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No, Black Widow wasn't talking about being infertile.
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00:00Ambiguity can be a wonderful thing in cinema. It allows people to bring their own experiences to movies and draw their own conclusions as a result, often inviting spirited, healthy debate in the process.
00:11But you know what? Sometimes people are just flat out wrong about a movie scene, and they misinterpret the author's true intent in a way which might even end up altering their opinion on the entire movie.
00:21Now don't feel bad though, because misinterpretations like this are very, very common indeed, but ultimately, they weren't actually what was intended by those in charge.
00:29So let's take a look at them. This is WhatCulture.com, and these are movie scenes everyone always gets wrong.
00:35Andrew wasn't really rushing or dragging. Whiplash
00:38The most famous scene in the tenacious Oscar-winning Whiplash sees ruthless jazz instructor Terence Fletcher become increasingly frustrated with student Andrew as he seemingly fails to match his tempo.
00:51Throughout this gut-wrenching scene, Fletcher calls Andrew out for either rushing or dragging to his beat.
00:56And to the layperson, it seems that while Fletcher may be an absolute asshole, he's also a strident perfectionist above all else.
01:03But one curious fan actually decided to take a deep dive into the scene and analyse Andrew's timing for themselves.
01:09And as it turns out, he's actually pretty much spot on, and Fletcher is just calling him out as a rusher or a dragger willy-nilly, presumably in order to get a rise out of him.
01:17While the film makes no secret of Fletcher's near-psychopathic desire to push his students to greatness, many nevertheless assumed his critique of Andrew's drumming was in fact correct.
01:28Ultimately, Fletcher's method of testing Andrew's patience and commitment to perfection is defined by one line late into the movie.
01:35There are no two words in the English language more harmful than good job.
01:39The Khan scene isn't William Shatner overacting.
01:43Star Trek II, The Wrath of Khan
01:45If you look up overacting in the dictionary, you'll rightly find a picture of William Shatner.
01:50But his most widely mocked bout of scenery chewing actually isn't that at all.
01:54Or at least, not in the way so many people think.
01:57Also, overacting is great.
01:59Get me more overacting!
02:00Even people who've never seen a single episode of Star Trek might be familiar with Captain Kirk's infamous
02:05TRAN scream from Star Trek II, The Wrath of Khan.
02:09Kirk bleats the legendary villain's name in hilariously exaggerated fashion after Ricardo Maltelban's genetically enhanced space tyrant leaves him and the crew of the Enterprise marooned on the planetoid regular.
02:21But Shatner isn't overacting.
02:23It's actually Kirk who is overacting.
02:25Given that he knows full well that he and Spock have set a trap for Khan, but he can't give any inkling of this.
02:32And so plays the part of being absolutely incensed just as Khan would expect.
02:37Jango Fett's head flies out of the helmet.
02:40Star Wars Episode 2, Attack of the Clones.
02:43Ever since the release of Star Wars Attack of the Clones, fans have speculated about the scene where Mace Window parts Jango Fett's head from his body with a swift slash of his purple lightsaber.
02:53Moments later, we see a young Boba Fett pick up his father's helmet, causing many to note an apparent mistake, given that Jango's head should have still been within the helmet, right?
03:02Though this gaffe resulted in a hilarious R-rated fan edit, it's also easily resolved if you actually just pay attention to the scene in question.
03:10Because when Windu delivers the killing blow, there's a fleeting shot where the shadow of the helmet can be seen as it flies through the air.
03:16You might also notice here that there's a second shadow, which is clearly Jango's decapitated head flying out of the helmet, ensuring that Boba doesn't get an added grisly surprise when he picks it up.
03:27It's still a disturbing scene, mind you, but not quite as unsettling, nor as mistake-laden as fans seem to think it is.
03:33I'll Never Let Go isn't literal.
03:35Titanic.
03:36Folks love to make fun of James Cameron's Titanic, the climactic sequence where Rose tells Jack,
03:41I'll Never Let Go, only to quite literally let go of him moments later as she's rescued.
03:46Despite how widely parroted this facetious reading of the scene is, it's of course completely wrong.
03:52Rose isn't literally talking about the physical act of letting go of Jack as he freezes to death in the water, but of holding on to life, not giving up,
04:01and ultimately living the adventurous life she wants, rather than the one that's expected of her by her family and her status.
04:08And ultimately, that's what she does, with the moving final sequence of the movie showing the full, joyous life Rose ended up living.
04:15Two-Face's coin flip isn't what you think.
04:18Batman Forever.
