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10 iconic movies with DARK hidden meanings

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You may think that most Hollywood blockbusters are designed purely to entertain punters and make a load of cash. Well, you may be surprised that some of the most popular movies ever made often have hard-hitting political messages woven throughout them.

Below are seven hidden meanings in films that might surprise even their biggest fans.

WARNING: Spoilers ahead.

Star Wars Is Really About The Vietnam War

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In a 2005 interview Lucas confirmed that “’Star Wars’ was really about the Vietnam War.”

Lucas said that he thought of the tiny, peaceful Ewoks as like Viet Cong fighters battling against the might of the American war machine saying: “That was the period where Nixon was trying to run for another term, which got me to thinking historically about how do democracies get turned into dictatorships? Because the democracies aren’t overthrown; they’re given away.”

The Lord of the Rings Is Really About The Battle of the Somme

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J. R. R. Tolkien’s army unit was sent to the Battle of the Somme in 1916, where 60,000 British soldiers died one day during the infamous ‘over the top’ trench assault. Overall, nearly a million people were killed, making it one of the bloodiest battles in human history.

Speaking later of his experiences in France, Tolkien simply said, “It was like a death.”

As he recovered in hospital, Tolkien wrote his first Middle-Earth story: ’Fall of Gondolin’ a strange, stand-alone tale featuring dragons which were half beast and half machine. These dragons are a metaphor of the tanks, which the British used in the mud of the Somme. Peter Jackson’s depiction of Saruman’s orcs being created recalls this imagery of animal fused with metal, as does his metallic, robot-like depiction of the villain Sauron.

In letters to friends, Tolkien admitted that the hellish marshes which the heroes of ‘The Lord of the Rings’ splash through were directly inspired by his experiences of France. In a letter, he wrote, “The Dead marshes and the approaches to the Morannon owe something to Northern France after the Battle of the Somme.”

Observers have also commented on the significance of the One Ring, which is widely considered to represent the atomic bomb.

Godzilla Is Really About Hiroshima

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The original black and white ‘Godzilla’ film was made in Japan in the early Fifties when the country was still reeling from the twin nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The first ‘Godzilla’ film includes scenes with scientists carrying Geiger counters taking radiation readings from Godzilla’s radioactive footprints, and the monster is revealed to have been created in a nuclear explosion.

When this news comes out, some characters immediately argue that it must be kept secret.

For Honda and his Japanese audience, the real villain would not have been hard to discern: the escalating Cold War, and in particular the arms race between America and the Soviet Union.

The War of the Worlds Europeans Colonising The Third World

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Written in 1898, the science fiction classic ‘The War of the Worlds’ has been filmed many times, but in none of those versions would a viewer suspect that the aliens represent white Europeans hell-bent on colonising the world.

The book was written to horrify readers with a vision of what it would be like if Europe were confronted by a contemptuous, technologically superior force – much in the manner the British Army had as it colonised countries around the world. Wells, a lifelong socialist, was particularly horrified by the war of extermination waged against the Aborigines in Tasmania by British colonial forces.

In the novel, Wells writes, “The Tasmanians, in spite of their human likeness, were entirely swept out of existence in a war of extermination. Are we such apostles of mercy, as to complain if the Martians warred in the same spirit?”

The Dark Knight Is Really About The War On Terror

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In Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Dark Knight’, despite a truly chilling villain in the form of Heath Ledger’s cackling Joker, it’s no longer clear who the bad guy really is. Is it the psychopathic terrorists who attack Gotham, or is it the increasingly draconian authorities? Parallels with America’s War on Terror run through the film.

The first parallel is the shift from the regular comic book bad guys that shoot lasers from the moon in order to take over the world. This time the threat was more sinister. The Joker blew up public buildings (including a hospital) and convinced weak criminals to become suicide bombers.

Once this realistic threat was established, more similarities can be compared. The Harvey Dent Act is a direct echo of the Patriot Act and there’s the questionable ethics of Batman’s bank of surveillance equipment that enables him to spy on everyone. There’s also the forcible extradition of Lau from Hong Kong, echoing the CIA’s tactics of “extraordinary rendition”.

