# Mistake in Kill Bill (Small spoiler) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 17, 2003, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistake-in-kill-bill-small-spoiler/207903 "2003-10-17T01:04:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![BraheSilver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@BraheSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BraheSilver)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2003, 7:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistake-in-kill-bill-small-spoiler/207903/21 "2003-10-17T07:49:56Z")
Who am I, Tarantino’s Rationalization Doctor? If you want me to pull up some half-assed Kessel Run-type scenario to second-guess what goes on in the movie, I suppose I could make up something halfway plausible. If you’re asking me to divine what’s in the screenwriter’s mind, I can’t. Anyway… Can we at least agree that it was an entertaining movie? ---
**Author:** ![gex\_gex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/94ad74/32.png) [@gex\_gex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gex_gex)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2003, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistake-in-kill-bill-small-spoiler/207903/22 "2003-10-17T12:41:44Z")
> [@](#): > > _originally posted by Tanaqui_ > Um, I thought she just went to kill O-Ren first. Though it could just be purposeful messing with the timeline. Quentin Tarantino is an experienced director–do you honestly think this hugely anticipated movie could come through production with a continuity error that gigantic unless it was purposeful? She did go to kill O-Ren first. When she fights Fox in the beginning she says (paraphrased) to Fox’s daughter (who is about 5 years old) “I have a daughter. She’d be about your age now.” We then flash back to the Texan chapel where she had just been shot and was clearly pregnant. Hence the fight with Fox is about 5 years later, after she’d woken up from the coma and gone to kill O-Ren. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2003, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistake-in-kill-bill-small-spoiler/207903/23 "2003-10-17T13:19:59Z")
Isn’t it made clear that O-Ren was killed first when Bride is reviewing one of her lists earliy in the film and O-Ren’s name is already crossed out? ---
**Author:** ![Achernar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e274bd/32.png) [@Achernar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achernar)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2003, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistake-in-kill-bill-small-spoiler/207903/24 "2003-10-17T13:25:07Z")
Yep. And if you recall, the title of Chapter 1 was “2”, and it got circled. I guess it refers to list item #2. ---
**Author:** ![libwen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/76d3ee/32.png) [@libwen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/libwen)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2003, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistake-in-kill-bill-small-spoiler/207903/25 "2003-10-17T13:42:08Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Bryan Ekers \* > \*\*Okaaaay… then why doesn’t she have her God-cutting katana when she goes after Fox, relying instead on a simple knife? > \*\* I think one of the parts of the “Code of Honor” these assassins have makes The Bride use her “victim’s” weapon of choice when going after her or him. The katana for O-Ren. The knife for Vernita; The Bride says something like: > [@](#): > > Bill always said you were the best he’d ever seen with blade weapons. But this is just a guess. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2003, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistake-in-kill-bill-small-spoiler/207903/26 "2003-10-17T13:43:14Z")
**gex gex** : She said “I _had_ a daughter”. She still doesn’t know yet. Here’s continuity question: When the Bride wakes up from her coma, she says “Four years!”. How did she know how long she was in the coma? Was there a date on one of the monitors or something? ---
**Author:** ![El\_Elvis\_Rojo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@El\_Elvis\_Rojo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Elvis_Rojo)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2003, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistake-in-kill-bill-small-spoiler/207903/27 "2003-10-17T13:45:02Z")
Just look at the list to help with the continuity. The first list the Bride makes up is all in black sharpie. The first list we see is made of black headline and red sharpie. It’s from this list we see O-Ren’s name already crossed off and Copperhead’s getting crossed off. After the Bride kills O-Ren, she makes herself a new list with a black headline and red names. She then crosses off O-Ren’s name. See, it all comes together. As to why she’d keep the Pussy Waggon…why not? It’s a cool fucking vehicle for a bad ass chica to drive around in, no? My big suprise was that O-Ren’s little assitant was able to live threw the whole ordeal. I mean, did you see the amount of blood that poured out of that arm? But hey, the movie’s full of exageration, that’s what makes it so fun. Just out of curiosity, does anyone know who did the animated sequence? It looks a lot like Bill Plimpton’s work, which isn’t anime. I don’t know why it bugs me that people keep calling it that if it’s not. I could be wrong. Anyway, I thought it was a great sequence, and a great movie. I’ve watched Pulp Fiction enough times to be comfortable with QT’s broken continuity, that it really didn’t cause me any problems. I’m just curious as to how a guy could die from having his lower lip bitten off so quickly. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Elvis\_Rojo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@El\_Elvis\_Rojo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Elvis_Rojo)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2003, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistake-in-kill-bill-small-spoiler/207903/28 "2003-10-17T13:46:46Z")
