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From Snow White's groundbreaking status to Superman's moral code, movie myths have spread like wildfire for decades. How many of these popular film lies did you fall for? Watch to find out the real truth.
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00:00Lies about movies used to spread like wildfire, and without any official way to disprove it,
00:05anyone from a sneaky kid on the playground to that drunk guy in a bar could spout nonsense
00:10about your favourite films, and for all you knew, they'd be right.
00:14Sure, there's an alternate ending to Raiders of the Last Ark, where the Ark burns the US
00:18logo off the box it's contained in.
00:20Oh, of course, Flair Witch is based on a true story.
00:23Now, with the internet at our fingertips, you'd think it'd be easy to verify what's
00:27truth and what's a stinking lie.
00:28Oh, how naive.
00:31So, with that in mind then, I'm Ellie with WhatCulture here with 10 Lies About Famous Movies You Probably Believe.
00:38Number 10. Snow White was the first feature-length animation.
00:42Snow White is the film that started it all.
00:44Disney had already found success with Mickey Mouse, but this was something bigger.
00:48The studio's first full-length animation was a major step forward for the company and the medium,
00:54crafting many of the conventions that remain in children's films to this day.
00:58But the truth?
00:59There had been plenty of animations before.
01:02It shouldn't cheapen Snow White of its achievement in terms of the impact it had on cinema, but
01:07it really wasn't the first.
01:09That honour goes to Pinto Colvig, whose feature creation was released in 1915, a whole 22 years before Snow White.
01:18Like many smaller films from the time, it's been lost, presumably forever.
01:22But that doesn't hide the fact it, along with the handful of silhouette or stop-motion films that came out
01:27in the intervening years, beat Snow White to the punch.
01:30It's unlikely there was any bitterness, though.
01:33Colvig went on to design the Disney logo and voiced Goofy, so clearly he was welcome at the House of
01:38Mouse.
01:38Number 9.
01:40Man of Steel
01:41It was out of character for Superman to kill Zod.
01:44Man of Steel was, to put it lightly, a mess, made more disappointing because there was clearly an interesting deconstruction
01:51of a character we all knew, hidden under the washed-out colour palette.
01:54It performed well, but not well enough to stop Warner Bros going all-in and enlisting Batman to save the
02:01sequel.
02:02One of the biggest complaints from audiences was the relentless, mind-numbing action, all of which culminated in Superman snapping
02:09General Zod's neck.
02:10A travesty, this was one of the worst changes to the mythology Zack Snyder and co. had made.
02:16But the truth? He's done it before.
02:18There are a lot of changes made to the mythology of Kal-El that felt forced just to give the
02:23story a new feel, but killing Zod isn't one of them.
02:27It's Batman, not Superman, who has that no-killing rule.
02:30Go back to Superman 2.
02:32The climax of the film has our hero depower Zod and his followers before throwing the General down a cavern
02:37in the Fortress of Solitude.
02:39If that is a murder, then the 80s clearly had a different moral code.
02:43Man of Steel made a lot of mistakes in trying to update the character, but the killing of an almost
02:48unstoppable villain who stated he'll destroy the Earth isn't one of them.
02:52Number 8.
02:53Harry Potter
02:54J.K. Rowling told Alan Rickman Snape's big twist.
02:58The undoubted hero of the Harry Potter series is Severus Snape, the seemingly one-note potions master who, through a
03:05series of increasing reveals such as he was a Death Eater, Harry's dad bullied him, became the most well-rounded
03:11character in the films.
03:12This all culminated in the final moment revealed that all along he'd been in love with Harry's mother, turning seven
03:19books and eight movies worth of arsehole behaviour into hidden compassion.
03:23Of course, as the legend goes, Alan Rickman knew all this already.
03:27To convince him to take the role, series creator J.K. Rowling had told him all this way back at
03:33the start.
03:33But the truth is, she vaguely hinted at it once.
03:37We know Rowling does indeed plan ahead, with the first totally child-aimed book containing plenty of hints to later
03:44developments.
03:45Dumbledore's chocolate frog card mentions dark wizard Grindelwald.
