Little Shop of Horrors (film)/Headscratchers

"Seymour: True the gun was never fired,
 * At the end of the movie musical, Audrey and Seymour are shown moving into their little house somewhere that's green and tra la la, happy ending, and then a little Audrey II bud is shown growing on the fence outside the house as a sort of or is it to make up for the fact that the original Downer Ending was scrapped. But why is this supposed to be menacing at all? The Audrey II bud is growing outside Seymour and Audrey's house! They're not going to be duped into the whole scenario all over again.
 * They don't necessarily have to be duped into it... It's hinted at in the movie that Audrey II had planned to have stem cuttings done so she could spread farther and farther, and eventually, she'll be planted somewhere where they haven't heard of Seymour... and the cycle will repeat.
 * Or, for that matter, somebody could end up walking past their house, spot that "strange and interesting plant", and away we go again!
 * Only, if it's in Seymour and Audrey's yard, there's little chance that Seymour would sell the plant, and, if he discovered the plant, would likely just let it die.
 * Was I the only one to notice the SPORES that flew when Audrey II aploded? The ending implied that the plant did, in fact, manage to spread.
 * Audrey II's plan in general after killing everyone in the original ending of the movie and the play's ending. If you bought a plant that demanded to be fed human blood, would you feed the damn thing? So, how was Audrey II ever going to dominate the world with its ultra sized brethren seen in the original ending if it couldn't get any other plants to grow? Seems like a common case of 1. Spread all over the world 2. ?????? 3. Profit!
 * The POINT of the musical was that people are indeed corrupt enough to feed said plant.
 * That makes sense when there is only one plant. But when there are millions? What would the offspring entice their owners with? "I'll be a slightly bigger plant than the one the neighbor's have?"
 * I'd say its the same reason why certain animals create swarms of children: most of them wouldn't survive. Let's say the Audrey II makes a 100,000 clippings. 90,000 of those plants wither and die (or simply remain small and cute). 10,000 households realize that AIIs need blood to grow. 500 of those households don't go any farther than letting their AI suck on their finger occasionally. Out of 100,000 clippings, maybe 5-10 households would kill people and feed them to their plants for promised rewards. Since the AIIs were sure to be massive sellers, multiply these numbers by 10. 200-300 massive plants all over the Earth...
 * The point is that ALL humans are selfish and have selfish reasons to kill people. "And got sweet-talked into feeding them blood." That quote from Don't Feed the Plants should have explained enough.
 * Once again, the main hold Audrey had o Seymour was that it was unique, remove the uniqueness and it can't do anything for its owner.
 * Some People are into getting etten Vore
 * It was implied that thousands upon thousands of Audrey II's were sold, but we only saw about half a dozen giant ones in the climax, suggesting that * most* of them didn't reach that size. Besides that, I think if you have a sapient creature living in your house, you'd be reluctant to let it starve to death. And note that the song said "got sweet-talked into feeding it blood". They never said what kind of blood. True, Audrey II prefers human flesh and doesn't like processed meat, but in a pinch, live animal meat would surely be just as good. And all that aside, a plant that eats humans whole would be an excellent corpse disposal, ensuring at least a couple criminals would want one.
 * Agreeing with the above statement, most pet snakes need to be fed mice to stay alive. After a few feedings of those, the Audrey IIs will be big enough to talk and move, about the size the original was during "Feed Me." At that point, it would be really easy for them to snap off hands and arms of anyone that got too close.
 * I think the happy ending is a piece of shit. The reason I liked Little Shop of Horrors enough to go all fanboy-crazy and make my username Audrey II was because of the MORAL. Even with all the musical numbers, it simply boils down to a Deal With the Devil story. I just wanted to make sure it was understood that I have some bias. Now that we have THAT out of the way...if Audrey II only grows after eating blood, how does it grow the pods in the happy ending rendition of Mean Green Mother? It makes sense in the original ending, because Two-ey had just eaten Audrey. Did Two-ey get some of Audrey's blood while she was in his mouth? Enough to create a dozen offsprings without mortally wounding Audrey? Suuuuure.
 * While I prefer the original ending, I think the happy ending is appropriate if you look at the 1986 movie as a spoof of 1950s movie musicals, which tended to have happy endings.
