I re-watched this last night. It’s actually stated pretty explicitily, when Howie is reading about the Summer-islander’s beliefs in the library. In good years produce was sacrificed, human sacrifice was only carried out when the harvest failed. It then talks about suitable sacrifices, such as a virgin or the community leader. My edition is the director’s cut, it’s possible other versions don’t have the scene in the library. It would actually be a better film without that scene, it would be better if Howie made the leap that Lord Summerisle would be the next to burn by himself.
Yes, Del Toro is on record as saying this, but I think it’s a case where the director’s interpretation is not the best one.
Jules Winnfield is an alias concocted by Nick Fury, and Marcellus Wallace’s briefcase contained the Cosmic Cube which was in Fury’s possession at the end of Thor.
Ih the first Transformers movie*, Bumblebee had arrived on Earth earlier than the other Autobots as a scout, and had been undercover for some time. He was a Camaro in the movie, but earlier had been a Volkswagen Beetle. I believe during his time undercover, perhaps just after he first came to Earth, he was Herbie the Love Bug, which explaining how Herbie was able to drive on his own.
First live-action, CGI movie. There was an earlier animated Transformers movie.
In the original of The Hitcher, the John Ryder character (Rutger Hauer) is entirely a figment of the imagination of Jim Halsey (C. Thomas Howell), who is in fact the murderer.
As an aside, a friend of a friend once (literally) bumped into Kurt Russell. In his shock of recognition, he blurted out the first thing that came to mind: “Captain Ron!”
Russell curtly replied, “I’ve done other things,” and stalked off.
Perhaps Jennifer Jason Leigh is also part of Halsey’s imagination. It’s cop, killer, and victim all in one. You can pitch it as “Sybil meets Dressed to Kill.” I bet a good agent can get you an advance of high sixes against a mil-five.
I don’t know about that, sometimes my imagination can be pretty horrific. Would you like to be injected with a syringe full of spiders, and watch them crawl under your skin? Fantasy isn’t wholly about wish fulfillment. The fantasy world is challenging but ultimately rewarding for the girl. I wonder if the more horrific elements represent her anxiety and sense of guilt.
Yes, I think that’s the point where Del Toro implies the fantasy world is real. I still prefer to think that she effected a mundane escape, but was wholly immersed in her fantasy world at that point. As her situation became more desperate, she retreated further. It’s sad, but it’s a victory of sorts, an escape from her step-father’s brutality.
I always got the impression that the bells had to ring “naturally”, and that causing bells to ring for the specific purpose of winging angels was a no-no. When Georgeless Martini is ringing the cash register bell to mock Clarence, I always took that as fallen angels gaining their wings.
Speaking of Star Trek, during the final episode of ST:TNG Lt. Barclay was working on a plasma relay which discharged due to the time disturbance Q was orchestrating. His latent psionic gene activated and he established a one way psychic connection with his ancestor, Howling Mad Murdock, who has been catching vivid glimpses of his descendant’s life since Vietnam.
The war against the bugs in Starship Troopers is a complete lie- service guarantees citizenship, so without a war, nobody was “earning” their citizenship… so the higher echelon made a completely planetbound insectile race the new “big bad”. As evidence- there’s no way the bugs would’ve been able to launch the asteroid at Earth, and nuking the planet from orbit would’ve been a lot safer than sending down thousands of Marines, especially when the planet is apparently completely worthless.
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The dragons in Reign of Fire were actually terraforming artificial lifeforms sent by aliens to remake Earth into a new colony for the aliens. They weren’t burning things to eat- they were burning everything to raise the CO2 levels of the atmosphere.
This reminds me of another one. I believe the aliens we see fighting in the recent Battle: Los Angles were actually a race that had been conquered themselves and pressed into service by the true Masters behind the invasion.
Not so much a theory as a literal viewing of the show. In the fifth season of American Dad there was an episode “Rapture’s Delight”. There was nothing in the episode that said it wasn’t canon. In the episode, the Smith family along with everyone else on Earth experiences the Rapture. Most people get taken to Heaven but some - like Stan, Francine, and Roger - get left behind and spend the next seven years fighting the Anti-Christ. At the end of the episode, Stan dies and gets into Heaven after all. And in Heaven he gets to experience whatever makes him happy and we see him entering his house and being with his family again. The end.
So basically, we have to assume that’s what happened. The world ended, everyone died, and everything we’ve seen on the show since then has just been Stan’s idealized afterlife.
I think you’re basically correct except for the part about Smith not hating humans. He clearly does, especially in the second & third movies. But that doesn’t contradict your basic theory; plenty of social workers grow to hate their clients.
My own Matrix theory is that the whole matrix and its safeguards was built by humans. The world became too polluted for humans to live on, so they put the population in suspended animation until it passed. In the meantime, rather than have hundreds of years of dreamless sleep, they let themselves live normal, yet virtual, lives. To prevent people from waking up and being stuck in the horrible real world they put in safeguards to try and convince people to go back to sleep.
This would’ve made a better 3rd movie, I think. Instead of a pointless robot battle that accomplished nothing, the “free” humans find that for the first time in hundreds of years, there’s a part in the clouds. Similar to Wall-E, they find a single plant regrowing, see that the Earth is now inhabitable again, and begin to rebuild.
