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Headscratchers / Richie Rich

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1994 Film

    Garbage suddenly appearing 
  • After the Conveyor Belt o' Doom scene in the movie, a bedpan comes out of the molecular reorganizer even though Richie and his friends are all safe and unharmed. Where did the bedpan come from if the machine had nothing to use to make it?
    • You can see a cage full of garbage in front of the kids as they go through the machine.

    Is Van Dough stupid evil? 
  • For a guy who's supposed to be a sharp businessman, ruthless conniver and access to the Rich business, it seems off that Van Dough labors under the belief that the family keep their wealth hoarded away in a vault rather than, say, invested in banks, stocks and real estate to build their fortune up.
    • It does seem to point out how Van Dough is so obsessed by greed that he can't understand other people not wanting to keep money close as he would.
    • The three things he mentions (emerald, gold bars, and thousand dollar bills) would be forms of wealth that would not be effectively used in the real world because they would be strictly investment tools (gold speculation, objet d'art, and antiques).
    • I think the absurd gratuitousness of the Rich's lifestyle lead Van Dough to believe they'd do something as absurd as keep all their money in their own personal Mount Rushmore. That the Riches are actually much more orthodox with their investments probably caught him off guard.
    • He was so greedy he wasn't thinking straight. He wanted more when he'd already had it better than anyone else, and when he realized the Riches didn't care for money so much it frustrated him, both because he'd worked for nothing and because their values were too different for him.

    How would Van Dough get away with his actions? 
  • So what exactly was Van Dough hoping for? He would be rich overnight while Cadbury rots in prison, he apparently thought he would somehow gain control over the company despite that not being how companies handle the death of the CEO, basically him suddenly becoming the richest man in the world after the death of his employer and the apparent culprit in prison, would cause some very suspicious noses to point in his direction.
    • It seems he was in the "Jordan Belfort" mindset of the 90s, that if you get enough money it'd keep you out of prison.
    • He probably hoped he could be acting CEO and keep the Riches from being declared dead until he found and laundered the money he expected to find inside the family vault.
    • While it's stated Richie's parents own 51% of their company, it's never stated who owns the remaining 49%.
    • And if money doesn't stall or redirect those suspicious noses, he's more than willing to use murder and blackmail to get what he wants.

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