Trivia for
Children of Men (2006) More at IMDbPro »

• When Theo is walking down the ramp on Battersea Power Station, a stenciled image of two policemen kissing can be seen on a wall. The image was created by "Banksy", a British "guerilla artist" who specializes in that kind of work. Other Banksy works appear in the film, including a stenciled image of a child looking down a shop.
  
  
• In the Bexhill tower block scene, Theo is wearing a London 2012 Olympics fleece.
  
  
• For the first week of release at Leicester Square, London, there was a mistake on the cinema marquee, declaring the film title to be "Children of Me".
  
  
• When Miriam is taken off the bus in the refugee camp you can hear the song "Arbeit Macht Frei" by The Libertines. "Arbeit macht frei," meaning "Work shall set you free," was written above the entrance at Auschwitz, one of the major Nazi Concentration Camps.
  
  
• The long shot when the Fiat Multipla is attacked by terrorists, with all the passengers inside, demanded a camera rig that could rotate within the car. They used a rig developed by Doggicam Systems, and controlled by a stunt driver. The single shot was shot in six takes over four locations, requiring a lot of transition work from the VFX-house Double Negative as it pans around inside the car. The cocktail, stunt driver and motorcycle (from the moment it hits the car), windshield, blood, and roof, were all computer generated with 3-D animation.
  
  
• When Miriam (Pam Ferris) is taken off the bus at Bexhill, the camera pans by several cages with prisoners inside. One of them is the infamous "hooded man" from the Abu Ghraib prison torture pictures. He is seen in the exact pose as the real pictures.
  
  
• When Owen enters the dining room in Battersea power station, the large black and white mural behind him is Pablo Picasso's. "Guernica." The same image is drawn on the wall of the tunnel which Theo and Kee use to escape in the rowboat. The painting was Picasso's reaction to the Nazi bombing of Guernica, Spain during the Spanish Civil War, which killed an estimated 1,600 civilians.
  
  
• In one scene, a car drives past a heavily-guarded gate and over a bridge toward Battersea Power Station. An inflatable pig floats between the four smoke stacks, a recreation of the cover image of the Pink Floyd album "Animals".
  
  
• After seeing Charlie Hunnam's performance in Cold Mountain (2003), Alfonso Cuarón called him up and offered him the role of Patric.
  
  
• Jasper (Michael Caine) drives a Citroën CX with some plastic add-ons in the front and back. The last one was produced in 1990. Other cars in the movie are the Renault Modus, Renault Avantime, Renault Megane II, and Fiat Multipla. There is also a wreckage of a Peugeot 206. All the "newer" cars in the movie were deliberately made to look aged and battered, despite being relatively recent models.
  
  
• Michael Caine plays an award-winning political cartoonist. In his house, you can see some of his cartoons in the background. They were drawn by Steve Bell, an award-winning political cartoonist for The Guardian newspaper.
  
  
• The song that Kee sings to her baby is a lullaby from Ghana called 'Kaa fo', which means 'Baby do not cry'.
  
  
• Many of the service rifles carried by the British armed forces are the XM8 rifle. It was intended to replace current US M16/M4 variant service rifles by 2015-2020, but the US Defense Department canceled its contract with the rifle's manufacturer, Heckler & Koch, in 2005. The rifle is now considered experimental.
  
  
• Michael Caine based his performance on John Lennon.
  
  
• Just before the car is attacked, Miriam peels an orange in the back seat. Just before the refugee camp falls into chaos, Kee and Marichka share orange slices over the baby. In films, oranges often represent impending danger or tragedy. This motif is also prominently featured in The Godfather.
  
  
• In an earlier version of the script, Jasper and Theo watch as Janice participates in a mass suicide organized by Quietus. Later on, Jasper lets himself get mauled by guard dogs in order to help Theo, Kee, and Miriam reach Bexhill.
  
  
• At Jasper's safe house, Jasper discusses the death of Theo's son during a flu pandemic. During the scene, the soundtrack plays music from Kindertotenlieder ("Child Death Songs") by Gustav Mahler, a song lamenting the death of the artist's children.
  
  
• Almost every shot contains an animal, usually a dog.
  
