History Headscratchers / HardcoreHenry

** Two possible reasons [[spoiler:first off Henry is the first real success, the one who isn't brain dead, insane, or otherwise defective. Second off his memory suppressor however is defective, he gets flashes of the past and who he really is that Akan isn't aware of. Akan is only recording what happens in his mechanical eyes after all. Henry has something more powerful then the others, something really that he can question or follow.]]

*** [[spoiler:Well say one of the Jimmy clones takes real Jimmy off and drives in the opposite direction, even if he takes the most erratic route possible Akan still knows Jimmy is alone now and at least a vague idea of where he is, he could easily overwhelm him by flooding the streets with troops to hunt him down. They only need to kill one specific Jimmy and all the others die to, so keeping Jimmy where two people can be returning fire (his doubles are a one at a time deal) and there are plenty of meat shields rather then splitting off where he'll have half the defences, no ability to swap out because he'd have his active double driving as well as shooting back, and no backup is the better move. Not spectacularly better but still better.]]

** As for the Colonel calling Jimmy's original body "the cripple", that's probably about 20% him staying in-character with period dialogue ("cripple" wasn't considered so politically-incorrect in WWII), and 80% Jimmy's actual attitude towards his paralyzed state. He ''loathes'' his original body's helplessness, hence his having devoted so much effort to escaping it into his clones' pseudo-flesh and pseudo-identities.

** Like the terminator in order to make the skin self-repairing it has a connection to the blood stream so it can grow back. That and having it react realistically gives Henry the heads up for if he's damaged where a numb robotic arm could be worked until it simply cease to function with Henry not realizing it needed repairs until it was too late.

** I'm pretty sure they both had their fates shown on screen. [[spoiler:They are with Henry and Jimmy when they catch up with Akan on the highway. Henry catches a ride on the back of one of their motorcycles, but she goes down (explodes, maybe? It helps Henry jump) right as they get to Akan's lab vehicle. I thought that the other one was the girl with Henry and Jimmy out in the woods, who gets killed by shrapnel when Hippy!Jimmy gets hit with the tank shell, but I *might* be wrong on that one.]]

** One of the subtitles shown just before they become too fast/jumbled to read is something to the effect of "All our girls got killed!", implying they were owners, managers, or security from the brothel.

** Akan through the entire movie is depicted as always being one step ahead of Henry- [[spoiler: seeing as everything had been setup and he always has had a personal live feed of Henry's vision. He can always predict Henry's actions and time his mentally draining psychic powers accordingly, but is in trouble if he can't see danger coming in time to react, as while he is Psychic, he's not a bullet-time Cyborg like Henry. He thought Henry was dead or completely destroyed, and due to letting Henry kill everyone who wasn't Estelle or his helicopter pilot, there was no one to tell him otherwise, so Henry getting back up in a rage with a new unexpected attack caught him off guard and he couldn't react in time. And once hurt, he couldn't focus past the incredible pain, allowing Henry to kill him. In some ways, it's riff on Plot Armor combined with a bit of Reality Ensues, once the "scripted" battles were over, he was just as vulnerable as everybody else.]]

*** [[spoiler: It's also literally the first time in the entire film that Henry attempts to attack Akan from behind. Every other attempt to attack him was something blatantly obvious that he saw coming a mile away, but just because he has telekinesis powers doesn't mean they'll protect him from a completely unexpected threat.]]

** Akan through the entire movie is depicted as always being one step ahead of Henry- [[spoiler: seeing as everything had been setup and he always has had a personal live feed of Henry's vision. He can always predict Henry's actions and time his mentally draining psychic powers accordingly, but is in trouble if he can't see danger coming in time to react, as while he is Psychic, he's not a bullet-time Cyborg like Henry. He thought Henry was dead or completely destroyed, and due to letting Henry kill everyone who wasn't Estelle or his helicopter pilot, there was no one to tell him otherwise, so Henry getting back up in a rage with a new unexpected attack caught him off guard and he couldn't react in time. And once hurt, he couldn't focus past the incredible pain, allowing Henry to kill him. In some ways, it's riff on Plot Armor combined with a bit of Reality Ensues, once the "scripted" battles were over, he was just as vulnerable as everybody else.
*** It's also literally the first time in the entire film that Henry attempts to attack Akan from behind. Every other attempt to attack him was something blatantly obvious that he saw coming a mile away, but just because he has telekinesis powers doesn't mean they'll protect him from a completely unexpected threat.]]

