Culture news 18 years later, it’s still one of cinema’s greatest mysteries. Even Tom Cruise doesn’t know what “Rabbit’s Foot” is
It is now customary to leave no questions unanswered and to provide spectators with all the answers. Impossible in 2024 to leave the nature of Deckard in Blade Runner to the appreciation of the fans. There are still several filmmakers who knowingly slip an element of mystery into their film. Christopher Nolan’s spinning top in Inception or the infamous item that made none other than Tom Cruise spin are perfect examples.
“Rabbit’s Foot” by Tom Cruise
We are in 2006 and Tom Cruise is still trying to save the world on the big screen through the character as famous as his interpreter: agent Ethan Hunt. Directed by JJ Abrams, Mission: Impossible III hits theaters in France on May 3 and breathes new life into the franchise. The plot built around a flashforward and a protagonist abandoned by his peers (this will become a gimmick of the saga later), without forgetting the staging inspired by the filmmaker behind the Star Wars postlogy and the reboot of the Star saga Trek, kept millions of spectators around the world in suspense and made this third episode a success.
However, those who still remember the film in 2024 (or those who saw it recently) cannot easily forget this essential element of the story… the famous “Rabbit’s Foot”. After 2 hours and 6 minutes, the nature of this macguffin (a pretext object for the development of the scenario) coveted by the trafficker Owen Davian remains a complete mystery. This item, whose price amounts to 850 million US dollars, remains as enigmatic as ever 18 years after the film’s release. Almost no clue, not even an interview, has provided a clear answer on this subject.
An answer that is not one
It is possible that this “Rabbit’s Foot” is in reality a weapon of mass destruction, but nothing formally attests to this. When Agent Ethan Hunt played by Tom Cruise asks his techie colleague Benji Dunn played by Simon Pegg “You have no idea what this is?”, the latter responds without really responding. He simply refers to his professor of bimolecular kinetics and cellular dynamics at Oxford who enjoyed scaring his students by talking about technologies capable of eradicating the human species.
It seemed inevitable that a complex would be created, which he always referred to as the ‘anti-god’. It was like an accelerated mutation, you know, like an irresistible force of destructive power that would eventually wipe out everything, the buildings, the parks, the streets, the children, the ice cream sellers. So, every time I see a bunch of misfits ready to spend such a sum of money on a mystery technology, I tell myself every time that it’s ‘the anti-god’, the end of the world, that kind of stuff… – Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg)