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* One thing in ''Beetlejuice'' has always bothered me. Adam and Barbara decide that they need to scare the Deetzes away by themselves, and they work out two really grotesquely distorted faces that'll do the trick. Their afterlife case worker Juno approves, and she sends them back to Earth. But wait a minute: the Deetzes, except for Lydia, can't ''see'' Barb or Adam. It doesn't matter how hideous they look, the rest of the family's just going to look right through them without seeing anything, like they've been doing. And just as you'd expect, the only person Adam and Barbara actually, unintentionally scare once they get back is Lydia. Now, I can understand the two of them making that mistake, since they're still coming to grips with the way being a ghost works. But why in the world didn't Juno see the flaw in their plan?
** ''Magazine/{{Cracked}}'' caught that one too in their movie satire.
** The only [[WildMassGuessing Wild Mass Guess]] the same troper can come up with is that there must be some way for ghosts to make normal people see them, since Betelgeuse could always do so. Maybe Juno just assumed the Maitlands had already figured out how to make themselves visible.
** It isn't that people ''can't'' see ghosts; it's that they ignore them as if they don't exist. Lydia doesn't ignore it so she can see them. Lydia even mentions this! Once the Maitlands pull their all too fun prank (that they thought would scare people), Otho and the Deetz parents now believe and are willing to see. Notice how quick almost everyone else except the Deetzes are to dismiss it, despite there being no real explanation for them to suddenly start dancing and singing then get attacked by their food. They only did the exorcism when they couldn't find them. I would assume however there is a way to make people notice them my guess is after the song and dance number the Deetzes at the very least could see them.
*** Remember rule number two from the Handbook: "The living usually won't see the dead." Won't, not can't.
** By this point Beetlejuice has already revealed himself to them as the giant snake, making them more open to seeing the dead.
** They could have terrorized Lydia to insanity or death. It may have even have been part of the talk they had with Juno, but didn't actually have any plans to follow through on.
** Maybe Juno just wanted some time away from them so she could get back to processing the cases that were already in front of her? Adam and Barbara won't be seen for 125 years, so them hanging around her office doesn't really serve any purpose.

* Another element that bugs me, though it's not really a problem with the movie, is that this troper always wanted to learn more about "Saturn" and the sandworms. Was it the real planet Saturn (seems pretty unlikely, with Saturn being a gas giant and all), or another dimension with the same name (since stepping out of the house takes them there, maybe it's a parallel ghost reality)? Website/TheOtherWiki says that in an earlier draft, it was called Titan rather than Saturn (which might explain the giant moon in the sky: that's probably Saturn itself), and that might still work, since Betelgeuse says "you've been to Saturn" (he didn't say they've been "on" Saturn, so maybe he meant the Saturn moons). The sandworms could apparently see and eat ghosts, which just adds to strangeness of it all. There's no way the movie could've gotten into the details without [[MST3KMantra bogging things down]], but there's so much mystery behind that plot element, and Saturn and its sandworms are just so weird and cool that I'd love to hear the writers talk more about what they had in mind.
** Saturn is clearly another part of [[Manga/{{Bleach}} Hueco Mundo]] and the Sandworms are Hollows, which is why they eat ghosts (Wholes).
*** That actually explains [[http://images.wikia.com/bleach/en/images/7/7f/Huecomundoopening.JPG a lot]]...
** Keep in mind that Tim Burton has a love of old B-movies (see ''Film/EdWood''), and "Saturn" does sort of resemble how the planet might be depicted in an old, B-grade sci-fi flick.
** As for the sandworms eating ghosts, why assume the sandworms are alive? Could be that life died out on Saturn/Titan/wherever many millions of years ago, but the ghosts of its one-time top predators are still hanging around there.

* Why is it that some of the recently deceased, like the Maitlands and Juno, keep their mortal complexion while others like Ms. Argentina and The Magician's Assistant end up with [[AmazingTechnicolorPopulation multicolored skin tones?]] It doesn't seem to be tied to their cause of death or position in the afterlife; Ms. Argentina's green skin has nothing to do with her slit wrists. Hell, even Beetlejuice himself falls under this category, what with his pasty white skin and all.
** We see that the Maitlands can alter their faces in monstrous ways in that one scene. It's possible that ghosts can also alter their skin and hair colour if they so wish, especially in cases like Ms.Argentinia and Beetlejuice who must have had years of practice in changing their shape.

* It's nitpick time! After the Big B plays his commercial on the attic TV, Adam tries to pronounce his name and gets it wrong. Yay, humor. But the way he mispronounces it is "beetlegeiss", in essence. HOW?! Show me any word ''in any language'' where an "eu" diphthong makes a long I sound! At most, he should've messed up on the side of German, where "eu" gets pronounced as "oy". And going further, how is it that he got that wrong, but somehow "knew" the first E should be long? How many "average" people read a complex word for the first time and only mess up one bit of it?
** Such is the way of the Baldwin. It is far more enlightened and erudite than our own, to question a Baldwin in any way is madness.
*** "Geuse" looks like "guise", which is a homophone for "guys", so he probably misread it as "guise" and mispronounced it (the character or the actor? I don't know) as "gice".
*** Alec Baldwin can see into his own future, and sometimes confuses which time period he is in. In an upcoming episode of Series/ThirtyRock, expect him to mention working for "Don Juice".
** AFAIK, Betelgeuse is pronounced "Beetlejuice".
** I've heard it pronounced "Betel-guys" by more than one person (it's a mistake, but a very common one), so saying "beetle-guys" isn't that much of a stretch.
*** He also mispronounced ''deceased'' as ''diseased'' and apparently could never get an A in science in his life. It's implied that Adam is a sweet guy, but not exactly bright.
*** Maybe he's dyslexic? That might be why he needed Barbara to drive him to town.

