Question: What does Jenny die of? And is it mentioned anywhere in the film at all?
Answer: It's not specified in the film, but in the sequel book "Gump & Co" the author mentions that Jenny dies from Hepatitis C as a former drug addict in the early 70s. Hepatitis C was an unknown disease until 1989.
Answer: In 1981, when Forrest meets Jenny again, she says she has a virus that doctors don't know. This virus was the HIV virus, as 1981 marks the AIDS outbreak in the World.
Answer: It could have been HIV or Hepatitis C or something else. Maybe someone related to the story or even Winston Groom himself told this at some other place. Nonetheless, it's false that it appears in that book.
It absolutely appears in the second book, 'Gump and Company'.
Question: Why does Forrest's mother say "This is not for children's eyes" when they were watching Elvis perform 'Hound Dog'?
Answer: Many adults in the 50's, like Forrest's mom, found Elvis' gyrations and hip movements to be too sexual and inappropriate for children (especially teens) to watch. In fact, when Elvis appeared on the Ed Sullivan show for the third time, they only filmed him from the waist up to prevent an outcry from these types of parents. Many also found Rock 'N' Roll music in general to be inappropriate for children to listen to.
Question: By the buses, when Jenny's boyfriend apologizes for hitting her and mentions "that lying S.O.B. Johnson", who is the Johnson he is referring to?
Answer: Johnson refers to Lyndon Johnson, the US President.
Answer: He's referring to president Lyndon Johnson AKA the guy Forrest shows his gunshot wound to.
Question: What is the "million dollar wound" Forrest says he he got while rescuing Lt.Dan?
Answer: He's refering to being shot in the butt. They called it a million dollar wound because it didn't do any real permanent damage, but the solider would still be taken to a hospital and sent home from Vietnam. It was a great relief to get a million dollar wound rather than be killed or permanently maimed.
Question: When Forrest finishes putting the rifle together, why does the drill sergeant tell him to take it apart and reassemble it?
Answer: Most likely to keep practising, this isn't something that would be done once, no matter how good they were. However, the Drill Sergeant did not tell him to reassemble the rifle again, he said "disassemble your weapon and continue", so they could have been given instructions on what to do after assembling the rifle, such as take it apart and clean the pieces.
Question: Why does the Army bus driver yell at Forrest when he introduces himself?
Answer: Yelling at new recruits is common since they must instill in them that they are now in a hierarchy where they are at the bottom. When people first enter the service, most bring with them their concepts that progress is accomplished through working with, versus for, others, and the kids lack discipline. The military isn't a democratic institution - it is authoritarian, and that isn't a structure most kids understand. New recruits are constantly yelled at to break their previous conditioning, and that begins with the first encounters, like with the bus driver.
Answer: Yelling is how things are done in the Army.
Question: Why would Forrest be drafted into the military? Wouldn't his low I.Q. cause him to be rejected?
Answer: As we see earlier in the film, his mother "persuades" the school principal to increase Forrest's test results to the minimum required to attend school. At that point he was on record as having a normal I.Q.
Answer: He also wasn't drafted, he enlisted.
Question: When Forrest and Bubba are talking in Vietnam before and after Bubba says "I wanna go home" after getting shot. There is purple smoke coming from behind them into the camera shot. What is this smoke?
Answer: Just a smoke grenade. They used color smoke grenades in Vietnam as a signal to evacuation helicopters to show exactly where the troops were.
Question: Was anything actually wrong with Forrest mentally? Is is possible that he was "normal" but had just been sheltered, hadn't socialized with any kids at a normal age, etc.? In addition to the IQ test from the school, Forrest's mother apparently hid things from him or lied. She did not tell him what "vacation" really means.
Answer: Gump is stated, in the book at least (can't honestly remember about the film) to have an IQ of around 75. While IQ ranges are somewhat subjective, this would usually be considered to indicate a mild or borderline mental deficiency. It also certainly wouldn't have helped that he's been relatively sheltered.
Answer: 8 minutes into the movie, the principle shows his mother a chart of IQ's and points to Gump's IQ being 75.
I know, but I was considering how his mother has sheltered him. His low score could be partially due to her not always giving him accurate information. For example, she told him that "vacation" means "you go somewhere, and you don't ever come back." Maybe his test results were low because of her sheltering; at least partially.
Question: Was there any proof other than Jenny's word that her child was Forrest's child?
Answer: It is implied in many ways, such as the manner in which they sit in front of the TV when they first meet and they way they physically resemble each other. Beyond that, Jenny had never lied to Forrest before and there was no reason to doubt her.
