I’ve thought about counting the mornings he wakes up, and including the “fresh” days when they don’t show the clock, but the SO and I both feel this would be incorrect as it’s just a device to show day after day.
So how long does he stay in Purgatory? I am numbering it in years, the SO in decades. What do you think?
*I did look up the spelling for Punxsutawney, had no idea how to spell it.
I dunno, some of the stuff he is shown having accomplished would be pretty much impossible no matter how long he was there. The big one is somebody calling him “Dr. Connors” and implying that he had performed medical procedures on someone. Now I can see him scamming the piano teacher day after day after day, but there’s no way he’s going to show up as a brand new face at medical school (in Punxsutawney?) every day (especially considering that it’s always February 2) and end up with an M.D., much less a medical license.
He could have got the medical knowledge from books, and trial and error on the patient. If he screws up, as no doubt he did many times, who cares?
And no doubt he only said he had a medical license.
I think the Doctor Conners line was said because of him performing the hiemlic maneuver on the guy in the resturaunt. Remember he said it was “an honorary thing”
As to how many days, we’ve talked about this before, and I think it was 134 that they showed, but the producers implied that it was thousands upon thousands of days. I’m sure some smarter doper will come along with a link to the old thread.
Ok I found it Link
Ok, I was off by 100 days. I knew it was something like that.
Going from imdb:
According to the IMDB, they showed 34 days and he lived about 10 years.
Or, y’know, what you just said.
:eek:
:smack:
JINX!!
Ha!..still beat ya by a minute…even with having to go look up the old thread…Who-Ho!..I was the first with the answer!..
And, as noted on the other SDMB thread (linked to above), director Harold Ramis estimated that Phil had lived that day over and over again for about 10 years. Sounds about right to me.
If I recall from Harold Ramis’s commentary track, the screenplay writer imagined him living the same day for hundreds of years. That wouldn’t be consistent with what is implied by the movie though…certainly he’s lived years, maybe decades, but hundreds or thousands of years would have changed him more. He’s still recognizably human.
Nope, it was a different guy (this is how badly I want to procrastinate today, I just went through the tape). The guy’s wife thanked him for “fixing Felix’s back” and said “He can even help around the house now!” I’m thinking that the “honorary thing” line was supposed to be just a self-deprecating joke on Phil’s part. Also a little joke to the audience: “Ha, ha, he’s been stuck here so long that he became a doctor!”
I guess I could buy that he pretended to be a doctor, but that would kind of wreck the joke. (Kind of like overanalyzing it, eh?)
Oh, thanks a bunch for finding the linky-poo! I am so sorry…I’ve been really good lately, always doing searches before posting new threads. My mind must have shut down for this one. :smack:
Thanks again!
Oh, and upon reading that old thread, I’m female and I love the movie. Why is it a man’s movie I wonder?
It’s the one chick-flick that guys allow themselves to like. Were you a man, you would’ve received the memo. 
(off topic)
I think it would have been interesting if Ramis had gone with the original script, which began the film during the repeating days. Phil’s situation was revealed to the audience as he lived it, I would have been curious to see how this might have heightened the sense of the character’s plight.
Not that I fault Ramis for doing it his way, a more linear story obviously has more appeal to a mass audience.
Well I’m a man and I didn’t care for it very much.
It was ok, but it bothered me that there was no reason given for what happened. It would have given the movie a more complete feel.
According to IMDB, an early script had an ex-girlfriend curse him to live the same day until he experienced true love or something like that.
Actually I kind of liked that there was no reason. A reason like that (IMO of course) would have made it feel like any old-fashioned fairytale.
I don’t really think it’s a chick-flick, either, or maybe it’s one of the few chick-flicks I allow myself to like, 'cause I hate chick-flicks. With a passion.
Oh, that would have made perfect sense!
Anyhoo, unexplained time-travel phenomena is also experienced in The Final Countdown, which is about as non-chick as non-chick flicks get, yet still have dialogue of multiple syllables.