MovieChat Forums > Phantoms (1998) Discussion > Things that bother me (like questions on...

Things that bother me (like questions on my mind, not actual 'things')

posted 14 years ago by nasha00
6 replies | jump to latest

Beware of spoilers!

Sometimes late at night when I lie awake in my bed and the shadows in my room turn into horrible monsters....I start thinking about this movie.
There are questions that I cannot find answers to.

1. Why did the older sister take the gun when it was quite obvious that the younger one knows much better how to use it? And why didn't the younger one take a second gun (and a third and fourth, just in case)? And why did they load it with only 3 slugs?

2. Why were top actors Liev Schreiber and Peter O'Toole in this movie? Was it only money? Didn't (then) seven times Oscar nominated Peter O'Toole make enough in his career to avoid such trash? Or did they think it would turn out to be different?

3. Why would the petroleum monster kill some people but others not? It could have killed one or both of the sisters easily without any effect on its crazy plan.

4. What was the plan anyway? Why look for someone to write a book about you if your plan is anyway to eat all life on the planet? Who would be able to read it?

5. Is it the same petroleum monster that killed Tasha Yar on Viagra II? If so how did it get there? If not, are they in any way related? Do they communicate? Does Earth's petroleum monster wanted its "gospel" to be written to impress Viagra's petroleum monster? Is it maybe a strange alien mating ritual culminating in the exchange of naphthenes....

That's usually where I finally fall asleep, exhausted.

[–] NxNWRocks 14 years ago

You can tell O'Toole is phoning it in. Some of his lines are atrocious.

Then there is Rose McGowan forced to say: "It's the devil, don't you think? Come up from Hell." I would have refused to say those lines if I were her. Add to the fact she is pretty lousy in this anyway, but there's no good way to deliver bad dialogue.

Other questions:

What kind of a stupid name is Flyte?

How come the army lab truck is supposed to be a tank, but the interior malfunctions and falls apart, almost releasing dangerous toxins, from just a bit of shaking?

The army guys gave O'Toole "a tour" of the lab on his way there, did they? What, from the back of the sedan he was riding in with Copperfield?

btw - this tour must have been a crash course because suddenly this professor is a master chemist.

O'Toole turns off the electronics because the monster can only hear them through them. So why does he stand outside, talking in a loud voice to the monster?

Within the space of a four block walk at the start, the town goes from late afternoon (at best) to pitch darkness. Were these blocks a mile a piece?

What was the shadow creeping across the town? That's not how the monster operates, and the two women would have noticed if it had. If they are clouds, then it is just plain bad film making 101.

Why didn't anyone seem to question that they had just seen a moth that had a three foot wingspan?

I am sure there are other questions, but I too am tired of thinking of them.

"Worthington, we're being attacked by giant bats!"

[–] Koosh_King01 14 years ago

"What kind of a stupid name is Flyte?"

An English surname, apparently. A derivative of 'Flight.'

"The army guys gave O'Toole "a tour" of the lab on his way there, did they? What, from the back of the sedan he was riding in with Copperfield?"

Probably during the five or so minutes it took Flyte et al to get suited up while driving into town from the roadblock. A bit of a stretch, but they had to talk about something while putting those hazmat suits.

"btw - this tour must have been a crash course because suddenly this professor is a master chemist."

This is a product of trimming the plot down for the movie. In the book, a female scientist named Yamaguchi did most of the theorizing and planning for the scheme to kill the Ancient Enemy. In the movie, Dr. Yamaguchi is relegated to being a victim with only about one line and Flyte does most of the legwork. But this isn't entirely unbelievable, as the FBI agents say he is a "paleobiologist." The plan to destroy the Ancient Enemy involves biochemistry. One assumes that as a biologist, Flyte knows some basic biology.

"O'Toole turns off the electronics because the monster can only hear them through them. So why does he stand outside, talking in a loud voice to the monster?"

It could only hear them *in the lab* through the electronics, due to its influence over electricity. The heavily armored lab is soundproofed, so the Ancient Enemy, outside, needed the mechanical devices (hooked up to Snowfield's power grid which is how it accessed them) to overhear them. Outside the confines of the lab, however, like any of the humans, it can hear whatever is within earshot (so to speak) of its location or the location of one of its phantoms. So Flyte needed only to raise his voice to gets its/their attention.

"What was the shadow creeping across the town? That's not how the monster operates, and the two women would have noticed if it had. If they are clouds, then it is just plain bad film making 101."

Clouds, and it was done on purpose to give the shot an ominous look. This is pretty obvious.

"Within the space of a four block walk at the start, the town goes from late afternoon (at best) to pitch darkness. Were these blocks a mile a piece?"

It was already early evening by the time Jenny and Lisa went into the Liebermans' bakery. It is still light outside when they encounter Bryce and the deputies, it's just difficult to tell because the bakery interior beyond the kitchen is closed up and dark. Night hasn't really fallen until the following scene when they're talking. Still a stretch, but we don't know precisely how much time passed between the two scenes. Also keep in mind it's wintertime where night falls quick.

[–] Koosh_King01 14 years ago

'4. What was the plan anyway? Why look for someone to write a book about you if your plan is anyway to eat all life on the planet? Who would be able to read it?'

That last bit is only in the movie, introduced with the line, "The end begins here." In the novel the Ancient Enemy is uninterested in killing the entire planet. If it did that, it would have nothing left to eat and would die. In the book it just wants Flyte to write about it and this is essentially it. It apparently would then have returned to its routine of sleeping for centuries and occasionally waking to eat. The crap about it suddenly deciding to destroy the world was added for the movie.

[–] MuggySphere 13 years ago

But why did it want Flyte to write about it?

What benefit is there in that? And no one would have believed it anyway.

[–] Koosh_King01 13 years ago

The Ancient Enemy didn't care whether anyone believed. If it did, it probably would've just left it up to Flyte to handle the part of convincing people, or possibly even shown itself to humanity at a later, unspecified date, but this is pure conjecture.

All that mattered was the Ancient Enemy knew that a human had figured out its existence, and this amused it. It wanted to meet the guy, and so left the message on the mirror hoping someone would bring Flyte there, and they did, and, having a massive ego, it wanted Flyte to write more about it.

Every action the Ancient Enemy takes besides eating is to stroke its own inflated ego, whether logical or not.

"I mean, really, how many times will you look under Jabba's manboobs?"

[–] Neverstrayed 13 years ago

Because through absorbing it's victims intelligence/traits etc (flatworm theory) it absorbed humans capacity to be an egotistical sadist, humans were only it's staple diet for short amount of time compared to how long the Ancient Enemy has existed (explained in the movie).
....go get the butter...