Jellybean
03-10-16, 22:01
What are some of your favorite personal or fan theories of movies?
Reading through the other movie thread here got me thinking about some ideas I’ve had from movies past and present;
Kill Bill
Nothing in this movie series ever actually happened- The Bride never actually wakes up, it’s all just a coma-induced hallucination.
Here’s why- there’s a very interesting theory floating around that Bill doesn’t actually die- Pai Mei [sp?] apparently never is said to have, or is shown teaching her the five-finger death punch thingymajiggy, the understood conclusion being, she never learned it. But she “kills” bill with it at the end of the movie. Or not. Apparently there’s this element of “pretend” toward the end (that I think the opening song in Pt 2 sort of gives away as well) when her kid “shoots” her and she pretends to die, her final showdown with Bill using a non-existent technique (I pretend to kill you), and Bill’s playing along with it and “dying” (the exact same thing she did with her kid) and letting her get away.
But if that scene is pretend, why not take a leap of logic and presume it’s ALL pretend. If you’ve ever seen Repo Men, let’s say the ending is simply her subconscious accepting a highly illogical but best-case scenario that it wants to accept before she “drives off” into oblivion.
And if it’s all pretend, that would explain a lot of the over-the-top impossibilities of the series- totally ridiculous in real life, but in your head anything is possible… someone in a coma long enough to lose the ability to walk regaining it through sheer force of will could indeed take on 88 katana wielding maniacs shortly thereafter and win without a scratch…..
Mad Max Fury Road
Immortan Joe is actually the good guy.
Think about it….post apocalypse, world has gone to shit, there’s no civilization left, or if the Vespa crew is anything to go by, rapidly dying off.
But this guy has managed to pick apparently the one spot in the world with helluva lot of running, clean water, has sustained at least some level of growing food, and either defended it against all marauders, or formed alliances with other local “tribes” for resources they don’t have, presumably in trade for the above mentioned fresh food and water.
The guy has even managed a crude genetic research program to prevent further generations from become terminally diseased or mutated like his Warboys, that does actually succeed, albeit it short lived….
Is he kind of a dick…sure. But this is Mad Max- f***ed up is the new normal.
The Martian and Interstellar
...Have a loosely related storyline, if you ignore the name changes, just looking at character roles and watch Martian first. Specifically Damon’s character.
Think about it…. the guy gets sent to mars, lives solo for a few years, flies back, and then goes to work at a university. In the time it takes the team to fly to Mars and back to rescue him (meanwhile Cooper [McConaughey] joins NASA’s flight test program for advanced space vehicles), Earth begins to take a downward turn.
A few years later, now a Professor at the university, his job teaching whatever he may have been teaching related to science and deep space exploration is now deemed pointless (as would Cooper’s flight testing if he hadn’t already experienced a near-fatal crash and left the program), but he is quietly re-recruited by underground-NASA. His previous experience in deep space exploration and long-term solo missions makes him a premier candidate for this all-or-nothing quest for a new planet, hence why when he is found alive, the cast address him as “professor”….
The Last Samurai
Captain Algren (Cruise) does his job.
Think about it… the Emperor won’t kill Katsumoto, his friend and mentor. Katsumoto won’t kill the Emperor out of respect for him being the Emperor. In this way, the two heads of the conflict would never be decisively engaged, which would lead to a long war.
Technically, the Japanese Army would be able to sort things out without the Emperor having to get personally involved, but…. they suck (initially….).
At the same time, the Samurai are simply not numerous enough to defeat the larger army, which means this will be a long war.
Cue Captain Algren and Colonel Bagley, hired by the Japanese government for their recent experience in fighting a similar guerrilla war.
As a professional soldier Algren knows this will take a long time to win with an untrained army (the Colonel knows it too, but doesn’t want to admit it in front of the Jap PM,), and as a student of culture, one could theorize that he would at least have made himself somewhat familiar with Japanese culture of the time (either beforehand, or from association with other military personnel in the new Army), which shows the Jap military mentality very big on “decisive” battles.
