Shout Out Cleanup

Mythology Gag and the like all count for this thread.

So I've got a format to run as a draft. Solo references have to be for that specific game while Multiples are ones that go between multiple games like Cid and Gilgamesh. I added in Drakengard/Nier because of the YoRHa: Dark Apocalypse raid.

On The Secret of NIMH, it says "Mrs. Brisby raising her house with the medallion at the end, at least how its visually presented, is very likely a homage to Yoda using the Force to raise Luke's X-Wing in The Empire Strikes Back." Can anyone who's seen both of these scenes verify this?

Well, seems the FF wiki had been doing our job for us in nanoscopic detail. There's references from even LEGACY! https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Final_Fantasy_XIV_allusions/Final_Fantasy_series

This is from XXX Return Of Xander Cage:

• The team's Cool Plane, a large black military cargo plane full of electronics and other hardware for high-level undercover agents, bears a lot of similarities to Coulson's Bus from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D..
  • Becky does look a lot like Simmons...

Seems like a stretch to me.

Edited by RustBeard on Mar 26th 2022 at 11:06:47 AM

From Pokémon Vietnamese Crystal:

• Shout-Out
  • Intentional or not, some lines of dialogue reference the memes, such as Sabrina saying "The Gole-Badges Are All Belong To You".
  • Another unintentional one, but at the beginning of the game, it asks you if you are a BOY or a GIR. This game probably would have been made around the time that Invader Zim was popular, too.

PVC is a very bad translation of Pokémon Crystal, and from what I can tell neither of these are intentional.

The examples argue against themselves, as I'm pretty sure a Shout Out must be intentional.

One thing I realize about the FFXIV mythology gags, if I and/or someone else get to sorting them out… Since "Shadowbringers" and "Endwalker" are relatively fresh, should we put spoilers only on content from Shadowbringers and up until there's a new expansion after EW?

Film.Eight Legged Freaks have a couple of... "questionable" entries, under Actor Allusion.

• Kari Wührer not getting along with a character named Wade. — Wade's a really common name, also the character is listed as a Hate Sink who is despised by "everyone". Sounds too broad.
• Scarlett Johansson being in a movie concerning black widows and other big-spiders. — This movie came out 6 years before the MCU and 8 years before Scar-Jo debuts as Black Widow, at any case this one's a better fit under Hindsight - and it's already there.

Edited by RobertTYL on Apr 22nd 2022 at 3:02:34 AM

These just seem like coincidences. I suggest removing them.

Also, I just looked at the Music/ namespace for Shout-Out, and good lord, is it full of ZCEs.

Found these bad examples on ShoutOut.OKKO Lets Be Heroes; there may be more. They're blatant shoehorning (plus Izuku isn't prepubescent).

• My Hero Academia:
  • Along with the synopsis, many have pointed out the similarities between the main characters.
  • Protagonist K.O and Izuku Midoriya are similar as they are young, prepubescent boys wanting to become heroes in their respective worlds, have a tendency to cry, and a need to help others out.
  • Dendy and Tsuyu Asui are similar as they serve as friends to the protagonists with frog-like features.

Edited by rjd1922 on May 12th 2022 at 11:22:35 AM

Yeah, sound all like shoehorns. Cut.

Yeah, those are just "similar characters exist".

I removed it; there may be more shoehorned examples.

While most examples on MythologyGag.Sonic Boom seem okay, these two feel shoehorned:

• The first episode shows that Sonic still can't swim. This doesn't really feel like a reference so much as it just feels like a trait that someone mistook for a reference. It's not a reference to a particular work or era so much as it's just a character trait.
• In "Translate This", Eggman says "Tails, be a doll...", a reference to the Tails Doll, which first appeared in Sonic R and became memetic due to its creepiness. I get where this is coming from. Eggman usually doesn't say stuff like this, and the fact that he says it to Tails of all characters makes it more uncanny, but tbh this just feels like a stock phrase.

Agreed. The former is a pointless shoehorned-in example and the latter seems more like a coincidence.

So I just got through the Enigmatis series and looked over the Shout-Out page. Some of these are rather shoehorned.

