1751: Movie Folder

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Movie Folder

Title text: That's actually the original Japanese version of A Million Random Digits, which is much better than the American remake the book was based on.

Explanation

This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Are there more to some of the titles? Are there other similar situations with these two guys? If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.

Cueball is looking through Black Hat's downloaded movies, which are all adaptations of non-literary works, improbable sequels, and/or crossovers between very disparate properties. Cueball reacts with increasing incredulity to Black Hat's collection, while Black Hat casually responds with equally unlikely (non-)explanations. Knowing Black Hat, his movie folder is deliberately weird just to provoke this kind of reaction.

In the real world, there are movies which can provoke similar shock. For example, many successful films get direct-to-video (or, now, direct-to-digital) sequels and spinoffs, often featuring none of the original cast and which get very little marketing. Therefore, someone might be surprised to know that there's an American Psycho 2, a Starship Troopers 3, a Dr. Dolittle 4, or a Bring It On 5. Randall previously made fun of the proliferation of direct-to-video sequels in What If: Twitter Timeline Height, with at least 27 Land Before Time films (in reality, there were 14).

Another source of weird titles are mockbusters. When a film uses a public domain property as its basis, or a title that is too generic to trademark, other studios will simply create their own films and pretend that they're a sequel to the more famous film. Examples include Titanic II, Troll 2, Troll 3, the other Troll 3, and War of the Worlds 2: The Next Wave.

Marketing wheezes have also produced some crossovers almost as unexpected as those in the comic - Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Scooby-Doo! WrestleMania Mystery and Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter.

A similar setting with Cueball and Black Hat also discussing movies was seen in 493: Actuarial. Back then Black Hat was still reading newspapers.

Another type of comic where movie titles needs to be guessed from strange versions of the title was previously used in the Synonym Movies series.

Black Hat's downloaded movies

Title	Explanation
Lorem Ipsum: The Movie	Lorem Ipsum are the first two words of a common block of garbled Latin filler text used by typesetters to layout pages before real text is available. This title implies that this movie is entirely random filler with no meaningful content, although according to the Internet Movie Database, there is a 2011 movie titled Lorem Ipsum.
Titanic XCVIII	The most famous film about the ship Titanic is James Cameron's Titanic from 1997. But there have been several since then (at least five) some of which where probably trying to cash in on the name, especially the one called Titanic II, which is about a ship in 2012 called Titanic II. But the producers probably hoped some people would buy the DVD believing it was a sequel to the 1997 movie, a real mockbuster, originally released directly for TV. Black Hat's dialogue implies the preceding films are about at least 97 different Titanics which all sank, creating an artificial reef, and this film is about the 98th (Roman numerals XCVIII = 98) hitting that reef (rather than an iceberg). As Titanic rests on the Atlantic sea floor at a depth of 3,784 m (12,415 feet), each of the previous Titanics would need to a) settle immediately on top of its predecessor and b) increase the height of the "reef" by about 40 m (128 feet) on average. The original Titanic was 53 m (175 feet) tall and (assuming a and b above), the keel of the 98th ship would sink to a depth of 20 m (65 feet). However, it would be impossible to stack only 97 Titanic replicas in a more than 3 km high pile in this location to reach this height.
Debbie Did 9/11	A combination of Debbie Does Dallas, a 1970s porn film about a young woman trying for a cheerleader squad, and a 9/11 conspiracy theory. Actual Debbie Does Dallas sequels include 5 numbered ones, two titled Debbie Does Dallas Again, several with subtitles, and some parodies, unofficial sequels and spinoffs that - like the title quote here - change what Debbie does. IMDb lists, among others, Debbie Does Iowa, Debbie Does Wall Street, Debbie Does 'em All and Debbie Does Damnation. But it is always Does and never Did... However, in this kind of movie when she does something it of course means to have sex, something that should be considered more innocent than terrorism, although many people would rather their children watch the 9/11 disaster than even a soft porn movie... So they would probably buy this movie.
Time Jam: A Connecticut Huskie on King Arthur's Court	A combination of the novel A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain and the 1996 movie Space Jam. Mark Twain's story is one of the first time travel stories, while Space Jam stars Michael Jordan and features the Looney Tunes cartoon characters playing basketball against aliens. The huskie is a reference to the University of Connecticut sports teams called the Connecticut Huskies, most notably their basketball team. So in this movie it is one of these Connecticut players who gets Time Jammed (rather than Space Jammed) back to the fictional King Arthur's court in the late 5th and early 6th centuries AD. The use of court is likely also a reference to basketball courts.
Harold and Kumar Go to Howl's Moving Castle	A combination of Harold and Kumar go to White Castle - about the meandering and very adult adventures of Harold and Kumar (a pair of stoners) - and Howl's Moving Castle - a tender, often philosophical children's anime film by Hayao Miyazaki, based on a novel by Diana Wynne Jones.
A Million Random Digits with 100,000 Normal Deviates	This is actually a real book from 1955 (also referenced in 1210: I'm So Random) - back before scientists had access to computers that could easily generate random numbers, this book was very useful for statistics and for setting up scientific experiments. The book is literally just a list of numbers, so there would be no movie in it except for flashing numbers on a screen. Black Hat comments that the movie came before the book, which was a novelization of the film. The title text says that the movie is an adaptation of Japanese version. But in the modern world 'Arabic' digits are nearly universal, so it is hard to understand how an adaptation would be different from the Japanese original, unless they used Japanese numerals (which are rarely used for mathematical purposes). It is very common that great/successful Japanese movies (and other countries' great movies) are made into (often mediocre) American remakes, like the famous horror movie Ring from 1998, which was remade in America as The Ring in 2002.
Michael Bay's The Vagina Monologues	The Vagina Monologues is a famous play by Eve Ensler. All that happens in it is a series of women talk frankly about their bodies, their sexuality and their lives. There's no place in it for explosions, but Michael Bay (who is known especially for the modern Transformers movies as well as The Rock and Armageddon is also known for his rather unfeminist behavior and over-doing explosions in the movies he directs) found a way. Black Hat comments that he found it good in-spite of all those CGI explosions.

