Inglourious Basterds
| State of Body | Slightly scalped. Nothing serious, really. Oh, and there’s a bit of a cut on the forehead; hopefully won’t scar too much. |
|---|---|
| Detail of Inspection | Inspected once. |
| Forensic Investigator | Shellshear |
| Comments | Brilliant, except very slightly implausible towards the end bit of the film. |
I usually try to suggest changes to films that are in the spirit of the original. Even if I don’t like what a film is doing, if its doing it deliberately I’d rather not rip on it. That way lies politics.
And with Inglourious Basterds, I’m not sure whether the final scenes with the movie theatre are deliberately ridiculous or not. I think it’s hilarious that the movie kills off the entire nazi high command, but how implausible did Tarantino intend this to be? The movie theatre is really very poorly protected, even taking into consideration that the Col. Landa (who was in charge of the protection for the venue) was playing it both ways. We could see approximately two guards in the whole theatre, and a few outside. Even if this was Landa’s plan, I can’t see why any of the nazis would have gone along with it. It weakens the wish fulfillment ending for me. I’ll pretend that Tarantino would have preferred the ending to be semi-plausible (though I don’t really think this is the case) and will therefore try to work towards making this the case.
Firstly, the change of venue seems to have been widely known. The allies could (and perhaps should) have sent a fleet of bombers as a backup plan.
Let’s change this. The venue change is instead an effectively kept secret, designed to allow the film showing, while keeping the high command safe. Col. Landa suggests this plan and Zoller (the sniper/film star) suggests Dreyfus’ movie theatre.
Publically, the film showing is at the Ritz. All the guards are there. Parisians are kept at a distance. There are barrage balloons and fighter planes circling above. Right until the last minute, that’s where the Basterds and Von Hammersmark (the spy) think the film is showing. In fact, everyone shows up there, and are led through a secret tunnel out the back of the theatre, and then driven to the real venue (perhaps necessitating a resetting of the timers on the basterds’ bombs). Meanwhile, British bombers and French resistance fighters show up at the Ritz, and there’s a big, pointless battle. Perhaps Landa has sadistically put a bunch of French prisoners in the theatre so they can get killed when the bombers break through.
Dreyfus’ plan can remain intact. The reduced number of guards at her theatre is explicable, as the nazis don’t want to draw attention to the new venue (though really, there still ought to be more guards, and I think there could have been without affecting the end result). Landa’s plan is also pretty much intact, and of course the Basterds’ plan didn’t rely on knowing the layout of the theatre anyway.
And, for me, the end result is just a little bit more… well, not plausible, but at least I can suspend my disbelief.
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