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10 Movies with surprising real world consequences
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00:00To a lot of people, films are just an excuse to pop the kettle on and check out of life
00:04for two
00:04hours. Whilst that's an important cause in and of itself, many assume that a movie's impact starts
00:10and ends with its audience. Not the case. Not the case at all. The following 10 motion pictures all
00:15had consequences far more impactful than any director, actor or critic could have possibly
00:20imagined. Some inspired people to make huge decisions, some ended up appearing in lawsuits,
00:25and some even nearly got people killed. So next time someone tells you that movies don't matter,
00:30please feel free to direct them to this video. And with that in mind, I'm Ellie with WhatCulture,
00:36here with 10 movies with surprising real-world consequences.
00:40Number 10. Giving People Traumatic Flashbacks Saving Private Ryan
00:44Directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Hanks, 1998's Saving Private Ryan started the
00:50much-loved trend of people spending inordinate amounts of money attempting to rescue Matt Damon.
00:55Along with its gripping story and likeable roster of characters, the movie was praised for its
00:59ultra-realistic depiction of the horrors of World War II. Right from the get-go, the film pulls no
01:05punches in depicting the conflict as hell on Earth, with its remarkable recreation of the D-Day landings.
01:11Well, it was praised by some. For others, it brought back a whole host of unwanted memories.
01:15Some real veterans of the battle on Omaha Beach who saw the film reported that they were unable to
01:20finish it, as the sequence brought on traumatic flashbacks. In fact, the United States Department
01:25for Veteran Affairs created an entire hotline dedicated to those affected by the movie.
01:31In the end, it's probably for the best that these horrors were shown as accurately as possible.
01:35Fear is a powerful deterrent, and it would have been a greater insult to those who fought in the
01:40war to try and dumb it down for a more sensitive audience.
01:43Number 9. The Bambi Effect.
01:45Bambi. Walt Disney did plenty of dubious things in his life, but the most unforgivable of all
01:50was traumatising several generations of children with the death of Bambi's mother. In the 1942
01:56animated movie, young Bambi has his life change forever when an evil hunter guns down his beloved
02:02mum in cold blood. This sets the deer on a path of vengeance, as he trains in martial arts with
02:07the
02:07sole ambition of enacting his violent revenge. Okay, that didn't happen, but what a movie that would be.
02:12Apart from scarring kids for life, the movie spawned a phenomenon known as the Bambi Effect.
02:18Commentators posit that because of the scene with Bambi's mum, people are turned off the idea of the
02:22hunting or killing of animals that are conventionally cute. However, when it comes to ugly animals,
02:27well, they can all die. That was a joke, by the way. Whether this is a good thing or a
02:31bad thing is
02:32up in the air, but it shows that even a kids' movie can have a long-lasting effect on society
02:37at large.
02:37Number 8. Reopening an Assassination Investigation. JFK.
02:42Director Oliver Stone has never been one to shy away from controversy, so it's not a surprise that
02:47he chose to make a movie about the killing of John F. Kennedy. With 1991's JFK, Stone explored the
02:53idea that Lee Harvey Oswald was not the only party involved in the shooting, and stars Kevin Costner as
02:58a government agent tasked with finding the truth. The movie was loved and hated in equal measure. Some
03:04praised its performances and cinematography, whilst others lambasted its lack of historical accuracy.
03:09Its subtitle was The Story That Won't Go Away, which is ironic because the files on JFK's
03:14assassination were actually reopened as a result of this film. JFK's popularity sparked a resurgence
03:20in interest in the popular leader's untimely death. As a result, the US government passed the
03:25JFK Assassination Records Collection Act, which allowed for the files on the president to be made
03:29public in 2017. Without this film causing such a commotion, those files would still be under lock and
03:36key today. Are we any closer to finding out what actually happened that fateful day in Dallas?
03:40Well, no, but at least we've got something else to read.
03:43Number 7. A massive parade. Spectre.
