WMG / Sherlock Holmes (2009)

Per wiki policy, Spoilers Off applies here and all spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned.

Sherlock Holmes (2009)

Blackwood actually was gifted by supernatural powers. Just not arcane forces, he was working for Nyarlohotep

It's the combination of arcane ritual, 'coincidental' raven following him around, and his crazy anachronistic technology. Nyarlhotep granted him power via knowledge beyond that of mortal men, and power via knowledge. He never realized that his rituals were giing him the power he sought, but not in the form he expected. And so, in not taking the arcane forces seriously, he missed both greater potential and damned his soul to the outer dark.

Irene is an ancestor to Carmen Sandiego.

World class thief, affable, classy, and the first time she shows up she's wearing red. Anyone else see this?

Irene Adler is Carmen Sandiego.

The one with a Time Machine, to be precise. She traveled to Holmes' time on some random scheme but stuck around upon realizing she finally found an opponent who can give her the thrill she's always sought.

Hugh Laurie will have a cameo in the sequel.

As Mycroft, and he'll mock Holmes by telling him that what he does is impossible, or, it'll never catch on.

• More fitting, Mycroft will be played by Stephen Fry. Come on, It would be Awesome!
  • This here, ladies and gentlemen, has just been confirmed.
    • As a real-life WMG, I suggest that the person who thought of that is a psychic or a Time Lord showing off knowledge of the future, or that the person doing the casting is a Troper.
• I second that motion.

Moriarty is an Assassin.

The wrist-mounted gun? A more refined version of Leonardo's hidden blade launcher. By this logic, Lord Blackwood and the rest of the secret order are Templars.

• Brotherhood makes it possible he could be from a rogue/splinter Templar faction, what with Il Lupo's Switchblade and pretty much every MP character having access to the Hidden Gun.
• As an alternative, Holmes could likely be an Assassin as well... Just with the genetics, not the upbringing. His entire Awesomeness by Analysis Sherlock Scan fighting style is built entirely on mashing the Counter button and using the same tactics as players.

Holmes has ADHD.

The utter chaos that we see inside his head during the restaurant scene, for example.

• His Sherlock Scan is a response to his hyper-awareness... and he can't shut it off.

• Also in the ballroom scene in the second film where he's dancing with Sim:

  Sim: What do you see?

  Sherlock: Everything...it is my curse.

A future Sequel will involve World War One and the Germans

In large part because I have been waiting for a good adaption to it, but mostly because it would fit the pace of the new series.

• But Holmes would be pretty old by then, don't you think? World War One began in 1914, whereas Holmes' endeavors ended that same year.
  • He would be getting up there in age, but even if we accept a far longer timeline (rather than having Holmes spring up fully formed on the Year Zero of a Study in Scarlet) he would still have been at most higher-middle age. And while the canon books DO end in 1914, even if we disinclude absolutely all of the books afterwards, it is a stretch to believe that a rather able-bodied man who is so obsessed that he drugs himself into a stupor whenever he doesn't have a case would quit while he was ahead. And even for the era, the characters would be middle aged, which even back then did not mean old, infirm, or otherwise incapable of doing "heavy lifting." To illustrate, if we take the age of the actors and advance them ahead to the appropriate time the main trio (RD Jr.,Watson/Law, and Mc Adams) would be 66, 59, and 53 respectively. Certainly not young by any measure, but even by the standards of the era still capable (for reference, by 1918 the OHL had been putting into action plans to expand the draft limit to being 75 years of age, and while part of that may have been from their state of collapse at the time, they still believed they could fight). At the time of the actual armistice, they would be even younger. . (note to self, find ways to respond to responses without generating a massive Wall of Text every time you hit the edit button).
    • No, this is perfect, then Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry could play the aged Sherlock and Watson and all this troper's dreams would have come true.
    • Remember also that Holmes is younger than Watson. Robert Downey Jr.'s age compared to that of Jude Law could just display how Holmes bedraggles himself in ways that Watson does not.
    • In the Conan Doyle canon, Holmes is born in 1854 and solves the last case in the summer of 1914 (His Last Bow), uncovering a German spy, afterwards he retired from detective work and turned to beekeeping.

Lord Coward was driven to villainy by people making fun of his name.

Tell me you can't imagine that.

