Movies with "hidden" meanings: "Species".

[Neville]

Just keep on thinking for a few days (too much spare time, you know) how many films I know witha "hidden" message or topic that is not too documented or too obvious. I can think of just one right now:  

"Species". Really, I think it is a movie about AIDS. Avtually, it makes more sense in this way than as an "Alien" rip-off. Think of it: A lethal, misterious being (SIL, nemed in acronyms and with two letters which also appear in AIDS. Coincidence? Don't think so), who preys on the people who look for fast sex on discotheques or in unconcerned people, has run from a government facility (remember the stupid conspiracy theory about AIDS being a biological warfare agent?) and comes from outer space (AIDS came to USA from Africa and Haiti, or at least it is believed to).

Among the victims, a person who uses needles (AIDS also infects people who share needles), another one who has sex with SIL, and an innocent bystander who could be  the metaphor for those infected by blood transfusions: she doesn't share blood with SIL, but they change personalities, and they both are cut their fingers (biogical link with SIL).

Were the producers / director aware of this reading? I don't think so, since many of this elements fail to re-appear in "Species II".

OK, send in your comments or your own wacly theories about well-known movies.

[J.R.]

No, AIDS was developed by the CDC for the Pentagon to systematically wipe out homosexuals and intrevenous drug users as a step towards realizing the New World Order, stupid!

[Frannie]

don't forget it was also intended to wipe out the africans.  that way we could easily take their land for the vast oil and jewel deposits without having to put up much of a fight.  HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!(evil laugh)

[jmc]

People have said the same thing about Cronenberg's THE FLY, but just about all of his stuff is about disease anyway.

[Phantom 187]

Saw it on the Matrix DVD special features but NEO also makes the word ONE which probably has some significance. Also the white rabbit is from "Alice in Wonderland" (Alice also takes pills the same as NEO) The book "Alice in Wonderland" was written using anagrams and hidden messages and multiple hidden meanings. There are also some hidden messages I've seen in the Old Planet of the Apes movies, you just have to look out for them, they are especially prevalent in the one where the humans have apes as pets. That's all for me, I'm out


Phantom 187
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[john]

I recall reading that a lot of things in The Matrix have hidden meanings. I think all the room numbers mean something, maybe bible passages. The guy at the start who comes to see Neo tells him, "You're my savior!", all the bad guys wear sunglasses with sqaure lenses while the heroes wear round or wrap-around ones etc.

[Mofo Rising]

Well, if you want to talk about mythology or subtle Christ figures, you can talk about quite a few movies for quite a while.  Even THE IRON GIANT has a little bit of the Christ figure going on for it.

Like this movie I watched last night, CHILDREN OF PARADISE (LES ENFANTS DU PARADIS).  It was a movie about love and loss in the Paris theatre scene, but it was also an allegory for Nazi occupied France and another timeless allegory about all too human archetypes.

Then there's STAR WARS, in which every scene points to a certain stage in the mythological everyhero's journey.  Or THE NATURAL, which parallels Homer's The Odyssey.

Or FREEWAY, the Reese Witherspoon movie, which is an ingenious remake of Little Red Riding Hood.

So maybe mythology is out, but metaphors are in.  And then there's movies where you make meaning by connecting disparate threads in your head.  You don't want to know about the hoops and hurdles I jumped to make JOHNNY MNEMONIC a coherent movie.

Anyway, I thought this was a very interesting thread, I just couldn't think of any movies to add to it off the top of my head.  Too bad.  I always wanted to find a website that explored these hidden meanings.  It's just the sort of thing I would find very entertaining.

Well, who knows?  Maybe THE GOONIES was a metaphor for Corporate America's slow subversion of suburban America.  The last bastion of rebellion and independent thought (the Goonies) was systematically hunted down by shady Corporate Underlings (the Fratellis).  Fitting that Sloth, a symbol of all that is cast out and shunned turned out to be the Fratelli's downfall.  And look at the Goonie's membership.  They are the melting pot personified.  Even Chunk was Jewish.

Or maybe I just like talking the p**s.

Happy trails.