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The Men in Black sequels have a secret sublot playing out in plain sight.
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00:00Telling a great story is one thing, but what about making a movie that unfurls added layers of storytelling and subtext on repeat viewings?
00:07It's a tough trick to pull off, concealing subtle, unspoken plot points in plain sight for attentive viewers to uncover when re-watching in the future.
00:14But when it works, it really works.
00:16And so, with that in mind, I'm Ellie with WhatCulture here with the 10 Greatest Unspoken Sci-Fi Movie Plot Points.
00:22Number 10. Doc Burned Down His Mansion to Fund His Time Travel Research in Back to the Future.
00:28In literally the first minute of Back to the Future, we see a newspaper headline which reads,
00:33Brown Mansion Destroyed, referring to Doc Brown's family mansion which was burned to the ground,
00:38leaving him to continue his experiments in his garage which survived the fire.
00:41None of the Back to the Future movies ever bothered to expand upon this, though in the Blu-ray commentary for the film,
00:46writer Bob Gale stated that the shot of the newspaper was supposed to imply that Doc had deliberately burned down the mansion as part of an insurance scam.
00:53Basically, Doc torched his own mansion in order to collect the insurance money, which he could then use to fund his time travel research.
01:00Though the Back to the Future comics ultimately contradict this, it's worth pointing out that both Gale and director Robert Zemeckis only regard the movies as canon.
01:08As such, there's no reason to disbelieve that Doc committed arson to further his research.
01:12It fits both the story and the character perfectly.
01:15Number 9. Animals Are More Important to Humans Now in Children of Men
01:19Children of Men takes place in a dystopian near future where 20 years of human infertility have brought humanity to the brink of extinction.
01:27In the film's opening scene, we see protagonist Theo watching a news report in London about the death of the world's youngest person, baby Diego, shortly before a bomb explodes.
01:35But if you pay attention to Theo's surroundings seconds before the explosion, there's a fascinating environmental cue which subtly hints at the changed nature of this babyless world.
01:44On a passing bus, we see an advert for a spring collection of expensive clothing for dogs, seeming to suggest that in the absence of children, humanity has elevated the place of animals significantly.
01:54In our present reality, the prospect of fanciful animal clothing being advertised on the side of a bus sounds ridiculous.
01:59But in a world where children don't exist and priorities have consequently shifted, it makes sense that animals would fill the void of importance.
02:06As world-building in sci-fi movie goes, this is low-key incredible and actually adapted from P.D. James' original novel, which goes even further to have humans pushing newborn animals around in prams and dressing them in children's clothing.
02:19Number 8. John Hammond Spared Expense In His Walking Stick In Jurassic Park
02:24The plot of Jurassic Park is set in motion by mosquitoes.
02:27That is, scientists were able to extract dinosaur DNA from prehistoric mosquitoes encased in amber, allowing them to ultimately produce their dinosaur clones.
02:35You'll also surely remember that industrialist John Hammond's walking stick is topped by a chunk of amber containing one of the aforementioned mosquitoes.
02:42But on the off chance you know your mosquitoes, you'll probably recognise that the mosquito trapped in the amber on Hammond's stick is actually an elephant mosquito, which are noted for not sucking blood.
02:52And so there's simply no way that it would be able to contain dinosaur DNA.
02:55While some have pawned this off as a mere movie mistake, that Spielberg simply chose to use a larger breed of mosquitoes so it would be visible on camera,
03:02there's a better explanation that slots quite perfectly into the overall narrative.
03:06It makes more sense that Hammond, a man who claims to have spared no expense on his park, and yet much evidence points to the contrary,
03:12wouldn't dare place one of his precious, ultra-valuable prehistoric mosquitoes inside his walking stick as an ornament.
03:17It's far more likely that Hammond indeed spared expense, instead intentionally using an elephant mosquito, which wouldn't be of any practical use to him,
03:25while knowing that the overwhelming majority of people who meet him wouldn't ever know the difference.
03:30Number 7. The T-1000's wardrobe fail, because it malfunctions, in Terminator 2 Judgment Day.
03:36The special edition of Terminator 2 introduces a plot point that's basically cut in its entirety from the more widely seen theatrical release.
03:42After the T-1000 is frozen with liquid nitrogen and shot, it reforms into its typical human disguise,
03:49albeit with some glitching side effects, where it struggles to maintain its desired form due to the damage it took from being frozen.