• Possibly unintentional: Asmodai is specifically identified as an archdemon. There are plenty of other games and series that involve archdemons.
• The spelling of Britney's name is quite possibly meant as one to Britney Spears. I don't think they were going for anything involving her at all, so this is very much a stretch.

Edited by kawaiineko333 on May 23rd 2022 at 12:53:11 PM

As a rule of thumb, if the example has Weasel Words like "possibly", there is a 99% chance it's misuse. A Shout-Out is an unambiguous reference, after all.

ReferencedBy.Demolition Man

Only two examples, the first entry which is a better fit as Prop Recycling for the later film. Snippy-snip?

VideoGame.Wii Party has the following, which more closely fits Company Cross References.

• Shout-Out: In the challenge Clover Hunt, you'll eventually have to seek out 8-bit Marios. There's also Mario and Peach costumes in the sequel's Mii Fashion Plaza, and Mario's hat is one many wearable hats in Mad Hatters (it also gives more points).

Edited by JankyKong on Jun 22nd 2022 at 1:02:38 PM

Yes, move it there. Subtrope-supertrope rule.

On Spider-Man: No Way Home:

• The memory-erasure spell cast twice by Doctor Strange is basically the MCU's version of Men in Black's Neuralyzer, only with unlimited range. And much like in Men In Black 2, a large-scale version gets put into effect from the very top of the Statue of Liberty.

Memory-erasing plot mechanics are so common in genre that it doesn't seem like an MiB reference specifically, to me at least.

Yeah, that seems like a stretch. The second half is probably just a coincidence, not a deliberate reference.

Exactly.

Edited by MisterApes-a-lot on Jul 28th 2022 at 12:40:43 PM

The entire thing is coincidence.

I've been wanting to clean up Jurassic World for ages, but there are some I'm not sure about. Can anyone help me out?