* There's a scene in the film where Juno the afterlife caseworker chews the Maitlands out for various offenses including letting Betelgeuse out and not putting him back, or words close to that. Here's what I'm wondering: just how were they supposed to ''do'' that? Saying his name three times turns him loose in the first place. Okay, I get that. It seems like saying his name three more times ought to send him back where he came from, but in the film all it seems to do is stop whatever shenanigans he's up to and send him back to the model town (for example, during that Nightmare Fuel scene with the banister-snake). But when he's in the model town, saying his name three times brings him out into the real world again. So just how ''are'' you supposed to get rid of him?
** I think what Juno's referring to is that you say his name three more times to seal him away again (like they were trying to do near the end of the movie, during the wedding). Barbara didn't do that: she just said "home home home" and it took them back to the attic. BG was still on the loose, though, which is how he was able to reappear as the giant snake and terrorize the Deetzes. That's the first time they used his name to stop him. As for why he doesn't totally vanish... well, it ''does'' render him totally harmless and confined to the model town, so my guess is that the model town is just his window into the Maitlands' world. He can't really get in without being summoned and, if they'd just ignored him long enough, he would've gotten bored and found someone else to haunt.
** Well, the first time they say his name, it zaps the ''Maitlands'' to the model town, where they dig him up. Barbara then says "Home" three times, and it zaps them out. When ''Lydia'' says "Beetlejuice" three times, it finally lets him out of the model. In the climax, nobody actually gets to say "Beetlejuice" three times again, since he gets smooshed by the sandworm. The rules don't really make sense.
*** The first time, I don't think saying his name is what really took them to the model town: it released BG, and then he pulled them into the model town so he could make his dramatic cemetery entrance. He stayed released after that, which Juno griped about, and then he made his next big appearance as the snake, when they belatedly resealed him. Then he stayed sealed until Lydia released him, and then he got eaten by a sandworm, which apparently sent him back to the waiting room to start his afterlife over again. There's lots of RuleOfCool going on (I'll never understand how Barbara rode a sandworm through the roof of the house!), but the summoning makes some sense: he got summoned twice, one of them ending with him being dispelled, and the other with him getting eaten.
*** I was always under the impression that saying his name three times (letting him out and putting him back) is actually a spell that gives him license to influence reality. The first time the Maitlands say his name three times, it "lets him out" and his first action is shrinking them into the model town, rather than the words actually transporting them there. When Barbara says "Home" three times, he, for some reason, humors her whim and lets them go back, knowing they'll need his help again. ''My'' big question was "To what extent can he use his powers without his name being called?" because, even before being "let out", he's able to broadcast his commercial on their (life-sized) TV.
*** Watch how Betelgeuse acts during when Barbara says "Home" three times - there's no way he's the one sending them back. More likely is that the RuleOfThree just has a place of power in the afterlife, hence Betelgeuse's limitation in the first place. I think the I.J.B.M. two entries up is the full explanation.
*** RuleOfThree absolutely has power in the afterlife, remember in case of emergency, draw a door (three lines) and knock three times.
*** Huh. I thought Juno was just pissed at them because she ''explicitly told them'' not to use his name, and they did it anyway.

* It bugs me that a simple viewing of the movie makes it clear that the title is Beetle Juice and the character is Betelgeuse, and yet people are constantly spelling both as Beetlejuice.
** His name ''is'' Beetlejuice. He is not allowed to speak or write down his name as part of his banishment, so he has to rely on bending the rules with charades and spelling it like the star hoping people will known how to pronounce it. He is the only one who spells it Betelgeuse on his commercials and flyers because he can't say Beetlejuice himself.
** The animated series gives him the respelling of Beetlejuice. You might also notice that he never says his own name in the movie, perhaps because he can unsummon himself, and doesn't want to risk it? So he unintentionally misspells his name to conform to the then-current 'pronunciation' of that star... Maybe it works for him a bit like The Game, or Harry Dresden's vocal components?
** I always took it that whatever sealing magic was put on Beetlejuice to keep him from influencing the real world also prevents him from saying his own name, as the above Troper mentions. By extension, he would also be prevented from writing his name out (at least with the correct spelling). Presumably these restrictions would be in place to prevent him from summoning himself or someone else from accidentally summoning him. Anyway, the end result of all this is that the film's name is the character's name and the ad just had an alternate spelling due to the seal. I will stop overthinking this now...
** But "Betelgeuse" ''is'' the way you actually spell the red giant's name. (That or "Betelgeux", it's optional.) You'd think that an ''advertisement'' for Beetle Juice's services wouldn't be so hard to pronounce, since he needs people to say the name out loud, correctly, thrice. Perhaps he isn't aware of how much less of a well-known term that star name is now compared to when he died, or maybe he just can't spell worth a fuck himself.
*** Right, so what I'm saying is that Beetlejuice can't write out his own name as it is actually spelled ("Beetlejuice") and thus is forced to write out a homonym ("Betelgeuse") in order to get people to say his name at all.
** The funny thing is that the confusion seems to be intentional on the part of the film-makers too: The opening credits actually say "and Michael Keaton as Beetlejuice", and the end credits say "Betelgeuse - Michael Keaton"!
*** Alternatively, the name was originally Betelgeuse throughout, but ExecutiveMeddling made them change the title to Beetlejuice because they thought a movie with an unpronounceable-looking name would scare people off (and also wanted a sillier-looking title to reflect the movie's actual content, rather than a vaguely sci-fi star name that would be misleading to anyone who actually recognized it.) And, presumably, it was inconsistently updated after that change, especially since some things might have been shot or set up before the switch and never updated.

