How old is Dwayne?
His Grandfather says he's 15 but rather incredulously, just wondering if it more concretely referenced at any time?
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Your suffering will be legendary... even in Hell.
Yes, he is supposed to be 15, despite the actor's real age of 22.
shareI'm pretty sure he's 16, because on his countdown calendar, he writes "473" and crosses it off at the beginning of the movie. So he would have one year and 108 days to reach age 18, when he could legally enlist in the Air Force.
Except..that would negate the need for him mothers permission..which she promises to give. That is only needed at the age of 17.....
shareShe may be promising to give permission, but only after she proposes the deal to him. I think his calendar earlier is being used on the assumption he has to wait until 18. If he's crossing off days knowing he'll get permission at age 17, why would the mom need to say it later? It sounded like a new deal beig made, rather than him having to wait until age 18.
shareIf he wants to be a pilot and fly jets, he's not just going to enlist in the Air Force as soon as he turns 18. Ideally, he's going to go to the Air Force Academy, which requires him to graduate from high school (among other things). I'm not sure, exactly, how - or, for that matter, why - his parents could or would stop him from going to the Air Force Academy. They don't even have to pay.
Alternatives (that lead to being a pilot) to the Academy don't require any particular parental input either. He'd have to graduate from high school and either:
- go to a college that has Air Force ROTC, entering the air force as an officer directly after graduating, or
- go to any college and apply to the officer training program after graduating.
He wanted to go to flight school first I believe before joining the Air Force. In order to go to flight school he would need his parents permission as he would be considered a minor and they would have to pay for that. The deal his mother made with him was to give him permission to go to flight school earlier than planned.
You can call me 'Mayor Chapstick.'
Yes.
There was a quick line where his mother agreed to that in exchange for him going on the trip. But I don't think that has anything to do with the meaning of the count of days on his wall chart. I don't know what "flight school" his mother is referring to. I assumed it was just an ordinary pilot training program of the sort that's commercially available all over the place. I don't think it could possibly refer to an Air Force program, at least not one that exists in the real world.
The earlier poster suggested he was counting down to his 18th birthday, when he could enlist in the Air Force. That doesn't work, unless he fundamentally misunderstood the process by which one becomes an Air Force pilot. He might have been counting down to his 18th birthday for some other reason. Or to his high school graduation date, though the numbers don't seem to fit that either. Or to any of wide range of other things. It could just a random number.
I suppose he could be counting up from some past event, though apparently another poster who looked at the screen more carefully than I did says the numbers are going down, not up. Also, they're too high to fit the obvious, which would be the length of his silence.
mid 30's was my guess.
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