FAQ

His mission was to gather information and specimens from the past, and eating the spider was the only way he could collect it. It was part of his mission.

The movie was filmed that way to make you feel like Cole, confused and not knowing what is real and not. But it wasn't used so often.

It is his fear. It looms within us all creating the fine tapestry of our souls. A reminder of what drives us to, what strives us to never find an end but a new beginning. Or, he had spent alot of time underground as a misspent youth and a split in personality wouldn't be out of consideration. As well as, time distortion is a bitch. He explained your not supposed to exist on both planes "Whoop, Whoop nuh uh." There was also lots of heavy sedation. If that's not confusing enough. Most likely a combo deal.

Apparently it was connected with time travel mechanics, which is not explained - Cole was just taken away from the past to his present time, and so it looked like he disappeared.

It is implied that the time travel the scientists use is very rudimentary. Cole was sent to the wrong time in the first time travel sequence, so it was likely he was sent too far back, and then was quickly pulled back to the time where he was supposed to go. Actually it was 1915 or 1917 (battle of Ypres).

Twelve Monkeys is based on a screenplay by American science fiction writers David and Janet Peoples, who were inspired by the French short film La Jetée (1962).

The Army of the Twelve Monkeys is inspired by a passage in L. Frank Baum's novel, "The Magic of Oz," in which the Nome King and Kiki Aru convince twelve monkeys that they will have an endless supply of food if they become human soldiers for them.

Almost certainly not, though speculation on this subject has popped up now and again. For one, the script refers to this scientist as "the astrophysicist," while Railly was a psychiatrist. The film itself does not tend to suggest this, as the older scientist shows no apparent connection, emotional or otherwise, with James Cole. Terry Gilliam, in various discussions and commentaries appearing on the DVD (and the laserdisc before that) makes no such indication. But the most damning piece of evidence can be found in the screenplay, such as in this final scene, where the female scientist meets Dr. Peters on the airplane:DR. PETERS' POV: the FELLOW TRAVELER, a silver haired gentleman in a business suit, offering his hand congenially. DR. PETERS doesn't know who this man is, but we do. It's the ASTROPHYSICIST!

ASTROPHYSICIST: Jones is my name. I'm in insurance.As scripted, the scientist in question was originally written to be a man, indicating that as far as screenwriters David and Janet Peoples were concerned, the character was certainly not meant to be Dr. Railly. The eventual casting of a woman in the part would seem to be purely incidental, as the character's gender was irrelevant to the role.

It's called "The Earth Died Screaming" by Tom Waits. Waits had a cameo appearance as a homeless veteran in Gilliam's previous film, The Fisher King.

There is another song. 'What a Wonderful World' from Louis Armstrong.