** Akan through the entire movie is depicted as always being one step ahead of Henry- [[spoiler: seeing as everything had been setup and he always has had a personal live feed of Henry's vision. He can always predict Henry's actions and time his mentally draining psychic powers accordingly, but is in trouble if he can't see danger coming in time to react, as while he is Psychic, he's not a bullet-time Cyborg like Henry. He thought Henry was dead or completely destroyed, and due to letting Henry kill everyone who wasn't Estelle or his helicopter pilot, there was no one to tell him otherwise, so Henry getting back up in a rage with a new unexpected attack caught him off guard and he couldn't react in time. And once hurt, he couldn't focus past the incredible pain, allowing Henry to kill him. In some ways, it's riff on Plot Armor combined with a bit of Reality Ensues, once the "scripted" battles were over, he was just as vulnerable as everybody else.]]
** [[spoiler: Akan is bleeding from the mouth a bit before Henry even gets his hands on the jerk, possibly indicating a limit to or cost of his powers.]]

*** [[spoiler: pretty sure that wasn't the same girl with Hippie!Jimmy. Her clothing and attitude were completely different from only minutes before. The only hint that it might be her is the katana Henry ends up with.]]

*** She ''does'' kill the last merc trying to bury Henry, much to Hippie!Jimmy's dismay, which would be in character for the dominatrix, if it's her.

* [[spoiler:What's the purpose of "kidnapping" Estelle? To test Henry's loyalty? And why Akan kill that scientist then?]]

** You are mistaken, my friend. First, Henry is the SuperPrototype, he is the first of his kind, it is explicitely stated in the movie. Those memories of Estelle activating the cyborgs are custom made to each, because 1) Estelle couldn't have been there to the waking up of the army as she was playing victim for a good chunk of plot and 2) They were all made after Henry experienced his waking. The purpose of the whole act is not just to stage the kidnapping and motivate the cyborgs, they are recording Henry's fighting experience to make the army more effective killers. So yes, Akan can implant whatever he wants on the Cyborgs once he blocks his real memories. Those Cyborgs probably saw Henry himself kidnapping Estelle.
*** No. [[spoiler: Henry is the SuperPrototype, but he's ''not'' the first, he's only the first ''success''. Estelle said as much, and the footage of the different names from tests ''before'' Henry, because there wouldn't be any point (or possibility) in making new footage tailored to other cyborgs while the useable memories from Henry are still in progress. And your logic is messed up anyway, because those memories are coming ''from Henry'', the one thing those memories couldn't possibly contain is a third-person view of Henry kidnapping Estelle. If it were possible for Akan to just fabricate memories from scratch, none of the movie would be necessary.]]

*** [[spoiler:Well say one of the Jimmy clones takes real jimmy off and drives in the opposite direction, even if he takes the most erratic route possible Akan still knows Jimmy is alone now and at least a vague idea of where he is, he could easily overwhelm him by flooding the streets with troops to hunt him down. They only need to kill one specific Jimmy and all the others die to, so keeping Jimmy where two people can be returning fire (his doubles are a one at a time deal) and there are plenty of meat shields rather then splitting off where he'll have half the defenses, no ability to swap out because he'd have his active double driving as well as shooting back, and no backup is the better move. Not spectacularly better but still better.]]

** You are mistaken, my friend. First, Henry is the SuperPrototype, he is the first of his kind, it is explicitely stated in the movie. Those memories of Estelle activating the cyborgs are custom made to each, because 1) Estelle couldn't have been there to the waking up of the army as she was playing victim for a good chunk of plot and 2) They were all made after Henry experienced hia waking. The purpose of the whole act is not just to stage the kidnapping and motivate the cyborgs, they are recording Henry's fighting experience to make the army more effective killers. So yes, Akan can implant whatever he wants on the Cyborgs once he blocks his real memories. Those Cyborgs probably saw Henry himself kidnapping Estelle.

* Was it ever actually established that [[spoiler: Henry has a clue how to operate a helicopter?]] If not, that ending may be more final than we thought....