 * The happy ending is not real. While people still watch the stage show. no one really cares for the movie anymore.
 * That's hardly a fair generalization. From what I've seen, the (1986) film is just as much of a cult hit as it ever was, while the stage production has moved into classic Broadway.
 * The thing that's always bothered me is, exactly what is Audrey II's gender? It has a masculine voice, but neither it nor Seymore ever lampshade its effeminate name. To top that off, it refers to itself as "A mean green mother", but is this meant to illustrate the dozens of new pods are its children, or is it just a polite way of saying "motherfucker"? I see people using either pronoun for it all the time. Or does the fact that it's a plant from another planet mean it doesn't even have a gender?
 * Even on Earth, it's fairly rare for a plant to have just one gender. Most species - including the Venus flytrap - produce flowers with both male and female sex organs (stamens and pistils). So I'd say Audrey II is a hermaphrodite, like most plants. The script for the stage version, by the way, always refers to the plant as "it". But "mother" definitely means "motherfucker".
 * Female sex due to its babies, decidedly male gender due to its attitude.
 * Not that this really determines anything at all, but it did seem to favor the ladies. In the waiting room of the radio station, it tried to get a chomp out of the receptionist's backend, and when Audrey discovers it can talk, it tried to get a peak under her dress.
 * Some adaptations actually have Audrey II voiced by a girl so they can creep out the audience. If you imagine all "her" parts sung in a feminine voice, the whole idea of a man-eating (pardon the pun) plant becomes a bit more disturbing.
 * Why is the the song "Mean green mother" not "Mean green monster"? Audrey II is singing it's Villain Song so monster would make more sense.
 * To keep with continuity and tone. "Mother" is short for "motherfucker", which is a slang term of urban roots. The musical styling of the songs throughout is primarily urban "doo-wop" and "Motown", so it makes sense in that respect.
 * Also, Rule of Cool. "Mother" sounds better and more Audrey II-ish than "monster", don't you think?
 * In addition to the above points, "mother" also plays off the ending of the story, whereas "monster" would merely be a straightforward description.
 * So, in the beginning, they make a big deal about how the plants were this huge threat to the human race. How? I mean, the sheer improbability of discovering the plant wants blood, then killing people to feed your plant, all this to get a plant that can be taken down by Rick Moranis. Versus, say, a missile, or even just a gun-happy hillbilly, the Audrey II doesn't seem like it stands much of a chance.
 * Well, I agree that the probability of discovering that the plant needs blood to grow is pretty low, but it is smart enough that it, most likely, could have found ways to talk a large variety of people into killing for it. The main problem is that 1. When did it start being able to talk and 2. How many people would have let it drink their blood until it got to that point? As for it being taken down by Rick Moranis in the original ending it wasn't defeated and it was implied that the plants were surviving a lot of military force.
 * And even in the happy ending it was only defeated because of a severe Deus Ex Machina.
 * Where do the people Audrey II eats go? If it swallows them, the only place for them to go would be down into it's pot, and it doesn't seem like there would be room there. Does it just have an incredibly fast digestive system? Is it part Yoshi?
 * Perhaps it it's head since that's the biggest part about the plant lol.
 * Why does Seymour assume Audrey II need human blood anyway? Although he asks "Does it have to be human? Does it have to be mine?" in "Feed Me," it only responds with "feed me." Obviously the blood doesn't have to be Seymour's, and the only reason it can't come from a blood bank is because it has to be fresh. We never even see him try to toss a pig in the thing's mouth.
 * Before the song starts he says he'll go down to the butcher's and get some sirloin, and Twoie says it "must be blood". Never explicitly says he needs human, no, but even if he doesn't, he implies it in a way that could "accidentally" give Seymour the wrong idea.
 * The main page used to say "it's okay to commit homicide, as long as you're really sorry for it." But Seymour doesn't actually ever kill anybody. What the fuck?
 * He gets people killed in the musical. Particularly with Mushnik; in the stage production, he lures him towards Audrey II's mouth so that Audrey II can eat him. He doesn't commit homicide himself but he is pretty much responsible for the murders.
 * Yeah, and in "Just The Gas" he even acknowledges it:

