Headscratchers / Interstella 5555

• Darkwood's plan was to kidnap alien musicians, dress them up as earthlings, force them to do music and break sales charts in order to acquire several Gold Records (why not just steal them? he obviously had the means) and use them to power a machine that somehow would allow him to conquer the universe?
  • Umm... maybe it doesn't count unless the Records are properly earned, giving them power?
  • I figured that what the machine was doing was using the discs to channel the popularity of the artists. This would also explain why he kills them off; what is the number one reason for an artist's popularity to skyrocket?
  • Music is a powerful weapon if used right if the music wasn't worth the weight in gold records it could self-destruct the machine.
  • Perhaps the artist has to be popular enough. The machine then feeds off the artist's popularity (Evidenced by the brief psychedelic background during Veridis Quo) and recreates it in a physical form (Gold Record dropping from the ceiling), allowing Darkwood to power the machine.

• Why did Darkwood rewrite the band's memories and brainwash them? Wouldn't one be enough?
  • He probably did it so that in case the mind control was broken, they wouldn't be able to reveal their origin to the public, thus revealing his secret plan. He wasn't counting on a very determined Shep following him all the way to earth and telling the band their true identity.
  • By "overwrite" their memories, even if the mind control somehow filed after sometime, the band would still believe on the fake identity and still works with him. (Or just go back to "where" they were from according their memories.)
    • You can never be too careful when it comes to Mind Rape.
    • If they went to wherever they're meant to come from, they'd just end up very lost when they don't know their own addresses and can't find any family. Not something you want derailing your Evil Plan To Conquer The Universe.
  • They would be nothing but blank slates if he left them mind wiped.
  • Presumably Darkwood's not directing every action the band performs (Arpegius is capable of protesting during Nightvision, and no one told Stella to take and hide the business card during High Life) so we can assume they have some freedom. Darkwood wouldn't want to risk the Crescendolls telling interviewers about their extraterrestrial origins. Even if no one believes them, he'd still get in trouble, because the police would be asking what the heck are they on that they're telling these stories?

• As much as I love this movie, it bothers me that when in one part, three out of four members of a popular band were seemingly abducted by a mysterious blue-skinned man... but by the next song, nobody seems worried about it. Um... what?
  • It's possible that the audience thought it was part of an "act", and when the male members were still missing, Darkwood played it off as part of some big publicity stunt.
  • All Part of the Show

• How do we all know Shep's name?
  • It's All There in the Manual.

• How come the security people who reappear upon the band's return still have a job? Aren't they the same ones who fucked up by not noticing Darkwood's spaceship landing until it was too late to respond properly because they were too busy head-nodding to "One More Time"?
  • Because everyone else on the planet was too busy head-nodding to "One More Time" to notice them fucking up?
  • The planet seems very peaceful. They probably are just that chill.

• Darkwood's plan was to kidnap alien musicians, dress them up as earthlings, force them to do music and break sales charts in order to acquire several Gold Records. Ordained to do so by some alien force. Since Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, at the latest, which would be in the mid to late 1750s. Except that the concept of the gold record did not exist until February of 1942.
  • While Darkwood DOES hold up a physical gold record in High Life, while he shoves Stella into the machine during Veridis Quo, he recites a verse from the book and a gold record drops from the ceiling.

• So, what would have happened with Darkwood's plan had the band become REALLY popular, and obtained platinum/diamond record certification instead of gold?
  • Keeping in mind I haven't seen this yet: it sounds like the gold records are produced when the band is at "gold-level popularity" levels; they'd have to pass through that on the way to Diamond/Platinum. Repeat the process on the way to each song, or band, and it shouldn't matter, I think.
  • Because in this universe a gold record is an award, similar to a Grammy. Rather than a measurement of sales.

• I always found it kinda odd how Darkwood managed to make the Crescendolls into such a worldwide success, given that they are depicted as (due his mind control) being perpetually aloof, emotionless, and with zero personality. Yes, the quality of the music is important, but pretty much all music acts that have reached stardom through history feature larger that life figures and a spectacle element that keeps them in the public consciousness.
  • Maybe it's a commentary on audiences not caring about what happens with performers behind closed doors, so long as the music (or any kind of product) is good or entertaining?

---