Jon Sandys

Trivia: The Porgs on Luke's island only exist because the real island is the habitat of puffins, and filming couldn't interfere with them. It proved more appealing and frankly simpler to digitally alter the appearance of the puffins, rather than erasing them entirely.

Jon Sandys ★

Passed Pawn - S3-E7

Trivia: Enrico Colantoni plays Whitman, who Rehoboam arranges to be removed from society. Fitting casting, as he previously played Elias in Person of Interest, a TV series based on the idea of an AI eventually making decisions for humanity and removing threats.

Jon Sandys ★

Trivia: The house Jack Woltz lives in, where he discovers the horse's head in his bed, is also where JFK spent his honeymoon. Called the "Beverly House", William Randolph Hearst lived there until 1951, and it's been used in The Bodyguard and Fletch.

Jon Sandys ★

Trivia: Will Smith dismisses the new task force "AMMO" as "a high school musical boyband with guns." AMMO member Kelly is played by Vanessa Hudgens, who starred in the High School Musical franchise.

Jon Sandys ★

Trivia: Arthur has a copy of The Blue Boy by Thomas Gainsborough hanging on his wall. The same painting is appreciated by Joker in the 1989 Batman movie.

Jon Sandys ★

Blood Vessel - S1-E2

Trivia: The secretive room on the ship with a dark secret is cabin no. 9. Mark Gatiss, co-writer of this series, also co-wrote another creepy BBC series called "Inside No. 9"

Jon Sandys ★

Trivia: During one epic car crash near the start, just after the shooter gets taken out by the digger, if you know what to look for you can see Ryan Reynolds in the background, filming a post/advert for social media. Not a mistake, because it's just a tiny figure at the back of shot, but pairing the film and the post together it's fun to look for. (00:14:42)

Jon Sandys ★

A Mad Tea-Party - S1-E8

Trivia: While it's not explicitly stated, the Superman from another earth played by Brandon Routh is the one from Superman Returns (and by extension that from the original Superman movies). Aside from the obvious factor of the same actor, he name checks his son Jason, which is what his son with Lois was called in that movie too. His reference to fighting himself relates to Superman 3.

Jon Sandys ★

Crisis on Infinite Earths: Part Two - S1-E9

Trivia: The version of Batman played by famous Bat-voice Kevin Conroy is a darker version of that from the graphic novel The Dark Knight Returns. The line "the world only makes sense when you force it to" is a version of a line from that comic (also used in Batman V Superman), also "Clark always said yes to anything with a badge or a flag." There are also elements from Batman Beyond, which first aired in 1999 (hence Earth-99), in which Conroy voiced an older Bruce Wayne mentoring a new Batman. The whole scene is full of nods to other versions - describing Kryptonite as "a little souvenir from the old hometown" is a Lex Luthor line from the original Superman movie, and him describing Superman as "strange visitor from another planet, with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men" comes from Superman serials from the 40s and 50s.

Jon Sandys ★

Trivia: The wormhole was placed near Saturn as a reference to 2001: A Space Odyssey. Stanley Kubrick had wanted to set 2001 near Saturn, but its rings proved too complex for the visual effects of the time.

Jon Sandys ★

Trivia: Rick Dalton's car is a 1966 Cadillac deVille. It's owned by Michael Madsen, who has a cameo in this film, and is the same car he drove in Reservoir Dogs.

Jon Sandys ★

Trivia: In Justice League, Jason Momoa has one line of Icelandic. His pronunciation was so atrocious that when shown in Iceland, which normally subtitles English-language movies, the Icelandic also had to be subtitled...into Icelandic, just so people could understand what he said.

Jon Sandys ★

Trivia: Shaw walks past a Mini Cooper at one point, making a reference to a job in Italy and how Shaw would have been useful as a heavy bus driver. A nod to his role in The Italian Job remake, although given it's an original mini and his bus comment, it's got more parallels to the original. While it's been theorised Deckard Shaw might have been "Handsome Rob" in the remake, just undercover, the timelines don't work, given when Rob was in prison Shaw was in the military. (00:46:00)

Jon Sandys ★

Get Some - S1-E3

Trivia: "Seth and Evan from marketing" is a nod to the executive producers, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg.

Jon Sandys ★

Trivia: Simon Pegg's extended cameo as Hughie's father is a specific nod to the comics - the look of "Wee Hughie" in the original comics was based on Simon Pegg. Artist Darick Robertson said "it was important to capture an innocence but tough determination in Hughie. Two things that seemed to contradict each other and somehow in early sketches he kept looking too old. When I saw Simon Pegg in Spaced I thought he captured that balance perfectly." Pegg knew he was too old to play the character himself, but was happy to play his father.

Jon Sandys ★

Chapter 11 - S2-E3

Trivia: The idea of "mental contamination" mentioned at the start of the episode is real, and the demonstration using cheerleaders is based on fact. 5 cheerleaders and 5 other students had seizures in a town in 2002, in 1952 165 cheerleaders fainted before half time at a football game. A famous incident was in Le Roy in 2011 - those who were featured in the press took longer to recover than those who didn't, suggesting a strong social/communication basis.

Jon Sandys ★

Trivia: The "Earl Bassett Community School" is named after the character Fred Ward played in Tremors.

Jon Sandys ★

Trivia: The bad guys chasing the Presidential limo around with a minigun-containing SUV might seem like movie fiction, but that's actually part of the presidential motorcade - two such SUVs, each containing a Dillon Aero Gatling gun.

Jon Sandys ★

Trivia: Hugh Jackman was going to have a cameo as Wolverine, but it was scrapped because they couldn't find the costume from X-Men. "We really tried to get me to come on and do something, whether it was a gag or just to walk through the shot or something. The problem was, we couldn't find the suit. And so when they were in New York when I was there, we couldn't get it together."

Jon Sandys ★

Trivia: Don Rickles was signed on to reprise his role as Mr. Potato Head, but sadly died before recording any dialogue for the film. However with his family's approval, the production team went through everything he'd recorded in the past for the Toy Story franchise, including games, shorts, theme park material, etc. They managed to get together enough previously-unheard material that could be used for this movie, ensuring his characterisation could live on.

Jon Sandys ★