Maybe Bill did something special because subconciuosly he didn’t want to kill her.
Just a thought
My guess is that Bill flinched when he heard her say “it’s your baby” just as he pulled the trigger, and then decided not to put another bullet in her brain.
No, I’m not buying it. Or I guess it could be the case, but if so it’s extraordinarily lame. (Of course, your mileage may vary.)
Turns out that my example was a bad one, after reading the script that was posted originally in this thread. Apparently the point of that exchange wasn’t to drive home the reference, but to suggest that there was a history between The Bride and O-ren back when they were both Vipers. I’ll just say that I didn’t get that at all from the movie.
In fact, I didn’t get any sense of a history between The Bride and any of the other characters, except for Bill. It didn’t occur to me until I was reading the script, and I don’t think the movie suffered from it, but I never got any sense of former cameraderie.
Silly, and rascally (or wascally), rabbits are typical trickster figures. They, like other tricksters, engage in elaborate but nonsensical disguises that should be transparent but aren’t until something disrupts the disguise in someway.
This probably has nothing to do with the film at all, but I felt like sharing.
I do think there is a sense of history between O-Ren and the Bride, as well as Elle and the Bride. It wasn’t a strong sense of history but I felt it was there. O-Ren seemed able to simply sense the Bride’s presence and they shared the ‘tricks are for kids’ line. Also O-Ren’s history is the only one that the Bride goes into. While this is appropriate for the genre that the O-Ren conflict occurs in it also suggests that the Bride is very well acquainted with O-Ren.
I got the feeling the “trix are for kids” line was a play on her name as well. The fact that beatrix finished the line made it seem like it was a personal joke that they had shared in better times- maybe even a phrase of endearment at some point.
The whimiscal flashback scene in which an adult Bride was answering to her name in a classroom was preceeded by a couple of other called names, one of which included the last name “Horehouse” (or Horhaus? Something that sounded like “whorehouse”), so I sort of got the impression that “Trix are for kids” and “Silly rabbit” may have been lines that she was teased with as a child and that O-Ren had continued the teasing when they were associates. It’s lame, to be sure, but the lameness could have been the point of the joke. Adults do maintain corny running jokes sometimes.
I finally got to see KB tonight, and I loved it.
Favorite bits that haven’t been mentioned:
The pregnancy test and the assassin’s “Congratulations.” I thought it was coming, I just didn’t know when, and it was still funny.
Bill making the sandwich for BB, then making another one presumably for the Bride.
Budd having lied about pawning his sword. Interesting touch.
Even though I’d heard someone gets an eye removed, it was still shocking when it happened.
Just got back from seeing it, and I really enjoyed the movie.
A few thoughts:
I think it’s a personal preference, really. I love the way Kevin Smith and Tarantino play with words, and don’t think it’s overdone at all. Saying “it could have been said in 2 minutes” is ridiculous; how do you know it would have been just as effective? It’s awfully easy to make that remark sitting where you are, as an observer with 20/20 hindsight. I thought the Superman bit was a powerful speech myself, and it went on just as long as it needed to. Dialogue doesn’t just exist to convey information in the shortest time span possible.
I don’t think this is true. I suspect that when most people hear entropy, they think of this: (from M-W.com) :
“a process of degradation or running down or a trend to disorder.”
I would venture to guess that if most people ever think of entropy, it’s in the “all things must die, the universe will come to an end, because entropy is inevitable” sense. I think that’s the meaning that pop culture has taken out of the whole thing.
Of course, it could also just be a mistaken word choice.
Why the heck can’t it be fun and meaningful? Sure, it was a very funny movie, but it was also strangely affecting. I don’t think they have to be mutually exclusive. It reminds me of a Terry Pratchett book, actually. It’s especially ironic that you cite the Pussywagon, since it’s practically screaming with symbolism. Was it intended? I don’t know. That’s the fun part. This isn’t lit class, maaaan. No one is going to ask you for a short essay. There’s nothing wrong with thinking about a movie.
According to the credits, it was “Harrhouse”.
You see Bill eat it, IIRC.
Especially since it was said in two minutes. The speech fills up the two minutes needed for Bill’struth serum to take effect.
Just saw it today. Terrific fun just like volume 1 but it was far more evident how mercenary Tarentino has been - very obvious how much stuff could have been cut/trimmed to make one movie rather than two. The homage to Dumb and Dumber…five point palm exploding heart technique plus punching through boards…was nicely resolved, in a no Jim Carrey kind of way.
Okay, maybe this isn’t the place for juicy tabloid style rumormongering, but this article is interesting, and probably nothing new. When taken together with Kill Bill it’s not exactly “incriminating,” but it does make me wonder how long Uma and Ethan were having marital problems. Imagine the Tarantino-Thurman-Hawke triangle for a moment, and then think about the wedding chapel scene. Funny, isn’t it? Did you just put the characters in the same places I put them? Let’s see. Q & U met for Pulp Fiction, then she disappeared from Quentin’s life and went off and made GATTACA (and some babies) with Ethan Hawke. Then Quentin came back to make another movie with her, and found her… pregnant! I wonder how much Quentin intended to rile up Ethan Hawke with that analogy. If Ethan saw any subtext at all in that scene, some lines that would piss him off include:
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“I like his hair,” Bill (with receding hairline) says of (scruffy, yet in an oddly familiar way) Tommy. Uma’s playful but protective response, and her later sobbing–and truthful–admission about what she expected from that relationship are interesting.
