For a lot of young kids in the 2000s, Robert Rodriguez’s Spy Kids trilogy was an undeniable figurehead of childhood entertainment. Years later in 2010, Rodriguez’s Machete launched, appealing to that same, now older audience while quickly cementing itself as an adored exploitation movie teeming with schlock of the best kind.

Both sets of films feature Danny Trejo as the legendary Machete, along with a multitude of criss-crossing cameos from both series everywhere in between. Spy Kids leads Alexa Vega, Daryl Sabara and Antonio Banderas, as well as Cheech Marin, all have roles of varying importance across the Machete films. As a result, it’s been debated by fans whether Rodriguez’s two franchises take place in the same universe.

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In a Reddit IAmA from six years ago, Rodriguez left nothing to the imagination by stating that while the movies share actors and characters (to a degree), the two series take place in alternate universes. Despite Trejo once making a passing remark that the Machete movies follow, "What Uncle Machete does when he’s not taking care of the kids," his character’s name in the Spy Kids movies is more of an inside joke referencing the then unproduced screenplay Rodriguez wrote years before.

Danny Trejo as Machete

Still, despite not being directly connected, there’s a thematic tissue binding Spy Kids and Machete. Whether Rodriguez consciously intended it or not, the two sets of movies showcase the often overlooked duality of the Mexican-American experience in the United States.

The Cortez family—Trejo’s Machete included—from Spy Kids are more than just a stylish, cool spy family full of geniuses of all varieties. Rodriguez presents them as a healthy, normal family. Their Hispanic roots are almost a casual afterthought in the eyes of everyone around them despite playing an important part in their identity and heritage, and they thrive because of it. Here, Machete and his family are the heroes, and their culture is celebrated in a positive and normalized light.

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On the flip side, the Machete films revel in the exploitative criminality branded upon them. While characterized as a tech genius in the Spy Kids trilogy, Machete’s movies find him trapped in the criminality thrust upon him. The hatchet jobs he’s forced to carry out by politicians and prominent community figures always end with him being double-crossed by those same, notably American employers, leaving him no other option but to continue pursuing illegal work. This alternate universe also sees the brilliant heroes Carmen (Vega) and Juni Cortez (Sabara) devolved into Carmenita Killjoy, a murderous prostitute, and Julio Junito, a degenerate gangster. Meanwhile, Antonio Banderas’ Gregorio is absorbed as one of the many secret identities of El Camaleón, a notorious hitman.

Though not connected through canon, Rodriguez’s two parallel worlds demonstrate how perception breeds reality, which in turn cycles into perception once again. While it is fun to see the two films as directly connected, they are canonically in separate universes, and this still makes viewing them together a beneficial experience.

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