Metaphorically True / Live-Action Films

• Captain Marvel (2019) reveals how the Marvel Cinematic Universe version of Nick Fury lost his eye. In Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Fury tells Captain America that he lost his eye to someone he trusted, but he actually lost it to an alien cat that he adored (and was trusting not to eat him), making his earlier statement this.
• In the non-canon Case Closed movie Shinichi Kudo Returns! Showdown with the Black Organization, Ran sees Ai Haibara hugging Shinichi (both temporarily at their normal ages) and becomes suspicious and jealous. To calm her down, Ai gives a fake name and claims that she'd hired Shinichi to help her with some dangerous men who were trying to get revenge on her for something, and that she was hugging him out of fear. Technically that's true - she was being pursued by Gin and Vodka, both of them wanted revenge on her for escaping them, Shinichi was helping save her from them, and she really had been hugging him out of fear.
• In The Dark Knight Rises it's revealed that the cover story of the events at the end of the previous film has it that Batman killed Harvey Dent. This is actually true, Harvey Dent died from a fall after Batman shoved him off a roof, but it leaves out the important part: he did so because Harvey/Two-Face was about to kill Commissioner Gordon's son.
• At the end of Fort Apache reporters are interviewing now Colonel York about the upcoming military campaign and mention the painting in Washington of the previous CO's, Thursday, charge against the Apaches. York replies that the description the reporter gives is correct in every detail. The obvious inference is that the painting is an accurate description of the battle, which the viewer already knows is untrue, and York is lying to the reporter. However, it could be taken to be his commenting on the reporter's description of the painting, which is accurate.
• In Inside Man, Dalton Russel's opening monologue is phrased so that it sounds like his bank robbery failed and he is in jail. However, he warns the listener, "Pay strict attention to what I say because I choose my words carefully and I never repeat myself." And at the very end of the movie, we find out that Dalton has actually spent the last three days imprisoned inside the bank's inner walls as part of his scheme, and the scheme itself comes off perfectly.
• Kinsey: He was filming animals to make a visual record of mammalian behavior. He never said which mammal species he was focusing on (Homo sapiens, as it turned out).
• The protagonist of Liar Liar is cursed to always tell the truth for 24 hours (while being the defending lawyer in a case he can't win without lying). He tries to get around this and postpone the trial by beating himself up in the bathroom, and then being as vague as possible (without lying) when asked who did it. Oddly, this is the only time in the film that he manages to do this; every other time, he blurts out the whole, unedited truth, and even twice is compelled to add "figuratively speaking" to his description of his boss as a worthless, steaming pile of cow dung.
  The Judge: Who did this?
  Fletcher: A madman, your honor! A desperate fool at the end of his pitiful rope!
  Judge: What did he look like?
  Fletcher: About 6'2", 180lbs. big teeth, kinda gangly.
• In The Matrix, Morpheus nearly loses his faith in the Oracle because she is unable to help him see past what he believes will end the Man/Machine war by the concluding movie, The Matrix Revolutions. It is only for The One to know what must be done in the matter of prophecy through a bit of Prophecy Twist and some Fridge Brilliance by the audience, later.
• In Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express (1974), everything Princess Natalia Dragomiroff says to Hercule Poirot. They had to lie to throw him off the trail, but honor dictated they couldn't do it outright so they "merely" gave the nearest equivalent answer. For example; Mr. Whitehead became Mr. Snowpeak.
• In The North And The South, when Orry and George are in a tavern having a beer, the bartender suggests they sit back-to-back so if someone asks the if they'd seen one another drinking, they could say they had not.
• In The Phenix City Story, it is argued In-Universe that a grand jury finding that there is no gambling in Phenix City could be construed this way—after all, it's only gambling if the player has a chance of winning, and the games in Phenix City are so heavily rigged that there isn't.
