The Walrus Was Paul: Difference between revisions

 

{{examples}}

** He admitted in one interview that the reason he {{spoiler|turned Utena into a car}} in the movie was because he always wanted to see a beautiful girl turned into a car. No further reason. Doesn't stop fans from having braingasms trying to figure out what it meant.

* ''[[Serial Experiments Lain]]'' was supposed to be this once exported, but the creator was dismayed to discover that foreigners interpreted it pretty much the same way the Japanese audience did.

* ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'': [[Word of God]] stated numerous times that this work was generally designed with [[Mind Screw]] first, plot second. This became more and more apparent in later episodes with all of the symbolism and Freudian imagery splattered all over the place in an ambitious and disjointed fashion, mainly in the form of jump cuts.

 

 

== [[Comic Books]] ==

* Want to know what the heck Peter Milligan's ''[[Shade the Changing Man]]'' is actually ''about''? According to Milligan: "hair". The worrying thing is that there's some evidence (Shade goes through a few [[Expository Hairstyle Change]]s, and Kathy has an [[Important Haircut]]) to support this, and he ''did'' also write a comic called ''Hewligan's Haircut''...

 

* [[David Lynch]]'s works are explicitly this. So much to the point where if anyone on the set of ''[[Inland Empire]]'' asked him what's the plot/symbolism/whatever, he'd quote a passage from an Asian text that basically meant, "We make our own meanings."

{{quote|"We are like the spider. We weave our life and then move along in it. We are like the dreamer who dreams and then lives in the dream. This is true for the entire universe."}}

* ''[[Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan]]'': In his introduction, Khan makes a show of removing his left-hand glove, but leaves his right-hand glove on for the rest of the movie. According to director Nicholas Meyer, this was meant to provoke this reaction. When people ask for an explanation, he likes to reply, "Why do ''you'' think he left one glove on?"

 

* ''The [[Illuminatus]]! Trilogy'': [[Robert Anton Wilson]] has said the whole point was to [[Thirty Gambit Pileup|pile up]] enough conspiracy theories so that no one could be sure what was 'true' by the end.

* [[James Joyce]] said he hoped ''[[Ulysses]]'' would "keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant."

* Alternately and/or concurrently played straight, subverted, inverted, lampshaded and transcended in the works of [[Philip K. Dick]].

 

* BBC's ''[[Robin Hood (TV series)|Robin Hood]]'' has a scene in season 2 in which Sir Guy has a dream where Marian massages his shoulder and says that she "Should have let [him] take care of [her]" then Marian turns into Allan who say "I'm your boy" "I should've let you take care of me". The scene pleased many slash fans, but the writers admitted that it was just to get people talking.

* The ending to ''[[The Prisoner]]''. Patrick McGoohan wanted people to scratch their heads and cudgel their brains out trying to understand the final episode. He did too good a job—apparently disgruntled or just plain confused fans showed up at his house demanding to know what it was all about.

* ''[[Twin Peaks]]'', which despite its apparent [[Myth Arc]], was simply [[David Lynch]] making things up as he went along.

 

* [[The Beatles]]: "I Am the Walrus". They later turned this into an art form with "Glass Onion", the source for the [[Trope Namer]], which consists almost entirely of cryptic [[Shout-Out]]s [[Song of Song Titles|to the group's earlier songs.]]

** It's safe to say it's not just "I Am the Walrus", but half the songs [[John Lennon]] wrote. His quote pretty much proves it: He was so fed up with fans trying to find hidden allusions in their songs that he decided to write a completely nonsensical one—namely, "I Am the Walrus". Lennon allegedly said, "Let's see the fuckers figure ''that'' one out" after finishing it. Which, [[Fan Dumb|in an ironic twist]], [[Misaimed Fandom|was still searched for "clues"]]. But Lennon had the final word during his post-Beatles career when, in his song "God" he sang, "I was the walrus, but now, I'm John."

* ''The Mirror Lied'': A complete and deliberate Mind Screw. To quote the author: "''It has no defined story by me, that's certain -- but its point is to be on the extreme end of the scale as far as ambiguity goes, for the sake of a possibly refreshing experiment of interpretation for some.''"

* ''[[Yume Nikki]]'' is a dialogue-free, non-linear journey through the dream world of a girl who won't go anywhere while awake except for her bedroom and adjacent balcony. Good luck getting any answers about what any of the dream symbols mean, what the heck happened in the ending, or what the fuck is up with {{spoiler|Uboa}}.

 

== [[Web Comics]] ==

{{quote|'''sfraser0:''' ''i don't get it.....''

'''CornIceProductions, the guy who made the video:''' ''I do'' }}

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

* ''[[Aeon Flux]]'' messes with your head constantly, and Peter Chung has gone out of his way not to explain anything, in hopes that the viewers will derive their own meanings. This approach eventually backfired badly on him, though. The plot of the film, almost universally considered terrible, had its genesis in the scriptwriters' own interpretation of the [[Mind Screw|mind screwiest]] episode of the series.

* ''[[12 oz. Mouse]]''.

 

{{reflist}}