Was the flag that funny?


Did I miss something. Did the flag tell a joke. He laughed pretty hard. A very creepy laugh.

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He laughed because it was 2,000 years later and the U.S. was unlikely to still exist, so what was the point of planting a flag.

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Guess you had to be there.

"Sailors fighting in the dance hall."

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And that they were seemingly on a planet 300 light years away from home.

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I think he laughed because of the futility of it all.


That’s a very interesting mixture of poetry and meanness.

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haha I thought the same thing. After that scene I thought he was insane for most of the movie. Ironically that scene turned out to be hilarious to me simply because of how overdone it was. A simple chuckle would have made that infinitesimally better.

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The laugh was perfect. Lets you know what kind of guy Taylor is.

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The laugh was probably overdone, but it sticks in your mind. Back in 1968, the thought that the United States could ever be irrelevant or not exist at all was positively inconceivable and...Un-American.

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Considering how ridiculous Taylor thought the whole experience was I think the loud, sarcastic laugh was perfect.

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Oddly, I saw this same discussion, about a loud, inappropriate laugh from Steve McQueen in "The Thomas Crown Affair". Same discussion.

I admit that I wondered if a subtle laugh or smirk would have been more effective. But we wouldn't be talking about it now if it had been subtle. It was jarring and obnoxious. Perfect.

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The thought is still inconceivable and un-american, even with president *beep* temporarily in office. (The U.S. is far more globally dominant today than it was in 1968.)

The joke was more the fact that even if the U.S. still existed, no one else was ever likely to know the flag has been planted there. They were knocked off course, many light years from earth and their charted destination.

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Actually, Heston does this laugh in almost every film he does. Omega Man, this one, etc.

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Actually, Heston does this laugh in almost every film he does. Omega Man, this one, etc.


That's quite an impressive exaggeration.

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^^^^ that

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I like how his laugh echo's across the mountains, bet thats the only reason they got him to do it.

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echoes? I hope in the intervening 6 years you've either learned to spell or died. ;-)

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Truly the greatest old white guy laugh in the history of cinema.

Limit of the Willing Suspension of Disbelief: directly proportional to it's awesomeness.

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I'd say that greatest old white guy laugh in the history of cinema was Walter Huston's in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

And no, the irony of posting on a thread about the futility of planting an idea on something long-dead and forgotten is not lost on me.

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it was so annoying that he had to mock landon..anyway, for me the flag was funny because it was so small and cute :D haha that's the reason I laughed.. the other two were talking about something important while he was planting that flag in a very careful way..it was touching and funny at the same time.. ^_^

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I always thought Taylor was thinking "Here we are on an unknown planet some 2000 years from home with no chance of getting back and this fvcking idiot is planting a flag"!!!!

You are entitled to my opinion, whether you want it or not!!

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Very true Alan. I would add that since it was 2000 years later, he was planting a flag of a country the no longer existed.

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True James. This adds to the ridiculousness in Taylor's eyes!

You are entitled to my opinion, whether you want it or not!!

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Yes, quite a maniacal laugh that felt totally overdone and out of place. I was sorry that they hadn't the forethought to give Heston a Professor Hinkle-esque mustache so he could twirl it.

Lie still. I've never done this before; and there will
be blood.

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To be fair, I would have laughed like Heston. On top of that I would have added 'You fv<ing Numpty Landon. Here we are stuck in the a55 end of nowhere, everybody we ever knew is dead, and you're planting flags'!!!!

You are entitled to my opinion, whether you want it or not!!

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Taylor was probably just letting off steam. He did find the flag-planting humorous, and was just letting it all out. It was one of the few comic-relief scenes in the movie.

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