Ascended Meme / Film

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• A longtime rebuttal to Aquaman's perceived lameness is that he could command Cthulhu if the two were in the same setting. In Aquaman (2018), Aquaman discovers a Kaiju with tentacles dwelling in a lost underwater city, who ends up helping Arthur in great part because he's the only one that is able to converse with it.
• Deadpool was frequently depicted in fan works with Pinkie Pie. In Deadpool 2 he compares Yukio to her at one point and even winks at the camera after doing so.
• "Not a lot of people know that" was a Beam Me Up, Scotty! line for Michael Caine, as it was from Peter Sellers' impression of him rather than anything he actually said in a movie^note Apparently, Caine would recite trivia from the Guinness Book of World Records when on set but off camera, and part of Sellers' impersonation was based on this... until the film Educating Rita where Michael Caine's character was given the line to say.
• In The Expendables 2, several Chuck Norris jokes — and the general meme of Norris as the toughest man in the world — are repurposed to refer to the character played by Norris. He shows up to save the Badass Crew by destroying an enemy platoon and tank single-handed. After some brief words he walks off, like he's got more dangerous shit to deal with. He even gets to recite his personal favorite Chuck Norris Fact during his first appearance:
  Ross: "I heard you once got bit by a king cobra."
  Booker: "That's right, and after five days of agonizing pain... the cobra died."
• Godzilla's "victory dance" following his first battle with King Ghidorah in Invasion of Astro-Monster has been a popular meme in the Godzilla fandom for years, and the internet has helped turn it into one of the most famous moments in the series. The Criterion Collection apparently picked up on this: their 2019 DVD release of Invasion of Astro-Monster (included in their boxed set of the original series) has it on the front cover◊.
• Grumpy Cat now has a TV Christmas special, "Grumpy Cat's Worst Christmas Ever."
• In the first Hellraiser, Doug Bradley's character was known simply as "Lead Cenobite". The name "Pinhead" was a nickname given to him by fans of the movie. It wasn't until the second movie that Pinhead became his official name.
• Joker (2019):
  • The "Pseudobulbar Effect" causes a patient to experience fits of uncontrollable laughter. It has often been referred to as "Joker Syndrome", since it mimics both the clown and the effects of his poison gas. In the film, Arthur has it. Or at least, his mother convinced him that he does.
  • During his Motive Rant at the end of the film, Arthur blames "a society" for his downfall, echoing the "we live in a society" memes associated with the Joker. The line was slightly ad-libbed by Joaquin Phoenix, so it's not clear if he was doing this deliberately.
    • This later became further ascended when the trailer of Zack Snyder's Justice League had the Joker literally say the words "We live in a society..." verbatim. The line is not present in the film, but is part of an alternate take.
• A promotional poster◊ for the live-action Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! film adaptation has the main trio in their famous "Easy Breezy" dance poses from the opening of the anime.
• The Lord of the Rings:
  • Figwit the elf from the film series. A background extra played by Bret McKenzie (of Flight of the Conchords) who appears in a shot following Frodo's acceptance of the ring (the name standing for Frodo Is Great... Who Is That?) in The Fellowship of the Ring, the nickname was eventually used in the series of Topps trading cards featuring the character. Peter Jackson specifically brought him back for The Return of the King because of the popularity of the meme, even giving him a couple lines this time around. He's back for The Hobbit, now officially named Lindir^note Appropriatly, it means "singer" in Elvish and portrayed as Elrond's right hand man. The meme was also referenced in the flavor text of his Decipher card as a "nickname".
  • The Voice Clip Song video "They're Taking the Hobbits to Isengard" made it onto the set of The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, resulting in a video — uploaded by Peter Jackson himself — of Orlando Bloom, in costume, ears and all, joining in as the video plays on a tablet. The video was made as a farewell on Bloom's last day of shooting.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • Agent Phil Coulson of the 2012 The Avengers movie gained more than a little popularity after his death, sparking the Coulson Lives Project, operating under the hashtag #CoulsonLives. So Coulson was brought back from the dead (with suggestions at suspicious circumstances) for the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. television series... with the aforementioned hashtag being integral to the marketing.
