Cracked: 5 Movie Fan Theories That Make More Sense Than the Movie

There were a few Cracked threads posted at the beginning of the week, but I didn't see any about this awesome article, so here's a thread for it and your reactions thereto.


5 Movie Fan Theories That Make More Sense Than the Movie


#5. Harry Potter Isn't the Chosen One; His Inept Classmate Is

In a nutshell: Neville is the Chosen One, and Dumby let Harry get all the publicity (and thus mortal danger) to shield him.

Gaith's take: I love this. I've gone on record elsewhere as saying the HP series sucked after Year 4; a twist such as this would have been a welcome corrective.



#4. The Matrix: Neo is a Machine

In a nutshell: The whole series is a present-day simulation designed to teach AIs about pain, in the hopes that they learn never to Skynet us all.

Gaith's take: this could have been really cool and (as the article itself points out) explained Keanu's (and, really, everyone's) iffy acting. I kinda like the destination the movies reached even though the journey grew lame, but this should definitely have been considered at least.



#3. Twilight's Bella Is Part Werewolf

In a nutshell: Bella's trace werewolf ancestry explains why people can't mind-read her, and how she's able to conceive a live vampire baby.

Gaith's take: This theory certainly seems to make infinitely more sense than what actually happens, but do any of us really give a darn?



#2. Battlestar Galactica's Cylons Are Robot Syphilis

Haven't watched BSG, so I'll skip this one.



#1. Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi is OB-1, Clone Warrior

In a nutshell: "OB-1" is a clone. The real Obi would get a surprise death at the end of Ep. II, and the clone wars would then be oodles of Jedi clones on both sides.

Gaith's take: While this idea isn't quite compatible with my beloved Thrawn trilogy, it makes lots of sense, and would definitely have given the PT the sort of kick it sorely lacked. I wouldn't have done it myself, but if it had been done, and done well, I might well have gone along with it.



Well? What say you all?

 

I've never agreed with the attitude that Neo's ability to control the sentinel robots outside the Matrix was somehow magical or in violation of the established rules, or proof that Zion was just another layer of the simulation. His head and back, like everyone else's, are full of computer ports. Clearly he has some hardware installed to allow the interface. Neo's ability to control machines in the real, physical world needn't be any more mysterious than Bluetooth. True, wireless capability doesn't automatically follow from the use of physical connections, but my laptop has both a wireless modem and various physical ports for plugging things in, and my printer is designed with both USB and wireless modes.

As for the Harry/Neville theory, I thought that actually was a plot point in the final book, that the prophecy could apply equally to both, and Neville did turn out to be quite important in his own right. Rowling's whole point was that the whole "Chosen One" thing was not destiny but just self-fulfilling prophecy, that Harry was only the "Chosen One" because Voldemort believed he was, because circumstances forced him into that role and the adults around him had to prepare him to become worthy of it. So there's no reason Neville couldn't be just as important.

 

The problem is that you have to give a crap about Twilight, The Matrix and Harry Potter to even follow those theories. Non-starter.

The Star Wars theory is the only kind-of cool one, and it does date back to at least just after TESB. Anakin was a clone as well, which is why one version could have been killed by the other ("Vader betrayed and murdered your father") without making OB-1 a facile liar in the first movie.

 

I'm not sure how that Obi-Wan theory would rescue the PT from massive suckitude. Overall, the way the clones were handled was just bad, and the PT had many problems unrelated to clones or Obi-Wan.

The Harry Potter theory sounds cool, to the extent I know anything about HP, which isn't much.

I perused the Twilight theory, and regretted it almost instantaneously.

However, delving more into the BSG theory...

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So Cylons are created by Cylons having sex with humans? Well, uh...okay. That might have been somewhat interesting and provided a rationale for them not just doing the simple thing and wiping out all the humans in the first strike. But in the end, it would have probably been as stupid as Twilight.
[/LEFT]

 

Oh, I totally agree with you there - but the alternative scenario is still an interesting one.

Eh, Rowling all but made Harry the chosen one by refusing to expand the scope of the series, and by putting Harry in the middle of everything the whole time. And since absolutely everyone had either figured out or heard the big twist that Snape was in fact still good years immediately after she telegraphed that in capital letter at the beginning of 6, 7 could have used a lot more surprise - and thus pizzazz - than it had.

