What's your favorite fan-theory for a Movie or TV show you've watched?

echoplex21@lemmy.world to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 157 points –
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As someone who can never remember anyone's name this is hilarious and somewhat triggering lol. That clip from the end felt like what I was doing last night at a bar with my wife's coworkers. Just gotta deflect and dodge until somebody else says their name first.

Thanks for sharing.

Event Horizon takes place in the Warhammer 40k universe.

Oh, I need to know more about this.

In 40k, faster than speed light happens by traveling through the Warp, basically a place where physics gets weird. The Event Horizon enters and exits the Warp.

The reason why the Warp is so dangerous is that this is where demons live that will turn you insane. To protect against this, ships in 40k have a Gellar field to protect against the demons entering the ship. The Event Horizon did not have this field, which is why it immediately becomes haunted.

The screenwriter even acknowledged that it was inspired by 40k! One of my favorite horror movies, even though it's flawed.

Event Horizon, Doom, and Minecraft could all take place in 40k.

The absurdity that the machines in The Matrix were harvesting human bodies for power. An interesting theory is that the machines were using human brains as a cluster of computing power. Cool article.

Actually I don’t think this was even a theory. This was the original intent but the studio thought it was too complex for the GA to understand.

Wow, that's crazy, but I believe it. Studios are the worst.

It was spelled out more clearly in the comics. They even trained human minds to do tasks that the machines could not/did not want to do.

'Human mind nik282000, identify the cross walks in this series of images...

The Animatrix shows that the robots keep humans alive likely because they like us, and feel bad about what happened. They want us to keep living, as their creators and “parents”, but understand that if we were free to be all awake and understand reality we’d try to destroy the world again.

I thought that was the original draft plot but studio execs thought the audience wouldn’t be able to understand what that meant.

Humans are terrible batteries/fuel cells. And Orpheus said the machines had fusion power. It makes far more sense that the machines were using humans for computing, not basic metabolism. It's been mentioned that this was the Wachowskis' original intention but the suits made them dumb it down for audiences to understand but I haven't found any direct quotes about that.

In the Rock, Sean Connery's character is James Bond. It works well with the Bond timeline, and Connery plays the character exactly as he did Bond. It's fun to see Bond as a secondary character and what it would be like if he was captured.

I think this one is less of a fan theory, and more of the movie implying it as much as possible without being sued.

Snowpiercer is a sequel to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

Was just about to mention this!

Lol okay I’ve never heard of this one . Any links where it’s more in depth?

I think this is the video that made it popular

Two in the Star Wars universe. Jar jar was a sith, I love this one and wish they could make it canon. The other is palpatine used padme’s life force to keep Vader alive, I really wish they could’ve explained this better in the movies. And if they went this route, while dark, it is much better for the series in the long run because it really would be a pure evil moment for palpatine.

I also super love the Aladdin is post apocalyptic setting theory.

I have gone super deep in the Darth Jar Jar rabbit hole before and I am convinced this was likely the original intent of the character. I believe he was written to be a character similar to The Mule from the Foundation series.

::: spoiler Foundation Spoilers The mule was a literal clown that only ever did silly comic-relief things during most of his time in the books. However, it is revealed near the end that he is actually a character that has been manipulating events the whole time and poses an existential threat to the galaxy. :::

Perfect analogy with the mule.

Stumbles his way into being a background character; an annoyance to the main actors and the plot. Then turns out to be the puppet master all along. I love this fan theory mostly because it is the only way to make Jar Jar a retroactively tolerable character.

The other one for Padme dying is that she was basically going through withdrawal.

Anakin was "so strong in the Force* that he essentially, without realizing, force-pursuaded her into loving him, and between him nearly killing her and then nearly dying, thebforce influence vanished, and she lost the will to live.

Interesting theory, not sure how I feel about it.

Jar jar was a sith, I love this one and wish they could make it canon

Best I can do is a Lego game where Jar Jar appears and a little Imperial March plays (can't remember which one but I remember it made me smirk). And, while trying to search for it I found this:

LEGO Skywalker Saga's surprisingly great Rise of Skywalker story mode gives a quick-yet-effective nod to this prominent fan theory. In the story mode's opening cutscene, Kylo Ren follows the mysterious voice of Emperor Palpatine to the secret world of the Sith, Exegol. As he descends into the temple, he begins to walk through a hallway filled with cloning vats that hold the bodies of several clones of Supreme Leader Snoke at varying stages of completion. However, the last vat contains Jar Jar Binks, who excitedly waves to Kylo Ren. Jar Jar's presence on Exegol would seem to indicate that his role in Palpatine's rise to power may have been more deliberate than it initially seemed in the films, and that Binks may have intentionally been working in the shadows to put the Sith into power.

