Headscratchers / Austin Powers

Headscratchers in the Austin Powers series.

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Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)

• At the start of International Man of Mystery when Austin has hold of Dr Evil's agent in the disco and Dr Evil shoots his agent with a crossbow to stop him from talking, why doesn't he just shoot Austin instead and avoid all the trouble and failure over the next three films?
  • For the same reason he won't just let Scott get the gun from his room - he wants to construct an elaborate, unnecessarily slow-moving method of death, then leave him alone and not actually witness him dying. Just gonna assume it all went to plan. What?
  • I thought he was actually aiming for Austin, but ended up shooting his agent instead because he's not that bright; realizing the mistake, he took off, thus creating the trouble and failure over the next three films.
• Am I the only one who finds the "Margaret Thatcher naked on a cold day" implausible? I mean, Austin was frozen throughout the entire time that she was Prime Minister...
  • There is an earlier scene where, after angering Vanessa with his 60's ways, Austin stays up all night catching up on all the things since the 60's (montage with the moon landing, Berlin Wall falling, cd on a record player...). In the morning Vanessa even walks in and mentions Austin missing things such as the UK's "first female prime minister", sooo... yeah, not that implausible he knows how chilling "Margaret Thatcher naked on a cold day" would be.
  • Also Thatcher was an MP for 11 years from 1959-1970, so it's not unsurprising that Austin Powers would know who she was even if he didn't know she was PM.
    • Alternately, being frozen at the time means Austin is only familiar with Margaret Thatcher as an older woman. Kinda like all of us.
• Number 2 explains that they couldn't get sharks with Frickin' Laser Beams attached to their heads because they were put on the endangered species list while Dr. Evil was frozen. But that's...not entirely true. Some sharks are endangered, but others are not. Bull sharks and tiger sharks for instance are listed as merely "near threatened". And they have a reputation for being highly aggressive and are among the top three shark species responsible for most shark attacks on humans. So why not get some of those?
  • For one, it's a joke. For two, the EPA would probably fuck you up worse than the average supervillain if you looked wrong at an animal that was "only" on the "near-threatened" list too.
  • Even Evil Has Standards, and apparently messing with a near-threatened species is unpalatable to people who are plotting to take over the world with comic book superweapons.
  • The problem was there was no way to get the sharks on such short notice. Number Two said he tried to get some, but it would take months to clear up all the red tape. So he instead got a bunch of ill-tempered, mutated sea bass.
• Early in the film, we see Austin conducting a fashion photo shoot. Is this just a hobby for him, or is it supposed to be his "cover" as a man of mystery?
  • Confirmed in the second movie to be a cover. He uses it as a means to investigate Ivanna Humpalot, who is known as an employee of Dr. Evil's (perhaps one of his spies or, as it actually turns out, a Honey Pot assassination attempt). However, just because it's a cover, doesn't mean he doesn't enjoy it so much it effectively is a hobby, too.
• So what was Basil Exposition's mother doing there when Austin accosted her? Did she even have appropriate security clearance? Austin's sexist attitude aside, maybe he was not entirely unjustified in being suspicious; why would an international spy expect to be introduced to his boss's mother, completely out of the blue, while on the job?
  • Austin's father was a spy as well. Who's to say that Basil's mother wasn't involved in the intelligence field?
• Why is the armed force storming Dr. Evil's base the British Armed Forces? The base is located in Nevada which is inside the United States, a nation that severed all historical lineage and ties with England on July 4th, 1776. I understand that British Intelligence would have far more knowlege on Dr. Evil than the FBI, CIA, and Pentagon all put together, but all the British Armed Forces do during the climax is stuff that could be easily done by any branch of the United States military. In fact, since Dr. Evil's big plan is cause all volcanos in the world to erupt, including the nearby Yellowstone Caldera, and destroy humanity, why wouldn't EVERY military branch of the United States military (minus the Navy) along with every soldier, chopper, fighter jet, tank, and truck converge on the scene? Plus, Area 51 is at least in the same state and is home to a branch of the Air Force.

Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999)

• Is Fat Bastard originally from the present day of the 1990s or the past era of the 1960s?
  • Yes.
  • He is originally from the 1960's. Its not clear how Dr Evil hired him from the future, but there is nothing to suggest he is from any later time.
  • Maybe his parents, even if unmarried, had been working for Dr. Evil before; FB grew up in the family business and ready for anything.
  • The point isn't that its strange that he was working for Dr Evil's organization at that time (it isn't- and for the record he seems to be a mercenary, so family connections...probably not); its that Dr Evil somehow hired him himself despite being in the future. It wasn't in the instructions he sent back in time ahead of himself to Past! Number 2 and co. either, because he has to explain to them that he has done this. The only possible- and highly unlikely- explanations are that 1) Fat Bastard has his own time machine that Dr Evil sent him instructions through- that we never see and is never referenced-, and 2) Dr Evil actually hired Fat Bastard before Dr Evil was even frozen at the start of the first film, yet Fat Bastard didn't steal the mojo until 1969 (two years later) even though Austin didn't notice (somehow) until 1999, so... yeah, its a plot hole.
  • If we go with 2), it's possible that Fat Bastard, in his cover as a Ministry of Defence Scots Guard, had standing orders to steal Austin's mojo should he ever be vulnerable (i.e., frozen) and at the earliest opportunity. But because MOD security was deemed foolproof, Evil's organisation was forced to wait until such time as Fat Bastard's battalion was rotated from overseas deployment and into MOD guard detail, in 1969. Once he has it, the next order is to deliver the mojo to Dr Evil's volcano lair. Either he would have found it staffed with Number 2, Frau etc but no Dr Evil (in which case they would have waited for Dr Evil to travel back to the volcano lair at a subsequent date to 1969) or (as actually happened in the movie) Dr Evil would be there ready to accept delivery of the goods. Or, Dr Evil had a means of summoning Fat Bastard once he time travels to 1969, perhaps having some other inside means of knowing he and the Scots Guard battalion were in the MOD and thus likely to have acquired the mojo.
  • Fat Bastard was Dr. Evil's mole. They tend to not appear in the same place as their real bosses.
• How did Austin and Vanessa's wedding night last two years?
  • I think the two years passed between her turning out to be a robot and the streaking, or whatever.
  • Maybe he's just that damn good in bed.
    • That would add whole new dimension to his "Well, I'm spent" line.
  • I just assumed it was their second honeymoon.
  • There's been two years since the last Dr. Evil (or Dr. Evil equivalent) threat, so they probably took a 2-year honeymoon and waited until Basil called them again.
  • The wedding/honeymoon could have been 2 years after Dr. Evil was defeated.
• How did Number Two come back for The Spy Who Shagged Me and Goldmember when Dr Evil barbecued him at the end of International Man of Mystery? For that matter, why wasn't there so much as a scratch on him?
  • If that same death chair thingie failed to kill Mustafa, why would it have a different effect on Number Two?
  • He didn't die. and if you look, he does in fact have a large burn scar on his cheek.
  • One of the video releases of Austin Powers had "alternate endings", one of which clearly shows that Number Two survived. For The Spy Who Shagged Me, they wound up using most (if not all) the alternate endings as canon!
  • "I'm not dead, but I'm very badly burned!"
  • He had his own Evil Twin, who simply stepped into the role.
• If Austin could go back to the sixties, he could theoretically look at himself in the past... but if he could go back to the past and see himself, how could he unthaw in the nineties and... oh dear... I've gone cross eyed...
  • The thing that bugged me about that quote in the movie is that it's not even close to a paradox. If Austin went back in time, and saw himself in the sixties, it wouldn't change the fact that he'd be thawed out thirty years later.
  • That's not the whole quote, in the movie he talks about unthawing himself in the past so he could talk to himself, thus screwing up the unthawing in the future.