* My problem was that the movie never makes it clear as to what Betelgeuse ''is''. He's apparently decaying and has the powers of a ghost, yet, when the sandworm crashes down on him, it has apparently killed him, because we next see him in the Waiting Room. So, can ghosts die again, or was he a living being? Is he the the star of the same name? Explain, movie!
** Well, the janitor pointed out to the Maitlands that ghosts can be exorcised, which is "Death for the dead". So, apparently, already dead spirits can experience other stages of "death". Apparently being exorcised is not the only way of "dying" if you're already dead. As to what Betelgeuse actually is, no clue, but I bet it would be really fascinating. Anybody acquainted with the writers?
** He is a ghost who used to work for Juno. Simple as that. The film is quite unambiguous about it. (Ghosts in this film can be eaten by sandworms, yes: they're like watch dogs to make sure you don't try to escape your haunting grounds. The whole thing was probably cooked up for that purpose. You're back in the waiting room after being eaten by them because you've committed an offense by trying to go against the haunting rules.) What the film ''doesn't'' tell you, and I am quite intrigued about, is who Betelgeuse was when he was still alive. Now ''that'' would make for an interesting prequel.
*** Just something this troper has been thinking about: if Beetlejuice was in the afterlife customer service thing before he became a bio-exorcist, does that mean he killed himself?
*** He does say that he "lived through the Black Plague," so if he meant that literally, he's been a ghost for a very, very long time (which, along with having worked with Juno, might explain his powers - he probably knows every last rule in the afterlife and how to game the system for all its worth).
*** My [[WildMassGuessing Wild Mass Guess]] pertains to why Betelgeuse says he has to get married: He needs a new body. My notion is that what we see as "Betelgeuse" (the moldering corpsey-looking guy essayed by Michael Keaton) is just the host body. The real Betelgeuse inhabits the body and uses it for his purposes until it's too worn out to keep (and turning into a giant snake can wear a body out something fierce, I should think). And Lydia's the youngest living person there, so... This does beg the question of Betelgeuse's true form. But I like to think that the giant beetle in the little rocking chair (the one that appears when Betelgeuse tries to get Lydia to say his name by playing Charades) was what Betelgeuse really looks like.
*** One of the shooting scripts has Juno mention that Betelgeuse was demoted to a Class 6 Malevolent Spirit - whatever one of those is. Of course, it didn't make it into the movie, but it's ''almost'' canon, huh?
*** It's heavily implied that Betelgeuse is a poltergeist, although whether this is actually canon or is simply {{fanon}} I'm not sure.
*** The very earliest scripts were much more clear about this in that Betelgeuse is a demon. The name derives from the poem "Betelgeuse: A Trip Through Hell."

* When Delia and Otho are in the bathroom discussing colors, he spray paints a symbol (shaped like an Ichthys rotated 90 degrees) on the wall while prattling on about the color viridian and his brief career as a hair analyst. What does that symbol have to do with anything? Is it a "V"? Is it supposed to represent color or some kind of chemistry?
** I don't think it ''is'' a symbol. It's like when you randomly scribble onto paper to show someone what color the ink of the colored pen is. The scribble is... just a scribble. He was doing that while demonstrating the color of viridian and explaining its chemical compound. He could just as well have scribbled a vague V as a straight line, or for that matter, a recognizable smiley face. The demonstration of the chemical itself was the point.
*** If anything, the "V" probably stands for "viridian". It's not to tell him that it's viridian or anything, it just came to mind for that reason.

