15 Secret References You Never Noticed In Your Favorite Movies
Most movie "Easter eggs" subtly reference another piece of pop culture. For example, 1982's "TRON" hid the arcade favorite Pac-Man on a map within the film's video game like grid.
They can also be used by directors to acknowledge each other. This was the case when Steven Spielberg's 1981 "Raiders of the Lost Ark" included a hieroglyphic of R2-D2 and C-3PO from George Lucas' 1977 "Star Wars."
Spielberg did it again when he named a club from 1984's "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" after the Jedi master Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Lucas returned the favor in 1999's "Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace" when he included aliens from Spielberg's 1982 "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" in the galactic senate.
Hidden "Star Wars" references pop up in other films, too. Avid "Star Wars" fan and "Episode VII" director J.J. Abrams had R2-D2 appear in 2009's "Star Trek" as a piece of debris floating through space.
Easter eggs" are also hidden cameos, such as Glenn Close dressing up as a bearded male pirate who was tortured by Captain Hook in 1991's "Hook.
Source: What Culture
Hidden references can even be seen as symbolism or foreshadowing. For example, many fans see oranges in 1972's "The Godfather" as a symbol of death.
Watch a video pointing out the many orange references, here.
The same concept was more deliberate in 2006's "The Departed." Martin Scorsese paid homage to old gangster movies by sprinkling X's all over the film to express impending doom.
Source: Entertainment Weekly
1993's "Jurassic Park" also has a symbolic hidden reference. When the helicopter lands on the island, Dr. Grant ties two "female" ends of a seatbelt together. Fans see this as a metaphor for the DNA splicing that lets the dinosaurs reproduce in the film (even though they're all female).
Source: Grantland
Sometimes "Easter eggs" can give a brief nod to a film's storyline. When Marty McFly travels back in time in 1985's "Back to the Future" he runs over a pine tree. When he returns to the future, there's a name change to the mall named after the pines.
Easter eggs" also reference films that have yet to come. This was done when the shield of future Avenger Captain America showed up in Tony Stark's workshop in 2008's "Iron Man.
They can even accidentally predict films that don't exist as 2007's "I Am Legend" did when it had a billboard for a "Batman/Superman" movie hanging in its dystopian Times Square.
Hidden movie references aren't new, however. Director Alfred Hitchcock used to sneak himself into many of his films. He even did so for his 1944 film, "Lifeboat" (which took place on a boat lost at sea) by sneaking himself into a newspaper ad.
The original 1968 "Planet of the Apes" also snuck in a hidden reference by having three apes "see no evil, hear no evil, and say no evil" thus reenacting the "Three Wise Monkeys" pose.
Some "Easter eggs" have become so popular that fans look forward to them. Any time a “Star Wars" movie comes out fans wait to see which character says some variation of "I have a bad feeling about this" — a line said in every film of the series.
Watch the video here.
Now that you've got to see some of the best hidden references in movies...
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