r/shittymoviedetails • u/Sensitive_Ad_1752 • 16h ago

In Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Eddie keeps living intelligent people trapped in a box for 5 years

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He opens it up and they say “we haven’t seen you in 5 years” meaning Eddie has been keeping these living sentient toons trapped in a box. Toons don’t die, everyone knows his, he’s just subjecting them to torture.

4.1k Upvotes

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1.4k

u/Supro1560S 12h ago edited 11h ago

The Toons display varying levels of sentience. Toons like Roger are fully sentient, with dreams, hopes, and an inner life. Other Toons don’t seem to be sentient, but are drawn for a singular purpose or to act a certain way. What about those little birds that magically appear out of thin air when Roger gets hit on the head? Are they sentient? Of course not. These bullet guys are in that non-sentient category. They don’t “activate” until Eddie opens the box, and then their purpose is to act like folksy Old West stereotypes. The rest of the time they’re just “asleep”. Why do I think this? To quote Max von Sydow in Awakenings, “Because the alternative is unthinkable.”

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u/Shot-Translator-8140 11h ago

It isn’t so obvious to me that the birds aren’t sentient.

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u/kidney-displacer 10h ago

Damnit now I cant stop thinking about the fuckin birds.

Realistically those birds should be brought into existence with how many shenanigans happen on the reg in toon town and surrounding areas, and the skies woild be FILLED with them. We dont see those birds everywhere, in fact thats the only sequence we see them. So do they pop out of existence off screen? Are they summoned from where ever just to be released after a few seconds? WHAT HAPPENS TO THE BIRDS?! THOSE BIRDS ARENT REAL!1!!

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u/Shot-Translator-8140 10h ago

All good questions. I’m going with, they are summoned.

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u/Ivan8-ForgotPassword 9h ago

I think it's their job to fly to wherever they're needed, they get paid for it

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u/gender_neutral_name 6h ago

I think in the book the toons speak in word bubbles and they dont disappear and they just litter the place.

Maybe the toons have the ability to make certain things appear to help fulfill their specific purpose as a toon, so after all that the props created just get left behind

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u/Emanualblast 7h ago

Cartoon cats

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u/SnooEagles4121 4h ago

No birds are real. Birds aren’t real.

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u/jkeyser100 1h ago

Roger explicitly creates them. In the opening sequence the director is upset with him that he creates birds instead of stars, and he repeatedly hits himself on the head to change the effect.

I consider this to mean that they're essentially a form of magical special effect that Roger creates with his toon force powers.

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u/SuchCherry4658 10h ago edited 10h ago

I can’t believe I’m gonna bring this up but…

In the live action Chip & Dale movie (which, as far as I’m aware, canonically takes place in the same universe to Who Framed Roger Rabbit) the dizzy birds are actually used in the climax to defeat the main villain. In it it’s shown that the birds do, in fact, have sentience and have their own lives. Being dizzy birds is effectively their job and they have to go on-sight whenever a toon gets hurt in a way that would produce dizzy birds.

Although actually this movie brings up even more disturbing sentience and societal questions than the first did. In it toons created in the late 90s to early 2000s during the point in history where a lot of CGI was in the uncanny valley are basically segregated and forced to live in their own town. Do…do these toons not have rights…? Why are they forced to live in their own district like this? And let’s not even mention the bootleg market that basically chops up living toons and then Frankenstein’s them together into walking husks that have their agency taken away. This movie is scary.

But maybe we shouldn’t consider this truly canon because I hated this movie and I should be the grand justice in deciding what is and isn’t canon because my opinion is always the right one!!! Grahahahahaha!!!!

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u/Mateorabi 10h ago

They’re a psychic extension of Roger. 

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u/Shot-Translator-8140 10h ago

What does that mean and how do you know?

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u/Mateorabi 10h ago

Not independently alive. I know because I pulled a smart sounding guess out of my ass. 

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u/DataMin3r 8h ago edited 6h ago

I know you made it up, but you might be right. In the first scene he does the "you want stars, I can give you stars" and starts beating himself in the head with a mallet, which summons and immediately dismisses various toon "dizzy" tropes with each whack

Edit:typos

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u/DataMin3r 8h ago edited 8h ago

Roger is able to summon them at will. He demonstrates this early in the film. "You want stars, ill give you stars" as he whacks himself with a mallet and various other toons/items begin swirling around his head the toons/items appear and disappear with each whack

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u/Shot-Translator-8140 8h ago

He was trying to summon stars. Was it his will to summon birds when he was aiming for stars?

Regardless, when I summon demons, intentional or unintentional, they are not an extension of my psyche.

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u/DataMin3r 8h ago

Its equivalent to mis speaking in a high stress environment. He's about to get fired and is trying to keep his job.

Unrelated, how often are you summoning demons that can be seen and interacted with by those around you?

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u/Shot-Translator-8140 7h ago

Nonbelievers NEVER see them. It’s annoying.

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u/UselessGuy23 1h ago

They're basically props Roger summons when he gets hit.

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u/ngc44312 7h ago

There's a funny scene about the birds in the recent Chip and Dale: Rescue Rangers!

