History Headscratchers / Salt

* How in the world Evelyn Salt is captured by N. Koreans in the first place? I know she is holding back to the level of average CIA agents but isn't that average should be higher so they wouldn't be sniffed in the first place?

*** The US can, at any time, launch almost 2000 nuclear weapons (possibly more, I'm not sure I'm understanding the strategic stockpile and MIRVs correctly), each with 22 times the kilotonage of the larger bomb dropped in WW2. If our own arsenal were to be turned against us, it wouldn't necessarily kill every last single American, but it would probably render the country as an entity in no shape to be pointing fingers.

** ''North Korea is in no ways communist just evil'' they put on a veneer of communism for propaganda to say to their citizens "we really do have your best interests at heart" while basically using them as surfs I think its entirely justified to show them as bad guys.

* What exactly did exposing Salt do in the first place? It didn't bring the US to Defcon 2 (which was necessary for the "Nuke the Middle East" plot), that was the assassination of the Russian President. Since that was due to the (apparently) unrelated death of the US Vice President, the assassination of the Russian President would have been easier to achieve if Salt hadn't been already under suspicion. Am I forgetting something?

*** NorthKorea as ProperlyParanoid? Uh oh.

What about NATO uniform? What Orlov actually meant when he talked about the other sleeper agent in NATO uniform was "uniform from a NATO member state". He considers Salt to be smart enough to figure out the rest.

* Is anyone else bugged by how ineffectual and impotent this movie makes the American government compared to the unstoppable Russians? The action and acting is all fine, yes, but it just comes off as a propoganda film for a war that ended twenty years ago. This is explained because it wasn't really the Russian government but one ex-government Russian who was still carrying out a plan from the Cold War that everyone else still in Russia had forgotten about.
* Why would the United States and Russia immediately go to war with each other? On the news reports that we see in the movie, Salt is identified as a terrorist, as in not working for the American government. So why would they go after the government? Knowing the world of current international relations, this Troper believes that the more likely solution would be that the two governments work together to hunt down the terrorist organisation responsible for the assassination attempts on the American and Russian presidents.

* Am I the only one who felt pained by the Hollywood Acceptable Targets? They attacked N. Korea, Russia, suggested all Communists are infaltrating American Government to kill the President and took a pot shot at the Middle East and Muslims. The only group they missed out were the Nazis (probally because they are completely incompatible with Communists) but still...

*** NorthKorea as ProperlyParanoid? [[UnfortunateImplications Uh oh]].

*** Um, and it would also make it significantly more believable for the US to blame Russia for this and completely destroy Russia's political and global standing whereas the US trying to blame another country for them attacking the Middle East would be much harder to believe.

** Noyce called the Director's Cut his "own personal take on the material, free from the politics and restrictions of producers, studio or censorship ratings." Thus implying that some or all of those things vetoed the ending that wound up in the Director's Cut in favour of the theatrical one.

* Unless I understood it wrong, the villain's big plan was: A) nuke the Mecca, B) piss off the whole Arab world, and C) they will destroy the US in retaliation.... Sorry, what? How? Shit would obviously hit the fan and it certainly wouldn't be pretty, but the US ceasing to exist?
** The destruction of the US is not necessarily genocide. Best case scenario: the entire UN slaps the US with economic sanctions that cripple the country and knock it out of superpower status. Worst case scenario: NATO looks the other way, or actively participates, as any number of Muslims begin covert and overt warfare against the US. Either way, the American era is done for.

What about NATO uniform?
* NATO Uniform?
** My guess is that what Orlov actually meant when he talked about the other sleeper agent in NATO uniform was "uniform from a NATO member state". He considers Salt to be smart enough to figure out the rest.
* This is probably just my small but alive sense of patriotism/nationalism here, but is anyone else bugged by how utterly ineffectual and impotent this movie makes the american government to be compared to the unstoppable XanatosRoulette master russians? The action and acting is all fine, yes, but it just comes off as a propoganda film for a war that ended twenty years ago.
** To be fair, it wasn't really the Russian government being XanatosRoulette masters, just one ex-government Russian who was still carrying out a plan from the Cold War that everyone else still in Russia had forgotten about.