Inglourious Basterds food for thought

There have been topics discussing certain parts of IB before but there are some things that I think should be discussed.



For one, The Basterds and Bridget had no idea about Shoshanna and Marcel’s plan to burn down the theater, right? After seeing it 3 times it got me thinking: there was no reaction shot with Omar and Donowitz when Shoshanna gave her speech on the screen and it erupted in flames. That was not part of their plan. Were the Basterds ever aware of Shoshanna in the original script?





That last one didn’t really bother me that much but is just something to think about. One thing that really bugged me though was that at the beginning of chapter one it says 1941, then at the beginning of chapter 3 it says 1944, then immediately afterward, when we see Shoshanna it says it’s 4 years after the killing of her family, not 3. How could Tarantino miss something so big as that? Was it 4 years later in the script and he just forgot that the dates were changed in the screenplay? Was it a foreshadowing that, like the bride in Kill Bill, she would get her revenge 4 years later?

[quote=“zeppelincheetah”]There have been topics discussing certain parts of IB before but there are some things that I think should be discussed.



For one, The Basterds and Bridget had no idea about Shoshanna and Marcel’s plan to burn down the theater, right? After seeing it 3 times it got me thinking: there was no reaction shot with Omar and Donowitz when Shoshanna gave her speech on the screen and it erupted in flames. That was not part of their plan. Were the Basterds ever aware of Shoshanna in the original script?





That last one didn’t really bother me that much but is just something to think about. One thing that really bugged me though was that at the beginning of chapter one it says 1941, then at the beginning of chapter 3 it says 1944, then immediately afterward, when we see Shoshanna it says it’s 4 years after the killing of her family, not 3. How could Tarantino miss something so big as that? Was it 4 years later in the script and he just forgot that the dates were changed in the screenplay? Was it a foreshadowing that, like the bride in Kill Bill, she would get her revenge 4 years later?[/quote]

I don’t know about the dates but in the script the Basterds and Shosanna never became aware of each others plans, although there’s a cool little bit in the script that’s not in the movie where Shosanna and the Basterds actually meet at the premiere. It’s during that whole exchange between Bridget, Aldo, Donny, and Omar with Landa. They’re actually introduced and Shosanna shows Donny and Omar to their seats. There’s even a funny bit of interior monologue where Shosanna thinks of the fact that she’s going to kill them later and what a shame it is and vice a verse with the Basterds.

[quote=“zeppelincheetah”]That last one didn’t really bother me that much but is just something to think about. One thing that really bugged me though was that at the beginning of chapter one it says 1941, then at the beginning of chapter 3 it says 1944, then immediately afterward, when we see Shoshanna it says it’s 4 years after the killing of her family, not 3. How could Tarantino miss something so big as that? Was it 4 years later in the script and he just forgot that the dates were changed in the screenplay? Was it a foreshadowing that, like the bride in Kill Bill, she would get her revenge 4 years later?[/quote]

I imagine it’s just a mistake…I noticed it as well.



To be more precise about the dates, the German Night in Paris/re-intro of Shoshanna takes place soon before the Nation’s Pride premiere, which is in June of '44, just after the Allied landing at Normandy (June 6). The opening “Once Upon a Time…” sequence is specified as 1941 and appears to be spring or summer from the weather, which also coincides pretty well with Landa saying that Lapadite’s farm had previously been checked 9 months earlier. The German defeat of France was complete by late June of 1940, so if they had first checked Lapadite’s farm in the first 2-3 months of the occupation, it would have been about May/June of 1941 when Landa came to check again. So yeah, it would have been 3 years later, not 4.