Final Lines in the Movies, Part I Quiz

Answer: The Terminator

Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), by the end of this 1984 film, knows that most of the world's population will be dead after a worldwide nuclear cataclysm destined to occur on August 29, 1997. That's some storm.

Answer: Die Hard

Limo driver Argyle (De'voreaux White) muses aloud to himself as he hops into his limousine to drive John McClane (Bruce Willis) and his wife Holly (Bonnie Bedelia) to her California home.

"Die Hard" set new standards in action films, as it pitted a lone policeman against a band of terrorists in a confined space. Was that a good or bad thing for Hollywood? You decide.

Answer: Red Dragon

I wasn't as fond of this 2002 film as I was of "Manhunter", Michael Mann's 1986 adaptation of the novel by Thomas Harris...but I have to admit that director Brett Ratner's idea to weave a closer connection between the first Hannibal Lecter story and the second was pretty clever.

Hannibal (Anthony Hopkins) speaks these lines to his jailer, Dr. Chilton (Anthony Heald) after being told that there is a young female FBI agent wanting to meet him. Guess what her name is?

Answer: Twilight Zone: The Movie

The prologue of this film ends with Dan Aykroyd's hitchhiking character posing exactly this question to the hapless driver (Albert Brooks) who was dumb enough to pick him up...and subsequently shuffles loose this mortal coil at the monstrous hands of his passenger.

Aykroyd shows up again at the end of the film, somehow posing as an ambulance driver. He asks John Valentine (John Lithgow), the patient in the back of the ambulance, the same question. Bad news for Mr. Valentine!

This film, a cinematic extrapolation of the groundbreaking TV show of the same name, presented roughly 25-minute vignettes featuring fantastic, science fiction stories. It's worth checking out, but the TV show is far superior!

Answer: Pulp Fiction

That's Vincent Vega (John Travolta) and Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson) realizing that they should depart from the scene of several crimes (aggravated assault, mostly) before the police arrive. They then tuck their guns into their waistbands and exit the diner.

"Pulp Fiction" is made up of three story arcs which are told out of order and intersect in sometimes unexpected ways. The film is basically writer/director Quentin Tarantino's love letter to film noir-style magazines like "Black Mask".

Answer: Back to the Future

Dr. Emmett Brown (Christopher Lloyd) says this to Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) in response to Marty's concern that Doc's time-travelling DeLorean won't have enough room on his street to achieve 88 MPH, the requisite speed to achieve time travel. What Marty doesn't know is that the DeLorean has been upgraded, and can now fly!

"Back to the Future" concerns itself with the idea of a teenager travelling back in time and interfering (accidentally, for the most part) with the events that led his parents to get together, and cause him to exist in the first place.

Answer: Dr. Strangelove

This 1964 Stanley Kubrick masterpiece regarding the prospect of nuclear war with a cynical, comical eye ends with Nazi scientist "Dr. Strangelove" (Peter Sellers) inexplicably rising from his wheelchair and shouting the above lines. Presumably, we are meant to feel as though the monster has been empowered anew. Creepy, but also funny -- like most of the rest of this film.

Answer: In the Line of Fire

Early in this 1993 film, Secret Service Agent Frank Horrigan (Clint Eastwood) tells his colleague Lilly Raines (Rene Russo) that he "know[s] about people." This skill comes in handy, since Horrigan spends most of the film playing cat and mouse with a man who plans to assassinate the President of the United States.

At the very end of the film, Frank and Lilly are sitting on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, watching a group of pigeons. Horrigan tells Lilly that one particular pigeon will fly away before another one will. Lilly asks how he knows that, and Horrigan responds with the above line, a self-deprecating dig of sorts against his earlier boast.

Answer: Fargo

Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand) is one of the few pregnant women in the movies whose birthing process is not depicted in the third reel. The film ends with a still-pregnant Marge and her husband lounging in bed, speaking the above lines.

"Fargo", interestingly enough, is not in any way the story of Marge's pregnancy -- nor is she a resident of Fargo, ND! She is a Brainerd, MN police officer assigned to investigate a multiple homicide that leads her to uncover a botched kidnapping scheme in Fargo.

Answer: Se7en

Detective William Somerset (Morgan Freeman) speaks these final words in voice-over narration as a coda of sorts to the horrific events that make up the climax of this film.

"Se7en" is about two mismatched detectives who attempt to find the serial killer who is systematically killing people and using the seven deadly sins as a guidebook.

Answer: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

Only one of the ten "Star Trek" films ended with this slightly altered version of the credo that was heard in the opening credits of both the original "Star Trek" and "Star Trek: The Next Generation" television shows. Spock (Leonard Nimoy) spoke these lines at the end of 1982's "Star Trek II".

Answer: Halloween

Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) and Dr. Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasence) have this exchange after Loomis has seemingly killed escaped mental patient Michael Myers (who has spent most of the movie killing multiple teenagers all over town) by means of five or six very large bullets. Of course, Myers is anything but dead...but that's a matter for the sequel(s).

Answer: Psycho

You want to talk creepy? Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) has more or less ceased to exist by the end of this Alfred Hitchcock opus that details the bizarre case of a young man who runs a hotel and unknowingly kills people in his spare time. His alternate personality -- patterned after his dead mother -- is fully in charge by the time these last words are heard via voice-over narration. Brrrrrr.

Answer: Spider-Man 2

Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst) encourages Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) to put on his costume and go do his thing at the very end of the film. He lets out a "Ya-hoo!" as he swings away from the apartment, but MJ's line is really the last official dialogue in the film.

"Spider-Man 2" focused mainly on Peter Parker's struggles with responsibility and duty, and ended with a resolution to his vascillating feelings about Mary Jane.

Answer: The Hunt for Red October

Russian submarine captain Marko Ramius (Sean Connery) quotes Christopher Columbus as he and his purloined nuclear submarine are escorted to a secret New England hiding spot by CIA analyst Jack Ryan (Alec Baldwin). The above quote is Ryan's response to Ramius. Ryan spent most of the film trying to figure out (a) where Ramius was, and (b) what his real intentions were. As usual in Hollywood, everything worked out just fine in the end!

Part 2 of this quiz is coming soon!