Line #55 WMG/Gremlins


1	[[WMG: Gizmo could TakeOverTheWorld if his kids were ChaoticGood like him]]
2	Gizmo is kind and friendly, but his "children" are anything but. Of course, they are [[KidsAreCruel CHILDREN]]. They're born under frightening circumstances, and don't have the experience to know any better. They have the potential for understanding the feelings of others, as shown by their working together and manipulating humans, but they really don't know what they're doing like Gizmo does, and don't much care.
3	* Gizmo exhibits a level of empathy far beyond any of his spawn. He can not only use his cuteness to convince humans to help him, by being kind to them in turn he can ensure the relationship is mutually beneficial. He's not malicious because he doesn't need to be malicious to get what he wants, in fact malice is counterproductive. He's got better empathy than a lot of humans in fact.
4	** And [[ThePowerOfFriendship empathy is]] [[HeartIsAnAwesomePower kind of a superpower]]. How much of human progress has been a result of working together, developing permanent settlements and dividing labor? We've even benefited from working together with other species, by domesticating animals as companions, workers, and food supplies. In Gizmo's case, this is how he survived for so long, by befriending a human who could protect him from the sun.
5	* In addition to empathy, Gizmo (like all mogwai) has [[{{Technopath}} an instinctive understanding of machinery and how to screw with it]], an ability to [[ExplosiveBreeder reproduce in massive quantities]]. Imagine a species with better technological skill than humans, that can work together, and can vastly increase population at will. And they don't really seem to age either.
6	** All that's stopping Gizmo and his descendants is the fact that the little ones aren't interested in taking the long view.
7
8	[[WMG: By Gremlin standards, [[TimeAbyss Gizmo is unfathomably old]].]]
9	All the other mogwai and gremlins in the movies are a few days of age at most. Gizmo has been around for '''DECADES''' at least. It's like adolescents meeting someone tens of thousands of years old, and that's probably an understatement.
10
11	[[WMG: The reason Gizmo has never become a Gremlin is because he doesn't want to. Yet]]
12	He knows ItOnlyWorksOnce. He has wisdom far beyond his brethren, and knows that becoming a gremlin would make him bigger, and physically stronger, but make it even more difficult for humans to relate to him. For an immature mischief-maker, trading cuteness for power seems like a good deal, but Gizmo is smart enough to know that [[BewareTheCuteOnes power takes many forms]]. Physical strength is nothing compared to [[ThePowerOfFriendship having allies who can work with you and compensate for your weaknesses]], and [[HumansAreBastards humans are shallow creatures easily distracted by appearances]]. Becoming a gremlin would cause Gizmo to lose more than he would gain. Until he has enough friends who can understand him and look past his appearance that he no longer needs to be adorable to survive. That day may or may not ever come. But Gizmo knows it is not this day. And he might actually be immortal, so he's got time to wait.
13
14	[[WMG: The Shop was the Manga/PetShopOfHorrors.]]
15	Confirmed from the manga's point of view, more or less - Count D is seen selling something in a box that sings quietly to itself, and he tells the customer those three rules within the first few pages of volume one. Being D, he's smug and amused that it all went horrifically wrong, and he is not helpful in the least.
16	* It's possible that the person the mogwai was bought from at the start of the movie was the young [[spoiler: human or half-human]] D that was born and we meet briefly ''via'' Chris at the very end of the first series.
17
18	[[WMG: The alignment of mogwai depends on their origin.]]
19	If a mogwai (or possibly gremlin) is subjected to water against their will, then the resulting puppies are "evil" because of the trauma the original mogwai was put through. If a mogwai is prepared or has a proper partner, and is able to focus on their alignment or offspring, then the offspring are good or the same alignment as their parent. The other mogwai all turned out evil because Gizmo is single, asexual, adolescent, or just plain didn't want kids.
20	* I think something like that is what is vaguely suggested in the movie, that the state of mind of the Mogwai has something to do with how its offspring, so to speak, turns out. That the trauma of being hit with water, and the fear of what will happen, is cast into what is cast out of him, like a mixed emotional defense/duplication. In the sequel, Gizmo has been "Polluted" with TV, and his offspring are Wacky, Stupid, Angry and Violent.
21
22	[[WMG: Gremlins are not AlwaysChaoticEvil.]]
23	We've only seen "evil" mogwai aside from Gizmo, and Gizmo never had food after midnight. Who's to say that good mogwai wouldn't turn into good gremlins?
24	* Perhaps when "good" mogwai willfully eat after midnight, they turn into whatever Yoda is? See Below.
25	* Perhaps only one Mogwai per "litter" is evil, and the others are completely neutral until they become Gremlins? The unnamed Mogwai in the first film pretty much did whatever Stripe told them. (Billy even commented on it.) In the second film, Lenny and George didn't act until Mohawk commanded them, and Daffy was pretty much ChaoticNeutral throughout the movie. Perhaps if you can eliminate the "bad seed" Mogwai from each batch, the others can be turned to good like Gizmo?
