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.
03:43After 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.
04:08But 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 wore for the vast majority of the movie,
04:23except that it's wearing the boots of the traffic cop it assimilated shortly before being frozen.
04:27Basically, the T-1000 has glitched out and combined two cop outfits into one slightly ill-fitting ensemble.
04:33It's far from obvious, but a brilliantly subtle indication that the T-1000 is having some serious trouble keeping things together.
04:38Number 6. The Blind Man is the Oracle's Guardian in The Matrix
04:43When Neo and Morpheus pay a fateful visit to the Oracle in The Matrix,
04:47you might recall that there's a blind man situated outside of her apartment.
04:51More to the point, despite being blind, Morpheus nods at the man who then inexplicably nods back.
04:56It's a minor moment, albeit one that certainly stoked its fair share of debate among fans.
05:00While this technically qualifies as more of a fan theory than a confirmed sliver of plotting,
05:04it's so brilliantly straightforward that it merits inclusion on this list.
05:07Though we never learn a single extra thing about this blind man,
05:10it's a reasonable assumption that he's probably a bodyguard for the Oracle,
05:13pretending to be blind to ensure he can catch any unwanted guests unawares.
05:17The man is absent from the immediate sequels, having seemingly been replaced by Seraph,
05:21who is undebatably the Oracle's guardian.
05:23Number 5. The Soviet Union still exists in Blade Runner 2049
05:27Both Blade Runner movies are absolutely cramp-packed full of fascinating world-building,
05:32and Blade Runner 2049 offers up an especially fascinating morsel that's never engaged with verbally.
05:38The Soviet Union never collapsed.
05:40Throughout the film, adverts for various products are visible,
05:42with mention of the being produced by the CCCP,
05:45which is the Russian abbreviation for the Soviet Union.
05:48It suggests that the USSR is still very much an entity more than 50 years after it fell in reality,
05:53though the circumstances which allowed it to thrive remain completely ambiguous.
05:56By director Denis Villeneuve's own admission,
05:59this was a carryover from Philip K. Dick's original Blade Runner novel,
06:02Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
06:04Published as it was in 1968, almost 25 years before the Soviet Union fell,
06:09Dick could have never anticipated anything other than the USSR continuing to exist,
06:13as makes for a rather fascinating slice of alt-universe futurism.
06:17In an interview with Time about the subject, Villeneuve said,
06:19I went back to the Philip K. Dick novel and explored the geopolitics of the book.
06:23In the book, the USSR was still present.
06:25I thought that it would be interesting to think,
06:27what if the USSR was still alive?
06:29What if it was as strong a cultural and economic force as the US,
06:32but with different political laws?
06:34What if you saw Russian products in the streets of Los Angeles?
06:36I thought that would create an interesting distorted reality
06:39that would tell my audience right from the start
06:41that they're in a different world,
06:42with different laws from a geopolitical point of view.
06:45Well, there it is.
06:46Number 4.
06:47R2-D2 disobeys Luke because of Anakin in Star Wars The Empire Strikes Back.
06:52In The Empire Strikes Back, you'll surely recall that R2-D2 isn't one for obedience.
06:57When Luke Skywalker insists that he remain with the ship,
06:59R2 refuses and follows his charge.
07:01At the time of Empire's release,
07:03this simply seemed like R2 being an adorably loyal bot
07:06who knew when Luke needed help but perhaps couldn't ask for it.
07:09But in light of the prequels,
07:10R2's defiance is viewed within an entirely different, more tragic context.
07:14The catalyzing incident seemed to occur in Revenge of the Sith,
07:17when Anakin lands on Mustafar with R2
07:20and insists the droids stay with their ship.
07:22R2 obeys, but of course,
07:23Anakin subsequently fights Obi-Wan,
07:25gets horrifically injured,
07:26and is transformed into Darth Vader,
07:28ensuring he never returns to R2.
07:30As such, we can firmly deduce that R2 develops
07:32some understandable attachment issues.
07:34And by the time Luke tells him to sit tight decades later,
07:37he's not going to be left to his own devices once again.
07:39Obviously, in reality,
07:40this was really a case of George Lucas reverse-engineering the plot
07:43in non-chronological order,
07:45but it still slides together quite perfectly.