• Another Steven Spielberg related reference could be the truck chase sequence in a later part of the film. Also, Owen is quite Indiana Jones-like in terms of attire and some of his demeanour. And he gets to ride a motorcycle. Truck chases and motorcycles seem generic, but the Indy-like appearance seems like it could be deliberate.
• Masrani states that he can see an animal's happiness in its eyes, making reference to another character Irrfan Khan played in Life of Pi. I don't remember that precise line from Life of Pi, but even if it's legit, seems like an Actor Allusion.
• I. rex's death at the jaws of Mosasaurus is similar to the opening of the third episode of Walking with Dinosaurs and the ending of Speckles: The Tarbosaurus, as well as a very similar scene in Lake Placid. Nothing can be a shout-out to three things at once, right?
• When the boys reach the old park from the very first movie, Zach wraps a dino bone in the banner from the first movie and sets it on fire, then uses it as a torch. Gray also looks at a painting on the wall of a dinosaur inside the old visitor centre. Hmm... Doesn't explain exactly what the resemblance is.
• The entire hunt for the I. rex near the end, and Owen using an old lever-action to fight the I. rex, seems to reference The Lost World (1912). An imitation of an entire scene is really more of an Homage, right?
• The Mosasaurus snatching a pterosaur out of the air and the Indominus's fight with the Ankylosaurus are both reminiscent of the Rite of Spring segment of Fantasia, though whether they're deliberate references is unknown. The last bit indicates this probably doesn't count.
• The fight between the I. rex and the Ankylosaurus and the climatic battle between Blue, Rexy, and I. rex are similar to Ray Harryhausen's work with battles between giant beasts. Too general.
  • The "Requiem for an Apatosaurus" scene hearkens back to The Valley of Gwangi, where the title character (also a rampaging fictitious theropod) mauls an elephant to within an inch of its life and leaves the poor thing to die of its injuries. Same question about referencing a whole scene, but the description sounds pretty generic.
• The viewfinder that Gray is looking through at the beginning contains scenes from the dinosaur sequence of Animal World, a film that Ray Harryhausen provided stop-motion effects for. This one seems legit.
• Shortly before her untimely demise, Charlie's presence is announced by her raising her tail into the air while she finishes off an unfortunate victim. This action was first seen with the raptors in The Lost World: Jurassic Park. That just makes it standard raptor behavior.
• After the raptors turn on them, most of Hoskins' team gets taken out in an area of tall grass. Is something that's similar to an earlier film in the same series really a shout-out, or is the series just repeating itself?
• The scene with the Apatosaurus slowly dying is similar to Littlefoot's mother's death scene in The Land Before Time. Seems vague, and is also maybe an Homage.
• Using a great white shark as bait for the Mosasaurus. This could be a wink at Spielberg, but great white sharks show up in films a lot.
• While in the back of a veterinarian van with the doors open, being chased by a raptor, Zach and Gray try throwing an oxygen tank at her. Sorry, boys, wrong Spielberg movie. Unless they shot at it to make it explode, doesn't seem specific enough.
• The entire pterosaur sequence easily evokes Hitchcock's The Birds for anyone who has seen that film first. Again that would be an Homage, but scenes of attacks by swarms of flying things would probably look similar.
• What happens to Zara also brings to mind Chrissie's awful fate. Considering it happened right in front of the very child(ren) she was trying to safeguard, it echoes Marge's demise as well. Again, claims a shout-out to more than one thing.
  • It also mirrors what happened to Raquel Welch's Loana, who was likewise kidnapped and fought over by pterosaurs and dropped into a large body of water as a result of desperately trying to ensure someone else's safety. Zara fared far worse, however. This one might be legit, since that's a classic dinosaur movie and a pretty specific situation.
• Jimmy Fallon's cameo in the Gyrosphere is a reference to his appearance in the Universal Studios tram ride safety video, giving instructions with the same kind of humor. Seems legit, but maybe more of a Casting Gag.
• When Blue makes her dramatic return after being apparently killed by Indominus rex, the main theme from the The Lost World is played. Again, refers to earlier in the same series.
• It's not the first time multiple species of dinosaurs/prehistoric reptiles have ganged up against a common enemy, or that a female Mosasaurus has turned large sharks into bait. The first half seems too general, second half maybe?
• The I. rex closely resembles the V. rex from King Kong (2005), due to having More Teeth than the Osmond Family while its arms lend it a slight resemblance to Zilla.
  • Its white scales, red eyes, and vaguely crocodilian appearance also lend it something of a resemblance to Rudy the Baryonyx from the third Ice Age film. Amazing, it's a Frankenstein's monster of shout-outs!
• The insectivorous Dimorphodons are portrayed as carnivorous zerg rushers, similar to how the Anurognathus in the Primeval series were depicted. Aggressive carnivorous pack hunters seems too generic.
• The ACU team vs. the I. rex sequence, with individual team-member video-camera feeds and vital-sign readouts (with members' names) being monitored, then tracking systems failing against the target, leading up to multiple vital-signs abruptly flatlining one-by-one during the battle, is inspired from Aliens (1986). Maybe, but also seems to border on Homage.
• The premise of the public's waning interest in living dinosaurs and the presence of a completely fictitious theropod dinosaur as the star attraction offer nods to Greg Bear's 1998 novel, Dinosaur Summer. Premises aren't really shout-outs.
• The cameras and headgear that the raptors are made to wear may remind older viewers of the Rulon brainboxes used to control dinosaurs in Dino-Riders. Furthering the nod is the fact that the raptors are wearing the devices the entire time that they are slaughtering Hoskins's team but re-establish their bond with Owen after he removes them. Not sure about this one.
• This isn't the first movie that had a company wanting a monster for its weapons division. No, it's not the first because that's actually been used a lot.
• Indominus is exceptionally vicious mainly because she was raised in isolation and was artificially created to exaggerate her predator traits. In some versions of Greek mythology, the Minotaur—an unnatural hybrid of human and bull—was a man-eater because, as an unnatural creature, it had no natural prey and had to eat manflesh instead, and was also raised in the isolation of the Labyrinth. Just like Indominus. Seems like a stretch, plus can classical mythology really be subject to shout-outs or are they just part of the collective culture?
• A 1998 animated series produced by Spielberg, Invasion America, featured "Manglers", deadly creatures which are very similar to the Velociraptors, and with a tame and heroic one called Blue. Whether Jurassic World was making an intentional reference, or it was entirely a coincidence, is unknown. Again it admits to uncertainty.