The transitions from Klingon to English in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country are very clever.
In the first one, the Chancellor’s daughter is talking with her counselors about what to do about Kirk. She says words to the effect of “this is what my father believed in” in Klingon. Christopher Plummer is listening from a distance, and his first words in the scene are “Tss tss tss. Your father was killed for what he believed in” in English. The scene finishes off in English.
During Kirk and McCoy’s trial, Christopher Plummer is speaking in Klingon while Kirk and McCoy hold radios to their ears. Plummer starts a sentence in Klingon, then the scene cuts to a room where Klingon translators are sitting. They pick up, in English, right where Plummer leaves off. The scene then cuts back to the courtroom, where Plummer picks up right where the translators leave off, but now he’s speaking English. Meanwhile, Kirk and McCoy are still obviously listening to their radios, waiting for the translations to come through before they answer. Very nice.
In Star Wars Ep 1, when they tour Watoo(sp?)'s junkyard, one of the objects in it is a pod from 2001.
there are a zillion movie references in Chicken Run, so I don’t count them as “little touches”, but you know thay made the science chicken Scottish so she could do a Scotty joke or two…
The fact that they played the old Spiderman theme (Spiderman, Spiderman, does whatever a spider can…) during the credits of the recent movie.
The cast autographs during the credits for Star Trek VI
The fact that they dedicated Star Trek IV(?) and VI to the Challenger Crew and Gene R. respectively.
I’ll second or third Bob Kane’s drawing in Batman.
I was just watching Uzumaki again tonight, and noticed something I had missed before.
After Shunichi, Oshima and Tanaka (the investigator) watch the video that Shunichi’s father shot of himself committing suicide, Tanaka shuts off the TV. For a brief moment, but very clearly, you see the reflections in the TV screen of Shunichi, Oshima, Tanaka and Shunichi’s father. None of the characters see it, the camera doesn’t focus or linger on it, and the music doesn’t indicate anything scary has happened.
But the The Tick (The cartoon, not the live-action) had a season running gag with the moon. First Chairface Chippendale tried to crave his name in it, but only got as far as the third letter.
In subsequent episodes, the Moon is shown with a “CHA” carved in it.
In a later epsiode, the Tick goes up to the Moon with explosives to repair the damage. A mishap ru8ins the project and sends the Tick to Omnipitus, who comes to Earth and is barely talked out of eating the Earth. But Tick agrees to let him take a bite out of the moon, which is heard off-screen as a large chomping sound.
In subsequent episodes, the Moon appears with a “CHA” carved in it as well as having a huge bit (with teeth marks) taken out of it.
The capper is a nightime scen with a car driving past a beuatiful moon with all the aforementioned damage. ONnthe car radio a as ong plays with a Salsa beat:
*
"I’d take a bite out of the Moon for youuuuuu!*
One of the best of these was Lifeboat. It took place on lifeboat with a cast of six, IIRC. How on earth could he make a cameo? By appearing on the back page of a newspaper read by a cast member in a weightloss before and after picture. Brilliant, and even mocked himself by using the classic Hitchcock profile.
In the much underrated Disney’s “Hunchback of Notre Dame”, most of the songs and musical score has a chorus that sings in Latin - and not only is it real Latin, it all relates to the scene and the song - but you would only know this if you bought the soundtrack and read the liner notes (or were fluent in Latin), and some of it is actual lines from Catholic mass!
Another favorite is from"Edward Scissorhands" - all that sinsiter machinery and what does it make? Sugar cookies!
Another from Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure…when all the historical figures are at the mall. I believe it’s right after Socrates and Billy the Kid hit on the women that Freud comes by.
He’s eating a corndog.
That one scene just about sums up the movie for me. It’s so much more clever than it appears to be at first glance.
I’ve always heard that in Raiders of the Lost Ark, when Indy and Salla are hoisting the Ark out of its resting place, you can see drawings of R2-D2 and C3PO on the wall behind them. I’ve never been able to see them, though.