RoboCop Is Really About Jesus Christ

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Director Paul Verhoeven has admitted that his 1987 sci-fi classic is basically “the American Jesus” story and the similarities are easy to spot.

“It is about a guy that gets crucified after 50 minutes,” the filmmaker told MTV, “Then is resurrected in the next 50 minutes and then is like the super-cop of the world, but is also a Jesus figure as he walks over water at the end.”

He’s a resurrected man on a quest for justice who is violently killed when those closest to him betray him. To earn his redemption he must confront those who betrayed him, and the final scene with Murphy seemingly walking across water is the icing on this thickly-laid metaphor.

Of course, Jesus in the Bible didn’t mete out justice with a handgun, but let’s ignore that for the moment shall we?

Alien 3 Is Really About AIDs

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Rolling Stones’ film critic Peter Travers called David Fincher’s feature film debut “the first $50 million thriller that also functions as an AIDS allegory” and it’s a layer of subtext that bears up to scrutiny.

AIDs was a hot topic in the late 80s and early 90s and ‘Alien 3′ is a damning indictment on how America reacted to the so-called “AIDs epidemic”. The deaths of Hicks and Newt highlight the disease’s seemingly random nature. There’s the imagery of shorn hair, Ripley’s “infection”, and an enemy that takes down the weak and strong with ease.

Add to that a reviled colony of men ostracised from society, who’ve taken a vow of celibacy, and a pharmaceutical company that arrives to profit from their pain, and the message is quite clear. As Dillon says: “Why? Why are the innocent punished? Why the sacrifice? Why the pain? There aren’t any promises. Nothing certain. Only that some get called, some get saved.”

Groundhog Day Is Really About Zen And The Path To Enlightenment

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There are many different ways of interpreting Phil Connors’ story. Some say Punxsutawney Phil - the groundhog - is a metaphor for Christ resurrected, while some say the town is Purgatory, but the most compelling explanation for the film comes from director Harold Ramis’ mother-in-law, a Zen Buddhist.

Ramis explained at a lecture in 2009 that she’d called to tell him the abbots and senior monks at her Buddhist retreat had seen the film and loved it, saying “they thought it expressed a fundamental Buddhist concept.” The theory goes that Connors is what Buddhists call a “bodhisattva”, someone “who, motivated by great compassion, has generated bodhicitta, which is a spontaneous wish to attain buddhahood for the benefit of all sentient beings.”

And you just thought it was Bill Murray fooling around.

Toy Story 3 Is Really About The holocaust

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Guardian film critic Jordan Hoffman first wrote about this interpretation of Lee Unkrich’s seemingly harmless animated threequel back in 2010 while writing for UGO.

He argues that the toys left behind by Andy when he goes off for college represent the Jews abandoned by their host nations when the Third Reich conquered Europe. The toys discuss their options echoing a scene in Roman Polanski’s Holocaust drama ‘The Pianist’ where they say “We won’t just be abandoned, we can be useful to them”. Buzz steps forward and even suggests hiding in the attic.

Instead they’re sent to Sunnyside, the film’s concentration camp, where they meet Sonderkommandos like Ken who aid the guards and lead the innocent to their deaths. It’s a very grim reading of the film, particular when you consider the incinerator scene, and definitely not the message promoted by Pixar at the time of release.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit Is Really About Gentrification And Segregation

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Robert Zemeckis’ 1988 live action animation hybrid was a groundbreaking piece of work and not just for its incredible seamless visual effects. The story of the encroachment of Toon Town can be read as a metaphor for the gentrification of Los Angeles where many poor black people were forced out of their neighbourhoods.

The theory, first discussed on Reddit, argues that the ‘toons, like black people, are largely seen as performers - a nod to Minstrel culture - and Christopher Lloyd’s Judge Doom is a typical Uncle Tom trope, a ‘toon who sells out his own people for his personal benefit.

Jessica Rabbit is “a symbol for women of mixed racial heritage and the way that white men frequently felt confused about their desire for them”, while even the word “‘toon” which is a slur against the cartoon folk, is worryingly similar to a horrific racial slur of years gone by.

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