History WMG / TheRoom2003

[[folder: Tommy Wiseau]]
[[WMG: Tommy Wiseau is an alien.]]
A number of people have mentioned it. But it fits perfectly: the weird accent, the lack of an origin or even a definitive nationality, the secrecy, and of course, the complete lack of understanding of how humans work.
* Tommy's explanation for Claudette's cancer never being brought up again is that his research indicates that the seriously ill [[TheDiseaseThatShallNotBeNamed don't like to talk about their condition]]. Fair enough -- but why would he need ''research'' to tell him this? This suggests that he's never had much in the way of normal human interaction, and the only "information" he has about human behavior was gleaned from dry studies thereof.
* When he said, "I'm fed up with this warruld!", he [[NotHyperbole meant it literally]].
* He's not actually laughing at inappropriate times -- it's his species' version of verbal filler, akin to a human saying "um" or "uh..." He's not laughing, he's just thinking over what he's going to say next. It's like Tommy doing a DoubleTake. People say a ''lot'' of weird things to him over the course of the movie, so he has a lot of opportunity to do that.
* His planet has an animal that [[CallARabbitASmeerp looks exactly like a chicken]] but makes completely different noises. His impression of it is actually spot-on.
* ''Literature/TheDisasterArtist'' notes that he's talked about "Tommy's planet", almost certainly a hint.
* All the talk about how "love has nothing to do with marriage" makes perfect sense in the context of his society. He might be a [[Series/BabylonFive Centauri]] in disguise -- the accent certainly fits.
* Creator/BrieLarson, in a hilarious [[https://www.instagram.com/p/BOX3NcLBuXP/ Instagram post]], provides further proof that he's an alien [[Franchise/MarvelUniverse somewhere]].


[[WMG: Tommy Wiseau is a [[OurVampiresAreDifferent vampire]].]]
It's ''so'' obvious:
* He's got no discernible origin, and he seems to be older than he looks. Maybe he's ReallySevenHundredYearsOld. At one point, he claims that Greg's beard makes him look like Spartacus, and one presumes he's referring to [[Film/{{Spartacus}} the film]] -- but its protagonist ''didn't'' have a beard, suggesting he met the genuine article.
* His accent is impossible to trace, but there is a little bit of Eastern Europe in there, suggesting VampireVords.
* On-set accounts indicate that he smells bad, possibly of death?
* He ''talks'' a lot about vampires, as evidenced by ''Literature/TheDisasterArtist''. ''The Room'' was apparently supposed to have a vampire subplot. Tommy claims he can fall asleep and wake up at will, which he calls a "vampire trick". Greg walks in on Tommy sleeping hanging upside-down from his feet on his chin-up bar, like a bat. Outside ''The Disaster Artist'', there's even more evidence; Tommy has mentioned a future film project about vampires, and in "The Tommy Wi-show", he plays ''Franchise/MortalKombat'' and asks if there's a vampire character.
* He LooksLikeOrlok. Or perhaps ComicBook/{{Morbius}}.
* He seems very [[WeakenedByTheLight averse to sunlight]]. He has a pasty, pallid complexion. He's often seen wearing huge wraparound sunglasses. In ''The Disaster Artist'', he goes to the park with Greg and not only complains about the sunlight, he gets a ''rash'' from it. He may not be ''killed'' by the sun like some vampires, but it certainly isn't good for him.
This explains a number of things about why ''The Room'' is what it is:
* The rooftop scenes were shot on blue screen because he couldn't shoot them on an actual rooftop in actual daylight. Yes, there are other scenes in daylight like the park scenes, and yes, ''The Disaster Artist'' says there wasn't even a roof on the rooftop set, but the director's gotta be comfortable on set. Many of the park scenes are shot from wide angles and from a distance, so Tommy could be using a double. Alternatively, all the outdoor scenes are extensive CGI (which would explain where the film's extravagant budget went).
* The terrible acting, writing, and direction are the result of a creature that's long since forgotten what emotions are trying to replicate them. The odd dialogue is more accurate to a bygone era.
* He's so close to Greg because Greg is his SecretKeeper. Greg may even be supplying him with... ''(ahem)'' "food".
* The [[AccidentalInnuendo unintentional over-sexualization]] of Denny is a case of ValuesDissonance -- wherever or ''whenever'' Tommy Wiseau's originally from, pederasty was perfectly common. Maybe he's an Creator/AnneRice-style vampire.
Which raises the question: what kind of vampire is Tommy, exactly?
* If he's an ''TabletopGame/OldWorldOfDarkness'' vampire, he could be a Toreador, or a Malkavian who thinks he's a Toreador. He recently came out of torpor, and he protects himself from the sunlight through an artifact of some kind -- possibly those sunglasses -- but it endangers his already frail sanity and has other unpleasant side effects.
* If he's a ''TabletopGame/NewWorldOfDarkness'' vampire, he could be a Nosferatu. He's not creepy-looking enough to be one in ''Old World'', but ''New World'' versions can look almost normal, except for an inherent air of wrongness.

[[WMG: Tommy Wiseau was born into a homeless family, or at least spend a significant portion of his life homeless.]]
This explains several things -- not just the subject of his documentary, but also his reluctance to talk about his past. His haggard appearance comes from a history of malnourishment and never getting into the habit of washing regularly. Greg Sestero in ''Literature/TheDisasterArtist'' opines that one reason why Tommy didn't like the guy who was first hired to play Mark is that Tommy wasn't always rich, but he (and Greg) assumed that the actor was.

[[WMG: Tommy Wiseau made the people in the documentary homeless.]]
That's how he got the money to make ''The Room'' -- he robbed them blind. That's also why he's not forthcoming with where the money came from. The documentary is a sort of cover-up.

[[WMG: Tommy Wiseau is not, as commonly believed, French.]]
Yes, Tommy is a FunnyForeigner with a vaguely French accent. And yes, "Wiseau" seems like a French name at first glance. And yes, Tommy exhibits blatant ImmigrantPatriotism even as he denies he's an immigrant. But he's not French:
* It's theorized that he's French because of the film's insistence on "future wife" instead of "fiancée", suggesting that he didn't know that English used the French word. But he could easily have been unaware of this if he were something other than French; indeed, this is often suggested as evidence the other way, the idea being that a Frenchman would ''have'' to know that English uses the word. In fact, ''Literature/TheDisasterArtist'' indicates that Tommy probably ''is'' aware of the loanword, but his ImmigrantPatriotism led him to insist that every word in the movie be in English, even when English would usually use a loanword.
* "W" is not a commonly used letter in French. He probably changed his name from something [[TheUnpronounceable less pronounceable]] but still French-sounding. ''The Disaster Artist'' posits that he lived in France at some point, and Tommy himself claims to be from Louisiana, where there's no shortage of French names -- he may just have been trying to blend in. Alternatively, his name is a misspelling of the French word ''oiseau'', meaning "bird"; it dovetails with his supposed experience selling novelty toy birds in San Francisco.
* ''The Disaster Artist'' suggests he has a particular hatred of French things. Greg guesses that Tommy lived in France for a bit -- perhaps while fleeing whichever country in Eastern Europe he's from -- but had a horrible experience and hated the French for their xenophobia. Say what you will about [[{{Eagleland}} American jingoism]], but they don't hate foreigners like [[FrenchJerk the French]].

[[WMG: Tommy Wiseau is from [Insert Place Here] ]]
So if he's not French, what are the candidates?
* ''Louisiana''. His last name is kinda French but not really, which works if one of his ancestors changed their name to something French. The "-eau" suffix is ''very'' common in Cajun/Acadian surnames. His accent must have come from moving around Europe when he was younger and picking up English there; maybe only one of his parents is Cajun. Certainly, Wiseau would ''like'' you to think he's from Louisiana; ''Literature/TheDisasterArtist'' mentions two fake reviews for the movie that were [[ButHeSoundsHandsome almost certainly written by Wiseau]], both of which call him a Cajun.
* ''Poland''. Some sleuthing on Website/{{Reddit}} found a family in Louisiana who immigrated from Poland decades ago with the name "Wieczorkiewicz". When they naturalized, they shortened it to "Wieczor". Tommy probably went to Louisiana to meet up with them but found the shortened name not "American" enough, hence "Wiseau". The accent ''really'' fits; if you listen to accented Poles on the Internet (try Roland Warzecha, a Polish medieval reenactor who lives in Germany and posts on Website/YouTube), they sound a lot like Tommy. This particular theory came up in an odd tax dispute, which led to [[spoiler:Tommy confirming it]].
* ''Romania''. It's in Eastern Europe, but Romanian is a Romance language like French, and a fair number of Romanian surnames end in "-eau".

[[WMG: Tommy Wiseau didn't even know what was going on in his own movie as often as not.]]
An interview in ''Entertainment Weekly'' revealed that there was an uncredited script supervisor, [[http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0772046/ Sandy Schklair]], who also ended up handling most of the directorial duties. One actor anonymously confirmed it, followed by Greg Sestero in ''Literature/TheDisasterArtist''. Schklair was brought in for a couple of reasons: Wiseau was playing the lead character and wanted to focus on that, and his scripts were almost incomprehensible, so the others found someone to fix them. The cast also was well aware of how legendarily bad the movie was, and knowing that Wiseau earnestly believed otherwise, they thought it best to leave him out of the loop. By all accounts, Schklair was effectively the director of the film,[[note]]you don't hire Creator/SethRogen to play him in [[Film/TheDisasterArtist the film adaptation]] for nothing[[/note]] but he's uncredited -- officially because he quit before production ended to work on ''Jumbo Girl''.

[[WMG: Tommy Wiseau is [[Franchise/StarWars Palpatine]].]]
Look at their faces. Notice the resemblance?

[[WMG: Tommy Wiseau is an immortal Neanderthal.]]
The accent is because Wiseau learned English basically over the entire course of the language's existence -- it sounds weird and archaic, and it has a certain French flair because of the [[UsefulNotes/HistoryOfEnglish Norman French influence on English]]. He might have lived in France long ago (''really'' long ago), or he might have lived in New Orleans when it was still a French colony and French was still the dominant language there. His voice might also be affected by his physiology; his voice box is different from that of a ''Homo sapiens''. His personality is due to TheFogOfAges from being over 27,000 years old. Even the film can be explained by Neanderthals not having a well-developed imagination (or more accurately, that part of the brain ''responsible'' for imagination). And look at his face! That's a Neanderthal face.\\

This, of course, doesn't mean he's ''not'' a vampire. He could be a [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot Neanderthal Vampire]] -- perhaps a [[Fanfic/ThirtyHs vampire caveman from Mars]].

[[WMG: Tommy Wiseau had a stroke at some point.]]
It makes as much sense as anything else.

[[WMG: Tommy Wiseau is an [[VideoGame/AoOni oni]].]]
The oni in the game looks like Tommy Wiseau's face on the poster as seen on the main page, minus the hair.

[[WMG: Tommy Wiseau is UsefulNotes/MuammarGaddafi.]]
He tried his hand at film directing because he didn't see why Kim Jong-Il should get all the fun.

[[WMG: Tommy Wiseau is [[VideoGame/HalfLife The G-Man]].]]
They both wear suits. They both put emphasis on all the wrong words and syllables. They both seem like aliens doing the most unconvincing human act ever. The G-Man grew his hair long and disguised himself (very poorly) as a crappy real-life filmmaker to keep the bills paid between ''VideoGame/HalfLife1'' and ''VideoGame/HalfLife2''. Now, as he waits for ''Half-Life 3'' to come along, he's been forced to go back to appearing as Wiseau, hence the cult following that's sprung up between the time the film was released and today.

[[WMG: Tommy Wiseau actually has Mensa-level intelligence and is a brilliant actor.]]
He does the whole "dumbass-caveman-vampire" thing for a few reasons: ''(a)'' he [[ObfuscatingStupidity wants to throw people off their guard]]; ''(b)'' he knows that people will be fascinated by the sheer novelty of such a being; and ''(c)'' he has a blast doing it. He funded ''The Room'' by shrewdly playing the stock market. He intended to make a film that flopped just so that he could be known as the man who made the worst movie ever. Eventually, he'll drop the ruse and surprise us all.

[[WMG: Tommy Wiseau is actually the most gifted filmmaker of our time.]]
He cannot mention what country he's from. After he graduated film school there, he made a powerful, epic drama with strong allegories to the country's corrupt government, believed by film scholars to be the greatest film ever made before its destruction at the hands of the country's censors. Now banished from his homeland, Tommy fears that any indication of his home country will get him assassinated by their military's secret agents. He wound up in America, where his genius remains buried in culture shock: A poor grasp of both the English language and American customs prevent him from properly directing or writing a good script.

[[WMG: Tommy Wiseau is the latest alias of Connor [=MacLeod=].]]
They both seem to have an inscrutable accent and enigmatic origins. Also, they ''could'' both be aliens, but that depends on whether you believe a prior WMG ''and'' [[FanonDiscontinuity accept the canonicity]] of ''[[Film/HighlanderIITheQuickening Highlander II]]''. Perhaps [[WesternAnimation/AquaTeenHungerForce Master Shake's]] assertion that "''Highlander'' [[DaydreamBeliever was a documentary]]" is true. [=MacLeod=] probably got a lot of unwanted attention from the film and had to disguise himself as "Tommy Wiseau". He probably got a little carried away with it, though.

[[WMG: Tommy Wiseau is one of [[WesternAnimation/AmericanDad Roger Smith's personas]].]]
Roger has created at least one movie, has a flair for the dramatic, has personas with absurd-sounding names and often ridiculous outfits, enacts over-the-top schemes, has little regard for anyone except himself, and rolls out his personas out of nowhere with already established histories.

[[WMG: And now, Greg Sestero's personal WMG.]]
As related in ''Literature/TheDisasterArtist'':\\

Tommy is from somewhere in Eastern Europe, possibly Romania. His father, a UsefulNotes/WorldWarII veteran, [[AbusiveParents beat him savagely throughout his childhood]], resulting in facial deformities. Living behind the Iron Curtain and looking for a way out, Tommy fell in love with America. He began selling treasonous American souvenirs to buy his ticket out of the country, but could only illegally immigrate to France. He changed his name to Pierre in an attempt to fit in, but he had an equally miserable life. Fortunately, he had an uncle in Louisiana who was able to sponsor his legal immigration to America.\\

Life still wasn't easy for Tommy; he spent several more miserable years working as a stock-boy, painfully aware of how weird everyone thought he was. But he realized he could market his weirdness, so he went to the weirdest city in the country: UsefulNotes/SanFrancisco. Once there, he went back to selling tacky souvenirs, particularly toy birds like they sell at the Eiffel Tower. And it worked; he became known as the "Birdman". Somehow, he parlayed this into a fortune. He changed his name to something more "American": Thomas P. Wiseau, a corruption of the French word ''oiseau'', meaning "bird". In effect, he formalized his name as "Tommy the Birdman".\\

Tommy didn't stop at selling birds, though. He negotiated his fortune into prized Bay Area real estate, at the height of the dot-com boom. But then his life changed again when he got into a traumatic car accident (possibly not the first he'd ever had), which spurred a mid-life crisis. Now he wanted to pursue a new passion: filmmaking. Being IdleRich, he could easily commute between San Francisco and Los Angeles for acting classes. This is also how he met Greg, who became his only friend. When Greg began to drift away, a hurt and betrayed Tommy [[WriteWhatYouKnow turned that]] into ''The Room''.

[[WMG: Tommy Wiseau is the protagonist of the "VideoGame/SonicExe" creepypasta.]]
Okay, it's based on a few stupid coincidences, but here goes: The author of "sonic.exe" is named Tom. Said Tom is incredibly slow on the uptake, much like Tommy Wiseau, who still doesn't get why people think ''The Room'' is SoBadItsGood. Both ''The Room'' and "sonic.exe" are so nonsensical and jumbled as to be considered among the most SoBadItsGood works in their respective fields: film and {{Creepypasta}}.

[[WMG: Tommy Wiseau is Frankenstein's monster.]]
He matches the description of the monster given in the book, particularly the "flowing black hair". The creature's native language was French, which explains Tommy's accent. He won't disclose his backstory because he doesn't want to admit he's actually a 200-year-old living corpse. ''The Room'' could have been WishFulfillment of a being who [[IJustWantToBeNormal just wants to be normal]]. The name "Lisa" for his future wife could be a reference to Victor Frankenstein's wife Elizabeth, which suggests he's still got his attachment to her.

[[WMG: Tommy Wiseau is an alternate-universe counterpart of [[Webcomic/{{Sonichu}} Christian Weston Chandler]].]]
Okay, this is [[InsultToRocks grossly unfair to Tommy]], but here goes:
* Both act very bizarrely and appear to have little grip on reality.
* Both have made works that were received poorly, and neither seem able to tell that their fans are laughing with them rather than at them.
* Both have a strong accent and use peculiar euphemisms, phrases, and sentence construction.
* Both use ideas and quotes from other media with little context (''e.g.'' "You're tearing me apart").
* Both have a surprising amount of money that they seem to have obtained for the purpose of doing absolutely nothing.
* Both are prone to misguided PatrioticFervor.
* Both act pettily to people they dislike.
* And both appear to have made their most famous work as a scheme to get a girl to fall in love with them.

[[WMG: Tommy Wiseau has Schizotypal Personality Disorder.]]
Now, here at TV Tropes we know we [[OurLawyersAdvisedThisTrope shouldn't be diagnosing people by looking up a list of symptoms and checking them off]], but if you look at Schizotypal Personality Disorder and then look at ''Literature/TheDisasterArtist'', it checks a ''lot'' of boxes:
* ''Being a loner and lacking close friends outside of the immediate family:'' Greg Sestero is pretty much the only friend Tommy has.
* ''Incorrect interpretation of events, including a perception that external events have personal meaning:'' Tommy exhibits this in the way he treats the cast and crew.
* ''Peculiar, eccentric, or unusual thinking, beliefs, or behavior:'' He seems to think he's a vampire, yearns for his own planet, and has some strange theories about how to make movies.
* ''Dressing in peculiar ways:'' Greg points this out as early as the first chapter.
* ''Belief in special powers, such as telepathy:'' Again, vampire.
* ''Suspicious or paranoid ideas, hypersensitivity, and constant doubts about the loyalty and fidelity of others:'' This is more or less the entire plot of ''The Room'', which is likely based at least partly on his personal experience.
* ''Flat emotions, or limited or inappropriate emotional responses:'' Tommy laughs at inappropriate times, both in and out of character. When people try to tell him his laughter is inappropriate (''e.g.'' at Mark's domestic violence story), he doesn't get why.

[[WMG: Tommy Wiseau has UsefulNotes/AspergersSyndrome.]]
Again, a dangerous line of thought -- especially given Internet people's tendency to self-diagnose -- but much like the above WMG, ''Literature/TheDisasterArtist'' ticks a lot of boxes:
* Tommy frequently reacts to people as if he fails to understand the basic idea of empathy. Between his rude reaction to the girls who flirt with him and Greg at dinner, and his abusive relationship with his cast, he never really seems to exercise any social grace or understanding. But he's probably not a sociopath, because he does have a basic understanding of what emotion ''is'' -- ''The Room'' couldn't have been made without it. He just doesn't get how it works.
* He's capable of having friendships -- Greg is obvious evidence, as are ''The Room'''s producers Chloe and Drew. He's perfectly capable of making relationships if he needs to. He's not cruel, but he is socially awkward. He doesn't understand that certain things go against social grace, like reminding Greg of how he threatened him as a way of [[EnforcedMethodActing making him act convincingly]].
* He has hobbies which he's ''really'' into -- particularly movies and bodybuilding. He dedicates nearly all of his time to these activities, even when it would be inappropriate.
* His sleep patterns are extremely abnormal; he goes to bed very late and rarely gets much sleep.
* His speech patterns can also be explained by Asperger's. People who have it often latch on to the exact way they heard someone speak for the first time, and if Tommy first heard English outside the U.S., that would explain why he still speaks that way despite having lived in America for at least a quarter of a century. The odd inflections and turns of phrase (''e.g.'' "playing Santa Claus", "donut hair") that only make sense to him are also a classic sign of Asperger's.
* His obsession with being a vampire isn't really a delusion; Greg describes it as an excuse to put up a wall against society. Tommy's generally a very guarded person who does vaguely know that he needs to open up but can't do it properly.

[[WMG: Tommy Wiseau's accent is fake, or at least he deliberately never improved it.]]
He's like Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger -- he's a FunnyForeigner with a very distinctive accent. Arnold made his accent [[TheAhnold a trope unto itself]], and he maintains it to the point that he has an accent coach to ''keep'' his English weird. This is where Tommy is aiming. Unfortunately for him, he sucks at impersonations, which is why the accent is [[WhatTheHellIsThatAccent impossible to place]].

[[WMG: Tommy Wiseau is D. B. Cooper.]]
A theory advanced by [[http://xkcd.com/1400/ this strip]] from ''Webcomic/{{xkcd}}'', which claims that Wiseau was the mystery man known only as "D. B. Cooper" who committed a daring aircraft hijacking and heist in 1971. All we know of Cooper's appearance are the police sketches, which look much younger than Tommy. If Tommy really is OlderThanTheyLook, it fits with him having been in his mid-forties in 1971 (as Cooper is described). For what it's worth, Wiseau was asked this himself and denied being Cooper, and ''Website/{{Cracked}}'' [[http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-insane-but-convincing-theories-about-dead-celebrities/ supports this theory]] not because ''they'' think it's true so much as because they think ''someone'' will think it's true.

