12 Dark Fan Theories That Recast Willy Wonka, R2-D2 and National Treasure's Ben Gates

Most movie theories fall apart the moment you think about them for more than a few seconds. But every so often a theory comes along that explains something the actual movie never bothered to. Here are 12 of them, working through everything from Willy Wonka's factory to the secret Ben Gates has apparently been keeping for almost 20 years in National Treasure.

Willy Wonka selected the four losing children on purpose

Willy Wonka did not invite five random children into his factory and simply watch four accidents happen. The theory holds that he selected four kids he already knew would fail. The Oompa Loompas are too prepared for anything else to make sense: every time a child disappears, they immediately arrive with a perfectly choreographed song describing that child's exact personality, mistake and punishment. They are not improvising while Augustus Gloop is still stuck in a pipe. Wonka knew Augustus would drink from the chocolate river, that Violet could not resist the experimental gum, and that Mike TV would demand to be shrunk into the television.

Under this reading, Charlie did not win because he found the last golden ticket. He won because he was the only child Wonka believed could survive the factory without destroying himself. The whole tour was a test built to eliminate the others one by one.

The Toy Story toys may be hiding an ancient secret, not just a rule about toys

Why do the toys in Toy Story go motionless whenever a human enters the room? The obvious answer is that is just what toys do. But Buzz Lightyear complicates that. Buzz does not believe he is a toy, he thinks he is a real space ranger, yet he still instinctively freezes whenever Andy appears. That suggests freezing is not a physical limitation at all. It could be a rule every living toy somehow already knows.

When Woody and the others break that rule in front of Sid, it terrifies him, and that may be exactly why they normally stay hidden. The toys may not be afraid humans will discover they are alive. They may be protecting humans from discovering an ancient secret civilization that has been silently watching them for generations.

Dumbledore may have built the sorcerer's stone obstacles around Harry, not Voldemort

The obstacles protecting the sorcerer's stone are supposed to stop one of the most dangerous dark wizards in history, yet three first year students defeat them. But what if Voldemort was never the only person being tested? Each obstacle matches one member of Harry's group: Hermione uses intelligence and logic, Ron uses chess and sacrifices himself, and Harry faces the mirror, where the stone can only be claimed by someone who wants to find it without using it.

Dumbledore had already discovered the mirror himself and understood exactly what Harry would want. He may have arranged the entire path knowing Harry would eventually follow it. Under this theory, Voldemort was not breaking into an unbeatable vault. Harry, Ron and Hermione were completing a test Dumbledore had carefully constructed.

Jack Sparrow's drunken stumbling may be an act

Jack Sparrow spends almost the entire Pirates franchise stumbling, slurring and looking like he has no idea what is happening. But the moment a fight begins, that same man has perfect balance, spots every exit, and is usually several moves ahead of everyone else. The theory is that Jack exaggerates the drunken act because it makes people underestimate him. While everyone laughs at how he walks, he is studying the room and building an escape plan.

There may be a physical explanation for part of it too. Jack spent years at sea, so his body adjusted to the constant movement of a ship. On land he sways, but the moment he steps onto a moving deck he suddenly looks completely comfortable. He knows exactly how ridiculous he looks, and he uses it as a weapon.

The Joker's scar stories may hide that he was once a soldier

The Joker tells multiple stories about how he got his scar, so almost everything he says about his past is designed to manipulate whoever is listening. But one theory argues The Dark Knight quietly reveals what he actually did before becoming the Joker. He understands military weapons, explosives, interrogation techniques and police psychology. He can organize complicated attacks, infiltrate secure locations, and stay calm while being beaten.

Even the way he talks about chaos and people being disposable sounds like someone who lost faith in the system after watching it sacrifice people. Under this theory the Joker was a soldier or intelligence operative who came back from war believing society's rules were another lie, which would explain why he has no interest in money or traditional power. He is not trying to rule Gotham. He is trying to prove that civilization is only a performance.

The One Ring may have chosen Bilbo on purpose, not by accident

We are told the ring abandoned Gollum because it wanted to return to Sauron. But the ring does not roll toward an orc or a goblin, anyone likely to carry it straight into Mordor. It let Bilbo find it, and that may not have been an accident. Bilbo was leaving the mountain and heading back into the wider world, and the ring may have believed a harmless hobbit would be the perfect temporary carrier: small enough to escape unnoticed, weak enough to corrupt, and unimportant enough to avoid suspicion.

The ring's mistake was not choosing Bilbo. Its mistake was failing to understand hobbits. Bilbo resisted it for decades, Frodo carried it across Middle Earth, and the smallest people in the story ended up being the only ones capable of returning it to the place where it could finally be destroyed.

Doctor Strange may have chosen the safest future over Thanos, not just victory

Doctor Strange tells Tony Stark that out of more than 14 million possible futures, the Avengers win in exactly one, and everybody accepts that he simply found the one path to victory. But what if he was not only searching for a win over Thanos? If Strange selected a timeline where Thanos dies, the stones are removed from circulation, and the original Avengers are broken apart, that same timeline also removes Tony Stark, the man who created Ultron and nearly destroyed the world trying to protect it.

Strange may have seen timelines where Thanos lost but something worse followed. He did not choose the only future where the Avengers could win. He chose the future where the most dangerous people and weapons on every side were removed from the board, which means Tony's death may have been part of the plan from the beginning. As I put it: "I'm not saying Doctor Strange killed Tony, but Doctor Strange killed Tony."

Kevin's disappearance in Home Alone may not have been an accident

There are too many perfectly timed mistakes surrounding Kevin McCallister's disappearance. His plane ticket gets thrown away while Peter cleans up spilled milk, a neighbor's child is mistakenly included in the headcount, a power failure resets every alarm in the house, and the phone lines stop working. Nobody realizes Kevin is missing until the family is already flying across the Atlantic. Meanwhile Harry disguises himself as a police officer before the family leaves and already seems unusually interested in the McCallister house.

The darker theory is that Peter McCallister's money did not come from an ordinary job, and the expensive house, the trip, and the criminal watching the family may all be connected. Kevin may not have been the intended target at all. Someone could have arranged for the house to be empty because Peter had something hidden inside it. Under this reading, Kevin was not forgotten because of one mistake. It was a perfect chain of events that removed everybody except the one child nobody expected to fight back.

Dom Toretto may use family as a one way loyalty trap

Dom Toretto talks about family so often it has become the defining joke of the entire Fast and Furious franchise, but looking at what he does rather than what he says tells a different story. Almost everyone who enters Dom's family loses something: Brian sacrifices his career, Letty loses her memory and nearly dies, Han is believed dead, and Mia and the children are repeatedly placed in danger. The crew is expected to abandon their own lives whenever Dom needs them again.

Dom does not use family as a promise to protect everyone. He uses it to make leaving him feel like betrayal, so no matter how dangerous his war becomes, the others are expected to return because family does not walk away. Maybe Dom loves these people, I think he may, but you could also argue he has built a group where loyalty only moves in one direction, his. He does not lead a family. He controls one and calls it a family.

R2-D2 may have lied to Luke Skywalker for his entire life

R2-D2 might be the greatest liar in the entire Star Wars saga. He served Padme, fought beside Anakin during the Clone Wars, knew Obi-Wan, and had already traveled with Yoda. Most importantly, when C-3PO's memory was erased at the end of Revenge of the Sith, R2's memory was left untouched, which means R2 probably knew exactly who everyone was from the moment the Jawas delivered him to the Lars homestead. He knew Obi-Wan was not some random hermit and that Yoda was not a strange creature living in a swamp, and when Darth Vader revealed he was Luke's father, R2 had been sitting on that information for years.

He also deliberately left Luke's home to find Obi-Wan, setting the entire original trilogy in motion. He does not simply accompany Luke on the adventure. He is the guide who chose when the adventure began. Lucasfilm's own histories confirm R2 served Padme, Anakin and Luke while avoiding C-3PO's ordered memory wipe. Of all twelve theories, this is the one I keep coming back to: once you realize how much the little droid knew and how much he lied, it changes how the original trilogy plays.

Skynet's failed Terminator plans in Terminator may be intentional

Skynet controls nuclear weapons, entire armies of machines, and eventually time travel, yet its plan for eliminating humanity's greatest threat is to send one Terminator into the past and hope it works, then try another version of nearly the same plan when that fails. What if those failures are intentional? Skynet exists because humanity creates the technology that eventually becomes it, so if Skynet wipes out humanity too early, the people responsible for its own creation disappear too, meaning total victory could erase Skynet from history. The war may be a controlled loop: Skynet attacks humanity, humanity develops the technology to send someone back, that technology eventually creates Skynet, and the cycle begins again. John Connor also has to survive long enough to send Kyle Reese into the past, since Kyle becomes his father. Both sides depend on the other continuing to exist, so Skynet is not repeatedly failing to end the war. The war is the mechanism that guarantees Skynet will always be created.

Ben Gates may have been guarding a family secret for almost 20 years in National Treasure

At the end of Book of Secrets, the president personally asks Ben Gates to investigate page 47 of the president's secret book, later describing what he found as life altering, not historically altering. He never tells Riley, Abigail or his father what was written there. For almost 20 years the assumption has been that page 47 contained another treasure map, but it may have revealed something much bigger about the Gates family itself.

Every generation of the Gates family has become obsessed with a secret everyone else believes is impossible. Ben's grandfather tells him about the Templar treasure, his father spends his life trying to escape the family obsession, and Thomas Gates dies protecting information connected to the Knights of the Golden Circle. Maybe the Gates family was never simply hunting America's secrets. Maybe they were selected generations ago to protect secrets that could never be made public, which would explain why the president trusted Ben with page 47 in the first place: not another clue for a treasure hunter, but a responsibility handed to the newest member of a family that has quietly protected dangerous information since the country was founded. With National Treasure 3 on the way, page 47 could reveal that Ben was never just a treasure hunter. He may have been a treasure's final line of defense, and he has been keeping that from all of us for 20 years.

Those are the 12 theories that make way too much sense to me. Which one changes the movie for you?