MovieChat Forums > K-PAX (2001) Discussion > Drawing the star map is the smoking gun!

Drawing the star map is the smoking gun!

posted 13 years ago by Rich777
33 replies | jump to latest

Had the movie omitted the scene in which Prot accurately draws that star map i might have believed he was NOT an alien.

The fact is that he DID draw a PERFECT scaled diagram of a map of stars that could not be seen with the naked eye.

The fact that this drawing astonished every scientist is the room and they even asked "how" he could know this...is an indicator that Prot was from another planet.

How could someone just "invent" this all from having a terrible trauma?

How many times would someone have to practice drawing that diagram until they can do it from memory and have it be PERFECT?

Remember Prot didnt come up with the idea or talk about how he could draw out this map....

[–] miffo 13 years ago

Im not gonna argue about him being an alien or not, but I just wanted to give an answer to the last line you wrote. As he claims to be from that starsystem it would be logical he learned as much about it as possible, and be expected to do something like drawing the starmap.
Even though incredibly unprobable he might have come over an as accurate map we can produce, and as the doctor suggest thar he might be a sauvant that saw the flaw the scientist couldnt explain.

Just an alternative.

Some might find me morally challenged or morally ambigious. I prefer morally creative.

[–] qpw3141 13 years ago

Agreed. Very much the most obvious smoking gun.

The other was his confirmed ability to see UV.

[–] graham-167 13 years ago

I thought this was a weakness in the film, really. If Prot had just produced something that was already known, it would be one thing. But he was providing new information that nobody on Earth had, stuff he couldn't possibly have known. It destroyed the ambiguity of the film completely and left me wondering why everyone still doubted him.

[–] 13 years ago

[deleted]

[–] christopher-m-nilson-37-684660 13 years ago

They say how its normal for everyone from K Pax to know the star and planet layout by heart.

How many people on earth are able to recite or draw the star map of our solar system. Even a genius astronomist would take years and years to memorize something like that.

[–] creamcheese742 13 years ago

ours is relatively simple everything goes around some in cirlces some in oblongs...surely you were taught that in school. If our planets had something a bit more complicated going on as it was there our peoples would be better at math. Or he said this is something everyone on kpax knows just as if we said "everyone on earth knows where spain is" ....surely not everybody on the whole planet knows where spain is...but it's common knowledge.

[–] BigRich 13 years ago

Maybe to you and I, but not to my wife. She was a straight-A student in high school yet up until a few years ago (she's 38 now) she thought the Sun went around the Earth, I kid you not. Now if someone of her intelligence didn't know that the Earth went around the Sun, not the other way around like she thought, I can imagine people like her multiplied by the thousands, if not millions. This just makes me question what type of curriculum she had in her school district. I knew about the "nine" planets and our solar system since Kindergarten, but I've always loved Science, sci-fi, etc - she doesn't care for it. By the way, her birthday is the same date as your post, Jan 11. Talk about synchronicity.

_
Every person that served can be called a veteran, but not every veteran can be called a Marine.

[–] ShoulderDevils 11 years ago

I am not going to knock on your wife's supposed intelligence (but I am going to highly highly doubt it based on the fact that you can get to the age of 30 without knowing the earth revolves around the sun - whether you ever went to school or not - that's just pathetic, sorry), but her lack of knowledge is also a bit of an embarrassment to this nation, and your attempt at explaining away her ignorance is lame.

[–] 11 years ago

[deleted]

[–] BliZzarD571 9 years ago

That is hard to believe indeed.
But I know the case of a norwegian girl of... 25 years old right now who didn't know.

[–] Riddles_At_U 11 years ago

Not dissing your wife, but grades mean little when it comes to measuring intelligence. As many people know, Einstein almost got diagnosed as retarded (not literally, but they thought he was pretty dumb) in school. Intelligence cant be measured in numbers or IQ, but through accomplishments, imagination and discovery. This is a great misconception in many 1st world countries.. They believe that if you acquire a degree you're god of that subject. Nope. Again, not directing that towards your wife in any way, just stating facts of the flawed education system.