[[WMG: Tommy Wiseau is from Earth's distant future, where ''Film/{{The Room|2003}}'' is seen as the Greatest Movie of All Time.]]
Tommy Wiseau comes from a time when the Earth is at peace and no one wants for anything. It's like ''Film/BillAndTedsExcellentAdventure'', except the prosperity wasn't created by a band, but a movie. A movie called ''The Room'', which was full of Big Important Messages about things like friendship, love, and betrayal. The movie was so sublimely nuanced and its message so supremely crafted that it united all the peoples of the Earth.\\

To the distant future, ''The Room'' was so long ago that little is known about the film's creator except that he lived in the 21st Century. Whether by accident or purpose, Tommy Wiseau finds himself transported to the late 20th Century and realizes that he's in a pre-''Room'' society. And then he goes a little too far -- his ego is such that he thinks he's in a StableTimeLoop, and ''he's'' the genius who creates the Greatest Movie of All Time. He uses his future knowledge to make shrewd business investments, and uses the proceeds to make the film we see today.\\

It explains a number of things, most notably the weird accent and dialogue: Tommy speaks English the way it's spoken in the future. Our English is as weird to him as Shakespeare's is to us. He actually speaks English reasonably well by his era's standards. (Whether he's actually a linguistic maestro by his era's standards is a matter of debate.) Tommy has been known to attribute his "shrewd business investments" to some sort of precognition; he claims he always knows when something is about to become marketable.\\

It does ''not'' explain why ''The Room'' as we know it is very much not the Greatest Movie of All Time. One explanation is that TheWorldIsNotReady; it will be decades, if not centuries, before we can see the film as the work of genius it is. More likely, though, Tommy never actually saw the real movie, or maybe he slept through it, so he only has a vague idea of how it went. His final result fell somewhat short of the Greatest Movie of All Time, but his ego won't let him see that, and he keeps waiting for the day he becomes the savior of the world. But not all is lost -- the ''real'' creator of the film may well become inspired by the current version, so one way or another, Wiseau will be responsible for the film that saves the world.

[[WMG: Tommy Wiseau has suffered brain damage from a car accident.]]
In ''Film/TheDisasterArtist'', Wiseau relates having been in two serious car accidents. In one, his car landed upside-down in a fountain. In the other, not long before he first met Greg, Wiseau said he was hospitalized for a couple of weeks after another motorist ran a red light and crashed into him. In either accident, Wiseau may have suffered moderate to severe brain trauma, which would account for his various quirks and difficulties:
* He has poor memory; he can't memorize his lines and needs constant prompting (it took more than ''three hours'' for him to make it through the "I did not hit her!" scene), despite having written the script himself. His MultipleChoicePast might not be Wiseau hiding something, but rather just his poor memory.
* He lacks coordination, taking hours to perform simple stage direction.
* His manner of speaking is affected, as he slurs, uses strange syntax, and doesn't always comprehend things properly.
* He has bizarre taste in clothing and other aesthetics.
* He suffers from mood swings.
Indeed, Greg theorizes that ''something'' changed about Tommy in the second accident, which is apparently what inspired him to reinvent himself and pursue his acting dreams. His new lease on life may well have been influenced by his brain operating differently with respect to how he perceived himself and the world around him.

[[WMG: Tommy Wiseau is a WMG/TimeLord.]]
Specifically, he's a Valeyard created from the darkest sides of the Time Lord whose other incarnations include WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic and WebVideo/TheAngryVideoGameNerd.

[[WMG: Tommy Wiseau is a proxy for [[Franchise/TheSlenderManMythos the Slender Man]].]]
In ''Literature/TheDisasterArtist'', Greg Sestero mentions that on his first visit to Tommy's condo, he sees an abandoned car coated in several layers of dust. In the dust, someone's drawn the Zodiac Killer's symbol. Or that's what Greg ''thinks''; he's interpreting the symbol from the wrong angle. It's [[WebVideo/MarbleHornets the Operator Symbol]]. Slendy's been using Wiseau for his own dark purposes for decades -- maybe even centuries. He provides Tommy with everything he needs to live and then some, but at a terrible cost: Wiseau's very soul and mind are forfeit to inscrutable and terrifying forces.

[[folder: Other Actors]]
[[WMG: Greg Sestero had no idea that he was in a movie until the end.]]
This explains Mark's confusion as to why Lisa is constantly coming on to him -- it just didn't make sense to him. There was no script telling him what was going on.\\

Okay, the very existence of ''Literature/TheDisasterArtist'' {{Josse|d}}s this pretty hard -- Greg very clearly knew he was in a movie, but he was so dismotivated (and so unconvinced that the movie would ever be seen) that he [[CreatorsApathy phoned in his performance]]. But it's a better explanation for Mark's persistent confusion than "the script sucked".

[[WMG: Chris R's actor, Dan Janjigian, was an actual drug dealer.]]
Denny's actor seems pretty surprised by Chris R's appearance on set, and Chris himself seems pretty intent on getting Denny's [[MemeticMutation FUCKING MONEY!]] After Wiseau figured it out and took him to the authorities, Denny probably made the drug deal story up on the spot because they didn't want to lose precious film.\\

Okay, it's been {{Jossed}} by ''Literature/TheDisasterArtist'' -- Janjigian is not an actor by trade, but he is active as a motivational speaker in Los Angeles' Armenian-American community, and he played a role in the movie ''Irangeles''. His intensity in the scene is attributed to his deciding to be a [[MethodActing method actor]]. But he [[VillainWithGoodPublicity could still be a drug dealer]] who moonlights in obscure movies. Look, we need a justification for such a poorly written scene.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Johnny]]
[[WMG: Johnny can make unpleasant topics disappear by his mere presence.]]
This is why dramatic things like characters being diagnosed with breast cancer or owing money to drug dealers happen once and are never mentioned again -- Johnny's mere presence can resolve them. During the Chris-R scene, this is why everyone calms down almost as soon as Johnny says he can deal with it, even though we never find out what specifically he's going to do. When [[spoiler:Johnny kills himself]], everyone is distraught because [[spoiler:now everything he made go away will come back]].

[[WMG: Johnny's weirdness is the key to his success at the bank.]]
People are curious about this [[CloudCuckoolander fascinating weirdo]], and the bank uses this to draw in customers. His banking skills are decent enough, but not good enough to earn a promotion -- that would put him in a position of ''responsibility''.

[[WMG:Alternatively, Johnny is kept at the bank because he sounds foreign.]]
It's not an uncommon practice at Japanese businesses -- sometimes they'll keep a TokenWhite around for the purpose of showing that they're global. Johnny might work for a Japanese bank with mostly Japanese employees and clients -- possible in Asian-oriented San Francisco. Or he's a "foreigner" with respect to an American bank. Johnny could even have a natural American accent -- his "foreign" accent is intentionally vague, allowing him to pose as any ethnicity. (He must take his job very seriously, though, if he keeps up the accent outside work.)

[[WMG: Johnny is mentally handicapped, and Lisa is his caretaker.]]
Johnny is related to a wealthy banker -- let's say, his uncle -- who pays for his home, wardrobe, and a full-time caretaker, Lisa. His uncle is a bit of an eccentric himself, willing to spend lots of money on keeping Johnny happy, entertained, and oblivious to his situation. It explains a number of things about Johnny's situation:
* Johnny thinks he works at the bank because he goes there several times a week to see his uncle. His uncle humors him by putting him in an empty office and giving him random papers to shuffle around. Johnny is so deep into the illusion that he's convinced he's earned a "promotion", and when nothing happens, he thinks he's been passed over and gets upset.
* People only ever call him "Johnny", never "John" or "Jonathan", as though he's a child.
* He has sexual feelings for his caretaker Lisa, which badly confuse him. He rationalizes his feelings by imagining himself as engaged to marry her. All the sex scenes are daydreams, and they also demonstrate how Johnny doesn't [[AnatomicallyImpossibleSex understand how sex works]]. It means that [[spoiler:Johnny's suicide]] is also a daydream, which makes sense because his uncle would never allow his mentally ill nephew to [[spoiler:have access to a firearm]].
Per this "theory", nearly every character is either paid off by Johnny's uncle or taking advantage of him:
* Lisa, as explained, is Johnny's caretaker. And she's in ''way'' over her head -- she got that job by seducing Johnny's uncle. But she doesn't have any qualifications that would allow her to get a job anywhere else. That's why Claudette tells her, "Honey, you can't take care of yourself."
* Denny is an actor whom Johnny's uncle pays to be his friend. Lisa doesn't like him, but she has to put up with him. Johnny's uncle is particularly nice to Denny, paying his rent ''and'' his college tuition. Denny is a shrewd character, though, and he might well be taking advantage of Johnny and his uncle. He's also deadly bored, hence why he ropes in Lisa and Chris-R (and Mark and Claudette) to enact their nonsensical scene. Or it's possible that he worked for Chris-R before landing the Johnny gig, and left with some of the dealer's money. The scene we saw was when Chris-R finally tracked him down, which might explain why he [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge was so angry]].
* The flower shop lady is almost certainly taking advantage of Johnny. She always has a bundle of day-old flowers that some customer forgot to pick up, ready to sell to Johnny as if they were fresh. No wonder he's her favorite customer.
* Mark was Lisa's boyfriend all along -- perhaps even her husband. He's a pretty laid-back guy who doesn't want to do very much other than [[TheStoner get stoned all day]], which is why Lisa is so desperate for money. But he's also a nice guy, and feels sorry for Johnny, so he hangs out with Johnny more than anyone else. It's not that hard -- you just sit on the roof and occasionally throw the football around. This is why Johnny thinks of Mark as his best friend. However, Johnny cannot reconcile his own feelings for Lisa and the obvious fact that she's with Mark. Johnny's obsession with Lisa is so blatant and awkward that even easygoing Mark eventually blows his top at the party.
* Speaking of which, everyone at the party is being paid like Denny. They're literal TwentyFourHourPartyPeople, who Johnny's uncle keeps on standby for things like his nephew's birthday. This is why Johnny calls them "all of my friends."
* Stephen the son of Johnny's uncle. He's an UpperClassTwit, and his trust fund is dependent on him hanging out with his cousin. He gets angry over Lisa and Mark's public displays of affection because he's worried it could ruin everything, and he'll have to find a real job.

[[WMG: Johnny is a RealityWarper who is losing his powers.]]
At the beginning he is a prosperous man with a well-paying job, he has many friends who adore him, and he's been in a seven-year relationship with a [[RunningGag beautiful future wife]] who still looks 18. This is because he can warp reality to his specifications, though it is limited mostly to situations and personalities. Then his ability starts fading. He loses out on his promotion. His future wife realizes that she doesn't love him -- and never has, only thinking she did because of the reality warping. His future wife and his best friend try to exert their newfound free will and have an affair. A series of {{Surprisingly Realistic Outcome}}s ensues -- uncomfortable things like breast cancer and drug deals. Johnny desperately tries to fix everything, but his powers continue to fade. This is what causes many of the plot holes, dropped subplots, and inconsistencies (like the gun changing models between scenes). Seeing Mark and Lisa together at the party, now open about their affair, proves to him that his powers would soon disappear completely. Unable to handle it, he [[spoiler:takes his life]]. The characters still behave oddly afterward, but this is the residual effect of his powers before reality finally fixes itself.

[[WMG: Johnny kept a pistol in a box labeled "In Case of Betrayal, Open Box."]]
If you look closely at Johnny's gun, it's not the same model as Chris-R's gun. Johnny knew that his life may someday go to pot, so he bought a gun as a contingency plan.\\

That, or it was ''meant'' to be the same gun as Chris-R's and Tommy Wiseau is incompetent at keeping continuity. Either explanation is equally plausible.

[[WMG: Johnny's ideas for the bank aren't as great as he thought they were.]]
Johnny has a very weak grasp of how banking works. As he slowly learns, he starts pitching basic banking concepts as if they're ideas he came up with himself. He might have told the bank manager, "I think it would be a good idea if the bank gave people money when they asked for it. They could pay us back later, and give us a little extra so we make money." Then the next day, he spots the loan department for the first time, asks what they did there, and says to himself, "Wow! They already put my ideas into practice, [[VerbalTic hah]]?"

[[WMG: Johnny works at a bank, but he's not a banker.]]
Johnny's secretly a low-level janitor or custodial worker at the bank. That's why he's so vague about everything going on at the bank. His money-saving "ideas" for the bank were along the lines of buying [[ShoddyKnockoffProduct off-brand]] floor cleaner, and he was hoping to get promoted to head custodian. He can't tell Mark about the "new client" because he knows nothing about the client; he just heard the ''actual'' bankers talking about it.\\

It also explains why nobody at the bank seems to mind his disheveled appearance. When he gets to work, he takes off his wrinkly suit, puts on a jumpsuit, and gets to mopping. Or even better, he just puts the jumpsuit on over the suit, which is why it's so wrinkly.\\

His constant hangdog expression is because he's been living beyond his means for years, and the bill collectors have been hounding him for a while now. When Claudette asked him to loan her friend money for a down payment on a house, all he would say was, "It's an awkward situation." Obviously, it was an inappropriate request, and he was within his rights to refuse. But he didn't explain any of that because he was terrified of Claudette finding out that the real reason he couldn't loan the money is because he's up to his eyeballs in debt.\\

He'd been [[spoiler:considering suicide]] for months now, and being betrayed was the straw that broke the camel's back.

[[WMG: Johnny is an alien.]]
He lacks social skills. He seems to be screwing Lisa's navel, not her vagina, showing a lack of understanding of human anatomy. His "out of town check" wasn't a check at all, but something else of value, possibly gold bars. When he says he's "fed up with this warruld", he meant it literally -- and [[spoiler:his suicide doesn't kill him, but returns him to his virtual reality station, where he's [[MobileSuitHuman controlling the human body on Earth]]]].

[[WMG: Johnny's full name is [[Literature/HouseOfLeaves Johnny Truant.]]]]
The mental trauma he endured while compiling Zampano's notes completely warped him, so he now speaks and acts with the same fractured, nonsensical mindset as the layout of the book. His seemingly inexplicable actions are a result of living in constant fear of the [[EldritchAbomination Minotaur]], and the various subplots are dropped like hot rocks around him because he is too focused on what's coming after him to worry about the few real friends he has left. He hasn't stopped having lots of off-putting sex, though.

[[WMG: Johnny is from the future, and he's trying to make sure the timeline stays in the balance.]]
He knows that [[BadFuture bad things will happen in the future]] unless things happen in the present to his exact specifications. He's told all the main characters about this, and they believe him. When he calls Lisa his "future wife", he doesn't mean "fiancée", he means she's ''literally'' his wife in the future -- they weren't even a couple before this. Problem is that Lisa doesn't want to marry Johnny, but Johnny insists on it because the timeline requires it. Lisa ignores him and decides to ScrewDestiny by having an affair with Mark. This throws off the timeline so badly that Johnny, unable to handle the pressure, [[spoiler:decides to kill himself]]. The others' reaction is not [[spoiler:mourning a dear friend]], but rather a realization that they've doomed their future. Also, in the future, breeding is through the belly button.

[[WMG: Johnny is (or believes he is) being possessed by Great [[Literature/RedDragon Red]] [[Series/{{Hannibal}} Dragon]].]]
Except he's just way more sociable than Francis Dolarhyde. Note how near the end of the film, Johnny smashes a mirror.

[[WMG: Johnny faked his death at the end.]]
The "gun" he uses to "kill himself" is an airsoft replica of the Beretta 92FS Inox, and the film makes no effort to hide this fact from us aside from removing the orange tip. Maybe he and the [[WordOfGod undercover narcotics officer]] Mark decided to fake Johnny's death to get back at Lisa. Mark pulled strings in the police department to get realistic first-response and forensics guys to respond to the "suicide". Their hilariously bitchy fight in front of Lisa was simple misdirection.

[[WMG: Johnny paid off Chris-R.]]
Every indication is that Johnny has no problem throwing money around; he pays for Denny's tuition and buys Lisa expensive presents. When he drags Chris-R off the roof, he realizes that the quickest way to get rid of him would be to give him his [[MemeticMutation FUCKING MONEY]]. This would explain how he and Mark are back on the roof in minutes, with vague explanations of what happened like "it's clear" -- Johnny didn't want Lisa to know that he'd given an unspecified amount of money to a drug dealer (especially if he did something real dumb like write him a check), so he lamely claimed that they "took him to jail".\\

In fact, this may have been Denny's plan from the start. He's hanging out by himself on a rooftop that Johnny is known to frequent because he's hoping that Chris-R will choose that moment to demand payment. It would also explain why he told Chris-R that the money is "on the way". Maybe he was expecting Chris-R to mug Johnny instead of just getting paid off, but it worked out for him in the end.

[[WMG: Johnny and Claudette are cousins.]]
Claudette laments Johnny's refusal to pay for a friend's house. When Lisa points out that Johnny is not her husband yet, Claudette replies, "I know, but Johnny is a part of our family." And she meant it literally.\\

Johnny [[WifeHusbandry has known Lisa since she was a child]], and for years, Claudette has been attempting to set up an ArrangedMarriage between the two, for her own financial gain. This would explain why Johnny claims to have given Lisa seven years of his life when she doesn't look much older than 18. Lisa never genuinely loved Johnny in the first place, but she was still hesitant to hurt him, if only because he was still a better parental figure to her than [[AbusiveParents Claudette]].\\
\\
If we assume Johnny and Claudette are first cousins, that would make Johnny and Lisa [[KissingCousins first cousins once removed]] -- pretty {{Squick}}y, but not illegal in California for them to get married.

[[WMG: Johnny is a [[OurVampiresAreDifferent vampire]].]]
Hey, just because it didn't make it into the movie doesn't mean it can't be true.

[[WMG: Johnny is a former football player, and his mannerisms are the result of repeated head trauma.]]
Johnny likes football a lot, as shown in the film. But he never exhibits much athleticism because his playing days are long behind him. He only really played college football, with maybe a ''brief'' stint in [[UsefulNotes/NationalFootballLeague the NFL]] as a bit player,[[note]]He likely didn't play for the San Francisco 49ers, because that team was ''really'' good for a while -- they won five Super Bowls in the 1980s and 1990s. If Johnny had technically been teammates with the likes of Joe Montana or Jerry Rice, one would think he would have mentioned that to his likely 49er-loving friends in San Francisco. (Indeed, one would think he would never shut up about it.)[[/note]] and he was very injury prone. He suffered several concussions and perhaps CareerEndingInjury of a different kind, cutting short his playing career. Although he frequently [[ICouldaBeenAContender reminisces about the career he could have had]], he fell back on his accounting major and was able to make a decent enough living outside of football.\\
\\
Indeed, much of Johnny's behavior and mannerisms can be explained by Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, or CTE, a progressive brain condition that's thought to result from repeated blows to the head -- and known to happen to football players (''Film/{{Concussion}}'''s about the guy who discovered it). Symptoms include mood swings, slurred speech, increasing confusion, and eventually depression, all behaviors that Johnny experiences throughout the movie. Johnny's eventual decision to [[spoiler:[[AteHisGun eat his gun]]]] means that [[spoiler:his brain is no longer intact to allow doctors to determine whether or not he really had CTE]] -- if he didn't want anyone to know he had it, maybe that's why he did what he did.

[[folder: Other Characters]]
[[WMG: Mike and Michelle have a food fetish.]]
This would explain why they're always going on about chocolate, and why they're so sensually feeding each other cake at Johnny's birthday party.

[[WMG: Mark is a MagnificentBastard DepravedBisexual in a movie with NoFourthWall.]]
While ''everyone'''s aware that they're in a movie, only Mark exploits it. He comments on the soundtrack when Lisa seduces him. He's unsurprised when Johnny shows up on the roof and drops the bombshell that Lisa lied about an act of domestic violence. He vanishes from a [[HoYay frolic in the park with Johnny]] to get it on with Lisa, and comes back an hour later wearing different clothes.\\

Indeed, the latter suggests that Mark is skilled enough in seeing through the Fourth Wall that he's [[ManipulativeEditing manipulating the editing]]. If you watch the scene closely, you'll notice that after Mark leaves, Lisa says that the guests will be arriving soon, referring to Johnny's birthday party. Except that doesn't happen until the next day. The scene was probably originally going to happen later in the movie but was moved earlier. The discrepancy in the dialogue sure ''seems'' like Tommy Wiseau's sloppy editing, but it's actually Mark's. He doesn't particularly care about the inconsistencies, though; he'll ignore them if he gets what he wants.\\

His ultimate goal is to take Johnny's place as Lisa's future husband. And he also plans to have Denny as a little bit on the side. When he, Johnny, and Peter are talking and Lisa shows up with Denny, Mark reveals his intentions by giving Denny one of the [[{{Squick}} most brutal eye-rapings ever]], [[DarkReprise mirroring the one Denny gave Lisa at the beginning]].\\

And Mark's not above violence to achieve his goals. He's willing to throw a friend off a building while incredibly high. The characters' refusal to specify Chris-R's fate is to cover for Mark [[FridgeHorror taking him to the basement and blowing his brains out]] (possibly because he's competition for Denny). And of course, he [[spoiler:maneuvers Johnny into committing suicide]] -- and he can edit in [[spoiler:a different gun than he used to kill Chris-R]] to deflect suspicion. This leaves him the ''de facto'' owner of a piece of prime San Francisco real estate, a monopoly on the local drug trade, and a college-aged sex slave.

