30 People Point Out Things About Famous Movies That Might Make You View Them Differently (New Pics)

Entertainment journalist James Grebey defined fan theory as “ideas and speculation that audiences have about movies, shows, comics, or anything.” He believes they exist because fans are passionate and creative about the things they love.

There are several types of fan theories that are distinguished by the different goals they try to achieve. The mystery-solving theories, for example, attempt to figure out an enigma that actually exists in the work of fiction. 

A lot of these theories are eventually confirmed by filmmakers. Like Harry Potter being Voldemort’s Horcrux. Before the entire release of the Harry Potter series, viewers and readers were able to put the puzzle together and solve it. In the final part of the book Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, such predictions were confirmed, much to the audience's delight.

Another type of theory is a predictive one that essentially poses the question, “What happens next?” Avid film viewers try to pick on various details and hints that allow them to speculate what may come next in the story. This is essentially called foreshadowing and generates quite elaborate and interesting theories.

The plot-hole-filling type of theory tries to answer questions that aren’t as important. Since continuity errors happen in movies and TV shows, people attempt at explaining them—not always successfully though. One of the most famous ones is pondering whether there was enough room for Jack on the door in Titanic.

The following two, retcon and head-canon theories, are already treading the absurd category. The former one tries to argue that what you saw on the screen didn’t actually happen, like Black Widow not actually dying in the Endgame. These speculations rarely make sense, as disproving something we can see is almost impossible. 

The head-canon theory is fun, usually used to creatively engage fandoms. Just like the idea that Elsa and Anna from Frozen share the same parents with Tarzan. Such claims usually don’t have substantial reasoning behind them and often annoyingly spam movie watchers. However, it might be worth mentioning that the theory that Peter Parker made an appearance in Iron Man 2 was just a head-canon at first that Marvel made to come true.