Answered questions about specific movies, TV shows and more

These are questions relating to specific titles. General questions for movies and TV shows are here. Members get e-mailed when any of their questions are answered.

Question: Near the end of the film, the plane stuck on the ground is pressurised before it can move out of the way. Why is it pressurised if it's on the ground and not in the air?

kh1616

Chosen answer: Patroni isn't referring to the cabin pressure, he says to "pressurize the manifold" - part of the engine start procedure of a Boeing 707, which I believe involves a ground crew pumping gas (nitrogen?) from a cart into the intake manifold.

Sierra1

Pressurize - as in the manifold, to turn on bleed air from the APU - on board Auxiliary Power Unit - a small jet engine that provides electrical and pneumatic air to operate aircraft systems including starting engines.

Question: If the island sinks underwater at regular intervals, then what happens to the tiny elephants, giant bees, etc (and the whole ecosystem) while the island is underwater?

Answer: There is a deleted scene on the DVD/Bluray where they attempt to give an explanation. Kailani asks "What happens to the animals when the island sinks? They can't all die!". Alexander replies "Even the mammals develop quasi-amphibian characteristics. They just burrow below the ground's surface and absorb the oxygen through their skin."

Sierra1

Question: After Gimli finds Merry's knife sheath among the dead orcs, Legolas bows and says a few words in Elvish. What are they and what do they mean?

Answer: "Hiro hyn hîdh ab 'wanath." ("May they find peace in death").

Sierra1

Question: When Rene Russo and her team are breaking into his house there is music playing with a great beat. What is the music and artist, or was it made just for the movie?

Answer: Sadly, this track, known as either "Cleaning Service" or "Catherine's Break In" was only ever released on a VERY rare, expanded version of the score in 2001. Since then it has become extremely difficult to find.

Chosen answer: No it isn't. Brinkley has three kids. One born in 1985, one born in 1995 and one born in 1998. Vegas Vacation was made in 1997. This was before her third child but 2 years after her second child. The kid in the car is shown as a baby, not a two year old.

oddy knocky

Question: When Sky Captain's base is attacked, he blasts off with his P-40 from a hangar with the letters E and L between the wings. What does that stand for?

Answer: Pretty sure it's FL, standing for Flying Legion.

Sierra1

Question: Maybe I missed something, but didn't Jack murder a guy in the beginning of the film and was about to get life in prison before he escaped? How is it that at the end, he flies back home with John and meets with his sister and they live happily ever after as if nothing happened? Is he not a fugitive from Russia?

Carl Missouri

Chosen answer: It can probably be assumed that they didn't just turn up to Domodedovo Airport and board a plane in the normal way. As Jack is a CIA agent, it is likely that the Agency had some way of getting the McClanes out of Russia via covert or diplomatic means.

Sierra1

Show generally

Question: 1) Why was the grounded Minnow moved from the shoreline to the lagoon in color seasons? With holes like it had in the sides, it should have sunk at sea! 2) A friend says he counts four people on the stern area in the color version as the Minnow puts to sea. I really cannot say for sure but is that a goof or a shadow or something else? 3) Is the third season music SLIGHTLY different from the season two? Some on Youtube claim it is. Only proof they show sounds like someone played with an audio equalizer / compressor and made it more pronounced.

Answer: 1) The answer to the moving of the Minnow probably has no profound significance except for aesthetic. They were re-doing the opening in color, and it looks like they had a different model of the Minnow and placed it in a different setting. This is more a "continuity error" than a decision of any import in the minds of the creators, I'm guessing. 2) I see five people on the stern. But even if my eyes are playing tricks on me, someone could have easily been below deck. 3) The music does have a somewhat different quality between season two and season three. The differences are subtle. I agree with you that it probably wasn't actually re-recorded, but instead, was just remastered a bit. Also note, for reasons unknown to me, in the season three opening, the pictures of Mary Ann and the Professor (rest in peace, Russell Johnson), are reversed, compared to season two.

