History Headscratchers / InglouriousBasterds

* Re: the scene at the Paris restaurant with Landa quasi-interrogating Shoshanna over strudel and cream. Did anyone else think it seemed out of character that Landa repeatedly talked with his mouth full? Small thing, surely, but the Landa characterization was pretty clear at that point. And that character wouldn't do anything so rude as talking with his mouth full of strudel. Perhaps it was just Tarantino's way of saying that civilization and courtesy are just thin veneers over brutality.

* During the Bar Scene, why didn't Stiglitz threaten Hellstrom with his knife instead of a pistol? He is the resident KnifeNut on the team after all, and in the scene just before he was making such a big show of sharpening up his knife. Plus a knife in the ribs would have been a silent kill that might have allowed them to get the drop on the other Germans and escape alive and with Hammersmark un-injured.

** There are a myriad of different possible reasons. Maybe he had a loved one that belonged to an 'undesirable' group and died for it. Maybe he's a communist. Maybe some Gestapo officer stole his girl. Maybe he's just pissed about getting conscripted. Shit, maybe a Stormtrooper scuffed his shoe back in 1930. Or maybe, like the above person says, he's just absolutely fucking insaneand loves killing people. Who knows? It's hardly an inconsistency, though.

* Why didn't the theater have emergency exits? The theater was big enough to accommodate at least 100 people, so I doubt whatever regulatory body Germany had at the time was going to let the main entrance and a small stage door at the back be the only two exits.

** Honestly, women are often held to stricter standards by people with extreme views. Landa is prejudiced and racist, so it's reasonable to assume he's a bit of a misogynist as well. If he knew Shoshanna's identity in the restaurant, then he clearly enjoyed psychologically torturing her for those few minutes. So Bridget's treachery was not comparable to his own, because she's a woman and therefore needs to be punished. That's how misogyny works sadly.

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** i think Tarantino didn't want to risk having the most likable character in the movie be a Nazi responsible for a bunch of atrocities. Without this scene, Landa's insistence that it's no more than a job to him seems plausible, making Raine's betrayal at the end seem unwarranted

*** He's not punishing her for being a traitor. He's punishing her for being a STUPID traitor. He turned traitor with a well thought out plan, and single-handedly changed the course of the war by identifying the plotters, what they were doing, and taking advantage of it. Von Hammersmark got shot in a basement, left the bodies of well known rebels and her literal SIGNATURE behind to identify her, and showed up to a heavy security event with a ludicrous story and 2 laughable 'Italians' as company. Landa is punishing her for being literally TooDumbToLive.
** Honestly, women are often held to stricter standards by people with extreme views. Landa is prejudiced and racist, so it's reasonable to assume he's a bit of a misogynist as well. If he knew Shosanna's identity in the restaurant, then he clearly enjoyed psychologically torturing her for those few minutes. So Bridget's treachery was not comparable to his own, because she's a woman and therefore needs to be punished. That's how misogyny works sadly.

** What is especially mind-boggling about this is that Lt. Rayne '''''REFERRED SPECIFICALLY TO GRENADES THAT HIS MEN HAD ON-HAND JUST ABOVE'''''. Grenades would've done at least a decent job at destroying evidence, especially if they'd tossed a good two or three of them.

* Another thing, Landa's plan seems smart, but when you think about it, even if the allied nations will declare him a public hero, there are still lots of jews whose families he've slaughtered that will be out for revenge (he is known as the jew hunter for a reason), it is pretty logical he won't be able to live in safety anywhere.

** Also note that in the actual movie Nation's Pride, Zoller's last line is "Who has a message for Germany?!" in English.

** As well, Shoshanna's entire family was killed because a conversation that was very important to their immediate futures was being spoken in English, preventing them from knowing what was coming. Perhaps Shoshanna simply wanted the German High Command to meet their fates for the same reason (as they would be more familiar with French, her main language of choice, than English, given that they had conquered France and would need to know at least a bare minimum).

