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The Basterds aren't just commandos...
They're Bionic Commandos. This is how Brad Pitt was apparently able to survive his hanging/slashed throat/all-purpose neck injury: he's Rad Spencer, just given an Adaptation Dye Job and an awesome accent (and 'stache). One of the other dudes is probably Super Joe, too.
The whole film is a dream Lt Aldo Raine has as he dies due to his throat being cut
Seriously, did you notice that scar? Nasty. It's all something he dreams up to comfort himself as he bleeds out. A world where he not only lives, but also wins the war almost without the assistance of anyone not answering to him. Thus, the film isn't an Alternate History at all.
Lt. Aldo Raine was hanged for trying to save or defend the victim of a racially motivated lynching that took place in Tennessee before the War.
The script makes reference to the rope burn across Raine's neck as possibly being the result of a lynching. If this is the case, then the exact nature of the lynching, as was common in the Deep South of that era, was likely race-related. The victims of lynchings included whites as well as blacks, oftentimes Jewish businessmen from northern states and immigrants — notably Italian-Americans. Further speculating, given Raine's apparent sense of racial justice (to the extent of airdropping into France for the purpose of "one thang and one thang only: killing Nazis" in return for their being "Jew-hatin, mass-murdering maniacs"), he may have tried to intervene in the lynching of a Jew or Italian-American and was consequently hanged. But because Raine is not Jewish or Italian himself, they cut him down and let him go.
It's all real, but not Alternate History
The various Nazi High Command in the cinema were all body doubles. Everything happened, but it had no impact on the war's ending.
It's all real, and Hitler DID die in the cinema
But the remaining Nazi command lied and said that they were doubles to keep morale up. The one that committed suicide in the bunker was the real body double.
Landa is gay
He seemed close to tears when Raine shot the operator — and why would he negotiate for the life of a radio operator along with his own?
In-Universe, inglourious is the correct spelling of the word.
Notice the use of "gloury" in the trailer for Nation's Pride.
It all happened, but Nazi Germany is still intact afterward
Hitler is replaced by the Red Skull.
In the power vacuum formed by the destruction of the Nazi High Command, Erwin Rommel forms a military dictatorship and takes over Nazi Germany .
That Magnificent Bastard.
Lt. Aldo Raine, after the war, becomes a mercenary for a demolition company.
His hatred of Nazis was so great that he didn't care if the war was over. Specifically, he didn't stop the killing until four years after the war. He shaved his head and mustache, and pulled out the rocket launcher and shovel.
Kill Bill takes place in the same alternate universe as Inglourious Basterds.
In both films, there are events and concepts that have no place in the real world, such as airplanes having special holders for Katanas (you can't even bring fingernail clippers aboard an airplane) or Hitler dying in an Allied plot.
Lt. Aldo Raine can read subtitles.
In the theater scene where the Basterds pose as von Hammersmark's Italian posse, it's obvious that Raine doesn't know a lick of Italian except for a few key phrases. But he seems to understand when Aldo keeps asking him in Italian to pronounce his name. Now, it's possible that he DOES know Italian like he said. But the more likely solution? He glanced at the subtitles on the screen.
Lt. Aldo Raine does speak Italian, but he's still a beginner.
He knows enough Italian to follow the thread of a conversation, but not enough to converse fluently. He learned Italian "organically" by hanging around Italians; he usually understands what they say just fine, but his speech is still broken because he doesn't know the grammar yet.
Bridget von Hammersmark is Anti-Nazi, but she's still a Far-Right German Nationalist.
We never learn why she is so anti-Nazi. Her motives could be quite different from the Allies' — "the enemy of my enemy" could be in play here.
She has an aristocratic 'von,' which suggests that she belongs to the nobility like many other right-wing German Resistance members. She has an aristocratic arrogance. She also has an extremely contemptuous attitude towards the Basterds bordering on racist. Granted, her first meeting with Raine isn't exactly great; but she harps on about America a lot.
She might be a monarchist, like many of the real life July 20 Plotters.
Due to Hitler dying early...
The Soviet Union and American forces join up in Berlin, and so the the US can devote more forces to the Pacific theater. The Yalta Conference happens earlier, but the US doesn't make as many concessions to the Soviet Union concerning Japan, and so the balance of the Cold War is tilted in the US's favor.
Landa did not recognize Shoshanna in the coffee shop
Some time had passed since her family had been killed. She probably looked older and made changes in her appearance, like dyeing her hair blonde.
Also, when Shoshanna was fleeing, Landa would not have gotten a good look at her; he only saw her back. She was running, and so it would have been hard to see her clearly.
The title is this way because Quentin Tarantino can't spell.
No offense to Quentin Tarantino, but spelling clearly wasn't his strong suit at school. Read the scripts of some of his movies on IMSDb. He may honestly have believed that it's spelled "Inglourious Basterds". Somebody would have noticed early in the production, but they probably found it amusing enough to keep it that way as an In Joke.
Hans Landa was acting on Himmler's orders.
