MikeH

10th Apr 2020

Holes (2003)

Stupidity: Why would Stanley say the shoes fell out of the sky? It happened under a bridge. Any normal person would instantly realise someone threw them off the bridge.

MikeH

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: It's an idiom/expression. When something turns up out of nowhere, we say "it came/fell from the sky." In fact, Mr. Sir says this to Stanley when he finds Stanley with his empty bag of sunflower seeds, "Where did this come from? Did it fall from the sky?" Obviously a sarcastic way of saying, "it didn't get there by itself, someone put it there." So the shoes obviously fell from the bridge and Stanley knows this because Zero refers to the bridge later in the movie.

17th Feb 2018

Holes (2003)

Question: How is Camp Green Lake legal? Aren't there laws against forced child labor? Also, what would happen if Stanley refused to dig holes?

MikeH

Answer: It is illegal. That's why everyone in charge gets arrested at the end. It only lasted as long as it did because they were in the middle of nowhere with little to no oversight and no on knew what was really going on until Stanley's release.

Phixius

Wait then why did the judge know about it? Did he get arrested too?

There are a lot of kids at Green Lake, sentenced by various judges. The court system either was unaware of the conditions at the camp, or didn't care.

Brian Katcher

Answer: Stanley and his fellow prisoners are convicted criminals, and as such, the authorities are allowed to work them. The conditions in the movie are rather extreme, but what recourse do the boys have? The warden and her flunkies are brutal people, and it's likely Stanley would have been in a world of hurt had he refused to dig. All they'd have to say is Stanley attacked them and whatever force they used would have been justified. That's the penal system for you.

Brian Katcher

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