# Missing the obvious in films **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 8, 2010, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/missing-the-obvious-in-films/538738 "2010-05-08T11:50:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![AClockworkMelon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aclockworkmelon/32/10803_2.png) [@AClockworkMelon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AClockworkMelon)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2010, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/missing-the-obvious-in-films/538738/1 "2010-05-08T11:50:07Z")
I’ve seen _Jumanji_ many times. Dozens upon dozens of times. I saw in theaters when I was five years old and I watched it on VHS throughout my childhood. But it was only now, watching it on Encore out of boredom at four in the morning, that I realized that Van Pelt was played by the same actor who played Alan’s father. _Of course_ Alan would see Van Pelt as his father. But I only just noticed and now I feel like a complete 'tard. You guys ever miss the obvious in films? ---
**Author:** ![Satchmo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/satchmo/32/4223_2.png) [@Satchmo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Satchmo)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2010, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/missing-the-obvious-in-films/538738/2 "2010-05-08T13:57:25Z")
Don’t feel bad, I’d seen Fifth Element about 10 or 15 times when somebody pointed out to me that Zorg and Dallas never see each other or communicate in any way for the whole movie. They do just miss each other while the bomb on the liner is ticking down. ---
**Author:** ![PSXer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/48db29/32.png) [@PSXer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PSXer)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2010, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/missing-the-obvious-in-films/538738/3 "2010-05-08T16:07:52Z")
I still don’t get it. Why does Alan see Van Pelt as his father ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2010, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/missing-the-obvious-in-films/538738/4 "2010-05-08T16:27:09Z")
It was the ongoing (never-ending?) thread on _The Prestige_ that caused me to really grasp that one main character is two people who become one while the other is one person who becomes two. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2010, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/missing-the-obvious-in-films/538738/5 "2010-05-08T16:29:06Z")
This is not unlike Peter Pan, where, conventionally, the person playing Wendy’s father also plays Captain Hook. ---
**Author:** ![AClockworkMelon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aclockworkmelon/32/10803_2.png) [@AClockworkMelon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AClockworkMelon)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2010, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/missing-the-obvious-in-films/538738/6 "2010-05-10T15:22:14Z")
> [@BrotherCadfael](#): > > This is not unlike Peter Pan, where, conventionally, the person playing Wendy’s father also plays Captain Hook. That’s pretty cool- but I’ve never seen Wendy’s father. My Peter Pan exposure is limited to _Hook_. Well, wait, that’s not true. I remember when I was an itsy bitsy little tot I had a movie on VHS that was a live action play of sorts (it only had one camera angle per scene, I don’t know how else to describe it). Peter was played by a woman who seemed like she was in her twenties. The movie was fucking awesome, but that’s about all I remember. That and lots of singing. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2010, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/missing-the-obvious-in-films/538738/7 "2010-05-10T15:28:19Z")
> [@PSXer](#): > > I still don’t get it. Why does Alan see Van Pelt as his father His father was (to young Alan) a stern, domineering man who could never be pleased. This wasn’t true, of course, but characteristic of men of his generation was a certain distance from their children. Alan simly couldn’t relate to his father. Van Pelt is the character, but in his childish imagination: a unkillable, untiring stalker who never quits haunting him. It isn’t until the end fo the movie when Alan confronts Van Pelt and receives his approval (in the twisted Jumanji way) that he breaks the image, ends the game, and can then go on to be honest with his real father. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2010, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/missing-the-obvious-in-films/538738/8 "2010-05-10T15:29:15Z")
That was probably the classic Broadway production. I remember going to the [1979 stage revival](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XQgQKwHus8)as a very small kid. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2010, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/missing-the-obvious-in-films/538738/9 "2010-05-10T16:24:44Z")
> [@BrotherCadfael](#): > > This is not unlike Peter Pan, where, conventionally, the person playing Wendy’s father also plays Captain Hook. It was certainly true in the most recent big Peter Pan movie, where both were played by Jason Isaacs. ---
**Author:** ![Khaki\_Campbell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9de053/32.png) [@Khaki\_Campbell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khaki_Campbell)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2010, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/missing-the-obvious-in-films/538738/10 "2010-05-10T18:56:14Z")
The first time I saw _Fight Club_, I was so drunk I didn’t realize that “Jack” and Tyler Durden were the same person. ---
**Author:** ![AClockworkMelon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aclockworkmelon/32/10803_2.png) [@AClockworkMelon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AClockworkMelon)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2010, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/missing-the-obvious-in-films/538738/11 "2010-05-11T05:12:48Z")
> [@Khaki\_Campbell](#): > > The first time I saw _Fight Club_, I was so drunk I didn’t realize that > > “Jack” and Tyler Durden were the same person. Despite it explicitly saying so? 😛 I’m surprised you even remembered having watched the movie at all. ---