[[WMG: Denny is prostituting himself to pay for college.]]
And Chris-R is his pimp. Their whole exchange is reminiscent of what you'd expect between a prostitute and pimp. Chris-R may even have called him "Baby" (or perhaps "Danny Boy" -- it's hard to tell from all the [[NoIndoorVoice screaming]] -- but either way, it's a weird term of endearment). Denny may even be a bisexual (he certainly shows signs with his apparent attraction to ''both'' Lisa and Johnny) and be leveraging it for more clients. Once Chris-R is taken to jail, Johnny figures out the truth and decides to pay for Denny's tuition so that he wouldn't prostitute himself anymore.

[[WMG: Claudette has Alzheimer's.]]
This is why she seems to forget everything. Lisa constantly has to remind her that she's fallen out of love with Johnny, and Claudette's always surprised when she hears it. You can even see Lisa's exasperation as she has to tell her mother this over and over again. It also explains why after [[spoiler:the fight at Johnny's birthday party]], Claudette goes upstairs and calmly talks to Lisa as if nothing happened. It even explains why everyone's so nonchalant about the breast cancer -- she was misdiagnosed with it once, and she doesn't remember that she doesn't actually have it. People have just given up trying to explain this to her.

%%[[WMG: Claudette is ComicStrip/MaryWorth.]]
%%Does it even need to be explained further?
%%[Ed: Yes, it does.]

[[WMG: Helping engaged women cheat on their fiancés is a hobby of Mark's.]]
Notice the best man in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoR2Oax82kY this video]]. Coincidence? This is WMG, and ThereAreNoCoincidences!

[[WMG: Claudette is fully aware that Lisa is a lying, conniving bitch.]]
And she's no slouch herself. Her reactions to Lisa's admissions of her infidelity are [[DoWrongRight disappointment that Lisa's not doing a good enough job at it]]. In particular, it explains her nonchalance when Lisa claims Johnny got drunk and hit her; her response, "Johnny doesn't drink!", is frustration at Lisa that her lie isn't good enough.

[[WMG: Everyone in the movie is just bilking Johnny for money and gifts.]]
The characters have all seen how generous Johnny is, and they're merely pretending to like him so that he'll buy them stuff. Claudette expects Johnny to pay for her friend's house and is angry when he doesn't. Denny fakes being a socially awkward ManChild to make Johnny think he's like a father figure and stoke his generosity. Mark and Lisa are tired of pretending, hence their affair (and the whole movie). Denny accidentally breaks character during the Chris-R scene and shows his true personality, when he takes a break from crying to scream at Claudette, "You're not my fucking mother!" Denny's extreme reaction to [[spoiler:Johnny's suicide]] is from his realization that he's lost his gravy train.

[[WMG: Lisa was a late-life child.]]
Lisa's in her twenties, and Claudette looks to be in her sixties. She probably had Lisa when she was in her forties. Claudette even has a line suggesting that Lisa's father wasn't her first husband.

[[WMG: Chris-R is a [[TabletopGame/{{Paranoia}} Troubleshooter]].]]
He's come back in time from Alpha Complex. He's still got his name and he's obviously RED clearance; he just doesn't use his housing sector or clone number on his name anymore.

[[WMG: Mark and Lisa were already having an affair before the movie began.]]
Note that when Lisa calls Mark at the beginning of the movie, before the affair supposedly begins, she calls him "baby", and he doesn't react at all, as though that's nothing new to him. Granted, he seems confused as to whether or not Lisa is trying to seduce him the first time they have sex on film, but he's that way every other time, too.

[[WMG: Lisa's job in the "computer business" is at a retail place like Best Buy.]]
This is how she can technically be in the "computer business" but still be home all day and dependent on Johnny for cash. The film wants you to ''think'' that she's a programmer or something, but if she were really a computer programmer in San Francisco, ''(a)'' she would spend all her time commuting to Palo Alto or somewhere else in Silicon Valley, ''(b)'' she would be making more than enough to live without Johnny, and ''(c)'' Johnny wouldn't have to fend off just Mark, but probably Lisa's lecherous, socially awkward, TechBro coworkers as well. Instead, she can work part-time for a pittance and spend the rest of her time at home.\\

She's [[MathematiciansAnswer technically not lying]] when she says she's in the "computer business", in the sense that a job at UsefulNotes/McDonalds is a job in the "culinary business". She's probably lying when she tells Claudette she's expecting a client.

[[WMG: Lisa is a [[Franchise/HarryPotter Veela]].]]
Everyone wants her. Everyone points out how beautiful she is. But the illusion doesn't carry over to film, so the audience doesn't see her as particularly beautiful. This is also why Mark is portrayed as blameless in the affair; he doesn't want to betray Johnny, but he's powerless against Lisa's advances.

[[WMG: Lisa is actually [[Film/{{Showgirls}} Nomi Malone]].]]
After Johnny dies, Denny inherits all his money and Lisa is bankrupt, so she changes her name to Polly Anne Costello, gives herself a fake backstory, and moves out of San Francisco. But she's unable to support herself (as Claudette predicted), so she turns to prostitution, eventually ending up with a bad rap sheet. She changes her name again and decides to move to Las Vegas, and the rest is history. They have a lot of similar traits (everyone finding them desirable, acting like a bitch, being a gold digger, blonde hair). Since ''The Room'' never really specifies when it takes place, it could easily take place before the Stardust went under.

[[WMG: Denny didn't really want sugar, butter, ''et al''.]]
He knew Chris-R was gonna be coming by pretty soon for his FUCKING MONEY. He figured he'd root through Johnny's sock drawer for cash, thinking Lisa was out shopping with Claudette. When he found them at home, he came up with something on the spot to try and get rid of her for a couple minutes.

[[WMG: Denny needed sugar to make [[TheStoner pot brownies]].]]
And he makes some seriously kick-ass pot brownies. Indeed, this is why everyone hangs around him so much. The characters have come to a sort of agreement over the years; Denny makes brownies for everyone, but everyone reimburses his expenses, hence why he so freely mooches the ingredients off everyone else. Claudette is out of the loop, hence why she's thinking he forgot to go shopping; he actually doesn't ''need'' to.

[[WMG: Lisa and Johnny have been sexually molesting Denny for years.]]
Denny sees nothing wrong with jumping into bed with Lisa and Johnny because that's the way their relationship has always worked; they had no problem with threesomes, at least not until recently. Denny's line "I just like to watch you guys" strongly implies that he ''has'' watched Lisa and Johnny have sex before, and Lisa and Johnny are unfazed because this isn't news to them. Johnny wouldn't mind continuing, except he's caught the eye of child protection services. He and Lisa agree that they have to stop involving Denny in their debauchery, but they don't know how to break it to Denny. Poor Denny, suddenly locked out of the relationship with no explanation, grows increasingly desperate for their attention. With their sudden withdrawal of sex, Denny starts feeling unwanted and fears that Johnny will stop paying his college tuition.

[[WMG: Johnny groomed Lisa from a young age.]]
The film tells us that Johnny and Lisa have been together for seven years, but Lisa doesn't look much older than 18. Even if she were 25 and [[OlderThanTheyLook older than she looks]], she would have started dating Johnny when she was barely an adult. But if she's still financially dependent on Johnny, she's probably only got an entry-level job in the "computer business" and would have just finished her education, making her around 22 or 23 if she even went to college to begin with. And he's considerably older than she is, no matter which way you slice it. Johnny leveraged that age difference, and Lisa's relative powerlessness, to [[WifeHusbandry make an obedient wife for himself]]. They couldn't get married until now because Johnny has to [[TheJailbaitWait keep things legal]].\\

Claudette knew about the whole thing. She's more or less okay with it (if it wasn't her idea to begin with), but she's not above exploiting the situation for her own gain. She seems certain that she can get financial assistance from Johnny, because she can {{blackmail}} him and threaten to explain the whole relationship to the police -- even if, in some scenarios, it isn't strictly illegal or prosecutable, Johnny is an immigrant and wouldn't know U.S. law very well.\\

Right before the film starts, Lisa comes to realize that what Johnny did to her was wrong. This is what inspires her to have an affair with Mark. Indeed, her actions are colored by her experience and her feeling that she was robbed of any chance at a normal romantic relationship in her adolescence. That's why she lies about being pregnant and Johnny hitting her.\\
\\
She specifically has an affair with Mark for a couple of reasons. First, she wants to hurt Johnny back, so she goes after his best friend. Second, she's afraid that Johnny will do the same thing to ''Mark'' (who's around her age) as he did to her. After all, she can see how Johnny treats Denny -- perhaps they ''did'' have a relationship similar to what Johnny and Lisa have. It ties in with the WMG of Denny joining Johnny and Lisa for threesomes. However, Lisa sees from the outside what such a relationship looks like and only then realizes how wrong Johnny's actions are. She then convinces Mark that he could be Johnny's next victim, and the two decide to get back at him together.

[[WMG: Claudette is a habitual liar, and Lisa picked up the habit from her.]]
This obviously explains the breast cancer; Claudette's lying, and Lisa's so used to her mother lying about these things that she just dismisses it. Lisa, meanwhile, has it ingrained in her that it's acceptable behavior. When she tells Johnny she's pregnant, apparently just to fuck with him, and Michelle and Steven call her out, she seems genuinely baffled.

[[WMG: Mark never shaved his beard.]]
Lisa ate it off his face. Just look at their first sex scene and picture that several times over.

[[WMG: Denny has a crush on Johnny, not Lisa. Johnny is aware of this and is using it as a SecretTestOfCharacter for Denny.]]
Denny is sexually attracted to Johnny. Afraid of what Johnny would think of him, however, Denny pretends that it's Lisa he's crushing on. Johnny [[TransparentCloset sees through this almost immediately]] and is [[LoverAndBeloved perfectly happy to take his and Denny's relationship to the next level]], but he wants Denny to overcome his fears and come out to him first. This reaches a head during the rooftop scene, where Johnny and Denny discuss his "crush" on Lisa. Johnny seems oddly calm and serene about the whole thing because he knows Denny's lying and is waiting for him to come clean. But Denny never does come clean, and in the end, [[spoiler:after Johnny's suicide, [[DownerEnding he never can]]]].

[[WMG: Mark is at least partially how Tommy Wiseau views Greg Sestero.]]
''Literature/TheDisasterArtist'' would bear it out -- while Tommy and Greg are close friends, Tommy is deeply jealous of Greg's comparative talent, success, [[NiceGuy charisma]], and [[MrFanservice looks]]. The movie seems similarly conflicted about how to portray Mark; he has an affair with Johnny's [[RunningGag future wife]] and Johnny resents him for it, but the film paints him in a more positive light than it does Lisa, and he seems to regret the whole affair after Johnny's suicide. Greg also mentions that Tommy had always intended for him to play Mark.

[[WMG: Johnny and Mark didn't take Chris-R to the cops; they executed him with his own gun and kept it.]]
This explains how the gun stays in their possession; if the police arrived at the scene, they would have seized the gun as evidence. It also explains how they got back up to the roof so quickly; it's not like they could just drop Chris-R off at the police station and leave.

[[WMG: Michelle is an exhibitionist who likes living vicariously.]]
Why else would she decide to have sex with her boyfriend in Johnny and Lisa's living room? She was hoping she'd get caught. Considering the way she and Mike were feeding each other at Johnny's party, she might have dragged him into the bedroom or started dry humping him in front of everyone if Johnny and Mark hadn't started fighting. This is why she seems to flip-flop on her stance regarding Lisa's affair; on the one hand, she knows it's wrong, but on the other hand, she can't help but get excited hearing about her friend's indiscretion. Maybe she's even hoping to walk in on the two of them. It'd certainly be preferable to walking in on Lisa and [[{{Squick}} Johnny]]. She only starts telling Lisa to knock it off when Lisa goes off the deep end and does things like lie about being pregnant.

[[WMG: Mark is an undercover narcotics officer.]]
This is how Mark is sure the situation with Chris-R is "clear" despite his being gone for only a few minutes; either Chris-R is an informant and Mark let him off so that he'd keep snitching, or he called in a couple of nearby uniforms to arrest him. It also explains why he has to sneak up to the roof to smoke pot; he risks suspension if he gets caught. And it explains why he tells Lisa he's "busy" when he's just sitting in a car; he's on a stakeout. It even explains his oblivious attitude toward Lisa throughout the film; he's trying to maneuver her into a more incriminating position.\\
\\
Bonus: it's semi-canon, as it's part of the backstory Greg Sestero created for the character.

[[WMG:Denny is a cat]]
[[https://www.reddit.com/r/FanTheories/comments/3egb5s/the_room_2003_denny_is_actually_a_cat/ Based on a theory on Reddit]] -- Denny's behavior is best explained by his being a cat.
* Lisa and Johnny let Denny in and then leave him alone to go have sex because that's normal with a cat. When he tries to butt in when they're in bed together, they're amused and unsurprised -- cats crave attention, and they have a knack for trying to get it exactly when you're trying to have a private moment.
* He stops by randomly uninvited for an extremely brief visit. Randomly shows up, then randomly leaves. Like a cat.
* He wants to kiss his friend's "future wife". It's how a cat would express affection -- it's normal behavior.
* He likes to hang out in high places because he's a cat.
* In one scene he enters the room, and for no reason sits on the floor, in a pool of sunlight streaming from a window. Just like a cat would.
* He doesn't want to admit which specific drugs he's using because he thinks he's people, and he doesn't want to admit to his human friends that he's been HighOnCatnip.
* Johnny insists on taking care of Denny, paying for his every whim. Cats can't pay for themselves; someone has to do it.
* Tommy Wiseau's description of Denny as "retarded, a little bit", could just be Johnny's perception of his cat; many cat owners think their cat is particularly dim, especially if they're the needy, clingy type that Denny seems to be. Even a talking cat who says the sort of stupid shit Denny says probably wouldn't win any prizes for intelligence.
The only real issue is that Chris-R was brandishing a gun at, screaming at, and demanding money from a cat. He might have been [[GettingHighOnTheirOwnSupply sampling his wares]].

[[WMG:Mark's last name is Damon.]]
This is based on a story Greg told in ''Literature/TheDisasterArtist''. After he and Tommy saw ''Film/TheTalentedMrRipley'', the latter told the former he was going to [[AccidentalMisnaming name a character]] after [[Creator/MattDamon "Mark Damon"]].

[[folder: Plot]]
[[WMG: The sex scenes are POV shots.]]
--> '''Denny''': I just like to watch you guys.
Not only does this explain many things (''e.g.'' why Denny is so confident that Lisa will kiss him), but at least three other entities think this makes sense:
* The ''Podcast/RiffTrax'' for the movie jokes that Denny is outside the window filming Mark and Lisa's first sex scene;
* WebVideo/ObscurusLupa noted a PlotHole -- that Denny [[spoiler:is clearly already crying before he sees Johnny's corpse]] -- which would be explained by Denny having seen this beforehand on film (he probably was too stunned at what he was seeing to intervene earlier); and
* In ''VideoGame/TheRoomTheGame'', you can stumble in on Denny's secret camera room, in which he's watching all parts of the hotel.
The creepiest thing about it is the likelihood that Denny's lust for Lisa is just a cover story, and there's a ''reason'' the scenes focus so much on Tommy Wiseau's wrinkly, pulsating buttox.

[[WMG: Denny is a secret agent, and almost the entire movie is shot from cameras Denny has installed.]]
Denny is OlderThanTheyLook,[[note]]This works on a meta level as well. Phillip Haldeman was in his mid twenties when he played the [[DawsonCasting college aged]] Denny[[/note]] a policeman or FBI agent who's investigating Johnny for embezzlement from his bank. He's working with other agents, at least one of whom is seen on screen -- Chris-R. Denny poses as a neighbor kid to gain Johnny's trust, and he plants cameras in and outside their home to collect evidence. Most of the scenes in the film are taken from these cameras; the only ones which aren't are in the flower shop (which has CCTV footage) and the park scenes (probably a bystander's cell phone video or another cop collecting evidence). The scene with Chris-R was a setup, designed to throw Johnny and company off the scent (not that it's any less ridiculous). This scenario has three possible branches:
* No one else is in on it. Out of those we see on screen, only Denny and Chris-R are involved.
* Mark is also an agent. Like Denny, he befriends Johnny and Lisa to find out what Johnny's up to. Unlike Denny, Mark has to deal with Lisa unexpectedly coming on to him. Mark is unnerved, but he goes along with it thinking that she might know something and be more talkative post-coital. Mark's outburst at Lisa at the end might be due to his frustration at her audacity ([[spoiler:"I lost him, but I still have ''you'', right?"]]), or it might be from his frustration at the suspect [[spoiler:committing suicide]]. If Lisa was an accomplice, Mark probably arrested her right after this.
* Lisa becomes TheMole. Soon after Denny installs the cameras, he correctly identifies Lisa as the weakest link (probably from her first conversation with Claudette). Off-camera, he and Chris-R approach Lisa, share their suspicions, and offer her protection if she works with them. Lisa agrees -- either she didn't know what Johnny was up to and is disgusted, or she did but was willing to throw him under the bus to save her own ass. She discovers that Mark is Johnny's accomplice, and then she goes off the deep end and pulls a DirtyHarriet on him. It works initially -- Mark gets cocky thinking that he's getting the money ''and'' the girl, and even starts thinking of how to frame Johnny and get off scot-free. When Johnny [[spoiler:offs himself]], Lisa realizes that she's gone too far and breaks down.

[[WMG: Every character in the movie has a two-minute memory span.]]
The film's bizarre repetition of certain details is not just because the film thinks ViewersAreGoldfish. It's because the characters literally can't remember otherwise; it's a cast of people like Leonard from ''Film/{{Memento}}''. Johnny and friends constantly [[AsYouKnow remind each other]] of things they should already know -- Lisa is hot, Johnny and Lisa are engaged, Mark is Johnny's best friend, [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment Lisa is hot]]. Mark is shocked every time Lisa puts the moves on him. Subplots like Chris-R's drug deal and Claudette's cancer vanish into thin air because the characters have all forgotten about them. Well, Chris-R didn't -- Denny forgot to pay him, so Chris-R goes to violently extract the money from him.\\
\\
A corollary to this theory is that Claudette ''does'' have a working memory (an {{irony}} from the oldest character in the film), and being the [[OnlySaneMan Only Sane Woman]] frustrates her to no end. She's particularly disgusted by her daughter Lisa and plays up Johnny to her because she's getting revenge by forcing Lisa into a toxic relationship.

[[WMG: Johnny was actually murdered by Denny.]]
Denny was a StalkerWithACrush on Lisa, and he killed Johnny so that he could [[MurderTheHypotenuse have her for himself]]. The whole movie is a story Denny made up on the spot to cover up the truth. He gets really carried away with it, acting it out as he narrates it. Johnny's accent and dialogue comes from Denny's poor imitation of an actual French accent.