She read her own palm to figure out how long she was out. ---
**Author:** ![Alias](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a88e4f/32.png) [@Alias](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alias)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2003, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistake-in-kill-bill-small-spoiler/207903/29 "2003-10-17T14:05:57Z")
Her palm? What? ---
**Author:** ![karomon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f07891/32.png) [@karomon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/karomon)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2003, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistake-in-kill-bill-small-spoiler/207903/30 "2003-10-17T14:18:20Z")
She looks at her lifeline and is able to figure out how much time she’s lost. It’s like counting the rings on a tree stump. She’s _that_ good. ---
**Author:** ![Beadalin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3be4f8/32.png) [@Beadalin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beadalin)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2003, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistake-in-kill-bill-small-spoiler/207903/31 "2003-10-17T14:37:02Z")
> [@](#): > > For that matter, why would Fox (an uber-trained assassin) miss her pistol shot, blasting a hole in the kitchen wall rather than Bride? I thought it was pretty clear that Copperhead missed her shot because The Bride, who is also an uber-trained assassin, saw it coming just in time to move out of the way. The shot certainly didn’t miss by much, but we see The Bride move her head/upper body aside so the shot will miss. It’s funny, I had no problems with the continuity in this one. I thought all along that it was clear that The Bride is narrating the story from more or less from the audience’s present and the audience’s viewpoint (hence the “slip” of saying that Sophie was to O-Ren’s right rather than her left). The Bride is watching the movie with us, and helpfully pointing out stuff in the action that we couldn’t know otherwise. I also think she drove the Pussy Wagon to the airport, killed O-Ren, came back to the US and killed Copperhead, and now she’s got the rest of her now-revised list to take care of. ---
**Author:** ![sirtonyh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ad7895/32.png) [@sirtonyh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sirtonyh)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2003, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistake-in-kill-bill-small-spoiler/207903/32 "2003-10-17T15:45:28Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Beadalin \* > \*\*I thought it was pretty clear that Copperhead missed her shot because The Bride, who is also an uber-trained assassin, saw it coming just in time to move out of the way. The shot certainly didn’t miss by much, but we see The Bride move her head/upper body aside so the shot will miss. > \*\* … and here was I thinking it was because the movie would have been too short if the lead character had died in the first 15 minutes 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Carnage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/max_carnage/32/12775_2.png) [@Max\_Carnage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Carnage)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2003, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistake-in-kill-bill-small-spoiler/207903/33 "2003-10-17T18:57:58Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by gex gex \* > \*\*She did go to kill O-Ren first. When she fights Fox in the beginning she says (paraphrased) to Fox’s daughter (who is about 5 years old) “I have a daughter. She’d be about your age now.” > > We then flash back to the Texan chapel where she had just been shot and was clearly pregnant. Hence the fight with Fox is about 5 years later, after she’d woken up from the coma and gone to kill O-Ren. \*\* Actually the girl says she is 4 years old, and the Bride was in the coma for 4 years, not 5. Which is the point I brought up in another thread. If Copperhead got pregnant after they “killed” the Bride, the girl would only be 3 years and some odd months. Of course someone else mentioned, why would a 4 year old be coming home on a school bus? ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2003, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistake-in-kill-bill-small-spoiler/207903/34 "2003-10-17T19:26:18Z")
A wizard did it. ---
**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:** [October 17, 2003, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistake-in-kill-bill-small-spoiler/207903/35 "2003-10-17T19:35:10Z")
> [@](#): > > **libwen** : I think one of the parts of the “Code of Honor” these assassins have makes The Bride use her “victim’s” weapon of choice when going after her or him. The katana for O-Ren. The knife for Vernita; Oblique spoiler for Volume Two:That theory gets shot to hell when our girl goes after Bill. > [@](#): > > **Max Carnage** : Of course someone else mentioned, why would a 4 year old be coming home on a school bus? Maybe she’s coming back from Uncle Bill’s Paduan Preschool, where they stress independence? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2003, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistake-in-kill-bill-small-spoiler/207903/36 "2003-10-17T19:54:09Z")
