10 Movies with surprising real world consequences
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00:00To a lot of people, films are just an excuse to pop the kettle on and check out of life for two hours.
00:05Whilst that's an important cause in and of itself, many assume that a movie's impact starts and ends
00:10with its audience. Not the case. Not the case at all. The following 10 motion pictures all had
00:16consequences far more impactful than any director, actor, or critic could have possibly imagined.
00:21Some inspired people to make huge decisions, some ended up appearing in lawsuits,
00:25and some even nearly got people killed. So next time someone tells you that movies don't matter,
00:30please feel free to direct them to this video. And with that in mind, I'm Ellie with What Culture,
00:35here with 10 Movies With Surprising Real World Consequences.
00:4010. Giving People Traumatic Flashbacks, Saving Private Ryan
00:44Directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Hanks, 1998's Saving Private Ryan started the
00:50much-loved trend of people spending inordinate amounts of money attempting to rescue Matt Damon.
00:55Along with its gripping story and likeable roster of characters,
00:58the movie was praised for its ultra-realistic depiction of the horrors of World War II.
01:02Right from the get-go, the film pulls no punches in depicting the conflict as hell on Earth,
01:07with its remarkable recreation of the D-Day landings. Well, it was praised by some.
01:12For others, it brought back a whole host of unwanted memories.
01:15Some real veterans of the battle on Omaha Beach who saw the film reported that they
01:20were unable to finish it as the sequence brought on traumatic flashbacks. In fact,
01:24the United States Department for Veteran Affairs created an entire hotline dedicated
01:29to those affected by the movie. In the end, it's probably for the best that these horrors
01:33were shown as accurately as possible. Fear is a powerful deterrent, and it would have
01:38been a greater insult to those who fought in the war to try and dumb it down for a more
01:42sensitive audience. 9. The Bambi Effect
01:45Bambi. Walt Disney did plenty of dubious things in his life, but the most unforgivable of all
01:50was traumatizing several generations of children with the death of Bambi's mother.
01:55In the 1942 animated movie, young Bambi has his life change forever when an evil hunter
02:01guns down his beloved mum in cold blood. This sets the deer on a path of vengeance,
02:05as he trains in martial arts with the sole ambition of enacting his violent revenge.
02:10Okay, that didn't happen, but what a movie that would be.
02:12Apart from scarring kids for life, the movie spawned a phenomenon known as the Bambi Effect.
02:17Commentators posit that because of the scene with Bambi's mum, people are turned off the
02:21idea of the hunting or killing of animals that are conventionally cute. However,
02:25when it comes to ugly animals, well, they can all die. That was a joke, by the way.
02:29Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing is up in the air, but it shows that even a
02:34kid's movie can have a long-lasting effect on society at large.
02:378. Reopening an Assassination Investigation, JFK
02:42Director Oliver Stone has never been one to shy away from controversy,
02:46so it's not a surprise that he chose to make a movie about the killing of John F. Kennedy.
02:50With 1991's JFK, Stone explored the idea that Lee Harvey Oswald was not the only party involved in
02:56the shooting, and stars Kevin Costner as a government agent tasked with finding the truth.
03:01The movie was loved and hated in equal measure. Some praised its performances and cinematography,
03:06whilst others lambasted its lack of historical accuracy.
03:09Its subtitle was The Story That Won't Go Away, which is ironic because the files on JFK's
03:14assassination were actually reopened as a result of this film.
03:17JFK's popularity sparked a resurgence in interest in the popular leader's untimely death.
03:22As a result, the US government passed the JFK Assassination Records Collection Act,
03:27which allowed for the files on the President to be made public in 2017.
03:31Without this film causing such a commotion, those files would still be under lock and key today.
03:36Are we any closer to finding out what actually happened that fateful day in Dallas? Well,
03:40no, but at least we've got something else to read.