 

You wanna fix Twilight? Watch Buffy instead.

Totally agreed. It could've been Neville - if Voldie had gone after Neville. He didn't so it wasn't.

Those words you are using. I do not think they mean what you think they mean.

 

Problem solved.

 

The Matrix theory is actually pretty satisfying because it chalks up the bad writing of that franchise to the bad writing of human programmers trying to drill in those sentiments to AI, and goes a long way towards explaining the woodeness of a half-dozen preformances (not just dearl little loved Keanu) and the general flatness of Zion's culture. Those raves and parties being computer's approximations of what they think raves and parties should look and feel like just seems so... natural.

It's a perfectly sensible attitude because your explanation, as handy as it is, was never given the movies.

There's not even any hint that the back of his head has anything to do with this ability - just, as the article indicated, some nonsens about 'the Source'.

Just because a fan theory can neatly connect all the threads in a bow doesn't mean it excuses the film from not bothering to it itself.

 

Funny thing is, the original idea for Joruus C' Baoth from the Thrawn trilogy was to have him be a clone of Obi-Wan.


There's also an old newspaper comic strip in which Vader trains and surgically alters an actor to impersonate Obi-Wan to fool Luke into thinking he survived. The actor eventually plays the part too well, and turns against Vader.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Return_of_Ben_Kenobi

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Obi-Wan_Kenobi_impersonator

 

Neo had very recently touched the Source at that point, all technology in the Matrix seems to have a strong Wifi component as well as ports, and his attack on the Sentinals uploaded him to the Matrix.

I always assumed he, deliberately or not, piggy-backed the Sentinals constant Wifi uplink to the Source, using it to hack them mentally and disable them. Which unfortunately for him meant that once they were down, closed the link and trapped his mind where it was, in the mainframe.

His later attacks and Sight in Revolutions seems to just be a similar uplink to the computer mainframe overlapping his other senses. Neo has essentially managed to grow beyond the need for a physical connection, using a wireless one instead. A stretch? yes but better than "magic".

 

Marry me

 

Funny you should mention the Narnia series... you know, the one that switches main characters several times, and is the more interesting for it...

Rowling totally let the cat out of the bag by showing Snape taking the Unbreakable Whatsit. By bother showing that scene if it wouldn't later bite him in the arse? No, it was quite clear, imho.

No? Merriam-Webster defines pizzazz as being "the quality of being exciting or attractive"... and I'm arguing that this change would have made for a more exciting finale. If I've got my grammar wrong, please explain.

 

It's been yonks since I saw the matrix films but although they were filmed together - it always seemed to me that many of the lines and clues in the second film were left over from a earlier draft they seemed to be suggesting it is all just a simulation and were never picked up up in the third (even though they were filmed together) - lines such as the fact that it's causally mentioned this would be the sixth time that Zion was destroyed. At the very least (and maybe I'm misrembering this) - didn't it seem like they were leading upto the fact that Harmann was a program?

 

Except each one featured Narnia. The title of each book is "Harry Potter and..." thus expecting it not to have Harry as the main character is foolish.

I don't see anything in that definition about "surprising."

 

*Sigh*. I didn't "expect" it, and never said so, either. By the time Book 7 came out, I was thoroughly resigned to the failure of Rowling's imagination to live up to the series' early promise.

Can surprises not be exciting? When Vivien Leigh was killed part-way through Psycho, I doubt that audiences were surprised and yet bored.

 

Obviously.

But the two terms aren't interchangeable and surprise isn't necessary for excitement.

 

She let the cat out of the bag sooner than that. Snape summoned the Order at the climax of OotP when it would have been simpler and safer for him not to (and far more logical if he was on Voldy's side). And no one on Voldy's side ever called him on it, which meant they didn't know. That pretty much told me who Snape was working for.

Of course, it could also have been an example of Bad Writing.

 

I remember when the "Obi-Wan is a clone" theory started to crop up pre-Episode II, in fact I think it might have been around for longer than that. Didn't really think much of it then or now except that it could make for a great plot for a fan fic. I really like the Neo idea.