Forrest Gump

Question: How did Lieutenant Dan find out about Forrest and Jenny's wedding? Forrest appears to be surprised to see him there, and Jenny had never met him before.

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".

af4dable

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: 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.

William Bergquist

Answer: He's referring to president Lyndon Johnson AKA the guy Forrest shows his gunshot wound to.

Question: Why does Forrest's mother say "This is not for children's eyes" when they were watching Elvis perform 'Hound Dog'?

surfjawn

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.

Bishop73

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.

RJR99SS

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.

Bishop73

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.

Greg Dwyer

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.

RJR99SS

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.

Tailkinker

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.

MovieFan612

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.

Greg Dwyer

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: Given what a brute Jenny's boyfriend is at the hippie party, why would everyone just stare silently at Forrest when all he did was deck the jerk, merely defending her?

Rob245

Answer: He disrupted the Black Panthers' meeting and assaulted one of their members (or at least someone allied to their cause).

Phaneron

Question: What did Jenny's boyfriend, Wesley, mean when he referred to Forrest as a "baby-killer"?

Answer: He is referring to Forrest having fought in the Vietnam War.

raywest

Answer: Baby-Killer was a term that anti-war protestors used to describe soldiers who fought in Vietnam. This was because a lot of innocent babies were killed by soldiers during the Vietnam War along side men, women, and children. Https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Lai_Massacre.

Question: How did Forrest change clothes on his cross-country but didn't take any with him?

Answer: He buys them, and/or people, such as those running with him, give him new clothes to replace his old ones. He's got plenty of money, no reason he can't have a debit or credit card on him to cover his expenses (like he says, he stops to eat, sleep, and so forth).

Answer: According to Forrest she "died on a Tuesday" and he "bought her a new hat with little flowers on it" and that's all he had to say about that.

Super Grover

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.

Bishop73

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?

Vinitha Chandran

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.

Myridon

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.

CocoCami

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.

Factual error: When Forrest and Lt. Dan first try catching shrimp on the new boat in the mid 70s, they catch a bunch of junk, including a Mello Yello can, which wasn't launched until 1979. (01:30:05)

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: The time frame is right on track. It took Dan a lot of years to get to the point where he joined Forrest on the boat. 1979 tracks with what comes before and after.

MovieFan612

You should watch the film again. Hurricane Carmen, which happened after Lt. Dan joined, and they were struggling to catch anything, was in 1974. And Forrest leaves the shrimp business in 1975 when he finds out his mother is dying of cancer. 1979 comes well after all those events. Not to mention that it's only 1981 when Forrest is sitting on the bench telling his story.

Bishop73

More mistakes in Forrest Gump

Forrest Gump: I may not be a smart man, but I know what love is.

More quotes from Forrest Gump
More trivia for Forrest Gump

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