While Forrest Gump uses real historical events as a way to introduce Forrest and his acquaintances as products of America's turbulent narrative, many of the factual occurrences were adjusted to account for Forrest's inclusion and dramatic effect.
Although the historical events in Forrest Gump are very real, Forrest is not — however, the character was directly inspired by a handful of real people. The first is Sammy Lee Davis, a real-life veteran of the Vietnam War whose story is decidedly similar to Forrest's.
Hanna Hall was cast from an open call as the young girl who inspires Forrest to run. Hall went on to appear in Sofia Coppola's The Virgin Suicides (2000), Halloween (2007), American Cowslip (2009) and Happiness Runs (2010). In 2019, she was featured on USA Network's The Purge series.
Most people who have watched the movie Forrest Gump can tell the titular character is not neurotypical. While both the author of the 1986 novel, Winston Groom, and Robert Zemeckis, the director of the 1994 movie, say Gump has no specific diagnosis, that hasn't stopped speculation.
In fact, two Japanese doctors have started down that path, perhaps tongue in cheek, and made an official diagnosis of Gump according to the DSM-IV autistic disorder criteria, ruling out possible alternative diagnoses such as Rett's disorder or childhood disintegrative disorder according to observational evidence ...
Forrest asks Jenny and Forrest Jr. to live with him, and Jenny proposes to Forrest. The two marry in the backyard. After some time of living together as a family, Jenny dies at age 32. Her illness is never explicitly stated, though screenwriter Eric Roth confirmed in a 2019 interview that she died of AIDS.
Largely as a result of being molested by her father, Jenny didn't believe she deserved an honest sincere love, preferring relationships with men who would use and abuse her. She had not been raised by two loving parents and did not believe that one could trust in a committed relationship between parents.
Forrest Jr. has written a letter for his mom, but he doesn't want his dad to read it. Forrest just leaves the letter at Jenny's grave. Forrest says he's not sure if each person has a destiny or if they're just floating around randomly (like that feather).
Bubba Gump Shrimp began as a fictional company from Forrest Gump, but in 1995, Anthony Zolezzi bought the rights to the name Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. from Paramount Pictures. Zolezzi hoped to use the name to revive his struggling seafood company, Meridian Products.
The Gump House is no longer standing. It was built specifically for the movie. Since it was hastily built (not to code) it was dismantled after production.
The symbol doesn't come back into play until the film's very end, after he's sent his son on the bus for his first day of school. The feather represents Forrest's approach to life — it just floats through the world in whichever direction the wind takes it. A lot of what happens is up to chance — for good and for bad.
What was the mistake in the Forrest Gump running scene?
When Forrest decides to end his cross country run in the Monument Valley of Utah, he was running east. He turns, says he is tired and going home, then starts jogging through the crowd heading west toward the mountains, which is the wrong way to get home to Alabama.
The Bubba Gump restaurant is named after the film's characters Benjamin Buford "Bubba" Blue and Forrest Gump. In the film, Bubba suggested getting in the shrimping business and, ultimately, Forrest pursued the idea after Bubba's death in the Vietnam War.
How much money did Forrest Gump give Bubba's mom? It's my understanding that he gave Bubba's mom half of his fortune. Since we don't know how much it amounted to, I can't give you a specific number. It was enough that it looked like she got to live in a very nice house and neighborhood with at least one servant.
Midpoint: After being sent home and awarded the Medal of Honor, Forrest sees Jenny at a peace rally in Washington, DC. Although she once again leaves with her abusive boyfriend (after Forrest beats him up), she admits in a Moment of Truth that she “will always be your girl, Forrest.”
Why did Jenny leave Forrest before he went on the long run? She recognised the innocence and purity of Forrest and all his actions and due to her childhood trauma that had caused her to have a tough life she did not want to burden Forrest with the same suffering.
She takes off her bra and puts Forrest's hand on her naked breast. Forrest—how shall we say this? —immediately ejaculates and assumes he's done something horribly wrong, but Jenny reassures him that it's OK. It happens to lots of guys, really.
Forrest again reunites with Jenny, who has quit abusing drugs and turned her life around. Jenny then introduces him to her young son, Forrest Gump Jr., revealing that Forrest is his father. Initially shocked at the revelation, Forrest starts to bond with his son.
One scene shows Jenny snorting coke at a party. Cigarette smoking for the time period capture. A woman is shown snorting cocaine (very briefly). It is later implied that she had just injected herself with heroin.
During a Vietcong ambush, Lieutenant Dan is badly wounded, but Forrest ignores the command to leave him behind and instead saves his life. Lieutenant Dan's injuries result in the amputation of his legs, and he sees Forrest's heroic act as him being robbed of fulfilling his destiny.
Bubba, a Southern Black man with Autism-spectrum disorder, appears in the most substantially fleshed out historical event in Forrest Gump: the Vietnam War.
In reality, the voice that Tom Hanks used to bring Forrest to life is from Mississippi. Notably, the reason why Hanks chose this accent underscores why he is a respected leading actor and what it means to be part of a Tom Hanks movie.
When Forrest gets up to talk at the Vietnam rally in Washington, the microphone plug is pulled and you cannot hear him. According to Tom Hanks he said, "Sometimes when people go to Vietnam, they go home to their mommas without any legs. Sometimes they don't go home at all. That's a bad thing.