07:47Number 3.
07:48Australia has renounced its colonial history in Event Horizon
07:51Event Horizon may ultimately be a film best remembered
07:54for its atmosphere and periodically insane gore,
07:57but it's also a smartly written movie
07:59with some fantastically detailed production design.
08:01For instance,
08:02keep your eyes peeled at Dr. William Weir's uniform,
08:04and you might notice the Australian flag
08:06looking a little different than expected.
08:08The real-life flag is currently a blue field
08:10with six stars and the British Union Jack
08:12in the top left corner.
08:13But the flag on Weir's jacket is something else.
08:16It's actually the Australian Aboriginal flag,
08:18implying that in the film's setting of 2047,
08:20Australia ended up rescinding its colonial ties
08:23and status as a British constitutional monarchy.
08:25It's an attentive and unexpected detail,
08:27and one which Sam Neill himself apparently insisted upon
08:30in an attempt to pay tribute
08:31to Australia's Aboriginal population.
08:33When this was recently brought to the internet's attention,
08:35Neill tweeted that he wouldn't do it any differently today,
08:38an especially interesting remark given that there have been
08:40recent calls for Australia to indeed change their flag
08:42and ditch the Union Jack.
08:44If it happens within the next 25 years,
08:46then Event Horizon wasn't just clever,
08:48it was damn prophetic.
08:49Number two,
08:50Agent T's Wife and Kids in Men in Black 3.
08:53Men in Black 2 is far from a great movie,
08:55but it does tee up an amusingly long-gestating secret subplot,
08:59which pays off quite incredibly in the third film
09:01released an entire decade later.
09:03In Men in Black 2,
09:03Agent J is paired with the well-meaning but incompetent Agent T,
09:07resulting in J eventually kicking him out of the Men in Black,
09:10neuralising him,
09:11and setting him up with a cute waitress at the diner.
09:14J suggests that T should get married and have a couple of kids,
09:16and lo and behold,
09:17in Men in Black 3's altered timeline,
09:19J encounters a woman in K's apartment
09:21with a husband and a few kids,
09:23the woman also being played by Alexandra O'Hara,
09:26who played that waitress in the diner.
09:28The obvious wink-wink implication is that in this timeline,
09:30Agent T did indeed marry the waitress and start a family.
09:33Even though the man seen in the back of the woman's apartment
09:35clearly isn't played by Patrick Warburton,
09:37who presumably wasn't available,
09:39it's still an ingenious slice of fun quasi-continuity between sequels.
09:43Number 1.
09:44Lambert was trans in Alien
09:46Ridley Scott's Alien is a masterclass of subtlety and restraint,
09:50despite fundamentally being a movie about a ship full of space truckers
09:53who get picked off one by one by a phallus-shaped monster.
09:55Though the film itself feeds us only morsels of information
09:58about the Nostromo's crew members,
10:00James Cameron's 1986 sequel, Aliens,
10:02added some sneaky context to one departed individual in particular.
10:06During Ripley's debriefing,
10:07after being woken from stasis at the start of the sequel,
10:10the personnel files of her dead crewmates
10:11are projected on a screen behind her.
10:13This includes a file on Nostromo navigator Joan Lambert,
10:16which states that she was born male,
10:18but given sexual reassignment surgery to female at birth,
10:21and that she had no indication of suppressed trauma
10:23related to gender alteration.
10:25In the film's original theatrical run
10:26and on earlier home video releases,
10:28it wasn't possible to read any of the texts behind Ripley.
10:31But the DVD and Blu-rays of Aliens
10:33have included the crew's bios in their full HD glory,
10:36allowing fans to pore over them ad nauseam.
10:38It's certainly a fascinating revelation,
10:40albeit also a troubling one,
10:41given the lack of exact context
10:43for why society would give a child sex reassignment surgery at birth,
10:46evidently without their consent.
10:48And that concludes our list.
10:49If you think we missed anything,
10:50then do let us know in the comments below,
10:51and while you're there,
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11:00I've been Ellie with WhatCulture.
11:01I hope you have a magical day,
11:03and I'll see you real soon.