Plot question

[saftinger]

Greetings fellow duders,

i've got 1 simple question: Why does TBL confront The Dude with "Bunny's" toe? It occurs to me that this meeting is kind of pointless.
TBL accuesed The Dude for not handing out the ransom, which was inevitable, because Walter replaced the ringer with another ringer . All he wanted was the money from the charity's bank account, which he already got at that point, or did i get something wrong at that point? Why doesnt TBL just save the money somewhere and forget about The Dude?

I may have overseen some detail when i re-watched The Big Lebowski, but i worry about this for some days. Please help me out,
i feel kinda undude right now.

Saftinger

[cckeiser]

Greetings fellow duders,

i've got 1 simple question: Why does TBL confront The Dude with "Bunny's" toe? It occurs to me that this meeting is kind of pointless.
TBL accuesed The Dude for not handing out the ransom, which was inevitable, because Walter replaced the ringer with another ringer . All he wanted was the money from the charity's bank account, which he already got at that point, or did i get something wrong at that point? Why doesnt TBL just save the money somewhere and forget about The Dude?

I may have overseen some detail when i re-watched The Big Lebowski, but i worry about this for some days. Please help me out,
i feel kinda undude right now.

Saftinger

Good question there saftinger. Will ponder on it for awhile...may even come up with something!
Welcome to our nice quiet beach community dude.

[BikerDude]

Well right at that moment it's because the Dude says that she kidnapper herself.
The toe was in response.
Also remember it was never 100% established that the Big L didn't put the money in the suitcase.
He had his story Walter and The Dude had theirs. Most of us are of course in the camp that the Big L just wanted the money and a deadbeat to pin it on.
But there is never 100% proof of this. It just makes sense.  
That scene actually works toward the other possibility. When Walter and the Dude substituted the ringer that should have played exactly into the Big L's plans. So you are right. Why confront the Dude about not handing over the money.

Lotta in and outs.

[hannahdude]

i just watched a interview about making the movie with the brothers themselves who say there are all sorts of things that dont make sense in the movie and that they dont see it impeding on the viewers pleasure in watching it in any way. so dont let it, for there are all kinds of things in this movie like your condundrum! the answer to your ( good question) and all the others about plot devices that go nowhere or dont make sense is the ultimate answer. ' fuck it, le'ts go bowling'.

[saftinger]

Well, the only reason i can imagine is, first of all, that Brandt wasn't informed from TBL about the scam. I guess the both of them weren't talking too much to each other, for example, when Brandt didn't verify the dude's permission to take any rug he wanted. Brandt didn't talk to TBL about that.
Therefore, when the toe was sent to TBL's house, Brandt opened the letter and found the toe.
TBL didnt' want Brandt to know about the whole scam und pretended to care about Bunny, so he had do confront The Dude with the whole thing.
That's one way, at least for me, to explain it, and it's still like, uhm, my opinion, man.

Saftinger

[meekon5]

Greetings fellow duders,

i've got 1 simple question: Why does TBL confront The Dude with "Bunny's" toe? It occurs to me that this meeting is kind of pointless.

It's not until this meeting that TBL realises that the Dude is on to him and has realised he (the Dude) has been set up as the fall guy.

I think the toe thing was to try and get the Dude to feel guilty and replace the money (that he never had in the first place).

[DigitalBuddha]

I think TBL was accusing the Dude of not doing his job of handing over the money (even if it was a fake ringer with no cash in it) resulting in the kidnappers cutting off a toe to let TBL know they would fuck Bunny up if they didn't get their cash. But remember, it was all a travesty. TBL was in on the scheme. She kidnapped herself, man.

[meekon5]

I think TBL was accusing the Dude of not doing his job of handing over the money (even if it was a fake ringer with no cash in it) resulting in the kidnappers cutting off a toe to let TBL know they would fuck Bunny up if they didn't get their cash. But remember, it was all a travesty. TBL was in on the scheme. She kidnapped herself, man.

Actually didn't she just piss off to see friends and not tell anyone, possibly except Karl who then tried to capitalise on the situation?

Which then gave TBL the idea of capitalising on the situation.

Which then gave Walter the idea of capitalising on the situation.

I don't think the nihilists actually conspired with Bunny.

[Outer Element]

Greetings fellow duders,

i've got 1 simple question: Why does TBL confront The Dude with "Bunny's" toe? It occurs to me that this meeting is kind of pointless.

