24 Brilliant Fan Theories So Convincing, You'll Never Be Able To Watch These Movies The Same Way Again
Reddit user u/froggysayshello asked, "Movie buffs of Reddit, what is your favorite fan theory for any well-loved and popular movie?" and people had A LOT to say.
Here are the best replies:
1."In Lord of the Rings, Frodo doesn't know Legolas's name. He never once says it. In the end scene where everyone runs in to see Frodo in the hospital, Frodo yells out everyone's name in excitement as they come in...except for Legolas, who he just stares at smiling. Then Gimli walks in, and Frodo's back to it yelling, 'Gimli!'"
2."Napoleon Dynamite is what poor people are like in the Wes Anderson universe."
3."In the 2002 live-action Scooby-Doo, the gang was able to smuggle Scooby onto the plane because they’re in an alternate time line where the TSA was never invented because 9/11 never happened."
4."Sandy Olsson dies on the beach at the beginning of Grease, and Danny is her guide to the afterlife. As she is dying, she is imagining the senior year she never got to have at Rydell High and how her relationship with Danny would have played out. It ends on the last day when Danny takes her into the afterlife via the flying car."
5."Shrek didn't actually have a name, so he made one up on the spot when Donkey asked him."
6."Wall-E killed all the other Wall-Es in the city for spare parts."
"I thought that the other robots were too dirty, so they couldn't charge using the solar panels. Therefore, Wall-E used them for spare parts?"
"So they were 'asleep,' and he harvested their 'organs' like a psychopath instead of cleaning their solar panels. Diabolical!"
7."Palpatine used Padme’s life force to keep Vader alive, and that’s why she dies — not from sadness."
8."The Machines are the good guys in The Matrix. If you watch The Animatrix, you see that the Machines tried to be democratic members of society, but the humans wouldn't let them so they created their own country. The humans then wage war against that nation. The Machines at any time could make the planet unlivable for humans, but they never do."
"The humans actually have the bright idea to block out the sun because the Machines are primarily solar powered. The Machines convert to nuclear and win the war against humans. THEN they start plugging humans into the Matrix, an inferior source of energy to nuclear. I believe the Machines put the humans in there to keep them safe from the hellscape they created.
They never truly eradicate the humans that have escaped the Matrix, just keep them powerless enough to protect themselves. The Machines even ally with the humans against Agent Smith — an alliance the Machines readily accept because they always wanted to get along with humans. They call off the attack on Zion, thereby ending the cycle of destruction and rebuilding. They have no reason to honor Neo's terms after he dies, but they do because they wanted peace all along."
9."Bill didn’t die at the end of Kill Bill. Both he and Beatrix knew that the five point palm exploding heart technique was fake. Using it on him was Beatrix’s way of saying 'if you play along and play dead, I’ll just take my daughter and go.'"
10."Peter Dinklage plays the same character in both Death at a Funeral movies. He's a conman who tried the same scheme on two separate families."
11."Glinda is the actual villain of The Wizard of Oz. She knew the whole time that Dorothy could go back home. But after Dorothy defeated one of her rivals (the Wicked Witch of the East), she sent Dorothy off to defeat her other two rivals (the Wizard and the Wicked Witch of the West). By the time Dorothy leaves Oz, Glinda is the only powerful ruler left."
12."Heavyweights is a prequel to Dodgeball. Tony Perkis = White Goodman."
13."The Terminator wasn't the first pass through the timeline, and John Connor deliberately chose his own father to give himself a better chance."
14."George McFly figured out Marty is his son in Back to the Future. Marty calls him dad a couple of times, the Van Halen tape he uses to 'torture' George is probably something that Marty listens to often (so adult George notices the similarities), and Marty is oddly specific about the rug accident at the dance. Plus, that look George gives Marty at the end of the first movie seemed like it said 'thanks for helping me, son; I love you, enjoy your new ride.'"
"George HAS to eventually realize that his son looks exactly like that random dude who appeared out of nowhere when he was a teenager, then disappeared after basically helping him get his life together. So, he must know it's either time travel, or he's spent a lifetime constantly asking himself 'did my wife cheat on me with that random guy from high school?'"
15."Genie from Aladdin was secretly saving Aladdin's wishes for himself so he could try to gain his freedom."
"Wish 1: Aladdin says 'Genie, make me a prince.' It's later revealed he is not a real prince.
Wish 2: Genie wiggles Aladdin's lips and pretends he's telling Genie to save his life."
16."All the main characters in Ghostbusters died at the end of the first movie when they crossed the streams. The sequel takes place in purgatory as each character works through their own personal issues."
17."The movie Batman & Robin was actually an in-universe movie made by people living in Gotham City."
18."The Mad Max movies all tell the same story. Max is a mythological figure in the post-apocalyptic wasteland, who in reality was maybe once a cop or something similar as society was breaking down. However, as younger generations lose more and more of a connection to society pre-collapse, subsequent generational retellings of the story have verged away more wildly from the truth."
"The bones of the story are that he is a man stricken by grief who adopts a small community in need and fights off a gang of vehicular maniacs but does not remain with them in the end."
19."Snowpiercer is a sequel to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory."
20."Chris Pratt’s character in Jurassic World is the little kid from the original Jurassic Park who said raptors are just big birds."
21."Dominic Toretto was put into a coma at the end of The Fast and the Furious when he flipped his car, and everything that’s happened since has been his coma dream. At the end of the final movie, he'll wake with Mia, Letty, Vince, and Leo (sorry, Jesse really is dead) and a CGI Brian around his hospital bed as “See You Again” starts playing."
22."Se7en is set in pre-Batman Gotham."
23."Yoda speaks the way he does because he's so old that the rules of modern grammar are different from when he was younger. Correct way to speak in his day, this was."
24."Remy in Ratatouille goes through a secular version of baptism. When he falls from the skylight and into the kitchen, he lands in a sink full of dishwater. The cleansing water purifies him — washes away his old country rat self — and prepares him for his new role working in a professional kitchen. He goes into the water a rat, but he emerges a chef."
H/T r/AskReddit
Some responses have been edited for length and clarity.
Movie buffs, I want to hear your favorite fan theories. Drop them in the comments below! ???????