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Trivia: During the beginning of the film, when we are re-introduced to Billy and Kate, if you look very closely, there's a theater in the background of one shot. And on the theater marquee is the fictitious sequel "The Howling XI." This is a nod to the film "The Howling," which was directed by "Gremlins 2" director Joe Dante. (It can be hard to see on VHS and DVD copies as it's far in the background and slightly out of focus, but it can be made out on the Blu-Ray version of the film).

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Trivia: The film originally began production with Dan Castellaneta in the role of the Genie. Castellaneta had previously replaced Robin Williams in the role for the second film. Williams had a falling out with the producers of the original film over the use of his voice and name in production and merchandising, and refused to appear in the first sequel. Williams patched things up with Disney during production of this film, and he was quickly rehired. The script was slightly re-written to accommodate Williams' style of humor, and some completed footage of Castellaneta's Genie was thrown out.

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Trivia: The only "Aladdin" film out of the original trilogy to not feature Robin Williams as the voice of the Genie. Williams had a falling out with the producers of the first film, and refused to return to voice the character. He did, however, act as an adviser for the role during pre-production and helped the producers find his replacement, Dan Castellaneta. Eventually, Williams and the producers settled their differences, and he returned to voice the Genie in the third film.

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Trivia: "The Return of Jafar" is notable for being Disney's first direct-to-video animated sequel, and it served as the start a long line of such films in the '90s and 2000s. Though oddly, it wasn't originally meant to be a feature film. The movie instead began as an hour-long pilot for the "Aladdin" television series and was meant to air as a TV-special. But "Aladdin" series producer and co-director Tad Stones liked the story and characters so much, he pushed to expand the story and release it on VHS as a proper "sequel" to the first movie. It took some convincing, but eventually Disney executives fell in love with the idea and agreed.

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Trivia: Part of the inspiration for the film came from a friend of writer/director Jennifer Kent. Her friend, a single mother, had a young son who like many children was terrified of non-existent "monsters" he thought were lurking in his home. Kent then had the idea to turn this into a film. What if a child was terrified of monsters lurking in their closet, under their beds, etc... except they were real?

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Trivia: Reportedly, the main character Frank Martin was originally written to be subtly implied to be gay, but this idea was dropped early on. Despite the script changes, Louis Letterier, who co-directed this film and directed "Transporter 2," has said that he still considers the character to be gay (even though the films show him having sex with women), as he finds it makes the character more interesting. (Letterier even likes to claim that Martin is one of the first gay action heroes).

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Trivia: Writer Jeffrey Boam is strangely credited three times in the writing credits. The credits read: "Story by Jeffrey Boam," and "Screenplay by Jeffrey Boam and Jeffrey Boam and Robert Mark Kamen." This is because of some strange rules among the studio and writers guild about how writers are credited. Boam was initially hired just to write the story and the first draft of the screenplay... but then he was re-hired by the studio later on to re-write his script with Kamen. Because he was technically hired twice (first as a solo writer than as a co-writer), the studio was required to give him multiple screenplay credits.

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Trivia: The series is set in between the events of the original "Star Wars" trilogy and the sequel trilogy. More specifically, it is set about five years after the conclusion of "Return of the Jedi," and around twenty-five years before the events of "The Force Awakens."

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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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