More to the point, why did the DiVAs go after the Bride and pump her entire wedding party full of lead because she’d taken off to go get married… but didn’t do the same to Copperhead, who, presumably, would have had to get married and become a stay at home mom at roughly the same time? But that’s not the point. The movie is supposed to be FUN. And it is. ---
**Author:** ![LibrarySpy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f9ae1b/32.png) [@LibrarySpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LibrarySpy)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2003, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistake-in-kill-bill-small-spoiler/207903/37 "2003-10-17T20:06:25Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by El Elvis Rojo \* > **Just out of curiosity, does anyone know who did the animated sequence? It looks a lot like Bill Plimpton’s work, which isn’t anime. I don’t know why it bugs me that people keep calling it that if it’s not. I could be wrong.** It was done by a famous Japanese animation studio. [Cite.](http://www.icv2.com/articles/home/2503.html) I think the artwork in the anime sequence was drawn in a very American style, but the rest of the stylizations–particulary the story and the sound, were of the more standard Japanese flavor. And I’ll say, tentatively, that even the artwork seemed more like a Japanese person drawing in an American style, rather than vice versa. ---
**Author:** ![Deadmime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90ced4/32.png) [@Deadmime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deadmime)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2003, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistake-in-kill-bill-small-spoiler/207903/38 "2003-10-17T20:35:11Z")
What i meant was that right after Oren Ishi died she crossed the name off the list, like it went to a screen of the name and then it got crossed offf, then at the end she is writing the list. I can understand the symbolics of taking the name off the list, but still the whole usage of the Pussy Wagon for the second killing is kinda weird, i mean someone would have found out that Buck died by then, and wouldnt someone have warned Vivica Fox’s character of what had just happened to Oren Ishi? I dont know, still great movie. ---
**Author:** ![Deadmime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90ced4/32.png) [@Deadmime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deadmime)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2003, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistake-in-kill-bill-small-spoiler/207903/39 "2003-10-17T20:38:20Z")
Also one last thing, she didnt take the plane from Pasadena she took it from Texas, or Arizona…So why would she fly back there? And then drive to Pasadena? i dont know, its only a minor nitpick, and i’m sure we’ll find out anyway… ---
**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:** [October 17, 2003, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistake-in-kill-bill-small-spoiler/207903/40 "2003-10-17T21:25:56Z")
> [@](#): > > **RickJay** : More to the point, why did the DiVAs go after the Bride and pump her entire wedding party full of lead because she’d taken off to go get married… but didn’t do the same to Copperhead, who, presumably, would have had to get married and become a stay at home mom at roughly the same time? They did it on Bill’s orders, and Bill ordered it because his romantic involvement with the Bride laid the groundwork for intense feelings of jealousy and betrayal which were absent when Vernita decided to settle down and make babies with her squeeze. It’s personal, not practical, which is why Bill says, “Do you find me sadistic? […] No, Kiddo, at this moment, this is me at my most masochistic.” _Kill Bill_ is a Revenge Movie with a fractal dimension. The main story arc is a revenge plot, the analeptic events which set it in motion are an act of revenge themselves, there are intimations that interested parties will seek their revenge for the revenge of the revenge, the principal characters are themselves driven by revenge, etc. > [@](#): > > …the whole usage of the Pussy Wagon for the second killing is kinda weird, i mean someone would have found out that Buck died by then I think it’s just aesthetically pleasing for the Bride to claim the Pussy Wagon as a trophy from her rapist. She’s saying, “F you, you sack of shit, that’s _mine_.” I don’t know if it made it all the way through the production into Volume Two, but:After the “Pussy Wagon” is destroyed, the Bride gets herself a nice new red pickup, which she continues to call the Pussy Wagon-- and she refers to _both_ vehicles as “my Pussy Wagon” at various times. It’s not just a convenient conveyance.As for the Pussy Wagon being a heat-score by the time Vernita’s time comes around, I’m cool with just taking that as written, since we’ve already swallowed the Bride hanging out in the parking garage for 12 hours in Buck’s truck after leaving her room looking like a charnel house. 😃 In QT’s Movie Universe, there’s no repercussion coming from anywhere for the removal of Buck, because he was a nasty piece of work and nobody regrets his passing. Simple. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistake-in-kill-bill-small-spoiler/207903.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistake-in-kill-bill-small-spoiler/207903.md?page=3)