03:437. A Massive Parade, Spectre
03:46Enough time has passed now that we can officially call the 2015 James Bond film
03:50Spectre a big pile of dog poo. The narrative was convoluted, the side
03:54characters were completely forgettable, and Blofeld as Bond's brother? Get out of town.
03:58One of the lone high points of the movie comes right at the start, when Daniel Craig's Bond
04:03chases down a member of the titular organisation in Mexico City. The action is fast and furious,
04:08thanks in part to the elaborate Day of the Dead parade going on around the two men.
04:12The celebration looked so good that it actually inspired an uptake in people visiting the city
04:17around Day of the Dead time. There was just one problem, this parade didn't actually exist.
04:21It had been entirely fabricated as a set piece for Spectre,
04:24leaving the Mexican government in quite a pickle. Rather than send all the tourists and their money
04:29away, they decided the easiest thing to do would be to make the fictional festival a reality.
04:34And so, in October 2016, Mexico City hosted its first ever Day of the Dead parade.
04:39Mission accomplished, Mr Bond.
04:426. Anti-Nuclear Activism, The China Syndrome
04:45On March 16th, 1979, a film called The China Syndrome came out. In it, Jane Fonda played
04:52a journalist investigating a nuclear power plant when, suddenly, the facility goes into meltdown.
04:57There's a line in the movie that says this could render an area the size of Pennsylvania
05:02permanently uninhabitable. Why is that important? Because on the 28th of March,
05:071979, the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant actually went into meltdown.
05:12And where was Three Mile Island? Pennsylvania. You couldn't make it up. The film already had
05:16an anti-nuclear agenda before the incident. Star Jane Fonda was firmly and famously opposed to the
05:22idea. However, its proximity to a real-life disaster led many others to change their
05:27stance on the subject. Co-star Michael Douglas described his revelation as a religious awakening,
05:33whilst The China Syndrome also made believers out of prominent campaigner Tom Hayden
05:38and media mogul Ted Turner. Few could have expected the immediate impact The China
05:42Syndrome would have on the world. It actually seems too good to be true.
05:46I mean, maybe it is. Has anyone looked into what Fonda was up to on the 28th?
05:50Was she in Pennsylvania, by any chance?
05:525. Inspiring Freedom Fighters, Rambo
05:55The 2008 film, just called Rambo, is honestly one of the better installments in the blood-soaked
06:01franchise. Although that isn't saying much, considering that Last Blood does exist.
06:05Sylvester Stallone returned as the titular veteran to rescue a bunch of missionaries who
06:09have become tangled up in the Saffron Revolution in Burma. Burma was what it was called at the time,
06:15the country's name is now officially Myanmar. Whilst the movie was a fairly standard action
06:19affair, with Stallone going AHH as often as humanly possible, it had some rather unintended
06:25consequences in the actual country it was set in. The Saffron Revolution was a very real conflict in
06:30Myanmar against the ruling military government. One of the groups involved in challenging their
06:34authority was the Karen Nation Liberation Army. Karen as in an ethnic group of people,
06:39not those women who want to speak to the manager. The KNLA saw the film as an endorsement of their
06:44struggles and were given a huge morale boost off the back of it. They even adopted lines
06:48from the movie into their rallying cries. Not bad for a cash cow, eh?