03:48But more than that, we know she and publisher Bloomsbury were very tight on secrecy.
03:54Which is why it shouldn't be surprising that while Rowling knew Snape would always be on Team Potter, Rickman certainly
04:01didn't.
04:01Number 7. Batman Begins
04:04The Joker card tease is a direct foreshadowing for The Dark Knight.
04:08With films like The Amazing Spider-Man and its sequel so forward-thinking, planning ahead at the behest of the
04:14story at hand,
04:15it feels strange for a big blockbuster to not be setting up whatever may be down the line.
04:20So if a slight nod to the fans is made, we immediately jump on it as some deep foreshadowing.
04:25When Batman Begins, a film whose villains were previously untouched on the big screen and thus knew too many audiences,
04:31dropped the Joker card in the final scene, it was clear to everyone that we were going to get someone
04:37a little more familiar the next time around.
04:39But the truth is, it was a little wink to fans, nothing more.
04:43Although what the card suggested would go on to be perfectly explored in The Dark Knight,
04:48Nolan never intended it to be anything more than something to get audiences thinking.
04:52At the point the film finishes, Batman has just established himself as the protector of Gotham,
04:58and a good visual cue to cement this is to show that the stories we're more familiar with from previous
05:03TV and film incarnations are just around the corner.
05:06Nolan is notorious for only ever focusing on one film at a time,
05:11so even if the card was intended to be something more concrete for the series, in his mind he was
05:16definitely going to be the guy exploring it.
05:19Number 6. Avatar
05:20James Cameron was making Avatar for a decade.
05:24In an alternate reality of cinema, we got Avatar ten years early, an idea he'd written a treatment for back
05:30in 1994.
05:32James Cameron's plan was to make the film immediately following his equally massive Titanic,
05:36but the limitations of the time meant he had to first work on getting the technology up to scratch.
05:41When the film finally arrived in late 2009, it was reported the director had been working on it for over
05:47ten years, making this a stupendous achievement.
05:51But the truth is, he kept pretty busy in those intervening years.
05:55You know this claim is greatly exaggerated when Cameron actually released a film in the interim, Ghosts of the Abyss,
06:02a documentary about the wreck of the Titanic.
06:04In fact, it was only after Abyss in 2003 that he began pushing on Avatar, and even then he was
06:10looking at other projects.
06:12The film wasn't greenlit and thus provided with money to properly push forward on the tech until late 2005, so
06:19in reality, he was making the film for four years.
06:23Number 5. Psycho
06:24The shower scene contains no actual nudity or violence. Psycho was such a progressive film that you could make a
06:31movie just about its clashes with the censors, and it'd be a damn sight better than the muddled Hitchcock.
06:36The first film to show a toilet flushing and also dealing with a psychological subject that could easily be sexually
06:43misconstrued.
06:44Oh, spoiler, the killer's a guy dressing up as his dead mother.
06:46The biggest point of contention was the shower scene. A series of rapid cuts depicting the stabbing of Marion Crane,
06:54the sequence is a masterclass of suggestion.
06:56Despite what you may think, you never see any nudity or actual stabbing. But the truth is, there's one shot
07:03that shows the stabbing.
07:04The claim, which was mainly made to get the film past the censors, that the shower scene is gore-free
07:10is easy to state when proving otherwise requires re-watching the whole film, which was difficult pre-home video.
07:17Nowadays, we can go through the Blu-ray frame by frame and see that actually there's one split-second shot
07:23of the knife penetrating Marion's skin.
07:26Very slight and devoid of gore, it's subconsciously a key contributor to the scene's shock factor.
07:32Number 4. The Truman Show
07:34There's an official psychological condition named after The Truman Show.
07:39The Truman Show is about a guy whose entire life is in fact a TV show. His hometown is contained
07:45in a massive dome, his friends and family are actors, and the town's obsession with branded items is product placement.
07:52Everything that happens is overseen by a control booth in the sky, and it's all built so he'll never find
07:57out the truth.
07:58If that gets you questioning your own reality, then you'll not be surprised to hear there's an official name for
08:04that, The Truman Show Delusion.
