How we work
Fact-Checking Policy
A publication about hidden details is only as good as its refusals. This page describes what has to happen before a claim appears on this site, and what we do when it cannot be established.
The procedure
Each guide passes through four stages before publication.
1. Source assembly. Before drafting begins, the writer collects the available first-hand material for the film: commentary tracks, interviews, technical articles, archive finding aids, published drafts, and design documentation. If a film has no usable primary documentation, we do not publish a guide about its hidden details.
2. Drafting with attributions attached. Every factual claim in a draft carries its source at the point it is made. Claims without a source are removed at this stage, not softened.
3. Independent review. A reviewer who did not write the draft checks each claim against the cited source, verifies that the source actually says what the draft reports, and independently assigns the confirmed or interpretation label.
4. Version and timestamp check. The reviewer confirms which version of the film the guide describes and that each stated time falls in the right place in that version.
The standard for each label
Confirmed requires at least one source from the top five levels of our hierarchy: production records, first-hand accounts, published drafts, contemporary trade or technical press, or scholarly and museum documentation. Direct observation of the film alone is never sufficient to establish intent.
Interpretation is applied when a detail is visible but its purpose is undocumented, when the only available accounts are second-hand, or when a widely repeated claim cannot be traced to anyone who was in a position to know.
Observation is enough to confirm presence. If a prop is visible, we can say it is visible. That is a different claim from saying why it is there, and our guides keep the two apart inside the same entry when necessary.
What we will not publish
Claims traceable only to aggregated trivia listings, unsourced encyclopedia entries, or social media threads.
Claims that fail a date check, meaning a film could not have referenced something that did not yet exist. This test alone eliminates a large share of popular Easter egg claims.
Numerological and pattern-matching readings presented as discoveries, and any claim that no possible observation could disprove.
Attributions of a specific source for an image when the resemblance is real but the filmmakers have named nothing. In those cases we describe the comparison and identify it as one.
How we write about uncertainty
When the record is incomplete, we say what is known, what is not, and what would settle it. A guide that admits an open question is more useful than one that closes it artificially.
Where two credible accounts disagree, both appear. Where an account given years later contradicts a contemporaneous record, we note the discrepancy and explain which we are relying on and why.
We also state when a detail is version-dependent, because a great many disagreements about hidden details are actually disagreements about which edit each person watched.
Reader reports
If you believe a claim on this site is wrong, write to [email protected] with the guide title and, where possible, the source that contradicts us. Reports that include a source are acted on first, because they can be verified.
What happens after that, and what we publish about it, is set out in the corrections policy.