03:46Enough time has passed now that we can officially call the 2015 James Bond film Spectre a big pile of
03:51dog poo. The narrative was convoluted, the side characters were completely forgettable,
03:56and Blofeld as Bond's brother? Get out of town!
03:58One of the lone high points of the movie comes right at the start, when Daniel Craig's Bond chases down
04:03a member
04:04of the titular organisation in Mexico City. The action is fast and furious, thanks in part to the
04:09elaborate Day of the Dead parade going on around the two men. The celebration looked so good that
04:14it actually inspired an uptake in people visiting the city around Day of the Dead time. There was
04:18just one problem. This parade didn't actually exist. It had been entirely fabricated as a set piece for
04:24Spectre, leaving the Mexican government in quite a pickle. Rather than send all the tourists and their
04:29money away, they decided the easiest thing to do would be to make the fictional festival a reality.
04:34And so, in October 2016, Mexico City hosted its first ever Day of the Dead parade. Mission
04:40accomplished, Mr Bond. Number 6. Anti-nuclear activism. The China Syndrome.
04:45On March 16th, 1979, a film called The China Syndrome came out. In it, Jane Fonda played a journalist
04:53investigating a nuclear power plant when suddenly the facility goes into meltdown. There's a line in the
04:58movie that says this could render an area the size of Pennsylvania permanently uninhabitable. Why is
05:04that important? Because on the 28th of March, 1979, the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant actually
05:11went into meltdown. And where was Three Mile Island? Pennsylvania. You couldn't make it up. The film
05:16already had an anti-nuclear agenda before the incident. Star Jane Fonda was firmly and famously opposed
05:22to the idea. However, its proximity to a real-life disaster led many others to change their stance on
05:28the subject. Co-star Michael Douglas described his revelation as a religious awakening, whilst the
05:33China Syndrome also made believers out of prominent campaigner Tom Hayden and media mogul Ted Turner.
05:40Few could have expected the immediate impact the China Syndrome would have on the world. It actually
05:45seems too good to be true. I mean, maybe it is. Has anyone looked into what Fonda was up to
05:49on the
05:4928th? Was she in Pennsylvania by any chance? Number 5. Inspiring freedom fighters. Rambo.
05:55The 2008 film, just called Rambo, is honestly one of the better instalments in the blood-soaked
06:01franchise. Although that isn't saying much, considering that Last Blood does exist.
06:05Sylvester Stallone returned as the titular veteran to rescue a bunch of missionaries who have become
06:10tangled up in the Saffron Revolution in Burma. Burma was what it was called at the time. The country's
06:15name is now officially Myanmar. Whilst the movie was a fairly standard action affair, with Stallone going
06:21ahhh as often as humanly possible, it had some rather unintended consequences in the actual country
06:26it was set in. The Saffron Revolution was a very real conflict in Myanmar against the ruling military
06:32government. One of the groups involved in challenging their authority was the Karen Nation Liberation
06:37Army. Karen as in an ethnic group of people, not those women who want to speak to the manager.
06:41The KNLA saw the film as an endorsement of their struggles and were given a huge morale boost off the
06:47back of it. They even adopted lines from the movie into their rallying cries. Not bad for a cash cow,
06:52eh? Number 4. Being used as a legal defence, 2001 A Space Odyssey. 2001 A Space Odyssey is one of
06:59the
07:00absolute granddaddies of sci-fi. Stanley Kubrick's surrealist voyage is one of the most important and
07:05influential films of all time, as well as home to one of the most chilling baddies ever captured on film.
07:11Sentient supercomputer HAL 9000 is the most famous piece of technology in the film.
07:17Which is littered with futuristic looks at how the world might turn out. Well, futuristic for 1968.