  • A common complaint in the fanbase for post-Avengers movies like Iron Man 3 and Captain America: The Winter Soldier was "why doesn't the hero call in the Avengers to deal with that big problem?" In Ant-Man, when the big problem is explained and Hank Pym and Scott Lang discuss how to solve it, Lang asks that same question.
  • Speaking of Winter Soldier, one scene early on featured a list of things Cap wanted to view. Later on, Natasha makes a WarGames reference, and Cap responds that he understood that reference.
  • Avengers: Infinity War features a few of these:
    • Red Skull turns out to be the guardian of the Soul Stone, confirming a long-running fan theory that he didn't actually die at the end of Captain America: The First Avenger and was simply teleported to another plane of existence by the Tesseract.
    • During the final battle in Wakanda, Rocket eyeballs Bucky's metal arm and attempts to buy it off him.
    • When confronting Thanos, Star-Lord calls him "Grimace" and threatens to blow Thanos' "nutsack of a chin" off his face if he doesn't let go of Gamora.
  • Ant-Man and the Wasp references and lampshades the “I’m Just a Civilian” meme”◊ when Hank, Hope, and Scott all don this type of disguise. In the words of Scott Lang: “We look like ourselves at a baseball game!”
  • Spider-Man: No Way Home:
    • When Norman Osborn offers to help Peter cure all of the multiverse villains, he says, "You know, I'm something of a scientist myself.", quoting a line from Spider-Man that had become a popular Snowclone meme.
    • The film recreates the "Spider-Man Pointing at Spider-Man meme with all three live-action Spider-Man actors twice."
  • In the Avengers: Quantum Encounter dinner show aboard the Disney Cruise Line's Disney Wish, Scott Lang tries to explain why he didn't kill Thanos "in a creative way" before Hope cuts him off, referencing the Thanus meme. ^Explanation Ant-Man was one of the few superheroes who wasn't present for the first battle against Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War, but it was announced early on that he would be returning in Avengers: Endgame, prompting much fan speculation that he would be instrumental in helping the surviving heroes win their rematch against him. This led to a popular joke that he would defeat Thanos by using his shrinking abilities to crawl into his butt.
  • One popular trend in fan art involves depicting Reed Richards and Susan Storm as played (hypothetically) by Real Life married couple John Krasinski and Emily Blunt. In Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Stephen Strange travels to an alternate universe where he briefly encounters Reed Richards...played by John Krasinski.
• Pokémon fans regularly use phrases like 'Oh, for Arceus' sake', since Arceus is effectively the Pokémon god. In Pokémon Detective Pikachu, the titular character's response to Lucy scratching his chin is "Oh, sweet mother of Arceus." In addition, he uses the fanon pronunciation Ar-SEE-us instead of the official Ar-KAY-us one.
  • Pikachu's facial expressions were quite memetic leading up to the movie's release. In response, Pokémon Center released a plush◊ based on one of Pikachu's more infamous facial expressions◊ from the movie.
• Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl: Barbossa was never given a first name, But Johnny Depp jokingly referred to him as "Hector" in the commentary, which caught on with some of the fans. Cut to the third movie, and Hector is his official name.
• Ready Player One: When the book was first released, numerous reviews compared it to Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. To acknowledge this the teaser trailer for the film adaptation features a score snippet similar to "Pure Imagination". (Furthermore, Gene Wilder was also considered for the role of James Halliday before the former's passing.)
• Snakes on a Plane:
  • The Internet and lead actor Samuel L. Jackson insisted that the working title be kept (instead of "Pacific Air Flight 121", which was what New Line Cinema planned for the actual title to be) because it had become a meme.
  • The immortal line "Enough is ENOUGH! I have had it with these motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane!" was added to the film in reshoots as response to the memetic mutation that had developed around the film on the internet before its release.
• Sonic the Hedgehog (2020):
  • Early in the film, when Sonic is hiding from the people of Green Hills, Crazy Carl keeps trying to catch him. He draws a picture of Sonic, and the drawing happens to look exactly like Sanic Hegehog.
  • Several of Robotnik's dance moves are taken directly from the Doctor Robotnik Dance viral video.