04:19Comic book fans have plenty of issues with Joel Schumacher's Batman Forever, not least its treatment of iconic villain Two-Face.
04:27And one scene in question that really riles up the fans involves Two-Face and the Riddler invading Wayne Manor,
04:32where they blow up the Batcave, shoot Bruce, and take Dr. Chase Meridian with them.
04:36In the comics, Two-Face is noted for flipping a coin to decide a victim's fate and accepting the outcome no matter what.
04:43But in this scene, we see him flip a coin three times until he gets the outcome that he desires, allowing him to fire a shot at Bruce.
04:50But there's actually an alternate explanation for this scene, that Harvey Dent is actually flipping the coin each time for a different person currently inside Wayne Manor.
04:59Alfred, Chase, and finally Bruce.
05:01Now if that sounds far-fetched, remember that Aaron Eckhart's Two-Face did the exact same thing in the climax of The Dark Knight,
05:08flipping his coin three times in quick succession to determine the fates of Batman, himself, and Jim Gordon's son.
05:14Bond isn't being callous about Severin's death.
05:17Skyfall.
05:18Midway through Skyfall, 007 and his contact Severin end up in the custody of villain Raoul Silver, where Silver shoots Severin in the head in front of Bond.
05:28Silver then asks him,
05:29what do you say to that?
05:30To which 007 coolly responds,
05:32a waste of good scotch,
05:34before launching into an assault against Silver's men.
05:36At the time of Skyfall's release, there were plenty who were wound up by Bond's remark.
05:41To that, I would say that not every character in a movie has to be likable,
05:45and Bond himself has done and said way worse historically,
05:49but that's not even the defense this time.
05:51What Bond is doing here is refusing to give Silver what he wanted.
05:55Silver had been trying to break through Bond's psychological armor and rattle him,
05:59but in refusing to react and deflecting him with such a heartless one-liner,
06:04he doesn't give him an inch.
06:05Upham isn't a coward, he's the viewer.
06:08Saving Private Ryan
06:09One of the many, many disturbing sequences in Saving Private Ryan
06:14sees Corporal Upham paralyzed with fear while his comrade Private Mellish
06:18is overpowered and slowly stabbed to death by a German soldier.
06:22Now the common audience response to this scene, sadly,
06:24is that they find Upham's actions inexplicable,
06:27that his failure to save his teammate is an act of abject cowardice,
06:30and that we, the audience, would never behave in such a way.
06:33Except, we most certainly probably would.
06:36The entire point of this scene, as is missed by so many,
06:39is that the average human being thrust into war would likely freeze up,
06:43just as Upham did.
06:44Our knee-jerk revulsion to his inaction only underlines the part of ourselves
06:48that we prefer not to actually confront,
06:50that, in a traumatic situation, heroism would actually be the last thing on our minds.
06:55To say that Upham picks up the idiot ball in this scene
06:58is to bafflingly gloss over the effects of trauma on the human psyche.
07:02Karras' sacrifice is meant to be triumphant, the exorcist.
07:06The debate over the exorcist ending has been so spirited
07:09that it even led to a fallout between screenwriter and author of the original book,
07:14William Peter Blatty, and Friedkin himself.
07:16Blatty, a devout Catholic, was insistent on keeping a scene
07:20where Father Dyer and Lieutenant Kinderman walk off together talking about films,
07:25as a means of showing that Damien Karras' memory lived on.
07:28The scene was cut for the original theatrical release,
07:31ending instead with Dyer looking down the steps where Karras died and then walking away.
07:35The thing is, despite the benefit of that additional scene enshrining Blatty's authorial intent,
07:41I still think it's clear that the exorcist is triumphant in its good versus evil approach.
07:46It's a story about Karras' crisis of faith,
07:49and at the moment of his biggest test,
07:52he takes the demon into his body
07:53and vanquishes it by hurling himself out the window and down the steps.
07:58Dyer reads him his last rites as the two clutch their hands together tightly.
08:02It is absolutely heartbreaking in many respects,
08:04but Karras' demise is also divinely heroic.
08:07Again, it's perfectly valid to read it differently,
08:10but as far as Blatty is concerned,
08:12this is what the exorcist means.
08:14Tom has probably learned nothing at the end.
08:17500 Days of Summer
08:18Though 500 Days of Summer announces not to be a love story at its very beginning,
08:24it's also fair to say that most viewers seem to misinterpret the movie's emotional throughline,
08:28blaming Summer for her and Tom's breakup,
08:30despite Tom clearly having unrealistic expectations from the outset.
