History Headscratchers / KillBill

* Was it only me to whom it seemed that Bill pulled the trigger to shoot Beatrix earlier than he himself wanted? [[IncrediblyLamePun The trigger]] was the news about Bill being kid's father.

*** That's obviously a valid interpretation, but I still beg to differ. Because the explanation he gives for aborting implies that he feels pretty strongly about what Elle was going to do; it looks like some of his - undounbtedly rather peculiar but no less real for that reason - core moral principles were touched, which makes it unlikely he would have given such an order in the first place. As for the "abort the mission" - well, that might just be their ordinary way of talking; the "mission" word needn't necessarily imply that it was him rather than Elle herself who initiated it. As in, "I understand why you've decided to initiate and undertake that mission, but you'll have to abort it."

* The Bride's hair in Volume 2. is a conundrum for me. Up through the big fight with Elle, her hair is quite long. Afterwards,during her visit with Esteban and the final confrontation with Bill, her hair has shortened to a bob. OK, one could argue she got an offscreen haircut. But then when we see her with BB at the motel, her hair is back to being as long as it was at the start of the movie. I find it hard to believe that much time had passed between scenes. Obviously very small, but it just bugs me.

** Totally agree on this. Many martial art movie plots have a master's student#1 did very awesome but turned evil, and then the master is now honor-bound to train or aid another person to stop student#1. Also can be found in ostensibly non-Asian works like StarWars.

** Look around at the other passengers on the plane. They have katanas. Look around at the people in the airport after the Bride arrives in Tokyo. Every other person appears to have a katana. Hell, the airplane appears to have katana holsters built in to the seats. Kill Bill clearly takes place in a RuleOfCool Universe where katanas are standard issue.

** It's been a long time since I've watched that sequence, but I believe the evidence is that the animated character has a ring very similar to the one Bill wears. As for why; well, I'm about to go into some wild mass guessing speculating on her thoughts, motivations, and rational, but consider the following. As you said, she was hellbent on revenge towards Matsumoto. He ordered it, he's responsible. Bill was just the weapon used. It's also possible, maybe even probable, that seeing Bill's skill is what inspired her towards violent means in the first place. And, assuming for a moment that Matsumoto was Bill's primary employer at the time, Bill was likely the first person to find O Ren after she was done killing him and his goons. He's now out of a job and she's demonstrated a considerable talent for violence at a young age, and she knows how good at killing he is. Imagine her reaction to him offering to train her, to give her the same kind of skills he has, the same power he has, power over life and death. Power she's seen for herself. For a little girl who knows what it's like to feel helpless, and who likely never wants to feel helpless again, that's a tempting offer. I'm also not sure I agree with the apparent fan theory that Bill had relationships with all the women in the DiVAS - he's technically only confirmed to have had a relationship with the Bride; a relationship with Elle is only strongly hinted at in the film. I don't see any evidence that he slept with O Ren or Vernita, but like I said, it's been a while since I've seen vol. 1.

* Okay so a white American woman enters the House of Blue Leaves, injures a woman (to which everyone is witness) and then kills dozens of people (to which the propreitor is witness) and...no onrinvestigates??? There were clearly civilians there, would the Japanese police really just chalk it up as Yakuza infighting? Also, when Vernita's husband returns home, Nikki will very obviously tell him what she saw: a woman came to the house and killed mom. The two next deaths happened in the middle of the desert, but it seems insane to me that simply no one would investigate the Bride for the massacre at the House of the Blue Leaves and Vernita's murder in the middle of the suburbs.

* When Beatrix gets to Bill's condo, there are people seen inside (in the background, for a moment). None of them react to her, even though she has a katana strapped to her back. Why?

** From Wiki/ThatOtherWiki: "There are only 40 actors accredited to the Crazy 88, however a frame-by-frame count performed by Jonathan R. from Bouncing Ferret Films shows 82: 67 killed, 12 maimed, 1 killed by an axe thrown by somebody else, one possibly killed, one spanked." I guess we should assume that there are only forty in-universe and the rest are stunt people or extras.

** Vernita was a knife-fighter, not a swordsman like the rest of the squad was. Beatrix challenged (or attempted to, in the case of Budd) each member with her "unfinished business" catchphrase and defeated them (except for, again, Budd) in their own element. It makes more than enough sense that Beatrix wanted to give Vernita a fighting chance (as she did everyone else) to defend themselves. And what better way to get your revenge on the KnifeNut of the group than to beat her at her own game?

* Why of all the possible ways to kill Budd did Elle use a Black Mamba? Bill as far as we have seen, is not a moron, he knows that Kiddo would stick Budd with her sword, or some other "face your' enemy" type attack, Ellie should know this, and if it wasn't for Kiddo busting in, she would of went back to Bill and he would of promptly killed her in the most torturous way possible, she had Kiddos' sword, she could have easily killed him with that brought it back saying kiddo had killed Budd and said Kiddo did it, or something else, like she had just got the sword off of Budd and Kiddo must have gotten out of the grave and killed Budd with his own sword (which would be found in the trailer)

* Why of all the possible ways to kill Budd did Elle use a Black Mamba? Bill as far as we have seen, is not a moron, he knows that Kiddo would stick Budd with her sword, or some other "face your' enemy" type attack, Ellie should know this, and if it wasn't for Kiddo busting in, she would of went back to Bill and he would of promptly killed her in the most torturous way possible, she had Kiddos' sword, she could have easily killed him with that brought it back saying kiddo had killed Budd and said Kiddo did it, or something else, like she had just got the sword off of Budd and Kiddo must of gotten out of the grave and killed Budd with his own sword (which would be found in the trailer)

* Why of all the possible ways to kill Budd did Elle use a Black Mamba? Bill as far as we have seen, is not a moron, he knows that Kiddo would stick Budd with her sword, or some other "face your' enemy" type attack, Ellie should know this, and if it wasn't for Kiddo busting in, she would of went back to Bill and he would of promptly killed her in the most torturous way possible, she had Kiddos' sword, she could of easily killed him with that brought it back saying kiddo had killed Budd and said Kiddo did it, or something else, like she had just got the sword off of Budd and Kiddo must of gotten out of the grave and killed Budd with his own sword (which would be found in the trailer)

* The Bride tells Sofie to stay put while she fights O-Ren. Why does Sofie obey? What made her belief that was her best course of action?

*** That's obviously a valid interpretation, but I still beg to differ. Because the explanation he gives for aborting implies that he feels pretty strongly about what Elle was going to do; it looks like some of his - undounbtedly rather peculiar but no less real for that reason - core moral principles were touched, which makes it unlikely he would have given such an order in the first place. As for the "abort the mission" - well, that might just be their ordinary way of talking; the "mission" word needn't necessarily imply that it was him rather than Elle herself who initiated it.

** A minor nitpick, but I believe that the name actually refers to the five points on the victim's body an attacker needs to strike, not to the number of steps to be made afterwards.