FAQ

He was referring to the Heckler & Koch model G36 submachine gun Ethan finds in the case. Luther thought it would give Ethan an edge in fighting off the crew that were trying to rescue Davian. It worked a bit since Ethan was able to use the increased firepower he had to shoot down the drone the terrorists were using to cover their operation. However, Ethan soon runs out of ammo since he only had one magazine.

Impossible Mission Force (IMF) agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise), retired from field work and currently training new recruits, learns that one of his trainees, Lindsey Farris (Keri Russell), who was following elusive black market arms dealer Owen Davian (Philip Seymour Hoffman), has disappeared, Ethan comes out of retirement to find her. When he and his team-munitions expert Luther Strickell (Ving Rhames), aviation expert Declan Gormley (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), and communication operative Zhen Lei (Maggie Q)-track down Davian and the mysterious "rabbit's foot", Davian retaliates by kidnapping Ethan's new wife Julia (Michelle Monaghan).

Mission Impossible III is a sequel to Mission: Impossible (1996) and Mission: Impossible II (2000), which was based on a TV series also titled Mission: Impossible (1966) that ran from 1966 to 1973 and was created and initially produced by American screenwriter Bruce Geller. Writing credits for M:I 3 are credited to Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, and J.J. Abrams (who also directed). M:I 3 was followed by Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011), Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015), and Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018).

The dialog didn't really have any meaning in the traditional sense, i.e. it was telling a ridiculous story. The purpose was to force Davian to pronounce commonly used syllables of speech to obtain a sample of his voice. When the sample was run through a computer program that Luther had, it created a base of Davian's voice pattern that Ethan could use with the voice modifying device on his throat to imitate Davian.

The Rabbit's Foot was basically a MacGuffin—a device used to move the plot along. A MacGuffin usually doesn't require much of an explanation, because it has little bearing on the story. All the audience needs to know is that it's something very important or valuable and that all the players in the story are trying desperately to get their hands on it.

According to Carnahan in an interview on joblo.com:Danny [Gilroy] and I wrote a script about private military and going into Africa and assassinating this West African premier and throwing this country into chaos. Ken Branagh was gonna play this guy based on Timothy Spicer, who was an SAS colonel, British army. And he retires and he's a billionaire two years later, because he puts his private military together and they go into Sierra Leone and they go, "You got a problem with this rebel uprising? Will crush 'em.' 15% of the copper mines, 10% of the diamond trade, etc."

We were so far ahead of the curve, with private military. [...] But we had it where it was geopolitical and really sharp. It would have been something else, dude.

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