There's a snip of Imperial March sounding music in Jar Jar's actual themesong, at the 38 second mark.

To me, this is some of the strongest supporting evidence there is - you can't just write off two measures of an entire coordinated symphony as a continuity error; and SW is HUGE on the concept of leit motif. For example, young Anakin's themesong also has little snippets of Imperial March - they do that as a way of foreshadowing.

100% sold on the jar jar theory. It sounds so stupid, but there's sooo much supporting evidence.

WOW, fucking excellent spot!

I write music for a living, mostly club music, a few years ago I had the idea that I'd learn to compose for video games and bought a very expensive textbook written by one of the industry bigwigs. TL;DR I probably won't be composing for video games because while I'm good at writing music, melodies etc, I lack a lot of the skills needed to write orchestral music. But what I did learn, is how complex, time consuming and expensive scoring / orchestral work is... in terms of getting a written score 'into a game' or film.

So there is no way that's an accident. That's deliberate, it's a very quick switch to a different melody that doesn't repeat. It's not note-for-note the Imperial March, but it definitely features the drums, and it's close enough. This imo is one of the most convincing pieces of evidences I've heard of so far, the others are a bit "Yeah I can see it but there could be another explanation".

Yea the musical evidence kinda blew my mind. I never studied music, but I saw a 'music of Star Wars' performance by the Virginia symphony - between each song, the composer basically gave a lecture on the themes that went into it and the concept of leitmotif. The Jar Jar song was one of the ones they played, and that little snip stood out like sore thumb, but I also hadn't heard the Darth Jar Jar theory yet, so didn't really think into it.

Fast forward a couple years, I stumble across the theory. The music wasn't in the original theory (might be in more recent iterations?), but the lightbulb fired off and I had myself a HOLY SHIT!! moment.

Even without the music, it's a solid theory, but you could pick any part of it and dismiss it as just a coincidence, continuity error, animation error etc. The music shows intent in a way none of the other examples can.

Rewatching the prequels with the Jarth Jar Jar theory in the back of my head makes such a huge improvement to his character; replace all the unbelievable dumb luck with calculated malice disguised by a facade of stupidity... and I mean, look at RL politics - malicious people play the village-act ALL THE TIME cuz it works like a charm by discouraging people from holding them accountable -- Darth Jar Jar is a believable character!

Darth jar jar always felt like a way to fan theory around terrible writing

Of course it is. That's what makes a fan theory!

people use it to justify the idea that George Lucas isn't just an awful writer, when that's really all he is

Oh not a fan of the JarJar one but the life force one is really intriguing. Would’ve been nice to show more hints of that in media such as Rebels, Kenobi, or the comics. Vader slowly forming doubt would also help with his decision to betray him in Jedi.

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Among "The Big Lebowski" fans there are some that suggest that Donnie isn't real.
In the whole movie, Walter's is the only person that directly speaks to him. The Dude almost always ignores him or talks to him in a generic/patronizing way.
The theory says that Donnie was probably one of Walter's war buddies in Vietnam and died and what we see in the movie is just Walter's hallucination caused by PTSD. The Dude just plays along to not upset Walter.

Whose ashes did they scatter at the end though?

That's a big question mark. Some people theorized Walter showed up at the mortuary and took the ashes of someone with no family, like a homeless person or something, claiming they were Donnie's.
It a stretch but also plausible, since Donnie's name isn't mentioned in the scene of the funeral house and no one else but Walter and The Dude showed up.

Don't Donnie and The Dude have a direct conversation at least once though?

"Phone's ringing, Dude!" "Thank you, Donnie!'

Oh wow I love this theory. And.... Now I'm gonna watch it again with this in mind.

Donnie was probably one of Walter’s war buddies in Vietnam and died

Probably face down in the mud...

Hans from Frozen was turned evil by the rock trolls.

In the song Fixer Upper, they say 'Get the fiance out of the way and the whole thing will be fixed.' Shortly after, we see Hans be evil for the first time in the film.

In addition, at the beginning of the film, the grand troll notes that it's lucky the magic hit her head and not her heart, because the head can be persuaded. So we have motivation, capability, and a stated intent.

this is intriguing. I'm dying on the hill that Hans never started out evil, there's literally no indication at all in the first half of the movie and some of his actions prove the opposite. Plus the motive always felt insufficient (why would he go for the younger Princess and not elsa if his intention was to take the throne)

Exactly! He even saves Elsa, who was the blocker to an easy marriage with Anna. Then right after the trolls, he leaves Anna to freeze to death.

For me, it's the theory that in the original Spider-Man trilogy, Aunt May knows about Peter's secret identity.