Transcript

[Black Hat is sitting in an armchair, with the right arm on the armrest and looking at his smartphone held in his left hand, when a voice from behind him (off-panel left) addresses him. It turns out in the next panels that it is Cueball.]

Cueball (off-panel): Your movie folder is so weird. Where do you find all this stuff?

Black Hat: Dunno.

Black Hat: Around.

[In an frame-less panel Cueball is seen sitting in an office chair at a desk facing left. He is looking at Black Hat's computer while typing on the keyboard which is on a shelve lower than the regular desk surface. Black Hat replies to his queries from behind him off-panel right.]

Cueball: Lorem Ipsum: The Movie?

Cueball: Titanic XCVIII?

Black Hat (off-panel): That series gets good when they start hitting the reef created by all the previous wrecks.

[Cueball leans in closer to the screen.]

Cueball: Debbie Did 9/11?

Cueball: Time Jam: A Connecticut Huskie on King Arthur's Court?

Black Hat (off-panel): Really underrated Space Jam sequel.

[Zoom in on the scene so nothing beneath the keyboard is visible. The screen and Cueballs head almost spans the width of the panel.]

Cueball: Harold and Kumar Go to Howl's Moving Castle?

Cueball: A Million Random Digits with 100,000 Normal Deviates?

Black Hat (off-panel): That's the original-the book was a novelization.

[Back to Black Hat sitting in the chair as in the first panel, but leaning a bit further back and the arm on the armrest has been moved closer to him.]

Cueball (off-panel): Michael Bay's The Vagina Monologues!?

Black Hat: It's pretty good, despite all the CGI explosions.

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Discussion

Quite a wacky comic and it isn't even a Friday. 108.162.210.196 14:16, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

Ooh, a first draft... Hoo boy, that last sentence, though... that is in desperate need of some editing 108.162.237.49 16:00, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

Small point, but lorem ipsum isn't pseudo-Latin it's from Cicero's de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum (The Extremes of Good and Evil. It's been used since the very early days of printing.Richardelguru (talk) 16:33, 26 October 2016 (UTC)richardelguru.

It is, but the "received" lorem ipsum text is pretty garbled, starting with improper word-splitting at the the very beginning. It shouldn't be described as a straight quotation from Cicero. 162.158.74.53 17:49, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure how to post comments, but I believe it should read 97 previous Titanics sank, if the movie is about the 98th one striking the reef.... User: bsellnow 26 October 2016... 108.162.215.126 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Regarding your comment that makes sense! On your other Question: To sign a comment just write ~~~~ after you comment. (Or press the signature button in the icons above to post those four tildes). I have signed your comment with a template for unsigned comments from non-users (based on your IP address). Sign up so you can keep track of your contributions and for real call your self User:bsellnow ;-)--Kynde (talk) 18:30, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

- The 98th ship might not be the first one to hit the reef. "That series gets good when they start hitting the reef created by all the previous wrecks" implies to me that multiple "good" movies have involved hitting the ship-reef and there's no indication that Titanic 98 was the first one to do so. --162.158.74.42 19:41, 26 October 2016 (UTC)BoomerSooner

