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,
00:26and 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,
00:36here with 10 Movies With Surprising Real World Consequences.
00:40Number 10. 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 likable roster of characters, the movie was praised for its
00:59ultra-realistic depiction of the horrors of World War II. Right from the get-go,
01:03the film pulls no punches in depicting the conflict as hell on Earth with its remarkable
01:08recreation of the D-Day landings. While it was praised by some, for others it brought back a
01:13whole host of unwanted memories. Some real veterans of the battle on Omaha Beach who saw
01:18the film reported that they were unable to finish it as the sequence brought on traumatic flashbacks.
01:24In fact, the United States Department for Veteran Affairs created an entire hotline dedicated to
01:29those affected by the movie. In the end, it's probably for the best that these horrors were
01:33shown as accurately as possible. Fear is a powerful deterrent, and it would have been a
01:38greater insult to those who fought in the war to try and dumb it down for a more sensitive audience.
01:43Number 9. The Bambi Effect, Bambi
01:46Walt 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 changed 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 idea
02:22of 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.
02:37Number 8. 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. Its subtitle was The Story That Won't
03:11Go Away, which is ironic because the files on JFK's assassination were reopened as a result
03:17of this film. JFK's popularity sparked a resurgence in interest in the popular leader's untimely
03:22death. As 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,
03:53the side characters 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
04:16visiting the city around Day of the Dead time. There was just one problem,
04:19this parade didn't actually exist. It 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.
04:42Number 6. 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,
04:59this could render an area the size of Pennsylvania permanently uninhabitable.
05:03Why 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.
05:14You couldn't make it up. The film already had an anti-nuclear agenda before the incident.
05:19Star Jane Fonda was firmly and famously opposed to the idea. However, its proximity to a real
05:25life disaster led many others to change their stance on the subject.
05:28Co-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
05:41impact The China Syndrome would have on the world.
05:44It actually seems too good to be true. I mean, maybe it is,
05:47has 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 instalments 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
06:09who have become tangled up in the Saffron Revolution in Burma.
06:13Burma was what it was called at the time, the country's name is now officially Myanmar.
06:17Whilst the movie was a fairly standard action affair, with Stallone going
06:21as often as humanly possible, it had some rather unintended consequences
06:25in the actual country it was set in. The Saffron Revolution was a very real
06:29conflict in Myanmar against the ruling military government.
06:32One of the groups involved in challenging their authority was the Karen Nation Liberation Army.
06:37Karen as in an ethnic group of people, not those women who want to speak to the manager.
06:41The KNLA saw the film as an endorsement of their struggles and were given a huge
06:45morale boost off the back of it. They even adopted lines from the movie
06:49into 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.
07:02Stanley Kubrick's surrealist voyage is one of the most important and influential films of all time,
07:07as well as home to one of the most chilling baddies ever captured on film.
07:11Sentient supercomputer HAL 9000 is the most famous piece of technology in the film,
07:16which is littered with futuristic looks at how the world might turn out. Well, futuristic for 1968.
07:22Kubrick's interpretation of Arthur C. Clarke's work was actually more accurate than you might
07:27think, as one major company attempted to demonstrate. Samsung got themselves into
07:32legal hot water over the attempted release of their Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet computer.
07:37Apple, who felt the design infringed on their own iPad, attempted to block the sale of the device.
07:42Samsung countered by claiming that they didn't invent the tablet. This movie did.
07:46As part of their actual legal defence, Samsung attached a screenshot from the film displaying
07:51astronauts using what appeared to be tablets. They claimed that this was proof that Apple
07:56couldn't own the rights to the design and that they should be free to sell theirs.
07:59I mean, it didn't work, but you can't blame them for trying.
08:023. Catching a murderer, The Passion of the Christ
08:05Mel Gibson. Nothing else to add, just Mel Gibson. If you don't know about his various transgressions
08:10over the years, then please kindly return to the rock you have been living under until you've
08:14learned your lesson. One of his more famous crazy ideas was making the biblical epic The Passion of
08:19the Christ in 2004, a film depicting the final 12 hours of Jesus' life. Yeah, that seems like
08:25a safe bet for a man who has a history of religious controversies. Anyway, the film
08:29got made and it was, of course, controversial. However, there was at least one good thing to
08:33come from it. It helped solve a murder case. In early 2004, 19-year-old Ashley Nicole Wilson
08:39was found dead in her apartment in Texas. She had apparently hanged herself after coming off
08:44antidepressant medication, but in reality, her boyfriend Dan R. Leach had killed her and staged
08:49it to look like a suicide. He was going to get away with the crime until a viewing of The Passion
08:53of the Christ caused him to have an epiphany and turn himself in. Maybe Gibson isn't so bad after
08:58all. 2. Defecting from North Korea, Titanic
09:02Titanic has got everything you could want from a movie. Romance, drama, tragedy, Irish dancing,
09:08naughty times in an old timey car. It really is the full cinematic experience. But is it
09:13powerful enough to inspire someone to escape one of the most isolated and repressive nations on
09:17the planet? Well, as it turns out, yes it is. In 2007, Park Yeon-mi and her family fled North
09:24Korea in an attempt to lead a better life. Although she was just a teenager, Park already
09:28knew that her homeland was a dangerous place to live and that there was a whole other world
09:32outside of its borders. A reason for this knowledge? James Cameron's Titanic. Banned
09:36foreign 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 realize
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.
10:001. 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 recognized as a legend. But it's not his role
10:13in the film we're talking about today. At just 12 years old, Jodie Foster was cast in the movie
10:18as a child prostitute. But we said this film was good, we never said it wasn't without its problems.
10:22Speaking of problematic, John Hinckley Jr. became obsessed with Foster after first seeing her in
10:27this film. He moved house to be closer to where she was studying and would bombard her with love
10:32letters and poetry. Again, it's worth remembering that Foster was an actual child when Hinckley
10:36first saw her. In his deteriorating mental state, Hinckley decided that the best thing he could do
10:41to win 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. It's one of the
10:51maddest stories of all time, and one that almost certainly did not come up in the pitch meeting
10:56for Taxi Driver. And that concludes our list. If you think we missed any, then do let us know
11:00in the comments below. And while you're there, don't forget to like and subscribe and tap that
11:04notification bell. Also, head over to Twitter and follow us there. And I can be found across various
11:08social medias just by searching Ellie Littlechild. I've been Ellie with WhatCulture. I hope you have
11:13a magical day and I'll see you real soon.