08:35Even Gordon Levitt himself called Tom selfish in a recent interview,
08:38agreeing that he is effectively the villain of this movie.
08:41But the end of the film goes one step further,
08:44by having Tom move on from Summer and meet a new romantic interest named Autumn.
08:48While a superficial reading would say that this is a mere cute wink to the audience
08:52that Tom has moved on to somebody new,
08:54an altogether darker interpretation is that Tom actually hasn't grown as much as he thinks he has.
08:59The fact that the film's ongoing day counter resets from 500 to 1
09:02seems to suggest that he's going to repeat a similar cycle with Autumn.
09:06And this isn't to say that Tom didn't learn anything from his time with Summer,
09:09but that he may well fall into a similar pattern of unhealthy,
09:13obsessive romantic behaviour with this new prospect.
09:16Again, as stated before, it isn't a love story.
09:19That isn't Steamboat Willie, Saving Private Ryan.
09:22One of the biggest cases of on-screen mistaken identity has to be Steamboat Willie from Saving Private Ryan.
09:28A Wehrmacht soldier spared by Captain Miller's unit after they take his machine gun emplacement,
09:33Willie is told to walk in the direction of the Allied line,
09:36and so he can be picked up by the advancing American, British, and Canadian forces.
09:40However, he shows up at the end during the battle at Rommel,
09:44having been reabsorbed into the Wehrmacht's forces.
09:47Willie fires and kills one of the US airborne soldiers before he surrenders,
09:51and is then summarily executed by Corporal Uppen.
09:55However, Willie has also been charged with more crimes than the one he gets up to in Saving Private Ryan,
10:01with many viewers having mistaken him for the SS soldier who bayonets Mellish,
10:06and whom Uppen couldn't bring himself to kill.
10:08This is down to a few factors,
10:09namely the fact that both characters are wearing a similar uniform and aren't wearing helmets.
10:14However, they are in fact two different people,
10:16who just so happen to bear a resemblance to the other.
10:19Superman didn't make the Earth spin backwards.
10:22Superman.
10:23Few who've seen Richard Donner's original 1978 Superman
10:26will forget the iconic scene where an enraged Superman turns back time
10:30in order to undo Lois Lane's death.
10:33Superman is seen flying around the Earth to reverse time,
10:35and because we're shown Earth spinning backwards on its axis,
10:38many chose to believe that the Man of Steel literally exerted enough force on the planet itself
10:42to reverse the flow of time.
10:44But you know what?
10:44The real answer is a lot simpler and less silly than that.
10:47Superman is actually flying around the Earth in order to reach the speed of light,
10:51allowing him to travel back through time,
10:53not to pull the Earth back through time.
10:55It's still relatively ridiculous, of course,
10:57but it actually makes far more sense.
10:59Showing the Earth rotating backwards is just an easy visual shorthand
11:03to explain to the audience what's going to happen,
11:05though it's at least easy to appreciate why so many people have gotten the scene wrong over the decades.
11:10Billy in 4C is actually Billy in 4C, Dumb and Dumber.
11:15A minor but extremely memorable character in Dumb and Dumber is Billy in 4C,
11:20a blind boy who Lloyd sells Harry's dead parakeet to.
11:24Despite Billy having maybe a minute of screen time in the movie,
11:27the whole gag is so hilariously cruel that his name certainly sticks out in the mind.
11:32Except he's not called Billy in 4C.
11:34You can blame Dumb and Dumber being released before audiences en masse watched movies at home
11:39and had the access to subtitles and stuff,
11:41because anyone who does turn on the subtitles on today
11:44will come to learn that the boy is actually called Billy in 4C,
11:48as in apartment 4C.
11:50It's an easy mistake to make considering how quickly Carrie and Daniels race through the words in 4C,
11:56and also how relatively uncommon it is to refer to someone by their apartment number.
12:00In any case, typing Billy in 4C into Google or Twitter
12:04brings up a large number of like-minded folks who got the kid's surname totally wrong.
12:08But again, you can't blame them all.
12:10The ending doesn't glorify Jordan, it criticizes the audience, the Wolf of Wall Street.
12:15The Wolf of Wall Street was another expertly crafted winner for Martin Scorsese,
12:20though invited spirited discussions about the tone and intent of the entire piece,
12:24which some criticized as overtly glorifying Wall Street fraudster Jordan Belfort.
12:29Especially polarizing was the film's final scene,
12:31where Jordan is released from prison and embarks on a new career
12:34hosting seminars on sales techniques to regular people.