I don't know whether the theory has been confirmed or dismissed, but there are quite a few rather obvious hints:

  • one scene in the second movie when Spider-Man rescues Aunt May from Doc Ock and he says to her: "We sure showed him." She replies "What do you mean we?" and looks somewhat suspicious and moves her head slightly in an over the shoulder shot, indicating that she may be pondering about Spider-Man's identity after possibly recognizing her nephew's voice. Before that, she was hanging from a building and Spider-Man screams to her to hang on, after which she gives him another uneasy, suspecting look.
  • Aunt May's motivational speech later in the same movie in which she states in a very implicative tone that kids like Henry need a figure like Spider-Man to look up to, suggesting that Peter has to continue being the hero he's meant to be. The way she looks at Peter during her speech further indicates that she's subtly encouraging him to keep being Spider-Man. He's about to give up because of all the misfortune he's been having, but she emphasizes her words yet again when she says to "hold on a second longer"; on a rewatch, I noticed that's also when Peter looks up to her as if he realizes that she's speaking directly to him and knows of his struggles. For me, that sentence is the one that convinced me: Peter, the hero, taught Aunt May to hold on when she was at the verge of falling to her death, and now she's repeating his exact words to him.

I like that it's not definitively mentioned in the movies, because it makes for a really interesting debate. I can totally see it being a complete coincidence and that she only cares about Peter and encourages him to be a good person – a hero, as she puts it –, which doesn't have anything to do with being a superhero. So in the end, whether Peter is Spider-Man or not doesn't matter to her. And that in effect means that whether or not she knows shouldn't matter to us.

That would actually be comic accurate, too (to some degree). At one point, Aunt May reveals on her deathbed that she secretly knew Peter was Spider-Man for a long time, and wanted him to know that she was proud of him before she died.

They retconned this, of course, bringing Aunt May back to life with no memory of Peter's identity. Then eventually did more stories about Aunt May learning Peter's identity, dying, then coming back to life... man, keeping up with comic book lore sucks.

Yeah I definitely agree with this one (but there’s definitely arguments both ways so nice for interpretation). I really enjoyed how May was basically Peter Parker’s (wo)man in the chair in ITSV.

Deep Space 9: The Prophets are future Bajorans that evolved beyond space & time, which is why they refer to themselves as "of Bajor" and have such a high interest in the fate of its people. The Pah-wraiths are just future evolved asshole Bajorans like Kai Winn & Jaro Essa.

Didn't the show hint at this already? I don't think that's just a fan theory.

What about the theory that all of DS9 and therefore Star Trek are all in citizen Sisko's mind just as a hopeful future.

Allegedly, Ira Behr wanted to end the series by making it all a fever dream by Benny Hill but Berman wouldn't let him.

I just re-watched Signs yesterday after what could be over a decade ago. This time I went in with the perspective of the very popular fan-theory that the aliens were demons the entire time. It really enhanced the movie for me and helped me appreciate the Reverend’s story more. The main theme of the movie should be on his story of believing again after the passing of her wife. The illogical actions of what’s considered very advanced aliens detracted from that and the overall movie suffered from this criticism. The theory of them being demons helped to alleviate and even enhance the movie for me and I enjoyed it far more upon re-watch.

Just to be clear , I’m fairly sure Shyamalan’s intention wasn’t for them to be demons as there are a lot of inconsistencies for that to be true. But if you can look past those issues, the movie becomes far more enjoyable with its theme of faith.

Fan theory for reference

I created a personal fan theory that we never saw the actual aliens in the movie.

What we saw were biological constructs created by the aliens. It makes all of their weaknesses make more sense.

The creatures are vulnerable to water, on a planet full of water. It makes sense if this was an intentional part of the design. The creatures were created for short term missions. If they were captured or killed by the primitive locals, their bodies would degrade and leave nothing useful behind.

Same reason they have no advanced technology. Nothing for the locals to get their hands on and reverse engineer.

In Friends:

Monica is on coke. That's how she got thin and why she cleans so obsessively.

Also:

Phoebe is homeless, saw the others in the group in through the window of central perk one day, and the entire series is all in her head.

I like to imagine The Matrix (1) as a sequel to The Terminator 1&2.

This has been the biggest missed opportunity with the Terminator sequels.

I, Robot would make a great Matrix prequel, but I hadn't thought of the Terminators :)

Endgame. The Soul Stone manipulated the Avengers into sending Nat and Clint to retrieve it.

The obvious team to go to a dangerous, almost unknown world would be Hulk, the super strong super scientist, and Rocket, the expert space pilot and weapons master. Nat is the acknowledged expert on manipulation and persuasion, much better to talk to the Ancient One. Clint would have been fine going with Thor.

