10 great geek moments in movies

A good movie isn't complete without a 'geek' moment where some subtle connection can be made only by a complete propeller-head...

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)In an early scene Donald Sutherland is driving down a street where a middle-aged man had been run over, holding up traffic. The man injured man asking for help is Kevin McCarthey, who played the lead in the 1956 version of the movie. At the end of that film McCarthey’s character is running down the street banging on car windscreens warning people that an invasion is happening.

The Longest Day (1962)In this classic war movie Richard Todd plays Major John Howard, Air Landing Brigade, 6th Airborne Division, given the job of securing Pegasus bridge. Much imagination wasn’t required by him, because Capt. Todd of the 7th Parachute Battalion, 5th Parachute Brigade, and the same British 6th Airborne Division actually formed part of the reserves which later supported Major Howard at that same location on D-Day. So had they wished to they could of included scenes where Richard Todd would have spoken to himself. Deep Blue Sea (1999)This movie is a huge homage to the Jaws movies, which are referenced numerous times. The geekiest are that the car number plate removed from the shark has the same number as the one removed from the tiger shark in Jaws. And, all the sharks die in the same fashion as they did in the various Jaws movies.

Die Another Day (2002)In the scene where 007 talks with the Cuban sleeper agent, he picks up a ornithological book to browse. The book is “A Field Guide to Birds of the West Indies,” written by James Bond. Which is a book owned by Ian Fleming, where he got the name for his ultimate spy persona.

Buono, il brutto, il cattivo, Il (1966)Also called ‘The Good, the bad and the ugly’, this film contains a scene where Eastwood’s blondie comes across a dying solider near the end of the film. He takes a green and white poncho off him which he then wears. This is the same poncho that he wore in Fist full of Dollars and a Few Dollars More, showing that the this film comes chronologically before the others.

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Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983)In the John Landis directed story set party in Vietnam we overhear a platoon of soldiers lost at night wadding through flooded fields. One of them suggests that it might have been a mistake to “frag” Lieutenant Neidermeyer. This is reference to the Animal House (1978), also directed by John Landis, where at the end each of the characters futures are revealed. The character Neidermeyer’s future is to be killed by his own troops in Vietnam.

Apollo 13 (1995)The final scene of the movie has the crew of Apollo 13 land on the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Iwo Jima and be greeted by the crew. The captain comes forward and salutes Tom Hanks, who returns the salute. The captain is Jim Lovell, the person Hanks is playing, so he’s saluting himself.

Ocean’s Eleven (2001)In the boxing scene we see a number of important people taking their seats, amongst them are Henry Silva and Angie Dickinson, who played Roger Corneal and Beatrice Ocean in the original 1960 version of the movie. There are also numerous references to Sinatra, who also starred in that production.

Batman Returns, Batman Forever and Batman & RobinIn all these productions the actress Elizabeth Sanders appears, playing ‘Gossip Gerty’ in the second and third. Sanders is her stage name, her married name was Elizabeth Sanders Kane, as she was the wife and now widow of Bob Kane, creator of Batman.

Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan (1982)Early in the story Pavel Chekov and Captain Terrell beam down to a planet they think is uninhabited, Ceti Alpha V, and bump into Khan, marooned their in the classic original Star Trek season 1 episode ‘Space Seed’. Kahn recognises Chekov as being one of the Enterprise crew that left him there. Except, Chekov’s character wasn’t introduced until episode 30, the first in season 2, “Catspaw”, so that doesn’t actually make sense.

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