* During the climactic, "wedding" scene, why does it take everyone so long to say Beetlejuice's name three times? Take Barbara - when she said his name the first time, he turned her mouth into a zipper, which she then unzipped and said his name a second time, causing him to throw a metal plate on her mouth. During the time he was getting ready to throw the plate like a pitcher, Barbara had more than enough time to say "Beetlejuice" a third time. What was with the incredibly long pauses? Especially since she said his name three times very fast when he was in snake form. All I can think of is that she was still exhausted from nearly being exorcised.
** [[TalkingIsAFreeAction Talking isn't a free action,]] [[InvertedTrope but everything else is?]]
** On that note, why didn't either of the Deetz parents say his name? They heard Betelgeuse making a big fuss over it when Barbara said his name? Wouldn't they have realized that saying his name was important? Sure, Delia might not have, but her husband was supposed to be the sane one of the bunch.
** They were a bit tied up at the moment. Even still, as far as the Deetzes knew, ghosts had taken over their home and they had lost control of the entire situation, forced to watch helplessly while restrained. If you even think about it, the Deetzes have never heard of Betelgeuse's name before Barbara said anything. For all they knew, she was starting some ritualistic spell or chant to send him back. In that situation, who would be able to guess the chant would be as simple as "say this three times" without prior knowledge.
** Even as a kid, I noticed this yet intuitively processed it as RuleOfFunny (I didn't know the term, of course, but I did understand the concept).

* Why did the Deetzes keep the Maitlands' wedding clothes? Especially if Delia wanted "everything to go?"
** If I remember correctly, one of the characters joked about going to the thrift store, and then Delia's face lit up. Maybe they had gotten rid of it nearby and just bought it back?
** They weren't able to get into the attic until near the end of the movie. Maybe the wedding clothes were in there?
*** The wedding clothes were in a closet in one of the bedrooms, Delia and Otho find them shortly after moving in.
*** The thrift store wasn't mentioned as a joke. Otho said that in order to perform the ritual, he'd need something that belonged to the dead couple. Lydia told him he'd have to go to the Goodwill, probably in an effort to get them all to drop the idea (since it was at night and the Goodwill wasn't open, it couldn't be done immediately). But Delia remembered the wedding clothes still being in the closet, which enabled them to go through with it. I'm thinking that perhaps the real estate agent, who did say she was related to them, may have requested that they give the wedding clothes to her and this simply hadn't happened yet, which is why they were still in the closet. That, or the room in which they were kept in the closet hadn't been used/redecorated yet, so Delia simply hadn't gotten around to getting rid of the clothes.
*** Alternatively, even a fairly conservative wedding dress or suit can be fairly expensive, it's possible that Delia was planning to sell them for what could easily be $500 minimum rather than donating them. She may also have held onto them with the idea that Lydia might be able to make use of them in a few years.
** Delia and Otho did express dismay that the closet in question was so small. Possibly neither of them had thought of anything appropriate to do with such a modest space yet, so they hadn't cleaned it out yet.

* Even allowing for the passage of time while the Maitlands were in the waiting room, wasn't Barbara's greedy realtor cousin able to swoop in and sell the house pretty damn fast? One assumes they paid their taxes and were at least up to date on the mortgage, and a search for other possible heirs to take it over can't be done instantly, can it? I guess [[Headscratchers/HomePage It Just Bugs Me]] all the more because the realtor-cousin is one of those annoying bit characters who never seem to be the targets of any comeuppance. It's one thing when a main character is a KarmaHoudini; it's another when it's this off to the side, never seen again maroon.
** The character, in her introduction, talks about having an offer from a man who wants to bring the family down to relax. I am willing to bet money this was the Deetzes, and that she already had the paperwork done up and this is why she was trying so hard to get a signature from Adam and Barbara. And then there's the fact that she sold them the house to start with, so I'm betting after death it came right back to her.
** Did she really do anything wrong? The Maitlands happened to die right when the Deetzes were in the market for a new house. The cousin was probably the only next of kin, and wanted to sell the house and settle their affairs as quickly as possible. I wouldn't be surprised if the Maitlands owned the house free and clear and Mr. Deetz offered to pay cash up front.
*** Her hunger right at the start to sell that house (and the indications from Barbara that she was constantly asking about this) makes me wonder about the whole transaction. While it is possible that one cousin from both their families was their closest/only kin, it still strikes me odd.
*** I dunno, she did seem genuinely upset while selling the house (greedy too, but upset), and the story never mentioned Adam and Barbara having any closer relatives than Jane. If they were each only children whose parents had died, she might have been the next of kin (or one of them might have even named her in a will - maybe half-jokingly at the time, like 'well, if Jane really wants the house so much, it'll be hers eventually').
** Even if she didn't inherit the house, she may have offered to sell it for whoever did, and that person opted to let her since she was local and knew the property. Works either way.
** I always interpreted Jane as a nosy neighbor with boundary issues (it's a small town afterall) and when she said "they were family" it was that SHE considered herself family to them but they didn't feel the same, and that it was just another way for her to push her way into the Maitlands' personal lives, even after they had passed.