The only reason to send Black Widow and Hawkeye was to force them into making the choice.

While I mostly keep watching the show out of some kind of morbid fascination, I've always believed that Rick literally is Morty in some way, or at least that was the originally intended big reveal.

It's just too on brand for the shows sense of humor, and at least in the first season they were really into deconstructing or mocking a lot of classic Sci Fi tropes that while not that well known to the average viewer, any Sci Fi nerd would instantly recognize (in other words, Futurama but with dick jokes), and what fits better into that mold than the Grandfather Paradox?

When I have mentioned this, a few people have said that Rick "refuses to do time travel" or similar, but again what is more on brand for the show than for Rick to just go "Haha fuck you, I always knew how to time travel, but I don't do it because reasons!" or some similar reversal. I mean they spent the first season loudly saying they weren't a serialized story, while dropping breadcrumbs about a grand serialized story.

Apparently the recent anime crossover semi-confirms this theory, but I can't be arsed to watch it, and I don't think it is canon anyways (or if it is, it's from dimension D-414 or something).

That Isayama (creator of Attack on Titan) has been planning for the anime to be a sequel to the manga rather than an adaptation of it.

There's a lot of evidence to support this but the one piece that kind of kicked off the theory is the fact that Attack on Titan copied a lot from a game called Muv-Luv. The ending of Muv-Luv 2 is even nearly identical to the ending of Attack on Titan. In Muv-Luv 3, they introduced multiple timelines and it had a different ending. So if Isayama can copy and ending once he can probably do it twice.

Interesting, looking into this more now

Thanks for the info

The megathread on r/ANRime has a all the info on the theory. But be aware that there is manga spoilers and posts made by terminally online people arguing with other terminally online individuals who disagree with the theory. The entire Attack on Titan Reddit community is a toxic shit show.

Gotcha

It's no worries, I finished reading the manga a while back.

Good looking out tho

Doctor Who

My own theory is that Rose is always the doomsday device from the 50th Anniversary. The device creates Rose to test the Doctor to see if he is the one. This is how she is able to live after looking into the time vortex and makes Capt. Jack immortal.

Tony Stark knew the tesseract and Pym were in the NJ Shield base because Howard told him about meeting Tony there. It would have happened at some point right before the death of the Starks, as Tony needed to look like his older self. Howard probably told it as an oddity, not realizing it was actually Tony.

Ironman tells Cap something like - I know that I know, but I can't tell you how I know - as if he suddenly put it all together there in 2013. This keeps Cap within the same timeline when he stays.

Cool idea. Unfortunately, I don't see how that would work, since Endgame uses branching-paths time travel instead of closed-loop.

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Red Dwarf.

There are no aliens. Everything is man-made or a result of human intervention.

I thought that was fact, from Wikipedia:

The crew encounter phenomena such as time distortions, faster-than-light travel, mutant diseases and strange lifeforms (all evolved from Earth, because the series has no aliens) that had developed in the intervening millions of years.

Apparently so. Submission redacted.

But what is it?

A white hole? Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. A black hole sucks time and matter out of the universe. A white hole returns it.

Blair Witch Project, was a plot to kill his girlfriend. They were videotaping their attempt to brainwash her into going into the basement to have "proof" of the Blair witch urban legend involvement.

I was watching Fox News and I think they might not be fair and balanced.

It's unfinished, as its creator sadly died when he was only a short way through it, but for a while I was reading an absolutely fascinating analysis of Season 3 of Twin Peaks.

SPOILERS BELOW, JUST IN CASE THE SPOILER TAG DOESNT WORK PROPERLY
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The theory (discussed at FindLaura on Reddit) literally went through every scene of every episode, picking out visual, aural and behavioural echoes between different events/places/people/times, under the thesis that >!basically everything we see is actually a series of abstractions of the same core thoughts, created by the internal state of Laura Palmer's subconscious as she tried to cope with the appalling trauma she had been subjected to in her life. And in fact that she was alive, not dead.!<

It sounds (and was) ambitious in the extreme, but it was deeply thoughtful and persuasive too. And most of all, its creator, Lou Ming, was humble and generous in discussing aspects of his theory with the community - a far cry from some other attempts at an overarching theory I've seen.

It was wonderful to read and discuss, and (on top of the sadness over his loss) it's so sad that Lou was unable get through the whole season and fully flesh it out.

I have my own little pet theory about Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. I think Sisko accidently created the wormhole aliens.

In the pilot, they don't appear until his second trip through the wormhole. So my theory is that there was some kind of biological matter on their Runabout and, since they exist outside of time, it evolved instantly and they suddenly existed throughout all time. That is why they chose him as their prophet - he was kind of their father.