Of course the PM is very keen to win a quick, decisive battle, but Algren knows the army needs to wait until more effective to win such a victory, hence his “shoot me now” demo to the PM.
But the PM won’t wait for that, and the Colonel doesn’t want to lose face by admitting that their American expertise won’t magically win the war.
Algren knows he needs to speed things up or get dragged into yet another drawn out guerrilla war, and when he gets captured by the Samurai he sees an opening to use his societal study skills to get everyone what they want (hence his sudden “change of mind”)….
By the time Algren has recovered and become fully trained as a Samurai, the Japanese army has also become better trained and equipped, making a decisive battle possible to have an outcome in the government’s favor…
If Kastumoto dies in battle, everyone wins- the Emperor (or his lackeys, at least) would be free to pursue his goals without getting his hands dirty, and the Samurai poetically die a warriors death as they wish, while sparing their overall society from the ravages of Algren's recent war experiences.
Algren takes a 50/50 role of the dice, but he has no intention of killing himself over honor at battle’s end, and as a ranking officer of either side, he knows if he survives, with the new Jap Army adhering to western ROEs, he’ll be captured, not killed outright.
It’s also a chance to end a personal vendetta, not to mention eliminate a foolhardy leader (the Colonel), while at the same time becoming extremely attractive to the Emperor, as a subject matter expert, skilled military leader, and last personal relation to Katsumoto, ensuring that he faces no retaliation from the government looking to renege on the initial deal (that could potentially be seen as broken by his involvement with the Samurai), or clean up loose ends as the PM tends to do…..
Technically the Samurai could have won the battle.... but using unfolding events to his advantage, Algren steers Katsumoto away from a more tactically sound choice of engagement his brain *knows* to use, and into the headlong charge into decisive battle that Katsumoto's Samurai warrior side *wants* to engage in.
-------------------
So what have you fellas got?
Reading through the other movie thread here got me thinking about some ideas I’ve had from movies past and present;
Kill Bill
Nothing in this movie series ever actually happened- The Bride never actually wakes up, it’s all just a coma-induced hallucination.
Here’s why- there’s a very interesting theory floating around that Bill doesn’t actually die- Pai Mei [sp?] apparently never is said to have, or is shown teaching her the five-finger death punch thingymajiggy, the understood conclusion being, she never learned it. But she “kills” bill with it at the end of the movie. Or not. Apparently there’s this element of “pretend” toward the end (that I think the opening song in Pt 2 sort of gives away as well) when her kid “shoots” her and she pretends to die, her final showdown with Bill using a non-existent technique (I pretend to kill you), and Bill’s playing along with it and “dying” (the exact same thing she did with her kid) and letting her get away.
But if that scene is pretend, why not take a leap of logic and presume it’s ALL pretend. If you’ve ever seen Repo Men, let’s say the ending is simply her subconscious accepting a highly illogical but best-case scenario that it wants to accept before she “drives off” into oblivion.
And if it’s all pretend, that would explain a lot of the over-the-top impossibilities of the series- totally ridiculous in real life, but in your head anything is possible… someone in a coma long enough to lose the ability to walk regaining it through sheer force of will could indeed take on 88 katana wielding maniacs shortly thereafter and win without a scratch…..
Mad Max Fury Road
Immortan Joe is actually the good guy.
Think about it….post apocalypse, world has gone to shit, there’s no civilization left, or if the Vespa crew is anything to go by, rapidly dying off.
But this guy has managed to pick apparently the one spot in the world with helluva lot of running, clean water, has sustained at least some level of growing food, and either defended it against all marauders, or formed alliances with other local “tribes” for resources they don’t have, presumably in trade for the above mentioned fresh food and water.