Moriarty is involved with the German government and General Staff

In the German Empire, the General Staff was practically the shadow government, more powerful than civilian administration, with no legal obligation to give any explanation on how funds were used, responsible only to the Emperor himself, very aggressive and determined to have their way at all cost. They invested heavily in espionage, military research and collaborated closely with industrial barons. Moriarty bought or acquired by other means Meinhard's factory, which is guarded by men with obvious military training, discipline and knowledge of modern heavy weaponry, most of them, at least those whose faces are closely shown, being middle-aged, old enough to have been veterans of the war of 1871. It would be nearly impossible to run this without involvement of the General Staff and their unofficial permission.

Someone in the production crew is a troper

Stephen Fry is Mycroft and Moriarty's plan in the sequel is to start World War One.Someone there has obviously been reading this page.

In the film's universe, Lord Blackwood was Jack the Ripper

This has to be self-evident. The film is set right around the time the Whitechapel murders happened. We know that Blackwood killed 5 women before being caught. Now, how can we accept an universe where Sherlock Holmes does exist, but that such a notorious crime in London goes unsolved?

• There's a line of dialogue that can be read as hinting this: "Those young women were not the first to be butchered... no one could prove anything, but we all knew."
  • Except all but one of Jack the Ripper's five canonical victims were in their forties, not young.
• Or, alternatively, Blackwood was not the Ripper, but he was perfectly content to take credit for it to enhance his Antichrist image in the secret society. There's no evidence for or against besides the musings of a mystic, but Blackwood likes to play up a specific image of himself that seems at odds with the grubby Ripper.

Watson deliberately changed Holmes's appearance when he wrote down their cases

For privacy reasons.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011)

The third movie will involve some kind of crossover with Doyle's The Lost World

At the very least, Professor Challenger will show up either as Holmes' antagonist, as his client, or as an ally in his latest case. Genre Shift aside, it would fit the current movement of the story—since Holmes is now presumed dead, and he seems to be planning on leaving Watson to his marriage, it would be a perfect time for him to get out of England for some Walking the Earth. What better time to have him wind up on a mysterious Deserted Island filled with dinosaurs? And, of course... everything is better with dinosaurs.

The third movie will be a loose adaptation of The Hound of the Baskervilles

After being presumed dead, Holmes will get out of London and lay low for a while in Devonshire, but he'll be pulled into the old detecting game when Charles Baskerville, the master of a nearby manor, turns up dead. In this version, the Baskerville Hound will be used as a sort of personal "bogeyman" for Holmes, representing the fear of death and the unknown that has plagued him ever since his brush with death at Reichenbach Falls. Proving the Hound a hoax will be his way of "exorcising" this fear and getting to a point where he can make peace with his mortality.

The reason Holmes was in drag was to protect Mary

According to the trailer, Holmes was dressed up in Mary's clothes and a wig. He figured that Watson was in danger so Holmes took Mary off the train. Put on her clothes and makeup to help Watson while keeping Mary out of harms way. He probably had Mycroft or Lestrade make sure she was safe while he went off to help Watson.

• Well, he certainly did get her out of harm's way....

Holmes was an Irishman by birth

"The university" does not refer to either Oxford or Cambridge, but to Trinity College, Dublin. He mentions that he is descended from "country squires," though he refrains from mentioning WHICH country. He at least once mentions an interest in the Celtic languages. There was definitely a well-known Holmes family in Galway during that period (Robert Holmes, the famous barrister). The biggest piece of evidence can be found in his retiring years; Holmes gives up the hustle and bustle of city life to spend his days divided "between philosophy and agriculture" in a decidedly ascetic manner, much like the so-called "Green Martyrs" of 4th and 5th century Ireland.

Naturally, due to the bigotry that an Irishman would have faced in Victorian London, Holmes kept his heritage a secret even from Watson.

• ...Which at last explains why "Rocky Road to Dublin" played during the pit fight in the first film. (But note that "country squires" refers to the countryside, not to a particular geographic location.)

Moriarty and/or Col. Moran are Irishmen by birth

Most obviously both 'Moriarty' and 'Moran' are definitely Irish surnames - the former is from Co. Kerry, the later from Co. Mayo. Morever both would have been born either just before or during the Great Famine which would have been unlikely to engineer positive feelings towards Britain in them. In turn this bitterness towards Britain would eventually lead to crime.

• Moran as a disgruntled Irishman goes against canon. In The Adventure Of The Empty House Doyle openly says he had been born in London and enjoyed a privileged birth and early life, as son of Sir Augustus Moran, British Minister to Persia.

