Headscratchers / Puss in Boots (2011)

Judging the Giant

• Puss says at the beginning that he doesn't steal from churches or orphans. So apparently he only steals from jerks that deserve it. What makes him assume that the giant is a jerk? Maybe the giant needs that golden goose to pay his bills and feed his family, or whatever. (We later find out that the giant's been dead for years, but Puss didn't know that.)
  • Maybe he's just heard nasty things about the giant and assumed they were true.
  • "Churches and orphans" and "jerks that deserve it" are not the only two points on the scale. He only says he doesn't steal from churches and orphans. That doesn't mean he won't steal from someone who's a well off, decent guy who won't miss a couple bags of gold.
  • Not to mention that he only intended to steal a few golden eggs. He didn't actually want to steal the whole goose until after he had found out that the giant was already dead.
  • In the fairytale, the Giant fully intends to kill and eat Jack just for being in his house, before he steals anything. The Giant's Wife lets Jack in and hides him, offering him food and shelter in a time where this was common and expected: hospitality was less frequently an inn or a hotel, but a charitable or enterprising household, so this kind of thing wasn't considered trespassing but an early Air Bn B. Killing your guests makes you somewhat a jerk who deserves it?
  • The guys in that bar are in on Humpty's plot, and they offer the two extremes of jobs knowing that Puss is a hero at heart. Of course he isn't going to steal from an orphanage! But if the only alternative presented is Jack and Jill, and by extension the Giant, he needs to think of his survival.

Who Put Humpty Together Again?

• IIRC, near the beginning Humpty says to Puss "You left my alone by that wall in pieces!". Then we see the flashback, and Humpty remains in a single piece the whole time. So both the song he mentions and his own story are false. What gives?
  • Maybe he meant "pieces" metaphorically, like he was "in pieces" on an emotional level?
  • It was just a reference to the old Humpty Dumpty rhyme, as was "surrounded by soldiers." (All the king's horses and all the king's men.)
  • People might have composed the song without full knowledge of the situation. 'Has a cracked eggshell' could easily turn into 'smashed into pieces' via the rumor mill, not to mention it's more dramatic and thus makes for a better song.
  • Fridge Brilliance. Humpty said that about his MIND! His sanity went into pieces and he thought he couldn't be fixed hence his breakdown at the tower..

Bad Redemption Plan

• Puss was basically framed for the robbery of the San Ricardo bank. His main motivation is to clear his name regarding the robbery. But his method of doing this is...stealing a bunch of gold from a giant and then giving that money to the bank? First off, the robbery was unsuccessful, so the bank reclaimed all of its money and there's no need to pay it back. Secondly, the phrase "clear my name" means you're going to prove your innocence. How does giving money to the bank somehow prove that you never stole it in the first place? It might prove that you've had a change of heart, but it doesn't prove you were always a good guy.
  • Justice in San Ricardo might work a little differently than you'd expect. (Puss's early crimes seem to have been forgiven once he saves the guy's mother from that bull, for instance.) But yeah, that was kind of confusing. And even after he saves the whole town from a giant goose, the authorities still want him in jail.
    • The common people of San Ricardo saw him save the town, and know that he's a hero. The Commandante, however, saw him riding the giant goose, and all Puss offered was a feeble "I can explain". Assuming he wasn't present during the actual day-saving, you can see why the Commandante still thinks Puss is guilty.
  • All the money fell into the river. It's not a big bank with insurance that'll let it recoup its losses, it's just a building to hold the village's cash. Once it fell into the river, it was more or less gone.
    • The river was not exactly wide, deep or fast-flowing. The money could have easily been retrieved.
    • Maybe it was retrieved, but the understandable guilt complex over-rode any logic Puss could have used.
  • Humpty, who also took part in the robbery, was redeemed for bringing back the golden goose. Maybe Puss was aiming for that to redeem himself.