The guy has even managed a crude genetic research program to prevent further generations from become terminally diseased or mutated like his Warboys, that does actually succeed, albeit it short lived….
Is he kind of a dick…sure. But this is Mad Max- f***ed up is the new normal.
The Martian and Interstellar
...Have a loosely related storyline, if you ignore the name changes, just looking at character roles and watch Martian first. Specifically Damon’s character.
Think about it…. the guy gets sent to mars, lives solo for a few years, flies back, and then goes to work at a university. In the time it takes the team to fly to Mars and back to rescue him (meanwhile Cooper [McConaughey] joins NASA’s flight test program for advanced space vehicles), Earth begins to take a downward turn.
A few years later, now a Professor at the university, his job teaching whatever he may have been teaching related to science and deep space exploration is now deemed pointless (as would Cooper’s flight testing if he hadn’t already experienced a near-fatal crash and left the program), but he is quietly re-recruited by underground-NASA. His previous experience in deep space exploration and long-term solo missions makes him a premier candidate for this all-or-nothing quest for a new planet, hence why when he is found alive, the cast address him as “professor”….
The Last Samurai
Captain Algren (Cruise) does his job.
Think about it… the Emperor won’t kill Katsumoto, his friend and mentor. Katsumoto won’t kill the Emperor out of respect for him being the Emperor. In this way, the two heads of the conflict would never be decisively engaged, which would lead to a long war.
Technically, the Japanese Army would be able to sort things out without the Emperor having to get personally involved, but…. they suck (initially….).
At the same time, the Samurai are simply not numerous enough to defeat the larger army, which means this will be a long war.
Cue Captain Algren and Colonel Bagley, hired by the Japanese government for their recent experience in fighting a similar guerrilla war.
As a professional soldier Algren knows this will take a long time to win with an untrained army (the Colonel knows it too, but doesn’t want to admit it in front of the Jap PM,), and as a student of culture, one could theorize that he would at least have made himself somewhat familiar with Japanese culture of the time (either beforehand, or from association with other military personnel in the new Army), which shows the Jap military mentality very big on “decisive” battles.
Of course the PM is very keen to win a quick, decisive battle, but Algren knows the army needs to wait until more effective to win such a victory, hence his “shoot me now” demo to the PM.
But the PM won’t wait for that, and the Colonel doesn’t want to lose face by admitting that their American expertise won’t magically win the war.
Algren knows he needs to speed things up or get dragged into yet another drawn out guerrilla war, and when he gets captured by the Samurai he sees an opening to use his societal study skills to get everyone what they want (hence his sudden “change of mind”)….
By the time Algren has recovered and become fully trained as a Samurai, the Japanese army has also become better trained and equipped, making a decisive battle possible to have an outcome in the government’s favor…
If Kastumoto dies in battle, everyone wins- the Emperor (or his lackeys, at least) would be free to pursue his goals without getting his hands dirty, and the Samurai poetically die a warriors death as they wish, while sparing their overall society from the ravages of Algren's recent war experiences.
Algren takes a 50/50 role of the dice, but he has no intention of killing himself over honor at battle’s end, and as a ranking officer of either side, he knows if he survives, with the new Jap Army adhering to western ROEs, he’ll be captured, not killed outright.
It’s also a chance to end a personal vendetta, not to mention eliminate a foolhardy leader (the Colonel), while at the same time becoming extremely attractive to the Emperor, as a subject matter expert, skilled military leader, and last personal relation to Katsumoto, ensuring that he faces no retaliation from the government looking to renege on the initial deal (that could potentially be seen as broken by his involvement with the Samurai), or clean up loose ends as the PM tends to do…..
Technically the Samurai could have won the battle.... but using unfolding events to his advantage, Algren steers Katsumoto away from a more tactically sound choice of engagement his brain *knows* to use, and into the headlong charge into decisive battle that Katsumoto's Samurai warrior side *wants* to engage in.
-------------------
So what have you fellas got?