r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Remarkable_Public138 • May 17 '26
building/location. [Visual Trope] Character engages with an optical illusion.
1) We see the Nazi general approach a ringing phone. It is featured prominently in the foreground, making it appear like the phone is just close to the camera. However, when the Nazi picks up, it turns out that the phone is just comically large.
2) Arthur is explaining the role of the dream architect to Ariadne as they continuously climb stairs, repeatedly passing by somebody picking up papers. Arthur then reveals that the continuous stairs are actually an optical paradox, meant to confuse a subconscious' defenses.
3) We see the Holocaust survivor Vladek being interviewed as he rides his exercise bike. We then notice on the lower right hand side of the page, a full-body picture of Vladek, made by aligning the individual panels.
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u/Fish_N_Chipp May 17 '26
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u/FireZord25 May 17 '26 edited May 18 '26
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u/WhatsInTheVox May 17 '26
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u/FireZord25 May 17 '26 edited May 17 '26
I mean it says it's unconfirmed, as in no certain cause given. So it could be something else, but also could be someone genuinely falling for the optical illusion.
Then again I've not seen the picture of painted Wile E Coyote in any of the coverage. So it could also be fake, who knows.
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u/SoLongThanks4Fish May 17 '26
That article mentions eyes, as do all other articles I’ve found - seems like the picture with the tunnel are fake
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u/Staik May 17 '26
The left image in the picture is the real one. Its not a convincing optical illusion at all.
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u/facw00 May 17 '26 edited May 17 '26
Second pic there is almost certainly AI (note that it is totally different than the first, and very on the nose)
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u/VintageWatchDog May 17 '26
Wish I had a photo but there is a house just 3 blocks away from mine that is on a curve and the owners painted a road runner like tunnel on it after 2 cars crashed into the same spot on the wall... but then a third car crashed directly center of the painted tunnel so hard it went right thru haha. They just painted it white after 😛
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u/FireZord25 May 17 '26
FR? Do snap a pic if you ever get a chance. The other replies are all but convinced its fake, and I can't blame them seeing how contrived it feels.
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u/VintageWatchDog May 17 '26
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u/FireZord25 May 17 '26
I see. That said, I do think there's a chance few people might even fall far it. Optical illusions are a bitch for the less perceptive, seeing the clips of people falling for glass doors/walls. But more so for folks with some sort of visual troubles.
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u/Hopbo735 May 17 '26
That's such a shitty fucking thing to do.
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u/SoLongThanks4Fish May 17 '26
Don’t worry, it appears to be fake
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u/Hopbo735 May 17 '26 edited May 17 '26
Well, as long as no one got hurt... Still, that joke may be funny but it can straight up just fucking kill people. "Road hazard so funny, omg did that 1.5 tons of plastic and steel going faster than the fastest land animal pulverize its driver into paste after hitting several meters of bricks and concrete".
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u/SoLongThanks4Fish May 17 '26
No it appears the entire mural is fake. The only picture it appears on is the one shared above, which is shared 100% by sketchy ““viral““ instagram bot accounts. There was a crash at Clyde tunnel, but as the comment above you mentions, the mural there is one of eyes.
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u/FireZord25 May 17 '26
Sadly someone did. Good to remember these pranks can actually get someone killed. That said, that may not be what caused the crash.
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u/Horatio786 May 17 '26
And in Death Battle, with Tom stopping halfway through the "tunnel" to laugh as Wile E. crashes into it.
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u/St_Animu May 17 '26
In The Villain (1979), Cactus Jack, Kirk Douglas, paints a tunnel on a wall that the Handsome Stranger, Arnold Schwarzenegger, then drives a carriage through
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u/Mitch_Wallberg May 17 '26
Police Squad and Naked Gun of full of this, and Airplane! and Hot Shots. I remember one in Police Squad where they’re walking through the forensics lab and one of the guys walks through the doorframe and the other one just walks around it because it’s a set and there’s no real walls, but it feels like an illusion since you expect there to be walls attached to a doorframe since most viewers have been in a room before
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u/Negative-Candy-2155 May 17 '26
The opening theme of Police Squad is literally a visual gag of putting a car top with siren in various locations.
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u/MagicJoshByGosh May 17 '26
Something similar with the car ride scene in Airplane! where they suddenly end up getting chased by guys on horses and the car hits a cyclist. God I love that movie so damn much.
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u/koolmon10 May 17 '26
Or the end credits where the actors just freeze like a freeze frame, but it's still rolling footage. In one of them they have a perp in custody and he takes the opportunity to escape while all the cops stand around frozen.
