Question: Is there any reason the humans can't simply use nukes, chemical weapons, fuel-air bombs, or bioweapons,, any kind of especially powerful, destructive bomb, shot from long distance, dropped from a plane, or better still, orbit, to fight the bugs? Yes, of course there are big downsides to any such action, but this does not strike me as a society restrained, patient, enlightened or with sufficient foresight to care about those.
Answer: Nukes, chemical, and bio weapons would render the planets uninhabitable. Not a goal when they want to colonize.
I have already stated these people are not that far-thinking.
Question: What's going on with Rico and Carl in the card guessing scene? I originally thought Rico was trying to guess the value of the unturned card was but then he says it's the ace of spades and it turns out to be exactly that yet he still gets it wrong. Could someone please explain what's happening there?
Answer: The card face up is the one he's trying to guess. The card that flips over is his guess (you can see him hit a pad when he says "ace of spades".) So he is trying to use mental powers to guess the card that is face up (which he can't see as he has his back to it), and (presumably so the computer can track his results better) he makes his choice on a keypad, which then turns over the card on the screen (which is why the card is what he said, yet still wrong).
Question: In the scene where the infantry is retreating from the first attack on the arachnid planet (the night attack) we see that Rico has been seriously wounded to his leg and cannot even stand up. He was all alone and then we see him kill the first attacking bug with a shotgun mode of the rifle, but when the second bug attacks it seems that he didn't kill the bug and it killed Rico (he screams a lot). Later on, he is in a liquid tank, and his leg is being healed. My questions are these: Who saved him ? How did someone saved him when he died, or even if he didn't die who bothered returning for him when no one was sure if he's dead or just missing in the squad being somewhere else? How come he was in a healing tank while the military filed him as "DEAD" ?
Answer: When Rico, Diz and Ace report to the Roughnecks, they find out that Lt. Rasczak saved him. He was listed as dead, because Carmen checked just hours after the battle. With the MI's huge personnel losses, all the dead and wounded hadn't been confirmed yet. He was listed as dead because he didn't return with his unit.
Question: At the end of the movie, Johnny Rico praises Zim who caught Brain Bug by saying "Good job, Sergeant." Then Zim answers "Thank you, sir. That would be private, sir." What does he mean? Sergeant is a higher rank than private, right?
Answer: While Zim was a sergeant, he had to be demoted to private in order to fight on the front line.
Question: Am I the only one who thinks the Federation uniforms look like Nazi uniforms, especially Carl's Leather Jacket? They also have insignia on the collar, as the Waffen SS did.
Answer: This is intentional, since the government in the movie is a fascist, totalitarian one, not unlike the Nazis (this fact is played up more in the book).
Question: During the attack on Klendathu when the fleet is bombarded by the plasma bugs, you can see a plasma burst impact the bridge of the Roger Young and kill everyone in it, Carmen included. But later the fleet regroups to repair and the ship arrives with everyone safe and alive. What's with that?
Chosen answer: It doesn't kill everyone on the bridge, it just destroys a lot of it, and presumably the ship has the ability to seal hull breaches so everyone doesn't get sucked out.
Question: When the two troopers are showing their rifle to the kids does one of them say it's made by Beretta (makers of the M92F and the M93R pistols)?
Answer: No, the subtitles show the soldier saying "It's a fully automatic Morita."
Question: What are the themes of the film and the novel it was based on?
Chosen answer: Mainly the book is about the war against an alien enemy in a facist society. It goes into considerable detail about the facist society being fully functional, unlike those in the past.
Chosen answer: They do use nukes (to clear out bug caves) and fuel-air bombs (like they do before landing troops). It's possible biological and chemical weapons don't work on the bugs because of their physiology. Only nukes and Thermobaric weapons work.
lionhead