33 Small Details In '80s Movies That You Probably Don't Know About
There's a disappearing (working) time machine in the background of Gremlins.
1. Darth Vader's skeleton can be seen in Return of the Jedi.
2. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade created a great explanation for a chin scar.
In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade young Indi gets trapped with a lion and uses a whip which cuts his chin. Later in the film present day Indi has a scar. Thought this was a pretty cool little detail. from MovieDetails
Harrison Ford's real-life scar came about when he was driving to work (pre-fame) and crashed into a telephone pole. He slammed into the steering wheel headfirst, and then he had what he referred to as "inept emergency surgery," leaving the whole ordeal with the scar on his chin.
3. Doc hanging from the clock tower is foreshadowed in Back to the Future's opening credits.
4. These license plates in The Breakfast Club aren't just irrelevant license plates.
In The Breakfast Club (1985), the car "the brain" gets out of has the license plate "EMC 2," while the car "the jock" gets out of has the license plate "OHIOST" from MovieDetails
E=MC² ("EMC 2") is Einstein's formula for a specific relationship between energy and mass. Ohio State ("OHIOST") is a university famous for its athletic program's success.
5. There's a disappearing (working) time machine in the background of Gremlins.
Gremlins (1984) - The convention scene has cameos from Spielberg and composer Jerry Goldsmith, and, in the background, the original time machine from the 1960 movie The Time Machine. In the next scene though, it's vanished leaving people trying to work out where it went. from MovieDetails
The Time Machine, based on H. G. Wells' novella of the same name, is about a Victorian inventor who uses a time machine and travels to the year 802,701 AD, where he discovers that humanity has evolved into two species.
6. So much happens in Dana's kitchen in Ghostbusters for a reason.
In Ghostbusters, after the explosion in Dana’s apartment, they find the staircase leading up to the roof top for the final scenes with Goza. This staircase was in fact located behind Dana’s fridge, which is why the hell dog appeared in the fridge and why her chair was dragged into the kitchen. from MovieDetails
7. The cars in Clue correspond to the board game.
8. In The Little Mermaid, Cinderella characters make cameos.
9. (At least some of) the Nazi uniforms in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade are real.
In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), the Nazi outfits are genuine World War 2 uniforms, not costumes. They were found in Eastern Europe by Co-Costume Designer Joanna Johnston. from MovieDetails
The costume designer Anthony Powell studied the uniforms in depth and shared his images and drawings with co-costume designer Joanna Johnston, who then found the real uniforms with her team.
10. There are actual doctors — not actors — acting in E.T.
11. The Back to the Future clock tower's damage is consistent.
12. And it's still broken in 2015 in Back to the Future Part II.
In Back To The Future 2, the ledge on the clock tower that Doc broke in Back To The Future is still broken from MovieDetails
Another detail about the 2015 courthouse structure is that it's now the Hill Valley Courthouse Mall, because all lawyers have been abolished.
13. Humperdinck's true colors are hinted at when he smells iocane powder in The Princess Bride.
14. The great Meg Ryan genuinely laughs in a When Harry Met Sally... scene.
When Harry Met Sally: Meg Ryan laughed at the Pecan Pie improv and looked at the director; he signals for her to keep going. from MovieDetails
Also, Nora Ephron, the legend who wrote When Harry Met Sally, based Harry on Rob Reiner, the legend who directed When Harry Met Sally.
15. Beverly Hills Cop also has real laughter, only it's fantastically disguised.
In Beverly Hills Cop (1984), Eddie Murphy's improvised story about "super cops" made John Ashton crack up so much, he had to pinch his face to hide his laughter from MovieDetails
Eddie Murphy, John Ashton, and Judge Reinhold improvised a lot of their lines. Rumor has it that hundreds of takes were ruined because the cast and/or crew were laughing.
16. Eddie, Bob Hoskins' character from Who Framed Roger Rabbit, is animated sometimes.
17. Venkman's lack of mashmallow and Ray's abundance of it in Ghostbusters were the actors' choices.
In Ghostbusters (1984), it was Billy Murray’s idea that Venkman be covered in much less marshmallow than the other characters. In contrast, Dan Aykroyd loved the shaving cream and kept asking for more to be applied to him. from MovieDetails
Shoutout to Bill Murray for having zero interest in being covered in guck.
18. The beer that George from Back to the Future drinks changes with his confidence.
19. Another drink one: Ellis from Die Hard is not given the kind of coke he wants.
20. There are some meaningful flower lapels in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
21. The pose that Jack's doing in the photo at the end of The Shining is a satanic symbol.
In the final scene of the Shining (1980) when the camera zooms in on a photo Jack Torrence can be seen in the Baphomet pose that was used in religious satanic statues from MovieDetails
The Tarot card Devil is in this position as well.
22. The sprinkler water in Honey, I Shrunk the Kids simulates water at that scale.
23. In Batman, the news anchor stops wearing makeup.
24. The treasure map in The Goonies has real blood on it.
In The Goonies (1985), the treasure map has real blood on it. The production designer cut his own finger and drizzled blood on the paper to give it an authentic look. from MovieDetails
J. Michael Riva, the production designer, didn't think the map looked old enough, so he dumped coffee on it in a hotel room. Since Riva also wanted some blood on the map and they were filming on location in a small town without any paint, he and his team used their own blood.
25. In Back to the Future, the drummer at the school dance in 1955 plays in a swing style because he doesn't know about rock drumming yet.
26. Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride only injures Count Rugen where he's been injured himself.
27. Dana has Stay Puft marshmallows the first time Venkman goes to her apartment in Ghostbusters.
28. Ursula from The Little Mermaid uses a butterfly to transform into Vanessa, which is also the name of a genus of butterfly.
29. Airplane! has a "Worst Boy" in the credits.
There's also a credit for "Author of _A Tale of Two Cities – _Charles Dickens."
30. Jack from The Shining was secretly drinking for multiple years.
31. In Back to the Future, the McFly house in 1985 is the same as the house on the billboard in 1955.
Back to the Future(1985) The billboard that Marty sees in '55 is an exact image of the McFly home.
This is how housing developments in the 1950s worked: The homes looked like what was advertised on the billboard.
32. Also, when Marty goes back to the future for the first time, he vanishes into The Atomic Kid.
In "Back to the Future," Marty's nuclear powered Delorean disappears into "The Atomic Kid." from MovieDetails
According to Back to the Future co-writer and producer Bob Gale, in the first two drafts of the screenplay, "...the whole clocktower sequence at the end wasn't there: It was going to be the radiation from an explosion at a nuclear testing site that would power the time machine back to 1985." The Atomic Kid is a 1954 movie about a man who is exposed to nuclear radiation on an atomic bomb test site.