Future Terminator actor Christian Bale may be referenced in 1988 Arcade video game Double Dragon II: The Revenge. In Mission 3 the player fights through what appears to be a farm. I thought the clue could be the several bales of hay or wheat shown in the background. Bale starred in the 4th movie in the series, Terminator: Salvation in 2009.
- A character leaps out of one of the bales (named Roper). I thought he may resemble Snake from Konami's Metal Gear video games or possible Snake Plissken from John Carpenter's 1981 sci-fi action film Escape From New York.
- Progressing through the stage some fighting takes place in front of a farming tractor, a combine harvester. I thought this may be a easter egg to DC comic book superhero Superman. A similar machine was key to a scene in Superman 3 in 1983. Christian Bale, played Batman (another DC hero) in the 3 Dark Knight trilogy movies (2005-2012) by director Christopher Nolan.
(Does part of the tractor resemble Metal Gear Rex from MGS (1998)?)
- I thought a hint to Bale's role in post apocalyptic fantasy Reign Of Fire (2002) may be shown in the final mission of the original 1987 Double Dragon arcade game. There, a relief of a golden dragon can bee seen between two lit torches or braziers.
- In this video I build on a previous look at an easter egg to the Double Dragon ('87) video game that exists in 1989 road trip film The Wizard. You can see it at the 19 minute 4 seconds where trio Corey (Fred Savage), Haley (Jenny Lewis) & Jimmy (Luke Edwards) are playing Double Dragon ('88 Technos Famicom / NES version shown). In-game footage from stage 3 can be seen at the area where a bridge has been collapsed in the middle.
- There are numerous links from these two items to actors who were associated with movie projects involving director James Cameron.
- Arnold Schwarzenegger & Double Dragon ('94) movie villain Robert Patrick starred in T2: Terminator 2: Judgement Day in 1991.
- Tobey Maguire, who made his movie debut in The Wizard, later played Marvel Comics hero Spider-Man in several films from 2002. Cameron invested significant effort in developing a Spider-Man project in the 1990's that was eventually abandoned.
- Actress Julia Nickson, mother/guardian of the 2 heroes in Double Dragon, had previously worked with Sylvester Stallone on Rambo: First Blood Part II in 1985. James Cameron co-wrote the screenplay to this.