[[WMG: Johnny is suffering from Borderline Personality Disorder, and much of ''The Room'' takes place in his imagination.]]
Johnny suffers from crippling low self-esteem. He makes up for what he thinks is his "unlovableness" by playing Santa Claus with his wealth. But he really doesn't feel equal to their love or friendship, because he "knows" deep inside he isn't worthy of it. Images of how they talk about him when he's not there constantly play in his mind.
* Lisa is actually completely faithful to Johnny. But Johnny thinks she's way out of his league, and he becomes consumed with the idea that she ''must'' be cheating on him. He also imagines that everyone else thinks she's as hot as he does, which is why everyone remarks conspicuously on her beauty.
* Claudette is always cordial to Johnny, but behind the scenes doesn't like him and thinks he's just a meal ticket for her daughter. This is also in Johnny's imagination; he can't accept that his future wife's ''mother'' would like him. He not only imagines that she must disapprove of him behind the scenes, but also creates an explanation for why Lisa would stay with him.
* Peter isn't Johnny's friend who's a psychologist, he's ''actually'' Johnny's psychologist. Johnny thinks of him as a friend because it's too threatening to imagine himself as the kind of person who needs psychological help.
* Denny isn't "slightly retarded", ''Johnny'' is. Johnny's in denial about his problem and projects it onto Denny. Denny is actually a fairly crafty teenager who's taking advantage of the slightly slow but wealthy weird guy. Johnny relates to Denny's innocence ploy, and his generosity leads him to bankroll Denny's tuition.
* Mark isn't just Johnny's best friend, he's his ''only'' friend. But Johnny resents him because he's so handsome and socially adept, like Johnny wishes he was.
This explains why Lisa and Mark's affair looks as bizarre as it does; it's all in Johnny's head. Lisa hasn't fallen out of love with Johnny -- ''Johnny's'' fallen out of love with Lisa. He can't bring himself to tell her, as he feels guilty for not loving a woman he's promised to marry. He instead imagines that she's cheating on him, because if that were true, he could end the relationship guilt-free. But Johnny can't invent someone for Lisa to cheat with, so she has to be cheating with someone he knows. That basically narrows it down to Mark. Johnny still trusts Mark (as much as he's capable of trusting), so he has to see Mark as an innocent party. He therefore imagines Lisa seducing an unwitting Mark -- a Mark so unwitting that he's surprised every time Lisa puts the moves on him.\\
\\
This theory can explain other plot weirdness, too:
* Johnny's Make-Out Palace: Johnny likes to imagine his friends coming over to make out at his place. He likes thinking he's just that generous, and he... well... enjoys imagining what they do.
* Toss the Football: Johnny thinks this is the way guys should behave, so he inserts the football-tossing into a lot of imagined conversations.
* A Wild Drug Dealer Suddenly Appears: The Chris-R subplot is Johnny's daydream. Johnny wants to feel like a hero, so he concocts a crisis he can help solve. Once it's "solved", it's never mentioned again.
* The Breast Cancer: Johnny resents Claudette for what he imagines is her real attitude toward him, and her "breast cancer" line is just Johnny's wishful thinking.
* Denny's Creepiness: Denny actually does have the hots for Lisa and takes advantage of his "innocent kid" persona to express it. He vaguely hopes that someday Johnny might be "generous" enough to offer to share even his girlfriend.
* Tape Recorders Don't Work That Way: Johnny wants to tape Lisa's calls, but he has no idea how. He clumsily imagines hooking up an old-style tape recorder. This is why it comes out of nowhere and never runs out of tape.
* Peter, Called Steven: Peter goes on vacation partway through the movie, and Johnny starts seeing another psychologist, Steven, in the interim. He clumsily "edits" Steven into his imagined scenes.
* Reefer Madness: Johnny doesn't really know how drugs work, and he resents Peter for "abandoning" him. He therefore imagines that he and Mark get so high, they almost kill Peter.
* Baby Surprise: Lisa really ''is'' pregnant, and she tells Johnny just before the party as a birthday present. Outwardly, Johnny is happy, but inwardly, he panics -- he can't possibly take care of a child! And now he'd be a ''real'' monster if he broke off their engagement. Johnny fantasizes that she lied about the baby, which would relieve him of his responsibilities ''and'' give him the excuse he needs to break up with her. But inside, he knows it isn't true.
* Ballroom Blitz: Johnny has a panic attack that leads to him accusing Lisa and Mark of having an affair, causing a big scene at his own birthday party. The first confrontation with Mark is real -- notice how Mark's side of the argument is vague, like "You don't know shit!", suggesting Mark doesn't understand what Johnny's on about.[[note]]Mark does ask Lisa who the baby's father is, but that bit's in Johnny's head, or perhaps Mark's just being an asshole.[[/note]] The ''second'' confrontation with Mark, where he openly admits to having an affair with Lisa, is in Johnny's head. When he goes outside on the balcony, Lisa follows him and tearfully insists that she's not having an affair and she still loves him.
* Bathroom Betrayal: When Johnny locks himself in the bathroom, Lisa isn't talking on the phone to Mark, but to emergency services -- she fears for Johnny's well-being. When Johnny flips out and uses this conversation as "proof" of her betrayal, a frightened Lisa sensibly escapes from the apartment until help arrives. After all, she has the baby to protect.
* The {{Denouement}}: Johnny then goes on his rampage, weakly imitating what he thinks a furious rampage must be. Then he ''imagines'' that he [[spoiler:kills himself, along with everyone's reaction]]. Johnny is now free of his problems, free of guilt because Lisa is to blame for everything, and gets to hear everyone say [[spoiler:how much they'll miss him and what a good person he is]]. It's not Mark and Lisa who find Johnny, it's the paramedics, who find him [[spoiler:lying on the floor wishing he actually had a gun to do it]].

[[WMG: The plot of the film (sex scenes aside) is kids play-acting their interpretation of a "grown-up" movie.]]
* Johnny talks about his job in an extremely vague fashion, as if he is a young child trying to explain what his father does for a living.
* When Johnny and Mark apprehend Chris-R, they say that they're going to "take him to jail", which is a very simplistic view of the legal system. "Jail" might as well just be "time-out".
* The swearing in the movie is very stilted and awkward, like preteens attempting to use curse words they have heard before, but are not quite sure how to use naturally.
* Mike flatly states that he's "going to go make out" with Michelle, and Johnny abruptly asks Mark about his sex life. A child or preteen who has seen a movie or television show with sexual content or simply heard about sex from their peers may believe that adults talk about sex so openly and casually.
* Johnny's tantrum resembles a young child's, not an angry adult's. His [[spoiler:suicide at the end]] is a means of getting attention and making everyone feel sorry for how they "wronged" him.
* Even the sex scenes make a kind of sense. Children wouldn't be expected to know how sex works, which is why Johnny is doing it wrong.

[[WMG: Betty and Elizabeth aren't examples of breaking the OneSteveLimit.]]
Rather, they are actually the same person. Elizabeth's dozen guys included both Denny and Mark; when Mark found out through Johnny that Elizabeth was cheating, he beat her up so bad she ended up in a hospital in Guerrero Street.

[[WMG: Your love is what I need to set me free.]]

[[/folder]]

[[folder: The Movie]]
[[WMG: ''The Room'', either deliberately or coincidentally, is the anti-''Film/CitizenKane''.]]
This goes beyond the common appellation of ''The Room'' as "the ''Citizen Kane'' of bad movies" -- there are a lot of parallels:
* Both films had a single person as the director, producer, and lead actor.
* Both feature new actors in leading roles who had never been in a movie before.
* Both are considered the pinnacle of their level of quality -- ''The Room'' being SoBadItsGood, and ''Citizen Kane'' being ''actually'' good.
* Both include a scene where [[spoiler:the main character's love interest leaves them, and they respond by [[AngerMontage trashing their room]]]]. Tommy Wiseau was explicit that his version was a ShoutOut to ''Citizen Kane''.
* Both have [[spoiler:an affair]] as part of the plot, although this is pushing it a bit.
* Both films' protagonists are [[spoiler:betrayed by their best friend in some way]], although this is also pushing it a bit.
* Both films' protagonists [[spoiler:end up dead by the end of the movie]].
It's interesting to note that Tommy Wiseau, in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRw0cnxo2vs the first episode of his webshow]], explicitly compared ''The Room'' to ''Citizen Kane''. That's about as '''confirmed''' as this is going to get.

[[WMG: ''The Room'' is Tommy Wiseau's ''SpringtimeForHitler''.]]
The film's budget was ''$6 million''. And the image quality is poor, there is a dearth of locations and set construction, there's no continuity editing, the costumes are ill-fitting, and a lead actor has to be line producer ''and'' assistant to the director. Even with Tommy Wiseau's poor purchasing decisions ''vis-à-vis'' side-by-side cameras and the rights to birthday songs, is there any way $6 million could have gone into the production?\\
\\
Furthermore, Tommy won't even hint at where the money came from. Not that it's anyone's business but his investors' (possibly nefarious, possibly vampiric), but it's still awfully suspect. And even furthermore, once the film tanked at the box office, Wiseau repurchased the exclusive rights to the film from the investors for pennies on the dollar, which is why he's free to profit from it by screening it at midnight and selling [=DVDs=] to fans of SoBadItsGood movies.\\
\\
The plan is obvious. Tommy makes a hilariously awful movie that's sure to tank, especially with its extremely limited release, but still conveniently way under budget. Once the movie failed, and it was clear that none of his investors were getting their [-FUCKING MONEY!-] back, Wiseau would be free to leave the U.S. with the rest of the budget for... wherever the hell he's from.

[[WMG: ''The Room'' is a [[VideoGame/TheSims Sims]] movie.]]
Consider the repetitive and irrelevant conversations, limited leisure activities, the excessively brief time spent in shops, and all the actions with little to no motivations behind them -- the unseen player is controlling all the Sims in [[TitleDrop the room]]. Johnny's weird accent is because his first language is [[SpeakingSimlish Simlish]]. And [[spoiler:Johnny's suicide]] was only possible through a third-party mod.

[[WMG: ''The Room'' really ''was'' supposed to be a dark comedy.]]
However, Wiseau's script supervisor, the above-mentioned Sandy Schklair, didn't see it that way. Either he didn't understand the comedy, understood it but didn't find it funny, or thought that the comedy got in the way of what he saw as a great story. Regardless, Schklair rewrote the script and instructed the actors to treat it as a drama, which Wiseau either begrudgingly allowed or [[CloudCuckoolander didn't notice]]. However, Schklair did a real lousy job covering his tracks; he basically got rid of some scenes, added some new ones, and left the rest completely intact. This explains ''tons'':
* Denny's creepy behavior was supposed to be a lot more obvious, but the really questionable stuff was cut out.
* Claudette's breast cancer was a subplot that was completely removed. Much like Chris-R's scene, it was inserted to add more drama, but they forgot about it. Alternatively, it was meant to be a comedy bit; no one's sure what jokes you could make out of breast cancer, but there you go.
* We were ''supposed'' to be disturbed by Johnny's nonchalant "what a story, Mark!" That's the joke. Ditto for "anyway, how's your sex life?" and "I did not hit her, ''I did naaght''! Oh hai Mark!"
* Mark's obliviousness to Lisa's advances was meant to be clearer, but since the actors were told to play it serious, that didn't come across.
* The endless number of football scenes would have had even more examples, as an [[OverlyLongGag Overly Long]] RunningGag.
* "Oh hai!" was also a RunningGag.
* The huge number of overdubbed lines is a result of Schklair making post-production edits of lines he considered too funny.

[[WMG: ''The Room'' is a sequel to ''VisualNovel/PlumbersDontWearTies''.]]
* The two Johnnys are the exact same character -- both of them are {{Marty Stu}}s who command everyone's respect and cause LoveAtFirstSight. At some point between the two works, Johnny's face was horribly scarred.
* Jane is Lisa. She finds herself caught between two men, and her love for both is completely superficial. She was a little younger in ''Plumbers Don't Wear Ties'' and therefore went a little further.
* The boss, Thresher, is Denny, who's a time traveler. In both stories, he's a sexually aggressive and possibly mentally disabled person who gets into something illegal.
* Even other characters with show up, although the connection is more tenuous. Claudette is the StrawFeminist second narrator, and Mark is the man with the [[WebVideo/TheAngryVideoGameNerd upside-down fucking chicken mask]].

[[WMG: ''The Room'' is a sequel to ''Film/TenThingsIHateAboutYou''.]]
In ''Ten Things'', Creator/HeathLedger's character, Patrick, has long curly black hair and speaks with an accent -- not nearly as weird as Johnny's, but he's still noted as having one. Sound familiar? Obviously, he didn't age well. Lisa is an older Kat.

[[WMG: ''The Room'', whether intentionally or otherwise, is told from the perspective of an UnreliableNarrator with a serious mental disability.]]
Nothing makes sense to a normal person. People come and go through Johnny's house for no explained reason; they wear clothes that make no sense for the occasion; their emotions and tone of voice don't match the situation. But Johnny doesn't notice anything out of the ordinary (and perhaps neither does Tommy). It ties in with several of the [=WMGs=] elsewhere on the page that suggests that Tommy Wiseau has a mental issue of some sort, and ''The Room'' is what it is because it's Tommy's perspective on things. Things just happen because, in Tommy's mind, they happen. Whether or not Tommy is ''aware'' of this is a different story.

[[WMG: ''The Room''s is a film about the monuments and buildings of UsefulNotes/SanFrancisco.]]
It has a ton of {{Establishing Shot}}s of the city, some even within the same scene. But these are not establishing shots -- they're the action of the movie, and the ''human'' scenes are the establishing shots! The film only makes sense to inanimate objects, which is part of why the human characters don't do anything we can understand. The Golden Gate Bridge is the film's star -- San Francisco's most visible landmark, generally happy to [[MonumentalDamage survive the film intact]]. But the protagonists are the innocuous apartments in Johnny's building. And the lead is the room in which everything happens -- it's a CharacterTitle.

[[WMG: ''The Room'' is ''Film/BenAndArthur'' with straight people.]]
''Ben and Arthur'' is a 2002 film, also considered SoBadItsGood, that follows a gay couple who try to legally consummate their relationship while trying to dodge the evil machinations of the protagonist's [[HeteronormativeCrusader hyper-religious brother]]. Most comparisons between the two films tend to refer to their mutual incompetence and {{Anvilicious}}ness, but they have a surprising amount in common:
* Both have a CopiouslyCreditedCreator -- in ''Ben and Arthur'''s case, Sam Mraovich.
* Both take place in one of the biggest cities in California -- San Francisco in ''The Room'', Los Angeles in ''Ben and Arthur''. Both are also largely set in the lead character's apartment.
* Both films depict every male as a total bastard except for the leading guy and one other character (Ben in ''Ben and Arthur'', Peter in ''The Room'').
* Both feature a wedding as an important plot point. In ''The Room'', the wedding never actually happens. In ''Ben and Arthur'', it ''technically'' happens, but is not recognized by the state of California.
* Both films have [[spoiler:a DownerEnding]], in which [[spoiler:the saintly protagonist meets his untimely demise at the hands of a gun]]. And in both films, [[spoiler:the firearm in question]] is obtained during a BigLippedAlligatorMoment.

[[WMG: ''The Room'' is a high-class piece of film by the standards of the Spoon World.]]
On the Spoon World, critics prefer films where character motivations and development do not exist, and drama is resolved quickly. ''The Room'' was a critically acclaimed, award-winning movie, considered one of the finest pieces of Spoon-made drama. It encapsulated everything the Spoon Worlders thought was important in a dramatic movie. But it [[AcclaimedFlop didn't actually make any money]], so the producers exported it to Earth, knowing that they wouldn't understand it but hoping that they'd find it so funny, they'd watch it.

[[WMG: ''The Room'' is at least semi-autobiographical.]]
''Literature/TheDisasterArtist'' seems to think so -- some elements of the film are so specific that they seem to draw on an actual sour relationship Tommy Wiseau had once had. He's still fuming about it by the time he makes the movie, hence all the dialogue about how all women are crazy and out to get you. Lisa seems to cheat on Johnny ForTheEvulz, suggesting that Johnny can't figure out why his actual girlfriend did it and concluded it was just something women did. Everybody holds the men blameless -- not just Johnny, but also Mark. Mark's character's ''existence'' doesn't make sense outside the context of Lisa needing someone with whom to cheat on Johnny. Johnny, meanwhile, is presented as a LoveMartyr, a selfless, brilliant, inspiring person who has been needlessly wronged and is [[spoiler:TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth]]. In fact, Johnny's [[spoiler:suicide and the ensuing fallout]] is almost a dead giveaway -- Tommy Wiseau wrote into the film a childish fantasy where [[spoiler:he kills himself, and ''now'' everyone is sorry for treating him the way they did!]] He couldn't do it in real life, but he also couldn't stop himself from imagining it.

[[WMG: ''The Room'' is a modern-day AlternateUniverse FanFic of ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings''.]]
Lisa is the One Ring in human form -- everyone lusts after her. The other characters are loosely based on ''Lord of the Rings'' characters:
* Johnny is Frodo, tasked with destroying the Ring but struggling to resist its allure. Johnny volunteers to take on the responsibility of Ring-bearer, and he proposes to Lisa, taking her all for himself and shielding everyone else from the temptation. Lisa, upon realizing that Johnny is actually trying to destroy her, starts cheating on him as a way of [[DrivenToMadness driving him to madness]].
* Mark is Sam, Frodo's faithful companion. He finds it easier to resist Lisa's charms than other characters, demonstrated by Mark's constant confusion every time Lisa comes on to him -- he's so disinterested in power that Lisa has little to offer him. But like his book counterpart, he has to briefly take on the role of Ring-bearer while Johnny/Frodo is out of commission. ''The Room'' is a loose interpretation of this part of ''The Lord of the Rings'', with Johnny/Frodo struggling to understand that Mark/Sam is just helping. Lisa makes it look like an affair to mess with Johnny, but that's not really the case.
* Denny is Gollum, the previous owner of the Ring, who still lusts after it. Lisa only half-heartedly dismisses Denny's attempts to win her back; she's just busy working on Johnny. This would imply that Denny and Lisa had been in a relationship before, but Lisa's closer in age to Denny than to Johnny, so it's less creepy than it sounds. ''The Room'' kind of mangles ''The Lord of the Rings''' ending, in that [[spoiler:it's Johnny/Frodo who is destroyed instead of Lisa]], but Denny's reaction is as if he knows [[spoiler:the Ring will never choose him]].
* Claudette is Sauron -- she created Lisa, in the way Sauron created the Ring. She even calls Lisa "my precious" at one point (yes, Gollum made the line famous, but other Ring-bearers have been known to use the term).
* Peter is Gandalf, who is resurrected as Steven after his battle with the Balrog, here portrayed by Chris-R. They didn't show that part, unfortunately. They may have foreshadowed it, though, with Peter being dangled off the roof -- he and Chris-R both fell from that roof. Chris-R may be high a lot, but he can't fly (at least in this version).
* Mike is Pippin, and Michelle is a [[GenderBender gender-bent]] Merry.

[[WMG: ''The Room'' is a loose retelling of ''Film/TheApartment''.]]
Aside from the similarities in the title, which derive from the similarities in the setting (Baxter's apartment, wherever the hell Johnny lives), they've got other things in common. Both characters allow others to have sex in their apartment -- that's the only way Mike and Michelle's subplot even makes sense. Both characters are also seeking a promotion at work and are using their place to allow a co-worker to have an affair -- in ''The Room'', that part of the film doesn't go anywhere, but neither does anything else.

[[WMG: ''The Room'' was set in the early to mid-[[UsefulNotes/TheNineties 1990s]].]]
Although Tommy Wiseau ostensibly wrote it in the late 90s to early 2000s, it still has many elements of the earlier part of the decade:
* Look at the characters' hairstyles -- not just Johnny himself, but Claudette and Denny, too. Lisa's thick eyebrows, Claudette's outfits, and Chris-R's generic drug dealer get-up also scream early 90s.
* Look at the Ikea-inspired sets, in particular Johnny and Lisa's living room and bedroom.
* Look at the Creator/{{Cinemax}}-style love scenes, reminiscent of ''Red Shoe Diaries'', and the generic 90s-style R&B love songs like "I Will" and "Crazy".
* It's set in San Francisco to appeal to fans of ''Series/FullHouse'', which was popular in the early 1990s and set in that city.
* Lisa's vague talk of being in the "computer business" makes more sense if it's set in the early 90s, an era when people still considered computers to be magical unworkable machines and Lisa could plausibly be exhausted trying to explain to everyone what she actually does for a living.

[[WMG: ''The Room'' is actually a fairly good European film that was given a horrible dub.]]
Like many European movies, [[EuropeansAreKinky there's a lot of sex]] -- more than Americans are used to.

[[WMG: ''The Room'' is a sendup of a SoapOpera.]]
It's all about the personal problems and relationships of rich people and their friends. It's set mostly indoors and shot rather economically, usually bouncing between conversations involving two people. Said conversations have a lot of [[AsYouKnow repetitive dialogue]], a staple of soap operas to catch up the viewers on the ContinuitySnarl. It has lots of gratuitous sex. And it has loads and loads of subplots that make no sense other than to comply with the RuleOfDrama. It's set up like a soap opera.\\
\\
Whether or not this was deliberate, though, is an unsettled point. Tommy may have done it to lampoon the soap opera. Or he may just have done it that way because living in Europe, American soap operas were his only exposure to American culture, and he figured that all American stories were like that.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Other]]
[[WMG: ''The Room'' is the fever dream of [[ComicBook/JohnnyTheHomicidalManiac another Johnny]].]]
Nny gets the flu, feels crappy, and accidentally falls asleep. He has a dream about what his life would be like if he were a normal guy and not a crazy serial killer, but because he's sick and doesn't really understand normal people to begin with, all the conversations and events are extremely weird and stilted, his sick, delusional mind creating the many non-sequiturs in the dialogue and storyline. The sex scenes depict how he imagines sex, which is why they're all so disturbing and nasty. Johnny is now his idea of what sociable and friendly must be like -- petting doggies, tossing footballs, and doing "nice" things for his friends. Denny is an aged-up stand-in for Squee, to whom he can be a father figure in the dream. The dream ends when [[spoiler:Johnny commits suicide]]; his fever breaks, and he starts to remember who he is again.

[[WMG: The "bank" Johnny works for is, or is affiliated with, [[Series/ArrestedDevelopment the Bluth Company]].]]
They've exhausted all sources of funding in Southern California, so they begrudgingly went further north. This bank is much more receptive to the family's ideas, and Johnny is shown exhibiting one of them -- terrible chicken impressions.

[[WMG: How the film got its name:]]
Someone looked at the first page of Tommy's untitled script and said, "Be sure to leave room for the title." Tommy's mind is so scrambled that he thought the were telling him to make sure ''The Room'' was the title.\\
\\
{{Jossed}}, though -- the film started life as a play which would have taken place in a single room. But Tommy hasn't always been consistent about it, at other points explaining the film's title as referring to a person's HappyPlace. Maybe he gave it the ParodyRetcon like everything else.