Irene is not dead.

(a) We never see a body. (b) She is still moving when Moriarty takes the handkerchief. (c) Moriarty lied about the tuberculosis; who's to say he wasn't lying again to hurt Holmes? (d) Moriarty put the queen back on the chessboard after Holmes left the room.

• My guess? She's locked up somewhere, in very poor health from being poisoned, waiting for rescue. The rescue will drive the plot of the third movie.
• Or perhaps Irene pulled the same trick Holmes did when he "died" for the same reason, both in the original story and in the film. She faked her death, stayed under the radar to avoid being attacked again, didn't inform anybody so long as Moriarty is active as a crime boss, and will come back in time when the inevitable sequel rolls around. Strange minds do think alike, of course.
• Considering this page's record so far, let's hope. Nobody likes a bridge dropping.
• Also, Moran was there too, and we don't see him leave. Maybe he's about to cart Irene off to wherever Moriarty has planned.
• Also, note Sherlock's reaction to the handkerchief on the ferry. He sniffs it, smiles briefly, then throws it overboard. This suggests either that he knows she isn't dead or he's saying goodbye. This leaves the director with wriggle room to bring her back if necessary.
  • Let's not forget that René's supposed blood in the letter was actually a wine stain. Sherlock might as well have detected that Irene's blood on the handkerchief is fake and smiled to himself. Coming from the woman who outwitted Holmes himself in the past, she would be smart enough to realize that Moriarty was never going to let her retire freely and would make contingencies if she had to go underground.
• 'Also' also, the whole plot of the first movie revolves around the idea that there is a method of faking death good enough to fool a professional doctor. I mean, Irene was there, and she wasn't dumb.
  • Also, something else worth noting for Moriarty: the man isn't a fool. He usually keeps an ace up his sleeve in some form or another throughout the books and the movie. Secondly, he obviously knows enough about Holmes to appreciate his emotional attachments and morality as strengths even if he can't appreciate or feel them himself (which might be why he acts as chummy as he does with "Hired Gun" Moran: trying to cultivate a minion with the same level of attachment and motivations as the Holmes gang has without the "disadvantage" of Moriarty being beholden to Moran like Holmes is to his friends and loved ones). Killing Irene offhand neutralizes one of Holmes's enduring allies and would cripple him, but otherwise not stop him. Saving her for later runs the risk of her coming out from behind to mess things up, but if nothing else would be valuable in splitting their attention between herself and something else, or acting as a hostage.

Games of Shadows is on a Donnie Darko Style time loop

For some reason. due to Moriarty, a tear in time is made. Causing the events from the beginning(except the typewriting parts) of the movie,to the end of the movie on the water fall. Causing Holmes and Moriarty to gain supernatural powers. The visions that Holmes sees are from past experiences he can barely remember. That why he we was talking about the repress memories a the Gypsies tent. And how he knew where to throw Watson wife. The reason the maid heard difference voices come from his room is he was talking to a Frank like being. The Asteroid book is the time travel book that Donnie had. Though only Holmes and fin the truth in the book. Moriarty also has these powers. Being the one that open the time loop And at the end Holmes manages to win and survive the fall because he stop Moriarty. Closing the time loop by taking something out(Moriarty) and putting something back in(Holmes). Thus having enough superpowers left to survive for a happy ending.

Holmes was at his own funeral.

Would it not be hilarious for Holmes to be there in disguise? It certainly seems like something he'd do.

• I would be surprised if he wasn't.

The four main characters are secretly the four main ones from Doctor Who

• Holmes is the Eleventh Doctor, Irene is River, Watson is Rory, and Mary is Amy. They all act like them so very much.

Moriarty is alive

• Bear with me here, but there is a distinct possibility. Holmes is shown to survive the fall from the castle by using the oxygen device he ostensibly took from Mycroft. This got me wondering - why on earth would Mycroft have had one in the first place? Simple - the altitude of the castle meant the air would be thin. Thus, all the guests of summit would likely have had such a device - including Moriarty.
  • Mycroft is a Bunny-Ears Lawyer for one of the most mysterious parts of the British intelligence system, and quite actively lazy (even in the books, if I recall correctly). I took it to mean that his carrying a personal oxygen tank was simply a sign of his eccentricity, the way a modern version of him might carry an asthma inhaler with 32 gigabytes of memory and a temple massager, or, yes, some rich/famous people hire someone to follow their entourage with an oxygen tank in case they feel like taking a hit off of it to spruce up their thinking ability. That does not invalidate the possibility that other guests took the same precaution, be they for similar or more practical reasons (the latter being primarily tight waist cinches and thin air, especially in an environment with dancing and dramatics). Also, ^{Edit Tip # 9}  "An example that is almost completely spoilered out doesn't work very well as an example.".