08:06But the truth is, it's a colloquialism. The word official may be a bit misleading. The Truman Show Delusion is
08:12simply the name attributed to an existing condition.
08:15It doesn't actually appear in the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders. It's the equivalent of calling filicide the
08:23Star Wars condition.
08:24The notion of a person's life being part of a fabricated reality is an old one, and the TV show's
08:30specific subgroup formed part of a Twilight Zone episode, as well as sharing many elements in sci-fi writer Philip
08:37K. Dick's time out of joint.
08:39People believing it is just an extension of the typical delusions of grandeur.
08:443. Planet of the Apes
08:46Planet of the Apes is Earth. The ending of Planet of the Apes is so iconic that giving it away
08:52barely constitutes a spoiler.
08:54The film's final image is even on the cover of the DVD. But the truth is, it was planned to
09:00be a different planet.
09:01It may seem like an attempt to replicate the original's shock value, but the twist at the end of Tim
09:06Burton's remake, Mark Wahlberg returns from a non-Earth planet dominated by apes to discover the same thing has happened
09:13to our home, is actually much more in keeping with the original concept.
09:17Pierre Ball's novel, off which the whole series is based, has Earth and the titular planet to be two very
09:23distinct worlds, both on which the apes rise.
09:26It was only in early drafts of the film, written by Twilight Zone's Rod Serling, that the twist worked its
09:32way into the story, changing the scope of the franchise forever.
09:372. Titanic
09:38Titanic is an inaccurate account of events. The main criticism, exacerbated by the centenary of the ship's famous sinking of
09:47the ship,
09:47a couple of years back, tends to be aimed at Rose and Jack. Not their dialogue, in the broad scope
09:52of the film it works, but the fact that they didn't exist, taking focus from the real tragic events.
09:58Couple that with claims that the steerage passengers were never locked down below decks, and it all looks like one
10:04big expensive fabrication.
10:06But the truth is, outside of character specific events, the sinking is spot on.
10:11Yes, those points are solid examples of James Cameron adding drama to already dramatic events, but for the most part,
10:18his take on the sinking is, for the time, pretty exact.
10:22The one big mistake the film makes is that it's now been determined the ship never stood vertical in the
10:28water.
10:28But as that was only figured out by a team containing Cameron, no less, after the movie's release, we'll let
10:34them off.
10:351. Blade Runner
10:37Blade Runner has lots of very different versions. Is Deckard a replicant? It's one of the biggest unanswered sci-fi
10:44movie questions.
10:45Depending on which version of Blade Runner you watch, you get a different answer.
10:49Confusing audiences and critics alike upon initial release, the film has since become regarded as a classic.
10:56Noteworthy not only for its visual style, which is still imitated to this day, but the fact that there's so
11:02many different cuts of the film out there for fans to paw over for clues.
11:06But the truth is, it's all clever marketing. Do you know what other film has countless cuts? Every freaking film
11:13ever made.
11:14Few films, however, have the same studio interference as Blade Runner that allow for such a big marketing trick.
11:20Aside from two different director's cuts, one from 1992 and one from 2007, all the other versions are basically the
11:29same.
11:29They're either from different stages of production or feature slight cuts for international TV release.
11:35Ultimately, it boils down to three key differences. Whether there's a voice-over, original release only.
11:41Whether there's a happy ending, all pre-1992 releases. And whether there's the bit with the unicorn, the two director's
11:48cuts.
11:49Everything else is minor, and while interesting from a behind-the-scenes perspective, they don't deserve the mystique they've been
11:56given over the years.
11:57And yes, for our money, he really is a replicant.
12:00And that concludes our list. If you can think of any more that we missed, then do let us know
12:05in the comments below.
12:06And while you're there, don't forget to like and subscribe and tap that notification bell.
12:09Also, head over to Twitter and follow us there, and I can be found across various social medias just by
12:14searching Ellie Littlechild.
12:15I've been Ellie with WhatCulture. I hope you have a magical day, and I'll see you real soon.
12:20What are you doing?
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