[[WMG: Most of the characters have serious mental problems.]]
As other guesses on this page have speculated, Johnny (and possibly Tommy Wiseau) is mentally handicapped, and the film seems random and senseless because it's told from his point of view. But certain plot points regarding other characters seem strange. Some theories explain this by showing that these interactions are taking place inside Johnny's head. But it's possible that the other characters ''also'' have mental problems:
* Denny, like Johnny, is mentally disabled. This is actually how they met -- families with seriously disabled kinds tend to socialize with each other. Johnny and Denny's other "friends" might be relatives or family friends looking out for them.
* Mark ''may'' be mentally disabled, in a similar situation to Denny and Johnny. He seems to be more socially adept than the other two, but he's still got his share of slowness. Notice how slow he is to figure out what Lisa wants, how easily he lets himself be seduced by his friend's future wife, and how often he blurts out nonsensical lines like "Leave your stupid comments in your pocket!" It's hard to assess Mark, though, because of his [[TheStoner drug habit]].
* Lisa is not intellectually disabled, but she does have a mood disorder (''e.g.'' Borderline, Bipolar, Histrionic). This is why, as her mother says, she can't support herself -- her disability is so severe that even meds and therapy can't help her live a normal life. Her only hope of surviving outside a group home is marrying Johnny, living on a combination of Johnny's well-off family, disability checks from the government, and a paycheck as Johnny's nominal caregiver. Her disorder is the source of her pervasive lying and nymphomania.
* Claudette could go either way. She might have the same mood disorder Lisa does, making it hereditary -- it would explain why she lied about the breast cancer. Or, she might not be disabled at all, and she really does have breast cancer, but she doesn't want to talk about it with all the crazy people who would never understand what she's going through. She tries to tell her own daughter, who just brushes her off, which discourages her further.

[[WMG: The building where Johnny and Lisa live is a community for perverts.]]
Kind of like a nudist colony, except for people with loose sexual boundaries. Notice, for instance:
* Denny wanders in and out as he pleases with no regard for other's privacy. He walks in on Lisa and Johnny getting ready to have sex like it's something normal people do. When they ask what he's doing, he says he "just like(s) to watch."
* Lisa doesn't seem at all surprised to find two people having sex on her couch when she comes home with her mom.
* There's the guy at the party whose only line, to his girlfriend, is "Lisa looks hot tonight." He may have thought he was at a swinger's party, or he and his girlfriend may even have had something planned with Lisa and Johnny later that night.
None of this, however, changes the betrayal aspect of it. Whether or not Johnny and Lisa are in an open relationship, Johnny doesn't approve of Lisa sleeping with Mark ''specifically'', so Lisa does it behind his back.
[[/folder]]

Specifically, he's a Valeyard created from the darkest sides of the Time Lord whose other incarnations include WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic and the WebVideo/AngryVideoGameNerd.

* Denny is an actor whom Johnny's uncle pays to be his friend. Lisa doesn't like him, but she has to put up with him. Johnny's uncle is particularly nice to Denny, paying his rent ''and'' his college tuition. Denny is a shrewd character, though, and he might well be taking advantage of Johnny and his uncle. He's also deadly bored, hence why he ropes in Lisa and Chris-R (and Mark and Claudette) to enact their nonsensical scene. Or it's possible that he worked for Chris-R before landing the Johnny gig, and left with some of the dealer's money. The scene we saw was when Chris-R finally tracked him down, which might explain why he was so angry.

Denny is OlderThanTheyLook, a policeman or FBI agent who's investigating Johnny for embezzlement from his bank. He's working with other agents, at least one of whom is seen on screen -- Chris-R. Denny poses as a neighbor kid to gain Johnny's trust, and he plants cameras in and outside their home to collect evidence. Most of the scenes in the film are taken from these cameras; the only ones which aren't are in the flower shop (which has CCTV footage) and the park scenes (probably a bystander's cell phone video or another cop collecting evidence). The scene with Chris-R was a setup, designed to throw Johnny and company off the scent (not that it's any less ridiculous). This scenario has three possible branches:

* Denny is an actor whom Johnny's uncle pays to be his friend. Lisa doesn't like him, but she has to put up with him. Johnny's uncle is particularly nice to Denny, paying his rent ''and'' his college tuition. Denny is a shrewd character, though, and he might well be taking advantage of Johnny and his uncle. He's also deadly bored, hence why he ropes in Lisa and Chris-R (and Mark and Claudette) to enact their nonsensical scene.

* Mark was Lisa's boyfriend all along -- perhaps even her husband. He's a pretty laid-back guy who doesn't want to do very much other than [[TheStoner get stoned all day]], which is why Lisa is so desperate for money. But he's also a nice guy, and he hangs out with Johnny more than anyone else. It's not that hard -- you just sit on the roof and occasionally throw the football around. This is why Johnny thinks of Mark as his best friend. However, Johnny cannot reconcile his own feelings for Lisa and the obvious fact that she's with Mark. Johnny's obsession with Lisa is so blatant and awkward that even easygoing Mark eventually blows his top at the party.

[[WMG: Tommy Wiseau is from Earth's distant future, where ''Film/TheRoom'' is seen as the Greatest Movie of All Time.]]

However, Wiseau's script supervisor, the above-mentioned Sandy Schklair, didn't see it that way. Either he didn't understand the comedy, understood it but didn't find it funny, or thought that [[WhatAnIdiot the comedy got in the way of what he saw as a great story]]. Regardless, Schklair rewrote the script and instructed the actors to treat it as a drama, which Wiseau either begrudgingly allowed or [[CloudCuckoolander didn't notice]]. However, Schklair did a real lousy job covering his tracks; he basically got rid of some scenes, added some new ones, and left the rest completely intact. This explains ''tons'':

Tommy didn't stop at selling birds, though. He negotiated his fortune into prized Bay Area real estate, at the height of the dot-com boom. But then his life changed again when he got into a traumatic car accident (possibly not the first he'd ever had), which spurred a mid-life crisis. Now he wanted to pursue a new passion: filmmaking. Being a RichIdiotWithNoDayJob, he could easily commute between San Francisco and Los Angeles for acting classes. This is also how he met Greg, who became his only friend. When Greg began to drift away, a hurt and betrayed Tommy [[WriteWhatYouKnow turned that]] into ''The Room''.

* He has poor memory; he can't memorize his lines and needs constant prompting (it took more than ''three hours'' for him to make it through the "I did not hit her!" scene), despite having written them himself. His MultipleChoicePast might not be Wiseau hiding something, but rather just his poor memory.

And she's no slouch herself. Her reactions to Lisa's admissions of her infidelity are disappointment that Lisa's not doing a [[DoWrongRight good enough job at it]]. In particular, it explains her nonchalance when Lisa claims Johnny got drunk and hit her; her response, "Johnny doesn't drink!", is frustration at Lisa that her lie isn't good enough.

Lisa's in her twenties, and Claudette is probably in her sixties. She probably had Lisa when she was in her forties. Claudette even has a line suggesting that Lisa's father wasn't her first husband.

This is how she can technically be in the "computer business" but still be home all day and dependent on Johnny for cash. The film wants you to ''think'' that she's a programmer or something, but if she were really a computer programmer in San Francisco, ''(a)'' she would spend all her time commuting to Palo Alto or somewhere else in the Silicon Valley, ''(b)'' she would be making more than enough to live without Johnny, and ''(c)'' Johnny wouldn't have to fend off just Mark, but probably Lisa's lecherous, socially awkward, TechBro coworkers as well. Instead, she can work part-time for a pittance and spend the rest of her time at home.\\

The only real issue is that Chris-R was brandishing a gun, screaming, and demanding money from a cat. He might have been [[GettingHighOnTheirOwnSupply sampling his wares]].

Denny is OlderThanTheyLook, a policeman or FBI agent who's investigating Johnny for embezzlement from his bank. He's working with other agents, at least one of whom is seen on screen -- Chris-R. Denny poses as a neighbor kid to gain Johnny's trust, and he plants cameras in and outside their home to collect evidence. Most of the scenes in the film are taken from these cameras; the only ones which aren't are in the flower shop (which has CCTV footage) and the park scenes (probably a bystander's cell phone video). The scene with Chris-R was a setup, designed to throw Johnny and company off the scent (not that it's any less ridiculous). This scenario has three possible branches:

* Lisa becomes TheMole. Soon after Denny installs the cameras, he correctly identifies Lisa as the weakest link (probably from her first conversation with Claudette). Off-camera, he and Chris-R approach Lisa, share their suspicions, and offer her protection if she works with them. Lisa agrees -- either she didn't know what Johnny was up to and is disgusted, or she did but was willing to throw him under the bus to save her own rear end. She discovers that Mark is Johnny's accomplice, and then she goes off the deep end and pulls a DirtyHarriet on him. It works initially -- Mark gets cocky thinking that he's getting the money ''and'' the girl, and even starts thinking of how to frame Johnny and get off scot-free. When Johnny [[spoiler:offs himself]], Lisa realizes that she's gone too far and breaks down.

A corollary to this theory is that Claudette ''does'' have a working memory (an {{Irony}} from the oldest character in the film), and being the [[OnlySaneMan Only Sane Woman]] frustrates her to no end. She's particularly disgusted by her daughter Lisa and plays up Johnny to her because she's getting revenge by forcing Lisa into a toxic relationship.

* Denny's Creepiness: Denny actually does have the hots for Lisa, and takes advantage of his "innocent kid" persona to express it. He vaguely hopes that someday Johnny might be "generous" enough to offer to share even his girlfriend.

* If he's a ''TabletopGame/NewWorldOfDarkness'' vampire, he could be a Nosferatu. He's not creepy-looking enough to be one in ''Old World'', but ''New World'' versions can look almost normal, except for an [[UncannyValley inherent air of wrongness]].

* He's not actually laughing at inappropriate times -- it's his species' version of verbal filler, akin to a human saying "um" or "uh..." He's not laughing, he's just thinking over what he's going to say next. People say a ''lot'' of weird things to him over the course of the movie.

* He's got no discernible origin, and he seems to be older than he looks. Maybe he's ReallySevenHundredYearsOld. He does claim Greg's beard makes him look like Spartacus, but if he's referring to [[Film/{{Spartacus}} the film]], its protagonist ''didn't'' have a beard, so maybe he met the genuine article.

* He ''talks'' a lot about vampires. He's referenced a future film project about vampires, and ''Literature/TheDisasterArtist'' claims that there ''The Room'' itself was meant to have a vampire subplot. It also has Tommy claiming he can fall asleep and wake up at will, which he calls a "vampire trick", ''and'' it has Greg walking in on Tommy sleeping hanging from his feet like a bat on his chin-up bar. In "The Tommy Wi-show", Tommy plays ''Franchise/MortalKombat'' and asks if there's a vampire character.

* ''The Disaster Artist'' suggests he has a particular hatred of French things. Greg guesses that Tommy lived in France for a bid -- perhaps while fleeing whichever country in Eastern Europe he's from -- but had a horrible experience and hated the French for their xenophobia. Say what you will about [[{{Eagleland}} American jingoism]], but they ain't [[FrenchJerk French]].

* ''Louisiana''. His last name is kinda French but not really, which works if one of his ancestors changed their name to something French. The "-eau" suffix is ''very'' common in Cajun/Acadian surnames. His accent must have come from moving around Europe when he was younger and picking up English there; maybe only one of his parents is Cajun. Certainly, Wiseau would ''like'' you to think so; ''Literature/TheDisasterArtist'' mentions two fake reviews for the movie that were [[ButHeSoundsHandsome almost certainly written by Wiseau]], both of which call him a Cajun.

Roger has created at least one movie, has a flair for the dramatic, has personas with absurd-sounding names and often ridiculous outfits, his schemes are often over-the-top, he has little regard for anyone except himself, and his personas appear out of nowhere with already established histories.

Life still wasn't easy for Tommy; he spent several more miserable years working as a stock-boy, painfully aware of how weird everyone thought he was. But he realized he could market his weirdness, so he went to the weirdest city in the country: UsefulNotes/SanFrancisco. Once there, he went back to selling tacky souvenirs, particularly toy birds like they sell at the Eiffel Tower. And it worked; he became known as the "Birdman". Somehow, he parlayed this into a fortune. He changed his name to something more "American": Thomas P. Wiseau, a corruption of the French word ''oiseau'', meaning "bird" -- in effect, he formalized his name as "Tommy the Birdman".\\

Tommy didn't stop at selling birds -- he negotiated his fortune into prized Bay Area real estate, at the height of the dot-com boom. But then his life changed again when he got into a traumatic car accident (possibly not the first he'd ever had), which spurred a mid-life crisis. Now he wanted to pursue a new passion: filmmaking. Being a RichIdiotWithNoDayJob, he could easily commute between San Francisco and Los Angeles for acting classes. This is also how he met Greg, who became his only friend. When Greg began to drift away, a hurt and betrayed Tommy [[WriteWhatYouKnow turned that]] into ''The Room''.

Okay, it's based on a few stupid coincidences: The author of "sonic.exe" is named Tom. Said Tom is incredibly slow on the uptake, much like Tommy Wiseau, who still doesn't get why people think ''The Room'' is SoBadItsGood. Both ''The Room'' and "sonic.exe" are so nonsensical and jumbled as to be considered among the most SoBadItsGood works in their respective fields: film and {{Creepypasta}}.

* Both have made works that were received poorly, and neither seems able to tell that their fans are laughing with them rather than at them.

* Both use ideas and quotes from other media with little context (''e.g.'' "You're tearing me apart")

* Tommy frequently reacts to people as if he fails to understand the basic idea of empathy. Between his rude reaction to the girls who flirt with him and Greg at dinner, and his abusive relationship with his cast, he never really seems to exercise any social grace or understanding. But he's probably not a sociopath, because he does have a basic understanding of what emotion ''is'' -- ''The Room'' couldn't have been made without it -- he just doesn't get how it works.

* His speech patterns can also be explained by Asperger's; people who have it often latch on to the exact way they heard someone speak for the first time, and if Tommy first heard English outside the U.S., that would explain why he still speaks that way despite having lived in America for at least a quarter of a century. The odd inflections and turns of phrase (''e.g.'' "playing Santa Claus", "donut hair") that only make sense to him are also a classic sign of Asperger's.
* His obsession with being a vampire isn't really a delusion; Greg describes it as an excuse to put up a wall against society. He's generally a very guarded person, who does vaguely know that he needs to open up but can't do it properly.

A theory advanced by [[http://xkcd.com/1400/ this strip]] from ''Webcomic/{{xkcd}}'', which claims that Wiseau was the mystery man known only as "D. B. Cooper" who committed a daring aircraft hijacking and heist in 1971. All we know of Cooper are the police sketches, which look much younger than Tommy -- except if Tommy really is OlderThanTheyLook, it fits with him having been in his mid-forties in 1971 (as Cooper is described). For what it's worth, Wiseau was asked this himself and denied being Cooper, and ''Website/{{Cracked}}'' [[http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-insane-but-convincing-theories-about-dead-celebrities/ supports this theory]] not because ''they'' think it's true so much as because they think ''someone'' will think it's true.

It does ''not'' explain why ''The Room'' as we know it is very much ''not'' the Greatest Movie of All Time. One explanation is that TheWorldIsNotReady; it will be decades, if not centuries, before we can see the film as the work of genius it is. More likely, though, Tommy never actually saw the real movie, or maybe he slept through it, so he only has a vague idea of how it went. His final result fell somewhat short of the Greatest Movie of All Time, but his ego won't let him see that, and he keeps waiting for the day he becomes the savior of the world. But not all is lost -- the ''real'' creator of the film may well become inspired by the current version, so Wiseau may well be responsible for its eventual creation.

* His manner of speaking is affect, as he slurs, uses strange syntax, and doesn't always comprehend things properly.

* He suffers from mood swings. In fact, Greg theorizes that ''something'' changed about Tommy in the second accident, which is apparently what inspired him to reinvent himself and pursue his acting dreams. His new lease on life may well have been influenced by his brain operating differently with respect to how he perceived himself and the world around him.

[[WMG: Tommy Wiseau is proxy for [[Franchise/TheSlenderManMythos the Slender Man]].]]

Per this "theory", nearly every character is paid off by Johnny's uncle in some way:

[[WMG: Johnny is from the future.]]
Johnny is from the future, and he's trying to make sure the timeline stays in the balance. He's told all the main characters about this, and they believe him. When he calls Lisa his "future wife", he doesn't mean "fiancée", he means she's ''literally'' his future wife. Problem is that Lisa doesn't want to marry Johnny, but Johnny insists on it because the timeline requires it. Lisa ignores him and decides to ScrewDestiny by having an affair with Mark. This throws off the timeline so badly that Johnny, unable to handle the pressure, [[spoiler:decides to kill himself]]. The others' reaction is not [[spoiler:mourning a dear friend]], but rather a realization that they've doomed their future. Also, in the future, breeding is through the belly button.

Johnny likes football a lot, as shown in the film. But he never exhibits much athleticism because his playing days are long behind him. He only really played college football, with maybe a ''brief'' stint in [[UsefulNotes/NationalFootballLeague the NFL]] as a bit player,[[note]]He likely didn't play for the San Francisco 49ers, because that team was ''really'' good for a while -- they won five Super Bowls in the 1980s and 1990s. If Johnny had technically been teammates with the likes of Joe Montana or Jerry Rice, one would think he would have mentioned that to his likely 49er-loving friends in San Francisco. (Indeed, one would think he would never shut up about it.)[[/note]] and he was very injury prone. He suffered several concussions and perhaps another CareerEndingInjury, cutting short his playing career. Although he frequently [[ICouldaBeenAContender reminisces about the career he could have had]], he fell back on his accounting major and was able to make a decent enough living outside of football.\\

[[WMG: Mark is a MagnificentBastard DepravedBisexual with NoFourthWall.]]
Mark is aware he's in a movie; he comments on the soundtrack when Lisa seduces him. Actually, everyone knows they're in a movie, but only Mark exploits it. This is what allows him to vanish from a [[HoYay frolic in the park with Johnny]], get it on with Lisa, and then come back an hour later wearing different clothes. He may be [[ManipulativeEditing manipulating the editing]] -- if you watch the scene closely, you'll notice that after Mark leaves, Lisa says that the guests will be arriving soon, referring to Johnny's birthday party. Except that doesn't happen until the next day. The scene was probably originally going to happen later in the movie -- and it's not sloppy editing, but Mark chopping up the movie on purpose. \\

His ultimate goal is probably to take Johnny's place as Lisa's future husband. And he also plans to have Denny as a little bit on the side. When he, Johnny, and Pete are talking and Lisa shows up with Denny, Mark reveals his intentions by giving Denny one of the [[{{Squick}} most brutal eye-rapings ever]], [[DarkReprise mirroring the one Denny gave Lisa at the beginning]].\\

And Mark's not above violence to achieve his goal. He's willing to throw a friend off a building while incredibly high. The characters' refusal to specify Chris-R's fate is to cover for Mark [[FridgeHorror taking him to the basement and blowing his brains out]] (possibly because he's competition for Denny). And of course, he [[spoiler:maneuvers Johnny into committing suicide]] -- and he can edit in [[spoiler:a different gun than he used to kill Chris-R]] to deflect suspicion. This leaves him the ''de facto'' owner of a piece of prime San Francisco real estate, a monopoly on the local drug trade, and a college-aged sex slave.

He's come back in time from Alpha Complex. He's still got his name and he's obviously RED clearance, he just doesn't use his housing sector or clone number on his name anymore.

Note that when Lisa calls Mark at the beginning of the movie, before the affair supposedly begins, she calls him "baby", and he doesn't react at all. As though that's nothing new to him. Granted, he seems confused as to whether or not Lisa is trying to seduce him the first time they have sex on film, but he's that way every other time, too.

After Johnny dies, Denny inherits all his money and Lisa is bankrupt, so she changes her name to Polly Anne Costello, gives herself a fake backstory, and moves out of San Francisco. But she's unable to support herself (as Claudette keeps insisting), so she turns to prostitution, eventually ending up with a bad rap sheet. She changes her name again and decides to move to Vegas, and the rest is history. They have a lot of similar traits (everyone finding them desirable, acting like a bitch, being a gold digger, blonde hair). Since ''The Room'' never really specifies when it takes place, it could easily take place before the Stardust went under.

Denny sees nothing wrong with jumping into bed with Lisa and Johnny because that's the way their relationship has always worked; they had no problem with threesomes, at least not until recently. Denny's line "I just like to watch you guys" strongly implies that he ''has'' watched Lisa and Johnny have sex before, and Lisa and Johnny are unfazed because this isn't news to them. Johnny wouldn't mind continuing, except he's caught the eye of child protection services. He and Lisa agree that they have to stop involving Denny in their debauchery, but they dont't know how to break it to Denny. Poor Denny, suddenly locked out of the relationship with no explanation, grows increasingly desperate for their attention. With their sudden withdrawal of sex, Denny starts feeling unwanted and fears that Johnny will stop paying his college tuition.