** This was handled slightly better in the German dub, as most of the English parts were dubbed in German, which at first seemed annoying, but then again, some parts would work much better that way. First, the conversation between Hans Landa et Perrier [=LaPadite=] was in German. Switching from French to German, Landa's native language, makes much more sense than switching to English and seems less suspicious. Throughout the whole movie then, Shoshanna would have understood German, and consequently, she would have recorded her message "for Germany" in German, which, again, makes much more sense. However, I think she assumed that the "most important Nazis" would be able to speak English, or at least understand it.

** The "talking with your mouth full" is a common theme in a lot of Sergio Leone's work, which Inglourious Basterds is clearly inspired by. One of the opening scenes in ''Film/AFistfulOfDynamite'' is literally nothing but rich people eating rich food, the camera panning in on their open mouths.
** Assuming he didn't know who Shosanna was, maybe he was sensing that she was tense and was trying to set up a casual atmosphere to get her to relax so he could properly evaluate her. Alternatively, maybe he was being extra-polite during the interrogation in the first chapter, either for his own enjoyment or to get a better read on the farmer.

*** Along those lines, it's very common for people who are experts on gathering intelligence to use things like food and beverages as subtle tools for intimidation. I'm reminded of a scene in season 2 of ''Series/{{Dexter}}'', when a master FBI profiler is questioning Dexter under the pretense that it's a friendly conversation. Because Dexter also has an extensive knowledge of things like interrogation techniques, he recognizes that when the profiler insists that Dexter drink a cup of tea, the profiler's goal is to subtly assert his power over the person who's obligated to drink it. It makes sense for someone like Landa, who maintains a pleasant demeanor even when he's doing evil things, to use something like milk in the same way. It's not his style to say, "Let us have the premiere in your theater, and give the black projectionist the night off, or I'll crush you."

** I don't think he recognizes her; I think it's just his MO to treat every situation like an interrogation - in this case, I always thought he was doing that to intentionally make Shoshanna feel uncomfortable. He could almost certainly see that she was already pretty scared/uncomfortable/disgusted by the various Nazis around her - acting like a boor and displaying disgusting table manners only adds to that discomfort and puts Shoshanna further on edge.

*** I fail to see the logic here. There is no reason to believe that von H was any less likely to know the owner's name than any other attendee. And referring to her as Shoshanna would indicate to the audience that Landa suspects Mimieux is Shoshanna, but it would mean nothing to von H. Why would Landa even be thinking about Shoshanna while he's getting ready to kill von H. ?

** Perhaps Landa shot himself in the foot here because he tried to execute 2 techniques that normally worked for him: 1) putting his counterpart at ease, and 2) surprising his counterpart with rapid followup questions to responses. In a restaurant, ordering dessert may be an effective and inconspicuous way to try and put someone at ease, but the problem, as Landa discovered (he had to know this, it seems) is that the physical act of eating gets in the way of using the mouth for the rapid followup questions. This may be why he continued talking even as he was wolfing down his strudel - he was trying to do both things simultaneously. To order the dessert and not eat it, preferring the line of questioning instead, might come across as a signal of intensity to the counterpart, therefore, eating is probably required to maintain social norms and the facade that nothing sinister is brewing in his mind. The waiter interruptions were, unfortunately for Landa, uncontrollable.
** I would lean more towards psychological intimidation. Think about the traditional attitude of always showing respect to a lady - holding a door open, sitting her down with the chair, never using crass language and displaying good manners. Landa disregards these completely - in such a well to do restaurant, a woman like Shosanna (or Emmanuelle if we're going from his POV) would not expect such a vulgar display of bad manners (he drops casual racism in there too for the hell of it) so this unfamiliar sight would make her uncomfortable and if she is Shosanna, make it more likely that she would betray her identity.
* Landa emphasises that Operation Kino needs to take out Hitler, Goebbels, Goering and Bormann in order to end the war. Erm...wouldn't Himmler assume command in that case?