I saw it, too. And, while Kynde was commenting, I adjusted it... MAP (talk)

There's no reason we should infer that Titanic 98 is about a ship hitting the reef rather than an iceberg. Titanic 98 is the film that Cueball calls out, but Black Hat's response doesn't imply that it's one of the good films in the series. For all we know, this doesn't happen until Titanic 409. --172.68.79.81 20:22, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

Is it fair to point out that there could possibly have been more than 1 Titanic in some of the movies, which would have made building a reef much easier. --Andyd273 (talk) 20:25, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

The Titanic was also 269 meters LONG, which is six times the requisite 40 meters of reef per ship.

If the first three Titanics landed on their sterns, forming a triangular three-column base, and the next three landed precisely on top of those columns, forming a three-ship triangular strut.... you MIGHT be able to repeat that pattern all the way up to the surface, building a scaffolding of sunken Titanics.

Of course, this would work better if you had some sort of rubble filling the gaps between the scaffolds.... such as other ships or animals the titanics struck instead of an iceberg, cargo the titanics dumped in an attempt to stay afloat, random flotsam that recovery crews pumped down to the sunken titanics in an attempt to retrieve the hulls....

--162.158.75.45 23:51, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

Coming in years late, which is apparently my trademark: why assume all the various Titanics were the same size? To make the reef, maybe the fortieth through fiftieth of the series were enormously larger? Nitpicking (talk) 11:48, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

I don't know if this is relavant but, the random numbers movie is mentioned in this review: [1] Username'); DROP TABLE users;-- (talk) 22:07, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

I think I broke the hyperlink tag. https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R31OWHW3Z0HKQ1/ref=cm_cr_getr_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0833030477.Username'); DROP TABLE users;-- (talk) 11:19, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

Might Titanic 98 be in part a snark on the Windows version? (interesting that, of all the large numbers, it happens to be one used for a Windows version) -- 141.101.70.199 22:35, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

Million random digits Might also reference the way the movie files are stored? 162.158.69.103 00:01, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

'A Million Random Digits with 100,000 Normal Deviates' may be a wink at '50 Shades of Grey' -- Legec (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

The husky could be a reference to the University of Washington Huskies, rather than the UConn Huskies. (Athletic teams from the two schools have played against each other at least once.) 108.162.246.53 21:24, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

Time Jam: A Connecticut Huskie on King Arthur's Court. --172.68.79.81 20:54, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

Titanic XCVIII

copied from User talk:Kynde#1751: Movie Folder

Assuming that Black Hat only has good movies is rather absurd, as there's not a shred of evidence to support this. Especially since this is Black Hat we're talking about. Therefore, there's no evidence that Titanic 98 is about the ship hitting the reef, and therefore, the calculations about stacking 97 ships have no relevance. --172.68.79.81 15:06, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

Since this is relevant to a specific comic, I suggest that you just leave this comment on that specific comic's discussion board. Thank you. --JayRulesXKCD (talk) 15:13, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

Yes that is true Jay. Anyway there is reason to believe that Black Hat either thinks or teases Cueball with his movies, and thus he suggest that the movies he has are god. Also the other comment he makes suggest this. So I think there is a lot of evidence that this movie 98 is one in the series of movies where Titanic hits the reef of older Titanics. --Kynde (talk) 14:05, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Cueball names 7 movies, Black Hat replies to 4 of those. He has definitively positive things to say about 2 of those, and simply states information about another. In that context, there's no reason to assume his comment about the Titanic series should be interpreted as a claim that he considers Titanic 98 to be 'good'. And with only 2 of the other 6 known movies in his collection being stated as 'good', that's clearly not "a lot of evidence" that Titanic 98 is 'good'. --108.162.237.86 21:24, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

Well we disagree on that then. If the explanation should be changed on the basis of this discussion it should be moved to the relevant discussion page. If it is the same person who wrote from both IP .81 and .86 you could move it there your self. Feel free to include my replies, but leave out Jays as that has nothing to do with the discussion. --Kynde (talk) 09:56, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

Ironically, Michael Bay always tries to use real pyrotechnic effects on-screen. Perhaps Randall got mistaken by the fact that the Transformer robots have to be CGI out of necessity and expediency. 162.158.165.40 06:36, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps Black Hat is just riffing, not trying to be accurate in his description of a directory one suspects he doesn't like. Nitpicking (talk) 03:26, 18 February 2022 (UTC)