Question: There's an entry mentioning when little Forrest's foot gets stuck in a drain and how the leaves are there, then not. I've seen this movie at least 20 times but don't ever recall seeing that scene in the movie. Did some countries get an edited version?
Answer: Perhaps. It's near the beginning right after Forrest explains how he got his name.
Answer: He gets his foot stuck at 6 minutes and the leaves never move. The shot shifts up in the second shot so you see less leaves but they don't move or disappear.
Question: During the part of the film where Forrest sits on a bus bench and tells various strangers his life story, what year is it supposed to be?
Answer: It's April 1981. He had received Jenny's letter where she says she's watching the news about the Reagan assassination attempt, which was March 30, 1981.
Answer: 1981.
Question: The scene where Jenny tells Forrest to run, and his leg braces tear apart, how did they manage to do the scene? Was it visual effects?
Chosen answer: There were actually very small charges placed in the joints of the braces. They could therefore detonate them at the right times creating the illusion that the braces were breaking due to the improved strength of his legs.
Question: How exactly do the producers "remove" Gary Sinise's legs? Is it through computer imaging, or does Gary bend his legs, creating the illusion of amputation?
Answer: Mostly by computer - they wrapped his legs in "blue screen" fabric, then the computer replaced that color with shots of the same scene taken without his legs.
Question: In the hotel, when Forrest calls about the flashlights in the room across the hotel keeping him awake, what is going on with the people in that room? I'm guessing it's not really a power outage, because if it was, Forrest wouldn't be able to use the phone.
Answer: Http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watergate_scandal - The Watergate Scandal. Burglars broke into the Democratic National Committee Headquarters at the Watergate Hotel. The implication is that Forrest is why they were caught. Also, in 1972, you didn't need electricity to power phones. You still don't unless the phone is cordless. When the guard answers the phone, the name he gives is the actual name of the guard who discovered the famous burglary - without the help of a call from Forrest - Frank Wills. Wills was a 24 year old privately contracted security guard in the Watergate office building, which was a connected structure with a different purpose from the Watergate hotel. The two structures sit across the street from the each other, and the Watergate burglars were caught with several portable 2 way radios, indicating that someone besides Forrest was watching them, probably to give the a warning if the police showed up. As it came out later in the investigation, the Watergate burglars were not the sharpest tools in the toolkit, and they apparently turned off their radios due to their noise, so that the warning from the hotel spotter - if he had time and was competent enough to give one - was not heard. This scene, except for the specific call from Forrest Gump, is pretty accurate since the police and Mr. Wills were responding to a call of a "possible burglar" in the Watergate Office complex.
Answer: The land line phones back then did work with the power out. The power to operate them cam from the phone company. You are thinking cordless bases that need power.
Question: When I read the cast list for this movie, I have noticed that Presidents Lyndon Johnson and John F. Kennedy are "playing themselves" in this movie, even though they are dead. How did the editors managed to put Tom Hanks near the actual Predsident?
Answer: Tom Hanks was inserted into actual footage of the presidents, replacing real persons who were there at the time. Computer editing was then used to modify the presidents' mouth movements to match dialog that was recorded by voice doubles for the film.
Question: When Forrest is introducing the members of his Platoon in Vietnam all of the character names are the names of cities, he then tells where each solider is from but their hometown is different then their nick name. (for example "Dallas from Phoenix") why would each person have a name of a city as their name?
Answer: This is just a bit of incidental humor. For example: Dallas is the young man's real name. Why would his parents name him Dallas if he was from Phoenix? Same with Cleveland.
Answer: Forest is mistaking their nicknames for their actual names, and misremembering where they were from. The soldiers are given nicknames based on where they are from. Tex from Texas, Dallas from Dallas. Etc. The funny bit is that Forest isn't putting it together.
There's nothing to indicate Dallas and Cleveland aren't their real names, just like Dan is his real name. The joke being he's remembering where those two are from but when it comes to Tex, an obvious nickname, he can't remember where he's from. Plus, why would a guy from Texas get the nickname Dallas and another guy from Texas get the nickname Tex and not the city he's from?
Question: Does young Forrest start school a couple of years later than the other children shown on the bus? He appears to be older than five or six, the age when most kids go to kindergarten and first grade.
Answer: He starts some time later than the other children, since the principal won't let him in school until he sleeps with his mother. We're not told how much time passes before this happens, so it could be a year or more. Kindergarten is optional in the US. A school in the Deep South in the 1950s may not have even offered a Kindergarten, so Forrest would be going into 1st Grade, probably a bit older than the other kids.
Answer: Presumably, Forrest called Dan and invited him. He seemed surprised to see Dan standing. The last time Forrest saw Dan he was in a wheelchair. His reaction was all about Dan's "magic legs".
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