Common movie plot/line misconceptions

Here’s a perfect example from Aliens.

Hudson: Sir, is this going to be a stand up fight or just another bug hunt?

Now, everyone knowing the title of the film is “Aliens” and that the aliens look like big bugs tends to lead to people assuming that Hudson meant something about killing bugs.

Of course, what he’s referring to by “just another bug hunt” is hunting down some bugs. Glitches. The fact that the colony stopped transmitting probably means that their transmitter is broken for some reason.

He does not know about the aliens! Not even a little bit!

-Joe, just another hug hunt

I’m puzzled that many people seem to think that the beings that reactivate David in the last act of AI are aliens.

They aren’t, they’re advanced mechas, as evidenced by the circuits in their “skin”, some foreshadowing that mechas will outlive humans by Gigolo Joe, and the fact that resemble the logo of the company that made David.

Uh, isn’t “bug hunt” just military slang? I’m not sure what it means exactly . . . something like having to slog through the bush and look for the objective (a target or the subject of a search and rescue.) Can’t find a cite for that, though.

And Menochhio, I totally thought those guys were aliens when I first saw the movie. I think part of the problem was that I was thinking Spielburg -> Close Encounters of the Third Kind -> hairless, willowy, glowing creatures with long necks and teeny heads -> aliens! Also, I had this distinct impression that All Civilization on Earth Had Fallen, so, look, suddenly there are sophisticated creatures here that dig out this robot from a ruined city . . . where else would they come from, if not outer space?

On the way out of the theater, I was like, “Dude, what was up with the aliens at the end?” and my husband said, “Um, those were super robots of the future.” and I was like :smack:. “Oh, that makes sense.”

And, somebody pointed out recently in a GQ thread that when Superman flies superfast to go back in time, he’s not changing the rotation of the Earth, the Earth just appears to go backwards because he’s going back in time. Another “Oh, duh.” moment for me.

Merijeek – I didn’t interpret the line in Aliens that way at all. I took “Bugs” as generic slang for aliensd of any sort. It doesn’t indicate that he knows anythin about these particular aliens, but all aliens are biologically different from humans, and so are “Bugs”. It implies that thes aren’t the first ETs that we’ve come across. This seems more likely to me than your explanation.

Menocchio, I’m one of those who thought that the beings at the end were extraterrestrials, but I have to admit that thinkling of them as extremely highly developed robots makes much more sense. Nevertheless, fronm what I recall of the movie there’s absolutely nothing that tells you that they aren’gt aliens, and that they are robots, and no reason that the supposition that they’re aliens is obviously incorrect.

Agreed. And confirmed by the fact that Hicks states that a xenomorph is a bug hunt.

Actually, I guess a xenomorph is an alien. But you know what I mean, right?

I always interpreted “bug hunt” as “snipe hunt” or “wild-goose chase”, not “glitch hunt”, but also not “alien hunt”, which would imply a “stand-up fight”.

See, it never occurred to me that they’d be aliens. Aliens simply wouldn’t make sense (and isn’t that a good enough argument?), while robots tie into several thematic points from the film (mechas as humanity’s children, David as the first of his kind, etc.). I suppose Spielberg et al also had this blind spot, so they never made it more explict.

Bug Hunt is a standard old phrase used in SciFi & Space Opera for a long time. I know it is referenced in Starship Troopers (The Book from 1950’s) and it ties in with the concept of hostile aliens are typically BEM (Bug Eyed Monsters) Should date back to the short stories of the 30’s but I don’t have a good link.

BtW, do you know the story of the origin of the Computer Bugs?
It has to do with Grace Hopper, the USA’s first female Flag officer (Admiral)
She help write COBOL and before that was working on the old hardwired analog ballistic computers of the Navy.
Program was consistantly running incorrectly. She went into the switch room and finally found a Moth preventing the switch from closing.

More detailed link: http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/pers-us/uspers-h/g-hoppr.htm

Of course some fo the foreshadowing in A.I. is only apparent on a second viewing. For example, when David is first brought home he is silhouetted behind the door. The silhouette, however, really looks more like one of the advanced mechas from later, rather than one David would cast.

Clearly the chestbursters etc. aren’t the first extraterrestrials encountered by this group of marines, in light of their breakfast-table conversation about “Arcturan poontang”.

Another common misconception about this movie is the pilot’s first name. It’s not “Mira”. The line that implies this is Vasquez’s “Mira, who’s Snow White?” She isn’t actually addressing the pilot by name, but simply saying the Spanish equivalent of “Look, who’s Snow White?” The pilot, Ferro, has the intial “C”, as shown on the crew roster just prior to waking them from hypersleep.

