Cast Away

Trivia: Production was shut down for a year, to give Tom Hanks enough time to lose weight and grow out his "castaway" beard. During that time, director Robert Zemeckis used the same crew members to help film "What Lies Beneath."

Cubs Fan ★

Trivia: When the shots on the island were finished, the sound had to be completely redone, as the surf was too loud.

Trivia: Screenwriter William Broyles took survival courses and during that time a Wilson brand soccer ball washed up on shore - the inspiration for Wilson in the movie. The director Bob Zemeckis states in the feature voiceover that they changed it to a volley ball because "a soccer ball has all those black spots on it'.

Trivia: The alarm heard from the cargo ship that rescues Chuck is the same alarm at the steel works factory near the end of "Terminator 2."

jbrbbt

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Mistakes

Continuity mistake: Chuck is on the plane going back home with a noticeable sun tan on his face. When he is talking with the dentist he is way paler, only to be slightly darker during the welcome party thrown hours later.

Sacha ★

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Quotes

Chuck Noland: Aha. Look what I've created. I have made FIRE.

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Questions

Question: At the end when the pick-up truck drives away, there is an angel on the back flap of it, similar to the angel in the garden of the house where Tom Hanks delivers the parcel. Are we to assume that the parcel belongs to the woman in the pick-up, and that this is significant in some way?

Answer: This is the same woman seen at the beginning of the film. It's a little complicated. The angel wings are a recurring plot device to show that the parcel Tom Hanks just delivered to the ranch belongs to the woman (who is an artist) in the truck, which also has the wings painted on the tailgate. There are also metal wing wind sculptures in her yard. The wings are her artist's "logo." As Hanks stands in the crossroads deciding where to go, his looking back in the direction that she just drove off implies he will go back to her house, probably to let her know that her package gave him hope while he was on the island that he could someday deliver it, and possibly to restart his life with her (she is pretty, after all). She was married to the guy in Russia who she was sending packages to, but he was cheating on her. If you notice the gateway over the entrance to her property where another package was delivered at the beginning of the movie, both her name and her husband's were on the overhead ironwork, as well as the angel wings. At the end, his name has since been removed, indicating she is now single.

raywest ★

Wow, you are extremely observant. Thank you, I was totally confused at the end.

You're welcome.

raywest ★

Also, the artist would have been on the island with him just like Kelly was in the watch.

Answer: The Angel wings are an important symbolic thread that run throughout the move. They appear in several scenes. They represent love/hope/salvation. We first see them in a seemingly unrelated scene at the pretty redhead artist's ranch when she is still married to the cheater dude. She sends him the wings on a package but the package is not important. Rather the Wings on the package are important. She intended the wings to go to her cheating husband but instead they went to Chuck. Chuck preserves the wings. He caresses the wings. Later we see that he has drawn dozens of the same wings on the inside of his cave wall. On the raft, he takes only Wilson and the Wings which he carefully wraps in leaves. When finally delivering them home, Chuck writes "this package saved my life" when he means hope/love/salvation have saved his life. The wings have make the exact same journey as Chuck. They have finally returned to the redhead and bought Chuck with them.

I agree with your assessment, though the wings also serve as a practical plot device. It helps the audience to recognize and track the package as it moves through the story and for Chuck to link it to the woman's truck at the end, which also had the wings painted on the tailgate.

raywest ★

Nailed it! My thoughts exactly I just needed confirmation that all of this was reasonable to assume. Thank you.

Answer: The package that Mrs. Peterson sends to her husband in Russia contains divorce papers. The winged package that Tom Hanks' character saves as an unfinished task represents his desire to eventually deliver. He opens all the other packages and finds a few useful items. And the package sent by Mrs. Peterson, he uses to motivate himself to make that delivery. He only took bare essentials on the raft when he leaves the island. This package is essential to him. For some reason, he does not deliver the package to the destination to which it was addressed, but instead takes it back to the original sender. It helps close the loop in a way that could not have been done if he just delivered to the original destination 5 years late.

But why would there need to be such a big box for divorce papers? On the island, he opens a document mailer.

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