We have been trying to manage a little summer vacation by driving Skyline Drive through the Shenandoah National Park, but the weather and other external factors have not been cooperating.

So this weekend I declared Fancy Breakfast and we're watching movies we missed in theaters. https://twitter.com/moofable/status/1289579758737600513

So, as previously mentioned: we spent the day watching movies that we had missed when they were in the theaters as part of making today feel like a vacation.

These weren't necessarily the movies we wanted to see the most... they were kinda more the ones we missed, seeing those.

I say that to try to forestall anyone who has a "Sheesh, that was your big vacation bucket list movie?" when I say that one of them was Yesterday.

Yes, the movie where a man gets hit by a bus and knocked into a universe without The Beatles.

Except. I have a theory about that.

See, some of the changes in the new universe would in fact require a change that predates The Beatles. And there's a common thread there that makes me think the lack of The Beatles is *not* a first order change in the universe, but the effect of other changes.

Now this gets tricky because this movie follows standard movie time travel/alternate universe rules, where it doesn't matter how many people met and fell in love at Beatles concerts or how many people were conceived to Beatles songs... all the same people are born.

The only definitive lower order effect we see from any of the changes is that Oasis doesn't exist in a world where The Beatles never performed, and that is evidently intended more as a joke about Oasis than a hint about the nature of the universe.

So, anyway, the earliest two changes are that no one, including The Google, has heard of Coca-Cola or cigarettes.

Which along with other thing, leads me to my theory: this is a universe where people have been slightly less permissive about drugs, and so The Beatles never formed

The cigarettes thing is the kind of twist you couldn't have pulled off in an older movie, but it's no longer remarkable to go most of the length of a movie and not see anyone smoking. I wouldn't *swear* there were no smoking products on screen, though.

But still, cigarettes in particular are a relatively modern innovation in the world of tobacco usage. As their name implies, they could not exist without cigars, but there could be a world where there are cigars and not cigarettes.

What cigarettes did was make smoking more convenient and accessible, in comparison to cigars and pipe-smoking. Less of a ritual, more of a habit.

In a world that was slightly more suspicious of drug use, they might not have caught on.

And Coca-Cola? I mean, I don't think it was the refreshing novelty of the kola nut that helped it catch on. We run into the tricky alternate universe things insofar as Pepsi and every other cola was even more of a clear imitation than Oasis was of The Beatles...

...but if we're looking for things to show that the universes split in like the 19th century specifically on the issue of drug use, eliminating the most famous consumer product to have included coca leaf extract from the timeline would be a way to do it.

We are shown by the movie that the people who would have been The Beatles existed in this universe, and that John Lennon is 84 years old, at peace with himself and the world, and counts himself a very successful man by any measure he cares about.

So he made different choices.

So.. .what if those different choices were mostly pharmaceutical?

Now, you might think this is a big reach, and it is. But I have one more piece of evidence to bring to bear.

When Rocky the roadie is encountered at the music festival at the beginning, he is sneaking off from his job to do a few bong rips.

Later, in the second universe, his vice has changed to drinking on the job.

Also, the attendant on Ed Sheeran's jet is *utterly* confused when he asks if she has Coke. Even if providing cocaine is just not something they do, I don't she'd be mystified, in our universe, why a first-timer on a famous musician's private charter might ask about it.

So, I submit to you: Yesterday is NOT a movie about a universe where The Beatles didn't exist. It's a movie about a universe where everyone is a little bit much more of a buzzkill, a little bit much more of a narc.

Look, my theories aren't all big, important, profound, deep things.

Anyway.

I want to see the sub-reddits that would have sprung up in the wake of his announcement at his farewell concert. I want to see the Cracked article.

Just imagine those two sad Beatles fans who got carried along with him posting to Mandela Effect forums. That's probably how they found each other. And then after he made the announcement... well, we know John Lennon is findable from public information, in this world.

And he'd be able to confirm, patiently but a little annoyed, that yes, Jack Malik had come to his house and said a bunch of weird stuff a bit before that. Some people would think he was laying the groundwork for his exit, and probably say the Reddit posts were more of that.

But then you'd get Beatles truthers who would probably find Paul and George, but there would be EPIC wars over who this "Ringo Star" guy could be.

I think the prevailing theory would be that Jack Malik had a weird breakthrough after his near-death experience but couldn't cope with the pressure of sudden stardom and decided to exit his contract in the most spectacular and bizarre fashion possible.

So @mostlybree mentioned this thread in a QT off this one and I had to go read it, and here's a thing this movie did fairly well:

Most people did find the "new" songs very blah. Only people connected to the music industry thought he had something. https://twitter.com/totallydonna/status/1134681678708912128

It did very quickly blow up into people calling him objectively the greatest singer-songwriter in the history of the world, which is ridiculous because as Donna mentions, The Beatles were a product of a time and a place.

Honestly? If this situation ever happens to you, if you're a professional musician who knows The Beatles songs and you find yourself in a universe without them, here's what you do: you go on YouTube and you start a children's music channel.

That's your golden ticket.

Some of their songs are already children's songs. Some of their songs work as children's songs. Some of their songs could be great as children killers if you just tweaked the words to make them not about misogynistic serial killers.

Early on Jack Malik finds himself playing a children's party and he can't believe the gall of the children ignoring him play "I Want To Hold Your Hand".

His big break happens when he tries "Back in the USSR" in a Russian club with ironic communist iconography.

Audience.

But the children's songs don't require as much context. They're full of stuff that already doesn't mean anything in particular and also doesn't have to. And if you get known as a children's entertainer, you can drop "Let It Be" and watch for it to crossover.