I didn’t actually realize this was a misconception until I was informed it was, but apparently, in Pirates of the Caribbean, a lot of people thought Jack had had the curse throughout the movie when it was revealed in the climax. Jack actually only gets the curse (intentionally) when he palms a coin from the chest shortly beforehand.

In The Maltese Falcon, both the movie and the book, Caspar Guttman’s gunmam, played by Elisha Cook, Jr. in the movie, is referred to as a “gunsel”. From the context, one gets the impression that “gunsel” means a gunman. Actually it was prison slang for a homosexual. Spade was insulting Guttman as well as Wilmer but if you don’t know the slang, the insult is lost.

As a small piece of trivia, the first initial of every marine except for Hicks and Gorman matches the first initial of the name of the actor/actress, so we can likely deduce that Ferro’s first name is Cynthia.

Wait I’m confused…
“Bug hunt” is common slang equivalent to “Snipe hunt”. That’s the usage Hudson is utilizing. I don’t think he’s talking about aliens or system ‘bugs’.
I don’t think they’ve (the Marines) encountered Aliens before in the universe of the Aliens movies.

Arcturian Poontang… is like saying “Vietnamese Poontang” it refers to the planet or what not that they were on… Not some exotic alien vagina.

For A.I. I always call them Alien Mechas… since it’s clear these are Mechas that are so advanced and have left Earth a long time ago. So essentially they are aliens when they return and thaw out David… “From him we will learn about humanity” is the most distrubing line in the movie since David only knows the WORST aspects of humanity… I must say if it had ended with that… I would not say AI was a terrible terrible movie… but it kept going for 20 minutes making it a TERRIBLE TERRIBLE movie.

One the that always bugs me:

THat the kids in the Blair Witch Project were stupid because they didn’t just go in one direction/follow the stream, and get out of the woods.

It bugs me because in the dialouge, they clearly indicate that they did follow the stream…for hours…and they ended back up at the exact same place. It wasn’t a matter of them being unable to walk in one direction, but rather that something unnatural was impeding their escape.

They also come across Rustin Parr’s house late in the movie, which I believe was mentioned had burned down long before.

Another misconception is from Star Wars: Episode 1. Lots of folks seem to think that Midichlorians are the Force, or somehow cause someone to be able to channel it better than others. None of this is said in the movie, only that people who are strong in the force tend to have lots of the lil buggers in their bodies. Kinda like how over-ripe/rotten fruit tends to be covered with little bugs. But the little bugs don’t MAKE the fruit become over-ripe/rotten.

Apparantly StarShip Troopers as a whole was widely misunderstood, IIRC. Apparantly Paul Verhooeven was making a propaganda movie from the POV of the Terran Federation (ie: overly simplified, lots of catchy lines and wisecracks between characters, etc.) and people took it to be a representation of actual (from the POV of the movie universe) events.

I’ll think of more later, I’m sure.

I’ve never heard “bug hunt” used as a synonym for “snipe hunt”.

It seems clear to me that in the future of “Aliens” humans have enciountered other races. No one seems bothered or excited by the suggestion that Ripley describes a hostile alien creature – juast that it’s the wrong kind of alien, and it shouldn’t have been on that world. The Space Marines take the prospect of a “xenomorph” pretty lightly. Even given the habitual cool nonchalance of military poise, that’s pretty hard to believe if they haven’t seen aliens before. The very existence (and ease of use) of “xenomorph” suggests familiarity.

And the dialogue surround use of “Arcturan poontang” strongly suggests it wasn’t human.
In any case, they encounter two different alien races in the original Alien. The navigator that they find the skeleton of was not of the same planet or type as the titular Aliens (as O’Bannon and others have made clear). Aliens aren’t rare things in the "Alien"universe.

I have to agree with Push You Down. The soldiers did not believe Ripley and considered the mission to be a waste of their time and capabilities. Some corporate and governmental officials did not so much believe Ripley as hope she was right or consider even a tiny risk that she might not be spinning fairy tales to be too high a risk to take. I certainly got the sense that there was a general ongoing trend to get all excited and go off to deal with some alleged aliens who never materialize. And I got the very strong sense that no ETs had actually been found, ever.

I just learned this from you. I still don’t get why all the good things he did in the past(save Jimmy) were not undone, only the bad thing about Lois being crushed.

Checking the web I can only find the first draft of the script and not the shooting script. I also remember there being some lines in addition to the Arcturian poontang that implied it being “alien pussy” but they sounded more like jokes. Like having trouble finding the right hole but hell that kind of joke is made today.

Hicks is nonchalant about the ‘xenomorphs’ not because it’s no big deal, but because he doesn’t think they’ll find anything… making it as he says “A bug hunt.”