** Besides, after the events in Jimmy's lab, [[spoiler: Akan's had a good look at Jimmy's equipment via Henry's eye-feed, so there's a risk he could whip up some means of jamming whatever signals link Jimmy's control-headpiece to his clones. If he sticks with Henry, Henry can cover chair-Jimmy long enough for him to switch transmission frequencies or otherwise circumvent such jamming effects.]]

* I have problems making sense of Jimmy's remote controlled clones. I mean, why would they have different personalities, even different speaking accents? They even seem a bit dismissive of the main Jimmy (calling him "the cripple"), which is odd considering they are supposed to be mere empty vesselss.

* If Henry's left arm is artificial from just past the elbow downward, why does its wrist bleed so heavily when Bum-Jimmy pulls out the tracker on the bus? The synthetic integument we see applied to it at the beginning has no apparent connection to Henry's bloodstream, and there doesn't seem to be any reason for Estelle to make it capable of bleeding.

* If Henry's left arm is artificial from just past the elbow downward, why does its wrist bleed so heavily when Bum-Jimmy pulls out the tracker on the bus? The coating we see applied at the beginning doesn't seem to have any connection to Henry's bloodstream, and is built too fast to have blood vessels anyway.

* If Henry's left arm is artificial from just past the elbow downward, why does it bleed heavily when Bum-Jimmy pulls out the tracker on the bus? The coating we see applied at the beginning doesn't seem to have any connection to Henry's bloodstream, and is built too fast to have blood vessels anyway.

** Treating each clone as a different "role" he's "acting" may also help Jimmy keep better track of his many, many bodies. By dressing up as a British military officer in one, a punk in another, and so forth, he's constantly reminded of what resources each body has in its possession and what task(s) it's being used for, simply by feeling what clothes it's wearing. Hence, he won't forget and, say, reach for a hand grenade his tuxedo-clad song-and-dance body isn't carrying by mistake.

** Treating each clone as a different "role" he's "acting" may also help Jimmy keep better track of his many, many bodies. By dressing up as a British military officer in one, a punk in another, and so forth, he's constantly reminded of what resources each body has in its possession and what task(s) it's being used for, simply by feeling what clothes it's wearing. Hence, he won't forget and, say, reach for a hand grenade his song-and-dance body isn't carrying by mistake.

** Jimmy also mentioned that he's been using them to explore other aspects of his personality. Cokehead Jimmy is a way for him to experience all the vice and debauchery he wants, nerdy Jimmy is a complete professional and a coward for when Jimmy needs to get work done, punk Jimmy lets him break all the rules he damn well pleases, and for every other Jimmy clone there's something he otherwise couldn't do that he indulges in while wearing it. Jimmy hates himself and his failing body so he uses his doubles to lead all the lives he himself would never get to and he's gotten so used to it that he has trouble dropping the role unless something really important happens. That and on a scifi scientific note spending so much time behaving a certain way is starting to burn that individual personality he chooses into those specific bodies as they form neuronal connections that could technically function independent of Jimmy, he has them too and a copy of the memories involved but he has everything else as well while his bodies only have what he experiences in them letting them build up individual thought patterns.

** There's a couple of ways to look at it; Jimmy uses his clones to experience things that he otherwise can't because of his physical condition, so he plays different characters the same way you'd have one voice actor playing different roles in a video game. The other possibility is that each clone has its own brain, so each one has individual, unique experiences and memories, with the original being sort of a hub for all the others that contains all the actual information from all of them, but doesn't have the experiences. For instance, if Punk Jimmy hits a mosh pit, Original Jimmy is aware that it is happening, but being paralyzed, he doesn't have the muscle memory or the ability to feel the excitement or pain of moshing, so when he later switches to Hippie Jimmy, Hippie Jimmy knows Punk Jimmy hit the mosh pit, but because Original Jimmy can't transmit the feelings associated with it, Hippie Jimmy doesn't have the experience of hitting the mosh pit.

** [[spoiler:More importantly Akan is still watching, if they just ditch Jimmy's crippled body somewhere there is a very real chance that Akan will watch the feed from Henry's eyes and have Jimmy killed as soon as they leave him unattended. And they can't just blindfold Henry because they need his combat skills to keep the mooks of him or drive the van, someone has to be doing both tasks or the mooks kill them both then and there.]]