Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Duke: Let's get down to brass tacks, here... How much for the ape?

    • And another flashback which culminates in a men's lavatory with another druggie licking spilled LSD powder off of Duke's sleeve—just as a businessman walks in, notices the spectacle, and walks out.

Duke: With a little luck, [the businessman's] life was ruined forever -- always thinking that just behind some narrow door in all of his favorite bars, men in red woolen shirts were getting incredible kicks from things he would never know.

  • Complete Monster: Dr. Gonzo becomes this when he's on drugs.
  • Crazy Awesome: "I've never missed a plane yet."
  • Crosses the Line Twice: Duke's plans for Lucy. He was joking, as what he said was mainly to alert Gonzo to just how much trouble that they could get into if they didn't lose her, and fast. It starts out horrible, suggesting that they feed her acid and let cops pay money to gang rape her. Right about the time he gets to the part about hanging pictures of Jesus all over the room while this is happening, it becomes clear that he's not seriously suggesting any of it.
    • Promptly followed by his description of what Lucy is likely to remember, and what she's likely to tell the authorities, about Gonzo.

Duke: All right, listen. In a few hours, she'll probably be sane enough to work herself into a towering Jesus-based rage at the hazy recollection of being seduced by some kind of cruel Samoan who fed her liquor and LSD, dragged her to a Vegas hotel room and then savagely penetrated every orifice in her body with his throbbing, uncircumcised member.

  • Memetic Mutation:
    • "We can't stop here; this is bat country!" with "bat" replaced with anything imaginable ("Flair country", "Donkey Kong Country"...)
    • The Goddamn Bats.
    • The laundry list of drugs in the trunk of the car: "two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half-full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multicolored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers..."
      • Usually stops at the screamers and laughers, but sometimes includes, "...a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer/Budweiser, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls...."
      • "Ah, Devil Ether..."
    • "We're right in the middle of a fucking reptile zoo! And somebody's been giving booze to these goddamned things!"
    • "Tell me about the fucking golf shoes!" / "FINISH...the FUCKING...STORY!"
      (used interchangeably to mean "get on with it")
    • "You people voted for Hubert Humphrey! And you killed Jesus!" (usually used as a signifier faux-righteous fury)
    • Amongst the cast, Benicio Del Toro saying "You took too much, man, you took too much, too much."
    • "We are God's mistakes. Too weird to live, to rare to die."
  • Memetic Outfit: Raoul's aviator shades, Nice Hat (the green visor or safari hat), Hawaiian shirt, khaki shorts and Chuck Taylor sneakers have become ingrained in popular culture.
  • Pragmatic Adaptation: The movie leaves out most of Duke's longer expositions on the 60's drug culture as well as his slow downward spiral towards BSOD after the diner incident.
  • This Is Your Premise on Drugs: In part because the protagonists are on drugs.
  • Vindicated by History: The film was widely panned and ignored by critics when it was released as they called it just some weird road trip.
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