  • No, he doesn't. The actual line is:
    Austin: "Wait a tick. Basil, if I travel back to 1969 and I was frozen in 1967, presumably, I could go back and visit my frozen self. But, if I'm still frozen in 1967, how could I have been unthawed in the '90s and traveled back to...Oh look I've gone cross-eyed." He never says anything about thawing himself out - and in fact, he actually goes back and takes photos of his frozen self without causing a paradox.
    • I like to think that Austin was speaking his train of thoughts aloud and when he got to the actual paradox, he just said "oh dear, I've gone cross eyed." Presumably, the thought was that he could unthaw himself right then and there.
• Isn't Scott about a decade too young to have been conceived in 1969?
  • He may have had his growth accelerated.
    • I mean he's physically too young, not chronologically too young. If he was conceived in '69, he would be 30 in the second film, but he looks and acts about 20. I suppose he could have had his growth de-celerated instead, but that seems like a bizarre thing even for Dr. Evil's outfit to do.
    • Perhaps he was put into stasis for a couple years after being born, as a safety measure.
    • Well Seth Green was only born 5 years after Scott Evil, so it's not that big of a difference.
    • To be fair, in the first movie, it was implied that he was conceived artificially. The whole part about him being conceived naturally back in 1969 was, (like most of the events of the second movie,) just a messy Retcon played for laughs.
    • It should be noted that in the third film Scott slowly loses his hair and becomes completely bald by the end.
    • Going with the time travel/alternate time line explanation above: The original time line (before either Dr. Evil or Austin traveled back in time) which we'll denote as Time/Space A, had a Scott who was a test tube baby made from preserved semen and presumably one of Frau's ovum. Scott A was born in 1979 after Dr. Evil's minions got tired of waiting for their overlords return. After the time travel Dr. Evil A created a branching time line from 1969 which will be known as Time/Space B. Dr. Evil A had sex with Frau B, conceiving Scott B who is 10 years older than Scott A and thus is seen going bald in Time/Space D (the one created when Dr. Evil C and Austin (B or C) travel back in time to the 70s). For clarity Time/Space C was created when Austin B did his 5 minute jump to help Austin C defeat Dr. Evil C. See it's really quite simple and makes perfect sense!
    • Yes, I'm sure it makes sense. Give us a flowchart of it and we'll agree with you.
    • Weren't you listening to the exposition from Basil Exposition? Don't think about it. Just sit back and enjoy. Or you'll go cross-eyed.
    • I thought Scott was doing that to himself, intentionally, so he could get Dr. Evil's love...
  • Much simpler explanation: Scott really is about thirty, he's just really immature and a slacker, since Frau and Dr. Evil's organization basically spoiled him.
  • Because he's Seth Green; he'll always be that age.
  • All we've got on Scott's conception is Frau saying "I'm late", then we find out she's his real mother. Women have been known to skip periods for no reason at all, so it's possible that their fling in 1969 was a dud, but that Dr. Evil went further in time and conceived Scott with Frau. (Goldmember showed that they're still sleeping together, so law of averages maybe?)
• What was the deal with Vanessa turning out to be a fembot?
  • What confused me was that she calls her mother in the first film. Fembots don't have mothers!
  • It is possible that the real Vanessa died in the explosion of Dr. Evil's lab at the end of the first movie. The fembot Vanessa was the one that was held at gunpoint by Alotta Fagina. Makes sense, doesn't it?
    • Another possibility was that Vanessa was (like Boomer in Battlestar Galactica) an unwitting sleeper agent, who was programmed to believe she was the real Vanessa (who was presumably replaced sometime previously). If we are to believe that Vanessa was a fembot the entire time this makes it slightly more palatable - she really did fall in love with Austin before her assassin programming kicked in, and wasn't (consciously) just acting that way to get close to him.
    • Even if that is the case, Basil states that they knew Vanessa was a Fembot from the beginning. Meaning they apparently partnered Austin with something that could turn on him any moment. For no reason.
