The most high-profile example is probably Interstellar, where ticks every 1.25 seconds you hear on the planet Matthew McConaughey’s Cooper visits represent a full year they spend there.
Add to this the secret methods people have spotted to figure out whether you’re dreaming or not in Inception, or the references to Heat in The Dark Knight, and it’s clear Nolan loves leaving little clues and details hidden in his films.
(Paramount Pictures)
The issue is though, unless one is new like Oppenheimer, you’ve often seen most of the big theories before.
In this case, however, one fan has found a detail in Memento which is a blink-and-you’ll-miss it frame so hidden it seems like it has only now been discovered, 24 years on from the film’s release.
For those who don’t know the film, Memento came out in 2000 and starring Guy Pearce, Carrie Ann Moss, and Joe Pantoliano, it is often considered one of Nolan’s most underrated.
The film has an average score of 8.4 on IMDb, added to its outstanding 94 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.
Pearce stars as Leonard Shelby, an insurance investigator, who suffers from a rare form of amnesia.
To deal with this, he uses notes and tattoos, and uses these to try and hunt for the man who he thinks killed his wife.
Spoilers ahead for the end of Memento. It’s 24 years old and I’ve warned you, so no angry emails allowed.
The find was posted to the subreddit r/MovieDetails, as they wrote: “At 1hr 30 minutes into Memento (2000) the ending is revealed in a split-second blink-and-you’ll-miss it frame.”
If you don’t get it go watch the movie and come back, because the fact no one has noticed this until now is crazy.
The single frame of the film shows Sammy Jankis, played by Stephen Tobolowsky, with the face of Guy Pearce’s Leonard Shelby.
This, despite there being another 23 minutes of the film left, shows the reveal of the ending, that there was no Sammy Jankis and the implication that it was actually Leonard who killed his wife.
Film fans understandably lost it at this single frame showing the ending ahead of time.
One commented: “Holy sh*t, I considered myself a fan of this movie and never noticed this, damn”.
Another responded to one person who commented with a picture of the specific frame saying: “Omg thank you. I was staring at this forever and somehow still didn’t see it”.
In case you missed it (Newmarket Films)
A third commented: “Wow holy cr*p I would NEVER have caught that”.
A fourth said: “Bravo Nolan and bravo OP”.
Memento is available to watch on Channel 4 for free.
Featured Image Credit: Newmarket Films
Topics: Christopher Nolan, Film, TV and Film
Michael Slavin
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Fans blown away as true ending of Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar is finally explained
Despite the film being incredibly well received, many were a little confused by the ending…
Interstellar is arguably one of the best Christopher Nolan flicks to date, which called into question how far the human race would go for love and for survival.
But the ending has always left viewers with opposing ideas.
Was it all a dream? And did Matthew McConaughey’s character Cooper really die at the start of the flick?
Or were there aliens running around pulling the strings behind the scenes like puppet masters?
It turns out, both of those theories are wrong.
After a YouTube video by Looper was uploaded explaining the ending of the 2014 film, it all suddenly makes sense.
After the hoopla what was Miller’s Planet, and the emergence of the black hole, Gargantua, we can finally reveal what the ending truly meant.
Cooper is tasked with saving the world. Paramount Pictures
In a film which follows astronauts who are sent to outer space and through a worm-hole to explore potential planets that could rehabilitate human life, there is one main focus throughout.
Love.
Cooper, a farmer-turned-astronaut, has a deeply profound love for his teenage daughter, Murphy.
When he’s shot into space, it becomes clear throughout the journey that the only way to save the human race is by gathering data from inside of a black hole, but only one person can complete the task.
Cooper and Murph haven’t seen each other in decades. Paramount Pictures
Cooper decided to sacrifice himself by falling away from the craft in his own little ship, descending into Gargantua’s gravitational pull which somehow transports him into a library of memories about his daughter.
This ‘Tesseract’ allows Cooper to go back to moments in time to provide his daughter clues and information pertaining to the black hole, which could save the entire race.
It’s a moment which allows Cooper to realise that the Tesseract was created by super advanced future humans who want him to communicate with his daughter and that he was his daughter’s ghost all along.
In the end, it was love. Paramount Pictures
In the end, the main point of the ending is his love for his daughter, and his immense regret for leaving her and missing her entire life to save humanity.
His love becomes a sort of homing beacon which allows him to use the Tesseract to convey the information about the black hole, enabling Murph to crack the code of gravity manipulation, which dgoes on to set the course for humanity’s exodus from Earth.
Cooper is then thrown from the Tesseract, which crumples in on itself and teleported by these advanced beings to a camp near Saturn, where he finds out that the plan worked and that humans are spread out across the universe in various pods.
But now due to the time lapse, Murph is an old woman and on her deathbed, where the two reunite after decades.
It’s a really touching scene and I’m sure many who watched it in the cinemas bawled when she told him to leave before he had to watch her die.
In the end, it was his love for his daughter, life and humanity that set the course for the entire plot.