Fish-Eating Surrender Monkey

• Once Puss is back in San Ricardo and surrounded by soldiers, his adoptive mother pleads with him to surrender and face what he has done. This would be a perfect time for Puss to say, "I have done nothing wrong" and then escape from the soldiers. But instead, he just surrenders. Why?
  • I guess his adoptive mother's shame just felt overpowering to him, even though he knew that her shame was unjustified.
    • But if her (unjustified) shame is enough to make him surrender and go to jail, why isn't it enough to keep him in jail? Why does he bother escaping later?
    • Because by that point he knew that Mother Goose was coming to destroy the whole town. Saving the town outweighed the shame thing.

Misjudging Mommy

• Why does everyone assume that the Mother Goose is going to destroy San Ricardo? The Goose isn't a vengeful God that has a history of destroying stuff, nor is it obligated to do so. Even in its most enraged state, the goose isn't really destroying much. At one point it sortof brushes up against the side of a building and causes some damage, and there's the general danger that it'll step on somebody. But this is a far cry from "destroy the town". Even if the baby goose died, it seems like the mother would just sorta shuffle around all depressed and whatnot, cause a fairly mild degree of damage, and then just fly away. It's not Godzilla.
  • Well, if Mother Goose kills even a single person by stepping on them or whatever, that's still a tragedy, even if doesn't "destroy" the whole town.
  • Vengeful god, perhaps not, but it's huge and wrecks a significant portion of the city just by walking around searching for her kid. If it were pissed off, it could've leveled the place.
  • Never underestimate a mother, even if that mother is a seemingly harmless but very large goose. There's a reason the Mama Bear trope exists. Alternatively, it is a Kaiju-sized goose. It's only natural to be scared of something that large, and of its damage potential. I know I wouldn't want to be stepped on by a goose that size, and would move as quickly as I could to get out of its way.
  • One also shouldn't underestimate geese in general. They can get very vicious if provoked. Like stealing their kids.
  • The Mother Goose actually does attack someone, after she sees him in a bathtub with a rubber duck.
    • This was also the guy with all the tattoos. Mother Goose saw the image of the goose on his back, too.

How Did Mrs. Goose Find Them?

• How does the Mother Goose find them in San Ricardo?
  • Maybe the golden goose acts as a sort of magic homing beacon.
  • Humpty laid a bunch of baby goose's eggs in the bell-tower thing that seemed to have been the highest point in San Ricardo. We saw an external shot of the sunlight gleaming off the eggs. So Humpy made sure mama goose would find San Ricardo.

Gosling-napping

• Humpty uses the fake kidnapping of himself and Kitty to lure Puss back to San Ricardo, so Puss will be arrested. Humpty also uses the golden goose to lure the Mother Goose to San Ricardo, so it'll destroy the whole town. Humpty then plans to get away on his own, taking the golden goose along with him. But wait...if Humpty takes the goose with him, won't the Mother Goose just keep following? He's going to spend the rest of his life being chased by a giant goose. How does that make any sense?
  • He probably plans to demonstrate the golden goose's power to some rich guy who doesn't yet know about the Mother Goose. He'll sell the golden goose at a ridiculous price and then skip town. The golden goose's new owner will have to deal with the Mother, and meanwhile Humpty gets away with his money.
  • He could very well be planning on just keeping the gosling and selling the eggs that she lays to whoever's willing to pay for them; he pockets the money and moves on to the next town, while the Mother Goose goes after the one who has the eggs.

Lost Cat

• This is a prequel to the Shrek movies, right? What happens to Kitty Softpaws between this movie and then?
  • Maybe they'll cover that in Puss In Boots 2, or whatever.
  • It's definite sequel bait. Maybe it'll be a full sequel, or perhaps a pack-in short film like they did B.O.B.'s Big Break, The Legend of the Boneknapper Dragon, or The Button of Doom.
  • The sequel provides possible explanation for Kitty's absence - she and Puss were going to be married, but he never showed up as he was afraid for the first time in his life and ran off in a panic. Assuming this happened before Shrek 2 and not after it, could explain why Kitty hadn't appeared in Shrek films.