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u/Low-Support-8388 May 18 '26
My personal favorite version of that one is where one is getting his mug filled with coffee even though they are still in freeze frame.
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u/Dangeresque300 May 17 '26
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u/NirvanaFrk97 May 17 '26
Meanwhile, the dude sent to notify him is being mauled by their Golden Retriever
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May 17 '26
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u/GDGameplayer May 17 '26 edited May 18 '26
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u/Court_Jester13 May 17 '26
Hi, there! Just a quick update to let you know that we still don't know where you are!
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u/Doug_Dimmadab May 17 '26
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u/East-Ice-3199 May 18 '26
Isn’t that the one with the absolutely insufferable dialogue?
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u/Doug_Dimmadab May 18 '26
Yeah it has a whole storyline to it and a character that tries to talk to you in almost every level. I didn't mind it at all personally, but it takes the forced perspective mechanics further than Superliminal, so it's still super worth it to play and just mute the dialogue
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u/ChaseTheMystic May 17 '26
This game is the epitome of a game I wish I could forget so I could play it all over again.
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u/blue4029 May 17 '26
to this day...I still have no idea how they programmed this
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u/nomenMei May 17 '26
In terms of architecture I assume that certain values of the rendering pipeline are exposed to the physics engine.
For example I imagine the results of viewport transforms would be useful for the first illusion you see, where a small chess-piece in the foreground becomes a big chess-piece in the background. But how exactly it works might be different for each gimmick in the game.
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u/DividerOfBums May 18 '26
I don’t know anything about coding (so I didn’t understand your comment) but there was a part in the game where you have to pick up a house to go through a keyhole, and you emerge very tiny on the other side onto a table, and if you’re not careful like
I wasn’t, I accidentally dropped an object in the far field of view, off the table and the game almost crashed. Basically I made myself very tiny, and I made an object very big.Such an amazing game, played through it several times.
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u/themagicone222 May 17 '26
There was a futurama where fry and bender are looking for a place to live, and one unit is still look like MC Escher’s stairs painting. Bender trips and begins to fall down the stairs, and fall, and fall
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u/newfranksinatra May 17 '26
Going up the stairs, bound down the stairs, going up the sideways stairs.
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u/Ok_Fig7692 May 17 '26
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u/Asheyguru May 18 '26
Also probably not counting but from the same movie, the looped footage of Lancelot not actually getting any closer to the guards until he suddenly just stabs one of them.
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u/SonicLoverDS May 17 '26
Example 3 is going to need a little more explanation.
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u/BarrathBeyond May 17 '26
i’ve been staring at it forever and have no idea what op means
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u/EspacioBlanq May 17 '26
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u/BarrathBeyond May 17 '26
ah, thanks. i mean that’s not really an optical illusion tho. also it’s not really full body, like there’s still bits of him missing vertically even when you align it
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u/EasterViera May 17 '26
also the round shape remind of the bike wheel, while starting the flashback
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u/WermerCreations May 18 '26
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u/PatternMachine May 18 '26
OP is wrong about this being an optical illusion but it is definitely an intentional composition. The panels don’t need to line up perfectly, it’s more like cubism. The different angles and perspectives make it more lively.
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u/WermerCreations May 18 '26
It’s not intentional in the sense that it’s trying to line anything up though. One could interpret it as a motion to the “camera” downward and toward the wheel but extra effort was taken to not line the panels up
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u/CanOfBissy May 17 '26
Certain panels focus on certain parts of the body: The left leg, The stomach, The head. If you don't look at the comic panel-by-panel and instead look at it as a whole picture, panels 4,5 and 7 (from left to right and top to bottom) make up Vladek's entire body. Like making up a human body by printing 2 pictures of legs, 1 picture of a stomach, 2 pictures of arms, and 1 picture of a head. They're different panels, but they come together to make up 1 body
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u/Tedrabear May 17 '26
That's a stretch,
It looks like the leg and the torso are the same picture split by panels, this is common in a lot of comics; the head is no way aligned with the torso as his neck would be coming out of his stomach. If it was a deliberate illusion by the artist I think it would be much better executed.
Also it doesn't match the the OP's request, the characters aren't interacting with the illusion, it's just the page layout.
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u/Segmentum-Cascadia May 17 '26
Moreover the leg in picture seems to be his right leg, but it is aligned with his left thigh.
