Shout Out Cleanup

Geez, those are a lot of examples.

Examples with sentences like "could be a reference to", "is similar to", "is reminiscent of", "can remind you of" and "brings to mind" can be cut on sight, since a Shout-Out must be an unambiguous reference.

The ones about the raptors are just following basic continuity, as their hunting habits have been established in previous movies.

The mere existence of sharks in this movie's universe is unlikely to be a reference to Jaws.

The one about the Minotaur is likely just a coincidence, since there aren't any real parallels between the two monsters.

I agree with your arguments about the other examples.

All right, thanks for your input! I'll cut the definite noes.

So after I cut the weasel-worded, too-generic, and zero-context examples, and relocated the Actor Allusion and Casting Gag ones, there are only three items left on the Jurassic World Shout-Out page. Should I move them to the main page and request the Shout-Out page be cut?

Kirby and the Forgotten Land Has these examples.

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The Wondaria parade thing is actually called an homage, which contributes to my growing suspicion that a lot of people writing these shout-out examples don't even know that the Homage trope exists. Admittedly, the line between them can be a bit blurry, but if they're calling it an homage that's probably what it is.

To my eye, the others look more like general resemblances than shout-outs, except for the first one. The Optimus Prime ref is possible if they look very much alike, but if it's just "flames painted on the sides of a truck," people have been doing that IRL since before Transformers.

Three examples is too little to warrant a Shout-Out subpage, I'd say. Better repatriate them to the main page.

having been the person who added that specific shout-out entry, yeah i wasn't aware the homage trope existed. (or maybe i just forgot it existed, since i'm admittedly a bit scatterbrained.) i'm a bit confused on the scope of the homage trope, though: does it count if it's just a small part of a single level, like this case, or does it have to be something that spans a large portion of the game?

You can consider that there are three levels of references to another work:

• Shout-Out
• Homage
• Whole-Plot Reference

The distinction can of course be fuzzy, but generally a Shout-Out is a mere mention, an Homage is a willful recreation of a whole sequence, and Whole-Plot Reference span over the entire work (or over at least a full episode, depending on a work's length).

Here's my deep dive into Captain America: The First Avenger

Edited by Camassia on Aug 6th 2022 at 2:34:18 PM

thanks! i'll move it over to homage then

Cut and relocate as necessary, all good

Truth be told, this was gonna come up sooner or later given how popular the assumption is, but I found this in Mike's folder on Characters.Deltarune Other Characters:

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• Shout-Out: His name and relationship to Spamton is a reference to the Big Shot brand of soda (sharing its name with Spamton's Catchphrase), which had a TV commercial by Mike Ditka recorded in 1997 (Spamton's favorite year).

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As uncanny as the parallels are, I'm not sure if they're deliberate or not given the lack of official confirmation, especially since the similarities are cobbled together from much more disparate elements than your typical Shout-Out. Thoughts?

Edited by bowserbros on Sep 21st 2022 at 12:50:03 PM

Be kind.

I feel like since it's more speculation that Toby Fox was intentionally referencing/inspired by that commercial, rather than confirmed fact, it can be removed, since it may be coincidental.

Alright, went ahead and cut it out, citing this thread.

Be kind.

About the Captain America poster, it's a reference to the cover of the first comic issue. That'd be Mythology Gag though.

The Last of Us has some bad ones I think. I'll go through the list.