* What did Juno and Betelgeuse die of? They might be suicides, if you interpret the "suicides become civil servants" joke as canon, with the evidence of Ms. Slit-Wrists, and Mr. Hanging, and if you assume that this means every civil servant in the afterlife committed suicide. I wonder how?
** Perhaps death from smoking is considered long-term suicide. As for Betelgeuse, perhaps poison.
*** Juno probably slit her own throat (you can see smoke drifting out through a horizontal cut in her neck). Betelgeuse probably wasn't a suicide, just trying to score political points by volunteering, then working his way up the ladder to obtain power, but got bored with it or realized it would be quicker to get what he wants through rule-breaking instead.
*** She didn't slit her throat, she's had a tracheotomy (the surgical removal of a cancerous voice box).
*** Tracheotomy surgery doesn't involve slitting the throat from ear to ear. If you watch in the scene where she vanishes from in front of the town model, her throat is cut all the way across, and the cut runs well below where a tracheotomy scar would be.
*** If Betelgeuse was speaking truthfully about being alive during the Black Plague, he might have accidentally killed himself by mercury poisoning, which would be [[DirtyOldMan in keeping with his character]], given what it was used to treat.
*** Betelgeuse ''was'' a suicide. It was going to be mentioned in the film that he hanged himself while drunk after a woman broke his heart, but it was cut for length.

* In the afterlife waiting room, there are two ghosts that clearly died from animal attacks, the skin diver with the shark on his leg, and the guy in the sleeping bag with the rattlesnake tail sticking out... did the animals die in the attack, too?
** They choked?
** The sleeping bag guy's hair is splayed out wildly, perhaps he and the rattlesnake were electrocuted.

* Something has bugged me about this movie since I was a kid: Why is Juno so useless? She keeps the Maitlands waiting in a waiting room long enough to make their situation worse. She then berates them for things they had no way of knowing, offers no help, explains exactly how to contact Betelgeuse, and then tells them not to do it. She is asked, "How do we contact you if we need you again?" and gives no answer.
** Social workers in real life are overworked, undertrained, and given limited resources with which to do their jobs. It's a crazy, stressful, thankless job that tends to seep out into their cases. There are obviously more people dying and wanting to talk to their social worker than there are people committing suicide to fill the positions.

* The Maitlands are told several times to read the handbook. Why can't they make any sense of it?
** That's part of the joke - the handbook is clearly complicated, dull, and hard to grasp for almost everybody. The exceptions seem to be Lydia and Otho.

* So who puts the handbook in people's houses? Why is it a physical object the living can manipulate? Shouldn't the dead be put in a waiting room ''when they die'' and then handed the book as a part of their orientation? Obviously there are forces at work which decide on who gets to be a ghost and decided the Maitlands qualify and made sure they got to the house and ensured the book was there for them - why leave everything so confusing?
** Because in a universe ruled by black comedy, [[ReedRichardsIsUseless magic is less powerful than bureaucracy]] and [[ObstructiveBureaucrat administrative staff are always deliberately unhelpful.]]

* What happens after their 125 years of haunting are over?
** I presume they finally join the queue to await... whatever happens next. Which may be heaven or hell, but if what we've seen so far is anything to go by, is most likely a very long wait.

* If Betelgeuse didn't just ''tell'' Lydia his name because he didn't want her to be able to tell others, then why did he play the game of charades which resulted in the exact same thing (her knowing his name)?
** Beetlejuice is not allowed to say or write his own name. It is why he has to use charades or write it as the homonym Betelgeuse.
** That's why I think that whatever hex Beetlejuice is under doesn't allow him to say his own name (or write it out). It makes a few of the scenes make a bit more sense (particularly that one and the ad in the newspaper spelling his name "Betelgeuse" like the star). When he gives Lydia the excuse about how "she'd tell her friends and they'd tell their friends" or whatever he's just trying to dodge the question. He's basically permanently jinxed.
** In ''Anime/HowlsMovingCastle'', the Witch tells Sophie that part of the curse is that she can't TELL anybody about the curse (you occasionally see her trying, and they guess, but she can't talk about it). That gave me the idea that BJ can't tell people his name, he can't write it, etc. It's an attempt to keep him in place but the charades is a loophole.
** If he can't ''write'' his own name, then why is there a big red "Here lies Betelgeuse" sign on his gravesite in the miniature town? Presumably Adam didn't build that, or even if he built the monument he wouldn't have defaced it with Betelgeuse's name.
*** Because his name is Beetlejuice, he just spells it Betelgeuse to get around the curse that bars him from saying or rendering his name. Thus he could create the tombstone.

* If everyone in death looks like when they died, shouldn't the Maitlands then look more like drowned corpses?
** Really, they should look like normal people. They wouldn't be bloated or anything until after they died. Kinda like Freddy Krueger, his body burned down to the bones, but he has the melted-skin look of the moment he died.
** They show up in their house wet, but dry off. If we apply a {{Fanon}} theory from Franchise/{{Ghostbusters}}, ghosts tend to take on a physical (well, ectoplasmic) state befitting their mental state. The Maitlands are wet at first because that's how they died... but they're still mentally whole so they dry off after a while like they'd expect to normally. They'd probably start to look like drowned corpses if they obsessed with how they died.
** The answer is fairly prosaic, [[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094721/trivia?item=tr1814490 The director thought being wet throughout the scene would make the actors uncomfortable]]. He might have also been considering that such treatment can also drive up actor salaries because it's considered a sort of "hazard pay" situation.
** They also didn't drown. They died from the crash. Note Bab's broken neck.
*** Barbara doesn't have a broken neck. Her arm hurts when they first get home and she fakes a broken neck when she hangs herself in the closet to scare the Deetzes, but she doesn't exhibit signs of a neck injury. It also makes no sense how they'd die from the crash, considering the car simply tipped over into water from a low height. It's more likely they somehow drowned, though that also makes no sense since they should've been able to get out of the car.

