Question: Do the sewers of New York really fill up with toxic waste every night as stated in the movie, or was this just for the purpose of the plot?
Question: When Cary Lowell arrives at the religious compound run by Wayne Newton to "donate" money, they don't let her in at first. She begs and says "But I came all the way from Wichita Falls." Being from Wichita Falls, Texas (a city not real well known throughout the US since it's relatively small) I'm curious as to how this line got into the film. Does someone working on the film have some connection to Wichita Falls?
Question: In the scene in Joe's bar there's a jazz singer named Mae Mercer. I could swear that the voice is the absolutely unique one of Nina Simone's, even the way she plays the piano, but there is no hint either in the cast or the list of song. I'd like to hear other people's opinion on that. (00:49:55)
Chosen answer: Just my opinion: Mae Mercer is a great jazz singer - and there is a soundtrack of this movie, just in case someone wants to check it out - and I am sure she was the one singing.
Question: At about 20 minutes into this film, Jean-Claude Van Damme remembers a beautiful young brunette, with a cleft chin, with two small children, paying him to take them out of the city. He later develops some relationship with her and dreams about her twice. What is the actress' name? I have never heard her character's name while watching the movie, and half of the actresses listed in the credits aren't shown in Google or elsewhere. This actress is not to be confused with Deborah Richter, the Cyborg, or JCVD's blonde side kick.
Chosen answer: Wasn't her character's name Mary? if so her real name is Terrie Batson.
Question: Why was Commissioner Hurst shocked to find out that Commandant Lassard would be helping with the crime wave? They had been friends for a long time, and Hurst knows that Lassard would never do such a thing, so it seems out of character for Hurst to think so.
Answer: Because they found jewelry from the last crime in his office. That's why he was shocked. They may be friends, but he knows he can't ignore evidence even for a friend.
Question: I'm watching on Netflix. Was this edited somehow from the original? In the Netflix version Brian enlists the help of Todd and Kiersten to rescue his brother. After escaping the dungeon, it shows them rearming themselves at the school. Then there's a cutscene where Maurice is in Ronnie's room and says "oh, Ronnie." Brian, Todd, and Kiersten are see walking into Boy's room a 2nd time, then all of the sudden Ronnie is there with the battery pack, and no-one seems surprised. In the original, was Ronnie recruited the first time around and then cut in the Netflix version? In the Netflix version Boy says the line "why lose 5 lives when you can gain 4?" when there's only 4 kids and not 5. So I feel like he must have been there. If Ronnie was edited out, why? Was it just to save the run time? If Ronnie wasn't edited out, who are the 5 lives Boy is talking about?"
Answer: I'd seen the movie a lot growing up and also just picked up the new Blu-Ray. As I remember seeing it when I was younger, and indeed in the new Blu-Ray, Ronnie is recruited on the group's second attempt to rescue Eric. He was never there the first time around. Admittedly, the line about "why lose five lives when you can gain four" is confusing given there's only four kids. But I always assumed he was referring to the four kids and Maurice, who he also has held captive.
Answer: You see Brian go down with Kiersten and Todd armed with their first set of flashlights. He then says this line because he wants to keep the four kids there and turn them into monsters. But he could kill them and my guess is maybe kill Maurice as well because he didn't succeed in turning Brian into one of them.
Answer: They went back to rescue Brian's younger brother Eric. Ronnie was there after Maurice went and got him to come and help. So the five lives refers to the four kids and the one that he stole which was Eric.
That's why I'm wondering why it was edited on Netflix because Ronnie isn't there when Boy says the line. In the Netflix version, Ronnie is recruited after Boy's line.
Question: Why does Jamie calling him uncle stop him? That and why honor her request to see his face?
Answer: Sorry about that and thank you.
Answer: The question was more-or-less answered in a previous question, so I'll copy part of my answer here: Director Dominique Othenin-Girard made the puzzling decision to try and humanize Michael in this film by showing he still had some traces of emotion that could be momentarily reached. Thus when Jamie talks to him, he briefly recovers his humanity, takes off his mask and sheds a single tear. Basically, Othenin-Girard felt it made Michael scarier by showing his humanity could be momentarily "reached." Of course, it really doesn't make sense and contradicts the other films... but it was just a decision the director made.
Question: What exactly happened to the Ghostbusters between the first film and this film? Why was a restraining order taken out against them?
Chosen answer: After the initial high of saving the city from Gozer wore off, they were blamed for the danger in the first place and sued out of business. The restraining order was additional insult to injury.