12:37Many have interpreted the scene in which he asked the gawking audience to try and sell him a pen
12:42as effectively deifying him as a one-in-a-million talent
12:45with a peerlessly unique knack for salesmanship.
12:48But you know what, the scene isn't actually doing that at all.
12:50Really, the ending is a critique of the audience,
12:52both those there at the seminar and those watching the movie,
12:55who hang on his every word and find his story of crooked greed aspirational.
13:01Scorsese's final pan to a sea of blank, clueless faces
13:04is a pitch-perfect reflection of the movie's audience themselves.
13:07And that if we found Jordan's personality charming or his chaotic lifestyle appealing,
13:12his sale pitch clearly worked on us too.
13:15Let the past die isn't the movie's central theme.
13:18Star Wars Episode 8, The Last Jedi
13:20Both those who loved and loathed Star Wars Episode 8, The Last Jedi
13:24gave way too much credence to Kylo Ren's memorable one-liner.
13:28Let the past die, kill it if you have to.
13:30For many, they interpreted it as Kylo Ren essentially being a mouthpiece
13:35for the movie's central theme, that writer-director Rian Johnson wanted to
13:39quote-unquote kill the past of the Star Wars franchise
13:42by so radically shaking up the series formula.
13:45But that's not even what The Last Jedi is about.
13:47In fact, so much of the movie is still about embracing the past
13:51rather than assassinating it.
13:53Yoda literally tells Luke Skywalker in the movie
13:56The Greatest Teacher Failure Is,
13:58indicating a need to learn from the past rather than obliterate it entirely.
14:02Bonnie discarding Woody doesn't sour Toy Story 3, Toy Story 4.
14:07Though fans were pleasantly surprised by the wildly unnecessary Toy Story 4,
14:11there were nevertheless those who expressed frustrations at the actions of young Bonnie,
14:15who, despite inheriting Woody from Andy at the end of the third film,
14:18ends up neglecting him in the follow-up.
14:21Some went as far as to call Bonnie the real villain of Toy Story 4,
14:24which is incredibly cruel.
14:26That in discarding Woody and moving on to the other toys,
14:28she not only broke her promise to Andy,
14:30but actively soured the perfect ending of Toy Story 3 in the process.
14:34But neither of these claims are actually true at all,
14:36beyond the fact that it's ridiculous to hold a small child
14:39to account for such a benign promise.
14:41It's important to remember that while it was a huge passing of the torch moment
14:44for Andy and the audience,
14:46it was actually likely a minor footnote for Bonnie.
14:48It's unreasonable to expect a young child to remain attached to one toy indefinitely.
14:53And in the end,
14:54Bonnie's abandonment of Woody only allowed him to realise his own sense of agency
14:58outside of ownership,
14:59becoming a lost toy capable of charting his own path.
15:03As wonderfully bittersweet as Toy Story 3's ending was,
15:06expecting Bonnie to be Andy 2.0 was obscenely optimistic,
15:10if not flat out unfair.
15:12It's meant to be both things.
15:14Last Action Hero.
15:16Has there been an action film more unfairly reviled than 1993's Last Action Hero?
15:21I mean, seriously,
15:22it's directed by legendary action maestro John McTiernan,
15:25and featured a peak of his prime Arnie in the leading role.
15:28It is at once a send-up and send-off to that iconic era of action cinema,
15:34combining fun meta jokes with an affectionate look at film's ability to whisk us away to happier pastures.
15:40And then it got eaten alive by a giant T-Rex at the box office.
15:44As well as by critics.
15:46McTiernan's movie has long been criticised for being confused
15:49between whether it wants to be one of two things,
15:52an action satire and an action celebration.
15:55Epitomised in the film's closing sequences,
15:58which sees Arnie's Jack Slater come face to face with the real Arnie,
16:02and then bid farewell to Austin O'Brien's young Danny Madigan.
16:05The thing is,
16:06the film has always, always been about both.
16:09And the most clever part of these final scenes
16:11is that we're basically having Arnie wreck him
16:13not just with the legacy of his screen presence,
16:17but also his celebrity.
16:18Not vibing with that tonal contrast I can totally get,
16:21but Last Action Hero is still way more clever than it has ever gotten credit for.
16:26Black Widow calls herself a monster for being an assassin.
16:29Avengers Age of Ultron.
16:31Avengers Age of Ultron received a ton of blowback upon its release,
16:35as many fans took issue with the scene where Black Widow tells Bruce Banner
16:38that she was sterilised as part of the Black Widow programme,
16:41only to follow up by calling herself a monster.
