# Scenes/plots you totally misread **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 14, 2013, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scenes-plots-you-totally-misread/652894 "2013-03-14T05:12:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scenes-plots-you-totally-misread/652894/1 "2013-03-14T05:12:10Z")
Limitless- Movie about a guy that discovers a new drug, he quickly finds it turns him into a different person(that he likes better) and is addictive. Final scene seemed to ME to imply he not only had other labs producing it, but that he was still taking it and possibly his girlfriend who he was meeting was as well. IMDB says this is not correct huh. ---
**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:** [March 14, 2013, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scenes-plots-you-totally-misread/652894/2 "2013-03-14T05:36:07Z")
As I recall the end of that movie, he’d somehow found a way to get the effects without the drug, or something… Actually, the more I think about it, the less clear my recollection is. He was still supersmart at the end, but I forget how, and by that time I’d pretty much given up on the premise making any sense. I remember being baffled by the end of _Fresh_, but that’s because it seemed to me that the genius kid’s elaborate plan relied on an utterly improbable circumstance. Possibly also I was relying too heavily on Roger Ebert’s review in which he described the plan as brilliant, and it didn’t seem so to me as I watched it unfold. I suppose I should watch it again, more carefully. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 8:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scenes-plots-you-totally-misread/652894/3 "2013-03-14T08:00:24Z")
I’ve admitted this before on this board but I somehow missed the whole thing with Marvin when I watched _Pulp Fiction_. I didn’t understand why Jules and Vincent kept him alive when they killed all the others. People pointed out to me - and it’s obvious once it was pointed out - that Marvin was the guy who had sold out the others and contacted Marsellus Wallace. ---
**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:** [March 14, 2013, 8:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scenes-plots-you-totally-misread/652894/4 "2013-03-14T08:28:39Z")
Jules and Vincent make a few references to “our guy” in the extended one-take conversation before they go to the apartment, as I recall. ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 10:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scenes-plots-you-totally-misread/652894/5 "2013-03-14T10:45:54Z")
After watching Don Draper alone in a bar working on his Lucky Strike campaign, we see him gaze along a bar full of people who are laughing, drinking and smoking as a puzzled look comes to his face. The first time I saw this, I thought the puzzlement was a sudden realization that the cigarettes he’s selling might actually be killing people. That _was_ one of the topics of the brief conversation he’d just had with the black waiter, and a major plot element later in the episode. But commentary on the DVD (by Matt Weiner, I believe) claims that the puzzled look was a pang of regret that he can’t set his work aside and have fun, like the people at the bar. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scenes-plots-you-totally-misread/652894/6 "2013-03-14T11:01:08Z")
I missed the very subtle gay subtext early in “Marathon Man.” Basically that Scheider’s and Devane’s characters were lovers. I’m not sure what the point of that was, since I don’t see how that might have contributed to the plot. ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scenes-plots-you-totally-misread/652894/7 "2013-03-14T22:04:59Z")
This has been debated a lot here before, but I totally misread the ending of Spielberg’s _ **A.I.** _ I thought the tall, silvery guys were extraterrestrials (aliens) who had discovered Earth in the future, instead of being the highly advanced ‘meccas’ (robots) of the future… ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scenes-plots-you-totally-misread/652894/8 "2013-03-14T22:27:05Z")
> [@Hail\_Ants](#): > > This has been debated a lot here before, but I totally misread the ending of Spielberg’s _ **A.I.** _ I thought the tall, silvery guys were extraterrestrials (aliens) who had discovered Earth in the future, instead of being the highly advanced ‘meccas’ (robots) of the future… Not hard to misread that. Spielberg screwed up by making them look like the aliens from his Close Encounters. ---
**Author:** ![AlsoNamedBort](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alsonamedbort/32/3213_2.png) [@AlsoNamedBort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlsoNamedBort)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scenes-plots-you-totally-misread/652894/9 "2013-03-14T22:44:13Z")
> [@grude](#): > > Limitless- > > Movie about a guy that discovers a new drug, he quickly finds it turns him into a different person(that he likes better) and is addictive. > > Final scene seemed to ME to imply he not only had other labs producing it, but that he was still taking it and possibly his girlfriend who he was meeting was as well. > > IMDB says this is not correct huh. I wouldn’t trust IMDB (the FAQs and such are written by regular schmucks) The final scene is intentionally vague. It’s possible that he’s not taking it anymore and it’s possible that he is. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scenes-plots-you-totally-misread/652894/10 "2013-03-15T03:04:44Z")
