Originally posted by Alberto_Neri:
Im pretty sure that Max (James Woods) died at the robbery. The end scene with him was just a hallucion caused by the opium that Noodles smoked. Oh! I completely forgot about the opium theory. Ok well what that is all about is that basically all the scenes from the point Noodles leaves the opium den on are just op. dreams. This is supported by the very last scene where he is still in the opium den. The way I see it is that all the scenes from their child hoods, andthe scenes before he goes into the opium den are flash backs. Then all the scenes from his elderly age andthe scenes from the 30s which take place after he leaves the den are just figments of his imagination. And the last scene of him grinning in the opium den also sparks the possibility that if it was just flashbacks and dreams then maybe he never left the den in time and his former colluege's/the gangsters had found him and killed him. Thats what I make of the whole Opium Theory at least.
"Somebody told me when the bomb hits, everybody in a two mile radius will be instantly sublimated, but if you lay face down on the ground for some time, avoiding the residual ripples of heat, you might survive, permanently fucked up and twisted like you're always underwater refracted. But if you do go gas, there's nothing you can do if the air that was once you is mingled and mashed with the kicked up molecules of the enemy's former body. Big-kid-tested, motherf--ker approved."
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