16:45Now while you can't really blame people for not giving Joss Whedon the benefit of the doubt here,
16:49and the scene absolutely should have been handled more tactfully,
16:52the intent isn't at all to imply that she's an abomination because she can't bear children.
16:57To quote her exact dialogue,
16:58If you actually break down the exchange,
17:10it's clear that Natasha is referring to herself as a monster
17:13only in the context of being a blunt object,
17:16a hired assassin shaped to murder people above everything else.
17:20If she's a monster at all,
17:22it's because of the countless people that she's killed,
17:24and obviously all of the red in her ledger,
17:27not about being unable to bear children.
17:29The ghost job scene is a dream.
17:32Ghostbusters.
17:33Ghostbusters is one of the most beloved comedies of all time,
17:35but in recent years,
17:37as younger generations have been exposed to it,
17:39there has been increased attention paid to its most risque scene.
17:43I'm talking of course about the ghost job sequence.
17:46Hubba hubba.
17:47They're ignoring one part of that equation though.
17:49It's a dream sequence.
17:51Literally at the start of the scene,
17:52the screen goes wavy.
17:54The universally agreed visual language for the start of a dream.
17:58And once the job is done,
18:00we cut back to Ray sleeping in reality.
18:03This is in part a symptom of modern internet culture,
18:07where movie scenes are listlessly reposted online,
18:09devoted to their context,
18:11often with crucial elements selectively removed.
18:13And I get it.
18:14Look,
18:14it's funny to pretend that this is actually a real thing,
18:17but it's Ghostbusters.
18:19It's kind of shocking how many people have generally forgotten that.
18:22No,
18:22Ray did not get noshed off by a ghost for real.
18:25Jimmy doesn't commit suicide.
18:27Quadrophenia.
18:28Cult classic drama Quadrophenia concludes with an ending which,
18:31depending on your viewpoint,
18:33is either ambiguous or absolutely cut and dried.
18:36In the final scene,
18:36protagonist Jimmy is seen riding a scooter to the edge of Beachy Head,
18:40before we cut to the scooter flying over the cliff,
18:42albeit without any sign of what happens to Jimmy.
18:45Many,
18:45regardless,
18:46believe that Jimmy committed suicide by riding his scooter off the cliff edge,
18:49while forgetting the ever important fact that Jimmy can be seen standing by the cliff at sunset right at the start of the movie,
18:56a scene which clearly takes place chronologically after this scooter ride.
19:00Jimmy's survival is backed up not only by the director and the lead actor,
19:04but numerous other cast members.
19:06The future is still a likely bleak one for him,
19:08but immediately less so than hurtling himself into oblivion.
19:11It's not Childs.
19:13The Thing.
19:14One thing about modern internet criticism,
19:16everyone loves a good theory.
19:18And while they can be fun to entertain,
19:20sometimes they end up being taken a tad too literally.
19:24As is the case with one of John Carpenter's many masterpieces,
19:27The Thing.
19:28The past decade or so,
19:29a growing contingent of folks online have insisted that the film's downbeat,
19:34ambiguous ending isn't so unclear.
19:36That there is evidence to suggest that Keith David's child,
19:39who joins McCready after the research station explodes,
19:43is in fact The Thing.
19:44The theory goes that this is the case because he can't be seen breathing in the cold temperature,
19:49as well as for him being shot in a particular way by cinematographer Dean Cundey,
19:52where a lack of reflection in the eyes was meant to hint at who the creature had assimilated.
19:58But this isn't literally the case,
20:00and apart from The Thing's bleak, nihilistic ending working way better
20:05by not knowing whether or not Childs or McCready is The Thing,
20:09because they're dead anyway,
20:11the evidence for The Theory is all circumstantial.
20:15Childs not having visible breath has been chalked up to a technical error on set.
20:19And hey, if you don't want to listen to me,
20:21take Kurt Russell's word for it.
20:23When asked about The Theory by HuffPost back in 2016,
20:26Russell shook his head,
20:28and said that the intent of the ending was to, quote,
20:30bring the audience right back to square one.
20:33Russell continued by saying that, quote,
20:35one of my favourite lines in the movie is,
20:38where were you, Childs?
20:39And I think that basically says it all.
20:41I love that over the years,
20:42that movie has gotten its due because people were able to get past the horrificness of the monster
20:47to see what the movie was about,
20:49which was paranoia.
20:51In short, the ending of The Thing works because we do not know.
20:55And we're not meant to.
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