Easter is creeping ever nearer and with thoughts of a lovely long weekend, hollow chocolate produced en masse and the promise of warmer weather, we started thinking about the eponymous Easter Egg. But, with our digital and marketing brains here at Network Marketing towers, of course we mean no ordinary Easter Egg!
Whether you stumbled across one of these treats in your favourite PS1 Game, or have spotted something a little out of place in a recent or retro Disney Blockbuster, Easter-Eggs (not the hollow chocolate kind) have been around since the dawn of the electronic age.
To clarify, for those not au fait with the technological terminology; An Easter egg is an intentionally created inside joke or hidden message often featured in film, gaming and even computer programmes (thank you Wikipedia!). The trend began in 1979 with Atari when an un-credited Game Designer (how very dare they!?) managed to slip his accreditation into a secret level and thus the trend began.
The gaming world has seen more than its fair share of hidden secrets, but it has become even more prevalent in film since most Post Production, VFX and Designers have started to sneak in little hints and surprises for their peers and the more eagle-eyed of audience members.
Have a look at my top 5 Easter Eggs in film to date (PS – spoilers alert!).
Marvel (Stan Lee)
The world of Marvel film wouldn’t be around if it wasn’t for this wonderful human; Stan Lee was one of the original creators of The Hulk, The Fantastic Four, Iron Man, X-Men and many more, which is why he quite rightly makes an appearance in every Marvel-related movie.
Pixar Character Cross Overs
Pre and post Disney-merger, Pixar have a lot of tricks up their sleeves and frequently make reference to their other films. Our favourite flounder Nemo has a habit of cropping up in Toy Story and the number 95 makes a regular appearance throughout the Pixar series in reference to Car’s Lightning Mcqueen. A stuffed Totoro even crops up once or twice for those Miyazaki lovers!
Another Cross over (Spielberg and Star Wars)
This is one I’m sure Sci-fi fans the world over will have picked up on, or will be kicking themselves for not! Unfortunately, this film was the Phantom-menace, the long-mocked black sheep of the Star Wars universe. But look; it’s ET!
This was a returned favour for a multitude of references in Spielberg’s films that include; Yoda making an appearance in the 1982 film ET and R2D2 and C3PO’s brief cameo in Raider’s of the Lost Ark.
Fight Club product Placement
Fight Club is a film for the observant. We all know Tyler Durden flashes up before his character is ever introduced, but did you notice a Starbucks cup appearing in every scene? You won’t be able to notice anything else next time you watch it!
Director David Fincher has indicted this is a reference to the company’s conglomerate success, and whilst the coffee juggernaut was on board with the fun-poking, the cafe that is destroyed by Durden’s band of merry men is in fact not identified.
‘When deep space exploration ramps up, it’ll be the corporations that name everything, the IBM Stellar Sphere, the Microsoft Galaxy, Planet Starbucks.’
The Departed
In homage to the original 1932 Scarface, Martin Scorsese foreshadows every characters death with an X. With character’s getting X’d out left, right and centre, it’s only Mark Wahlberg’s character (who is frequently flanked by straight lines) who manages to survive to the credits.
Of course this is a small sampling of the masses of hidden secrets, scenes and cross overs being harboured in the movie industry. Keep your eyes peeled next time you sit down with your favourite flavour of popcorn, you may just catch a glimpse of your favourite Disney princess celebrating in a film that’s not part of her world, or see some naughty Hogwarts students up to something that would make even the Dark Lord blush!