** Also, what about Eichmann?
** And what about Beck, Oster, and everyone else who took part in the July Plot to kill Hitler?

* Seriously. That bugged me too. How does taking Germany out of the equation automatically end the war? I'm rusty, but it seems to me that in the year in which this takes place, Italy and Japan were already involved in the war.
** Italy would have folded immediately (it was the weak link of the Axis in real life as well), and Japan was an entirely different theatre of operations, but it still would have been effected by the loss of its only ally, and in this timeline, possibly more intense pressure from a slightly-less exhausted Russia.
** The movie takes place in 1944. All that was left of Fascist Italy was the German puppet state of Salo, which would have buckled the second Germany went down. As for Japan...yeah, Japan would still be in the war, but many people even today tend to think of the European and Pacific theaters as almost separate wars. Except for occurring at the same time and having some effect on Allied resources available to fight in each, they didn't have a huge effect on one another.

** Because when you're evil, you always let one go to spread the word of your atrocities.

* Why does the Gestapo agent not do the reasonable thing and simply excuse himself from the table once he realizes the officers are spies? Couldn't he have called for backup and ensured they would have all been caught?
** Hubris. He was convinced that with his own power of awesome Nazi menace, he would be able to apprehend them all by himself.

*** Actually no, the Gestapo didn't pull his gun out until the Brit's error.

*** Cell phones don't exist, but landline phones do. He could simply have gone next door, phoned the nearest garrison for backup, then walked back into the bar to wait for them (and make sure the Basterds don't leave in the interim), while pretending to simply have stepped out for a breath of fresh air or a long restroom visit.

** It's Tarantino's movie and Tarantino's version of history. Also, remember that Landa is secretly pulling the strings when it comes to the guard (or secretly doing it in a way other than intended, that is).

** When the requirements to be a Basterd are "Jewish soldier willing to go on a suicide mission," your options are limited. It's not clear why Lt. Rayne only took Jews, as I'm sure he could have found French, Polish, Czech, Dutch, etc -Americans with just as much of a grudge against Nazis. That said, they did appear to pick up some French and German along the way, just not enough to hold serious conversations in, and certainly not enough to fool a native speaker.

** Remember what Hitler said about how stealthy they are at getting around. When you're practically a ninja, you don't need that kind of thing. Or at least it isn't essential. And it's not like the Basterds aren't ever overconfident in their abilities. [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments BONJOURNO!]]

** What I'm saying is that, as far as the people making "Nation's Pride" are concerned, they're not using the Wilhelm Scream. Only Quentin Tarantino is. It's not like that guy in ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi'' thought to himself before going over the rails, "You know what would be awesome? If I did a Wilhelm scream here! Wait a minute, I'm from another galaxy and it hasn't been invented yet. How could I have heard of it? Oh, what the hell, I'll do it anyway." On an in-universe level, they're just plain screaming. The people making the ShowWithinAShow are not using the Wilhelm Scream. They're just screaming and it happens to sound the same. There are only so many different screams in the world. Or if you prefer to look at it differently, maybe in the universe in which ''Film/InglouriousBasterds'' takes place that particular sound effect ''had'' been invented by the early forties and they ''are'' using the Wilhelm Scream. Either way.

* If "Everybody in the German army has heard of Hugo Stiglitz," then why didn't Major Hellstrom recognize him immediately upon sitting down next to him? And as a Major, wouldn't he be even more likely than the average soldier to have heard of Hugo, since he seems to specifically target officers?

