History Fridge / DarkCity1998

On the [[Headscratchers/DarkCity headscratchers]] page.

** I always thought it was horrific that John [[spoiler:Dooms a species to extinction]].
*** [[spoiler: Except John didn't ''make'' them a DyingRace; he just fought back when they tried to avert being one at the expense of ''another'' race.]]
*** [[spoiler: It's not at the expense of another race. The Strangers did some unethical experimentation on a relatively small number (one city's worth) of humans, but they weren't needlessly cruel or anything like that, and they did it in order to save their race from extinction, so you could make a strong argument that the end justifies the means. They didn't want to kill John, or any of the humans necessarily, they simply wanted to merge with him and "share his soul". He would have become one with them. Yes, it would have changed him pretty profoundly, but he would have survived (and would have gained all the knowledge and abilities of this ancient and powerful race, and maybe been revered as their saviour). Even if you consider this to be a fate worse than death (I don't, I'd jump at the chance), it's still essentially one man refusing to give his life to save an entire species, dooming them all to extinction. I don't think you can argue that one life or even an entire city's worth of lives is more valuable than an entire (ancient) race.]]

** Alternatively, even if John is capable of creating a full fledged planet out of the "Dark City" (and we're given no reason to think he can't), the lives of all the inhabitants are still controlled by the whims of someone else. Though in this case Murdock is obviously a lesser evil than the strangers]].

* There's one brief bit of foreshadowing at the beginning: There's a closeup shot of John's shoes just before he puts them on. Why? So the audience can see [[spoiler:there's no scuffs or marks on the shoes at all. John's only pair of shoes had ''never'' been worn before.]]
* Earlier in the movie, Bumstead speaks with Schreber about Murdoch. When the conversation turns to knowing the nature of people, Schreber analyzes Bumstead, saying that Bumstead is a meticulous and lonely man. On the surface, it may seem like Schreber is a good judge of people thanks to his knowledge of psychology. That may very well be true. But if you think about it some more, the real reason why Schreber knows about Bumstead is because Schreber imprinted that personality into Bumstead himself.
* Even with the spoiler-laden narration at the beginning, the movie leaves you a lot of apparent plot holes and unanswered questions until very near the end. As the story plays out and John Murdoch finally learns who these Strangers are and what the nature of their experiments is, you come to realize that what you thought were plot holes are all just natural side effects of their experiments, because with those ghastly syringes of theirs, the Strangers have essentially come up with weaponized [[HandWave Handwavium]]. Nobody in the city ever thinks to ask a lot of the questions that would reveal their situation, such as what the name of the city is, where it's located (what country on what continent on what planet?) or why there's no rain, no sunshine, and never any aircraft overhead. Presumably, that's because [[spoiler: the Strangers purged their memories of such subjects just as they wiped Dr. Schreber's memories of his origins]]. If anybody ''does'' start asking any of those inconvenient questions however, those weaponized Hand Waves of theirs will soon lay all doubts to rest: [[spoiler: all the inquisitive complainers will soon have completely different identities and memories, come midnight.]]

* It only makes sense for the Strangers to be afraid of sunlight and water, [[spoiler: since these two things tend to spoil corpses very quickly.]]

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