* This troper understands that ghosts have a limited ability to warp reality. However, how was BG able to freely roam from one place to another when any outside jurisdiction leads to Saturn?
** He knows the system better than most and knows all the ways around the restrictions.
** Functional perimeters vary from manifestation to manifestation. It's all in the handbook.
** Because he's not just a ghost. He used to work with Juno, so was probably given special privileges, including free(er) range.

* The Deetzes (apart from Lydia) can't see Adam and Barbara, so they think they can't haunt them. The only problem is that they're still capable of moving physical objects. Barbara holds the wooden horse in front of a mirror, and Adam slams the attic door into someone's face. Who cares if they can't see you? What's scarier than a poltergeist?
** They eventually do attempt to make themselves known by physically interacting with the Deetzes during the dinner song sequence, but they inadvertently end up being seen more as charming entertainment than terrifying haunts since they don't really know how to be scary.

* Does ''every'' person who dies, except for suicide victims, have to go through a "haunting" phase before they can move on to the next step of the afterlife, or were Adam and Barbara simply required to for some reason? Otherwise, considering the number of people who die every day, one would expect that there are ''thousands'' of hauntings all around the world. If that's not the case, what made the Maitlands so special that they have to haunt their house, instead of simply moving on to wherever all the other ghosts are going?
** From what I've read and heard, hauntings are due to the deceased still having something unfinished in their (after)life, and won't be at rest until their desire is met. This is logical in the case of the Maitlands, who desired having a child, but died before they could even accomplish it.
** The Maitlands didn't die when they were supposed to, so they have to wait for their paperwork to be processed. The receptionist even says it'll be 125 years before they can move on. Presumably, those who die of old age or disease are expected to die, so the bureaucrats have their paperwork ready so they can move on. The Maitlands, and the other people in the waiting room who died from accidents (the guy who choked to death, the smoker who burned to death), were unexpected deaths and so will take longer to process.

* What did Juno mean when she told the Maitlands, "Seems pretty quiet here. You should thank God you didn't die in Italy"?
** Presumably Italy is so filled with ghosts that it's a pretty miserable place to, er, haunt.
*** Secondary thought, Italy is home to Rome and the Vatican. Lots of Catholic priests, so ghosts would have to be very quiet and keep to themselves, or risk quick exorcism.
** It's an ethnic joke about {{Rambunctious Italian}}s.

* Isn't Juno going to come back for the Maitlands when she learns they've accepted the Deetzes in their home?
** ...Why? She wasn't the one who said they had to get the living out of the Maitland household--getting the Deetzes out was Adam and Barbara's main concern, not Juno's. Basically, they came to her and said "Our house has living people in it and they're ruining it, can you help stop them?", and she told them to figure it out themselves. It would be different if she specifically said, "Okay, ghosts can't live with live humans, do something about that", but since they solved their own problem with the Deetzes there is no reason for Juno to be involved in their case anymore.
** At the end of the movie, Charles is shown reading a book by the Handbook for the Recently Deceased press, ''Harmonious Lifestyles and Peaceful Co-existences Between the Living and the Dead.'' [[StrangeMindsThinkAlike It reads like stereo instructions]], but I think it was a sign the Deetzes got Juno's permission to let the Deetzes stay and she gave Charles and Delia a manual for living with the Maitlands.

* Why does Lydia play charades in order to guess Beetlejuice’s name when she clearly could have heard Barbara say it?
** Possibly she heard the ''word'', but didn't realize it was the rude ghost's actual ''name''.
*** Exactly--the only time Lydia would have heard the name would have been when Barbara was banishing Snake!BJ, who only looks marginally like Beetlejuice does normally. Besides, she has no reason to believe that Adam and Barbara have anything to do with a random, tiny ghost who happens to be living in the town model. Finally, as mentioned elsewhere on the page, nobody knows it's a name--for all they know, "Beetlejuice" is just some kind of evil-banishing spell for putting bad ghosts back where they belong.
*** Also, she was extremely upset at the time, since she had just watched the snake thing drop her father (whom she does genuinely love) before coming after her. She may have been too rattled to even hear what Barbara was saying, especially since she seems to think the Maitlands were responsible.
*** Lydia specifically makes the connection that BJ was the snake after learning his name from charades.
* Prior depictions of the desert show it to be a YearOutsideHourInside type of place. How then could Barbara return in time with the sand worm if even seconds there translate to hours in the real world?
** It could be more a case of Saturn being disjoined from corporeal-world time. The fact that their previous visits had all involved time passing slower there than on Earth was just coincidence; it could just as easily have worked the other way around.
** Alternatively, the rate at which time passes between Earth and Saturn is variable. Saturn was the Roman god of time, after all.
* While the Maitlands were still alive, they lived in a large and beautiful house that they clearly loved. But Jane (however she's related to them) kept showing people pictures of the house as though she were authorized to sell it on their behalf. How was that even remotely legal?
** It's not, but in the small town they live in she's treated more as a pest rather than a harasser. Sometimes TruthInTelevision, sadly.
** Also, Adam's clearly on somewhat friendly terms with her, and his first instinct seeing her post mortem is a friendly wave. Since the Maitlands were specifically shown to have no children, it's possible the town simply had Jane resell the house since they had no other next of kin.
*** Someone would have been in charge of the Maitlands' estate, an executor they chose if they had a will, a court-appointed official if not (details depending on local laws) and whoever it was, that person would naturally sell the now-unoccupied house, and would call the local realtor to do it.
** Jane was related to Barbara (sister?) so she was probably the executrix of the estate and sold the house as soon as she was able. She already had an offer from Charles before the movie started.

