Continuity mistake: At the first few scenes of the film the natives are shown with dark, broken and corroded teeth. Halfway through the movie the main cast show pearly white teeth.
Apocalypto (2006)
Ending / spoiler
Directed by: Mel Gibson
Starring: Gerardo Taracena, Jonathan Brewer, Morris Birdyellowhead, Raoul Trujillo, Rudy Youngblood
The men are selected at random for the sacrifices and when Jaguar Paw is selected for the next sacrifice, he faces it calmly as if this was his destiny. Just as he's about to be cut open, a solar eclipse occurs and the tribe takes this as a signal that there have been enough sacrifices. When asked what to do with the other prisoners, the headmaster says for the 2 guy to dispose of them as he sees fit. He decides to dispose of them by playing this game. The game is this: two prisoners at a time, are released and told to try to run to their freedom. There are two walls on the side, so they have no choice but to run forward. It seems approximately the first 100yards is sand and after that are the wheat fields. As the prisoners are running, the tribe has target practice on them throwing rocks, spears and shooting arrows.
The first two to run are Jaguar Paw's brother and another tribemate. The tribemate dies after a rock hits him in the head and Jaguar Paw's brother comes close, but is hit with a spear through the abdomen. He tries to keep walking but collapses. Next up is Jaguar Paw and the presumed headmaster of the tribe that wanted safe passage. The other guy dies by an arrow and then Jaguar Paw is hit with an arrow in his back. But he still has some energy and tries to walk but collapses. Just as another guy is about to "finish" Jaguar Paw off with a blow to the head, Jaguar Paw's brother has latched onto the guy's leg and tells Jaguar Paw to run. He does so and the other tribal members give chase.
Eventually, Jaguar Paw makes it back to his home camp with those other tribal members still giving chase. He disposes of them one by one as you soon begin to realise that the prophecy the little girl foretold earlier is coming true. Jaguar Paw kills the headmaster by luring him into the very same trap that was used in the beginning of the movie to kill that boar. When two tribe members are left, Jaguar Paw runs and he collapses on shore. At this point, he has taken three arrows already and you are lead to believe he collapsed to his knees from the pain and loss of blood. But as the other two tribe members come up to kill Jaguar Paw, the camera pans to the shore and you see the Spanish settlers coming to land.
Jaguar Paw leaves the two tribe members to deal with the Spanish people as he goes back to the gave where he left his wife and son. As he gazes down, he sees his wife holding their new baby. Finally, they show Jaguar Paw and his family wandering through the jungle about to start a new tribe.
Jay Holla
More mistakes in Apocalypto
Jaguar Paw: I am Jaguar Paw! This is my forest! My sons and their sons will hunt here after I am gone.
Trivia: As a bit of an easter-egg, Mel Gibson included a single-frame of an actor dressed as Wally/Waldo from the "Where's Wally/Waldo?" book series in the theatrical version of the film. It was reportedly seen as being in poor taste, so it was removed from the initial DVD release. However, he was allegedly added back into the film for the Blu-Ray release.
Question: When they come across the girl crying over her mother's body, one of the guards says she has the sickness, and when they arrive in the city, they come across an old man who has the laughing sickness - what sicknesses are they referring to?
Answer: Kuru only happens when you eat your relatives and the disease was discovered and studied in Papua New Guinea where eating your dead relatives was a way to carry them with you. There are books about it, fascinating stuff. Eating strangers is safe, not that I recommend eating anyone. The disease the girl has is smallpox brought by the Spanish, thus the ships at the end of the movie are not the first Spanish to visit the area. The laughing sickness could be straight up madness considering the horrible times everyone is living through, or a side effect of the limestone quarrying.
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Answer: It is not specifically identified, but it appears to be the degenerative neurological disease called kuru. It is fatal and believed to have been spread in ancient sub-tropical cultures by cannibalism. Its symptoms resembles the encephalopathy disease known as Creutzfeldt-Jakob (Mad Cow), which is also called the laughing sickness, and is contracted by eating contaminated flesh.
raywest ★