Intertextuality! It's everywhere!

Being well versed in all things video games and the internet, intertextuality is a daily part of life for me, with references to comical or interesting events being thrown around constantly. Intertetuality is simply just a form of refencing and it can be found everywhere, particularly in films and games. Recently I watched the film Paul (featuring and co-written by Simon Pegg and Nick Frost) which is a film built off geeky refrences. It references such films as Star Wars (in the form of a joke where Nick Frost's character jokes about having sex with a girl who looked like a wookie) and Alien (Spoiler: the general woman at the end is Sigourney Weaver) and other such things like that. This film is a perfect example of how intertextuality may be used in cinema to engage an audiece in another way outside of the plot. Pixar films are also great examples of how intertextuality may be used. Pixar understands that although their films are designed for children, adults will be watching these films with their kids and so they add in certain refences that they would understand. At the begininning of Toy Story 2, The Evil Emporer Zerg and Buzz Lightyear have a very Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader face-off, in which Zerg says the words "I am you father" the actual line from Star Wars episode VI: Return of the Jedi, this is not something the 5-10 year old target audience would understand as a reference, but the adult watching very well may (or at least they should!).