    • If we take Austin's reaction at its most literal, then there probably never was a real Vanessa: her "mother" didn't have any children, and Doctor Evil (or, more likely, Number 2 and Frau, while the Doc was in orbit) planted her as a sleeper agent, as said above. What always strikes me as both a hilarious gag is Austin's immediate reaction that she was "a fembot... all along!" All along?!? I think my first reaction would be to assume Vanessa just recently got captured and replaced by Doctor Evil! Hopefully she's not still tied up somewhere waiting for Austin to come charging to the rescue...
    • You can't assume that her mother (real or fake) didn't have children, because they're seen having a telephone conversation.
    • Austin never talks directly to Vanessa’s mother on the phone. It’s possible the woman Vanessa talks to is not the real Mrs. Rogers, but could be one of Dr. Evil’s agents pretending to be her in order to feed information to Vanessa. Particularly if Vanessa didn’t know she was a fembot at that time (the “Boomer” scenario mentioned earlier). The fact that it’s clearly the same actress (Mimi Rogers) makes this theory less likely, though.
  • I always assumed they mean "all along" as in since they partnered her with Austin. Still doesn't explain why they'd partner her with Austin knowing she could kill him, though.
    • If he assumes her to have been one all along, that means he can be single again.
  • And it works as Rule of Funny - they could have easily explained how she became a fembot by the second movie, but it's funnier to just have her be a fembot all along, not in spite of, but because it makes so little sense, and contradicts pretty much everything that happened in the first film.
  • Is it ever said that all fembots are evil? It's possible that they built an experimental "good" fembot based on their former agent, Mrs. Kensington, whom she then adopted as her daughter, (which it would be, in a sense) Vanessa. Dr. Evil then hijacked said fembot, and reprogrammed it to kill Austin. Heck, he might have even stolen the technology to build his fembots.
    • This make sense, and the original reason for the agency to pair Vanessa up with Austin could be a safety check (since they're still testing on the robot agent, and also unsure about how Austin would act once he was unthawed as his 60s style behaviour may not bearable by the 90s female agents)... so why not kill two birds in one stone, use Austin to test "Vanessa" (aka this model of robot)'s reliability and safety, and use Vanessa to test if Austin can adjust into the modern world, without endangering (or possible legal issues) towards other agents in the agency... that's why Vanessa is built (and deployed) as Mrs. Kensington's "daughter"... because she is built for Austin, under a face of an agent that he's (relatively) familiar with.
• How can Austin see the English subtitles that are part of his movie, but NOT the Spanish subtitles I and every other Argentinian get?
  • He does, he just ignores them.
  • He can't speak Spanish.
  • The Spanish subtitles were added by the localiser, they're not part of the original movie - the same as the Hebrew subtitles I and every other Israeli get.
• For that matter, what happens with Vanessa when she starts speaking in Spanish in the dubbed version? Does she start speaking in English?
  • I doubt it.
  • She starts speaking Spanish with an exaggerated South American accent. In the Spanish (from Spain) dub at least.
• I was about to post about how the mojo thing works - That is to say, if the mojo was taken out in 1969, then how did he use it in the past? Without his mojo he'd not be able to do the first movie's mission, since he would be missing his mojo when it first happened! But THAT means Dr. Evil would have no incentive to send a henchman back in oh no I've gone crosseyed.
  • For one reason or another, Austin's mojo disappeared at that instant, that is, at the exact same "time" FB went back in time and stole it. Off the top of my head, no, it doesn't make much sense.
    • I don't know of any other Time Travel story that's used this logic, but in a weird way, it might make sense if Austin's mojo vanished at the same moment that Fat Bastard vanished from the present to go change the past. In a way, it was the use of the time machine in the present that's the causal trigger for the event (everything after "switch time machine on" is just the means to that end), and the effects follow from that point, not from the past. Changing the past becomes impossible; only the present and future can be changed by manipulating the past. In that same theory, if you went back in time and saved JFK, our view of the past wouldn't change: JFK would just suddenly appear in the present (at the moment the time mission began), probably 30 years older and with a full memory of an alternate lifetime that, from our point of view, didn't happen. It's weird, and I don't know of any other story that works that way, but it does kinda, sorta make sense. But really, I suggest you don't worry too much about these sort of things, and just have fun!