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u/Quiet_Nova May 17 '26
Now I see it. That being said, I’m sure what narrative purpose it serves beyond displaying the artists skill.
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u/WermerCreations May 17 '26
That makes zero sense the head does not line up with body at all and I’m pretty sure that’s the left leg lining up with the right thigh. It’s not intentionally supposed to be a full body or an illusion at all.
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u/Final-Bumblebee-3472 May 17 '26
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u/Yazz_1001 May 18 '26
A more clean example would be the room with the mirrored wall in 8-2.
Early in the level, you enter a room that has a wall-sized mirror, which reflects the entirety of the room, including you and a book which you can read. Near the end of the same level, you find yourself on the "other side" of that mirror, revealing it to be a window into a mirrored room - complete with an abandoned marionette in your likeness, and a mirrored copy of the book on the other side.
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u/fossilmerrick May 17 '26
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u/Schnutzel May 17 '26
Rick and Morty had a similar gag when they're looking for a planet to live on.
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u/pumpkinsinmypockets May 17 '26
What’s that first example from?
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u/WhiteHydra1914 May 17 '26
Top Secret
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u/goochmusic May 17 '26
I’m pretty sure it’s from Top Secret from the early 80s starring Val Kilmer. It’s the same movie that has the Peter Cushing gag with the magnifying glass and large eye. I must’ve watched it 50 times when I was a kid.
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u/Rusty_M May 17 '26
It also has a similar gag where the characters are on a train. The train appears to pull away only to reveal that the platform is in fact moving
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u/Mountain_Counter929 May 17 '26
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u/LadyKarizake May 17 '26
It's one of the few inventions that the mom sees because the entire set was only table sized.
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u/Speletons May 18 '26
That episode was actually exceptionally good. The newer P & F was good, but weaker than the original- but that episode was one of the series' strongest.
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u/yeoldecoot May 17 '26
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u/Fishfoe25 May 17 '26
bootstrap object
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u/mysteryo9867 May 18 '26
Actually he starts with the front most hat, he takes the front most hat from the one below him and puts it behind the front. When the hat is taken from him it is the front most hat he started with, so it is just one hat, not two
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u/fictionfan0 May 17 '26

Larry the Cucumber - VeggieTales
In the story "Lord of the Beans," the party solves the riddle of the Blue Gate but find the way through to be too small. Larry (playing the role of "Earacorn") points out that it's really an "optimal illusion" and that it's really just further away and attempts to demonstrate.
He then runs face-first into the very much too-small door.
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u/BlueCremling May 17 '26
I still quote this "it's an optimal illusion! It only looks small because it's so far away!" And then people think I'm an idiot because I called it an optimal illusion, and no one knows that it's a quote from a vegetales movie.
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u/londonbrewer77 May 17 '26 edited May 17 '26
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u/corvidcthulhu May 17 '26
The Labyrinth plays with this trope a LOT
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u/Salarian_American May 18 '26
Yeah especially in the climactic scene taking place in an MC Escher painting
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u/Disastrous-Mess-7236 May 17 '26
In Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb, Larry goes into Relativity.
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u/Doodles_n_Scribbles May 17 '26
Sort of an unironic version of the first one, in the second Hobbit movie, they made a prop axe for the dwarves and Bilbo to seem small next to and a normal axe for Bjorn's actor to use. He ended up using the bigger axe by mistake.
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u/ChristianLW3 May 17 '26
Looney tunes - the coyote paints a fake tunnel entrance on a cliff, the road runner goes through it
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u/bgbarnard May 18 '26
Then Wile-E Coyote crashes into a solid cliff face when he tries the same trick.
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u/aotex May 17 '26
I know this isn't what you meant, but the first thing I thought of was this old College humor video from like 2005
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u/Kratzschutz May 17 '26
OP l don't get the Mouse one
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u/WermerCreations May 17 '26
Because it’s not an illusion or an intentional thing. OP is seeing something that isn’t there.
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u/Kyledemort9 May 17 '26
A thought so 2 but a saw OP explain and basically edge is edge init e only chop’d it down cos e couln’ see the view ‘nymore what’s e e’en moan bout
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u/Kratzschutz May 17 '26
Is that a dialect or an accent? I don't understand everything
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u/cairoxl5 May 17 '26
Doctor strange when he plucks the infinity stone from one of the stars in the sky.
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u/Taluca_me May 17 '26
I thought this was Strange non-verbally telling his friend that this is the "one victory" he saw in Infinity War
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u/JakeSilver47 May 18 '26
Isn't it also the same Arc the teacher in the upper left shows he can make shadows into voids, followed by controlling light to move and disperse shadows, which I'd argue is a optical trick with shadows.
