The Three Flavours Cornetto
Trilogy consisting of three films from three completely different genres. Shaun of the Dead is a bloody zombie
apocalypse film, Hot Fuzz is a typical police action movie set in a mysterious
small town, while The World’s End is a catastrophe film with an alien invasion,
robots and a heroic quest. These films not only share their director and
leading actors – there are a lot of recurring elements, themes and motifs,
which connect the three film and make the three different movies into a
series.
The films were given the name
Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy, before Wright started to make the last one. In
an interview the journalist pointed out that the Cornetto ice-cream is a
recurring element in his films. It was an inside joke, as Wright cured his
hangover in college with Cornetto. He said, that he will make a last film, and
the three will be the Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy just like Kieslowski’s
Three Colours Trilogy. Every film is represented with different ice-creams:
Shaun of the Dead with the strawberry (red for blood), Hot Fuzz with Original
(blue for police), and World’s End with mint-chocolate chip (green for aliens).
The films has the same leading
actors, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost, who previously starred in Spaced together.
In the three films, there are several recurring actors, for example Julia
Deakin from Spaced, and Martin Freeman and Bill Nighy also played in all of the
three films. There are also big Hollywood names and other famous people who
only play a small cameo in the films, most of the time in costumes, which makes
it hard to notice them, or only appear for seconds. In Shaun of the Dead, Chris
Martin, the singer of Coldplay plays a zombie, while in Hot Fuzz Cate Blanchett
dressed as a crime scene investigator and Peter Jackson, the director of the
Lord of the Rings played a crazy shopping-mall Santa Claus.
In both of the films, the main
character is always a piteous man, who just lost his job, his girlfriend or who
simply lives in the past, but through the film he becomes the hero and with his
friend(s) he saves the town/city/world from crazy retirees, zombies and aliens.
The screenwriters are the
director, Edgar Wright and one of the leading actors, Simon Pegg. They have stated
several times that they are “notorious film fanboys” (Wired, 2013). All of the three films are full of film
references. They name the sights in their films after great actors and
directors (Fulci, Foree, Popwell), Shaun of the Dead is based on two of the
greatest zombie apocalypse films (28 Days Later – Boyle, Night of the Living
Dead – Romero), and its title is a pun on the title of Dawn of the Dead. In Hot
Fuzz they recreated scenes from Bad Boys and Break Point and there are
references to other films, such as Monty Python films, Addams Family, Dirty
Harry, Die Hard and so on.
All of the films include pub
scenes, what is more, The World’s End is about a quest where the main character
and his friends are trying to complete the golden mile – they want to visit 12
pubs and drink a pint in each of them. Near the end of the films there is a pub
fight in every one of them and there is also a fence scene, where Simon Pegg
and Nick Frost are doing a “shortcut” with more or less success.
The interesting, creative
character names are also characteristic of the Cornetto films. In Hot Fuzz, the
main character’s name, Nick Angel is a homage to a real Nicholas Angel, who is
the music supervisor of most of the famous Working Title films, such as Notting
Hill, Bridget Jones, and Love Actually. He was also the music supervisor of the
Cornetto Trilogy. In the World’s End, the main character’s name is Gary King,
who think on the Golden Mile challenge as King Arthur and his knight’s quest.
His friends name are Knightley, Prince, Chamberlain and Page.
The last recurring element, which
can be noticed in all of the films is the presence of twins. Most of the time
they are scary, or even weird and they are on the side of the “bad guys”. In
Shaun of the Dead the twins are zombies, in Hot Fuzz they are scary butchers,
and in World’s End there are two twin pair: both of them are aliens. The only
twins who are not scary or weird are the police officers in Hot Fuzz, but it
may be because the other characters do not even notice that they are twins
until the end of the film.
To sum up, Edgar Wright succeeded
in uniting his films with a lot of recurring actors, elements, themes and
motifs. With the same leading actors, the Cornetto, fence and pub scenes, and
the average characters who later became heroes and saved the world, he created
the same atmosphere and connected the three movies, despite the fact, that they
have different storylines and are mocking completely different genres.
References
Crump, A. (2014). ‘The World’s
End': Cornetto Trilogy Tie-Ins, References, & Cameos. Retrieved from http://screenrant.com/worlds-end-hot-fuzz-shaun-of-the-dead-easter-eggs-spoilers/
Wired. (2013). The Best Running Gags and Easter Eggs of the
World’s End Trilogy. Retrieved from http://www.wired.com/2013/08/cornetto-trilogy-easter-eggs/
Koski, G. & Rabin, N. (2013). Talking
over the Cornetto Trilogy. Retrieved from https://thedissolve.com/features/the-conversation/109-why-the-worlds-end-is-the-most-complex-of-the-corn/
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