26	* Maybe they're ChaoticNeutral, while Gizmo has learned enough to realize the benefits of being ChaoticGood.
27
28	[[WMG: The Christmas presents scene in the first movie was a commentary on the rise of modern technology usurping the place of traditional entertainment.]]
29	The new mogwai are all gathered around and fighting for control over a miniature arcade machine. Gizmo is playing a toy trumpet, and one of the other mogwai either spits at or intentionally projectile vomits at him in disdain to make him stop. The modern technologies are crude but popular, and they overshadow more traditional venues which, though they may be performed by less talented people, have heart.
30
31	[[WMG: ''Mogwai'' are AlwaysChaoticEvil.]]
32	Gizmo is an exception, or the First mogwai.
33	** The {{novelization}} suggests that the original Mogwai (created by aliens to serve as pets) were full of IncorruptiblePurePureness, but that something in their genetics was bugged, and each new generation is a little more chaotic evil. Gizmo is something of a throwback, so he's nice, but his offspring are almost inevitably terrible.
34
35	[[WMG: The Shop was TheLittleShopThatWasntThereYesterday.]]
36	The dad wasn't able to find the shop without bribing the kid to tell him where it was, and it was most likely in Chinatown, in San Fransisco. In the second film, the shop was in New York in what appeared to be an English-speaking district. The shopkeeper wouldn't sell the place; but if he had only been there for a couple of years, why wouldn't he? The answer is, he didn't move- the shop did. When he died, the shop became a perfectly normal shop that could be destroyed by a wrecking ball.
37	** New York has a Chinatown, as do a number of other U.S. cities. There was no indication that the shop was in San Francisco during the first film.
38	** While the shop could have always been in New York, Mr. Pelzer might very well not have been able to find it without the grandson's help, and it was Mr. Wing's death that took away the shop's magic and allowed it to be found and torn down.
39
40	[[WMG: The Gremlins (and possibly mogwai) are arthropods, not mammals.]]
41	The "fur" is soft spines used for identification (why Stripe and, until Brain Gremlin, Mohawk were the leaders of the Other Mogwai and gremlins); the skin is a soft but tough material, analogous to an insect's skeleton in the way that a snapping turtle's is compared to a slider or tortoise. Seriously, just look at the first shot of the pods, the hatching, and their fingers.
42
43	[[WMG: Mogwai in their mature form look like humans.]]
44	The shopkeeper's mouth puffed out and wrinkled like Gizmo's when he said "I told you so" at the end, and had the hair sticking out everywhere. Gizmo can make sounds in English (most notably, "uh-oh"); and if Gizmo is the shopkeeper's son, and the other mogwai are evil because Gizmo is an adolescent as in the guess above, it kind of makes sense.
45	* This also creates the option of all elderly wizards with no past being mogwai.
46
47	[[WMG: Mogwai in their mature form look like Yoda and Yaddle.]]
48	Shave a mogwai and paint it green. Yoda. The living-on-Dagoba thing was possible because either Mogwai grow out of the multiplication when continually exposed to water or Yoda's just that good. (He's also an elderly wizard with no past.)
49	* It makes more sense for a Gremlin in its mature form to look like Yoda because they're already green and hairless. Yoda does seem to have some semblance of white hair on his head, so for all we know, he was a Gremlin leader once. In the spin-off novel, Gremlins were said to have been accidentally created by an alien scientist; there's your outer space motif / link for ya.
50	** One problem: Yoda lives on a swamp planet. No way he could keep from getting wet. Why isn't the place crawling with his offspring by now? Of course, it's possible that Yoda's race were the "alien scientists" who created mogwai/gremlins in the above novel; perhaps some kind of genetic engineering experiment, an attempt to create a perfected form of themselves?
51	*** I find it more reasonable to say that Yoda species designed gremlins. Maybe they started genetic manipulation from a creature that was to them like the chimp to the human, a smaller less intelligent and furrier version. Otherwise, maybe Yoda is just to old for breeding.
52	*** He's not only ''a'' frickin' Jedi, he's ''the'' frickin' Jedi. You see him fight Tyranus? Now, instead of plasma swords and lightning that he has to avoid, it's water. Yoda could do it.
53	** Perhaps when a "good" mogwai willfully eats after midnight, rather than an AlwaysChaoticEvil gremlin, it transforms into a talking "magical" (i.e. force sensitive) whatever-Yoda-is?