This one’s kind of obscure and difficult to explain, but I’ll try to be brief. In the YA novel _Figgs and Phantoms_ by Ellen Raskin (better known for _The Westing Game_), the young heroine Mona’s family used to be circus performers. Her uncle, with whom she has a close relationship, lives in their old tour bus. As a birthday present Mona and her cousin repaint the outside of the bus. The uncle is found dead in his bed the next morning. At the end of the book (after a lot of other things have happen – it’s a pretty strange story), the cousin asks Mona if the uncle’s death was their fault, thinking he died from inhaling the paint fumes. Mona says no, that’s not what killed him. When I read this as a kid, I thought Mona was just trying to spare her cousin the guilt of knowing they’d accidentally killed their uncle. Upon re-reading the book as an adult, it’s obvious in the early parts that the uncle knows he’s going to die (for unexplained medical reasons) but doesn’t want to upset the family by openly announcing this. He had however dropped hints about this, and by the end of the book Mona understood that. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scenes-plots-you-totally-misread/652894/11 "2013-03-15T04:17:15Z")
**The Empire Strikes Back** I thought Luke’s mechanical hand was given to him by Vader. I somehow completely missed that he was rescued, and thought they were all prisoners at the end, and Luke had turned to the dark side and calmly accepted his fate. I was horrified, and scared out of my mind and refused to watch it again until I was in my 20’s. As a result of this misconception, I was also very confused at the beginning of Jedi and thought he was evil for the first 15 minutes or so of the film… :smack: In my defense, I was 6 or 7 when I saw it. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scenes-plots-you-totally-misread/652894/12 "2013-03-15T04:20:54Z")
> [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](#): > > I missed the very subtle gay subtext early in “Marathon Man.” Basically that Scheider’s and Devane’s characters were lovers. I’m not sure what the point of that was, since I don’t see how that might have contributed to the plot. The king of 'em all has to be “Ben Hur,” where the guy playing Messala was told to play it with plot-relevant subtext – _you’re reuniting with your gay lover from back in your young and experimental days_ – and Charlton Heston, who wasn’t told, keeps him at arm’s length with an _I’m acting like none of that ever happened_ vibe: it’s as if the character is pretending to miss the subtext, because, well, the actor was genuinely missing the subtext. ---
**Author:** ![FlyingDragonFan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c89c15/32.png) [@FlyingDragonFan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlyingDragonFan)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scenes-plots-you-totally-misread/652894/13 "2013-03-15T15:02:54Z")
> [@AlsoNamedBort](#): > > I wouldn’t trust IMDB (the FAQs and such are written by regular schmucks) The final scene is intentionally vague. It’s possible that he’s not taking it anymore and it’s possible that he is. I’d disagree, only because there’s no reason to think that’s he’s \*not \*telling the truth. ---
**Author:** ![Furious\_Marmot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dfb087/32.png) [@Furious\_Marmot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Furious_Marmot)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scenes-plots-you-totally-misread/652894/14 "2013-03-15T15:15:18Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > As a result of this misconception, I was also very confused at the beginning of Jedi and thought he was evil for the first 15 minutes or so of the film… :smack: I had the same impression at the beginning of RotJ, and I had gotten the “correct” interpretation of the end of ESB. Luke’s moral disposition seems to have been intentionally made vague during the Jabba’s palace scenes. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scenes-plots-you-totally-misread/652894/15 "2013-03-15T15:37:37Z")
> [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](#): > > I missed the very subtle gay subtext early in “Marathon Man.” Basically that Scheider’s and Devane’s characters were lovers. I’m not sure what the point of that was, since I don’t see how that might have contributed to the plot. In the book… it was kind of a “gotcha” plot point: Scheider’s character’s lover is referred to only as “Janey” (with no references to gender) and then it’s surprising that “Janey” and the government agent that Hoffman’s character meets are really the same person. I agree that the point gets a bit lost in the movie. ---
