The Big Lebowski

Question: What did Walter mean by, "You're killing your father, Larry!"?

Answer: Generally, he means that the boy, Larry Sellers, is disgracing his family (Walter has huge respect for the boy's dad, but considers the kid a dunce). Specifically, Walter is blaming Larry for his father struggling to breathe; that's Larry's dad in an iron lung in the background. Walter and The Dude become louder, more insistent and more vulgar, but the kid still blankly refuses to answer, and all you can hear is the iron lung pumping in the background. Frustrated because the kid isn't intimidated, Walter lashes out: "You're killing your father, Larry!"

Charles Austin Miller

Question: What exactly was Maude's doctor checking for? That he was fertile? That he didn't have an STD?

Answer: As it's not specified, any answer would be speculation. An STD check would be fairly straightforward, and definitely something Maude would want to know about, so we can assume that was part of it. And even though the only way to check if he was fertile would be to take a sperm sample, which might arouse suspicion in anyone else, he asks Maude about the doctor immediately after she reveals that she slept with him with the intention of conceiving, so it's implied that this was performed as well.

Answer: Maude wanted a strong, healthy man to conceive a child, so she sent the Dude to her doctor to be sure.

Question: Why is the dude lying and telling Jackie Treehorn that the amount of the ransom is only half a million dollars? Thus, he also cuts in half his own commission.

Goekhan

Answer: He's not talking about the ransom, he's talking about Bunny's debt to Treehorn, which is half a million dollars. His commission is 10%, which gives him $50,000, far more than the $20,000 he'd been promised by The Big Lebowski.

Question: Why is Maude dressed like a viking maiden in the Dude's dream sequence?

Rob245

Answer: She looks like one of the Valkyries, a Nordic female spirit that guided brave warrior souls to Vallhalla. This may foreshadow Donny's death.

raywest

Question: Did the nihilists force that one's girlfriend to get her toe cut off?

Rob245

Answer: They don't appear to have; she's a nihilist too, and seems to have been in on it. The way they put it in their confrontation with the Dude and Walter suggests this: "His girlfriend cut off her toe", "She thought we would get a million dollars." Both expressions imply that she did it herself in the hopes of getting the ransom.

Question: Someone suggested that Donny sitting down after missing the strike was due to it having been the last of three throws. Wouldn't that mean that he missed a perfect game by just one pin?

Answer: Not necessarily; even if one doesn't have a perfect game going, one could still bowl two strikes in the tenth frame and thus get a third throw. Given his reaction, we could assume he came within one pin of a perfect game, his final score now being 299, but we can only speculate.

Not necessarily; even a player that doesn't have a 300 game going could bowl three in the final frame.

Continuity mistake: When the Dude is in Jackie Treehorn's estate, he pencils over a pad of paper to see what Jackie wrote down while he was on the phone. He then hurriedly crumples up the piece of paper and shoves it in his wallet. Then, when we see the Chief of Police of Malibu looking through the contents of The Dude's wallet, the paper is there, neatly folded in fourths.

More mistakes in The Big Lebowski

Walter Sobchak: Nihilists! Fuck me. I mean, say what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos.

More quotes from The Big Lebowski

Trivia: At the beginning of the movie, when The Dude is writing a check for the cream at the grocery, look at the date on the check. Sept 11, 1991. A few seconds later we see George Bush Sr. talking about Iraq. So here we have a scene containing Sept. 11th, George Bush and references to the Middle East in a movie that takes place in 1991. (00:03:00)

esiegel76

More trivia for The Big Lebowski

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