• A college student's journal you can pick up makes reference to his/her friends Cheryl and Heather. Seems good, since the games are of similar genre and those two names combined are pretty specific
• The Shorty would be an otherwise unremarkable Sawed-Off Shotgun if it wasn't treated as a pistol. Similarly, El Diablo is very similar to the Tau Sniper from Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception. Seems more like Company Cross References
• Ish is confirmed via Word of God to be named after the main character in Earth Abides, a 1949 novel about a man trying to survive in a world where more than 90% of people have been killed by a plague but darn if he also doesn't work as a Moby-Dick reference. If it's explicitly the first one then it's not the second, yeah?
• The robot that Henry refuses Sam to take is a Transformers robot. No it's not. It looks kind of like a Gundam. Generic robot toy.
• In the toy store, there are a couple of Uncharted board games. Company Cross References, and I think the game is a real one
• One recording features a Firefly scientist who foolishly decided to release some Cordyceps-infected monkeys instead of exterminating them, getting himself bitten and infected for his trouble. Is this accurate? Haven't seen this film.
• The unlockable outfits include a Jak and Daxter T-shirt and a pair of Jak's goggles for Ellie. If you can clear the game on Survivor difficulty, you can unlock a bright yellow jumpsuit for her that's reminiscent of the Bride's, or possibly of Chigusa's from the live-action Battle Royale. Jak should be CCR, latter should pick one or the other.
• When escaping the sewers, Sam points out how the outside walls have the warning "Infected inside, do not open" on them, a reference to the first episode of The Walking Dead, where the main character Rick attempts to escape a hospital and runs into a door with the words "Don't open, dead inside" written on it; Wiltshire Estates, a gated community that was the survivors' first attempt at a post-Atlanta settlement was marked with a similar warning. Keep, I think. Was a well known scene.
• The part where Joel and Ellie meets and pats a giraffe is a nod to the scene in the first Jurassic Park movie where the main characters encounters a Brachiosaurus, and the young girl of the group, Lex, stretches out to pet it. It doubles as Fridge Brilliance in that while the giraffe isn't an extinct species, it's the first time Ellie has ever seen one for real, perhaps even at all, making her fascination with it just as strong. Seems like a stretch.
• The "tag" for unlocking every shiv door in the game is called Master of Unlocking. Keep.
• The scene where Joel and Ellie realize Tess is infected, along with her sacrifice by deliberately drawing fire from government forces long enough for two people to get away and to avoid becoming one of the infected, is a nod to the remake of The Crazies. ZCE.
• A food vendor in the slums at the beginning of the game says that she'll only take ration cards as currency, and that she isn't interested in "bartering for bullets". Seems like a standard phrase.
• We've seen a protagonist wielding a Colt Defender handgun in another Naughty Dog production before this one. I think Drake sat on chairs too.
• When Ellie and Joel are driving and end up ambushed by Hunters in the Pittsburgh chapter, the radio in the car plays Hank Williams' "Alone and Forsaken", which is also the name given the chapter. Keep.
• The "American Princess" store Ellie ventures into to retrieve a note in "Left Behind" is a thinly-veiled parody of the American Girl doll franchise, down to the boxes and store displays. This one is Bland-Name Product, yeah?

Edited by NAFEDUDE on Sep 30th 2022 at 4:45:26 AM

The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel Has these

• Shout-Out:
  • Towards the end of the first game, "Dost thou desire the power?" is said by Valimar.
  • The chef at Thors' Student Union is named Ramsay.
  • A trio of villains consisting of a short-haired male planner, a hulking man with a huge weapon and a stripperiffic female mage, Gideon, Vulcan and Scarlet or Guruda, Gadis and Bammy? For extra points, the Imperial Liberation Front's motto is written in Latin while Guruda and co were aligned with the Romun Empire.
  • Another shoutout to Ys happens in the Chapter 3 free day if you happen to choose to bond with Laura and help her shop- she finds a Dogi strap attractive.
  • In chapter 4 of the first game there is a quest named "Made for Walking" which involves walking around in a new pair of shoes, a reference to the Nancy Sinatra song "These Boots are made for Walking".
  • Loa Erebonius in Cold Steel I is a massive one to the Gagharv Trilogy and one fans have been wondering whether Falcom would make ever since FC regarding whether there was a connection between Erebonia as the name of the Empire and Erebonius, the Spirit of Darkness in Cagesong's summon magic system.
  • The Panzer Soldats bear a great resemblance to the Knightmare Frames of Code Geass. The resemblance is enhanced by the fact that C and Zero apparently use the same tailor.
    • The resemblance is made even stronger when, during their first appearance in the first game, the cutscenes actually shows them lowering some wheels next to or behind the Soldats' feet to allow them to skate around instead of having to walk really slowly.
  • Vulcan states before the party faces him in Chapter 6 of the original Cold Steel that "better to burn out than fade away," which is close to a line from the Neil Young song "Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)." ("Rock and roll is here to stay / It's better to burn out than to fade away.")
  • One book that is prominently displayed in numerous bookshelves throughout the game is a mystery entitled "Who's gonna die first?" by someone named Christie.
  • In case you haven’t already notice, a number of the dating achievements in the English version of the first game were named after popular songs. This continues to some degree in Cold Steel II as well, although not simply with dating achievements. The one for using Burst 50 times this time around is titled "Smells Like Team Spirit."
  • There's also the final set of requests from Prince Olivert in Cold Steel II. One of them is "My Jormungand Don't Want None," a reference to the line "My anaconda don't want none" from "Baby Got Back" by Sir Mix-A-Lot. (The Jormungand is a serpent boss.) There's also "Ymir, Far, Wherever You Are," which is almost certainly a reference to "Near, far, wherever you are" from "My Heart Will Go On" by Céline Dion. (Love theme from Titanic (1997)) Another is called "Nord by Nord-east," which would seem to be a nod to an annual Canadian music festival, North by Northeast.
  • In Emma's bonding event in Roer in Cold Steel II, she mentions reading a book about "sufficiently advanced technology being indistinguishable from magic." Or, in other words, Clarke's Third Law.
  • The "Red Moon Rose" books you collect in Cold Steel feature vampires. The collective name of their most powerful members? True Ancestors.
  • In the second game there is a quest called "I'll Make a Mech Out of You", a reference to the Mulan song "I'll make a man out of you".
  • Two of Rean's students in Cold Steel III are named Stark and Wayne.
  • Emma's bonding Trophy in Cold Steel III is titled "Emma Enchanted," a reference to the film Ella Enchanted. The one for Sara is titled "My Funny Valestein."
  • In Cold Steel 3, the end of the "Present Whereabouts" quest has Chammy give Cerberus Meat on the Bone.
  • In Cold Steel IV, there's a quest titled "I Want to Believe." Given that the quest involves fighting a cryptid Stock Ness Monster, this is almost certainly a shout-out to the film The X-Files: I Want to Believe.
  • One of the Trial Chest enemies in Cold Steel IV is called Magnum Dong.^note To be fair, this was due to the original Japanese name being Don Dong, which does not translate meaningfully into English anyway.
  • An early sidequest in the third game which involves helping out with a certain spice is simply called "The Spice Must Flow".
  • Arc-en-Ciel, the name of one of Crossbell's most popular entertainment groups, bears more than a little similarity to 'L'Arc~en~Ciel'', one of Japan's biggest rock bands. The similarities do stop right there, though, as Arc-en-Ciel has a different number of members, not to mention the type of entertainment they provide (dance performances instead of rock concerts) and the members' gender.
  • After the party gains use of the Merkabah in in Cold Steel IV, Rean finds Celine hanging out in the cabin area drinking from a bowl of milk. He comments "Uh... Got milk, Celine?"
  • Ash Carbide is a complete shoutout to Shio Takahata from Tokyo Xanadu, right down to looking as if his model was recycled from Shio (except with the ponytail lobbed off). Additionally, they're both blonde-haired former delinquents with a still somewhat working moral compass and a tragic backstory, and are badass bikers as well as the big guy in their respective cliques. Ironic in that Shio in turn was partially a composite of Jusis and Gaius.
  • In Cold Steel III, you can get a DLC called "Rean's Unspeakable Costume" for Rean, which according to the description, is due to Rean's clothing taste being easily influenced in his younger years and that he's really ashamed by it. It's actually a shoutout to the Magical Alisa franchise, a Show Within a Show in Tokyo Xanadu. Likewise the "Magical Alisa" DLC does the same to Alisa in Cold Steel IV.