• Saw:
  • In the first film, Lawrence says that newspapers dubbing the Jigsaw Killer as such is inaccurate, because technically speaking, he never killed anyone directly; he just puts them in situations where death is very likely. The point is really moot, as almost any jurisdiction would consider putting someone in such a situation to be murder, combined with other possible crimes like kidnapping. Saw II does at least have the Jerkass detective Eric call Jigsaw out on this defense: "putting a gun to someone's head and forcing them to pull the trigger is still murder." Plus, that ignores one of the flashbacks to Lawrence's explanation of Jigsaw, in which the latter lures Sing into a booby trap, resulting in his death; this was in turn preceded by a very straightforward attempt to murder Tapp by slashing his throat.
  • In Saw II, like Lawrence, Amanda states that Jigsaw is not a killer for the same reasons, though this is pretty much a Foreshadowing to her being his apprentice, which is revealed at the end of the film.
• Used in several of the Star Trek films, mostly by Spock.
  • The later instances are call-backs to the first, from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, where Spock informs Captain Kirk by communicator that "going by the book, like Lieutenant Saavik, hours would seem like days" before reporting that the Enterprise would need two days to have secondary power restored... "By the book, Admiral." After Kirk's away team gets stranded on Regula I by Khan:
    Kirk: [opening communicator] Kirk to Spock, it's two hours, are you ready?
    Spock: Right on schedule, Admiral.
    [soon, on the Enterprise]
    Saavik: I don't understand. We were immobilized. Captain Spock said it would be two days.
    Kirk: Come, come, Lieutenant. You of all people go by the book: "If communications are being monitored during battle..."
    Saavik: "...no uncoded messages on an open channel." [turns to Spock, astonished] You lied.
    Spock: I exaggerated.
  • Lampshaded repeatedly in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, for example:
    Spock: Mr. Scott, I understand you are having difficulties with the warp drive? How much time do you require for repair?
    Scotty: There's nothing wrong with the bloody th—
    Spock: Mr. Scott, if we return to spacedock, then the assassins will surely find a way to dispose of their incriminating footwear, and we will never see the Captain, or Dr. McCoy, alive again.
    Scotty: Could take weeks, sir.
    Spock: Thank you, Mr. Scott.
    Valeris: A lie?
    Spock: An error.
  • This one, though, eventually comes back to bite Spock in the hinder:
    Kirk: I want the names of the conspirators.
    Valeris: I do not... remember.
    Spock: A lie?
    Valeris: ...A choice.
  • Played with in Star Trek (2009), when Spock Prime meets his young counterpart, after telling the young Kirk not to mention him because of Never the Selves Shall Meet.
    Spock: You lied.
    Spock Prime: I implied.
  • Star Trek Into Darkness continues with Spock's mastery of this; needless to say, playing poker against a Vulcan is only slightly smarter than picking a fight with one.
    • Given a further nod when Spock and Kirk are being dressed down by Admiral Pike. When Spock cites his Loophole Abuse, Pike angrily dismisses it as a technicality. Spock counters that, "I am Vulcan, sir. We embrace technicality."
    • Khan has the Enterprise at his mercy and wants his crew, who he had hidden in torpedoes before the film, back; Spock informs him that "Vulcans do not lie. The torpedoes are yours." Khan accepts this and beams the torpedoes aboard his ship. Spock did not mention that he had already had Khan's crew of Augments removed from the torpedoes, and that the torpedoes were armed and seconds away from detonating.
• Star Wars:
  • In Return of the Jedi, Obi-Wan tells Luke that the statement "Darth Vader betrayed and murdered your father" is, indeed, true "from a certain point of view." This is a Retcon, but it's a pretty good Retcon. It's true that Vader killed loads of Jedi and other innocent people, including very young children, it's true that Obi-Wan feels betrayed and horrified and hates what Anakin became for it, and it's believable that the old man wouldn't want to immediately tell Luke that his dad is actually an evil Sith Lord who killed his mother and is the main enforcer of the despotic regime that Luke hates (for Luke's sake, if for no other reason). Further helping things is that Sir Alec Guinness' acting in A New Hope ends up coming off, likely through sheer luck, like Obi-Wan isn't being entirely truthful with Luke; in particular, take notice of how he briefly hesitates when Luke asks what happened to his father. You can practically see him asking himself what would be the best thing for him to say. That hesitation is amazingly lucky for the Retcon.^note It was originally intended that Obi-Wan was telling the whole truth — in the first draft of The Empire Strikes Back, written by Leigh Brackett, Luke's father even appears as a Force ghost. George Lucas introduced the twist in the second draft, which he wrote after Brackett's death, as a way of improving character motivations. So what Kenobi told Luke was true, WHEN he told it to him. It's also Implied, particularly in Return of the Jedi, that Luke was always meant to know the full truth about his father, but only when he was truly ready to handle it ^note  Which, considering his anguish when Vader revealed it to him, he was not in The Empire Strikes Back . This is supported by the fact Yoda said it was unfortunate that Luke learned the truth when his training was incomplete, and that Luke was able to correctly decipher from Obi-Wan that Leia is secretly his sister when the old Jedi implied it; he was surprised, but quickly accepted it.
