Another question: did they set up the thing with the calendar in the cave and the spot of light earlier in the movie? I only “got” it at the very end when the spot was in the marked area that meant it was safe to go, and was wondering if I was just not paying attention or what…
I really liked the movie. Tom could be on his way to an unprecedented 3rd Oscar.
I loved the ending. It would have sucked big time if Helen Hunt left with him. How trite that would have been. It also would have sucked if it ended with him miraculously finding a hot new Texas girlfriend. The best ending was leaving it up to our own imagination that regardless of what happened, he would be o.k.
As far as the volleyball was concerned… I’d like to think that he didn’t need to have a new relationship with Wilson, instead I like to think he was returning some of the packages that he salvaged as a way of closure.
My favorite parts of the movie in no particular order: When he picked up the candle lighter and flicked it on; When he was looking around at all the sea food that was catered for his return party; and when Helen Hunt is worring about what kind of milk to give him ‘because he likes half & half’, and he says it doesn’t really matter. At that moment, I knew she shouldn’t spend her life with him, because not only had she changed, so had he.
Oh, I didn’t see these sees as sterile at all. In fact, I was leaning intently forward at the edge of my seat because of the tension in the kitchen scene. I could tell that they were both holding back out of hurt, love, shock, fear, etc. It was an incredible well filmed/acted scene. So many emotions roiling under the surface, so little being said. They kept skirting the subject, jumping on small talk like a lifeline. When she called for him to come back, the dam broke and all the emotions flooded out.
I’m glad the film ended as she did. I don’t think a person could realistically abandon there life of 2 or 3 years just like that. She had new attachments and they were clearly strong enough to hold her in place.
OK- I think he must have saved the package to deliver it. I think he was also going back and delivering the other stuff- Wilson, the skates, etc. I think for closure. I would have loved to have seen more of THAT.
OF COURSE he and Hunt don’t get back together. I think that was obvious and very trite.
Folks, I hate to ruin your fun, but the reason he didn’t open the package was because it contained a MacGuffin.
What is a MacGuffin, you ask?
That is a topic that has been admirably dealt with by the SD Staff: http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mpulpfiction.html.
I think the best part of this movie was the scene right after the crash, when Hanks is in that raft and the black water is just swelling around him…it was like a huge monster. Probably one of the most visually terrifying scenes I’ve seen in the movies in a long time.
The thing that left me wondering at the end, was what happened to Wilson? Wouldn’t it have been cool if he was found somewhere and recognized (I’m sure the story would have gotten out) and FedEx-ed back to him?
Yeah, it was pretty good. I think this is a prime example of why books are better than movies. This movie was two and a half hours, there was a group of jr. high kids in the front row and I’m guessing they were the reason a gummi-bear ended up on the screen in the first 45 minutes, if the movie had been longer, then I don’t think these kids would have made it. Oh yeah, one of the kid’s cell phone went off with about 20 minutes, left, I guess their mom was wondering when they wanted to get picked up. Whatever.
OK, that’s out, back to the movie. I couldn’t watch the part where he knocked his tooth out, I was expecting him to miss or something and put the skate blade through his cheek. I think that Hanks’ character benefited from being in a movie, because if he hadn’t been, I’m pretty sure that he would have ended up with gangrene. Like it was mentioned before, if it would have shown the suicide attempt that would have been pretty powerful, but I think we missed out on that because of the time factor. Besides the time factor I’m thinking that the “original” or planned ending might have been a little hokey/corny/not real great, so the folks in charge just decided, “let’s just show him standing in the middle of an intersection and let the viewer decide how to end it.” Wish it could have been longer, but at the same time I’m glad it wasn’t.
One more thing, was it just me, or in the trailer/preview doesn’t he see a footprint that the previewee is supposed to believe is someone else’s footprint, meaning he’s not alone on the island? Oh well, I guess that’s what DVD’s are for, huh?
I don’t remember this shot from the trailer, but I do remember one that wasn’t in the movie: him marking lines on a rock signifying how many days he was on the island. That was not in the movie.
Also, I think the film should’ve ended with him on the raft, having just lost Wilson, waving at the tanker, and hoping that someone on board saw him. The dreadful third act would’ve been avoided.
What really pissed me off was not the movie, but the people I was watching the movie with.
When he threw Wilson out of the cave, and then went frantic looking for him, people laughed. Yes, Tom Hanks decided he need to entertain the crowd, so he thought he’d throw that scene in. It may appear funny, but it was not funny. It was not funny at all.
I hate people.
He had gotten used to talking out loud to himself, but felt he neded an object to direct the conversation to. Otherwise, he was just a kook.
I think that the people at FedEx were jerks… and the catering table proves it. How insensitive can you be? Raw Fish and crab? Did he NOT tell anyone what he had been surviving on all this time? And I think that realizing that Kelly (HH) was gone and that his employers were jerks is what set him free to roam the country at the end…
I wonder if he gets 4 years of back pay…
I agree the movie should have ended at the freighter passing by, but the third act does answer the question “Does she take him back?”. I think the box saved his life by giving him something to work toward. He probably knew in his mind that she may have moved on but the package still had an owner somewhere.
