In Rick and Morty, the fact that Rick has a portal gun means he can travel to any and all parallel dimensions he chooses. Infinite opportunities to go to an infinite number of places. What the show does so well is turn this very heady scientific concept into an excuse for gags, often reaping worlds defined by one specific (and ridiculous) characteristic–you’ll of course recall the world-on-a-cob that sent our heroes into such a panic. but one of our favorites of Rick and Morty‘s realms are the filmmaker-themed dimensions and planets we’ve gotten to see, most notably the season one episode “ Rick Potion #9“‘s Cronenberg World.
After a disastrous misuse of a love potion, Rick and Morty have accidentally turned all of Earth into pulsing, disgusting mutants, which Rick affectionately names “Cronenbergs” after some of the nightmare creatures seen in the movies of David Cronenberg (The Fly, Videodrome, Naked Lunch, etc.). Of course, this wasn’t the only time they’ve done this. Without calling him out by name, season three’s second episode, “Rickmancing the Stone,” takes Rick, Morty, and Summer to a Mad Max-esque post-apocalypse that might as well be called George Miller World.
This got us thinking: which other famous directors should have their own sensibilities-themed parallel dimension in Rick and Morty and what would they look like? We have seven that we think would be especially squanchy.
GUILLERMO DEL TORO WORLD
We love the movies of Guillermo del Toro and his macabre take on fairy tales, speculative fiction, Gothic horror, and historical fantasy. So what would an entire world based on his imagination look like? We’ve gotten a bit of a glimpse via an opening credits sequence of The Simpsons a couple of years ago, but we’re expecting most people in Del Toro World to fall into three different categories: ghostly apparitions, sentient fish people, or teeth-gnashing fairies. Really, it could also be called Rachel Heine World.
J.J. ABRAMS WORLD
Few directors have shown us as many different visions of futuristic worlds in as concerted an amount of time as J.J. Abrams, who gave us modern takes on both Star Trek and Star Wars, not to mention homespun sci-fi in things like Super 8 and Mission: Impossible 3. It’d be a pretty spectacular thing to behold if Rick and Morty went to Abrams World, but unfortunately they wouldn’t be able to see any of it, because there’s an omnipresent band of blinding light at exactly eye level any direction they look.
CHRISTOPHER NOLAN WORLD
Dark, mysterious, intense, and often upsetting, the films of Christopher Nolan have kept our minds guessing and our hearts pounding for nearly 20 years. It’d be a pretty exciting prospect for the mad scientist and his grandson to check out. They wouldn’t be able to trust their memory, or their senses, not least because there’s a constant, oppressive drone everywhere they go. Yas, folks, because what you think is a Christopher Nolan World is actually a Hans Zimmer World. The horror.
TIM BURTON WORLD
I’ve changed my mind. THIS is Rachel Heine World. Tim Burton World is a whole world made up of drooping dead trees surrounding cookie cutter houses, and fashion from the Wednesday Addams-meets-The Cure’s-Robert-Smith collection. Actually sounds pretty great, and we could see Rick making all sorts of jokes about moody Goth kids, and Morty could want to stay forever because of the alluring introverted Lydia Deetz-type who hides behind her hair.
STANLEY KUBRICK WORLD
Imagine stepping out of a portal and finding that everything is incredibly far away from you. Pretty weird, but even weirder is when you start walking toward a thing, and it remains as far away from you, no matter how long you walk. And then turn around and see all the things you’d just seen had moved slightly, as though the architect of that world wished you to be disoriented constantly, never able to fully find your footing. And then sometimes it felt like you were looking through a fish eye lens. That, friends, is Stanley Kubrick World. Quake with unease.
MICHAEL BAY WORLD
It’s just really loud and there are way too many explosions. Also there’s a sense that you’re constantly being leered at and Rick doesn’t care for that one bit. And neither would we, really. So maybe they shouldn’t do this one. It’d be worse than a world where everything is on the cob
What director’s world would you like to see in Rick and Morty? Let us know in the comments below!
Images: Adult Swim/Paramount/Warner Bros/Disney
Kyle Anderson is the Associate Editor for Nerdist. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Twitter!