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“Bill, it’s your baby.” Considering Quentin waited to start work on this film until Uma was no longer pregnant, and given the Hollywood rumors… damn!
Sure, Quentin’s got a fascination with Uma - the whole movie reads like a four-hour advertisement for Uma Thurman. I think he may even have some bizarre attachment to Uma’s bare feet (the “foot massage” dialogue in Pulp Fiction about her character combined with the close-up of her bare feet on a hardwood floor; in Kill Bill, her bare feet squishing an eyeball, her bare feet on desert rock, her bare feet in the hospital, in the Pussy Wagon - over and over we see her barefoot). Let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that he’s content to be tortured from afar by his unrequited love for her (in the words of one of my friends, “he’s a total fanboy”). This movie – if viewed through the lens of Tarantino’s relationship with Thurman – can tell us a lot about how he feels about her. I think it’s even possible that, underneath all of the very amazing homage-style details and the fact that it’s a great kung-fu revenge movie, it becomes a lovers’ reunion (sword and sheath, anyone?). When someone asks, “yeah, but what is it about?” I think the answer is, “Quentin’s obsession with Uma.”
Oh, one more thing: isn’t it something that Beatrix Kiddo kills Bill by literally breaking his heart? And if Quentin does indeed identify with Bill…
Is this a troll? Because if it isn’t, you need to watch more martial arts movies.
Hell, you need to watch a martial arts movie.
No. Not just because you’re reading too much into it, or even because I think the ending of the movie would be all wrong (since she’s left Ethan) along with much of the plot. Tarantino clearly thinks she’s a great actress or something. It’s because when he wrote the movie, Hawke and Thurman were still married and doing fine, and the idea for the movie is way older than that since it’s apparently something Tarantino came up with during Pulp Fiction.
Or… this is just another completely absurd thing that pokes fun at the grindhouse movie genre, just like Uma waking up and reading her lifeline to see how long she was out for. Or the five-fingered exploding heart move. Or a number of other things that make this movie both absurd and wonderful.
No, it’s not just the shortest time span possible. But it is about saying everything you need to say, no more, and no less. Whether you “need” to say it because it’s conveying information, or because it’s funny or insightful, or even just because it’s beautifully written, doesn’t matter – what does matter is that everything said has some purpose. I don’t think the Superman speech was any of those, and it didn’t say anything he couldn’t have said better in less time. It was just dead weight.
And sure, of course it’s personal preference. I thought that was implied from the start. Some people love Kevin Smith’s dialogue; some people even love David Mamet and Aaron Sorkin’s dialogue. I don’t see how my opinion is “ridiculous,” but to each his own I guess.
And just for the sake of arguing: the 20/20 hindsight bit doesn’t really apply, either. It’s not as if the movie were filmed in real-time, and it’s not as if I’m the first person to have seen that scene or heard that dialogue. They could’ve edited it down at any point if they didn’t think it worked. For whatever reason, they did think it worked – along with the scene with Esteban, and the scene with Budd’s boss, etc.
Saw it. Loved it. This movie may even replace Aliens as my favorite motherhood-through-violence themed flick.
If you and Gadfly each show me your thing, I’ll tell you who’s is cooler. 
Anger … rising. Must … not … flame …
Bill tells Beatrix that the serum takes two minutes to work, which is just long enough to make his point. He then makes a two minute speech. Do we get it yet?
Damn bloody right, you must not flame. Not in this forum, anyhow. You’ve made an earlier comment in this thread that was very close to an [unfounded] accusation of trolling. You’re putting one toe right on the line. Or, if you’d prefer a different metaphor, you’re skating on very thin ice.
If you want to flame, go to the Pit and flame, and you can put a link here so that your victims will know what you’ve said where.
Oh come on! If Tarantino had wanted Bill to deliber a 20 minute monologue, the truth serum would have taken 20 minutes to work. Arguing that he had to deliver 2 minutes of talk, because the truth serum took so long to work is a non-argument: The truth serum’s time to kick in was tailored to the dialogue in the script and not the other way around.
That said, I still liked the superman speech. I didn’t like a lot of the other drawn out dialogue of the movie though and would have preferred a long fight in the end at least.
And I’ve got a continuity question: I don’t remember it clearly, but wasn’t Sofie at the church as well in Kill Bill Vol. 1? How come she didn’t enter the church with the other people in Kil Bill Vol. 2?
I assumed that she entered the church after the shooting was over (getting rid of the other people) but before (or during) when they started punishing Beatrix for leaving Bill. After all they didn’t shoot the Bride, they tortured her, then Bill shot her.