**Author:** ![shantih](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f6c823/32.png) [@shantih](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shantih)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2010, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/missing-the-obvious-in-films/538738/12 "2010-05-11T07:09:14Z")
All right, fine. I’ve been trying to resist the urge to share, because it makes me look so stupid, but in my defense I was very young when I saw it in the movie theater and didn’t get it until I saw it on TV years later. The first time I saw ‘Airplane’ and Ted mentioned his drinking problem, I wondered, “How can he have a drinking problem? He can’t even get the glass to his mouth!” :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Arglefraster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@Arglefraster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arglefraster)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2010, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/missing-the-obvious-in-films/538738/13 "2010-05-11T18:50:42Z")
It wasn’t until the 2nd or 3rd time watching Pink Floyd’s The Wall that I realized the the part at the end with Pink becoming a fascist leader didn’t really happen in the movie. It was a hallucination brought on by the drugs his manager forced on him to try to get him on stage for a concert. ---
**Author:** ![Jet\_Jaguar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jet_jaguar/32/3562_2.png) [@Jet\_Jaguar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jet_Jaguar)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2010, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/missing-the-obvious-in-films/538738/14 "2010-05-11T19:22:54Z")
I must be an idiot. Apparently, I’m the only person in the entire world who watched _The Sixth Sense_ and didn’t know the Bruce Willis character was a ghost until it was revealed at the end. One of my buddies says he figured it out from the trailer, it was that obvious. ---
**Author:** ![Shark\_Sandwich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f04885/32.png) [@Shark\_Sandwich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shark_Sandwich)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2010, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/missing-the-obvious-in-films/538738/15 "2010-05-11T19:28:58Z")
It wasn’t until I read it on IMDB a couple of weeks ago (because of the [Best Line in a Western?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=561968) thread) that in the film _Pale Rider_, Clint Eastwood’s character “The Preacher” is a ghost. If ya ask me, it ain’t that obvious either. ---
**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2010, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/missing-the-obvious-in-films/538738/16 "2010-05-11T21:35:52Z")
_Close Encounters of the Third Kind_ Granted I saw it when I was 7 years old but even though I saw it several times in the theatre I never understood why they showed a bunch of empty planes in the desert at the beginning of the film and was even more dumbfounded at the end when a bunch of military guys came strolling off the UFO. I never put the two together until years later (the 80s) when I saw it on VHS. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2010, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/missing-the-obvious-in-films/538738/17 "2010-05-11T21:49:10Z")
> [@Shark\_Sandwich](#): > > It wasn’t until I read it on IMDB a couple of weeks ago (because of the [Best Line in a Western?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=561968) thread) that in the film _Pale Rider_, Clint Eastwood’s character “The Preacher” is a ghost. > > If ya ask me, it ain’t that obvious either. Should be pretty clear after the bathtub scene. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![BobArrgh](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobarrgh/32/2881_2.png) [@BobArrgh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobArrgh)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2010, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/missing-the-obvious-in-films/538738/18 "2010-05-11T21:59:48Z")
Two from my college years, back in the 1980s. 1. I didn’t realize that “Dead Men Wear Plaid” used clips from old movies. Thus, I totally didn’t get much of the movie, and thought it was rather disjoint. 2. I didn’t realize that Peter Sellers played two parts in “The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu”. In my defense, I did not grow up watching movies, and really not that much television. For the “Dead Men Wear Plaid” movie, I didn’t recognize the old actors in the movies to see they were “out of place” in a modern movie. For the “Fu Manchu” movie, I didn’t know Peter Sellers well enough to recognize him playing two parts. ---
**Author:** ![Linty\_Fresh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Linty\_Fresh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Linty_Fresh)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2010, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/missing-the-obvious-in-films/538738/19 "2010-05-11T22:00:05Z")
A couple from **Kill Bill**. It didn’t hit me until years after I saw the movie that they named the kid B.B. because their first names were “Bill and Beatrix.” I also didn’t get the fact that the white guy who kills O-ren’s father in the animated segment was Bill himself until I read it on a fansite (although in my defense, that doesn’t actually make a whole lot of sense.). ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Barchetta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/da6949/32.png) [@Red\_Barchetta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Barchetta)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2010, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/missing-the-obvious-in-films/538738/20 "2010-05-12T01:30:27Z")
> [@Jet\_Jaguar](#): > > I must be an idiot. Apparently, I’m the only person in the entire world who watched _The Sixth Sense_ and didn’t know > > the Bruce Willis character was a ghost > > until it was revealed at the end. One of my buddies says he figured it out from the trailer, it was that obvious. I’m pretty sure _most_ people didn’t get it, hence why there was so much buzz about it when it came out. I thought it was brilliantly done and had no idea until the end. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/missing-the-obvious-in-films/538738.md?page=2)