Cutting the Stalk

• Why do they chop down the beanstalk after they're done using it? (And how did they manage to do it?)
  • While the means they do it is unknown (I think Puss just went buzzsaw on it myself) the reasoning is simple, in the eyes of Puss: The Terror is still in that castle and at the moment, Puss doesn't know that it has wings. Child's play to get him to believe that chopping down the beanstalk would prevent the Terror from being able to come down from Cloudland and cause havoc on the surface.
  • It was a magic beanstalk, perhaps it self destructed?
  • There was an axe in the wagon.

Why Fake Kidnapping?

• After they get the golden goose, Humpty has Jack and Jill knock Puss unconscious. Humpty then makes it look like he and Kitty have have been captured by Jack and Jill and taken to San Ricardo. Puss follows them, thus falling into Humpty's trap. Why did Humpty bother with all this stuff in the middle? Once Puss is knocked out, why doesn't he just have Jack and Jill drag Puss into San Ricardo themselves?
  • I think this is due to it being more of the pleasure of Puss willingly chasing after the kidnappers and thinking he's going to save the day, and then blindside him with the truth about everything that happened. Sorta a power thing.

Is Humpty Dead?

• In the end, is Humpty dead or not? We see him all cracked and with his literal heart of gold exposed, but later we see him whole again and with his golden suit on with the geese. This last sceene happens during the Dance Party Ending so probably is not expected to be taken as canon, but is not made clear.
  • I never thought Humpty wasn't dead until seeing it mentioned here. It seemed clear to me that the dance party was nothing more than a "casting call" of sorts that was also catchy as heck, like the Shrek films. Just a fun little dance number while they rolled credits and showed you who played what role. Evidence for this is primarily the locations used therein, locations associated with the character in question over the others. The "cat-club" for Kitty, Mother Goose and the gosling for Humpty, and so on. Each character is in a setting more appropriate to that character than other locations would be. Combine this with the credits, themselves, appearing in the world and being interacted with, if mildly, by the characters, as well as that it's again something the Shrek films had done. That said, one notable bit of evidence against that stance is the shot of Jack and Jill in the hospital, clearly recuperating from being squished. However, it's most likely simply to show the audience—remember who some of the target audience is—that they didn't die.
  • I throught it was supposed to symbolize that he is now in Heaven or something.

Evil Plan Too Contrived

• Humpty's plot seems a bit over complicated. He had Jack and Jill in on it, he had a gang of minions used to steer Puss, he even had Kitty Soft Paws. At no time at all was Puss needed to steal the Giant's Golden Egg Laying Goose. Why the hell did he (and will the other let him) go through all that trouble when the Goose could just be stolen and to hell with Puss. If Humpty wanted revenge, he could do it on his own time and with his share of the loot.
  • If you're spending all your time on a revenge plot, you're not thinking about what's rational and practical. Revenge on Puss was the main goal for Humpty.
  • He was using the fact that they'd promised to do this together to manipulate Puss. Playing on old memories, old dreams, old feelings. The robbery itself was risky, too: if worse came to worse, Puss could become the 'decoy' and be the one left behind instead. Plus, there was the larger picture of getting vengence on the whole town. If Humpty did that first, and word got to Puss that the entire town had been wiped off the map... well, he'd probably investigate, right? And possibly find something — a stray feather, a half-buried golden egg — or hear something that he might connect to that old childhood dream... Making sure he got rid of him would remove that complication.
  • Having Puss assassinated would have been easier. If the Egg wanted A Fate Worse Than Death, there's always Cold-Blooded Torture.
    • I'm pretty sure Humpty wasn't that needlessly cruel. While Jack and Jill were definitely the types for that, it was Humpty working the strings.

