Movie subtexts that flew over your head the first time you watched.

For me, the first Pirates of the Caribbean, when they only cut Keira Knightley’s hand and Barbossa says, “Waste not!”. It wasn’t until much later when I remembered his monologue about not being able to feel or taste did it come together for me and I was like this is lowkey one of the, if not the raciest lines in a movie with Disney branding.

Another was A Nightmare on Elm Street 2. I was a teenager when I first watched it and Jesse sleepwalks into a leather bar and orders a beer. It just so happened his coach was at the same bar and took him to the school to run laps. I had no idea of the leather scene then, so I thought the coach was just punishing him for drinking underage. And then the coach changes into his leather gear in his office while Jesse is taking a shower and pulls out jump ropes. Thankfully, Freddy shows up and kills him. When I watched it again when I got the box set, rather than just laughing at the coach getting his ass popped with a towel by Freddy like I did when I was a teen, I was like 😳 at what Freddy just averted.

BrokenRabbit posted one here a while ago that completely changed the tone of a movie for me. He pointed out that in the classic movie Deliverance, the guy who died on the river probably wasn't shot. He committed suicide, and his friends assumed he was shot. They then spent the rest of the trip jumping at ghosts, and probably murdered a random hunter.

Looking it up, the director stated it was supposed to be ambiguous, and all the evidence in the film points to him not being shot.

@mattbbpl: Interesting, but I think Burt Reynolds’ character knew what happened. He said he got shot, but he never said WHO did it.

Wait, what? Is the implication that Barbossa wanted to sleep with her? For like the whole movie? Like "Yeah we are going to use her blood, but damn she is so fine, I can't wait to get that last piece of gold and draw just a tiny drip and then I'm going to go to town whether she wants it or not"

If so, dammmmmmn...

The Matrix’s trans story.

Star Wars’s Vietnam allegory.

The Lord of the Rings being WW1.

Narnia being a Christian narrative.

I’ve missed a lot at first from stuff I saw as a kid.

The Dark Knight is a not-so-subtle allegory for the American surveillance state and the war on terror.

Batman (post 9/11 America) needs to stop the Joker (terrorism) from blowing up innocent citizens through various difficult and overbearing choices.

The choices Batman makes include methods such as manipulating the court system, flying across country lines to apprehend bad guys, and listening in to the cell phones of every citizen.

@mrbojangles25: He said in the moonlight monologue that he missed the warmth of a woman and that they were consumed by their greed and desires.

So yeah, I think the whole doing what marauders do thing was first on his mind once he got his sensations back.

And here’s another one: Revenge of the Nerds was actually a prison story.

The weak outcasts look for protection from an all-black gang against an all-white gang whose Greek letters are “AB”.

Oh yeah I remember the monologue quite well. I just must have romanticized it a bit more and given Barbossa the benefit of the doubt, you know? Like he just misses having a woman in general, not so much missing having a woman to have sex with specifically.

Now I'm thinking back to a similar situation on "A Song of Ice and Fire" where a ship captain was getting tired of a passenger, and he was like "If you keep failing at your job, I'm going to have my way with you, and then I'm going to let my crew have their way with you".

Yikes.

OK I think that might be reading too much into it.

Though the movie is actually very pro-rape, so now that you mention it...🤔