History Film / Pixels

** Around the introduction of Violet Van Patten, Sam is installing a Sony Bravia television set and a UsefulNotes/PlayStation4 in her living room.

* DropTheHammer: In the final sequence, Sam uses a giant hammer to take down Donkey Kong.

** The kidnapped Guam base soldier screams for his mommy when abducted. When Violet shows up to [[spoiler:take her son back from the invaders]], he's seen screaming "why can't ''my'' mommy come for me?"

* BasementDweller: Ludlow Lamonsoff starts the film living in his grandmother's basement.

* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: An offhand comment reveals that the film is set after January 20th, 2017 (the last date for the presidency of the person who was elected president of the United States in the year 2008: UsefulNotes/BarackObama) and there's an android working with Violet.

* StalkerShrine: Ludlow has one for Lady Lisa. Sam lampshades the creepiness.
-->Man, if she was real, she'd have, like, a hundred restraining orders on you.

** Averted with the (admittedly short-term) addition of [[spoiler: Toru Iwatani, the ''Japanese'' inventor of Pac-Man]].

* ManChild:

* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: This film shows the risk of trying to make contact with an alien race: they may take what is acceptable and harmless to us as something offensive and threatening to them.

** A harmless dancing pixelated [[Franchise/TheSmurfs Smurf]] makes a random appearance in the film. Violet shoots it for being creepy (Which is made funnier when you realise the negative reception of the Smurfs live action movies that are distributed [[BitingtheHandHumour by the same company as Pixels]]).

* YouAreBetterThanYouThinkYouAre: Violet tells Sam that with his brain, he shouldn't be installing equipment, he should be making it.

* DidNotGetTheGirl: Subverted. At first, Lady Lisa is taken back along with the rest of invaders, breaking Ludlow's heart. However, [[spoiler:Q*bert turns into her out of a sudden and they get married.]]

* ZeroPercentApprovalRating: In the beginning of the film, President Cooper is universally considered by Americans an embarrassment. It also appeared as if no one apart from his wife, Sam, and the prime minister of the United Kingdom had any affection for him.

* HundredPercentAdorationRating: By the end of the movie, everyone loves the President and the Arcaders.

[[caption-width-right:300:''[[TagLine Play For the Planet.]]'']]

** Lady Lisa is an expy of [[VideoGame/TombRaider Lara Croft]] with a bit of [[Film/KillBill The Bride]] thrown in.

[[caption-width-right:300:[[TagLine Play For the Planet.]]]]

** At the party, Eddie muses that if he invited Martha Stewart, she'd at least make him a panini. When she invites him to Lincoln Bedroom, she has an entire plate of these.

* ArtisticLicenseAstronomy: Unless the NASA Probe was an [[OrionDrive Orion-Style device]] (the kind of thing banned by treaties the U.S. have been signatory to since TheSixties), it should merely be passing beyond Pluto's orbit by now. If the aliens could already get this far, they should know by now that humans are no threat to anyone (except maybe themselves).

A Range Rover seen in the battle of Hyde Park displays a "90" license plate, which under the current system indicates a registration year of 2040-2041

* RealityEnsues: This film shows the risk of trying to make contact with an alien race: they may take what is acceptable and harmless to us as something offensive and threatening to them.

* TheGameComesToLife: The only way for the protagonists to thwart the alien invasion is to essentially play real-life versions of classic arcade games like ''VideoGame/{{Centipede}}'', ''VideoGame/PacMan'' and ''VideoGame/DonkeyKong''.