History Mystery

• The movie is completely different from Shrek, of course, so how in the world did Puss wind up going from 1800's style Mexico, to a Medieval time period?? Considering this movie is a prequel, it makes very little sense.
  • Shrek in general uses Schizo Tech and Rule of Funny a lot. The second film on, for example, mostly takes place in Far Far Away, which is basically a parody of modern Hollywood. Since the whole world seems to be a Fantasy Kitchen Sink, it makes sense that there would also be a Fantasy Counterpart Culture for the (already somewhat mythical) Mexico you'd see in a Western or Zorro film.
  • I think this is meant to be an alternate universe; in Shrek the Third Puss (in Donkey's body) says that his boots were tailor made in Spain or something to that effect, which contradicts the whole thing about his foster mother giving them to him. Of course he could've lied OR maybe those are not the same boots he's wearing but overall, I think "Puss in Boots" just ignores the Shrek continuity.
    • Perhaps his adoptive mother outsourced said tailor for the boots. There's no indication in the movie that she made them.

Boots = Honour. But Why?

• Puss says that it's strange for a cat to wear boots, but Imelda gave them to him as a symbol of honor and justice. But why do they symbolize that? For that matter, where did Kitty get her boots, and why does she wear them?
  • They symbolize that because he received them for performing a heroic act.
  • Maybe Kitty also did something honourable, and giving someone boots as a symbol of honour is a "thing" in San Ricardo, but it doesn't usually happen with cats, hence Puss saying it's strange for a cat.

Why a Beanstalk?

• Amy Biancolli, film critic of the Houston Chronicle, posed this question in her review of the film:
  "...I wondered about a handy flying machine that shows up in a late-act Deus ex Machina: If they’ve got that thing, why the heck do they need a beanstalk?"
  • Because it's not a handy flying machine. It's a handy gliding machine. It can't pull the kind of vertical ascent that'd be needed to reach the top of the beanstalk.

Stealing is Bad but Assassination is Fine?!

• This troper couldn't help but notice the display of Negative Continuity in the movie. This movie is a prequel, right? Then why is it about Puss learning that stealing from innocent people is wrong and does a Heel–Face Turn in his actions, and then in Shrek 2, he's working as an assassin paid by the king to kill Shrek off? Also, it is shown in the film that he was an orphan raised by an owner who he calls "mother", but too in Shrek 2 he pleads to Shrek that his attack wasn't personal, and that his "mother is sick and his father is living on garbage", and was why he attacked him. What the hell happened in between this movie and the second if it drove Puss to become an assassin, plus did he find his real parents, or what?
  • The latter part might have just been him lying in an attempt to invoke I Have a Family and save his own skin.
  • For the first part: he doesn't know that Shrek is innocent in this business, does he? He's hired by the king to kill an ogre, who in general are a pretty nasty bunch, at least as portrayed in the first two or three films. He couldn't have known that Shrek was the exception to the rule.
    • But isn't there an exchange in Shrek 2 where Shrek remarks that maybe Fiona would be happier if he were some handsome prince, only for Puss to unhelpfully reply, "Hey, that's what the king said!" Wouldn't that seem to imply that the king told him more of the story than, "I have an ogre that I need killed"?
    • The King would still be trying to frame Shrek as "the bad guy" in this situation - he is pretty angry that Fiona's married to an ogre instead of Prince Charming, after all. It's likely that all he told Puss is that Fiona married the wrong guy and now the ogre needs to be got rid of; he may even have phrased it (or at least implied) as Shrek being a gold-digger of sorts who just wants control of the kingdom. Or, alternatively, Puss simply overheard the King muttering about the situation on the way out. Either way, Puss didn't seem like the type to pry too deeply into the motives of those who hired him = after all, it seems as though the only thing actually necessary to hire him was a large amount of money. As for the point about his family, I think it's fairly safe to say that he was just trying to invoke I Have a Family and lying through his teeth - if he truly had a sick mother, a starving father and a whole litter of brothers whom he cared that deeply for, it seems bizarre that he'd just up and abandon them to join Shrek and Donkey on their adventures and that neither he nor the films would never make any mention of his poor struggling family ever again.

Everyone Hates Puss?

