It has happened before and it will happen again. As beloved IP addresses are removed for additional contentstudios are looking into each line inspirational material. In the right hands, every seemingly innocuous reference or statement uttered by a Bryce Dallas Howard could potentially launch the next one Jurassic World trilogy.
Just a few years ago, Ghostbusters: The Beyond They literally raided the grave of Ivo Shandor, the briefly mentioned occult architect who designed Dana’s apartment building, to find a hook to launch a new franchise. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story took a line of text from the opening text of Episode IV and has developed its own films and television series. Not to mention the recent release A Quiet Place: Day 1a prequel inspired by a line of dialogue by Djimon Hounsou in A Quiet Place, Part IIor the next one Beetlejuice Beetlejuice–which, as evidenced by the character of the abandoned bride played by Monica Bellucci, developed an entire story around a single gag from the original film.
Today we bring you some very strange, casually mentioned lines from famous sci-fi movies and franchises that actually deserve to be their own stories.
King Kong (1976)
“In 1605, Fernando De Queres was blown away from Tenotang. He wrote that he had pierced the white veil. That’s the cloud bank. And that he had landed on the beach of the skull, where he had heard the roar of the greatest beast… the rest of this journal entry was deleted by Rome. In 1749, a waterlogged lifeboat was found in the same area. It was empty, but drawn in blood on the porthole was the image of a huge, collapsed humanoid creature. And this strange warning: “From your marriage with the creature that touches the sky, my lady, may God preserve you.”
Of course, there are several small ones, PredatorThere are a few vignettes to unpack from the above, but the main takeaway here is the suggestion that the Vatican has willfully suppressed knowledge of Skull Island for centuries. Catholicism simply cannot accept the existence of an island with unique, evolved megafauna, and an entire narrative exploring that idea could very well be the best movie ever made.
While films about exorcisms and the church remain popular, a story replacing Satan with the specter of a giant gorilla seems like a no-brainer. Godzilla Shin explored the politics surrounding the destruction of the Fukushima reactor through a kaiju story, so it seems only fitting that King Kong would have a chance to do something similar.—namely, a religious political thriller. Consider the latest Presage film, and sound photo of a tabernacle lined with candlesframed to look like a human skull. Now imagine an entire movie using the same concept with Catholic imagery to create abstract representations of King Kong next to the Pope.
The Matrix Reloaded
“Every time you’ve heard someone say they’ve seen a ghost or an angel. Every story you’ve heard about vampires or werewolves or aliens, that’s the system learning a program that’s doing something it’s not supposed to do.”
While the first Matrix If the déjà vu experience was merely a “technical glitch” in our simulated reality, its sequel went even further, suggesting that every brush with the supernatural in recorded history was the system’s response to illegal activity on the Internet. It’s a piece of lore so thunderous that it should be dropped and not revisited (there are was A Underworld– inspired by gang warfare in video games) this should have caused the Matrix itself to bleed in course-correcting disbelief. The implication that a family’s generational werewolf curse could have come from a teenager downloading Cannibal Holocaust on Limewire is gold. Was Trinity the Mothman? Could Bigfoot be the physical embodiment of a shared Disney+ password? The concept could warrant a second Matrix trilogy, not to mention a monster police procedural of the week.
RoboCop 2 And 3
“On the international stage, the Amazon nuclear power plant exploded, irradiating the largest rainforest in the world. Environmentalists are talking about a catastrophe. But isn’t that always the case?”
“From the burning battlefields of the Amazon war, cutting-edge urban pacification is born…”
As mentioned in RoboCop 2 and exhibited in RoboCop 3The explosion of a nuclear facility in South America owned by North American interests led to a conflict called the “Amazon War.” Although the details are unclear, an OCP-backed paramilitary force known as the “Rehabs” was known to be involved.—of which Cain, the leader of a cult influenced by synthetic drugs, was a former member. An episode of RoboCop: The Series Additionally, OCP developed a plasma cannon for the incident, to disrupt enemy aircraft and armored vehicles.
The Amazon War is a fascinating idea, but we are left to our own imaginations to decide what followed. Given that it takes place in the continuity of RoboCopRadioactive sloths and jaguars are commonplace in a brutal and bloody war film set in the uncharted territory of an irradiated rainforest, populated by ever-changing flora and fauna. A bit like Annihilation meets SalvadorAdd to that corporate-sponsored American mercenaries in a foreign country where they have no business being, and you have the right to print money in any global currency.
Ballpoint pen (1975)
“You know what the game is for. It has a definite social purpose. Nations are bankrupt, they have disappeared. There are no more tribal wars. Even corporate wars are a thing of the past.”
Similarly, the post-apocalyptic world of Ballpoint pen The story would take place a few years after the world’s largest corporations decided to fight each other with weapons. The winner, apparently, was the titular “rollerball”—a highly profitable game providing violent distraction to a population ruled by a handful of powerful masters, where each match is preceded by the solemn company anthem. Of course, we would love to see a movie in which Johnson & Johnson forms an awkward alliance with General Electric to deal a fatal blow to Nestlé’s foot soldiers. To quote Ned Beatty in Network“There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, ITT, AT&T, DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide and Exxon. These are the nations of the world today!” Our only fear is that this is a little too moralistic.
28 weeks later
“Why doesn’t she have any symptoms?”
“I don’t know.
“Speculate.”
“A genetic abnormality that acts as a kind of natural immunity.”
“But the virus is still in her blood and saliva, so… technically, she’s not immune.”
“She is a carrier.”
In the continuation of 28 days later-and soon prequel to 28 years later—It is assumed that a mother and daughter who share heterochromatic eyes (one green, one brown) are somehow immune to the effects of the zombifying “Rage Virus.” Exactly how the melanin distribution might defend against the virus remains entirely speculative and open to peer review, but consider what the discovery involves: a host of celebrities, including but not limited to Dan Aykroyd, Jane Seymour, Simon Pegg, Henry Cavill, Christopher Walken, Kiefer Sutherland, and RiverdanceMichael Flatley would become the heir to Earth.
Forgetting for a moment that someone would surely notice that one or more of these people didn’t become raging zombies early enough in the pandemic, it’s easy to imagine their value would increase exponentially among the few who manage to hold out in this post-apocalyptic world. Their eye color would be noted, eventually, but probably not at first. Word would spread. Celebrity appearances would be discussed within each survivor group.—”I saw Kate Bosworth get bitten, and she’s fine!” Conspiracies, religions, and potential fiefdoms would follow. It is estimated that six in 10,000 people share this same mutation. If a vaccine could really be developed from their blood, then there would be a number of candidates on the market. However, someone would have to notice this common trait before they become famous.—and would that happen, when they are them, you are you… and everyone else is dead?
We’ll leave it up to you, dear readers. Is there an intriguing, strange, or unimportant line from a movie, book, or TV series that you’ve never been able to completely forget? Let us know your ideas for sequels in the comments.
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