It's not until this meeting that TBL realises that the Dude is on to him and has realised he (the Dude) has been set up as the fall guy.

I think the toe thing was to try and get the Dude to feel guilty and replace the money (that he never had in the first place).

I don't think the Dude knew at that point he was set up. He was just making excuses for not having handed over the money to the "kidnappers" and didn't really believe that she kidnapped herself. He hooked on to what Walter said to save his ass. Yah, and a real detective story would have made a lot more sense. In TBL, the plot was secondary to the comedy.

[cckeiser]

Ok dudes, here is the skinny on that scene. The Dude is still pretty much in the dark as to what is really going on. At this time in the story the big Lebowski thinks Bunny has been kidnaped, but as The Dude points out later he is happy to get the strumpet off his hands and is using the kidnaping as an excuse to extract a million from the foundation for his own use. The big Lebowski doesn't know where Bunny really is either, but is now worried that the kidnappers will come after him for the money so this is the scene where he transfers responsibility for the money from himself to The Dude. Once he has done so he tells the kidnappers The Dude has the million dollars. He is now free and clear from suspicion and any harm will fall 10 fold on The Dudes head...not his.

[Caesar dude]

Sounds fair to me CCK Dude........(or board breaker dude as I call you! ) 

[cckeiser]

Sounds fair to me CCK Dude........(or board breaker dude as I call you! ) 

Board Breaker?? Sounds exhausting.

[Caesar dude]

One could say that! I prefer mind numbingly tedious!

[Outer Element]

Ok dudes, here is the skinny on that scene. The Dude is still pretty much in the dark as to what is really going on. At this time in the story the big Lebowski thinks Bunny has been kidnaped, but as The Dude points out later he is happy to get the strumpet off his hands and is using the kidnaping as an excuse to extract a million from the foundation for his own use. The big Lebowski doesn't know where Bunny really is either, but is now worried that the kidnappers will come after him for the money so this is the scene where he transfers responsibility for the money from himself to The Dude. Once he has done so he tells the kidnappers The Dude has the million dollars. He is now free and clear from suspicion and any harm will fall 10 fold on The Dudes head...not his.

Why would TBL need to talk to the Dude at all before he told the kidnappers the Dude made off with the money? Maybe the toe put a scare into him, but I don't see where it served any purpose to tell the Dude about it. He had already transferred responsibility to the Dude by engaging him to be courier.

[cckeiser]

Ok dudes, here is the skinny on that scene. The Dude is still pretty much in the dark as to what is really going on. At this time in the story the big Lebowski thinks Bunny has been kidnaped, but as The Dude points out later he is happy to get the strumpet off his hands and is using the kidnaping as an excuse to extract a million from the foundation for his own use. The big Lebowski doesn't know where Bunny really is either, but is now worried that the kidnappers will come after him for the money so this is the scene where he transfers responsibility for the money from himself to The Dude. Once he has done so he tells the kidnappers The Dude has the million dollars. He is now free and clear from suspicion and any harm will fall 10 fold on The Dudes head...not his.

Why would TBL need to talk to the Dude at all before he told the kidnappers the Dude made off with the money? Maybe the toe put a scare into him, but I don't see where it served any purpose to tell the Dude about it. He had already transferred responsibility to the Dude by engaging him to be courier.

Maybe to keep The Dude off guard and worrying about the kidnappers and not catch on he had been set up? Maybe the big Lebowski was hoping it would scare The Dude into leaving town so no one would figure out his scam?

But mainly I think it was because if he did not the audience would never know about the toe. If we did know about the toe there would not have been the diner scene...which really helps to tie the movie together. The limo scene is the segue to the diner scene. Of course we could say why do we need the diner scene, but that is tantamount to saying why do we need TBL movie at all.

Look dudes, I seriously believe the whole Big Lebowski came about from a dream one of the Coen brothers had. I know it happens to me all the time...at least it did, and most of my best stories came from my dreams. Not all of them make a whole lot of sense, but they are darn interesting if I do say so myself. Look at The Little Lebowski the Lennon and I wrote. It all started with a dream I had. I posted the story idea and the Lennon and I took turns writing it up. More often than not one of us would have an idea for a scene and we would exchange ideas by email trying to figure out how to work that scene into the script. If you look as close to our script as you are doing with TBL you will find all kinds of plots and segues that almost work, but not quite.

It was just a means to get from here to there and keep some kind of continuity to the movie. Without the limo scene the diner scene doesn't really work.