The Crackpots are Right!

Cafe Society
1

I love crackpot theories. I believe almost none of them, mind you, but they’re fun. Once in a while, a work of fiction comes along that seems inspired by a crackpot theory to create a world or situation where said theory is right. For example:

Stargate: Von Daniken was right! The gods of old were inspried by extraterrestrials!

The Live: David Icke is right! We are being enslaved by reptillian aliens!

Capricorn One: The moon hoax theorists are right! NASA is faking landings for political purposes.

JFK: The conspiracy theorists are right! Whadda mean this one wasn’t intended as fiction?

What other films or other works that you can think of that are (or might as well be) based on crackpot theories?

2

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension: 1930s radio listeners were right! We were invaded on Halloween, and then the aliens hypnotized Orson Welles into covering the whole thing up!

3

In one of his books, Icke actually cites They Live as a source. I am not making that up.

4

The Arrival (and/or, for that matter, The Forgotten): The conspiracy theorists are right! The government is conspiring with Aliens to torture us!

5

The Philadelphia Experiement - They really did make a ship disappear!

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Attack of the Clones (SW ep.2): The 9/11 conspiracy theorists are right! The leader of our democratic society really is behind the terrorist attacks, and is using them to institute draconian martial laws!

(OK, not quite what yer lookin’ for.)

7

Actually, there is going to be a TV show that was directly inspired by Chariots of the Gods.

8

Red Dawn The Republicans are right!
All the Presidents Men The Democrates are right! (oh wait, they were.)
**Close Encounters of the Third Kind ** The government knows all about UFOs and are covering them up.

9

Illuminatus!: probably every conspiracy theory ever is right, although nobody knows what’s really going on. :wink:

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Rollerball (Original): I’m right! Corporations are going to take over the world!

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The X-Files: see Illuminatus!

:wink:

12

Left Behind

13

Objection: Left Behind is a pretty awful series, but it’s not about a conspiracy theory.

14

No, but some might say it is based on crackpot religous beliefs.

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Xanadu: They’re right. The only way to heaven is to skate top speed into a brick wall.

16

Battlestar Galactica got there first. Twelve battlestars from the twelve planets (!) of the Zodiac. (Poor schmucks from planet Virgon!) Exodus is a garbled account of their history – Viper pilot helmets are the model for Egyptian headgear – wait, now I’m confused.

Pi – sacred geometry and neo-platonism with an extra level of paranoia.

Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth. Hollow Earth theory. (Duh.)

Nothing beats Illuminatus!, praise Bob.

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Not to mention dinosaurs and Atlantis really being underground.

Or was Atlantis just in the movie version?

18

I thought BSG was more the Mormon migration, but in space!

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I may be misremembering, but wasn’t the premise of Grant Morrison’s “The Invisibles” (comic book series) that all conspiracy theories are true – even the ones that contradict each other?

20

Yep – no Atlantis in Verne’s book. Although he did have a sunken Atlantis in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, which, as far as I can recall, never appeared in any film version.

What if the entire Illuminatus series is true? Or Umberto Eco’s Foucalt’s Pendulum?