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Bumping

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In these kinds of threads you shouldn't be relying on others to explain why an example might not work. Rather, you rely on others to confirm if the examples are worth cleaning up or not. Adding a note in bold like this to each example is a good method here:

• Shout-Out: Alice and Bob's argument about their relationship is kinda similar to that scene in Marriage Story. This seems like a stretch, a married couple fighting happens many times in fiction, and there's no direct references to anything specific from it (i.e. Bob doesn't hit a wall with his fist like in the film)

Edited by harryhenry on Nov 5th 2022 at 6:37:23 AM

Alright, I’ll do it again with my 2 cents on it. But this is just my opinion

Edited by Ayumi-chan on Nov 5th 2022 at 1:31:50 AM

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This is from Sky High (2005):

• Shout-Out:
  • Gwen Grayson's name may be a reference to prominent comic book characters Gwen Stacy and Dick Grayson. It is also a reference to the tendency for comic book characters to have alliterative names.

The way this example is written seems to be speculating if it's a Shout-Out or not. At the same time, I think it's a big coincidence that a character from a superhero parody shares names with Gwen Stacy and Dick Grayson.

I agree that it sounds speculative due to the "may be" talk. I also agree that their names being alliterative is too small to not be a coincidence.

While it sounds speculative, given the nature of the film as a "Superhero school" and the numerous references to superhero comics throughout the film, the names are way too specific to be a coincidence for me.

The character is also specifically a (fake-out) love interest, which sort of makes me lean towards 'not a coincidence' for the first part - although she has nothing in common with Dick Grayson.

Right, I think she's mostly a reference to Gwen Stacy, except I guess you could say that like Dick Grayson she's a sidekick...

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Minor query, but when writing a Shout-Out example is it a requirement/highly encouraged to write out the referenced work's name, or is it kosher to just pothole it?

I noticed when someone recently added in some examples on the ShoutOut.Pop Team Epic subpage with all of the work/creator names written out, another troper converted most of them into potholes with the edit reason, "Sometimes Don't Explain the Joke works better than just list out all of the elements directly." Which I don't think is really good reasoning (especially if it's not obvious where the Shout-Out is from without clicking on the pothole), but if it's not considered ZCE then I won't question it.