Many movies include barely noticeable Easter Eggs, some of which add a new layer to the story. Studios such as Disney like to include characters and images from other properties within a movie, which often have no bigger meaning than being a fun visual reference for the fans. However, some references like this will completely change the way the audience sees the movie.
Clever Easter Eggs elaborate upon a story by making it spookier, alluding to a new detail about a main character, connecting it to another setting, and more. These details fuel fan theories about movies and provoke further discussion about a movie’s symbolism and major themes. In some rare cases, like Dr. No, there are even odd references to events in the real world.
10 Smart Movie Fan Theories That Were Actually Confirmed By The Creator Or Actor
Some movie fan theories were so clever and plausible that they later ended up being confirmed by those involved with the creator or actors.
10 Starbucks Cup In Every Scene
Fight Club (1999)
Fight Club
Fight Club, David Fincher’s 1999 thriller starring Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, and Helena Bonham Carter, is the cinematic adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk’s eponymous 1996 novel. In it, reckless soapmaker Tyler Durden helps the desolate Narrator find meaning in his monotonous life by creating an underground fight club where dejected men release their frustration in the form of fistfights.
- Release Date
- October 15, 1999
- Director
- David Fincher
- Cast
- Brad Pitt , Meat Loaf , Edward Norton , Jared Leto , Helena Bonham Carter
- Runtime
- 139 minutes
Viewers can find at least one Starbucks cup in every scene of David Fincher’s Fight Club. Fight Club’s Starbucks Easter Eggs are tons of fun to spot, but they also hold a bigger meaning. The movie’s critique of consumerism is highlighted through the constant presence of one of the most successful chains there is. Fincher had this to say (via Empire) about mocking Starbucks: “We had a lot of fun using that — there are Starbucks cups everywhere, in every shot. I don’t have anything personal against Starbucks. I think they’re trying to do a good thing. They’re just too successful.”
9 Abandoned Disney Movie Ideas In Lewis’ Vault
Meet The Robinsons (2007)
Meet the Robinsons follows aspiring inventor Lewis, who has more than one failed invention. Over time, he becomes more successful, but he still occasionally disposes of an idea that didn’t work out. One of these is a helping hat called Doris, who gains sentience and tries to control people. Doris is placed in a vault of failed inventions, along with several characters from two canceled Disney movies.
My Peoples was meant to be a love story about sentient handmade dolls; some dolls from this movie appear in the vault. An elephant wearing a dress also appears, who would have been Ella, the protagonist of the movie Wild Life. The references to these canceled movies in Meet the Robinsons imbue Lewis’ character with a meta quality. It can also be interpreted as a surrealist commentary on abandoned fictional characters.
8 Bible Verse On Nick Fury’s Gravestone
Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Captain America: The Winter Soldier is the ninth entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. After being awoken from cryosleep in the previous film, Steve Rogers struggles to embrace his role in the modern world. As he adjusts, he must battle a new threat from old history: the Soviet agent known as the Winter Soldier.
- Release Date
- April 4, 2014
- Director
- Joe Russo , Anthony Russo
- Cast
- Chris Evans , Hayley Atwell , Scarlett Johansson , Samuel L. Jackson , Robert Redford , Anthony Mackie , Cobie Smulders , Frank Grillo , Sebastian Stan
- Runtime
- 136 minutes
Samuel L. Jackson’s character in Pulp Fiction Jules Winnfield has an epiphany and decides to retire from being a hitman just before the end of the movie. Earlier, Jules declaims the Bible verse Ezekiel 25:17 to one of his victims. However, after he and Vincent Vega are saved by “divine intervention,” Jules contemplates this verse more seriously. “The path of the righteous man…” is an important, if misquoted line in Pulp Fiction which represents the movie’s themes of redemption and humanity among the gangster characters.
20 years after Pulp Fiction, this Bible verse appears on Nick Fury’s tombstone in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. The theory that two of Jackson’s most famous characters are the same person is probably false. However, it is interesting to think about the themes associated with this Pulp Fiction reference in the context of Winter Soldier, while Fury is dealing with S.H.I.E.L.D. being corrupted.
