Speed Racer (film)/WMG

Most events of the movie are the fantasy of an autistic kid

A kid who calls himself Speed Racer, but whose real name we do not know. The key for this interpretation is a line pronounced by his teacher: "All he seems capable of thinking about is automobile racing." And she means this literally: automobile racing is everything this kid is physically able to think about, just like other savants are only able to think about prime numbers, dates in the calendar or train time tables. He actually has a brother named Rex, a racing pilot who he admires, and on whose idealized image he based his view of himself at a later age. His fantasies literally distort his perception of the world: the fluorescent colors, the extreme brightness of everything, is how the real world appears to him (and to him only). He believes his father's and mother's names to be Pops and Mom, because he and his brother always called them like that. He invented the name Speed Racer for himself because he thinks it would be a much cooler name than his real one. His view of automobile racing (supersonic cars, car-fu, acrobatic tracks with loops and jumps, technological gadgets, explosions) is an idealized view of the little he can comprehend about real automobile racing, mixed with his fantasy.

• Whose real name we do not know? It'd have to be Tommy Westphall.
• As an autistic kid, he also has no interest in (or possibly even knowledge of) alcohol, hence why he imagines pilots celebrate victories with milk.
  • There are plenty of normal kids who have no interest or knowledge of alcohol, just saying.
    • Interest, sure, but knowledge?
• Except that the milk is Truth in Television, even for grown-up drivers. You just don't want to be drunk when you do your victory lap...
  • There was a guy who won the Indy 500 who was lactose intolerant. Because he couldn't drink milk without actually getting sick, he drank orange juice instead. The fans' response? He changed it now he sucks!

Speed Racer and The Matrix are set in the same continuity

The first version of the Matrix, according to the description that Agent Smith gave to Morpheus, was not a reconstruction of an actual historical period, but the implementation of the humans' conception of an ideal world. This is where Speed Racer takes place. The bright, saturated colors that permeate everything, as well as the mix of technology between the 1960s and a future utopia, are meant to give an idea of optimism and cheerfulness to the humans who are perceiving that virtual environment. Dying is far less common than it is in "our" reality (the only accident when someone "died" was a forgery -- nobody died), and so people can do crazier and wilder things than we can do, such as the acrobatic racing we see throughout the movie. People cheer even when cars are totaled. Money is not a problem, either; even for an average family like the Racers, reconstructing a racing car from a wreck is no big deal. And the ultimate evidence for Speed Racer taking place in the original Matrix? Speed leaps out of his car in Bullet Time!

• This simply has to be canon. There's no other explanation.

The movie takes place in the Sonic the Hedgehog universe

The insanity of the racetrack designs recalls the Bizarrchitecture of the so-called highways that Sonic often speeds along. The bright-coloured futuristic world also seems to match. Clearly, the popularity of high-speed dangerous racing is because of racers trying to emulate the blue blur when Eggman isn't making life hard.

The movie takes place in the same universe as Dick Tracy

The world has the same bright, limited color palate. If Tracy's wristwatch is any clue, miniaturization happened far sooner which could have been part of the technological push that made the super-advanced T-180 stock cars possible within living memory of the 1943 Grand Prix.

In the movie universe, World War Two never occurred

If there was a major war going on, chances are good that a global event like the 1943 Grand Prix would have been cancelled. We are also given clues that Japan and Germany are two leading powers if not THE leading powers in the world (Two powerful Japanese corporations are featured, and Royalton is at least half German), which could mean they conquered the world not through the force of arms but through economics. The most likely scenario would be that the world is split into three economic spheres: Japanese, German, and American (all prices are given in dollars). All three are automotive giants, so it makes sense that auto racing would be a huge deal for all major global corporations.

The critics did like this movie

But, since no critic is ever paid to like anything, ever, they overcompensated and trashed the film too hard.

• That makes no sense.
  • Rephrase: critics are paid to bash movies, even when they personally like them. So they do.

Al Gore paid all the critics off because of how poorly the character that resembled Al Gore was portrayed in the movie.

It's just like when Royalton paid off all those people in the movie...

There will be a sequel

• Now THAT'S crazy.
  • This was justified in that there was a headline somewhere that appeared shortly after the film was released, which said the Wachowskis wanted to start a sequel. Of course, it's now been over two years... and not one more word followed since.

This will be Vindicated by History

Come on, Citizen Kane didn't get an Academy Award for Best Picture. It didn't even make a profit in the theaters. Yet everyone says it's one of the best films ever made, and it is enjoyable.

• • Just wait until Speed Racer hits TV; ratings will be through the roof.

All the above was written by Speed Racer Fanboys

well come on, we were all thinking it...

• • Of course it was, but sometimes Fanboys turn out to be right.
    • Let's be honest, it's movie fanboys. It might be fans of the original version who turn out to be right.

E.P. Arnold Royalton is from a working class background.

He has a almost realistic working class London accent, (compared to the normal Evil Brit speech patterns.) He could have clawed his way to the top and was detirmined to stay there, after living in dire conditions when he was younger, (judging by his age, he must have grown up in the 1960's, not a good time to be poor in Britain. *Cough Park Hill Flats Cough*.)

• Alternately, it could be a fake accent, something he affected to make himself seem more salt-of-the-earth and give him a more marketable public image. "Royalton? A Corrupt Corporate Executive? Pshaw. He's One of Us!"
  • Actually, that sort of background is more believable of a Corrupt Corporate Executive; it's a bit hard to believe that they're in it For The Evuls...if nothing else because evil is not really profitable. Ruthless practicality, yes, but not evil. You spend too much on PR and have to keep spending it.

The film IS a anime.

It's not a deconstruction, parody, or homage it's a straight up anime, just using flesh and blood actors instead of ink. It treated and scripted like a anime it's just a medium, sort of like how Anime is a moving picture of Manga but still has all the trappings of manga just in the new medium Speed Racer is a Live Action Anime, if it was done in cgi or pen and ink it would be indistinguishable from say Astro Boy.

The amazing feats Speed can do comes form his imagination

He is not really driving, he's carsitting for his neighbor and he invites over his friends, Rex, Spritle, Pops, etc. and one of his friends has a monkey. His names comes from, well... you guessed it, his drug of choice. This troper knows he does not drive because of the non moving image that is often displayed.