The film tells us that Johnny and Lisa have been together for seven years, but Lisa doesn't look much older than 18. Even if she were 25 and [[YoungerThanTheyLook younger than she looks]], she would have started dating Johnny when she was barely an adult. But if she's only got an entry-level job in the "computer business" and financially dependent on Johnny, she probably just finished her education, making her around 22 or 23 if she even went to college to begin with. And he's considerably older than she is, no matter which way you slice it. Johnny leveraged that age difference, and Lisa's relative powerlessness, to [[WifeHusbandry make an obedient wife for himself]]. They couldn't get married until now because Johnny has to [[TheJailbaitWait keep things legal]].\\

Right before the film starts, Lisa comes to realize that what Johnny did to her was wrong. This is what inspires her to have an affair with Mark. Indeed, her actions are colored by her experience and her feeling that she was robbed of any chance at a normal romantic relationship in her adolescence. That's why she lies about Johnny hitting her and her being pregnant. She specifically targets Mark because she wants to hurt Johnny back. She might also think that she's ''saving'' Mark from Johnny; Mark is also much younger, and she fears Johnny might be doing the same thing to him as he did to her. After all, she can see how Johnny treats Denny; perhaps that relationship with Denny was what opened her eyes to the wrongness of Johnny's actions to begin with. (And one could combine it with the above WMG to suggest that Johnny was inviting Denny for threesomes, but this time with Lisa not okay with it.)

This is based on a story Greg told in ''Literature/TheDisasterArtist''. After he and Tommy saw ''Film/TheTalentedMrRipley'', the latter told the former he was going to [[AccidentalMisnaming name a character after]] [[Creator/MattDamon "Mark Damon"]].

* WebVideo/ObscurusLupa noted a PlotHole -- that Denny [[spoiler:is clearly already crying before he sees Johnny's corpse]] -- which would be explained by Denny having seen this beforehand on film;[[note]]He probably was too stunned at what he was seeing to intervene earlier[[/note]] and

* Lisa is actually completely faithful to Johnny. But Johnny thinks he's way out of her league, and he becomes consumed with the idea that she ''must'' be cheating on him. He also imagines that everyone else thinks she's as hot as he does, which is why everyone remarks conspicuously on her beauty.

This explains why Lisa and Mark's affair looks as bizarre as it does; it's all in Johnny's head. Lisa hasn't fallen out of love with Johnny -- ''Johnny's'' fallen out of love with Lisa. He can't bring himself to tell her, as he feels guilty for not loving a woman he's promised to marry. He instead imagines that she's cheating on him, because if that were true, he could end the relationship guilt-free. Johnny can't invent someone for Lisa to cheat with, so she has to be cheating with someone he knows. But that basically narrows it down to Mark. Johnny still trusts Mark (as much as he's capable of trusting), so he has to see Mark as an innocent party. He therefore imagines Lisa seducing an unwitting Mark -- a Mark so unwitting that he's surprised every time Lisa puts the moves on him.\\

* Ballroom Blitz: Johnny has a panic attack that leads to him accusing Lisa and Mark of having an affair, causing a big scene at his own birthday party. The first confrontation with Mark is real -- notice how Mark's side of the argument is vague, like "You don't know shit!", suggesting Mark doesn't understand what Johnny's on about.[[note]]He does ask Lisa who the baby's father is, but that bit's in Johnny's head, or perhaps Mark's just being an asshole.[[/note]] The ''second'' confrontation with Mark, where he openly admits to having an affair with Lisa, is in Johnny's head. When he goes outside on the balcony, Lisa follows him and tearfully insists that she's not having an affair and she still loves him.

* When Johnny and Mark apprehend Chris-R, they say that they're going to "take him to jail", which is a very simplistic view of the legal system. "Jail" might even be just "time-out".

''Literature/TheDisasterArtist'' seems to think so -- some elements of the film are so specific that they seem to draw on an actual sour relationship Tommy Wiseau had once had. He's still fuming about it by the time he makes the movie, hence all the dialogue about how all women are crazy and out to get you. Lisa seems to cheat on Johnny ForTheEvulz, suggesting that Johnny can't figure out why his actual girlfriend did it and concluded it was just something women did. Everybody holds the men blameless -- not just Johnny, but also Mark. Mark's character's ''existence'' doesn't make sense outside the context of Lisa needing someone to cheat on Johnny with. Johnny, meanwhile, is presented as a LoveMartyr, a selfless, brilliant, inspiring person who has been needlessly wronged and is [[spoiler:TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth]]. In fact, Johnny's [[spoiler:suicide and the ensuing fallout]] is almost a dead giveaway -- Tommy Wiseau wrote into the film a childish fantasy where [[spoiler:he kills himself, and ''now'' everyone is sorry for treating him the way they did!]] He couldn't do it in real life, but he also couldn't stop himself from imagining it.

As other guesses on this page have speculated, Johnny (and possibly Tommy Wiseau) is mentally handicapped, and the film seems random and senseless because it's told from his point of view. But certain plot points regarding other characters seem strange. Some theories explain this by showing that these interactions are taking place inside Johnny's head. But it's possible that they've ''also'' got mental problems:

* Mark ''may'' be mentally disabled, in a similar situation to Denny and Johnny. He seems to be more socially adept than the other two, but he's still got his share of slowness. Notice how slow he is to figure out what Lisa wants, how easily he lets himself be seduced by his friend's future wife, and how often he blurts out nonsensical lines like "Leave your stupid comments in your pocket!" It's hard to assess Mark, though because of his [[TheStoner drug habit]].
* Lisa is not intellectually disabled, but she does have a mood disorder (''e.g.'' Borderline, Bipolar, Histrionic). This is why, as her mother says, she can't support herself -- her disability is so severe that even meds and therapy can't help her live a normal life. Her only hope of surviving outside a group home is marrying Johnny, living off a combination of Johnny's well-off family, disability checks from the government, and a paycheck as Johnny's nominal caregiver. Her disorder is the source of her pervasive lying and nymphomania.

* ''Poland''. Some sleuthing on Website/{{Reddit}} found a family in Louisiana who immigrated from Poland decades ago with the name "Wieczorkiewicz". When they naturalized, they shortened it to "Wieczor". Tommy probably went to Louisiana to meet up with them but found the shortened name not "American" enough, hence "Wiseau". The accent ''really'' fits; if you listen to accented Poles on the Internet (try Roland Warzecha, a Polish medieval reenactor who lives in Germany and posts on Website/YouTube), they sound a lot like Tommy.
** [[spoiler: Confirmed]]

An interview in ''Entertainment Weekly'' revealed that there was an uncredited script supervisor, [[http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0772046/ Sandy Schklair]], who also ended up handling most of the directorial duties. One actor anonymously confirmed it, followed by Greg Sestero in ''Literature/TheDisasterArtist''. Schklair was brought in for a couple of reasons: Wiseau was playing the lead character and wanted to focus on that, and his scripts were almost incomprehensible, so the others found someone to fix them. The cast also was well aware of how legendarily bad the movie was, and knowing that Wiseau earnestly believed otherwise, they thought it best to leave him out of the loop. By all accounts, Schklair was effectively the director of the film,[[note]]you don't hire Creator/SethRogan to play him in [[Film/TheDisasterArtist the film adaptation]] for nothing[[/note]] but he's uncredited -- officially because he quit before production ended to work on ''Jumbo Girl''.

* Wait, so Tommy is ComicBook/VandalSavage?

[[WMG: Tommy Wiseau is an [[VideoGame/AoOni oni.]]]]

[[WMG: Tommy Wiseau is [[VideoGame/HalfLife The G-Man.]]]]
They both wear suits. They both put emphasis on all the wrong words and syllables. They both seem like aliens doing the most unconvincing human act ever. The G-man grew his hair long and disguised himself (very poorly) as a crappy real-life filmmaker to keep the bills paid between ''VideoGame/HalfLife1'' and ''VideoGame/HalfLife2''. Now, as he waits for ''Half-Life 3'' to come along, he's been forced to go back to appearing as Wiseau, hence the cult following that's sprung up between the time the film was released and today.

* Both have a strong accent and use peculiar euphemisms, phrases, and sentence construction/

* He's badly confused about his sexual feelings for his caretaker. He imagines himself as engaged to marry her, as a way of trying to rationalize why he feels that way. All the sex scenes are daydreams, and they also demonstrate how Johnny doesn't [[AnatomicallyImpossibleSex understand how sex works]]. It means that [[spoiler:Johnny's suicide]] is also a daydream, which makes sense because his uncle would never allow his mentally ill nephew to [[spoiler:have access to a firearm]].

* Mark was Lisa's boyfriend all along -- perhaps even her husband. He's a pretty laid-back guy who doesn't want to do very much other than [[TheStoner get stoned all day]], which is why Lisa is so desperate for money. But he's also a nice guy, and he hangs out with Johnny more than anyone else. It's not that hard -- you just sit on the roof and occasionally throw the football around. This is why Johnny thinks of Mark as his best friend. However, Johnny cannot reconcile his own feelings for Lisa and the obvious fact that she's with Mark. Johnny's obsession with Lisa is so blatant and awkward that Mark eventually blows his top at the party.

At the beginning he is a prosperous man with a well-paying job, he has many friends who adore him, and he's been in a seven-year relationship with a [[RunningGag beautiful future wife]] who still looks 18. This is because he can warp reality to his specifications, though it is limited mostly to situations and personalities. Then his ability starts fading. He loses out on his promotion. His future wife realizes that she doesn't love him -- and never has, only thinking she did because of the reality warping. His future wife and his best friend try to exert their newfound free will and have an affair. SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome follows, with uncomfortable things like breast cancer and drug dealing. Johnny desperately tries to fix everything, but his powers continue to fade. This is what causes many of the plot holes, dropped subplots, and inconsistencies (like the gun changing models between scenes). Seeing Mark and Lisa together at the party, now open about their affair, proves to him that his powers would soon disappear completely. Unable to handle it, he [[spoiler:takes his life]]. The characters still behave oddly afterward, but this is the residual effect of his powers before reality finally fixes itself.

The mental trauma he endured while compiling Zampano's notes completely warped him, so he now speaks and acts with the same fractured, nonsensical mindset as the layout of the book. His seemingly inexplicable actions are a result of living in constant fear of the [[EldritchAbomination Minotaur]], and the various subplots are dropped like hot rocks around him because he is too focused on what's coming after him to worry about what few real friends he has left. He hasn't stopped having lots of off-putting sex, though.

[[WMG: Johnny is (or believes he is) being possessed by Great [[Literature/RedDragon Red]] [[Series/{{Hannibal}} Dragon]]]]
Except he's just way more sociable than Francis Dolarhyde. Near the end of the film, Johnny smashes a mirror.

[[WMG: Johnny is a retired football player and his mannerisms are the result of a concussion.]]
Johnny played for the NFL, but was a second-rate player, so he never became famous. But was able to retire with enough money to comfortably live in an expensive San Francisco apartment. Either that, or he played in college and suffered a CareerEndingInjury that forced him to fall back on his accounting major -- which is why he works at a bank in the movie. This would explain Johnny's wealth, athletic build, and love of football. Johnny's slurred speech, squinting eyes, and odd behavior is the result of several bashes to the head during his football career.
* Much of Johnny's actions in the movie could be explained by Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), a progressive brain condition that's thought to result from repeated blows to the head (such as a football player would experience). Symptoms include mood swings, slurred speech, increasing confusion; all behaviors Johnny experiences throughout the movie.

This is why she seems to forget everything. Lisa constantly has to remind her that she's fallen out of love with Johnny, and she's always surprised when she hears it. You can even see Lisa's exasperation as she has to tell her mother this over and over again. It also explains why after [[spoiler:the fight at Johnny's birthday party]], Claudette goes upstairs and calmly talks to Lisa as if nothing happened. It even explains why everyone's so nonchalant about the breast cancer -- she was misdiagnosed with it once, and she doesn't remember that she doesn't actually have it. People have just given up trying to explain this to her.

Notice the best man in this video: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoR2Oax82kY Coincidence?]]

And she's no slouch herself. Her reactions to Lisa's admissions of her infidelity are disappointment that Lisa's not doing a [[DoWrongRight good enough job at it]]. In particular, it explains her nonchalance when Lisa claims Johnny got drunk and hit her; he response, "Johnny doesn't drink!", is frustration at Lisa that her lie isn't good enough.

This is how she can technically be in the "computer business" but still be home all day and dependent on Johnny for cash. The film wants you to ''think'' that she's a programmer or something, but if she were really a computer programmer in San Francisco, ''(a)'' she would spend all her time commuting to Palo Alto or somewhere else in the Silicon Valley, ''(b)'' she would be making more than enough to live without Johnny, and ''(c)'' Johnny wouldn't have to deal with just Mark, but probably her lecherous, socially awkward, tech-bro coworkers as well. Instead, she can work part-time for a pittance and spend the rest of her time at home.\\

He knew Chris-R was gonna be coming by pretty soon for his FUCKING MONEY. He figured he'd root through Johnny's sock drawer for cash, thinking Lisa was out shopping with Claudette. When he found them at home, he came up with something on the spot to try and get rid of her for a couple minutes. Or maybe he wanted to make pot brownies.

Denny sees nothing wrong with jumping into bed with Lisa and Johnny because that's the way their relationship has always worked; they had no problem with threesomes, at least not until recently. Denny's line "I just like to watch you guys" strongly implies that he ''has'' watched Lisa and Johnny have sex before, and Lisa and Johnny are unfazed because this isn't news to them. Johnny wouldn't mind continuing, except he's caught the eye of child protection services, and he and Lisa agree that they have to stop involving Denny in their debauchery. But they dont't know how to break it to Denny, and Denny grows increasingly desperate for their attention. With their sudden withdrawal of sex, Denny starts feeling unwanted and fears that Johnny will stop paying his college tuition.

[[WMG: Johnny groomed Lisa .]]

This theory works in-tandem with the above WMG.

* Based on appearance, Lisa is young. All we know of her age is that she’s (canonically) older than college-aged Denny (18 at most) and old enough to have a career. We also know that she and Johnny have been together for seven years. Now, Lisa could be a YoungerThanTheyLook 25-year-old (who met and started dating Johnny at 18). Even if this is true, the age gap between them is sizable and uncomfortable. If Lisa is any younger than 25, the implications of their relationship become disturbing.

Lisa is no older than 23. This makes her old enough to have finished her education and joined the workforce (an entry level position or a freelancer which would make her still financially dependent on him. And freelancing would explain why she seems to be home all the time). Seven years prior, she would have been 16 (a minor and below the age of consent in a number of states including California). This is why they’ve been together for so long without marrying; enough time needs to pass that, if they’re vague or slip-up, people aren’t immediately going to do the math.

She is supposed to have started the affair to make Johnny jealous. He’s faithful and dotes on her (as portrayed) so the only obvious reason to make him jealous is his ‘relationship’ with Denny. So she starts her own with Mark. She could have also realized that what he did (the grooming of a minor) is wrong. Revenge could also be a factor: “[Johnny] ruined my chances of having normal adolescent romantic relationships so I’m going to seduce his hot, younger friend.” This would also explain why she invented the domestic violence accusation and lied about being pregnant.

Claudette knew about the grooming and allowed it, which is why she and Lisa have such an aloof relationship. This is why she’s so certain she can get financial assistance from Johnny. It is extortion: “Buy my silence or everyone, including the law, finds out about your inappropriate relationship with my then-teenage daughter ([[BlatantLies which I obviously just found out about]]). [[RefugeInAudacity Who are they going to believe?]]” She’s betting that (foreign) Johnny won’t know US laws in depth (for example: statutes of limitations) and he would be too spooked to go to the police.

Denny is sexually attracted to Johnny. Afraid of what Johnny would think of him, however, Denny pretends that it's Lisa he's crushing on. Johnny [[TransparentCloset saw through this almost immediately]] and is [[LoverAndBeloved perfectly happy to take his and Denny's relationship to the next level]], but he wants Denny to overcome his fears and come out to him first. This reaches a head during the rooftop scene, where Johnny and Denny discuss his "crush" on Lisa. The reason Johnny seems oddly calm and serene about the whole thing is because he knows Denny's lying and is waiting for him to come clean. But Denny never does come clean, and in the end, [[spoiler:after Johnny's suicide, [[DownerEnding he never can]]]].

Why else would she decide to have sex with her boyfriend in Johnny and Lisa's living room? She was hoping she'd get caught. Considering the way she and Mike were feeding each other at Johnny's party, she might have dragged him into the bedroom or started dry humping him in front of everyone if Johnny and Mark hadn't started fighting. This is why she seems to flip-flop on her stance regarding Lisa's affair; on the one hand, she knows it's wrong, but on the other hand she can't help but get excited hearing about her friend's indiscretion. Maybe she's even hoping to walk in on the two of them. It'd certainly be preferable to walking in on Lisa and [[{{Squick}} Johnny]]. She only starts telling Lisa to knock it off when Lisa goes off the deep end and does things like lie about being pregnant.

This is how Mark is sure the situation with Chris-R is "clear" despite his being gone for only a few minutes; either Chris-R is an informant and Mark let him off so that he'd keep snitching, or he called in a couple of nearby uniforms to arrest him. It also explains why he has to sneak up to the roof to smoke pot; he risks suspension if he gets caught. And it explains why he tells Lisa he's "busy" when he's just sitting in a car; he's on a stakeout.\\

* So his oblivious attitude towards Lisa could actually be deliberate? Maybe he is on some kind of sting operation all throughout the film?

[[WMG:Mark's last name is Damon]]
This is based on a story Greg told in ''Literature/TheDisasterArtist''. After he and Tommy saw ''Film/TheTalentedMrRipley'', the latter told the former he was going to [[AccidentalMisnaming name a character after]] [[Creator/MattDamon "Mark Damon".]]

* Mark is also an agent. Like Denny, he befriends Johnny and Lisa to find out what Johnny's up to. Unlike Denny, Mark has to deal with Lisa unexpectedly coming on to him. Mark is unnerved, but he goes along with it thinking that she might know something and be more talkative post-coital. Mark's outburst at Lisa at the end might be due to his frustration at her audacity ([[spoiler:"I lost him, but I still have ''you'', right?"]]), or it might be from his frustration at the suspect [[spoiler:committing suicide]]; if Lisa was an accomplice, Mark probably arrested her right after this.

[[WMG: Every character in The Room has a two-minute memory span.]]
* The bizarre repition of certain details is not just because the film thinks ViewersAreGoldfish, but because the characters literally can't remember them otherwise. This is why Johnny and friends constantly talk about how beautiful Lisa is, Johnny and Lisa being engaged, how Mark is Johnny's best friend, etc.--they don't realize they've always been talking about it. This also explains why Mark is shocked each of the several times Lisa cheats with him, and why subplots like Chris R and Claudette's cancer just vanish out of nowhere; as these characters forget anything they don't write down.
** So the whole building is for people like Leonard in Film/{{Memento}}?

[[WMG: Claudette is so frustrated with everyone because she's the OnlySaneMan.]]
* Related to the above: Lisa's mother knows she's SurroundedByIdiots and hates it. As for why she constantly gushes about Johnny, she's either just trolling Lisa for a reaction (the same reason she dropped that she has breast cancer out of nowhere) or hates her daughter so much she's secretly glad that she's in a toxic relationship.

* Lisa is actually completely faithful to Johnny. But Johnny thinks she's way out of his league, and he becomes consumed with the idea that she ''must'' be cheating on him. He also imagines that everyone else thinks she's as hot as he does, which is why everyone remaks conspicuously on her beauty.
* Claudette is always cordial to Johnny, but behind the scenes doesn't like him and thinks he's just a meal ticket for her daughter. This is also in Johnny's imagination; he can't accept that his future wife's ''mother'' would like him. He not only imagines that she must disapprove of him behind the scenes, but also creates a rationalization for why Lisa stays with him.

* The Denoument: Johnny then goes on his rampage, weakly imitating what he thinks a furious rampage must be. Then he ''imagines'' that he [[spoiler:kills himself, along with everyone's reaction]]. Johnny is now free of his problems, free of guilt because Lisa is to blame for everything, and gets to hear everyone say [[spoiler:how much they'll miss him and what a good person he is]]. It's not Mark and Lisa who find Johnny, it's the paramedics, who find him [[spoiler:lying on the floor wishing he actually had a gun to do it]].

* The swearing in the movie is very stilted and awkward, like preteens attempting to use curse words they have heard before, but are not quite sure how.

* Johnny's tantrum resembles a young child's, not an angry adult's.

[[WMG: Betty and Elizabeth aren't examples of breaking the OneSteveLimit]]
Rather, they are actually the same people. Elizabeth's dozen guys included both Denny and Mark; when Mark found out through Johnny that Elizabeth was cheating, he beat her up so bad she ended up in a hospital in Guerrero Street.

* The boss, Thresher, is Denny, who's a time traveler. In both stories, he's a sexually aggressive and possibly mentally disabled person who gets int something illegal.

''Literature/TheDisasterArtist'' seems to think so -- some elements of the film are so specific that they seem to draw on an actual sour relationship Tommy Wiseau had once had. He's still fuming about it by the time he makes the movie, hence all the dialogue about how all women are crazy and out to get you. Lisa seems to cheat on Johnny ForTheEvulz, suggesting that Johnny can't figure out why his actual girlfriend did it and concluded it was just something women did. Everybody holds the men blameless -- not just Johnny, but also Mark. Mark's character's ''existence'' doesn't make sense outside the context of Lisa needing someone to cheat on Johnny with. Johnny, meanwhile, is presented as a LoveMartyr, a selfless, brilliant, inspiring person who has been needlessly wronged and is [[spoiler:TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth]]. In fact, Johnny's [[spoiler:suicide and the ensuing fallout]] is almost a dead giveaway -- Tommy Wiseau wrote into the film a childish fantasy where [[spoiler:he kills himself, and ''now'' everyone is sorry for treating him the way they did!]] -- he couldn't do it in real life, but he also couldn't stop himself from imagining it.