7 The Witch Carves A Pizza Planet Truck
Brave (2012)
Brave
Pixar’s Brave follows Princess Merida of DunBroch (Kelly MacDonald), the daughter of a clan chief in medieval Scotland. When Meridia is told she must marry the suitor of her parents’ choosing, she refuses, defying an age-old tradition and causing chaos in the kingdom. This starts a chain of events that causes Merida’s mother, Queen Elinor (Emma Thompson), to fall victim to a magical curse, the princess sets off into the wild to rescue her.
- Release Date
- June 21, 2012
- Director
- Mark Andrews , Brenda Chapman , Steve Purcell
- Cast
- Kelly Macdonald , Billy Connolly , Emma Thompson , Julie Walters , Robbie Coltrane , Kevin McKidd
- Runtime
- 1h 33m
The Pixar Theory is widely acknowledged by moviegoers, which connects all the Pixar movies through various Easter Eggs, allegedly proving that they all take place in the same universe. However, the Easter Egg in Brave makes for an especially interesting addition to the Pixar Theory timeline. Most Pixar movies fall into a linear timeline, with Brave taking place long before the stories set in the modern day. However, the witch that Merida visits has a carving of a Pizza Planet truck in her house, suggesting that she can travel to or see the future.
Pixar: Every Single Pizza Planet Truck Easter Egg (& Where To Find Them)
The Pizza Planet truck has become one of Pixar’s most recognized and hidden Easter Eggs. Here is a look at its many appearances and where to spot it!
6 Pac-Man Appears On Sark’s Control Screen
Tron (1982)
TRON
TRON is an action-adventure sci-fi film from Disney that was released in 1982. Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) is a former ENCOM engineer who runs his own arcade with a knack for hacking. One day when he decides to hack his former employer, he is locked out by a powerful AI known as the Master Control Program (MCP) before he gets too far. The MCP begins to grow out of control and self-aware and decides to take control of the company himself, intercepting Flynn and digitally uploading him into his world. To survive, Flynn will have to play dangerous games in cyberspace and unlock Tron, an AI designed to counter the MCP.
- Release Date
- July 9, 1982
- Director
- Steven Lisberger
- Cast
- Jeff Bridges , Bruce Boxleitner , David Warner , Cindy Morgan , Barnard Hughes
- Runtime
- 96 minutes
The original Pac-Man game only came out two years before the first Tron movie. However, Tyler Sage argues (via ultimateclassicrock.com) that Tron played a role in cementing Pac-Man’s status in the cultural zeitgeist. At one point in Tron, the villain Sark is looking at a control screen on which Pac-Man appears. Tron’s story takes place in a virtual video game reality and the movie coincided with the rise of arcade games. The nod to Pac-Man was the perfect way to acknowledge the time and place of the movie’s release.
5 Dr. No Owns A Stolen Painting
Dr. No (1962)
Dr. No
Sean Connery stars as 007 in 1962’s Dr. No, the first-ever James Bond movie. Directed by Terence Young and based on Ian Fleming’s sixth Bond novel, it follows the famous spy as he investigates the disappearance of a fellow MI6 agent and uncovers a secret plot by the titular villain, played by Joseph Wiseman.
- Release Date
- October 2, 1962
- Director
- Terence Young
- Cast
- Sean Connery , Joseph Wiseman
- Runtime
- 110 minutes
Francisco de Goya’s Portrait of the Duke of Wellington was stolen from the National Gallery in London in 1961, a year before the flagship James Bond movie Dr. No came out. When Sean Connery’s Bond is in the title villain’s lair, he sees the same painting hanging on a wall. This implies that Dr. No stole the painting in real life, adding another level of diabolical scheming to the villain of the first James Bond movie. Bus driver Kempton Bunton confessed to stealing the painting in 1965. Bunton’s trial was adapted into the 2020 movie The Duke.
4 Sid’s House Has The Same Carpet As The Shining Hotel
Toy Story (1995)
Toy Story
Pixar’s first feature film release sees Woody (Tom Hanks), a cowboy doll, confronted by the nightmare of being replaced as his owner Andy’s favorite toy jeopardized when his parents buy him a Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) action figure. Stricken by anxiety, Woody hatches a plan to remain the favorite, kicking off a race against time for the toys to be reunited with their owner before his house move makes them permanently Lost Toys.
