of X-Files about the origin of the Lone Gunmen.

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