* Look at the characters' hairstyles -- not just Johnny himself, but Claudette and [[AFlockOfSeagulls Denny]], too. Lisa's thick eyebrows, Claudette's outfits, and Chris-R's generic drug dealer get-up also scream early 90s.

Nny gets the flu, feels crappy, and accidentally falls asleep. He has a dream about what his life would be like if he were a normal guy and not a crazy serial killer, but because he's sick and doesn't really understand normal people to begin with, all the conversations and events are extremely weird and stilted, his sick, delusional mind creating the many non-sequiturs in the dialogue and storyline. Johnny is now his idea of what sociable and friendly must be like, petting doggies and doing "nice" things for his friends.
* Denny/Danny is an aged up stand in for Squee, whom he is able to mentor and be a father figure for in the dream.
* The nonsensical football-tossing scenes are what he imagines normal people must do for fun.
* The sex scenes are disturbing and nasty because that's what he thinks sex is like.
* His fever finally breaks in the infamous suicide scene as he starts to remember who he is again.

They already put his ideas into practice. Namely, his terrible chicken impressions.

Johnny either played for the NFL but was a second-rate player so he never became famous but was able to retire with enough money to comfortably live in an expensive San Francisco apartment, or he played in college and suffered a CareerEndingInjury that forced him to fall back on his accounting major which is why he works at a bank in the movie. This would explain Johnny's wealth, athletic build, and love of football. Johnny's slurred speech, squinting eyes, and odd behavior is the result of several bashes to the head during his football career.

[[WMG: Tommy Wiseau is [[StarWars Palpatine]].]]

Based on appearance, Lisa is young. All we know of her age is that she’s (canonically) older than college-aged Denny (18 at most) and old enough to have a career. We also know that she and Johnny have been together for seven years. Now, Lisa could be a YoungerThanTheyLook 25-year-old (who met and started dating Johnny at 18). Even if this is true, the age gap between them is sizable and uncomfortable. If Lisa is any younger than 25, the implications of their relationship become disturbing.

At the beginning he is a prosperous man with a well-paying job, he has many friends who adore him, and he's been in a seven-year relationship with a [[RunningGag beautiful future wife]] who still looks 18. This is because he can warp reality to his specifications, though it is limited mostly to situations and personalities. Then his ability starts fading. He loses out on his promotion. His future wife realizes that she doesn't love him -- and never has, only thinking she did because of the reality warping. His future wife and his best friend try to exert their newfound free will and have an affair. RealityEnsues with uncomfortable things like breast cancer and drug dealing. Johnny desperately tries to fix everything, but his powers continue to fade. This is what causes many of the plot holes, dropped subplots, and inconsistencies (like the gun changing models between scenes). Seeing Mark and Lisa together at the party, now open about their affair, proves to him that his powers would soon disappear completely. Unable to handle it, he [[spoiler:takes his life]]. The characters still behave oddly afterward, but this is the residual effect of his powers before reality finally fixes itself.

* He ''talks'' a lot about vampires. He's referenced a future film project about vampires, and ''Literature/TheDisasterArtist'' claims that there ''The Room'' itself was meant to have a vampire subplot. It also has Tommy claiming he can fall asleep and wake up at will, which he calls a "vampire trick", ''and'' it has Greg walking in on Tommy sleeping hanging from his feet like a bat on his chin-up bar. In "The Tommy Wi-show", Tommy plays ''VideoGame/MortalKombat'' and asks if there's a vampire character.

[[WMG: The Room is, either deliberately or coincidentally, the Anti-Film/{{Citizen Kane}}.]]
Many people have refered to The Room as the Citizen Kane of bad movies before, but pretty sure it was only meant in the sense that it's the best of the worst. However, both films are very similar in some aspects, the main difference being that while Citizen Kane made these aspects work, The Room... didn't. Now, consider this:
* Both had one person as the director, producer, and lead actor.
* Both cast new actors who had never been in a movie before in leading roles.
* Both are on one end on a scale of quality, with Citizen Kane being the best and The Room being the worst.
* Both [[spoiler: have a scene with the main character destroying their rooms after being left by their wife/future wife near the end.]]
* Both [[spoiler: feature affairs in the plot]], though this one might be pushing it a bit.
* Both Kane and Johnny are [[spoiler: betrayed by their best friend in one way or another]]. Again, might be pushing it a bit.
* Both Kane and Johnny are [[spoiler: dead by the end of the movie]].
** For bonus points, the scene at the end where Johnny destroys his apartment was meant as a deliberate ShoutOut to ''Film/CitizenKane''.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRw0cnxo2vs Tommy Wiseau himself had a webshow, and his first episode was spent comparing Film/TheRoom to Film/CitizenKane.]] Which is about as close as we're going to get to calling this one '''confirmed'''.

[[WMG: The Room is Tommy Wiseau's ''SpringtimeForHitler''.]]

[[WMG: Film/TheRoom is a [[VideoGame/TheSims Sims]] movie.]]
Repetitive and irrelevant conversations, limited leisure activities, time spent in shops excessively brief, little-to-no motivations behind actions...because the unseen player is controlling all the sims in [[TitleDrop the room.]] Johnny's [[spoiler:suicide]] was via a third party mod.
* That would explain Johnny's accent: his mother tongue is Simlish!

[[WMG: Film/TheRoom is a sequel to ''VisualNovel/PlumbersDontWearTies''.]]
* The two Johnnys are the exact same character--both of them are {{Marty Stu}}s that have the respect of a lot of people and can cause LoveAtFirstSight. His face got horribly scarred before ''The Room''.
* Jane is Lisa. She catches herself between two men, both for whom her love is completely superficial, but she went a little further in ''VisualNovel/PlumbersDontWearTies'' due to being younger.
* The boss, Thresher, is Denny. He's a time traveler, and in both stories he is a sexually aggressive, possibly mentally-disabled person that gets into something illegal.
* Claudette is the StrawFeminist second narrator. Just because.
* Lastly, Mark is the man with the [[WebVideo/TheAngryVideoGameNerd upside down fucking chicken mask]]. Again, just because.

[[WMG: Film/TheRoom is a sequel to Film/TenThingsIHateAboutYou.]]
In ''Ten Things'', Creator/HeathLedger's character, Patrick, has long curly black hair and speaks with an accent - not nearly as weird as Johnny's, but he's still noted as having one. Sound familiar? Obviously, he didn't age well. Lisa is an older Kat.

[[WMG: The story (intentionally, or otherwise) is told from the perspective of an "unreliable narrator" with a serious mental disability.]]
The way that things play out makes very little sense, to a normal person. People come and go through Johnny's house for no explained reason; they wear clothes that make no sense for the occasion; their emotions and tone-of-voice don't match the situation, and so on. However, Johnny (and perhaps Tommy Wiseau) notice nothing out of the ordinary about any of this.

This is because the protagonist (and writer/director/star, perhaps) does not understand how people work, or maybe even how the world works. From his point of view, this is just the way things are: people randomly show up in certain places, and randomly leave; they change their clothes and tones of voice from time to time; and he constantly hears phrases like "That's me!" and "Oh hai Mark." Johnny/Tommy doesn't understand that people have reasons for doing these things. From his point of view, they just do them.

In addition to being laughably bad, this film might be an insight into the mind of a disabled person with no concept of cause and effect.
* Soooo...a thinner, less rage happy [[Webcomic/{{Sonichu}} Chris Chan?]]

[[WMG:The film is actually about the monuments and buildings of UsefulNotes/SanFrancisco.]]
All the shots of actors are actually the {{Establishing Shot}}s, while the buildings and Golden Gate Bridge are the actual story. The actual story is incomprehensible to humans, and the human parts are incomprehensible to humans because it's just the way monuments view humans.
* This is the most plausible explanation for the movie yet seen.
** A room is another character! It's a CharacterTitle!

[[WMG:''The Room'' is ''Film/BenAndArthur'' with straight people.]]
''Film/BenAndArthur'' is a 2002 film written/produced/EXECUTIVE produced/directed by and starring Sam Mraovich that follows a gay couple who try to legally consummate their relationship while trying to dodge the evil machinations of the main protagonist's hyper-religious brother. Most comparisons between the two films tend to refer to their mutual incompetence and [[{{Anvilicious}} anviliciousness]], but the two films have a surprising amount in common:
* Both films take place in one of the two largest cities of California (Los Angeles in ''Ben and Arthur'', San Francisco in ''The Room''), with the primary setting in each film being the apartment of its male lead.
* Both films have terrible leading actor-writer-directors, who are fond of showing off their bodies much more so than most audience members are fond of seeing them.
* Both films depict everyone bar the leading guy and one other male character (the eponymous Ben in ''Ben and Arthur'', and Peter in ''The Room'') as being evil bastards.
* A wedding is an important plot point in both films; in ''The Room'' the wedding never actually happens, while in ''Ben and Arthur'' the wedding (between two men) ''does'' technically happen, but isn't recognized by the state of California.
* Each film features a main character obtaining a pistol during a BigLippedAlligatorMoment, and the pistol in question is used to take someone's life at the end of the film.
* Both films have a DownerEnding, with [[spoiler:the saintly protagonist meeting his untimely demise at the hands of a gun]].

[[WMG: ''The Room'' is actually a high class piece of film, based on the standards of the Spoon World.]]
On the Spoon Planet, they prefer films where character motivations and development do not exist and drama is gotten out of the way quickly. The Room was a top-class award winning movie on their home world, and is considered one of the finest pieces of Spoon-made drama.
* A variation on this could be that the film tanked on Spoon Planet, but they knew that certain segments of the population of Earth really love SoBadItsGood HamAndCheese. So the imported it in the hopes of recouping their losses.
* Alternatively, it's considered brilliant on Spoon World because it's actually a work of incredible psycological realism that shows exactly how spoon worlders think. It's just that that's very different from how humans think.

[[WMG: ''The Room'' is at least semi-autobiographical]]
The more you watch this movie, the more you feel that it was made in part to be a kind of public catharsis for Tommy Wiseau. It all smacks of someone who got hurt by someone they loved, and they're raging and storming about how unfair it all is. Note how Lisa decides to cheat on Johnny ForTheEvulz. Lisa's [[StrawCharacter feeble attempts at justifying her actions]] are practically infantile, and everybody seems to take it for granted that Johnny is completely innocent. Nobody seems to blame Mark either. In fact, it seems the only reason he's in the movie is because Lisa needed to be sleeping with someone. Johnny, meanwhile, is presented as MartyStu-like martyr, constantly thinking of everyone else around him, and ultimately TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth. The whole thing just comes off as a 90 minute exercise in WishFulfillment and a massive TakeThat at whatever woman jilted Tommy Wiseau in his past.

[[spoiler: Regarding the suicide at the end: it's said that teenagers often contemplate suicide as a form of revenge, as in "Won't everybody be sorry they were mean to me if I killed myself!" Tommy Wiseau, being an adult, is presumably smart/mature enough to understand the foolishness of that line of thinking, but it doesn't stop him from fantasizing about it, and therefore sticking it in his movie. Mark and Lisa's actions immediately after Johnny's death perfectly mirror this mindset.]]

[[WMG: ''The Room'' is a modern day AU fanfic of ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings''.]]
Johnny is Wormtongue, Lisa is Éowyn, Mark is Faramir, Denny is Merry, and Claudette is Théoden.
* Another interpretation: Johnny is Frodo, Denny is Gollum, and Lisa is the One Ring given human form. Hence everyone in the movie lusting after Lisa. This would imply that Denny and Lisa were once together, but they're closer in age than Johnny and Lisa, so it's not as creepy as it might sound. Mark is Sam, and his sex scenes with Lisa are a very loose interpretation of the time Sam was Ring-bearer. Peter is Gandalf, who is reborn as Steven after his battle with Chris-R/the Balrog, which didn't make the final cut. Claudette is Sauron. She created Lisa/the One Ring, and even calls her "my precious" at one point.[[note]] Yes, Gollum is best known for calling the Ring "precious," but other Ring-bearers are known to use the term, too.[[/note]]. Mike and Michelle are Pippen and a GenderBender Merry, respectively.

[[WMG: ''The Room'' is a "loose" retelling of ''Film/TheApartment'']]
Both titles are similar in a way, plus the fact that the films take place in the the film title indicates (Film/TheApartment takes place in Baxter's apartment while The Room takes place in the room of where ever the hell Johnny lives). Much like the character of Baxter, Johnny wants to get promoted at his job (It's mentioned that he didn't get promoted) so he uses his place for a co-worker to have an affair. That part of the film sadly goes nowhere, but it's no surprise that other subplots in the film go nowhere as well.
* But the Mike subplot makes sense that way : it explain why he's sneaked into Johnny's appartment to sleep with his girlfriend, and why he need to tell the embarassing story to Johnny.

[[WMG: ''The Room'' was set in the early to mid-[[TheNineties 90s.]]]]
Although Tommy Wiseau ostensibly wrote it in the late-90s to early 2000s, it still has many elements of the earlier part of the decade. The characters' overall looks (the hairstyles of Denny, Claudette, and Johnny himself, Lisa's thick eyebrows, the makeup, Claudette's outfits, Chris-R.'s generic drug dealer get-up, etc.), the Ikea-inspired sets (in particular Johnny and Lisa's living room and bedroom), the Creator/{{Cinemax}}-style love-scenes which are reminiscent of the likes of ''Red Shoe Diaries'', the lack of any current cultural references, and of course the generic 90s style love songs/R&B classics like "I Will" and "Crazy". Also, it was set in San Francisco to appeal to fans of the popular sitcom, ''Series/FullHouse'', which was, you guessed it, set in San Francisco and which aired around this time frame. Even with the numerous rewrites and improvisations, the script ultimately never shifted away from the general time period.
* This would explain Lisa's vague talk of being in the "computer business." Back in the 90s, computers were still considered to be magical, unknowable machines (look at all the movies about hackers who could do literally anything with computers). Lisa might have quickly gotten fed up of trying to explain to people what she does for a living, but if she says "computers," people just nod and change the subject.

[[WMG: "The Room" is actually a fairly good European film that was given a horrible dub.]]

[[WMG: ''The Room'' is an imitation of [[SoapOpera Soap Operas]].]]
* Constantly adds tons of extra subplots, many straight from soaps, that only follow the RuleOfDrama.
* Tons of gratuitous sex.
* Mostly about the personal problems/relationships of rich people and those that associate with them.
* Mostly occurs indoors.
* American soaps are broadcast everywhere, including France and Poland. Wiseau may have even [[LearntEnglishFromWatchingTelevision learned English from them]].
* Scenes jump from conversation to conversation, usually between only two people.
* Lots of repetitive dialogue and AsYouKnow conversations. In soaps this is done for the benefit of viewers who might have missed an episode or two, or to remind them of something that happened a while back.

Nny gets the flu, feels crappy and accidentally falls asleep. He has a dream about what his life would be like if he were a normal guy and not a crazy serial killer, but because he's sick and doesn't really understand normal people to begin with, all the conversations and events are extremely weird and stilted, his sick, delusional mind creating the many non-sequiturs in the dialogue and storyline. Johnny is now his idea of what sociable and friendly must be like, petting doggies and doing "nice" things for his friends.

* The nonsensical football-toss scenes are what he imagines normal people must do for fun.

[[WMG: The "bank" Johnny works for is, or is affiliated with, [[Series/ArrestedDevelopment the Bluth Company.]]]]

[[WMG: Regarding the alien species at the ending of the game [[spoiler: that Johnny is a member of]]...]]
They reproduce asexually. To do otherwise would require [[{{Squick}} female members of the species.]]
* The pink Johnny was implied to be female.

[[WMG: How the film got its name....]]
Someone looked at the first page of Tommy's untitled script and said "Be sure to leave room for the title." Tommy's mind is so scrambled he thought they said "Be sure to have 'The Room' for the title"
* So you're saying he made up the 'happy place' explanation on the spot when asked.
** Well he did ParodyRetcon the film as a BlackComedy when he realised everybody on the planet was laughing at it, so we know he can be less than honest on occasion.
* Sorry, but jossed. According to this wiki's Trivia page, the title is a reference to the fact it started out as a one-room play.

[[WMG: Most of the characters have serious mental problems]]

As others on this page have speculated, Johnny (and possibly Wiseau) is mentally handicapped, and the film seems random and senseless because it is told from his point of view. But certain plot points regarding other characters still seem strange (disregarding theories where these things are simply taking place inside Johnny's head).

The reason: Johnny is not the only one with mental problems. Lisa is not "intellectually disabled" like Johnny, but she has a mood disorder, such as Borderline, Bipolar Disorder, Histrionic, etc. This is why, as her mother says, she "can't support herself;" her form of whatever disorder she has is so severe that even meds and therapy can't help her live a normal life. Her only hope of surviving outside a group home is marrying Johnny, living off a combination of Johnny's well-off family, disability checks from the government, and being Johnny's official paid caregiver (relatives of the disabled can sometimes get paid as official caregivers). Lisa's disorder is also the cause of her lies and nymphomania.

Denny, like Johnny, is mentally disabled, which is how they met (families with seriously disabled kids tend to socialize with other families in the same situation). Johnny and Denny's other "friends" may just be neighbors, or relatives, who are looking out for them. Mark might have a slight disorder too, which would explain why he's so slow to figure out what Lisa wants, why he lets himself be so easily seduced by his friend's future wife, and why he blurts out nonsensical things like "Leave your stupid comments in your pocket!" Alternatively, Mark is simply high.

Does Claudette really have cancer? Either she really does, and just doesn't mention it often because there's no point, around people too disabled or deranged to comprehend it; otherwise, Claudette doesn't really have cancer, and lied because Lisa's mood disorder runs in the family.

[[WMG: The building Johnny and Lisa live in is some kind of community for perverts]]
Kinda like a nudist colony, except for people with loose sexual boundaries. Notice how Denny walks in on Lisa and Johnny getting ready to have sex like it's something normal people do. And when they ask what he's doing, he says he "just like(s) to watch." Not to mention how he just wanders in and out as he pleases. Or how Lisa doesn't seem at all surprised to find two people having sex on her couch when she comes home with her mom. And don't forget the guy at the end of the movie whose only line of dialogue is to tell his girlfriend/wife "Lisa looks hot tonight." He might have thought he was at a swinger's party, or they'd made arrangements for later in the evening with Lisa and Johnny, and he was eagerly anticipating it. This doesn't change anything about the betrayal, either. Whether Johnny and Lisa are in an open relationship or not, the fact is that she was sleeping with Mark behind Johnny's back.

A number of people have mentioned it. But it fits perfectly: the weird accent, the lack of an origin or even a definitive nationality, the secrecy, and of course, the complete lack of understanding of how humans work. For example, Wiseau apparently says that the reason Claudette's cancer isn't brought up again is that his research indicates that the seriously ill don't like to talk about their condition, suggesting that he's never had much in the way of normal human interaction and that the only "information" about how humans act that he has, he gleaned from dry studies of human behaviour. If you tried to picture an alien making a film, ''The Room'' is what you'd get, isn't it?
* He meant it when he said ''I fed up with this world!''
* On the planet that he is from, there is an animal that [[CallARabbitASmeerp looks exactly like a chicken]], but makes noises that are completely different from earth chickens. His impression of it is actually spot on.
* Considering his accent, he may be a [[Series/BabylonFive Centauri]] in disguise.
** That would explain all the "love has nothing to do with marriage" talk in the movie.
* He's not actually laughing at inappropriate times. The sound we call laughter is a placeholder sound to his species, like "Um" or "Uh" would be to a human. He's not laughing, he's thinking over what he's going to say next.
* Confirmed by ComicBook/CarolDanvers and brought to mainstream attention by Creator/BrieLarson herself in this hilarious Instagram [[https://www.instagram.com/p/BOX3NcLBuXP/ post]]. At least he's an alien
* He talks about "Tommy's Planet" in The Disaster Artist. That's definitely a hint.
[[Franchise/MarvelUniverse somewhere]].

Thus, the subject of his documentary and his reluctance to talk about his past. His looks are due to never getting in the habit of washing regularly, and malnourishment.
* [[JerkassWoobie Aww..]]
* Greg Sestero says in ''Literature/TheDisasterArtist'' that Tommy didn't like the guy who had first been hired to play Mark. Greg said they both assumed the guy was rich because of the way he acted. He thought that Tommy's enmity was in part because Tommy had not always been rich.

He could have robbed from in order to get his funds to make ''The Room'', seeing how he is not revealing how exactly he got the money. He could have simply made the documentary as a cover-up.

* ''The Disaster Artist'' suggests he had a very bad experience living in France, which suggests he experienced some bad xenophobia while there -- perhaps while fleeing whichever country in Eastern Europe he's from.

An interview in ''Entertainment Weekly'' revealed that there was an uncredited script supervisor, [[http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0772046/ Sandy Schklair]], who also ended up handling most of the directorial duties (confirmed by one of the actors, who wished to remain anonymous) due to the fact that Wiseau was more concerned with the acting portion of his job. They also said that the scripts that Wiseau created were almost incomprehensible and that the others went to Schklair for help with fixing it. It seems like the rest of the cast knew that they were making a legendarily bad movie and decided it was best to leave Wiseau, who honestly believed he was making a decent movie, out of the loop. (Schklair was left out of the credits because he quit prior to the end of production in order to work on ''Jumbo Girl''.)