The next movie will take place in the 22ndCentury

And Holmes will not be a Fish out of Temporal Water due to him being from an era of Steampunk. Of course he will miss Watson

Moran and Moriarty's brother will be the villains of the next movie.

In order to protect the safety of Mary, Simza, Lestrade, and Mycroft (and since Moran was still unknown to the general public), Watson edited out their involvement in the events of A Game of Shadows in order to make "The Final Problem" publishable. In the next film, Colonel Moriarty (mentioned briefly in FINA as writing letters-to-the-editor in defense of his brother) will be the driving force behind a campaign against the Watsons and Scotland Yard, while Moran will be behind the scenes trying to flush Holmes out of hiding.

The third movie will mimic His Last Bow with a bit of The Adventure of the Empty House.

• Because it's hard to imagine how Sequel Escalation can keep ratcheting up and up and up. The first had an attempted British Coup d'etat, and the second had Moriarty planning on starting World War One with an appropriate amount of firepower and uniformed thugs to fit the situation. So, how're they going to escalate this? By actually having World War One or at a minimum the Panther Crisis. Also likely that Professor Challenger will feature in, likely as a parallel to Irene's role and/or as the Disc-One Final Boss before the real villains- Moriarty/Moran/the Germans/other/some combination of the aforementioned- are revealed. Most likely forcing Teeth-Clenched Teamwork. Even odds on whether Irene herself's alive or dead.

Simza is the mother of Nero Wolfe.

Holmes spent at least a portion of the time he spent "dead" with the Gypsies. Feeling lonely and guilty by not being able to be around Watson due to the danger of Moran seeking vengeance, he turned to Simza for comfort. By the time he leaves to return to London, Simza knows she is pregnant but did not tell Holmes.

• And perhaps Simza moved to Montenegro before Nero was born.

Holmes is a time traveller and secretly Iron Man

• At the end of his Iron Man career, Tony Stark got sent back in time and created a personality based on stories he'd read. The local technology isn't advanced enough for him to build another Iron Man suit (no computers, no composite materials), so he makes do with his wits instead. This may be why the technology of the period seems a bit more advanced than in real life. Either Tony's "inventing" stuff off the side or someone found bits of one of his suits and it got spread around. He learned how to fight from either Rhodey or Captain America.

The (fictional) castle at Reichanbach Falls in Game of Shadows will be humanity's base in The Tripods

It's in Switzerland, and up in the mountains, good water supply. It matches the base in The White Mountains. Interestingly, Sherlock and Watson follow the story fairly closely - the two start in England, they go to France and later Paris, picking up a third member, then end the story in the White Mountains.

Guy Ritchie's movies are set in the same reality as The Illusionist (2006)

One of the newspaper clippings on Holmes' Big Board in Game of Shadows has the heading "Austrian Crown Prince Suicide".

Young Sherlock Holmes is the prequel to these movies

Despite the inconsistencies in certain characters' ages and possibly the year each movie took place, the movie fits quite well together with these two stories. In the 2009 movie, Holmes and Watson had already been very well acquainted and working together by that point. It didn't establish their first meeting when they were adults and thus, it's logical to think that their meeting as schoolboys in YSH could have been the way it happened instead. Holmes would then reunite years later with Watson and they'd start working together again, professionally this time, especially after Watson's time in the service and medical training brought him closer to Holmes in intelligence and helped him come into himself more.

Holmes never had confidence in Lestrade as an inspector because he knows he didn't earn it and simply rode Holmes' coattails to do so. He would constantly hint at Lestrade's incompetence and inability to do the job he shouldn't have (the act they did for Coward in the first one had Holmes making fun of Lestrade in that sense to the point of calling him a criminal in getting the job, which gave Lestrade the opportunity to finally punch Holmes in the gut for it and get away with it). Despite the constant badgering about not deserving to be an inspector, Lestrade did begrudgingly grow to respect Holmes and be grateful for his skills.