    • The "Wild West Rangers" episode of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers uses this logic (explicitly; one character even expresses surprise that it works that way). And see San Dimas Time.
    • Basically, any time travel story where a character says "you have to hurry!" to get to a time machine works that way- and yes, there are lots of them. Even the Terminator franchise sortof works that way, since if the Terminator went back before Kyle Reese then John Connor shouldn't have existed to send Kyle Reese back in the first place.
  • The new 1969 and the original 1999 were working in synch. The timestream synchronised itself at the moments when a disturbance occurred (Dr. Evil going back in time). For every event that happened in 1969, 1999 would be rewritten to accomodate it. Using the time portal usage as the starting point, Fat Bastard's actions happened around the same time as Austin's tryst with Ivana and as such were the first to be rewritten. Any in-between events were resolved through Chaos Theory or something equally convenient.
• How did the time machine get back to the past? The car time machines don't need anything to travel but themselves, but Dr Evil's time machine looks like it needs to be in the past as well as the future.
  • It was probably a plan Dr. Evil concocted and began about the same time as he began plans to cryogenically freeze himself... time machine requiring a portal at both ends, way to keep yourself in stasis, natural compliment. The only reason he didn't do it in the first movie is that it probably hadn't been taken out of storage and repaired, or he just wanted to try a new plan before falling back on an old one.
  • Right when Dr. Evil has arrived in 1969, Number Two has walked up to him and said (i paraphrase): "we have recieved your message from the future". Case closed, i think.
  • Ironically that would've been a perfect answer to Scott's own IJBM question of why, if Dr. Evil has a working time machine, he didn't go back and kill Austin when he was totally helpless. Answer: Dr. Evil can only travel to times and places where his time machine already exists. He can't go back and strangle an infant Austin in his crib because the time machine didn't exist before the 1960s. And he can't go back and kill Austin "while he's on the crapper" (as Scott suggests) because the time machine only exists in Dr. Evil's secret fortress. Even if he does travel back in time he still has to find Austin, wherever he is in that time period, and ambush him in a moment of weakness. And he could do that just as well in the present, so there's no point in traveling back in time. So basically, while trying to write a scene that satirizes one of the biggest gaping plotholes in the standard time travel plot, the writers inadvertently created a scenario that fills in one of the biggest gaping holes in the standard time travel plot. Whoa. Did I blow your mind?
    • That said, there is no reason he couldn't have murdered Austin while he was cryogenically frozen. But then again, there is no reason he couldn't have had Fat Bastard do just that after he stole his mojo. So the "shoot him on the crapper" option is nixed less because Dr Evil's time machine doesn't work that way, and more because, even if Dr Evil could do that, he wouldn't, because he wants Austin to die "in an easily escapable trap involving an overly elaborate and exotic death".
• There's a scene on the island where Felicity keeps grabbing Austin's binoculars off him, despite the fact that they're still around his neck. But when she tows him into the tent, he bangs his head and she walks in without him, there's no sign of the binoculars, the string they hang on, or that anyone dropped them. WTF?
  • If I had to guess, I'd say they probably couldn't figure out a safe way to have Mike Myers hit his head and fall down with the strap still around his neck. But they didn't want to jettison the joke so they fudged the scene continuity a bit. Or maybe the strap broke when Austin smacked his head. I dunno.
• Seriously, if British Intelligence knew Vanessa was a fembot the whole time, why didn't they do anything about it?
  • Because. It. Was. Funny.
  • They knew Austin would be useless if he wasn't getting some regularly, and no actual female spy from the '90s would put up with his cheesy '60s pickup lines anymore.
  • I assumed that Basil actually didn't know Vanessa was a Fembot and lied about it after the fact so he wouldn't look stupid in front of Austin.
  • Basil, still pissed at Austin for slugging his mother and calling her a man, did it to fuck with Austin.
• Why doesn't the US President in 1969 look or sound anything like Richard Nixon?
