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Pixels (2010) - Easter Eggs
Rory Joscelyne • 31 January 2024
VGMP: 3D Pixels are actually called Voxels
Before Adam Sandler got his pizza-cheese encrusted fingers on the property, PIXELS existed as an experimental French independent film.
While set in Manhattan, this movie stars some very European-centric videogame references.
For those who wish to watch the short, you can do so for free here;
BASIC (Coding Language)
The short begins with a coding reference. BASIC was a coding language common in the early to mid 80s, and was even available on SEGA's first home computer - the Sega SC3000. While this names the language as BASIC, the blue background with yellow font reminds me more of MS DOS.
ATARI BOMB
An interesting reference, the Atari Bomb is a reference to the Atari ST. The number of bombs on screen indicated the severity of an error on the computer.
One Atari Bomb would indicate a need to reset.
We see this bomb twice. Just before the story begins, appearing on the dumped CRT TV. And a 3D Voxel/Pixel model that leads to the film's conclusion.
SPACE INVADERS
The classic Arcade shoot-em-up, Space Invaders, is one of the first video games directly referenced in the film. We see these guys several times, including in an added scene of them shooting the Hollywood Sign.
COMMODORE
This is the first reference that reveals the European origins of this movie. While Commodore did have an American presence, they were much more popular in Europe - with the Commodore Amiga series of home computers leading the breakbeat, techno and rave music scenes of the late 80s.
The logo above the subway is the official logo of the company itself.
PAC-MAN
Pac-Man gets some strong representation in this film. He has a Subway Traffic video, which has been modified to show Pacman eating the "pellets" that make up each subway stop. He also appears physically in the subway with a small sticker on the wall (to camera right) with his logo referencing Rodenticide.
Finally, one of the Subway stairwells has a poster of Pacman's Cherry collectable.
OCEAN
Another European-centric gaming reference, again on a Subway billboard. Ocean Software were a British (Manchester based) company that were known for licenced-titles such as Rambo III. At the time, they were one of the biggest developers and publishers of the late 80s/early 90s.
They were folded into part of Infogrames in 1998, which itself has been folded into Bandai Namco.
PSYGNOSIS
Another British developer, famous for it's unique artwork, Shadow of the Beast and Lemmings (to name a few). Psygnosis were known as one of the most artistic companies making games for the Commodore Amiga, and were eventually bought out and absorbed into Sony in 1993.
They continued on as Sony Studio Liverpool, making the Wipeout and Formula One franchises, until they were merged into the rest of Sony in 2012.
TETRIS
The Soviet classic makes a well deserved appearance, matching up lines and deleting floors of apartment building across the Manhattan skyline. This was copied verbatim in the 2015 Adam Sandler remake.
ARKANOID and ATARI
Arkanoid put in an appearance, delting bricks from the Brooklyn Bridge until it begins to collapse under it's own weight. A version of this scene was remade in the 2015 movie, with Arkanoid deleting the Taj Mahal instead of the New York bridge.
In the background you can also see the Atari logo emblazoned atop another skyscraper building.
DONKEY KONG
Towards the end of the movie, we see Donkey Kong throwing barrels onto the street from the Empire State Building. This is one of the few shots where you can see the building is CGI, due to the low resolution textures.
FROGGER
Akin to the road section of the original game, we catch a glimpse of Frogger jumping across the road in front of pixelated cars. Sadly we don't get to see more than this.
ASTEROIDS
The final reveal is that the now perfectly cubed Earth is just a pixel in the background of a game of Asteroids - a game that didn't use pixels to generate it's graphics and instead uses Vector lines to draw the game (This is the reason it has no colours).
And that's everything visible in the 2 minute short film. They really managed to pack a lot in to such a short timeframe.
What do you think of these? Did you spot these when you watched the movie? Where do you think this movie could have gone, if fleshed out as a feature, other than the Sandler version? Join our Discord on the link below and let us know!
Blue Streak, speeds by... Sonic the Hedgehog (2020) is Hollywood's first big blockbuster attempt to bring Sonic to the big screen. A much more popular effort than the 1996 anime movie, this one sees Sonic come into the "real world", but that doesn't mean that it isn't jam-packed full of Easter Eggs. And some of them are references to other Sega franchises.
First things first - DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE. Kung-Fu Master may have the licence for the game, and it may include a few scenes at Arcades, but the story is nothing to do with gaming - and the story it represents is a literal crime. A vile, vile crime. With that out of the way, there are some interesting arcade machines visible throughout this film - all of which are here. So you have been saved from having to watch this vile garbage - and saving you the criminal act of watching it.
We look into all the Easter Eggs in the Paramount+ series of Knuckles (2024)
Also known as Sonic the Movie, the Japanese OVA was actually a run at a possible series that never materialised, instead leaving us with two episodes hastily stitched into a "feature". And boy, did they push taste and decency for some of this. Other than Robotnik chasing underage skirt, it's largely inoffensive. But unfortunately that story angle wound up kick-starting a long running VGMP joke of Sonic adaptations having to reference breast milk (which the 2020 Sonic movie also references).
I love The Wizard. It's so bad. The first major disagreement between Rory and Jamie in VGMP, Rory fully recommended The Wizard as a movie, whereas Jamie fully rejected it. It's not hard to see why this movie caused such a rift of opinion - it genuinely tries to be a deeper and emotional story, but it's still a Nintendo marketing product (and an out of date one, at that). One thing The Wizard does have, is a lot of videogame references.
The House of the Dead movie brings together two major events in film. It's the first foray by Uwe Boll into video game adaptations - the start of a terrible career. And it was the last ever movie to use the turn-table technique for 360 degree shots, as it was too dangerous to keep using - much like allowing Uwe Boll to have a film career. This film doesn't have many proper references, instead lazily throwing in random micro-shorts from the first three House of the Dead games (in no particular order, for some reason).
The first appearance of Jon Gries in a video game culture movie, and he would return in Noobz (2012) to steal yet another movie. Joysticks is an awful comedy movie, attempting to cash in on cheap teen humour of the time with a big dose of objectifying women. But to it's credit, it does showcase a lot of great arcade cabinets from 1983, and all in fantastic condition too! These screengrabs are ripped from the limited-run Blu-Ray release of the movie, which represents the best this film has ever looked. However this was a relatively low budget feature of it's time, so don't expect prestine visuals.
Tron is an undisputed 1982 classic that had a major impact on 80's culture and gaming aesthetics as a whole. And yet, when we reviewed it, it turns out the movie itself is a big bag of style over substance. The main videogame the movie revolves around is Space Paranoids, and it is not a real game. Several videogames were later made of Tron, but none of those appear in this movie.
The Controller / Video Game Earth Force, is a terrible film from 2006 with graphics that make the PS1 look like Advent Children. Starring Bob Rue as William Fence, this film has become infamous within VGMP as it is the film that nearly caused Jamie to leave the show.
Gamebox 1.0 is an odd 2004 movie starring the guy who played Harvey in Sabrina the Teenage Witch. You could technically call it a dramatic horror, if any of it was dramatic or a horror. As you can see from the shot above, the details were so vital to this film that there's a guy at "work" just staring at a blank screen. Regardless of the low budget nature of the film, there are still a surprising number of references hidden in this movie.
