There was a number of options these guys could've taken.
-
Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Stand by Me
avortac — 10 years ago(June 01, 2015 01:19 PM)
There was a number of options these guys could've taken.
But instead.. nothing. Absolutely NOTHING.
I could understand this, if the bad guys had been like regular teenagers; attention span 0.5 seconds, constantly looking for new and more interesting impulses and experiences, forgetting what they were doing just to focus on something 'cooler', etc.
But these guys - they were DETERMINED to get the body.
Ace was ready to commit MURDER - not only a murder, but a murder of a young kid! How madly devoted and determined do you have to be to even think about doing something like that?
He was prepared to murder to get to the body! He wasn't pushing the kid away, he wasn't punching him with his fist, he wasn't even trying to scare him much, he went STRAIGHT FOR THE THROAT with his friggin' KNIFE!
And this guy is just going to forget the whole thing?
The very LEAST they could've done, is waited for the kids to leave, and THEN go get the body. Shouldn't take that long. Just go smoke a few cigarettes somewhere, smash a couple of more mailboxes, and come back, and the kids would probably be gone - then just take the body, and if you see the kids later, just punch them then. All problems solved.
But no. They don't even find the kids later to punish them. Not one punch!
It's just not logical - someone that mad, that determined, that psycopathic, that murderous, and he does NOTHING. It doesn't make any sense.
In real life, there would have been consequences, those kids would be dead or severely injured, and the body would have been the Ace's gang's.
How the heck didn't they go back? It's not like in the fifties/sixties Ace's gang could have done much else interesting in their crazy teenage life. They couldn't have gone home to play WoW, or sexted with some japanese camgirl.
I'd like to know WHAT they actually did, that was better and more interesting than the body and more important to the gang and its reputation than avenging those kids that shamed them to no end. I'd like to know the story from their perspective.
Ace goes back to his girlfriend and tells the story.. "Yeah, some young kids bettered us. Want to have sex?"
That's not gonna work. They gotta show who's boss! Why else would you even FORM a gang? If you are humiliated as the leader of a gang, is "well, I'll do nothing" really the choice for you?
IT DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE!!
They could have called the kids' parents, they could have called the cops and told the kids murdered the kid, and that they have a gun and all - they could have done all kinds of stuff.
They had a car, they could've gotten back and ambushed the kids very easily at any point where the kids have to cross a road.
Holy macril, anyone could think of LOTS of things the gang would probably have done in real life, or things that they at least COULD have done, but without any explanation as to why, they decided not to do any of them.
What is the driving force behind the gang? Why do they smash mailboxes, but not avenge on some punk kids? Why are they ready to murder, but then decide not to even bother with just stealing the body? Why are they shown to bully these kids around, and then suddenly stop ALL this? Whaaaaat?
Still, no injected romance is so rare a phenomenon in a movie, that I can't blame this movie much. It just has lots of unexplained things that do not make sense. -
degree7 — 10 years ago(June 07, 2015 06:15 PM)
In the book, the older kids anonymously call in the body to the police.
They then ambush Vern and the rest a few days later and beat them up.
I can't remember if this happens in the movie or not, but im guessing by the nature of your post that it didn't. -
jsn_hylnd — 10 years ago(June 10, 2015 10:30 AM)
In the movie the younger, more noble kids call the police anonymously and report the body. It doesn't make sense in the book if the older kids called the police because they wanted the body for themselves and were not very nice guys, weird.
-
LadyDi4476 — 10 years ago(September 08, 2015 01:55 PM)
First of all Ace was prepared to kill Chris not just for the body but because Chris told Ace to go continue beep his mother. He was pissed off at the guy and probably wanted to scare the crap out of him.
Second, in the novella the older boys DO in fact beat up the younger boys. King goes into detail about how each one of them got ambushed and beat up especially Chris and Gordie. I think they ended up in the hospital. So they didn't just let it go, it just wasn't mentioned in the movie. It wasn't relevant.
And yes they had to walk away because Gordie had a gun and was prepared to use it. In the novella I do believe they wait for Ace and his gang to drive away and stay away before they cover up the body.
You're reading too much into this movie dude. It's just a simple coming of age story.
-Di -
McGannahanSkjellyfetti — 10 years ago(October 06, 2015 10:06 PM)
Don't forget in all fairness, the whole movie is a story being told by the narrator writing a book about his childhood adventures, during the end of the film he is sitting at his computer typing out the story while his son and his son's friend were waiting for him. Chances are he might of embellished some details here and there just to enhanced the story more. A lot of writers often do that
-
taz420nj — 10 years ago(February 07, 2016 10:11 AM)
Why are they shown to bully these kids around, and then suddenly stop ALL this? Whaaaaat?
Ummm, maybe because Ace brought a knife to a gunfight?
"Now you start using your head. That's that lump that's 3 feet above your ass!" -
drm-15793 — 9 years ago(January 14, 2017 12:15 AM)
Well Gordy was ready to shoot him, so that really had a lot to do with them leaving, you could tell from the look on his face that he was really going to do it, no matter what, if ace and his buddies didn't leave, but yeah I can see your whole point about the whole thing, maybe they just said the hell with it, they will come back later on.
-
MovieMan2016 — 9 years ago(January 23, 2017 02:13 PM)
They couldn't claim that the kid was murdered by them as the evidence would show he was hit by a train (not a bullet).
When I watched this, I didn't think Ace was ready to actually kill anyone. He wasn't that dumb. I think he was more trying to scare them off, maybe rough them up a bit. Typical bully stuff.
Maybe they left to do something else and had the intention of going back in a day or two, as they may have figured there was now way even four boys would carry back a dead body all that way. And maybe they didn't get the chance because the anonymous phone call could have come when the boys were on their way back to town (via a pay phone), so the police got the message and recovered the body in short order.