The_Triple_Lindy

I also questioned the deal made during the races, and I kinda doubt whether winning the race would actually prevent the rape/murder. Especially in the beginning -- they seem to pretty clearly be using the wager as a pretense toward getting what they want. It's all just part of the sick mind-game they play with their victims. Remember that great line in the conversation they have in the beginning: Guy in the car: "What do you want?" Cassavetes: "Well, it's pink" Yeah, there's no way they're not raping that girl ...

I have a theory about the Wraith's armor and why the movie takes such pains to show the armor's hardware disappearing after each crash: A common aspect of the "avenging angel" trope is that the avenger is tormented by the events of the past and must experience them again as they carry out their revenge -- that's certainly the case with The Crow and High Plains Drifter. This is the reason why, in all three movies, the avenging angel has such visceral flashbacks when he encounters people from his past connected to the horrible event. The “avenger” has to suffer as they seek their revenge in order to finally rest in peace in the end – they are motivated to end their existential torture through vengeance. I think those shots of the Wraith’s body armor disappearing after his crash-kills are supposed to show that he is blown up along with his car when its destroyed and then re-manifests afterward to continue his revenge. It’s all part of the avenging angel’s necessary suffering as he enacts his revenge.

As an English professor, your grammatical pedantry brings me great joy, and therefore ... [stands and slow claps]

I was thinking this through the entire movie! There's even a character named Skank who's part of the gang in both movies.

Possible names for this Transformer: Jackhammer Brown Starscream Stimulus Prime And, in honor of the original commenter ... ZaraTHRUSTra

"Small sample size"? We have over a century of movie industry that we can cite as precedent. Fireworks representing sex/orgasm in movies is almost ubiquitous. Especially in comedies. And yeah, the fireworks happen right away, because Dan Ackroyd is bad at sexing -- it's been years since his last relationship, and then he gets back in the saddle with Kim. Effing. Basinger. Gotta cut the guy a little slack for having a hair trigger, but yeah ... there's no way the fireworks are anything else.

She puts jam and syrup on a pop tart and washes it down with a soda! Yeah, and with a stepmom whose idea of food shifts between smorgasbord and batteries, Willow is not at all getting proper nutrition at home. Somebody, make the kid a sandwich!

She'll probably throw down a battery or two now and then. Can't quit batteries cold turkey.

The movie can't make up its mind about the biology of the aliens. Celeste is told that she's been given a human body, which implies that she isn't normally humanoid, as demonstrated by her fondness for battery acid, which doesn't melt her innards on contact, so maybe she still has alien guts? Yet still thinks that Earth food is delicious? And then there's the fact that the aliens on her home world are humanoid, but the worm is not? Maybe the aliens breed through synthesis but mature through metamorphosis ... maybe the worm is the larval stage of their development. Might explain why the worm throws such a tantrum when Celeste opts not to destroy the Earth.

Also, let me just say that I think the whole movie is worth it just to see Jon Lovitz's reaction to the spaceship full of Princess Carolines.

Ahoy-hoy. Long time fan, first time commenter: I know Paul mentioned this, but I am obsessed with Dr. Mills and Celeste’s final off-camera sex scene at the very end of the movie. Just consider all that happens in those last few seconds: Willow wants to play basketball so Mills heads upstairs alone; Celeste and Willow play a little one-on-one and Celeste levitates Willow so that she can dunk; As Willow is landing, Celeste gives a two-fisted “YES!” and starts walking away, presumably to join Mills in bed; Willow has a few seconds of “Wow, I did it! So cool!” and then the very next shot is of Mills and Celeste’s bedroom window with fireworks going off! If we’re to assume, as we do earlier in the movie (and in most movies, I guess), that fireworks in a sexual context represent orgasm, how could Mills have climaxed that fast? He would have had to run upstairs, reach full mast, and be waiting on the bed for her, and then she, after helping Willow dunk, would’ve had to sprint upstairs, disrobe in route, and then leap onto him, upon which time he climaxes immediately (again, as he seems to during the first time they had sex). Considering all this, it seems clear to me that Celeste’s lust for Mills is simply due to the fact that she’s never had sex with anyone else, and that Mills would have to represent the low end of Paul’s “sex scale.”