  • Sonic says "Gotta Go Fast!" when Maddie wakes him with smelling salts, referencing the heavily memed line from the theme song of Sonic X. Later on, Jojo, Tom's niece, is seen running around the coffee table repeating the phrase ad nauseam.
• Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022): When Robotnik teams up with Knuckles, he offers to "show him the way", referencing the "Ugandan Knuckles" meme.
• Space Jam: A New Legacy: When Bugs asks LeBron to chase him like Elmer does, be briefly turns into Big Chungus.
• Star Wars:
  • After fans finally got to see the ending of The Force Awakens — with Rey finding Luke Skywalker living in seclusion on a backwater planet and preparing to train under him as Luke trained under Yoda — it became a running joke in the fandom that Luke would force her to give him piggyback rides, reasoning that "It's how I learned!" Mark Hamill and Daisy Ridley eventually got in on the joke when Hamill posted this photo to his official Facebook page for Daisy's birthday.
  • A long-running joke among fans is that Chewbacca is unfairly snubbed at the award ceremony at the end of A New Hope, since he isn't shown being awarded a medal. After Leia's death in The Rise of Skywalker, he inherits Han's old medal that was left in Leia's box of keepsakes. So he finally gets that medal!
  • For years Star Wars fans joked about what a ludicrous design flaw it was that shooting a small part of the Death Star would cause the whole thing to blow up. Rogue One reveals that this was deliberate sabotage by the designer, who was secretly a Rebellion sympathiser and had been forced to work on the station.
  • Referring to May 4th (as in "May the Fourth be with you!") as "Star Wars day" started out as a joke among fans, but it got so popular that Lucasfilm eventually decided to recognize the date as an actual holiday—complete with official celebratory Star Wars events.
• "Team Edward" and "Team Jacob" were Fan Nicknames for factions of Twilight fans that have since ended up ubiquitous enough to get on official merchandise, if you want a Team Edward t-shirt or a Team Jacob bag.
• An untitled Ava DuVernay film: A picture of Rihanna and Lupita Nyong'o at a 2014 fashion show went viral on Tumblr when a user commented that the pair looked like they were characters in a heist movie. Someone else reposted the meme on Twitter in April 2017, where it went even more viral. Lupita retweeted it with her approval, asking if Rihanna was game — and she accepted. Twitter went into a frenzy trying to select the hypothetical movie's creative crew, and Ava DuVernay and Issa Rae answered the call. The next month, it was announced that Netflix would be producing the project with all four women attached. However, as of 2020, it seems to be in Development Hell.
• In Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, Gordon Gekko says, "Someone reminded me I once said 'Greed is good.'" This line is pretty much the only thing many people remember from the original movie, including some people who actually became stockbrokers because of Gordon Gekko, when in fact it's a bit of a simplification. Gordon himself has to clarify that his actual words were "Greed, for lack of a better word, is good". He wasn't advocating unrestricted greed, but to use people's innate drive to increase their resources as a tool to advance humanity. Furthermore, his whole speech was part of a PR effort to take over another company so he could cannibalize it.
• When the Columbia Torch Lady was redesigned in 1992, many people thought she was based on Annette Bening^note In reality, she was based on a Louisiana homemaker named Jenny Joseph, who was hired by illustrator Michael J. Deas to serve as a model, with the face of the finalized lady being created from a CGI composite. In What Planet Are You From??, a Columbia film she starred in, the Torch Lady's face was replaced with Bening's.
• There was a promo for a TV airing of The Wizard of Oz that used the song "The Great Gig In The Sky" by Pink Floyd, referencing the fan-synchronization of Oz with the album the song comes from, The Dark Side of the Moon. Sometime in the mid-'90s, one of the Turner networks aired Oz with Dark Side as an alternate audio track (such tracks are usually reserved for Spanish dubbing if available).
• When Kitty Pride phases Juggernaut up to his shoulders into a concrete floor in X-Men: The Last Stand, he responds with "Don't you know who I am? I'm the Juggernaut, Bitch!" The line even got a TV-friendly shout-out in the Black Panther animated series: "I'm the Juggernaut, punk!"

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