  • Incidentally, Luke learns to use this metaphorical truth later on to guilt trip Vader in Return of the Jedi when the former allows himself to be captured. During their confrontation, it's clear Luke is getting under Vader's skin and the latter admits Luke essentially has points but says he doesn't have much of a choice in following Palpatine. As a sort of last low blow before he's taken away, Luke is clearly disappointed in him and tells him "then my father is truly dead". It's not clear whether this means Luke came around to Obi-Wan's perspective of it, at least for that moment, or that it was just to burn Vader one more time. Either way, it works, and Vader is clearly shaken and hurt that his son would tell him his "father" — not just "Anakin" — is truly dead.
  • While this looks weaselly, it does fit later hints that the Jedi see the Sith as something like the walking dead, former people who've been turned into monsters by the Dark Side. Mace Windu says "which was destroyed, the master or the apprentice?" — not, say, slain. Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon referred to Darth Maul as "it", while Yoda later warns Obi-Wan that Anakin is "gone" and has been "consumed" by Darth Vader — a line probably written for the purpose of bolstering the point-of-view of Obi-Wan's original statement to Luke. Even more so, throughout the final fight between Obi-Wan and Anakin, you can see Obi-Wan constantly trying to reach his friend and former apprentice and bring him back to his senses. It's only by the end of the fight where he seems to come to the conclusion that his friend is no more. It's likely the same train of thought Luke had in the above capture scene later on.
  • The Force Awakens further supports this idea, with Kylo Ren saying that he destroyed his former identity.^note Strictly speaking Kylo isn't a Sith; he's deliberately invoking this trope as part of his Darth Vader obsession.
  • Darth Vader himself says the same thing to his former apprentice in the Star Wars Rebels episode "Twilight of the Apprentice, Part II".
    Vader: Anakin Skywalker was weak. I destroyed him.
    Ahsoka: Then I will avenge his death!
  • Reinforced in Obi-Wan Kenobi where, when Kenobi addresses Darth Vader as Anakin and apologizes for what he has done, Vader replies that Anakin is dead, and that Darth Vader killed him, not Kenobi.
    Obi-Wan: Then my friend is truly dead. Goodbye... Darth.
  • In Revenge of the Sith, after Anakin stands up in the Vader suit for the first time, his first question to Sidious is "Where's Padmé?", having last seen her unconscious after force-choking her. Sidious replies that in his anger Anakin had killed her. This has the desired effect of driving Anakin to despair so that he will embrace the Dark Side more closely. It is, however technically true, insofar as Anakin's betrayal ultimately causes Padmé to lose the will to live, to say nothing of the aforementioned force choke — something that Sidious was probably aware of. According to the novelization it's literally true, and she died from internal damage caused by the choke; the droids that gave the "lost the will to live" explanation are just terrible doctors. The junior novel even has Sidious internally reflecting on this, taking pleasure in the fact that he won't even need to lie in order to break Vader's spirit.
    Sidious: And now for the final touch. The words that will forever bind him to the dark side. They won't even be a lie. Not really.
  • Anakin himself turns out to be not much better than Obi-Wan at this when he tries convincing Padmé over to his side, saying that the Jedi were taking over the Republic and that he saw Mace Windu try to assassinate the Chancellor. Conveniently leaving out the part about Palpatine being a Sith Lord who has been plotting to take over the galaxy. He does, however, tell her that he plans to overthrow him so that they can rule the galaxy together themselves, and probably do a better job at it than Palpatine would.