03:55In the special edition, we see the T-1000's hands and boots unintentionally mimicking the surrounding environment,
04:00but effectively every indication of this is cut from the theatrical version,
04:04ensuring the vast majority of people who've seen T-2 have no idea about it.
04:07But there is one single clever hint to the T-1000 malfunctioning in the theatrical version.
04:12When the T-1000 first arrives at the steel mill at the end of the movie, keep your eyes on its clothes.
04:18For the most part, the T-1000 is wearing the same cop get-up it was.
04:21It's far from obvious, but a brilliantly subtle indication that the T-1000 is having some serious trouble keeping things together.
04:27Number 6. The blind man is the Oracle's guardian in The Matrix.
04:31When Neo and Morpheus pay a fateful visit to the Oracle in The Matrix,
04:35you might recall that there's a blind man situated outside of her apartment.
04:39More to the point, despite being blind, Morpheus nods at the man, who then inexplicably nods back.
04:44It's a minor moment, albeit one that certainly stoked its fair share of debate among fans.
04:48While this technically qualifies as more of a fan theory than a confirmed sliver of plotting,
04:52it's so brilliantly straightforward that it merits inclusion on this list.
04:55Though we never learn a single extra thing about this blind man,
04:58it's a reasonable assumption that he's probably a bodyguard for the Oracle,
05:01pretending to be blind to ensure he can catch any unwanted guests unawares.
05:05The man is absent from the immediate sequels,
05:07having seemingly been replaced by Seraph, who is undebatably the Oracle's guardian.
05:11Number 5. The Soviet Union still exists in Blade Runner 2049.
05:16Both Blade Runner movies are absolutely cramp-packed full of fascinating world-building,
05:20and Blade Runner...
05:23...that's never engaged with verbally.
05:26The Soviet Union never collapsed.
05:28Throughout the film, adverts for various products are visible,
05:30with mention of the being produced by the CCCP.
05:33Cramp-packed full of fascinating world-building,
05:35and Blade Runner 2049 offers up an especially fascinating morsel
05:39that's never engaged with verbally.
05:41The Soviet Union never collapsed.
05:43Throughout the film, adverts for various products are visible,
05:45with mention of the being produced by the CCCP,
05:48which is the Russian abbreviation for the Soviet Union.
05:51It suggests that the USSR is still very much an entity
05:54more than 50 years after it fell in reality,
05:56though the circumstances which allowed it to thrive remain completely ambiguous.
06:00By director Denis Villeneuve's own admission,
06:02this was a carryover from Philip K. Dick's original Blade Runner novel,
06:05Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
06:07Published as it was in 1968,
06:09almost 25 years before the Soviet Union fell,
06:12Dick could have never anticipated anything other than the USSR continuing to exist,
06:16as makes for a rather fascinating slice of alt-universe futurism.
06:20In an interview with Time about the subject, Villeneuve said,
06:22I went back to the Philip K. Dick novel and explored the geopolitics of the book.
06:26In the book, the USSR was still present.
06:29I thought that it would be interesting to think,
06:30what if the USSR was still alive?
06:32What if it was as strong a cultural and economic force as the US,
06:35but with different political laws?
06:37What if you saw Russian products in the streets of Los Angeles?
06:39I thought that would create an interesting distorted reality
06:42that would tell my audience right from the start
06:44that they're in a different world,
06:45with different laws from a geopolitical point of view.
06:48Well, there it is.
06:49Number four.
06:50R2-D2 disobeys Luke because of Anakin in Star Wars The Empire Strikes Back.
06:55In The Empire Strikes Back,
06:56you'll surely recall that R2-D2 isn't one for obedience.
07:00When Luke Skywalker insists that he remain with the ship,
07:02R2 refuses and follows his charge.
07:04At the time of Empire's realising incident,
07:06seem to occur in Revenge of the Sith,
07:08when Anakin lands on Mustafar with R2
07:11and insists the droid stay with their ship.
07:13R2 obeys, but of course,
07:14Anakin subsequently fights Obi-Wan,
07:16gets horrifically injured,
07:17and is transformed into Darth Vader,
07:19ensuring he never returns to R2.
07:21As such, we can firmly deduce
07:22that R2 develops some understandable attachment issues.
07:25And by the time Luke tells him to sit tight decades later,
07:28he's not going to be left to his own devices once again.