* If Beetlejuice needs witnesses in order to marry Lydia, it clearly needs to be a legal marriage. But in Connecticut, in order to get married below the age of 18 you need to be at least 16 and have a parent's permission. Charles is kinda tied up and very clearly NOT giving his permission and Lydia is 15. So does it need to be legal or not?
** Maybe it ''was'' legal for a girl Lydia's age to get married when Beetlejuice originally died, and he never bothered to check the statutes for the present day?
*** Well he was apparently alive during the Black Plague so he probably died around the late 1300s, and really young girls were often married off back then. That’s actually hilarious, even if he had successfully married her it might not have even freed him because it wasn’t really legal and he never bothered to check.
** I thought it was more BlueAndOrangeMorality, and he just wanted to torture the Deetzes.
** He could have made an argument that he ''did'' get permission. Right before the whole thing started, he called them "Mom and Dad" and tells them, "I just want you two to know - you're both welcome at our home any time you want to come over." Charles's response is to smile and nod, which Betelgeuse might have been able to claim was tantamount to approval.
** Beetlejuice might not be operating under ''our'' rules of marriage but those of the undead and who knows how those work.

* What exactly was going to happen if Beetlejuice got married? Would he just be able to exist permanently or was he going to return as a living being with all his powers?
** I think the implication was he would be a human, but with his powers intact. It's why it's so bad: not only would Lydia be permanently bound to a perverted RealityWarper, but he could freely hang out in the mortal world, no questions asked. The musical implies Beetlejuice would lose his powers, although he would develop a new sense of empathy and joy, and he can still be killed like any other human, after which his powers would return.

* Here's my question - why on Earth did Delia and Charles marry? They have an antipathy for each other that puts the standard "married couples hate each other" trope to shame; there's no affection between Delia and Lydia, so it's not a case of Delia marrying Charles because she loves his daughter like her own; they seem to share no interests and in fact seen to be openly contemptuous of each other's interests... The closest I can see to a reason for them to have married is status, with Delia as an ''outré'' artist gaining status from being married to a real estate mogul, and Charles gaining a trophy wife with an odd but "acceptable" hobby.
** I thought it was more they just had moving stress, hence why they act so apathetic.
** "Marry in haste, repent in leisure." Also consider the stress involved in the move, Lydia's trouble adjusting, and Charles recovering from a nervous breakdown.

* What I never got was why does ''The Handbook for the Recently Deceased'' have a section on how to perform exorcisms, especially when most ghosts are confined to the areas they died in? And what purpose does it serve since you obviously can't reverse it?
** It's very possible that the bureaucracy needs to remove ghosts from time to time (such as certain wild-haired psychotic perverts named after insects, for example). Or possibly a warning for ghosts if humans perform the exorcism, so they know to disrupt the ritual if they hear that specific incantation.

