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Chapter 1: The Mandalorian - S1-E1

Trivia: A character very briefly mentions a holiday called "Life Day" in the pilot episode in a throwaway line. This is a rather peculiar callback to the infamously bad "Star Wars Holiday Special," which featured a fictional Wookie holiday called "Life Day."

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Trivia: According to producer Laurence Kasanoff, the version of the film released in theaters was not the intended final version, but rather a rough workprint cut. The visual effects weren't even close to being finished, and the film was meant to be re-edited to give it a more cohesive, deliberate pace and to fix some of the more noticeable errors. Kasanoff reportedly wanted to delay the film's release six months to properly finish it. However, executives at New Line simply shrugged and said "It's gonna be a hit regardless, so just release it as-is." To this day, Kasanoff considers the film incomplete.

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Trivia: In addition to starring as Liu Kang, Robin Shou was also the fight choreographer for many of the battles. He was stretched so thin on-set due to performing this double-duty under a very tight schedule, that he actually barely appeared in several of his own fight sequences, often only filming closeups or specific stunts. A prime example is the Liu VS Baraka fight, in which much of the fight was actually performed by future movie-star Tony Jaa.

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Trivia: Michael Jai White was initially cast as Jax, but dropped out of the film when he got the lead role in the comic-book movie "Spawn." However, White eventually ended up playing the role of Jax fourteen years later in the web-series "Mortal Kombat: Legacy."

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Trivia: Both Motaro and Jax are played by former members of the show "American Gladiators." Jax is played by Lynn Williams, who went by the name "Sabre" on the show. While Motaro was played by Deron McBee, who went by the name "Malibu."

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Trivia: Early in pre-production, the film was going to be a humorous crossover between the "Men in Black" and "21 Jump Street" film franchises, featuring Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill having to go undercover in MIB. The working title was "MIB - 23." The idea was dropped, presumably due to its outlandishness.

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Trivia: To date the only "Men in Black" film not directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, and the only "Men in Black" movie not to feature Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith. (Although a painting of Jones and Smith is visible in the film).

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Trivia: The film features a cameo from Frank the pug, who appeared in the first two films, but was absent from "Men in Black 3." Oddly enough, despite only appearing in the film for a few seconds, Frank appears quite prominently on several posters and even on the DVD cover art for the film. (The same is true for the "worm guys," who also appear on posters and the DVD cover despite only having a brief cameo in the film).

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Trivia: The film was meant to be a major theatrical release and was filmed in 2011. However, the film was shelved, and a lawsuit was subsequently levied against one of the production companies over the mishandling of funds that were supposed to go towards marketing. As a result, the film's theatrical release was eventually cut back to a very small and limited number of theaters, and it was instead released primarily as a direct-to-video film in 2014.

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Trivia: Original novel author Dean Koontz loved the film, and was very happy by how it turned out.

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Trivia: The final feature film of legendary composer Jerry Goldsmith, who passed away a year after its release. Goldsmith had worked as a composer on over 200 films and television series over a fifty-year career.

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Trivia: Spoilers: When Russell sacrifices himself and drives his plane into the laser, pay attention to the laser exploding in the first shot. It's actually cleverly reused footage of the Empire State Building exploding from the initial attack scene earlier in the film. The image has just been flipped vertically and augmented with some extra fire/explosions to mask the details of the building. But if you look very closely, you can totally tell.

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Trivia: Koji Suzuki, author of the original novels upon which the "Ringu" films are based, has a cameo in the fairground scene. He's the smiling father on the train-ride that the camera focuses on for a few seconds.

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Trivia: The animators created many small flaws in the film in order to emulate the looks of old comics. This includes color separation and a slight double-image effect in certain scenes to replicate imperfect comic-printing techniques. While the effect was intentional, many film-goers who saw the movie in 2D actually complained about these effects, thinking they were accidentally sold tickets to a 3D movie. (Especially due to the double-image effects).

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Trivia: Director Hideo Nakata has disowned the film, and claimed that due to excessive studio meddling and being forced to dumb the film down by producers, the final product has no resemblance to the film he had in mind when production began. Reportedly, star Naomi Watts also wasn't too keen on the film.

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Trivia: The producers attempted to get Richard Kelly to direct the film. Kelly had recently made the low-budget cult-classic "Donnie Darko," and was very popular. However, Kelly wasn't interested in making a sequel to someone else's film.

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Trivia: The film is directed by Hideo Nakata, who also directed the original Japanese film "Ringu," upon which "The Ring" was based. Nakata also directed the Japanese sequels "Ringu 2," and the 2019 release "Sadako."

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Trivia: There were reportedly a number of strange occurrences during production. This includes a production office flooding not once, but twice. (Which is more unnerving given the films use of water and drowning-based imagery.) A deer wandered onto the studio lot and charged a crew-member at one point. (Mirroring a scene in the film in which deer attack a car.) And finally, production was briefly delayed when a swarm of bees attacked a prop truck for several minutes. Probably just coincidences... but it kinda makes you think.

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Trivia: The film was intended to be released theatrically in 2007. However, the film was pulled shortly before release without any explanation. While it was occasionally screened at festivals in the meantime, it wasn't given any sort-of official release until 2014, when it was briefly available as a "video on demand" title through cable provider "DirecTV." It was finally released on DVD and Blu-Ray in 2017 by specialty distributor Shout Factory... ten full years after it was originally supposed to come out.

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Trivia: Yukie Nakama, who played Sadako in the film, used to be teased by her friends about her resemblance to the character after the 1998 film "Ringu" was released. But this worked to her advantage, as a little over a year later, she was offered the role of Sadako in this prequel film.

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