* [[NightmareFuel My God...]]

That would explain the weird, not quite French accent. He must have learned English long ago, and the last place he lived in that spoke French was early colonial New Orleans. He actually was born in France, where he says he lived "a long time ago." Given that his face appears to be that of a Neanderthal's, a REALLY long time ago.
* He's a Neanderthal Vampire! Oogah Boogah!
** He's a '''''[[FanFic/ThirtyHs Vampire Caveman from Mars!]]'''''
* The odd speech comes from having a different voice box from Homo Sapiens. His bizarre personality is due to the FogOfTheAges from being over 27,000 years old. All the problems with TheRoom? Neanderthals don't have an advanced imagination as our species, so no wonder it was a flop

They both seem to have an inscrutable accent and enigmatic origins. Also, depending on whether you regard Highlander II's Zeist plot point as canon, it could tie in to the "Tommy Wiseau is an alien" guess.
* Perhaps [[WesternAnimation/AquaTeenHungerForce Master Shake's]] assertion that "Highlander was a documentary" is true. [=MacLeod=] got a lot of unwanted attention thanks to the film, so the Tommy/Johnny thing is a disguise that went overboard.

It makes about as much sense as anything else. Roger has created at least one movie, has a flair for the dramatic, has personas with absurd-sounding names and often ridiculous outfits, his schemes are often over-the-top, has little regard for anyone except himself and his personas appear out of nowhere with already established histories.

As per his biography, The Disaster Artist:

Tommy is from a former member of the Soviet Union, likely Romania. His father, a World War II veteran, beat him savagely throughout his childhood, resulting in facial deformities. He fell in love with America and began selling treasonous american souvenirs to make money to illegally immigrate to France, where he changed his name to Pierre in an attempt to fit in, but had an equally miserable life. From there, his uncle in Louisiana sponsored his legal immigration to America.

After a few more miserable years working as a stock-boy, he realized his weirdness was marketable and moved to San Francisco, where he somehow made a fortune through, again, selling tacky souvenirs. His most popular item was a toy bird (the kind you can get at the Eiffel Tower), so he became known as the "Birdman." He changed his name to something more american: Thomas P. Wiseau. Tommy the Birdman. His fortune from toy birds was negotiated into a few pieces of prime real estate, which was the source of his money. A traumatic car accident (possibly the second he'd had in his life) spurred a mid-lfie crisis. Being a RichIdiotWithNoDayJob, he was able to easily commute between LA and San Francisco for acting classes. When his only friend, Sestero, began to drift away, he felt hurt and betrayed, and from that came The Room.

[[WMG: Tommy Wiseau is the protagonist of the VideoGame/SonicExe creepypasta.]]
Just a couple of stupid coincidences that had me think about this:
* The author of Sonic.exe is named Tom.
* Tom is incredibly slow on the uptake in Sonic.exe, while Wiseau is still unsure as to why people think The Room is SoBadItsGood at best.
* Some consider The Room to be the FanFic/MyImmortal of films while Sonic.exe is something like the FanFic/MyImmortal of game-related creepypastas.
* The writing for The Room is horrible and some of it makes no sense. There is no given rhyme or reason to the events of the Sonic.exe creepypasta.
...Hey, it makes as much sense as some of these other [=WMGs=].

He matches the description of the monster given in the book, particularly the "flowing black hair." Also, it's widely believed that Tommy Wiseau is French, and what language did the creature speak? That's right, French. It would make sense; that's why he won't disclose his backstory: because he's actually a 200 year old living corpse. The Room could have been his wish fulfillment dream of being a normal person. Of course, he would name his future wife in the movie "Elizabeth" since that was Victor Frankenstein's wife's name, so he had some attachment to it.

He acts very bizarrely and appears to have little grip on reality. His work is very poorly-made, but he seems unable to tell that it is not excellent and that his fans are laughing at him rather than with him. He has a strong accent and uses peculiar euphemisms, phrases, and sentence construction. He uses ideas and quotes taken from other media (like "You're tearing me apart") with little context. He has a surprising amount of money that he seems to have obtained for doing absolutely nothing. And, according to ''The Disaster Artist'', he's egotistical enough to want to own his own personal planet, he's prone to PatrioticFervor, he shamelessly apes the people close to him, he acts pettily towards those he dislikes, and his work on ''The Room'' has been alleged to be a giant scheme for him to be able to kiss a girl. Really, he's the kind of person you'd expect Chris to grow up to be, if he was indiscriminately foreign and had a life of his own.
* Now now, [[InsultToRocks let's not be unfair to Wiseau.]]

[[WMG: Tommy Wiseau has Schizotypal Personality Disorder]]
It's very plausible. After all, more evidence of this is given in ''The Disaster Artist'', as Tommy is said to take a lot of prescription medications and tends to have very strange beliefs and ideas.

The symptoms are as follows, with examples of fitting behavior from ''The Disaster Artist'':
* Being a loner and lacking close friends outside of the immediate family (Greg Sestero is pretty much the only friend he has)
* Incorrect interpretation of events, including feeling that external events have personal meaning (how he treats the cast and crew of The Room reflects this in many ways)
* Peculiar, eccentric or unusual thinking, beliefs or behavior (thinks he is a vampire, among other things)
* Dressing in peculiar ways (Greg points this out in the very first chapter of ''The Disaster Artist'')
* Belief in special powers, such as telepathy (back to the vampire thing...)
* Suspicious or paranoid ideas, hypersensitivity, and constant doubts about the loyalty and fidelity of others (just look at the whole plot of The Room)
* Flat emotions, or limited or inappropriate emotional responses (laughs at inappropriate times, being pulled aside once or twice for it. Can't grasp why people think his emotions are out of line.)

More or less, he could be easily classified as having this disorder. In a lot of ways, it would make sense as to why he is the way he is. It's not a disorder that you can treat very well, either...

[[WMG: Tommy Wiseau's accent is fake,]]
When Tommy Wiseau decided to embark on a film career, he realized he needed some kind of personal brand. He thought about how people like Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger and Creator/SylvesterStallone are known for the way they talk, and how people love FunnyForeigner charaters, so he decided he was going to give himself an iconic accent. Unfortunately, Wiseau sucks at impersonations, which is why the accent is [[WhatTheHellIsThatAccent impossible to place]].

* Tommy Wiseau comes from a time when the Earth is at peace and no one wants for anything. It's like ''Film/BillAndTedsExcellentAdventure'', except the prosperity wasn't created by a band, but a movie. A movie called ''The Room'', which was full of Big Important Messages about things like friendship, love, and betrayal. The movie was so sublimely nuanced and its message so supremely crafted that it united all the peoples of the Earth.\\

[[WMG: Tommy Wiseau has Asperger Syndrome]]
* Throughout ''Literature/TheDisasterArtist,'' Tommy frequently reacts to people as if he fails to understand the basic idea of empathy. Between his rude reaction to the girls who flirt with him and Greg at dinner to his abusive relationship with his cast, he never really seems to exercise any social grace or understanding. He likely isn't a sociopath, however, as his script does seem to imply that he has a basic understanding of what emotion is, and he ''is'' capable of having friendships, as is evidenced by his relationship with Greg and the other "producers" (seeing as they were deceased by that point) of The Room, Chloe and Drew. He isn't cruel so much as he is socially awkward, and he doesn't understand that certain things go against social grace, like using the memory of Greg being threatened by him as inspiration for him to act a scene convincingly. Overall, a lot of his interactions seem normal for someone with Aspergers, and his hobbies only seem to help the diagnosis. He has a ''very'' strong affinity for movies and bodybuilding, leading him to dedicate nearly all of his time to those activities, even when it isn't appropriate. His sleep patterns, as well, are extremely abnormal, as he goes to bed very late and rarely gets much sleep. He also views himself as a vampire which, as Greg says, is essentially an excuse for him to put up walls against society. Which seems to fit with his personality: he is a very guarded person, yet he tries to open up. Even his weird accent could be explained this way. People with Aspergers oftentimes speak in the same way that they originally heard something being said, which would explain why he still has an obscure accent despite having lived in America for at least a quarter of a century. Many of the characteristics of speech attributed to someone with Aspergers can also be attributed to him, such as oddities in inflection, odd phrases that only mean things to him ("mickey mouse stuff," etc.), and tangential tendencies. All in all, he almost seems like a textbook definition for Aspergers Syndrome.
** Tommny does have some odd turns of phrase, like telling Greg Sestero he has "doughnut" hair, but the Mickey Mouse one does make a kind of sense. Figured it was a reference to the rather antiquated phrase "Mickey Mouse Operation," which refers to something that is amateurish, small-time.

[[WMG: Tommy Wiseau is a WMG/TimeLord]]

[[WMG: Tommy Wiseau is proxy for TheSlenderMan]]
In TheDisasterArtist, Greg Sestero mentions that on his first visit to Tommy's condo, he sees an abandoned car coated in several layers of dust. In the dust, someone's drawn the Zodiac Killer's symbol. Or that's what Greg ''thinks''; he's interpreting the symbol from the wrong angle. It's [[WebVideo/MarbleHornets the Operator Symbol]].

Slendy's been using Wiseau for his own dark purposes for decades-- maybe even centuries. He provides Tommy with everything he needs to live and then some, but at a terrible cost: Wiseau's very soul and mind are forfeit to inscrutable and terrifying forces.

[[WMG: Greg Sestero (Mark's actor) had no idea that he was in a movie until the end.]]
Think about it. His "acting" sounded like he had no idea what was going on. Like when Lisa called him again and why he didn't get that Lisa wanted to have sex with him.
* One actually didn't think he was that bad an actor. It's just that Mark is written to have no personality.
* Greg has admitted to mailing in his whole performance, mostly because he didn't think the movie would ever see the light of day. So it's not so much that he didn't know he was in a movie, more that he didn't care.

[[WMG: Chris R's actor, Dan Janjigian, was an actual drug dealer.]]
Denny's actor seems pretty surprised by Chris R's appearance on set, and Chris himself seems pretty intent on getting Denny's [[MemeticMutation FUCKING MONEY!]] After Wiseau figured it out and took him to the authorities, Denny probably made the drug deal story up on the spot because they didn't want to lose precious film.\\

Okay, it's been {{Jossed}} by ''Literature/TheDisasterArtist'' -- Janjigian is active as a motivational speaker in Los Angeles' Armenian-American community, and he played a role in the movie ''Irangeles''. His intensity in the scene is attributed to his being a committed [[MethodActing method actor]]. But he [[VillainWithGoodPublicity could still be a drug dealer]] who moonlights in obscure movies. Look, we need a justification for such a poorly written scene.

[[WMG: Johnny is the reason why harsh topics like breast cancer and drug money are dropped after they are mentioned.]]
Ideally because his presence indicates that there should be no need for something as bad as say, owing some guy who tried to kill you for money. [[spoiler: Only when Johnny died will those bad things come back at full force, thus reinforcing the DownerEnding]].

His banking skills are decent enough, and they get customers purely because they want to see this [[CloudCuckooLander fascinating weirdo]]. This also explains why he never gets promoted, that's all well and good at his current level but his boss wouldn't want him to have any more control.

It's not an uncommon practice to keep a white person around in a Japanese business just to look foreign. Either the bank is a Japanese company with primarily Japanese employees and they let Johnny stay there to be the TokenWhite, or Johnny poses as a foreign investor at business deals. That's why no one can pin his accent; he intentionally makes it vague so he can pose as any ethnicity.

If you look closely at Johnny's gun, it's not the same model as Chris-R's gun. Johnny knew that his life may someday go to pot so he bought a gun as a contingency plan.

Johnny has a very weak grasp of how banking works. The ideas he gave the bank manager was stuff like "I think it would be a good idea if the bank gave people money when they asked for it. They could pay us back later, and give us a little extra so we make money." The next day, he spotted the loan department for the first time, asked what they did there, and said to himself "Wow! They already put my ideas into practice, [[VerbalTic hah]]?"

Johnny's secretly a low-level janitor or similar at the bank. That's why he's so vague about everything going on at the bank. The "upcoming promotion" and his "ideas" for the bank were all a lie. Alternately, he was hoping to get promoted to head custodian, and his money-saving ideas were stuff like buying off-brand floor cleaner.

It also explains why nobody at the bank seems to mind his disheveled appearance. When he gets to work, he takes off his wrinkly suit, puts on a jumpsuit, and gets to mopping. Or even better, he just puts the jumpsuit on over the suit, which is why it's so wrinkly.

He can't tell Mark about the "new client" because he knows nothing about the client, he just heard people talking about it at the bank.

His constant hangdog expression is because he's been living beyond his means for years, and the bill collectors have been hounding him for a while now. When Claudette asked him to loan her friend money for a down payment on a house, all he would say was "It's an awkward situation." Obviously, it was an inappropriate request, and he was within his rights to refuse. But he didn't explain any of that because he was terrified of Claudette finding out that the real reason he couldn't loan the money is because he's up to his eyeballs in debt.

He'd been considering [[spoiler: suicide]] for months now, and being betrayed was the straw that broke the camel's back.

He lacks social skills. He seems to be screwing Lisa's navel, not her vagina. He couldn't cash an "out of town check" meant he had something of value, but it wasn't a check - it was gold bars or something. He's "tired of this world" means that his suicide will return him to his virtual reality station where he's controlling the earth human body.

The mental trauma he endured while compiling Zampano's notes completely warped him, so he now speaks and acts with the same fractured, nonsensical mindset as the layout of the book. His seemingly inexplicable actions are a result of living in constant fear of the [[EldritchAbomination Minotaur]], and the various subplots are dropped like hot rocks around him because he is too focused on it to worry about what few real friends he has left. He hasn't stopped having lots of off-putting sex, though.

The "gun" used by Johnny to "kill himself" is an airsoft replica of the Beretta 92FS Inox - the film makes no effort to hide this fact from us[[note]]aside from removing the orange tip[[/note]]. Maybe he and the [[WordOfGod undercover narcotics officer]] Mark decided to fake Johnny's death to get back at Lisa. Mark pulled strings in the police department to get realistic first-response and forensics guys to respond to the "suicide". Their hilariously bitchy fight in front of Lisa was simple misdirection.

Every indication is that Johnny has no problem throwing money around; paying for Denny's tuition, buying Lisa expensive presents, etc. When he dragged Chris-R off the roof, he realized that the quickest way to get rid of him would be to give him his [[MemeticMutation FUCKING MONEY]]. This would explain how he and Mark are back on the roof in minutes, with vague explanations like "it's clear." Johnny didn't want Lisa to know that he'd given an unspecified amount of money to a drug dealer (especially if he did something real dumb like write him a check), so he lamely claimed that they "took him to jail."
* This may have been Denny's plan from the start, which is why he was hanging out by himself on a rooftop that Johnny is known to frequent. It's also why he told Chris-R that the money is "on the way," he had planned on getting Johnny alone and hitting him up for cash. If nothing else, he could let Chris-R mug Johnny.

In the scene where Claudette discusses Johnny's refusal to pay for a friend's house, when Lisa says that Johnny is not her husband and Claudette responds with "I know, but Johnny is part of our family?" She meant it literally. Johnny [[WifeHusbandry has known Lisa since she was a child]], and Claudette has been attempting to set up an ArrangedMarriage between the two, for her own financial gain, for years. When Johnny says he's given Lisa seven years of his life, he's actually referring to the number of years since she turned 18. Lisa genuinely never loved Johnny in the first place, and the only reason she felt any hesitation about hurting him was that he was still a better parental figure to her than [[AbusiveParents Claudette]].
** What would that make the relation between Johnny and Lisa, wouldn't it be incestuous?
*** If Johnny and Claudette are first cousins, then Johnny and Lisa would be first cousins once removed. And while it's pretty {{Squick}}y, it is legal in the State of California (where the movie is set).

The chocolate blow job scene, and at Johnny's party they are sexually feeding each other cake.

* Mark is aware he's in a movie, commenting on the soundtrack when Lisa seduces him. Others seem to be aware of it too, but only he takes advantage of it. By maintaining a "sympathetic" facade for most of the film, he can do almost whatever he wants within the context of the film, including vanishing from a [[HoYay frolic in the park with Johnny]] to go try and get it on with Lisa, then returning an hour later wearing different clothes.
** Sort of a cinematic version of lucid dreaming.
** The park to apartment to park teleportation thing seems to be the result of bad editing. After Mark leaves, Lisa says that the guests will be arriving soon, even though Johnny's birthday party isn't until the next day. That scene was probably going to be later in the movie originally.
* When he, Johnny, and Pete are all talking and Lisa shows up with Denny, Mark gives Denny one of the [[{{Squick}} most brutal eye-rapings ever]], [[DarkReprise mirroring the one Denny gave Lisa at the beginning.]] It's not hard to imagine that Mark's planning on taking Johnny's place as Lisa's [[RunningGag future husband]], with Denny as a little bit on the side.
* We see him doing drugs at least once, [[{{Narm}} and he was probably high far more often]], and he was willing to throw a friend off a building while doing so. Note that they never said what happened to [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment Chris-R]], just that "it's clear", and that the last time we see him Mark has a gun to his head. [[FridgeHorror Clearly, Mark took Chris-R down into the basement and blew his brains out]], possibly because Chris-R was moving in on his territory, Denny.
* By the end of the film, Mark's the boyfriend of the defacto owner of a building in San Francisco, has a monopoly on the local drug trade, has a man child sex slave, and the one man who stood in his way is now dead. [[YourPrincessIsInAnotherCastle Unfortunately, the party-goers all know that Mark was sleeping with Lisa, and the gun Johnny killed himself with has Mark's fingerprints on it...]]
** Yes, but Johnny had his hands on the gun too. Plus, you're forgetting gun residue - Johnny would have it all over him and Mark wouldn't.

He already shows signs of being at least a bisexual (See his eagerness to join Johnny and Lisa and his disappointment when he's unable to). His whole exchange with Chris R is what you'd expect between a Prostitute and his/her Pimp (He calls him "Baby.") He only says that he bought drugs off of him as a cover story as it was the scenario least likely to freak them out. After taking Chris R to jail, Johnny then figured out the truth and decided to pay for his tuition so he wouldn't prostitute himself anymore.
* It's unlikely that Chris-R called him "baby" at any point. It's just he was sometimes a bit hard to understand due to all that [[NoIndoorVoice screaming]].
** In the alternate take of the scene, Chris-R does call him "Danny boy," which sounds like a weird term of endearment.

She seems to always forget that Lisa fell out of love with Johnny, so much so that he is always taken by surprise whenever Lisa tells her so; this would also explain why Lisa doesn't seem exasperated every time she has to tell her the same thing over again. Her breast cancer is never mentioned again either because she forgot about it, or perhaps sometime in the past she was misdiagnosed with it and it became a recurring memory. After [[spoiler:the fight at Johnny's birthday party]], Claudette goes upstairs and calmly talks to Lisa as if nothing serious has happened.

[[WMG: Claudette is ComicStrip/MaryWorth.]]
Does it even need to be explained further?

This completely explains her complete nonchalance when Lisa says "He got drunk last night and hit me." Her response of "Johnny doesn't drink!" actually implies she knows that Lisa's lying, and instead is defending Johnny.
* Or Claudette has no problem with her daughter's actions (being that she's a lying, conniving bitch herself), and is trying to subtly point out to Lisa that [[DoWrongRight she needs to make her lies more convincing]].

Mark, Lisa, Claudette, et al, have all seen how generous Johnny is, and are merely pretending to like him so that he'll buy them stuff. Note that Claudette is angry with Johnny for not giving her friend money to buy a house. The whole movie is a result of Mark and Lisa starting to get tired of pretending to like him. Denny isn't really a socially awkward ManChild, he just acts like one because it makes Johnny feel like he's a father figure. Note during the Chris R. scene, he seems to break character. For one moment, he goes from whining and crying to screaming "You're not my fucking mother!" at Claudette, then goes back to the sniveling. In his frustration, he accidentally let them see his real personality. Denny's extreme reaction to [[spoiler: Johnny's suicide]] is because he realized that he's lost his gravy train.

Lisa's in her 20's and her mother's in what - her 60's? Lisa's mother ''has'' to have been in her 40's when she got pregnant with Lisa.
* IIRC, Claudette says something suggesting that Lisa's father wasn't her first husband, so it sounds likely.

Note that when Lisa calls Mark at the beginning of the movie, before the affair supposedly begins, she calls him "baby," and he doesn't react at all. As though that's nothing new to him. Granted, he seems confused as to whether or not Lisa is trying to seduce him the first time they have sex on film, but he's that way every other time, too.

[[WMG: Lisa works at a retail place like ''Best Buy''.]]
This is why she's in "The Computer Business" but is dependent on Johnny for cash and is home all day. She doesn't have a big "Silicon Valley" or Computer Programing job or anything....she just works part-time [[note]]about 20 hours a week[[/note]], making minimum-wage [[note]]$5.15 per hour in 2003[[/note]] at a computer/electronics-based retail outfit like ''Best Buy''. Saying Lisa is in the "Computer Biz" is like saying someone working part-time at The Gap is in "The Fashion Biz" or UsefulNotes/McDonalds is the "Culinary Industry".
* She tells her mother at one point that she's expecting a client, but she might just have been trying to get rid of her. Or she's just a pathological liar, there's evidence for that as well.