Question: While Robin Williams is packing his things in his small room, he waves down out the window at whom I believe is the Latin teacher, walking along a snowy sidewalk. What is the teacher doing, exactly? It appears that he's giving a guided tour of the campus, but he's also muttering Latin words. It can't be a classroom exercise because there are only 4 or 5 people with him. Does anyone know what he's doing?
Chosen answer: It is a classroom exercise. He is being followed by pupils and is reinforcing their latin vocabulary by taking them on a tour of the garden and showing them the things that the words actually relate to (edificium = building, flora = flower etc.) This contrasts with his earlier behaviour when he simply had them mindlessly recite conjugations (amamo, amamas, amabat). The point is that this illustrates how the Latin Master has been affected by his contact with Keating and has become a better teacher as a result.
Answer: I thought it was a punishment for the pupils involved in the scandal.
Question: I have heard a rumour that there is a deleted scene where Riggs kills the two guys who dropped him off the pier in a straight-jacket. Apparently it was too violent to keep in. If this is true then where could I see the deleted scene?
Answer: This scene is already in the movie (maybe only the Director's Cut). Riggs surfaces just off the pier, picks up a chain, strangles one man with it and breaks the other man's neck. The scene is cut considerably for play on television and in all versions of the movie in the UK prior to the 2010 UK blu-ray release (including the Directors Cut) - although some TV airings since 2000 have used the full uncut version.
Question: There's a scene in this movie that I've never understood. When Ron Kovic is in the VA hospital, there's one scene where he wakes up in the middle of the night, and looks up and sees something, and screams. What did he see that made him scream?
Answer: He doesn't see anything. He hears his blood dripping back into the makeshift machine the doctors have set up and realizes it isn't working properly. In the previous scene he was told that if they couldn't get the machine to work, he would never walk again.
No, in the previous scene he was told that if they couldn't get the machine to work, he would lose his leg. He was already told he would never walk again.
Question: At the start, why does Tango empty his gun (of unused cartridges) and reload with different bullets before shooting the tanker? Unless I missed something, it's never explained.
Answer: He was doing a combat reload, where you eject all the rounds, spent or not and fill the revolver with new ones. It guarantees six shots, rather than relying on "indexing" where you count every round fired.
That doesn't make any sense since he hadn't fired a single round and the gun was fully loaded.
It's hard to tell, but it does look like there were at least some empty shells that land on the ground. A revolver isn't going to eject spent shells, so there's no way to say it was fully loaded.
Answer: It's not specified, but I would suspect that he changed from a .38 Special to a .357 round or something. You can shoot a .38 Special out of a .357 Magnum gun and maybe for the movie they wanted to add a shot of him doing a reload to a higher power cartridge for the effect. Why anyone with a .357 Magnum gun would routinely carry a .38 Special round is beyond me.
It is common to carry .38 special rounds in a .357 carry revolver to reduce the risk of over penetration and target reacquisition. In a nutshell, .38 is a self defense round while .357 is a hunting or combat round.
Question: Was there any reason why Tong Po is listed as being played by himself when he was played by Michel Qissi? This is in the film's credit, I know IMDB listed Qissi as the actor. And if this was just a mistake, was there an explanation given as to how it was made or got past editing?
Answer: He didn't want to use his real name.
Answer: This is a mistake that has never been explained.
Question: In the later scene where the two Asian gang members are being interrogated to discover who hired them, they jokingly say something to each other in their own language, the translator cop makes some smug comment back, and then reveals to Steven Bauer that their employer was Lauderdale. Is anyone able to translate what was said during this little exchange?
Answer: More than likely, it was probably something made up and meaningless. But of course, we would never know because it's Vietnamese. The best you can do is have a Vietnamese person view that part of the film and get them to translate it if it was actually a real sentence being spoken, which I doubt.
Question: Wouldn't it be against regulation for a house, especially of that size, to be built on a section of the beach that the tide would eventually come up to? A sturdy foundation is absolutely of the question with there being nothing but sand to build it on. When the tide came up to pull Bernie into the water, it definitely would've made contact with the house.
Answer: Yes it would, but Bernie was a greedy and selfish man, he would have bribed contractors and inspectors to get it built. He wanted to live the life of a big shot. Like "The Wolf of Wall Street."
Question: When the guys are getting ready to go into town, one of them says about the sarge "as short as he is he's out of here in 30 days." Someone also said "anyone as short as Brownie shouldn't have been out there". What do they mean by short?
Answer: "Short" in this context is military slang for someone whose tour of duty is coming close to an end. It's a derivative of "short-timer."
Chosen answer: Obviously, he was kept alive so he could be studied, which was a nasty twist on the fact that he kept the dog alive, and suffering, for so long. As far as the food, there is no way to know what it was. Probably some kind of bland mush.
wizard_of_gore ★