In Iron Giant, near the end, the giant uses the same words to Hogarth that Hogarth said to him when they first met in the forest (something like “You stay here. No following.”). The giant then takes off to detonate the nuclear missile.
Not a “neat touch”, but that reference immediately made me think of The Last Detail. Anyway, there’s a scene where the three main characters meet a group of non-Asian Buddhists (early '70s). They’re outside an apartment building and hear the Buddhists chanting nam-ya-ho-renge-kyo, which to them just sounds like incomprehensible twanging, and “Mule” says, “What the hell is an Indiana dog?”.
So. Neat touches.
—The shot in Titanic where only the stern is still visible.
TITANIC
LIVERPOOL
Two years to build, two hours to destroy.
—One of the Airplane gags is now outdated; I wonder how many people still really get it. Either McCroskey or Kramer asks one of the control-room guys to “check the radar range”. He opens the door of an Amana RadarRange (early microwave) and reports, “About two more minutes, Chief!”
—As someone already mentioned, there are numerous “neat touches” in Chicken Run, but I have to note the scene where the chickens are dancing. Nick and Fetcher are watching from the rafters, and Nick inclines his head towards Fetcher. You know he’s going to say, “D’you wanna dance?” And Fetcher is obliged to mumble, “Y’all right.”
—Dante in Clerks pouring milk into the lid of the sugar jar, then dumping in a buttload of sugar. No cereal, just sugar and milk. That combination is even more effective than coffee for jumpstarting one’s system in the morning.
—In True Romance, Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette are married by a JP. We don’t see the ceremony, but we do see them walking down the steps of the courthouse, with her carrying a rather large bouquet. When he returns to their apartment after killing Gary Oldman’s character, we see the flowers jammed into a gallon bottle that formerly held Gatorade.
—In Heathers, the main character and her supposedly unsuitable friend are named Veronica and Betty, last names Sawyer and Finn.
Maybe Baby, written by Ben Elton is autobiographical (the film is about a couple trying to concieve a child); Ben Elton had the same sorts of problems (I suppose that’s what inspired a lot of the material), but here’s the good bit; a major part of the plot consists of the lead male writing down his life story as a screenplay (sort of recursive reference to Ben Elton writing the screenplay).
ITR, you missed the punchline to the Naked Gun joke. There’s picture of the Titanic, the Hindenburg, and…Michael Dukakis.
Hello Kitty: See You Next Wednesday is also on a billboard in “The Blues Brothers”.
Also, in Fight Club, Ed Norton and Brad Pitt “switch sides” after their car crashes. The editor originally told Fincher there was a continuity error, but it of course is part of the story.
For the sheer number of references I don’t think you can beat “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back”. On the commentary Kevin Smith was talking about how when they marketed the film, they were careful to say it stands for itself and you don’t need to have seen the other movies. Then he says something like, well, now that it’s on DVD, I can tell you that’s all bullshit. You really need to have seen several dozen movies for you to understand this one.
The one I find classic in Bill & Ted is the scene in the mall where Billy the Kid and Socrates are picking up chicks and Freud walks up holding a corn dog. As he bombs with the girls the corn dog goes slowly from an upright position to hanging limply. A wonderful graphical nod to Freud’s sexual symbolism.
The first time I saw this movie I was showing it to a class of highschool kids as a substitute teacher on the last day of school or something in a history class. When this scene rolled around I almost got a hernia holding in the laughter. None of the kids got it and I didn’t want to draw attention to it.
A Clockwork Orange- after Alex takes his dive, the newspaper story text lists his last name as “Burgess” tho it was clearly stated in the Prison entry scene as DeLarge. Burgess of course is the last name of ACO’s author- Anthony.
Last Temptation of Christ- Jesus saves Mary Mag from stoning &
someone bounces a rock off his chest & He looks like He’s holding Himself back from busting some heads.
I’m glad someone mentioned Top Secret as it reminded me of the library scene. I think that was one of the most incredible scenes I’ve ever seen, guess I’m a simple man.
BTW, how many people actually read the thread before posting? Two people repeated what I said, and they only had to read this one page…