07:30Obviously, in reality,
07:31this was really a case of George Lucas
07:33reverse-engineering the plot in non-chronological order,
07:36but it still slides together quite perfectly.
07:38Number three.
07:39Australia has renounced its colonial history in Event Horizon.
07:43Event Horizon may ultimately be a film best remembered
07:45for its atmosphere and periodically insane gore,
07:48but it's also a smartly written movie
07:50with some fantastically detailed production design.
07:52For instance, keep your eyes peeled
07:53at Dr. William Weir's uniform,
07:55and you might notice the Australian flag
07:57looking a little different than expected.
07:59The real-life flag is currently a blue field
08:01with six stars and the British Union Jack
08:03in the top left corner.
08:04But the flag on Weir's jacket is something else.
08:07It's actually the Australian Aboriginal flag,
08:09implying that in the film's setting of 2047,
08:10Australia ended up rescinding its colonial ties
08:14and status as a British constitutional monarchy.
08:16It's an attentive and unexpected detail,
08:18and one which Sam Neill himself apparently insisted upon
08:21in an attempt to pay tribute
08:22to Australia's Aboriginal population.
08:24When this was recently brought to the internet's attention,
08:26Neill tweeted that he wouldn't do it any differently today,
08:29an especially interesting remark
08:30given that there have been recent calls
08:32for Australia to indeed change their flag
08:33and ditch the Union Jack.
08:35If it happens within the next 25 years,
08:37then Event Horizon wasn't just clever,
08:38it was damn prophetic.
08:40Number 2, Agent T's Wife and Kids in Men in Black 3.
08:44Men in Black 2 is far from a great movie,
08:46but it does tee up an amusingly long-gestating
08:48secret subplot which pays off quite incredibly
08:51in the third film released an entire decade later.
08:54In Men in Black 2, Agent J is paired with
08:56the well-meaning but incompetent Agent T,
08:58resulting in J eventually kicking him out of the Men in Black,
09:01neuralising him and setting him up
09:03with a cute waitress at the diner.
09:05J suggests that T should get married
09:06and have a couple of kids,
09:07and lo and behold,
09:08in Men in Black 3's altered timeline,
09:10J encounters a woman in K's apartment
09:12with a husband and a few kids,
09:14the woman also being played by Alexandra O'Hara,
09:17who played that waitress in the diner.
09:19The obvious wink-wink implication
09:20is that in this timeline,
09:21Agent T did indeed marry the waitress
09:23and start a family.
09:24Even though the man seen in the back
09:25of the woman's apartment
09:26clearly isn't played by Patrick Warburton,
09:28who presumably wasn't available,
09:30it's still an ingenious slice of fun
09:31quasi-continuity between sequels.
09:34Number 1, Lambert was trans in Alien.
09:37Ridley Scott's Alien is a masterclass of subtlety and restraint,
09:41despite fundamentally being a movie about a ship full of space truckers
09:44who get picked off one by one by a phallus-shaped monster.
09:46Though the film itself feeds us only morsels of information
09:49about the Nostromo's crew members,
09:51James Cameron's 1986 sequel, Aliens,
09:53added some sneaky context to one departed individual in particular.
09:57During Ripley's debriefing,
09:58after being woken from stasis at the start of the sequel,
10:00the personnel files of her dead crewmates
10:02are projected on a screen behind her.
10:04This includes a file on Nostromo navigator Joan Lambert,
10:08which states that she was born male,
10:09but given sexual reassignment surgery to female at birth,
10:12and that she had no indication of suppressed trauma
10:14related to gender alteration.
10:16In the film's original theatrical run
10:18and on earlier home video releases,
10:19it wasn't possible to read any of the texts behind Ripley.
10:22But the DVD and Blu-rays of Aliens
10:24have included the crew's bios in their full HD glory,
10:27allowing fans to pore over them ad nauseam.
10:29It's certainly a fascinating revelation,
10:31albeit also a troubling one given the lack of exact context
10:34for why society would give a child sex reassignment surgery at birth,
10:37evidently without their consent.
10:39And that concludes our list.
10:40If you think we missed anything,
10:41then do let us know in the comments below.
10:42And while you're there,
10:43don't forget to like and subscribe
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10:46Also head over to Twitter and follow us there,
10:48and I can be found across various social medias
10:49just by searching Ellie Little Child.
10:51I've been Ellie with WhatCulture.
10:53I hope you have a magical day,
10:54and I'll see you real soon.
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