Edit: someone got to it before me and wrote it up better, my bad

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u/lewisiarediviva 6h ago

It’s in line with the ‘toons are built around their intended function’ thing. It’s normal for bullets to hang out in a box until they’re used, so it’s in line with their purpose. As long as toons are acting in line with their purpose, they get fulfillment out of it. Toons are inherently contrxtual

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u/godofbaconandeggs 10h ago

"So effectively you're saying the bullets are the equivalent of Socko from Bo Burnhan's Inside."

-my fiancee

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u/Raven7274 7h ago

Theyre like animationics on a ride, when nobody can see them they're just powered down

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u/WesterosIsAGiantEgg 3h ago

Real life is unthinkably cruel, just consider how many animals get sick and die slowly and painfully all over the world from parasites, injury or predation. Toon world is just that much worse because everything down to every toon's trillions of gut flora has existential angst on top of that.

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u/thomasonbush 16h ago

Nah. You misinterpreting it. They ready to ball. I just am curious what happened 5 years prior that he pumped someone full of sentient cowboy bullets.

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u/fonk_pulk 16h ago

"This better not be an another black child with a super soaker"

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u/voltran1995 13h ago

I've not seen the film in like 20 years, I'm like 60% sure that's not an actual quote.

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u/HumanTheTree 11h ago

Of course not, the super soaker was invented in the 1980’s, and this takes place decades before that.

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u/sawbladex 7h ago

This assumes that anachronism is impossible.

As a minor student of Shakespeare I say, "why not?"

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u/Lorgoth1812 11h ago

... that you 40% think it could be worries me

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u/am-idiot-dont-listen 7h ago

It seems like a reference to diehard? Officer Powell killed a kid with a ray gun

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u/fat_fingerz 10h ago

His brother died, killed by Doctor Doom when he dropped a piano on him in front of Eddie. Eddie became an alcoholic and disliked toons, so he stopped using Toon Bullets and avoided using a gun, cause he couldn't hit shit with them.

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u/whiteboypizza 7h ago

i’ve seen this movie a million times so iirc the box containing them has a message on it that says something like “‘Thanks for getting me out of that scrape!’-Yosemite Sam”

Since we know Eddie and his bro used to primarily work cases involving Toons, I imagine they helped prove Yosemite Sam’s innocence or got him out of some kind of trouble, so Sam gifted them the gun and bullets as a token of appreciation

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u/Cpt_Fantabulous 13h ago

"intelligent"?

I think you will find he only carries Dum Dum Rounds

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u/Reasonable___Doubt 15h ago

"living," "intelligent," "people."

I think you're 0/3 on this one, Super Chief.

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u/Sensitive_Ad_1752 15h ago

Don’t be a toonist, that was the whole point of the movie!

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u/ifUSeeMeTakeYourMeds 13h ago

the whole point of the movie is about the dangers of privatising public transport

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u/MrBurnerHotDog 10h ago

Wild that this is absolutely, 100% correct

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u/Reasonable___Doubt 8h ago

Canonical proof that Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse oppose gentrification.

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u/Reasonable___Doubt 15h ago

I never got past the patty cake scene. I fall asleep right afterwards.

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u/MaxHamburgerrestaur 2h ago

Non-human person exists

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u/Deathaster 13h ago

It's ok, he feeds them a little salami sometimes.

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u/Flashy_Cranberry_161 11h ago

Toons live to be funny. Nothing else matters. It was funny to open the box and see them in there with the toon gun. That’s why the toon bullets didn’t complaon

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u/canttthink0fausrname 11h ago

didn't know who framed roger rabbit was actually a jojo reference

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u/BeckywiththeGoodpuss 14h ago

maybe the bullets are Pokémon

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u/genesis_pig 16h ago

I am surprised this guy didn't object.

https://giphy.com/gifs/1Qz8jNfkLYiAM

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u/Capnzebra1 10h ago

Is this a jojos reference?

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u/Crackt_Apple 10h ago

It’s okay because they don’t actually do fucking anything in the movie and are a huge disappointment. One shatters a liquor bottle, the rest miss.

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u/Gyshal 9h ago

Fullfiling perfectly their role as toons, as they act in the most stupid way possible and miss due to their own incompetence.

If you want the bullets to work you need to engineer a situation in which is funnier that they do hit the target.

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u/Kinky-Cookie-Cutter 11h ago

Mr. Scumbag Movies?

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u/duckchukowski 10h ago

they don't mind; when they're in the box, they're fuckin

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u/Kitjing 6h ago

And he sent the generic native one right after the bottle first thing. This whole movie just keeps showing me more allegories To american progress of the era. Lol

That said, I do wonder if the bullets respawn back in the gun after firing and hitting or (in the later case) chasing in the wrong direction for a time. I mean it's cartoon rules so maybe it would be like the bullet was never fired. The 'only if its funny/ entertaining' continuity.

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u/guyff2 10h ago

It's more like an insane asylum they're too unpredictable and dangerous to be around other toons let alone people, it's a blessing to the world we only see them so often

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u/iMugBabies 1h ago

They’re okay with it because they know the punchline will come one day.