• When Puss returns to San Ricardo, why is he the one who gets thrown in prison while everyone else just glorifies Humpty for bringing back the eggs. I understand part of it was because they think he robbed the bank...but Humpty did that, too. And why does his mother just stand next to Humpty, even taking a golden egg from him, while Puss gets wheeled off to jail?
  • Probably because Humpty's handing everybody watermelon-sized chunks of gold.
  • Also keep in mind that Humpty already served time for the robbery, whereas Puss ran off and built up his reputation as an outlaw.
  • Yes, but...something...really doesn't seem right. Like, the way Humpty just demands the guards come and arrest Puss and then just struts around them as though he's never done anything wrong. It feels like he's too in control for someone who helped to commit the robbery. Plus, Puss helped bring those eggs back, too.

Cow Theft > Bank Robbery?

• Andy Beanstalk says he got 8-10 years in prison for trading another family's cow for magic beans, and that he used to share a cell with Humpty before Humpty got let out. How does it make sense that robbing a bank is given a lesser prison sentence than stealing someone else's cow, especially since a guard earlier had told Puss that he would be stuck in that cell forever?
  • Maybe Humpty was let out early for good behavior? Puss has also been on the run and working as a thief for seven years by the point that he's arrested, and the Comandante has a grudge against him due to the faith he put in Puss as a reformed hero, so it could just be that he's being judged more harshly.
  • To be fair, the sentence difference between Humpty and Puss is likely because of notoriety and evading the law. True, both Humpty and Puss did flee from the guards but Humpty's arrest was pretty quick whereas Puss has been on the run so long that Humpty has already served his sentence by then. He again resists arrest when the guards surround him which doesn't help his sentence much. It could also be that Humpty agreed to capture Puss for the guards in exchange for his release (which if that is the case, raises the question of why Humpty wasn't with someone to ensure he held up his deal... unless Kitty was the one.)

Birdbrained Bandits

• Are Jack and Jill...stupid? During the climax, they ride up beside Humpty and demand at gunpoint that he hand over the Golden Goose, all while the Golden Goose's angry mother is stomping vigorously down the road after them. I know they may not have known the mother was after the goose, but regardless, couldn't they have found a better time to confront him about it? It seemed like an attempt by the movie to make them look like the true villains so Humpty would come out looking better...but it came up on us way too hastily.
  • They spend most of their time bickering with each other about the concept of settling down and having a baby, to the point where they repeatedly miss something happening almost literally right under their noses, and the resolution of said bickering is to treat one of their many pigs as a baby in lieu of a real one. I think it's fairly safe to say that while they're capable of being threatening, they're also not meant to be the brightest bulbs around. And don't forget, for the vast majority of the movie they are the "true villains", at least in terms of audience perception.

Why Not Give the Gosling Back?

• During the climax, why do Humpty and Puss decide on a quite elaborate and complicated plan that involves using the golden goose to lure her mother out of town? Why not just go up to her and hand her over? It seems like she'd just leave, wouldn't she?
  • She could just leave, sure. But that wouldn't guarantee the safety of the town if she decides to step on some houses on her way out. By baiting her along a safe-ish path out of town, it not only fixates the mother's attention on her baby instead of damaging more buildings in her search; it also minimised the chances of the mother doing anymore collateral damage when leaving.

How Do Golden Eggs Work?

• While the reveal of Humpty being a golden egg all along was very well done IMHO and in hindsight they do a good job of foreshadowing this in the movie, one question really stood out to me; if he himself really was a golden egg, how is it that the other eggs are just stagnant gold while he had a shell, a face, the ability to speak and appendages? Are we to assume that all golden eggs have that before they crack? Because there's no indication of that in the movie.
  • He was the special one.

Setting?

• Okay, seriously, does this take place in a hodgepodge of Spain and Mexico? Because visually the towns and landscape look exactly like the southwest United States and yet at least once the characters mention becoming the greatest [something] "in all of Spain."
  • Spain has deserts in real life, and some of them indeed look exactly like those in southwest United States.

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