54	*** Maybe Yoda is the Double Evolution: Moghwai = Charmander. Gremlim = Charmeleon. Yoda = Charizard. Godzilla = Mega Charizard Y. Kiryu = Mega Charizard X
55	** Maybe someone in service of the Sith tampered with the genetics of Yoda's species to add in the genes related to the "rules" - water, light, after-midnight eating, and then released them back into the environment to interbreed until the genetic stock of the species was compromised and chaotic evil reigned, then Yoda had to more or less commit genocide on his own kind to get rid of the Gremlin taint, which is why there aren't other Yoda-like creatures running around in the Star Wars galaxy. But he had a son or grandson Mogwai that he didn't want to destroy - that would be Gizmo - so he sent baby Gizmo away in a stasis pod, which traveled millions of light years across the universe and landed on Earth, where it was discovered by the Old Chinese Guy or one of his ancestors. Yes, Gizmo is a Jedi. His badassery at the end of Gremlins 1 and 2 only hint at his potential.
56	*** JustForFun/MadeOfWin.
57
58	[[WMG: Mogwai reproduce sexually to produce "good" Mogwai, and reproduce asexually through water to produce "bad" Mogwai]]
59	Gizmo is the product of a male/female sexual relationship. There are female Mogwai around somewhere, but are very rare.\
60	- This is a headcanon, given that Gremlins have no visible genitalia, and the only way for them to breed given to us by the movies is the water reproduction.
61	* Mogwai are furry enough that their genitalia might not necessarily be visible at a glance, so there could be mogwai of both genders
62
63	[[WMG: Mogwai are based off a real animal, at least partially]]
64	They closely resemble [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarsier tarsiers]] in their [[UglyCute appearance]].
65
66	[[WMG: Murray Futterman's stories about gremlins during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII actually happened.]]
67	They may have been the same gremlins as in the movies.
68
69	Mr. Wing left his home country China when the Japanese started attacking. He took the Mogwai with him. On his way to America, Gizmo accidentally gotten wet and eventually came gremlins. Those gremlins may have gotten into American planes stationed in some countries along the way.
70	* The {{Novelization}} implies, but does not state, that this is so.
71
72	[[WMG: Gremlins are a sub-species of [[TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}} Orkz]].]]
73	They are basically smaller, animalistic Gretchens. They are also AlwaysChaoticEvil and naturally have some knowledge about machinery (which they use for sabotage), like an Ork. And they're green, just a little darker...
74
75	[[WMG: Gremlins takes place in the same world as ''Film/WhoFramedRogerRabbit''.]]
76	Mogwai/Gremlins are proto-toons, what the toons evolved from. Or, alternately, they share a common ancestor.
77
78	[[WMG: There ''is'' such a thing as a female Mogwai.]]
79	The reason we don't see any is because all the Mogwai in the movies came from the male Gizmo. And when one gremlin accidentally turns himself into a female, the other gremlins try to flirt with her, showing that they ''can'' feel sexual attraction. Thus, female Mogwai produce more females, and only females, much like how Gizmo only produces male ones.
80
81	[[WMG: Gizmo is a Time Lord.]]
82	And his little wooden carrying box is his TARDIS. You see Stripe hiding it when the gremlin in the Christmas tree attacks Billy's mom, and there's seriously no way Stripe would actually fit in that box, so clearly it's bigger on the inside. Stripe was trying to figure out how to steal Gizmo's TARDIS and run amuck through time and space when Billy interrupted him, so Stripe had to flee for his life (Billy did have a sword, after all).
83
84	[[WMG:The Gremlins are genetic experiments from the Lilo & Stitch universe]]
85	We know [[AllThereInTheManual they're the result of alien experiments]] and that they're extremely susceptible to genetic manipulation and transmogrification. And [[WesternAnimation/LiloAndStitch Stitch]] certainly seems to have many of the same personality traits exhibited by the Gremlins, often sliding from one extreme to the other.
86
87	[[WMG: In the film's universe, the Nazis used the Gremlins in World War II.]]
88	Mr. Futterman mentions gremlins bringing down a lot of planes during World War II, him being an actual pilot during that time. When he sees the gremlins in the cab of his tractor, he instantly recognizes them as gremlins. Despite the gremlin being a myth to aviators as far back as World War I, there's a chance that the Nazis may have discovered Gizmo and used him to create gremlins. The Nazis would then unleash them onto American and British airbases in order to sabotage planes and bring them down during major air battles, and pilots who managed to survive labeled as gremlins due to the fact that they were small creatures causing damage to aircraft in a similar manner to the myth. This could account for how Futterman recognizes the creature in the cab as a gremlin because he saw one of them before during an air raid and managed to survive.
89	* This aslo accounts for why Mr. Wing is so protective of Gizmo and tries to keep him hidden from the outside world as long as he can: because he saw what the Nazis were doing to poor Gizmo and how they were using the Gremlins as weapons. He vowed to protect Gizmo from the outside world in order to make sure no harm comes to him again, as well as making sure that humanity doesn't use Gizmo and his kind as weapons again. Mr. Wing is old enough to have lived through World War II.
90

Context WMG / Gremlins