Featured Image Credit: Paramount Pictures
Topics: Entertainment, Film, Matthew McConaughey, Christopher Nolan
Britt Jones
Christopher Nolan reveals iconic line from The Dark Knight that really troubles him
It’s been over 15 years since the film came out but Nolan is still ‘plagued’ by it
Every now and again, as we try and close our eyes to get some sleep, that random thing we said – or didn’t say – many years ago suddenly comes into our head.
You wish you’d handled it differently, replaying the scenario over and over again even though it’s long since been and gone.
And it seems the same goes for film directors, as Christopher Nolan has revealed the iconic line from The Dark Knight that really troubles him.
The first film in his legendary trilogy landed back in 2008, with Christian Bale as Batman/Bruce Wayne.
Also starring the likes of Heath Ledger and Michael Caine, the movie picked up a number of awards for Best Film and for its cast.
The Dark Knight also still holds an impressive 94 percent critic score on Rotten Tomatoes, with it being praised by both critics and viewers.
Karwai Tang/WireImage/Getty
But despite all these rave reviews, there’s something that ‘plagues’ Nolan about it to this day.
Nolan’s latest film, Oppenheimer, has also been picking up awards this season and while he was promoting it, he discussed this specific line from his 2008 blockbuster.
He told Deadline: “I’m plagued by a line from The Dark Knight, and I’m plagued by it because I didn’t write it.”
It turns out, it was actually written by Nolan’s brother, Jonathan, who he also co-wrote The Prestige, The Dark Knight Rises and Interstellar with.
“It kills me, because it’s the line that most resonates,” Nolan said.
Warner Bros.
And the line the award-winning filmmaker is referring to of course comes from Harvey Dent, also known as Two-Face, played by Aaron Eckhart.
In the film, he says the line as Bruce Wayne and his date join the villain and his girlfriend for dinner – who turns out to be Bruce’s true love, Rachel.
Of course, it’s the highly quoted: “You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.”
But despite now wishing he was the one who wrote it, Nolan admitted he didn’t actually understand it at first.
He explained: “I read it in his draft and I was like, ‘All right, I’ll keep it in there, but I don’t really know what it means. Is that really a thing?’
“And then, over the years since that film’s come out, it just seems truer and truer.”
Nolan related the iconic line to Oppenheimer as he said: “In this story, it’s absolutely that. Build them up, tear them down. It’s the way we treat people.”
Featured Image Credit: Karwai Tang/WireImage/Warner Bros
Topics: Celebrity, Christopher Nolan, TV and Film, Batman
Jess Battison
Joker 2’s ending was originally removed from first film by Christopher Nolan in respect of Heath Ledger’s Joker
The original ending was vetoed by Christopher Nolan
Joker 2, aka Joker: Folie a Deux, has been the hot topic of discussion this week after its disastrous opening weekend.
A smaller domestic opening box office than Morbius, critical panning, and an audience score of just 31 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, the film has not had the reaction that everyone involved would have hoped for.
One particular aspect that is bringing the ire of fans though is the ending.
To say the ending has been controversial would be an understatement, with various viral tweets slamming it.
One tweet quoted a video of the ending saying: “Joker 2 ending! It’s terrible! Stupid film, horrible ending.”
And another tweet said: “Joker 2 ending so bad it might create the real f*cking joker”.
Shockingly, it has been revealed from an insider source that the ending of the first Joker film was supposed to end the same way, before Christopher Nolan stepped in to stop it.
Spoiler warning for Joker 2 – if you read beyond this point you cannot yell at me.
The ending in question sees an inmate come up to Arthur Fleck, aka The Joker, and begin telling him a joke, with the punchline being him stabbing Arthur to death.
As the camera slowly zooms in on Arthur’s face, we see in the background the cackling inmate carve a ‘Chelsea smile’ into his face.
The scene where Arthur was originally set to cut the smile into his face (Warner Brothers)
This comes after Arthur renounces his role as ‘The Joker’.
It has been revealed in a Hollywood Reporter article that, according to an insider source, this was originally part of the ending for the 2019 Joker.
The ending would’ve seen Phoenix’s Joker carve his own face in front of a crowd of supporters.
The article goes on to say: “The Dark Knight filmmaker Christopher Nolan killed that idea, believing that only his Joker (Heath Ledger) should carve his face.
“But Nolan is no longer at the studio, and thus there was no resistance to the idea this time around.”
This news was posted to Twitter by DiscussingFilm, with one fan responding saying: “Going against the wishes of the man that gave us the best joker is so unbelievably cringe”.
Christopher Nolan wanted to honour Heath Ledger by having his Joker be the only one to carve their face (Warner Bros.)
There was not unanimous hatred of this aspect of the ending though.
One tweet read: “I like the face carve at the end of joker 2. The joker is an idea, not a person. Arthur might have created it, but he rejects it in the end and someone else takes on the mantle.”
Another fan disagreed with this, however, saying: “The fact that the movie is called Joker and they spend 99% of the movie un-doing the Joker persona in Arthur (the main character) is ridiculous.
“They used Nolan’s movies as justification for this garbage even existing by implying a connection at the end.”
Joker: Folie a Deux is in cinemas now.