  • A second Obi-Wan example concerns R2-D2. When Luke says the R2 claims to belong to Obi-Wan he responds "I don't seem to remember ever owning a droid". This is technically correct since R2 was never actually his property but he leaves out the fact that he knows exactly who R2 is and who he does belong to.
  • In one of the first lines in the entire saga, Raymus Antilles tells Vader that the Tantive IV did not intercept any transmissions of the stolen Death Star plans. Forty years later, we learn this to be technically true; in the final scene of Rogue One (2016), Leia receives the plans in a physical format. It also makes Vader's phrasing odd, since he was present at the time. However, Vader may have simply viewed it as a Distinction Without a Difference.
  • When Yoda is dying, he tells Luke that "the last of the Jedi, you will be." However, in Legends there was plenty of other surviving Jedi. Some had fallen to the Dark side, such as Jerec, so they arguably no longer count as Jedi. However, other Jedi were merely in hiding. Some came out of hiding to help Luke reestablish the Jedi Order. In Canon, the statement is currently closer to the truth, as the only other known survivors of Order 66 alive at the time of Return of the Jedi are Ahsoka and a minor EU character named Naq Med, both of whom left the Jedi Order before Order 66, Grogu a.k.a. the Child, who The Mandalorian explains was a barely-trained youngling when it all went down, and Baylan Skoll, who vanished at the end of the Clone Wars. Counting Jedi who were trained after the fall of the original order, there's also Ezra Bridger, but he goes missing in action at the end of Rebels and is still unaccounted for five years after the fall of the Empire due to being stranded in another galaxy.
  • In The Last Jedi, Kylo Ren claims that part of the reason he turned to the Dark Side was that Luke tried to kill him in his sleep. When confronted about this, Luke admits that he almost did after already sensing the darkness within him, but stopped himself at the last minute. The problem was that Kylo had already woken up and saw him with his lightsaber still on, so he of course retaliated in self-defense. As far as they're all concerned, Kylo wasn't so much lying as he was simply explaining what he saw through his own perspective, and it's not like he would've been able to tell the difference so easily.
  • In The Last Jedi, Kylo Ren tells Rey her parents were nobodies, filthy junk traders who abandoned and sold her off for drinking money and died. In The Rise of Skywalker, while he claims to have never lied to her, he also tells her her parents chose to be junk-trader nobodies, in spite of having a background that implied otherwise, and abandoned her in order to protect her from being found by her grandfather who is very much a somebody. Selling her for drinking money was part of the cover they used to drop her off and throw off the assassin who was after her and they died keeping the truth from said assassin. To be fair, it's implied he originally unaware of that part until grandpappy Palpatine himself presumably told him, which would make it more likely that what he said before really was the truth as far as he knew at the moment.
• Near the end of What's Love Got to Do with It (1993), Tina Turner is shown as reduced to a lounge act, implying this is what she's reduced to make ends meet and showing how far she fell before her big come back with the eponymous album. The film neglects to mention a Real Life detail: When this happened to the real Turner, it was her idea, to make sure people knew she hadn't retired or vanished since her infamously nasty split with Ike Turner.
• Wonder Woman (2017): Hippolyta's story about Ares is misleading but technically true if not taken at face value. He does act as The Corrupter to humanity, but the way the story was told to Diana made her think that he used supernatural means to influence them, when actually his methods are closer to giving people fire and watching them burn themselves and everything around them.
• Garry King from The World's End almost entirely speaks in this and Insane Troll Logic. He often makes plans in the loosest and most roundabout way, so that he never technically breaks them, and it's a running gag that he's "never wrong". Not "always right", "never wrong". It's futile to argue with the man sober, let alone drunk.
• In X-Men: Days of Future Past, Logan goes to Charles' school to find him, but he is greeted by Hank, who says that there are no professors in the place. Logan believes correctly that he is lying, as Charles eventually appears there. However, he is so broken and enraged that he doesn't resemble his usual self anymore. Hank reaffirms that there are no professors in the school.

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