But the way events transpired,

I could finish him with simple laissez faire"


 * The guy had enough time to help, at least in the stage musical- Orrin has two verses of pleading with him before dying- and flat out tells Mushnik to get uncomfortably close to a hungry man-eating plant in both versions, though there might be enough reasonable doubt in the movie.
 * In the movie he does. In the stage version, Seymour tells Mushnik his money is in the plant, so Mushnik steps in and gets chomped on and eventually eaten.
 * This is why I consider the happy ending to be way more appropriate for the film than the play's ending would have been, because in the film Seymour is so much less culpable that he no longer deserves to die in karmic punishment. Additionally, the tone of the first half doesn't come across as the brutally dark satire it needs to be for the ending to work ("Suddenly Seymour" for instance, becomes the saddest song ever sung in retrospect).
 * In the movie, Seymour has to sneak across Audrey II's vines, trying to get away without waking the plant. He fails, and Audrey II wakes up. However when Seymour comes out of the Muschnik's before the song "Suddenly Seymour", he comes out from an outside set of steps, directly connected to his room in the basement. Why didn't Seymour just sneak out that way at the end of the movie?


 * During 'Da Doo' when he was explaining how he found the plant he says that "Suddenly without warning there was a solar eclipse." What does he mean, surely he would've noticed the moon in the sky all day, and a solar eclipse is rarely ever played down inthe media or newspaper.
 * It's implied that the eclipse was the spaceship that delivered Audrey II covering the sun.
 * You can't watch the moon in the sky all day before a solar eclipse anyway - solar eclipses always happen at the new moon by definition - the far side is lit by the sun, not the near side.
 * If it was really the moon it still doesn't make since for Seymore not to notice the moon in the sky next to the sun on a perfectly clear day. If the solar eclipse was really a space ship, then astronomers should've noted that it wasn't the moon that completely blocked the sun. Also, how big was this spaceship to block the sun and no astronomer notice. Or how close was it for no one to notice?
 * Seymour only calls it a total eclipse of the sun. It's probably a byproduct of the seed pods' FTL travel.
 * Alright, well then why didn't anyone else notice the giant flying ship? Especially scientists who spend their lives looking at the sky.
 * They might have. Remember, all the characters live on Skid Row. They're probably not up on the latest science news and discoveries, being too busy trying to pay the bills and keep food on the table.
 * Why does everyone seem to hate the film's ending? I thought it was fitting (if a bit sarcastic), given how much less culpable Seymour was in Orin and Mushnik's deaths, and the changes to Mushnik and Orin themselves.
 * People who prefer the stage ending to the film's ending tend to prefer the general arc of the stage version to the general arc of the film version. They find "guy kills people, and recieves the consequences for it" more satisfying than "guy sort-of-maybe-accidentally kills two unpleasant people and then defeats the antagonist".
 * It's because the ending in the movie was a Deus Ex Machina Ass Pull with no thematic relevance. A random electric wire has nothing to do with anything else in the film; it has no significance and could have been replaced with anything. I wouldn't mind them adding a happy ending as long it was well-done, but this felt really tacked on. Plus they cut out an awesome song.
 * "I swear on all my spores"...Hang on, Audrey II, you have spores? Then how come you waited around for some people to come in a truck and cut you to pieces before you invaded the world with your offspring? (Then again, it could be argued that nothing Audrey II says should be trusted.)
 * "Have I lied to you? ...I mean, today?"
 * Orin's dentist shop seems to get a fair amount of business, and Skid Row is swarming with people. I realize it was pretty late in the evening, but I still can't help but wonder how Seymour managed to drag Orin's body back to the shop without being seen.
 * Dr. Martin wants to give every household in America a tiny Audrey II, and he's going to have a huge ad campaign and market the little plants all across the country--despite having no idea what they eat? Wouldn't you think he'd try to find out so he wouldn't get sued by hundreds of angry people whose Audrey II s died on them? Who sells a plant without care instructions of any kind?
 * He probably just assumes it eats the same sorts of thing any plant eats, and possibly flies as it resembles a Venus Fly Trap.
 * Unless he got in league with Audrey II at some point...
 * If every household in America has an Audrey II, how can the plants "offer you fortune and fame"? The only reason Seymour made money off the original plant is that it was the only one of its kind and people came from far and wide to see it.
 * Well, Audrey II would still be the original, and since everyone would want one of their own, he could profit off of people getting a man-eating plant as well. After all, what makes more money than MERCHANDISING!
 * The moral of the story is "Don't feed the plants", so in the Focus Group Ending, why do Seymour and Audrey move to the suburbs using the money that Seymour made off of feeding the plant?