Questions/ Details/ Spoilers
Okay, I just re-watched this movie after not having seen it since it played in theaters, and had some questions. I read through this board and have got some partial answers, but I'm still confused about some details.
Watching this, I wasn't at all clear that the Dr. who was fed the leaves by the natives was the same guy at the docks, but that seems to be the popular opinion on these boards. Okay. I came here with a whole TON of questions, but thanks to this board, got a lot of it worked out...
The Dr. is fed the leaves, which cause him to turn into the monster. The natives then presumably let him go, and he goes to the docks to stop the crates which contain more leaves. The captain won't help, so he sneaks aboard, pops open the crates and does a "Noooo!!!" because... no leaves in the crates, right? So, the crates WITH the leaves were accidentally left out and shipped via air to the museum. Meanwhile, the boat also sails to Chicago, where the Dr. on board transforms and kills the crew, then gets to the museum via the giant, convenient tunnels, because he (correctly) believes the crate with the leaves that he wants will get there, too, right? Okay, that all makes sense (though far from clearly explained in the movie), BUT, then:
Question #1: who was the axe-wielding killer in the basement the cops shot? Yeah, I get that he's the red herring so all the characters think "hey, murder solved; the gala may continue!" But he makes monster sounds when discovered and they describe him as being 7' tall and mutated... as if he'd eaten the leaves? Originally, I thought HE was the guy from the docks, looking for the crates, before the boards convinced me the docks guy was the original Dr. So, basement man was just a coincidental axe-wielding maniac chillin' in the museum, who didn't actually kill anybody in the movie and was mutant-looking for his own, personal reasons? Or was there another doctor/museum-associated character who was also supposed to have eaten the leaves at some point?
Question #2: the actual relic? The book is called The Relic and the movie is called The Relic. Why? It seems completely irrelevant. There are multiple crates. One has the relic, and another one people think is empty, but of course it turns out the leaves used for the packing material were the important shipment that turns people into monsters. But throughout the first half of the movie, we keep cutting back to that one museum lady as she restores that relic. The cop asks about the relic, and Miller takes him on a visit to look at that relic. The other museum lady's like, "we're not sure what it is yet because you can't tell with this type of black stone" (or something like that; I'm paraphrasing obviously). And then as the rest of the action continues, we see here polishing away at that relic, making progress at revealing its big secret... until the third act when we just stop cutting to her, and she and the relic are never mentioned again. I felt for sure the relic was going to be the way to stop the monster or something; and that's why it was shipped alongside the leaves. Or at the very least, the relic might've been the big draw of the exhibit that the mayor and everyone was coming to see. But nope. I guess the relic was supposed to look like what the monster finally becomes (although it had no pincers or anything that looked like the actual monster)? But it never ties into anything, despite being carefully set up and having the titular role. Was this a thing in the book? What does the relic have to do with anything?