  
• According to information from the newscast in the opening scene, and the date the film begins, Baby Diego was born on June 21, 2009.
  
  
• The cities shown in the newscast that declares "The World Has Collapsed: Only Britain Soldiers On" are, in order: Paris, Moscow, Washington, Kuala Lumpur, Tokyo, Brussels, Hong Kong, Berlin, Jakarta, New York, Stockholm, Rome, Shanghai, Caracas, Copenhagen, Mexico City, Amsterdam, Atlanta, Geneva, Marseilles, Lisbon, Seoul, Singapore, San Diego, Naples, Boston, and Antwerp. Julian mentions to a horrified Theo that her parents were in New York "when it (an unspecified catastrophe) happened". Also, Theo and his cousin discuss another unspecified disaster that took place in Madrid, Spain.
  
  
• Ian, a member of the Fishes, sits behind Theo on the train, just before the Omegas begin throwing rocks and bottles at the train windows.
  
  
• When Patric executes the Russian man who is helping Theo and Kee to find a boat, he is singing a local Newcastle song called 'The Blaydon Races'. It starts something like 'All the lads and lasses with all their smiling faces, gannin along the Scotswood Road to see the Blaydon Races'.
  
  
• Cameo: P.D James plays the old woman in the cafeteria with Theo .
  
  
• Newspaper headlines throughout the film read: Raid nabs refugees' weapons cache, AFRICA DEVASTATED BY NUCLEAR FALL OUT, U.S. TROOPS FULL ATTACK, EXTREMIST EXPLOSION A RIGHT ROYAL RIP OFF: CHARLES SHOULD BE THRONE OUT, MILITIAS OCCUPY CINCINNATI, BOZEMAN & SPOKANE, CHAOS IN REFUGEE CAMPS, FERTILITY DRUG KILLS! SURGEON ARRESTED, HORMONE ATTACKS: VIOLENT REACTION, 100 Suicides: Nation in Denial, RUSSIA IN CRISIS: Massive migration, Police put mosques under surveillance, Gatherings are forbidden, BOMBING OF SAUDI PIPELINE DISRUPTS WORLD'S OIL SUPPLY (Photo by Janice Palmer), REFUGEES BLAMED FOR INCREASE IN TERROR ATTACKS (Thursday April 6th, 2018), SOUTH COAST TOWNS TURNED INTO REFUGEE CAMPS (Tuesday February 11, 2020), PM DENIES "TORTURE" OF BRITISH CITIZENS, ALLEGATIONS OF ABUSE DISMISSED AS A SHAM, DIRTY BOMB DETONATED IN MUNICH (Report by Photojournalist Janice Palmer), England bans ALL immigration completely, 25% INFERTILITY RATE (21.12.2008), Two years since last baby born, NO BABY HOPE ADMIT SCIENTISTS, WAR AND FAMINE LEAD TO MASS MIGRATION, JANICE PALMER questions Britain's ethical response to the refugee situation, MASSIVE MIGRATION, CHANNEL TUNNEL CLOSED, All foreigners now ILLEGAL, Refugees mass on Europe, MI5 DENY INVOLVEMENT IN TORTURE OF PHOTOJOURNALIST (photo of Janice Palmer. Monday 16.7.2018).
  
  
• Special effects house Double Negative created a composite shot of Theo's approach to the Ark of the Arts by pasting a bridge over the M3 roadway in Surrey in front of the Battersea Power Station.
  
  
• While driving to Jasper's house you can hear Kee and Miriam chanting "Om Mani Padme Hum" which is a Buddhist mantra.
  
  
• The woman who gives them the room is speaking Romanian. When Sid comes to take them she says "Nu va duceti cu ei. Stati aici" It translates: Do not go with them, stay here!
  
  
• The fighters that fly over Theo and Kee's boat to launch an airstrike on Bexhill appear to be F-35 Lightning II aircraft, a type of plane created to fit the specifications of the Joint Strike Fighter program and scheduled to enter service in 2011.
  
  
• The computer used in Jasper's hideout to show the video feeds of intruders breaking in is an Apple Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh, released in 1997. In this movie it would be 30 years old.
  