While we are shown Goebbels, Bormann, Goering and Hitler at the cinema no mention is made of another vastly powerful lieutenant of the Third Reich, Heinrich Himmler. This is especially unusual as he was the leader most clearly implicated in the Holocaust and so would have been a major target for the revenge plots of both the 'Basterds' and Shoshanna. It is also implied that the killing of the Nazi leaders in the cinema will lead to the end of the war when it seems likely that Himmler would have had the power to take over Nazi Germany in the power vacuum left by their deaths and so could have continued the war had he so desired.
The answer? SS commander Hans Landa told Himmler to stay away from the premiere due to his suspicions about what would occur there. Himmler had been kept informed as to what was happening and saw the opportunity to make a deal with the Allies through Landa. This fits well with his real historical behaviour. Himmler became increasingly anxious to reach an accomodation with the Allies towards the end of the war, initiating communications with the Swiss Count Bernadotte and arranging the infamous Jews for trucks deal that some historians have seen as an attempt to start negotiations.
The assassination was a success because a shinigami wrote Hitler's name in his/her Death Note.
Well, more specifically, Adolf Hitler, assassinated. Other names could possibly have been written in there as well, and everyone else? Well, their lifespans had run out anyway, the shinigami just picked off the names of the ones who should have escaped.
Lt. Aldo Raine is actually Tristan Ludlow.
He's a former bootlegger that scalps Germans and would be about the right age. With his kids old enough to start their lives on their own, he hears the voice of the bear in him again and gets his desire to kill in his Native manner that he was raised with. He faked his name and origin to keep cover on his identity as the culprit of the sheriff's murder in Montana, after a close call while hiding out there had him hanged and nearly killed, leaving a permanent scar on his neck.
Landa is a necrophile
Von Hammersmark mentions "conquests", Zoller says Landa has a "reputation". So he's a "lady killer" or is he actually a lady killer. He likes to throttle women then have sex with them.
After strangling Von Hammersmark how much time passes before Landa picks up the phone? If he isn't a sexually motivated murderer why does he kill Von Hammersmark the way he does? Why not stab her? Or shoot her? The cinema audience wouldn't hear the shot and his Mooks would not question his actions if they heard the report.
Landa already knows, after looking at the aftermath of the basement shootout, something is afoot and with Hitler due to arrive, Landa (the wily fox he is) deduces that the Basterds are on an assassination mission. So taking Von Hammersmark and Aldo to "negotiate his terms of surrender" would better his standing with the Allies. Wouldn't it?
Not if you're Landa, being a sexual deviant, who decides that this is his opportunity to murder and have sex with a famous actress. SS Col. Hans Landa the Jew Hunter; Hans Landa the Salzburg Strangler more like.
Watch the film now with this theory in mind. It makes sense.
Landa is dead
I find it hard to believe that just Raine and Utivitch were able to hold down Landa to carve in the swastika. Considering how stable the angle is when we see him cutting it, and see how he's pretty much the most evil basterd they met in the film, it makes sense to believe they killed him then carved in the swastika out of principle.
The film takes place in the same universe as Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
With the Nazi High Command destroyed the Western Allies make it to Berlin before the Russians. Germany is not split in two, however the American influence causes the adoption of the dollar and Germany becoming completely bilingual.
"Lt. Archie Hicox" was actually a Jew who managed to escape before the Nazi takeover.
Aldo Raine and Beatrix Kiddo are somehow related.
Both of the opponents they were seen sparing in their respective massacres were young, inexperienced boys who only wanted to go home to their mothers.
The scar Raine gave Landa is somehow "worse" than the one he gave the private.
Raine declares the scar his "masterpiece", indicating it's different somehow from the other on-screen one. Also, Raine isn't a ''total'' extremist psychopath; given his actions regarding Wilhelm, it's likely he went a little easier on the terrified private who only wanted to live than on the Complete Monster Jew Hunter.
In Tarantino's alternate universe, Erwin Rommel is not German, he is British instead.
Rommel's nickname is "Desert Fox", or "Wüstenfuchs" in German, which is also a German term for the fennec fox. Thus, General Ed Fenech is Erwin Rommel!
Two of the Basterds had different nicknames before the time of the movie's main plot in 1944.
The scene in the tavern proves the existence of German author Karl May and his works in the Tarantino-verse, as well as their popularity among the Germans, just as it is the case in Real Life. Thus, after word of his Apache heritage has spread among the Wehrmacht soldiers, the original nickname of Aldo Raine was of course Winnetou, after the Apache protagonist in May's novels. In order to keep up the theme, Donny Donowitz was named after Winnetou's best friend Old Shatterhand, this way also alluding to what he uses his baseball bat for. The bat itself got the nickname Bärentöter ("bear killer") after one of Old Shatterhand's two trademark guns. (The bigger one.)
However, because these names carry very positive connotations for most Germans, the Nazi high command disapproved of them of course, and forbade their usage. The result: Aldo Winnetou Raine was renamed to The Apache, and Donny Old Shatterhand Donowitz, deriving from his weapon's nickname, to The Bear Jew.
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