Some movie and TV mysteries, however, weren't intended to be mysteries at all, and often are just the result of the director getting cute at the last minute. These mysteries are often plainly explained in the script, and while the answers aren't always definite, they are surprising. Like ...

If the Internet is to be trusted (and we don't see why it shouldn't be), the best way to solve a movie mystery once and for all is to argue about it incessantly in blog posts, message boards and chatrooms. If you don't believe us, do a Google search for "Inception ending" and see what comes up (we dare you). Or, simply wait 10 minutes after this article is posted and scroll down to see what our own comments section is saying.

7 Pulp Fiction -- What's in the Briefcase?

The Mystery:

In case you forgot, the beginning of Pulp Fiction isn't just John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson driving around talking about foot massages and foreign fast food. They're out for a briefcase filled with ... orange light, apparently.

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Many, many movie fans have seen the long, drawn-out theories about the film in general, and that's not even touching what's inside the briefcase. A popular theory says it's Marsellus Wallace's soul, while others claim that it's simply whatever you want it to be.

According to Tarantino, it's just a MacGuffin, something to drive the plot along. Meaning that it's not important, so really, we shouldn't even be talking about this.

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What the Script Says:

But Tarantino's co-writer, Roger Avary, says that when they wrote the script for Pulp Fiction, it was diamonds.

Not soul-capturing diamonds. Not a giant diamond that shoots lasers. Just plain old diamonds. Why didn't they just show that? Because Tarantino had just used a case of diamonds as a major plot device in Reservoir Dogs, and he and Avary agreed that it was "too boring and predictable" to do that again. So they decided not to show them, thus giving the whole thing an air of mystery.