  • Some possibilities:
    • Richard Nixon looks different in the Austin Powers universe.
    • The president of the United States in the Austin Powers universe isn't Richard Nixon.
    • To further speculate: maybe in the AP universe, Bobby Kennedy wasn't assassinated (possibly due to comical spy shenanigans). I can much more easily buy Tim Robbins caricaturing RFK than Tricky Dick.
    • Maybe Austin Powers prevented JFK's assassination somehow, changing American history in that universe.
  • He's one of those generic presidents they use to avoid making a film look dated.
• Why was the exploding Vanessa!fembot so ineffective? Austin doesn't even take cover as she's counting down, he literally just covers his ears and when the bomb goes off he's left a little frazzled but apparently uninjured. The explosion barely even mussed his hair!
  • Because a fembot kamikaze is not an impressive way of killing Austin; Dr. Evil probably didn't think such a tactic was worth making a more 'powerful' explosion for?
• Can someone explain to me how the title The Spy Who Shagged Me caused such controversy in the UK? I thought the UK's standards were a lot less strict than in the US, particularly in England... it seems you can show naked people on TV in the UK and it isn't even considered offensive, or certain words that would normally be bleeped on US TV would be uncensored on UK TV... so how is it The Spy Who Shagged Me is a controversial title in the UK? It's their colloquialism anyway.
  • The fact that it's their colloquialism is what makes it more offensive in the UK than it is in the States. Also, your impression of the laxness of British TV is very exaggerated, and sounds more like Continental Europe than the UK.
  • It's more the fact that, out of the parody-context, the title looks like it might be a porn movie. 'The Spy Who F***ed Me' doesn't help its case. Ironically, some censorship attempts in the UK made the title sound even more dirty.
  • "Shagged" is a swear word in the UK. It isn't as bad as "fuck", but it is still an obscenity.
• Frau Farbissina stayed on the volcano island when Dr. Evil departed for his moon base. And yet when he arrives, she's there. How?
  • There was a time portal on both the moon and in Dr. Evil's volcano lair. People can go back and forth as little as a few minutes.
    • Which makes it bizarre that Dr. Evil would go to the trouble to take a rocket rather than just using the portal too. But then, Dr. Evil isn’t the sharpest tool in the box.

Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002)

• Why did they have to make Dr. Evil Austin's twin brother? I could understand a half-brother from one of Nigel's flings in the past, but come on!!
  • Well, you have to admit, there is a certain amount of resemblance...
• Where the hell did Felicity go between The Spy Who Shagged Me and Goldmember?
  • It's a joke on how Bond always gets a new Girl of the Week even when they end the movie still together.
    • No, there's two Austins, remember, after the time travel? One got hooked up with Felicity, the other beat Goldmember.
    • What? One of the Austins became the other after traveling ten minutes into the past.
    • Why would he? The first Austin traveling back in time prevented the motivation for the second one to travel back in time. Both defeated Doctor Evil, the Idol or Friend decision was thwarted, no reason to use the time machine for the second Austin. That time line now has two Austins. That also means that there's another time line where Dr. Evil still loses but Felicity dies. Shockingly perfectly reasonable and in line with some theories on time travel that basically say that continuity and history are more amorphous than we perceive them to be(according to my physics prof).
    • During the credits you see Future Austin coexisting with Past Austin, they have a threesome with Felicity, and one of them stared in Goldmember, the other just settled down I guess.
    • Oh dear I've gone cross-eyed...
    • I suggest you just don't worry about it and enjoy yourself.
    • That goes for you all, too.
• In Goldmember, there's the scene where Nigel Powers wants to see Mini-Me's doodle. Okay, he's just comparing sizes, but isn't Mini-Me about four years old? Eeeewwww...
  • Where did you get that idea? MM was cloned some time between 1967 and 1997.
  • Yeah, he's a little person, not a kid. That was actually why Powers was comparing sizes as, stereotypically speaking, little people, like black men, are packing.