07:22Kubrick's interpretation of Arthur C. Clarke's work was actually more accurate than you might think,
07:27as one major company attempted to demonstrate. Samsung got themselves into legal hot water over
07:33the attempted release of their Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet computer. Apple, who felt the design infringed
07:39on their own iPad, attempted to block the sale of the device. Samsung countered by claiming that
07:44they didn't invent the tablet. This movie did. As part of their actual legal defence,
07:49Samsung attached a screenshot from the film displaying astronauts using what appear to be
07:53tablets. They claimed that this was proof that Apple couldn't own the rights to the design and
07:57that they should be free to sell theirs. I mean, it didn't work, but you can't blame them for trying.
08:02Number 3. Catching a Murderer, The Passion of the Christ.
08:05Mel Gibson. Nothing else to add? Just Mel Gibson.
08:08If you don't know about his various transgressions over the years,
08:11then please kindly return to the rock you have been living under until you've learned your lesson.
08:15One of his more famous crazy ideas was making the biblical epic The Passion of the Christ in 2004,
08:20a film depicting the final 12 hours of Jesus' life. Yeah, that seems like a safe bet for a man
08:26who has a history of religious controversies. Anyway, the film got made and it was of course
08:30controversial. However, there was at least one good thing to come from it. It helped solve a murder
08:35case. In early 2004, 19-year-old Ashley Nicole Wilson was found dead in her apartment in Texas.
08:41She had apparently hanged herself after coming off anti-depression medication, but in reality,
08:46her boyfriend Dan R. Leach had killed her and staged it to look like a suicide. He was going to
08:51get away
08:51with the crime until a viewing of The Passion of the Christ caused him to have an epiphany and turn
08:56himself in. Maybe Gibson isn't so bad after all?
08:59Number 2. Defecting from North Korea, Titanic. Titanic has got everything you could want from
09:05a movie. Romance, drama, tragedy, Irish dancing, naughty times in an old-timey car. It really is
09:10the full cinematic experience. But is it powerful enough to inspire someone to escape one of the
09:15most isolated and repressive nations on the planet? Well, as it turns out, yes it is. In 2007, Park
09:22Yeonmi and her family fled North Korea in an attempt to lead a better life. Although she was just a
09:27teenager, Park already knew that her homeland was a dangerous place to live and that there
09:31was a whole other world outside of its borders. A reason for this knowledge? James Cameron's
09:35Titanic. Banned foreign films offered many North Koreans a previously unseen look at the outside
09:41world, and for Park, Titanic was the best of the bunch. She said that watching the film made her
09:46realise something was wrong with her country, and that was the catalyst for her life of activism.
09:50Stories like this are a reminder of the power cinema has to inspire people around the world.
09:56It's also proof that Leonardo DiCaprio's face is the most powerful force on earth.
10:00Number 1. Almost getting a president killed. Taxi Driver. An unhinged cabbie from New York City,
10:05Robert De Niro's portrayal of Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver is just one of the reasons he is
10:10rightly recognised as a legend. But it's not his role in the film we're talking about today.
10:15At just 12 years old, Jodie Foster was cast in the movie as a child prostitute. Look,
10:19we said this film was good, we never said it wasn't without its problems. Speaking of problematic,
10:23John Hinckley Jr. became obsessed with Foster after first seeing her in this film. He moved
10:28house to be closer to where she was studying and would bombard her with love letters and poetry.
10:33Again, it's worth remembering that Foster was an actual child when Hinckley first saw her. In his
10:37deteriorating mental state, Hinckley decided that the best thing he could do to win Foster's favour
10:42was shoot the President of the United States. And so he did. In 1981, he shot and wounded President
10:48Ronald Reagan, all to impress the actress. It's one of the maddest stories of all time,
10:53and one that almost certainly did not come up in the pitch meeting for Taxi Driver.
10:57And that concludes our list. If you think we missed any, then do let us know in the comments
11:01below. And while you're there, don't forget to like and subscribe and tap that notification bell.
11:05Also, head over to Twitter and follow us there. And I can be found across various social medias
11:09just by searching Ellie Littlechild. I've been Ellie with WhatCulture. I hope you have a magical day,
11:14and I'll see you real soon.
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