Samuel L. Jackson’s ‘Snakes On a Plane’ Is Ten Years Old

It’s been a full decade since the premiere of one of the actor’s best movie lines.

Snakes on a Plane, the 2006 action film starring the inimitable Samuel L. Jackson, was one of the most fun bad movies to come out the aughts. After all, when your premise is “let’s combine two of the most common fears, and have them conquered by a loudly swearing Jackson,” it’s hard to see how you can go wrong.

To this day the endless supply of memes and references that came from Snakes still eclipse the actual movie’s plot. IMDB says it was about a federal agent taking “on a plane full of deadly and venomous snakes, deliberately released to kill a witness being flown from Honolulu to Los Angeles to testify against a mob boss,” but no one remembers that because they were too busy watching Samuel L. Jackson swear at and shoot all the slithering plot devices.

Funny enough, we have the movie’s ridiculous title to thank for bringing Mr. Jackson into the project. The actor said in 2006 that he was in only after reading the title, and he later resisted attempts by his agent to change it.

The thing about Snakes that truly secured it as certain kind of cinematic touchstone, though? Samuel L. Jackson delivering one of the most memorable movie quotes of all time as only he could.

Thank you, Snakes on a Plane for being the awesome, ridiculous modern masterpiece/mess that you are.