  • Here's the real question: If Mini-Me is exactly like Dr. Evil except one-eighth his size, shouldn't he have a much smaller penis?
    • They had to put all of that extra height somewhere...
• Why were Dr. Evil and Mini-Me the only ones arrested at the beginning of Goldmember? Why not the rest of his organization?
  • They probably were, just that they didn't bother to show us a few odd hundred trials for whatever the legal term is for "aiding and abetting a supervillain".
    • But that doesn't explain how they got out.
    • Frau was busy.
  • The rest of his organization dressed up as trailer trash, and Austin ignored them. Besides working for Dr. Evil, what have they done to deserve jail?
    • It's much like the issue of why the builders and workers on the Death Star had to die. These people must have known, in some capacity, who they were aiding and abetting (and even if they didn't it wouldn't matter in the eyes of the law, wherein Ignorance Is No Excuse). (P.S. As for the Death Star thing, I always thought that the machine was completed and just looked incomplete as part of the trap, as it was designed to. But take that to the Star Wars IJBM page if you want to talk about that.)
    • "Ignorance is no excuse" is shorthand for "ignorance of the law is no excuse." Ignorance of the facts is often an accuse; for example, a cab driver who unwittingly picks up a fleeing criminal is not considered an accessory after the fact.
    • Yes, and the facts were that every single henchman in Doctor Evil's private army and organization knew full well that they were the minions of an evil criminal organization bent on world domination- deleted scenes from the first movie (which were not deleted in Britain, Australia and elsewhere) show that even the families and friends of these minions knew who they were working for.
• How can Nigel Powers still be alive in the 2000s? If I had to take a guess at what his age is in the 60s, he had to be at least in his fifties.
  • He stays young forever by being awesome.
  • Mind you, that flashback scene was of Michael Caine in the 60s. As for Caine himself, see above entry.
  • He could've possibly frozen himself at one point in the past. He's a secret agent, Austin looks like him, and it could be an example of Generation Xerox. He could've also been frozen for part of the time Austin was.
  • Being frozen is the only possible explanation. Dr Evil says he's been doing the whole evil doctor thing for thirty years in the second film which must put him and Austin's age as somewhere around 50. And considering both of them were frozen for 30 years, they must have been born in the 1910s meaning Nigel was born in the bloody Victorian era. Unless Austin and Evil were only just beginning their careers in 1967 and Evil was counting his thirty years being frozen as his thirty years of being an evil Doctor, but they both seem far too established for that to be the case.
• Where the hell did Mr. Bigglesworth go?
  • Mini-Me finally got him.
  • He could have died in between films. The average life of an indoor cat is 12-18 years; we don't know how old Mr. Bigglesworth was when he was frozen, or what effects the process might have had on his health (besides making him lose his fur).
    • Also, he was a purebred; they're notorious for suffering from health issues, and generally don't live as long as other cats.
• How did that plate of asparagus magically appear in the fountain scene in the third movie? Same could be asked about the bottle of water.
  • BECAUSE IT'S FUGJDSGIGHDING FUNNY!
• If Fat Bastard weighed a metric ton (2204.62 lbs) in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, then how does losing 180 lbs at the end of Austin Powers in Goldmember make him not fat anymore and give him all of his loose skin? That would still put him at 92 percent of his original body weight!
  • You're just trolling me now.
• Austin telling his father to stand up and take a bow without knowing that he isn't there and everyone starts laughing at him. What is so funny about asking an absent person to stand up and take a bow? How is that funny?
  • People are assholes that laugh at other peoples' pain, news at eleven.
• Fook Mi and Fook Yu are Japanese? Don't those names sound more Chinese?
  • Fook might be an anglicised "Fuku", while Mi and Yu can also be Japanese.
  • There's a deleted scene in Goldmember that establishes that their real names are Cindy (Fook Me) and Sally (Fook Yu). Given that these clearly aren't Japanese names either, it's likely that they just made up these names to get in Austin's pants.
  • Or those are just "stage name".....like how "special sexy dancers" usually use an alias when performing".

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