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u/machadoaboutanything May 17 '26
In one episode of The Simpsons Lisa picks up a Devil's Fork at a garage sale
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u/ZachariasDemodica May 17 '26
Inception may be my favorite movie, and I do love it dearly, but so, so much about it doesn't hold up to logical scrutiny...like why an illusion that only applies from a specific angle of view would be in effect when neither the "subject" nor the "dreamer" is viewing it from that angle.
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u/BurgerTzar May 17 '26
Dreams don't have logical rules. Maybe just imagining the shape is enough to confuse someone with the illusion.
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u/UnsealedMTG May 17 '26
The genius of Inception is it's is like those Calvin and Hobbes comics where they are riding the wagon down the hill to create visual excitement to disguise the fact that it's four panels of discussion, except it's an hour of technobable to set up a thirty minute action climax.
Nothing about it is particularly dream-like, it doesn't really have anything particularly interesting to say, the rules are made up as the story goes on, but the pacing and action and visual wizardry is so good you don't notice or care.
(The music is a huge part of this, I really want to take the Inception soundtrack and put it under some particularly eye-rolling Star Trek technobable seen and see if it suddenly makes it sound smart).
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u/Telvin3d May 17 '26
It’s a two and a half hour character study dressed up in undergrad philosophy and some of the most sublime action sequences ever filmed.
I love it immensely
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u/Disaster_Wolf44 May 17 '26
https://youtube.com/shorts/TQwgT7DAYPU?si=jQhU-H1jOjSEoQZZ … Very similar to the phone one.
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u/loveinacoldclimate May 17 '26
In the MCU, Dr Strange giving up the time stone to Thanos arguably fits with this. And is a beautiful shot
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May 17 '26
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u/Kyledemort9 May 17 '26
Tbf they did, it’s just you have to click on the images themselves to see (not sure if it only works on Reddit Mobile). Anyway -
1) Inception 2) Top Secret 3) Maus
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u/LaidBackLeopard May 17 '26
Does the Duck Soup Mirror Scene count? The Marx Brothers were being simultaneously very clever and very stupid before the Zuckers were born.
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u/Viscount_Barse May 17 '26
Dave Made a Maze has a great perspective room scene that does several tricks. Plus its just inventive as hell, check it out.
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u/ItsTheRealIamHUB May 18 '26
I don’t understand the third one in the slightest, can someone help?
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u/Advice_Thingy May 18 '26
Someone else put a drawing on What OP probably means in the comments, which explains it pretty good (and also explains why no one can see it).
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u/ItsTheRealIamHUB May 18 '26
Ohhhh thank you, I saw that alignment (seemed coincidental) and was so confused because it did _not_ fit in with the post at all
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u/NonsequiturSushi May 17 '26
Cool catch on Maus. I am currently reading, and I remember the page but I never caught that one.
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u/WermerCreations May 17 '26
It’s not a good catch at all. The head doesn’t line up with the body and that foot on the bottom is the right foot while the leg above is the left thigh it lines up with. Not really an intentional thing
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u/EHTL May 17 '26
I’m kinda dumb. I need someone to walk me through the Maus example
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u/WermerCreations May 17 '26
You’re not. Because it’s not an illusion or an intentional thing. OP is seeing something that isn’t there.
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u/SpyX2 May 18 '26
Episode 8: Last Jedi's laundry room scene comes to mind.
It looks and feels like a hi-tech spaceship is about to land. Then it zooms out and shows a clothes iron releasing steam.
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u/Khorgor666 May 18 '26 edited May 18 '26
The Nazis in Top Secret are east German Soldiers, sure they wear Nazi uniforms, use Nazi weapons, use Nazi Trucks and Jeeps, but they absolutely are not Nazis, but it works so good in that movie
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u/No_Acanthaceae_3040 May 17 '26
the classic phone gag never gets old, always a fun twist on perspective
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u/BeduinZPouste May 17 '26
I might be stupid but I don't understand the Maus one.
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u/Ace-milk_drinker May 17 '26
The intro of Tiny Guns 3 by Corridor Digital
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCcAYYlybe4
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u/unittwentyfive May 17 '26
"Only in the leap from the lion's head, will he prove his worth."
Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade, Indy has to take the leap of faith as the third test. He steps out into the empty space over a deep chasm, to find he's supported on a bridge made as an invisible optical illusion.
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