Rathe/Ehtar became even more volatile and cruel after the death of his equally fanatical sister to the point that he sought criminal means of obtaining riches and power so as to reinvent himself as Moriarty, creating and living out a whole new life just to make sure he fooled everyone he came into contact with. If he wasn't doing it to avenge his sister (who he may have never actually cared about in the first place), he was doing it for his own ravenous need to inflict destruction and damage as many people as possible while lacking any traits of empathy and understanding if he had any at all (his parents were clearly fanatics who either brought out these traits in him with their own radical actions and behaviors or amplified them the same way). Holmes figured out who he was and treated him like a different person because he no longer saw any trace of the Rathe he thought was his friend, but Ehtar fully realized in all his horrible glory with the new name and identity he had made for himself.

Elizabeth's murder, though he showed some optimism for the future, caused Holmes to become deeply traumatized and depressed to the point that he took to drinking and drugs in order to cope with the pain. Adler, though he cared about her, was never what Elizabeth was to her and that's why her death didn't affect him as much. He wasn't necessarily detatched, but certainly not invested enough to feel that same pain. Holmes also became dependent on Watson as his crutch to keep him sane to point that he saw Watson's relationship and ultimate engagement to her as a threat to himself because it would destroy his inability to avoid his pain over Elizabeth that he never let go.

Finally, when Holmes nearly died on the train but was then revived, the ridiculous dream he described wasn't actually what he saw. The horror was from his life and all the terrible things that happened in it flashing before his eyes and it terrified him to the point that it would be too dreadful to repeat any of it.

Arsène Lupin will appear in the third film

Either as an antagonist or an antiheroic protagonist who's surprisingly similar to Holmes aside from being a thief as opposed to a detective.

What would REALLY be fun is to have the antagonist in fact be Fantômas who has the potential to be as dangerous as, or even more than, Professor Moriarty.

• Actually, this would make a scary amount of sense. Firstly, the movie expanded universe trope is extremely common nowadays, so adding in another character (or two) gives great potential for spin-offs, and to this troper's knowledge no big Hollywood adaptation of Arsene Lupin has yet to be done. Secondly, it's more or less canon that Lupin and Sherlock exist in the same universe, with Maurice Leblanc writing several encounters between the thief and detective. Thirdly, if they decide to have a large timegap between Game of Shadows and the third movie, the in-universe timelines will match, as Lupin first encounters Sherlock (in the original novels) when Sherlock was close to the end of his career. It's a pretty natural way to up the ante from the "Sherlock vs. Moriarty" story, while simultaneously expanding the universe within the (rough) confines of canon and providing a natural 'out' for Downey to end his Sherlock career and give way to a new, yet similar, character. If all the copyright formalities work out to allow for this, it would be a huge wasted opportunity not to do it.

Wiggins and the Baker Street Irregulars will appear in the third film

They will help Holmes and Watson on their next big case.

The third film will feature Sherlock Holmes vs Jack the Ripper...

...and Johnny Depp can reprise his role as Inspector Frederick Abberline!

• If the timeline doesn't make sense for the third film (ostensibly long after the Ripper cases), it doesn't have to. The Jack the Ripper cases were never solved, so if the movie takes place long after the original murders, Jack could simply have made a reappearance somehow, and thus the retired, cynical, and disillusioned Abberline teams up with Holmes and Watson to stop another series of murders, knowing that the ignorance and corruption in the police force impeded him from solving them the first time.
  • Having it take place long after the murders also opens up the possibility to add in original characters or plots, or even other canon characters, like bringing back Moran and resolving that dangling thread from the second movie, or introducing Wiggins and the Baker Street Irregulars.
  • Can also tie in with the first film, saying somehow that perhaps Jack was inspired by Lord Blackwood's murders (or vice-versa)
• Aside from an Arsène Lupin plot, this would likely make the most sense for a third installment, as it not only can raise the stakes with a lot of visceral murders, it's also one of the most well-known stories of Holmes, apart from Holmes vs Moriarty, which was already done. Maybe less room for a full expanded universe, but still has great potential!
  • OR, Sherlock Holmes + John Watson, Frederick Abberline, and Arsène Lupin are forced to team up against Jack the Ripper, Sebastian Moran, and some new evil threat we can't even imagine...
    • Sherlock Homes: Endgame

---