[–] TheAstor 10 years ago

Is your wife from a southern state? I'm not American, but I hear a lot of people in the south think the Earth is only 6,000 years old and men walked with dinosaurs, and don't believe in evolution.

[–] kwestmo (4385) 5 years ago

You're an idiot

[–] s-l-u-g 13 years ago

I'll quote the good doctor on this.

"He could be a Savant."

We don't know how intelligent/functional Robert Porter was.

-[ Why does modern horror movie suck?]-

[–] meedeegee 12 years ago

If you watch the deleted scenes on the DVD, not only does Prot draw the K-PAXion solar system on the light pen at the observatory, but later in the hospital at a desk with his pencil he draws a very large star field that is a huge slice of the night sky as viewed from K-PAX.
The astronomers are blown away with the information that he puts onto the star field and believe that he must be an alien.
This scene was most likely removed from the movie because it pushed the story too much in the direction that Prot is in fact an alien.

[–] zenbudda 12 years ago

"I" think, the reason for the doubt, is because Prot should have known why the scientists doubted him and given him more solid proof. Otherwise, you have to accept that prot was *beep* with them the whole time. The whole "adios, aloha" gimmick was definitely *beep* with them. If he was that smart, he would have known that doing that would have meant nothing to them.

[–] !!!deleted!!! (4524359) 11 years ago

That wasn't the big smoking gun for me. For me it was seeing UV light because that's actually physically impossible with human physiology. No way he can be human if he can see UV light.

[–] Rich777 11 years ago

Excellent point.

[–] raymondunc 9 years ago

I think you got it wrong. A human body did see the UV light. Rather that human body was being visited by an alien or not, the eyes and body were human.

Life is like Wikipedia: There are no Facts, Just Popular Opinion

[–] Crystalline3 11 years ago

No, the fact that he could see ultraviolet light was the smoking gun.

[–] WritingDoktorr (50) 5 years ago

Nah...there is a rare condition which allows this, called aphakia: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150727-what-are-the-limits-of-human-vision

[–] EquinoxeSS (1) 2 years ago

@WritingDoktorr - Fascinating!
Thank you for sharing this information on Aphakia. This changes the movie yet again for me.

I can't get enough of this movie. - Time for me to watch it again. :-)

[–] Riddles_At_U 11 years ago

In all honesty the smoking gun came wayyyyy before that scene. Remember when it was said that he could see UV light and humans CANT do that? There should be no question whatsoever that he wasnt an alien past that point. Anyone questioning it must have completely forgot that scene.

[–] drakkar 11 years ago

I guess there is rendered an ever so tiny possibility for a natural explanation at each of these incidences. It is when you sum them up it gets impossible to get away from Prot speaking the truth.

For the heart life is simple, it beats as long as it can.

[–] kobeandodom 10 years ago

plenty of people have been ahead of there time both mathematically and scientifically, even with less technology these savants surface from every corner of the world, no reason he couldn't have been a savant.

[–] raymondunc 9 years ago

Even if the body was being used by an alien, the body was human. That means that human body and eyes could see UV light. Had that been an alien body, you might have a point. But the body being human means seeing UV light had nothing to do with if an alien was in the body or not.

Life is like Wikipedia: There are no Facts, Just Popular Opinion

[–] drakkar 9 years ago

The human eye can see a bit of the spectrum, but our brain doesn't process it. I don't know if this really brings us any further, but we can speculate whether Prot took some control of the brain. He also took a hoarse load of drugs without reaction to it.

For the heart life is simple. It beats as long as it can.

[–] jamotide 8 years ago

Even if the body was being used by an alien, the body was human. That means that human body and eyes could see UV light. Had that been an alien body, you might have a point.

It LOOKED like a human body. Obviously it wasn't.

[–] Riddles_At_U 8 years ago

Exactly my point. The human body can't see UV light, so there had to be another force creating this anomaly. The guy them clearly states he's an alien... So theres your reasoning right there. Human body or not he was doing amazing things early on in the movie that should have validated his claims.

[–] WritingDoktorr (50) 5 years ago

There is a rare condition which allows a human to see UV light, called aphakia.