* What happens if the building a ghost has been assigned to haunt gets destroyed before their case is processed? A lot can happen in 125 years... fires, natural disasters... or something mundane as the new landowner simply wants to tear down the home and build something new.
** Likely they would get stuck in the waiting room or assigned some other bureaucratic job for however long it took either for a new property to be built in that location or their designated haunting time to expire, whichever comes first.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Cartoon]]
* In the Creator/EdgarAllanPoe-themed episode, a lot of thematically terrifying things happen to Our Intrepid Antihero, including getting put in four-point restraints under a descending razor pendulum. Sure, it's a ShoutOut to ''Literature/ThePitAndThePendulum,'' but BJ frequently voluntarily dismembers himself with no lasting harm, and besides which, ''he's already dead''. He dwells in the Neitherworld. Why is he freaking out so hard about getting bisected?
** Maybe it was a knee-jerk reaction.
** It's also eventually revealed that he was having a bad dream. Things don't have to make sense in dreams.
* In the "Hotel Hello" episode the vampire is awake in the daytime, but vampires are supposed to be nocturnal.
** Was never a problem for Dracula.
** Maybe their daytime is different. The "Neitherworld" is established to be where BJ and all the monsters live, after all, so why would its environment operate under our rules?
* Why did Beetlejuice have pink fingertips? They weren't shown in the movie, so they must have some meaning...
** Just makes them look weird and wormy.
** It was a story board joke about Beetlejuice fingering Lydia while she was menstruating. They threw it in as an in-joke.
*** This does not, however, explain why his toes are also pink whenever he takes off his shoes. Could just be for consistency, though, or maybe to hide the origin of the pink fingertips.
* How does the Neitherworld work, exactly? Beetlejuice was presumably alive at some point, since he's a ghost, but several episodes also indicate that he ''grew up'' in the Neitherworld - he has parents and other relatives, there are flashbacks to when he was an infant and a teenager, etc. When you die in the real world, are you born in the Neitherworld? Does it vary from one ghost to the next?
** My theory is that yes, it does vary from one ghost to the next, and that it's somehow related to how the ghost in question died. For the show itself, however, I think they were relying heavily on the MST3KMantra.
** The theory I've always stuck by is that ''born'' monsters have different abilities than ''created'' ones. Think about it: a human turns into a vampire when they are bitten by one, but a baby born to vampire parents is twice as much vampire as a turned human. I always thought BJ's wider range of powers, plus being barred from the land of the living unless summoned, came from being born to two ghost parents--his mom and dad died, got together, and had a baby ghost that was twice the ghost any former human could be.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Musical]]
* The musical seems really confused about exactly what Beetlejuice is. Beetlejuice refers to himself as a demon from hell and everyone else as being either "the living" or "ghosts". BJ acts as if he doesn't know what it feels like to have been alive, but Lydia comments that BJ is "already dead" when she pushes him out of the window, implying him to be a ghost or at least alive at some point. So... is Beetlejuice the ghost of a person who was once alive, or is he a demon who was never alive to begin with?
** If [[spoiler: Juno]] is a demon in this adaptation, maybe BJ was a human with demonic powers who died and became a ghost, or maybe he's a half-demon who hasn't been the world of the living because he lives in the Netherworld/hell, which is still technically "dead" to a mortal?
** I don't think Lydia would know, or at least care about, the distinction between ghost and demon, so he's probably never been alive.
** The whole distinction might be a reference to the cartoon, where a RunningGag was the MultipleChoicePast they gave Beetlejuice's origins. Some episodes treat Beetlejuice as originally being a human, who for some reason or another, died in his mid-to-late 30s and then became a resident of the Neitherworld. Other episodes treat Beetlejuice as always being a ghost who was born in the Neitherworld, including the fact that his neighbors all went to high school with him. Not helping is the fact Beetlejuice isn't the most trustworthy specter and the cartoon has virtually zero continuity between episodes. Since the musical also makes Beetlejuice untrustworthy and delusional, it's probably up to the viewer to decide if he was always a demon in the Netherworld or if he was born human and has been dead for so long, he forgot the experience.
** If it helps, the DC tryout has Beetlejuice tell the audience he was "born dead" and cursed to wander the Earth and cursed to be unable to say his name, invisible to people. The Broadway version omits this, although this could still hold true.
** On a similar note, if Beetlejuice has always been dead and invisible to the living, then why does he say that he "missed that sound" when the Deetzes scream at the sight of him after Lydia summons him? If he was truly "born dead," then how would he be able to miss that sound when no one's ever been able to see him?
*** Maybe his idea to get the local ghosts to scare the humans into saying his name has worked in the past, and then somehow the curse got re-activated again (likely by the humans saying it three times again)? Or perhaps he got the curse placed on him later in life and used to be able to torment the living freely.
* Why does Lydia refer to Charles as "Daddy" throughout the musical? She's a depressed {{Goth}} teenager who holds a lot of resentment for him and she doesn't call her mother (to whom it seems she was much closer) "Mommy". It seems weird she'd use a term associated with a DaddysGirl or someone much younger than her age. Plus she isn't consistent about it, she says "Daddy" in several songs but in some of her spoken dialogue it's "Dad." I guess maybe "Daddy" is easier to fit into song lyrics but it just doesn't jive with her overall gloomy character.
** She's usually talking to her mother (in a sense) when she sings these lines. Since most teenage girls stop calling their parents by these terms long before Lydia's intended age, she might be using the names she'd call them as a child, a time when her mom was still alive and her family felt complete and happy.
** Also, while their relationship is strained at the moment, she does still love her father dearly, goth girl or not. This version of Lydia seems a lot more emotionally open, if anything, and likely doesn’t care if “Daddy” sounds juvenile.
** It could also be a way to remind the audience of Lydia’s age, as her actresses are typically adults (albeit younger adults than the rest of the cast) and her being a child may not be immediately obvious.
* Something that's bugged me is how does life in the Netherworld work in this version? At least the movie implies there's some kind of day-to-day life, whereas the cartoon, it was its own society. Juno says it's an "infinite abyss of nothingness" so how does life work? Or does it suck if you're a ghost and not a demon?
** In the original film, after death a person would have to remain a ghost for a period of time before moving on to the true beyond. In the musical, the Netherworld IS the beyond. There is nothing else. You just wander for eternity in a state of "meh". (this is reference to the cut song about the Netherworld called "Everything Is Meh"). The Netherworld is just a giant place of...nothing. Theres nothing to do. Nowhere to go. You are just there, forever. There is no day-to-day life, because you are dead. It beats burning in Hell for eternity, so there's that.
[[/folder]]