What was in the box? Marcellus’ soul, of course.
i think that he saw the wings on the package as a way to get free of the island. “if i had the wings of an angel” kind of thing. to open the package would break the promise of freedom. his drawing the wings around him on the island i believe showed his belief that he would escape the island one way or another. he returned to package to the sender to thank them for the hope the package represented.
leaving him in the middle of the crossroads at the end of the movie showed that he was at a crossroad in his life. he could quite literally go in any direction now that he had freed himself of the confines of modern life.
howardsims, yes he did get back pay. i believe that his coworker mentioned it in passing when he stated how they had to bring him back to life within the company.
and I can’t wait to see the DVD. I hope it is jam-packed with tons of deleted scenes, because I coulda watched him on that island for another hour.
I think one of the most powerful moments in the whole film, saying soooo much with so little, were the shots following “Four years later” - the way he nailed the fish, and the look on his face as he tore into its flesh. Hanks conveyed everything with his body and his face, in a marvelously subtle yet powerful way. He should be nominated for that alone.
It broke my heart that he and Kelly couldn’t get back together. It made for a better movie, but a sadder tale. And what a bummer for Chris Noth! To know that your wife’s “true love” isn’t dead after all? What a pain!
And as for back pay…are you kidding me? A guy, in the course of doing his job, a passenger on a company plane, goes down in the Pacific in a horrific accident, then spends the next 4 years suffering physically and psychologically as he tries to survive. He does, with physical and emotional scars that will certainly never heal. And you think he’s worried about back pay? *** He is set for life *** Virtually guaranteed that FedEx pays through the NOSE for that one, meeeeeellions, my friends, meeeeeelions.
stoid
PS: Re the OP: He saved it to deliver it. He chose it for the wings. Could have been for many reasons…maybe the wings represented flight out of there. But if he had opened them all, somehow that would have represented giving up.
And he should have taken the belt and tie from the pilot.
Also: to those who felt he should have died from gangrene or infection following his injuries and tooth pulling: people didn’t always die from in these things before we had drugs, you know. The human body is pretty damn good at taking care of itself. Especially if he kept his wounds clean. And his mouth is better off with the tooth removed.
I second pepperlandgirl. There were many scenes in the movie, particularly those involving Wilson, that drew uproarious laughter from the mindless drones in the audience. Argggh… it made me quite angry. It wasn’t supposed to be funny at all. It’s no wonder movies like MI2 are the top grossing films of the year. People suck.
Anyway, another thought on the unopened package. I got the impression that the winged box became a totem of sorts. An object of mysticism, representing all that is unknown and unknowable. From the beginning of his island captivity, he recognizes the mysterious nature of the box and sets it aside unopened, hinting at Tom’s (and Man’s) underlying superstituous nature. As Tom grew more primitive, the idea represented by the box took on greater prominence - the future is uncertain, you never know what the new tide might bring, or what a new day might hold, and so on… When his sail washes up on shore he transfers the winged image to the sail to show us how important this idea has become to him. In a way … by the time he escapes the island, it has become his faith. Contrast that with his devotion to the clock and the absolute certainty of rigid scheduling in his former life, and I think it makes sense. But then again, I could be full of it. 
It’s fun to think about in any case - something most movies don’t require.
I don’t think it was a simple as “he was just doing his job”. If so, he would not have opened ANY packages. But, since his survival was at stake, why shouldn’t he have opened ALL of the packages? Is your job more important than your life? There’s more symbolism involved.
In the packed theatre where I saw “Cast Away” my two friends and I were the only people laughing at all. If the scenes with Wilson weren’t supposed to be funny, then the makers of the film failed miserably, because they were hilarious.
When I did laugh, I drew glares from the mindless drones in the audience who apparantly don’t see the humor in talking to volleyballs. One wonders what they do in their spare time. ( 
)
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by BlackKnight *
**
I am so glad you told us this, BK. Now I know everything I need to know about you, and I need not be reminded not to turn to you for any compassion, understanding, or empathy in times of emotional distress.
:wally
Hehehehe. My g/f gave me a ping pong table for Christmas with a pack of … you guessed it … Wilson ping pong balls. When one threatens to roll under the furniture or get attacked by the cat, I yell “Wilson!” in my best Tom Hanks voice. Now that’s funny…
I don’t think that scene was intended to make the colleagues look like jerks. I think it was to show how without thinking about it, most people can take things for granted. I mean it took him years to learn how to fish, it took him a lot of work and caused him a lot of pain to figure out how to make fire so that he could cook crab. And the automatic lighter. When someone that hadn’t gone through the same thing he had would just look at it, take a bite or click the switch and not even think twice. It was the same kind of thing when he was clicking the light on and off when he was looking at the picture in the hotel.
So, does anyone else remember the footprint thing from the trailer/preview or am I just KA-RAZY?!
I saw it too, and I was intrigued. I suspect that they originally shot a sequence with the wounded pilot surviving the crash, making it to shore sometime after Hanks. Tom sees the tracks, follows them to the injured man, they have a few poignant, but utlimately irrelevant exchanges, and he dies. For time considerations, they cut it to a corpse floating to shore. The emotional equivalent to their conversation occurring when Tom leafs through the wallet.
I doubt it was a “Tuesday”-like scenario ala Robinson Crusoe. That would be a lot harder to leave on the cutting room floor.
Just a thought.