One Mission: Impossible 7 Phrase May Hold The Key To The Franchise's Future

In a world of passphrases, "Mission: Impossible" has hidden potentially one of its biggest in plain sight. According to the frequent Tom Cruise collaborator and man behind the modern "Mission: Impossible" series, Christopher McQuarrie, the unassuming phrase "good luck" will end up being important in the next installment. "Good luck" is spoken and written a surprising number of times in "Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One," with the writer-director describing it on the film's commentary track as "a motif that's gonna pay off in Part Two.'"

Film editor Eddie Hamilton — who joined McQuarrie in recording thoughts and observations for the hit summer blockbuster's Blu-ray and DVD copies, set to be released October 31 — first pointed out this recurring "theme" during the scene in which IMF agent Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) decodes an apparent explosive controlled by the artificial intelligence known as the Entity. After Benji answers a number of riddles and revealing questions, his final test is to assemble the phrase "GOOD LUCK" using a rolling alphanumeric mechanism.

Though this is likely the moment that sticks in most viewers' minds, two other instances employing the expression point to what appears to be a core, underlying idea in McQuarrie's entire "Mission: Impossible" series.

"Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One" ends with Eugene Kittridge (Henry Czerny) delivering a foreboding monologue that concludes, "The world doesn't know it, but they're counting on you. Good luck, Ethan." So, it appears to be a pensive capper for a thrilling movie. However, it seems to also be setting up themes around the limits of fate and fortune in its second part.

Fate is a concept that has already cropped up in previous "Mission: Impossible" films under Christopher McQuarrie's pen. In "Rogue Nation," for example, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is described as "the living manifestation of destiny" by CIA director Alan Hunley (Alec Baldwin). The implication is that Ethan is so determined, skilled, and thorough that there is no problem he can't solve by thinking several steps ahead. If a person becomes Ethan's mission, his superior strategic mind gives them no real choice but to accept what fate he has in store for them — in a grand sense, they lose free will.

Thus, Ethan's ultimate enemy could only ever be an actual manifestation of destiny — an A.I. so skilled in predetermination that not even he can consistently outsmart it. The Entity's status as such a rival comes in the form of the first allusion to good luck in "Dead Reckoning," one that most fans probably didn't notice. Operation: Podkova — the mission title designated to the submarine in Sevastopol housing the Entity, which is verbalized in the film's first line of dialogue — translates from Slovak to "Operation: Horseshoe." Horseshoes are a common symbol for — you guessed it — good luck.