- Release Date
- November 22, 1995
- Director
- John Lasseter
- Cast
- Tom Hanks , Don Rickles , Annie Potts , Tim Allen , Jim Varney
- Runtime
- 81 minutes
If the scenes in Sid’s house weren’t creepy enough, a cinematic reference gives them horror-movie status. As Woody and Buzz walk through the hallways of Sid’s house, trying to find a way to escape, several shots show the pattern of the house’s carpeting. The carpet strongly resembles that in the Overlook Hotel in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. There are several Shining Easter Eggs throughout the Toy Story movies, as though the directors can’t help implying that the toys surviving destructive children and garbage trucks are actually horror-movie scenarios.
3 Truman Takes Vitamin D
The Truman Show (1998)
The Truman Show
The Truman Show is a 1998 comedy-drama directed by Peter Weir. It follows the life of Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey), a man who discovers that his entire life has been a reality TV show with an audience in the millions. Laura Linney plays Truman’s wife Hannah Gill, Noah Emmerich plays his best friend Marlon, and Ed Harris portrays the series’ director, Christof.
- Release Date
- June 5, 1998
- Director
- Peter Weir , peter
- Cast
- Ed Harris , Natascha McElhone , Laura Linney , Jim Carrey , Noah Emmerich
- Runtime
- 103 minutes
In The Truman Show, the protagonist Truman Burbank lives inside a dome from which his life is broadcast as a reality TV show, watched by millions. Of course, since Truman lives inside a dome, he does not have access to natural sunlight. When Truman is eating breakfast, a bottle of Vitamin D supplements can be seen sitting on the table. It is an unsettling nod to how the producers of the Truman Show really have thought of everything to make their constructed reality work.
2 Twin Pines Mall Becomes Lone Pine Mall
Back To The Future (1985)
When Marty meets up with Doc in a mall parking lot to test the time machine, a sign establishes that the mall is called Twin Pines Mall. However, when Marty travels to 1955, he crashes into and knocks one of two pine trees. When he comes back to the present, the mall is called Lone Pine Mall.
Back to the Future typically does not show the main characters altering the past in ways that cannot be reversed. However, it does suggest that time travel will always result in some changes to the present, no matter how small. In Marty’s mission to get his parents together in the past, he completely changes the man his father becomes in the present. Marty then inadvertently changes the name of the local mall and Clayton Ravine to Eastwood Ravine (in Back to the Future Part III).
Every Easter Egg In The Back To The Future Movies
The Back to the Future Easter eggs list is extensive. Here is every Easter egg that can be found in the trilogy, in the order of their appearance.
1 Jr. High Girls Are Modeled After The Bratz Dolls
Barbie (2023)
Barbie
Barbie is a film adaptation of the generational iconic toy directed by Greta Gerwig, who co-wrote the script with Noah Baumbach. The film centers on Margot Robbie’s Barbie who is expelled from Barbieland and travels with Ken (Ryan Gosling) to the real world in search of happiness. The film also stars Simu Liu, Will Ferrell, and several other famous celebrities in cameo roles.
- Release Date
- July 21, 2023
- Director
- Greta Gerwig
- Cast
- Margot Robbie , Ryan Gosling , Simu Liu , Ariana Greenblatt , Helen Mirren , Nicola Coughlan , John Cena , Will Ferrell , Ritu Arya , Michael Cera , America Ferrera , Alexandra Shipp , Kate McKinnon
- Runtime
- 114 Minutes
Admittedly, the Bratz dolls appearing in Barbie is just a popular theory. However, it is a fascinating theory and one that changes the scene it takes place in and has an impact on one of the main characters. When Barbie introduces herself to Sasha and her friends at their school, the four girls resemble the four original Bratz dolls, Barbie’s commercial rival. A common misconception is that the girls are named after the Bratz dolls: Sasha, Yasmin, Cloe, and Jade. However, three of the girls are only listed as “Jr. High Friend” on the IMDB cast list.
However, Sasha does have the same name as one of the Bratz, which supports the theory. Sasha is initially depicted as disillusioned with Barbie as a concept, but bonds with her mother after going to Barbie Land and comes to appreciate the more positive aspects of Barbie’s symbolism. The alleged reference to the Bratz only expands the discourse of how girls and women are empowered by popular dolls that is the foundation of Barbie. Fascinating Easter Eggs like this make movies more interesting and keep fans talking about them.