**Author:** ![Push\_You\_Down](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/push_you_down/32/9095_2.png) [@Push\_You\_Down](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Push_You_Down)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scenes-plots-you-totally-misread/652894/16 "2013-03-15T17:07:43Z")
> [@F.U.Shakespeare](#): > > After watching Don Draper alone in a bar working on his Lucky Strike campaign, we see him gaze along a bar full of people who are laughing, drinking and smoking as a puzzled look comes to his face. > > The first time I saw this, I thought the puzzlement was a sudden realization that the cigarettes he’s selling might actually be killing people. That _was_ one of the topics of the brief conversation he’d just had with the black waiter, and a major plot element later in the episode. > > But commentary on the DVD (by Matt Weiner, I believe) claims that the puzzled look was a pang of regret that he can’t set his work aside and have fun, like the people at the bar. Whoa.. is that what it was about? I thought it was him working out the campaign…these people are having a good time drinking and smoking…they are “toasted”… Lucky Strikes are “toasted.” ---
**Author:** ![Renifer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/71c47a/32.png) [@Renifer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Renifer)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2013, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scenes-plots-you-totally-misread/652894/17 "2013-03-17T04:17:19Z")
When I saw _Hocus Pocus_ in theaters I was in elementary school. The characters kept bringing up that the Sanderson sisters would come back from the dead when a virgin lights a candle in their house. I had no idea what a virgin was. I got the impression it was something Max was embarrassed about, but I didn’t know why. But for some reason, I never thought to ask anyone about it. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2013, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scenes-plots-you-totally-misread/652894/18 "2013-03-17T14:03:29Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > **The Empire Strikes Back** > > I thought Luke’s mechanical hand was given to him by Vader. I somehow completely missed that he was rescued, and thought they were all prisoners at the end, and Luke had turned to the dark side and calmly accepted his fate. I was horrified, and scared out of my mind and refused to watch it again until I was in my 20’s. As a result of this misconception, I was also very confused at the beginning of Jedi and thought he was evil for the first 15 minutes or so of the film… :smack: I’ll let it slide because you were only six. But you should have known that if that had happened, George Lucas would have given Mark Hamill a line like, “Being held captive in my father’s prison has made me accept the Dark Side.” ---
**Author:** ![C.Montgomery\_Burns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecd19e/32.png) [@C.Montgomery\_Burns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C.Montgomery_Burns)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2013, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scenes-plots-you-totally-misread/652894/19 "2013-03-17T18:26:56Z")
A very minor one just happened to me. I was watching The Blues Brothers for about the zillionth time, and towards the end there’s a scene where Jake and Elwood are in the building to pay the tax bill for the orphanage. All the police, SWAT team guys, and so on are closing in on them and Jake and Elwood are in an elevator with Muzak playing. The scene cuts back and forth between the elevator and the guys chasing them. After they get to their floor, Elwood tells Jake to hold the door. He pries off the control panel and sprays some kind of aerosol at it and lights it. All this time I thought it was because they were trying to kill the Muzak because it annoyed them. Then I realized they were killing the elevator so it wouldn’t go back down and people could use it to come up and capture them! ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2013, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scenes-plots-you-totally-misread/652894/20 "2013-03-17T18:29:30Z")
> [@Furious\_Marmot](#): > > I had the same impression at the beginning of RotJ, and I had gotten the “correct” interpretation of the end of ESB. Luke’s moral disposition seems to have been intentionally made vague during the Jabba’s palace scenes. Interestingly in the book Secret History Of Star Wars a interview with George Lucas is excerpted where at the time of ROTJ’s release he said that Luke’s outfit at the start of the movie was what Jedi dressed like before the purge, so Luke’s morally ambiguous attire was supposed to be a Jedi uniform. Later when making the prequels instead Lucas used the Tattoine clothes Obiwan was wearing in ANH as the Jedi uniform, which he also admitted was for purposes of audience identification as the only true Jedi we ever seen is Obiwan. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scenes-plots-you-totally-misread/652894.md?page=2)