Reddit Discussion of ‘Clifford’ Movie Goes Hilariously off the Rails
On the popular /r/movies Reddit community, it isn’t unusual to have discussion threads for new movies hitting the big screen. The subreddit even hosts official discussion threads for popular kids’ movies as they come out, such as Abominable and Arctic Dogs. However, given Reddit’s demographic, it seems a bit strange they would bother with discussion thread for these shows. After all the target audience is under 13-years old, and you have to be 13 or older to comply with COPPA requirements in order to even sign up and use Reddit in the first place.
Of course, one could argue that parents see these movies, and perhaps they want to share their thoughts with other parents. Regardless, you probably don’t expect to have the same level of cinematic discourse over Spy Cat as you might expect with more “grown-up” movies.
Some unexpected hilarity ensued on Thursday evening as /r/movies moderators posted their official discussion thread for the new movie Clifford the Big Red Dog.
As of this writing, the top voted comment in the discussion thread reads: “It was so sad when they had to put Clifford down at the end. Still, very good use of the bazooka.” Now while I have not seen the film in question, I do have deep suspicions that such a plot point did not happen in this family-friendly film.
This was not the comment that started it all off, though. The first comment on the thread appears to be “I loved the part where Clifford beat the shit out of Godzilla and Kong”, a reference to the recent Godzilla vs King movie, and a witty play on Clifford’s abnormally large size.
Because few Redditors have likely seen the actual film, the discussion thread was likely not something most visitors would be able to genuinely participate in. But having this lone comment appear in the discussion thread easily set the stage for a fun Reddit pile-on.
Here are some particular favorites (caution, spoilers for the MCU’s Eternals below):
I can’t believe Clifford ate the goat and still had room for the lawyer afterward. He really is big!
/u/NewClayburn, Reddit
I really did not expect Clifford to fly into the Sun at the end.
/u/MoronicFrog, Reddit
Plot Twist: Clifford was dead all along!
/u/arrowfan624, Reddit
The sarcastic comments left some users scratching their heads. Tarquin11 commented, “What the actual fuck is going on in this thread?”
To answer his question, what was going on was users were jokingly leaving comments implying certain scenes were in the movie which were not, for comedic effect. Typically these comments were based on other movies, swapping the big red protagonist into other known films, such as with the Godzilla/Kong comment.
Clifford being dead along was a reference to the Bruce Willis film The Sixth Sense, and the comment about eating the goat and the lawyer cast Clifford in place of the T-Rex from Jurassic Park. One of the best comments from the thread will only make much sense for those who saw the recent MCU movie Eternals, which is now the lowest rated film in the MCU. Spoilers: one particularly silly moment comes at the end when the character of Ikaris, in some misguided and shoehorned attempt to live up to the famous legend literally flies directly into the Sun, supposedly killing himself in the process.
That comment was not the only reference to Eternals, though. One comment mentioned Blade and another mentioned Nick Fury. The latter was later followed up on by another commenter who asked, “Don’t you mean Nick Furry?”
Since this thread is still new, additional joke comments are likely to flood in. It is unclear whether moderators will step in to take action and remove these joke comments or not. Previous discussion threads about kids’ movies have not seemed to draw the same kind of attention.
While the comments might not be particularly useful for parents looking for real information about the film, an /r/movies discussion thread is probably not the best place for them to go for that information anyway. There are probably other communities online that take the canine’s tale more seriously.
Update 11/12/21 1:30 PM EST: It looks like the moderators of /r/movies have removed some of the joke comments. What now remains are mostly comments saying the film is bad, as well as some joke comments not implying scenes that don’t exist in the movie.