06:524. Being used as a legal defence, 2001 A Space Odyssey
06:572001 A Space Odyssey is one of the absolute granddaddies of sci-fi. Stanley Kubrick's
07:03surrealist voyage is one of the most important and influential films of all time, as well as
07:08home to one of the most chilling baddies ever captured on film. Sentient supercomputer HAL
07:139000 is the most famous piece of technology in the film, which is littered with futuristic
07:18looks at how the world might turn out. Well, futuristic for 1968. Kubrick's interpretation
07:24of Arthur C. Clarke's work was actually more accurate than you might think, as one major
07:28company attempted to demonstrate. Samsung got themselves into legal hot water over the attempted
07:33release of their Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet computer. Apple, who felt the design infringed on their own
07:39iPad, attempted to block the sale of the device. Samsung countered by claiming that they didn't
07:44invent the tablet. This movie did. As part of their actual legal defence,
07:48Samsung attached a screenshot from the film displaying astronauts using what appeared to be
07:53tablets. They claimed that this was proof that Apple couldn't own the rights to the design,
07:57and that they should be free to sell theirs. I mean, it didn't work, but you can't blame them
08:01for trying. Number three, catching a murderer,
08:04The Passion of the Christ. Mel Gibson. Nothing else to add, just Mel Gibson. If you don't know
08:08about his various transgressions over the years, then please kindly return to the rock you have
08:13been living under until you've learned your lesson. One of his more famous crazy ideas was
08:17making the biblical epic The Passion of the Christ in 2004, a film depicting the final 12
08:22hours of Jesus' life. Yeah, that seems like a safe bet for a man who has a history of religious
08:27controversies. Anyway, the film got made, and it was, of course, controversial. However, there was
08:32at least one good thing to come from it. It helped solve a murder case. In early 2004, 19-year-old
08:38Ashley Nicole Wilson was found dead in her apartment in Texas. She had apparently hanged
08:42herself after coming off anti-depression medication, but in reality, her boyfriend
08:47Dan R. Leach had killed her and staged it to look like a suicide. He was going to get away with the
08:52crime until a viewing of The Passion of the Christ caused him to have an epiphany and turn himself
08:56in. Maybe Gibson isn't so bad after all. Number two, defecting from North Korea,
09:01Titanic. Titanic has got everything you could want from a movie. Romance, drama, tragedy,
09:07Irish dancing, naughty times in an old timey car. It really is the full cinematic experience.
09:12But is it powerful enough to inspire someone to escape one of the most isolated and repressive
09:17nations on the planet? Well, as it turns out, yes it is. In 2007, Park Yeon-mi and her family
09:23fled North Korea in an attempt to lead a better life. Although she was just a teenager, Park
09:28already knew that her homeland was a dangerous place to live and that there was a whole other
09:32world outside of its borders. A reason for this knowledge? James Cameron's Titanic.
09:36Banned foreign films offered many North Koreans a previously unseen look at the outside world,
09:41and for Park, Titanic was the best of the bunch. She said that watching the film made her realise
09:46something was wrong with her country, and that was the catalyst for her life of activism.
09:50Stories like this are a reminder of the power cinema has to inspire people around the world.
09:56It's also proof that Leonardo DiCaprio's face is the most powerful force on earth.
10:00Number one, almost getting a president killed, Taxi Driver.
10:03An unhinged cabbie from New York City, Robert De Niro's portrayal of Travis Bickle in Taxi
10:08Driver is just one of the reasons he is rightly recognised as a legend.
10:12But it's not his role in the film we're talking about today. At just 12 years old,
10:16Jodie Foster was cast in the movie as a child prostitute. But we said this film was good,
10:20we never said it wasn't without its problems. Speaking of problematic, John Hinckley Jr.
10:25became obsessed with Foster after first seeing her in this film. He moved house to be closer
10:29to where she was studying, and would bombard her with love letters and poetry.
10:33Again, it's worth remembering that Foster was an actual child when Hinckley first saw her.
10:37In his deteriorating mental state, Hinckley decided that the best thing he could do to
10:41win Foster's favour was shoot the President of the United States. And so he did. In 1981,
10:47he shot and wounded President Ronald Reagan, all to impress the actress.
10:51It's one of the maddest stories of all time,
10:53and one that almost certainly did not come up in the pitch meeting for Taxi Driver.
10:57And that concludes our list. If you think we missed any, then do let us know in the comments
11:01below. And while you're there, don't forget to like and subscribe and tap that notification bell.
11:05Also, head over to Twitter and follow us there. And I can be found across various social medias
11:09just by searching Ellie Littlechild. I've been Ellie with WhatCulture.
11:12I hope you have a magical day, and I'll see you real soon.