** A number of RealLife fugitives have gone unnoticed in plain sight on a number of occasions. More often than not a person who has seen your photograph before in passing will either not recognize you at all or think you look vaguely familiar yet be unable to place you. Even if they might otherwise pin it down they might still have other things on their mind, and how often do you notice the exact details of the physical appearance of the guy sitting next to you?
** Hellstrom sitting down: "Hey, this dude looks familiar. Where have I seen him before?" Hellstrom realizing Hicox isn't actually German: "Aw ''scheiss'', this is frigging Hugo Stiglitz next to me, and these dudes are all here to kill the crap out of someone important." He probably did recognize Stiglitz to some extent; it may have been one of the factors that triggered his suspicion.
** Landa had no trouble recognizing the dead Stiglitz, who was supposed to be part of the team to escort von Hammersmarck to the gala. Landa probably wouldn't be the only Nazi at the show who would have recognized him, either...the guy's face was in the paper!

* What really bugs me is the fact that neither of the two assassination plans is "complete" on its own. Namely, Shoshanna's plan would result in annihilation of everybody except people in the boxes (who are the big fishes anyway). Hitler and Goebbels were at the door when they were intercepted by the two Basterds and killed - otherwise they would manage to get out in time easily. Also, Basterds only killed 2 of the big 4 (and it is clearly stated that you need all 4 to end the war), which means that they would fail on their own too.

*** More likely, Shoshanna wanted to kill a PARTICULAR Nazi, the others were just bonuses. And even if Hitler escaped the theatre, the flames would eventually reach the hallway, which was padlocked shut. Nobody would have made it out alive (Marcel and Shoshanna might have if not for the dynamite though, martyr complexed though they may be) it was just a question of whether it was a quick or slow burning.

** And fire spreads ''quickly'' - especially in a cinema that's upholstered with lots of flammable material. The heat and smoke would also make several people pass out. If you're going to assasinate someone, locking them in a room right before you start a fire inside it is quite an effective way to go about it (if you don't care about how many others die in the process, which she clearly didn't).

*** I'm guessing that, since he'd try to track her down, he took a photo of her from her house or the farmer. She would stand out in his mind as one of the Jews who escaped. As for her age, when her family was killed, she was in her late teens. Only four years have passed when she sees him again, and people generally don't change their appearance too much in that time.
** Actually if he recognized her he probably ''wouldn't'' have reported her. If he had, he would be in serious trouble with the Nazi High Command once the uncomfortable fact that he had allowed her to escape all those years ago came to light. (Especially if Shosanna cracked under torture and revealed her plan to burn down the theater with the Germans inside it.) For Landa, the wisest move would be to let the premiere go forward as scheduled then afterward have Shosanna quietly killed and dump her body where it would never be found.

** In-universe explanation: He needed the radio guy not to blab about the plan, so he cut him a pretty sweet deal. Out-of-universe explanation: Quentin needed a way to show the Basterds didn't care about the deal and just about killing Net-sees.

** Stiglitz's face is simply not as famous as you're assuming.

*** Am I correct in thinking this ma, even if he place after the [[{{Film/Valkyrie}} failed bombing attempt]]? You'd want to be extra sure too if a simple TABLE LEG kept you from achieving your objective.

*** Am I correct in thinking this may be taking place after the [[{{Film/Valkyrie}} failed bombing attempt]]? You'd want to be extra sure too if a simple TABLE LEG kept you from achieving your objective.

** One: everyone’s been drinking heavily. Two: [[BehindTheBlack the movie makes no mention]] [[NoOntologicalInertia of Stiglitz’s prison break ever being reported]], so everyone assumes he’s still in prison. Three: even if someone was sober and knew that Stiglitz was freed, [[OccamsRazor people tend to assume that a simpler hypothesis is true over a more complex one]]. If you were in a coffee shop and Tom Cruise walked in, your default reaction would be “hey, that person looks like Tom Cruise”.

* I totaly sympathize with Landa's hysterical reaction to the "mountain climbing" excuse for a broken leg. Hello! You could tell you broke a leg by ''falling down the stairs''! Last time I checked there definitely were stairs in Paris! The Basterds looked at least half-competent, how could the make such a stupid blunder?