  
• Kee's name is a homophone for "chi" (also can be pronounced CHEE) which means the energy or force of life itself.
  
  
• Theo never gets to smoke an entire cigarette.
  
  
• Theo never uses a firearm.
  
  
• Animals like Theo. The ginger cat on Jasper's sofa, the dogs at Thomash and Emily's farm (to which he even comments the dogs don't like anyone), and the kittens in the farm house that crawl up Theo's leg.
  
  
• Alfonso Cuarón said in one interview that he wanted to shoot this film like La battaglia di Algeri (1966) rather than Blade Runner (1982), almost like a documentary about something that happened back in 2024.
  
  
• After screenwriter Paul Chart wrote the first version of the screenplay, it was re-written a few times by other screenwriters including Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby, Timothy J. Sexton and director Alfonso Cuarón himself. Finally the final version was written by David Arata, Alfonso Cuarón and Timothy J. Sexton. Clive Owen's insights greatly impressed Cuarón and he contributed a great deal of uncredited work to the final script.
  
  
• In the movie it is women who have become infertile, while in the book it was men.
  
  
• When Jasper is telling the joke, he says that "the ultimate mystery" being discussed by scientists at the Human Project dinner is "Why are women infertile?" In the original novel by P.D. James, the infertility crisis is the result of all men producing no sperm.
  
  
• At one point, Kee was going to name her baby, "Froley". This name has no historical origin and was simply created for this film.
  
  
• The floating pig from the cover of the Pink Floyd album "Animals" can be seen when Theo's car enters the "Arc of the Arts" (above the Battersea Power Station), and later when Theo speaks to his cousin. The album was released in 1977. The film is set in 2027, which will be the LP's 50th anniversary. The designers flew an inflatable pig above the building to create the original cover photo.
  
  
• Theo Faron is Greek for "The God of the Lighthouses".
  
  
• In the scene at the Fisher's safe house after Theo changes his clothes and walks out of the house with the guard he pulls a cigarette from his pocket, offers it to the guard who refuses. Theo then puts the cigarette in his mouth, tip first and lights the butt of the cigarette and inhales/exhales. The next seen has Miriam requesting Theo's presence with a private audience with Kee. He still has the cigarette in his hand backwards, tags another drag and then throws it out.
  
  
• In the movie, Theo and Julian's son Dylan died from a disease epidemic, while in the book Dylan was accidentally killed and Theo was indirectly responsible for his death. Both the film and book share the long separation and tension that exists between Theo and Julian related to Dylan's passing.
  
  

• SPOILER: "Shantih, shantih, shantih," which Miriam says over Julian's dead body, Jasper says when he finds out Kee is pregnant, and appears at the very end of the credits, is the final line of T.S. Eliot's "The Wasteland," a poem that deals with the theme of infertility in the post-World War I world. Originally from the Upanishads, it roughly translates to "the peace that passes understanding."
  
  
• SPOILER: The length of the long takes: Long take in the car when Julianne is shot - 3:58, Long take of the birth - 3:11, Long take of the siege - 6:18.
  
  
• SPOILER: Given the story of this film (a baby representing a new hope for humanity) there are not surprisingly many references to the story of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph from the Christian Bible. Theo (whose name is the Greek root meaning "God") first sees that Kee is pregnant in a barn, among farm animals, a reference to Jesus' birth in a manger. When Theo sees her pregnancy, he swears, "Jesus Christ!" Kee jokes that she is a virgin, a reference to the Christian belief that Mary was a virgin before, during, and after her pregnancy. Theo is seen washing or soaking his feet several times during the movie; there are several references to Jesus or saints washing their feet or having them washed in the Christian Bible, and foot washing is a ritual in some Christian denominations and in Islam. The name of the 'Fishes' group is also a Christian reference. In fact, the 'fish' was one of the very first symbols in Christian art. Fish, in Greek, is spelled "IXTHUS" which served as an acronym for "Iesous Xhristos Theou Hyios Soter": I (esous = Jesus) X (ristos = Christ) TH (eou = God's) U (ios = Son) S (oter = Saviour)
  
  

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