Michael Albert

Answer: It was just a succinct, aspirational and poetic way of saying, "I will go wherever you take me, as long as we're together, an it's anywhere away from my hopelessly bleak and loveless existence." It's one of a few references they make to being together, wherever they go (with apologies to "Gypsy"). They sing the ditty "Up We Go." They say, "you jump, I jump." It also provides kind of an interesting foreshadowing and counterpoint to where they end up, souls knit, spending eternity together at the bottom of the sea. Obviously, it isn't literal.

Michael Albert

Chosen answer: Andy created the books so that everything was in the name of the Randall Stevens alias he created. The real books pointed to Warden Norton AND Randall Stevens, but didn't have Andy's name on them. As far as the law knows, Norton's accomplice was a guy named Randall Stevens who skipped town with the money before ratting him out.

Captain Defenestrator

If the laundered funds case was thoroughly investigated on an immediate basis (within a couple of days after the Bugle's writer got the material), the alias of Randall Stevens would have come out almost immediately, and of course his description would match that of someone who just escaped from prison, and even Barney Fife could have put two and two together.

Valid. However, by the time that would happen, Andy would be over the border and the warden would still get taken down, so his bigger goals would still be accomplished. They'll update Andy Dufresne's wanted poster to read "Alias Randall Stevens," but that's the biggest consequence for Andy.

Captain Defenestrator

Question: Why didn't Dumbledore let Harry, and the others on their side, know ahead of time that he had asked Snape to kill him? Then they would have known all along that they could trust Snape.

Answer: Because if they knew to trust Snape they would have behaved differently around him and that would have looked mighty suspicious to all the Death Eaters and Death Eaters' kids that know how much Harry and his allies hate Snape. It was imperative that Voldemort believe Snape was on his side. Besides, do you really think Harry would have been okay with that plan anyway?

Phixius

Chosen answer: The 8th Doctor regenerated into the War Doctor by his ship crash landing on Karn. See "The Night of the Doctor". The people on Karn recognised him and allowed him to have a regeneration because he had helped them before. He got to choose who he regenerated into, and decided on the War Doctor, saying "Doctor no more". The War Doctor regenerated into the 9th Doctor in "The Day of the Doctor" apparently just due to old age, saying "Oh yes, of course. I suppose it makes sense. Wearing a bit thin. I hope the ears are a bit less conspicuous this time."

Shadow5

Double Sting - S1-E13

Question: In this episode, Jessie, ticked off that he had to pay the boy's bail, says that the mortgage payment has to be made to Jason Higgins. I thought that J.D. Hogg held the mortgage to the Duke farm. Has my memory got a hole in it?

Answer: Hogg didn't own the farm and hold the mortgage until that episode. He says that he "bought aII Jason's hoIdings Iast week", but the Dukes didn't know about it and thought they still had to pay Higgins.

Sierra1

Answer: There was a time conflict. Weller was filming another movie (Naked Lunch) at the same time RoboCop 3 was scheduled for production.

raywest

Question: What was with him vomiting throughout the movie? Did it mean something?

outceltc

Answer: Hank threw up in the toilet because the picture of Letitia's husband as scratched by her son. He had escorted him to the death chamber.

Chosen answer: Hank is a deputy warden in a Georgia state prison.He oversees the executions of condemned prisoners, and before each one he is literally sickened by having to perform this duty.

raywest

No - he threw up after sex with Berry which is well after he quit. He threw up after drinking heavily the night before.

Per the vomit-after-sex scene. I too, thought that the drinking must have caused it. I rewound and watched the scene again and BAM, I'd missed it! He's in the bathroom at the sink facing the mirror. THERE, TWICE, he can see the reflected picture of her dead executed husband: in the main mirror plus in the little round mirror to the right. (Musgrove's pic must be hung on the wall behind him.) That execution memory = vomiting.

He threw up because he saw her husband's picture.

Answer: It's quite evident that he vomited after seeing Leticia's husband's pic juxtaposed with his image which fortified guilt, it was sickening to him.

Show generally

Question: When you look at the front of the house, the 2nd story is to the left of the front door. The stairs and the bedrooms are on the right. Also, there has to be a very high cathedral ceiling to account for the stairs which isn't shown in the front of the house photo. Does anyone know what the house looks like where the show was filmed?

Answer: There are a number of photos online of the Brady house's exterior of what it looked like when the show was being filmed and what it looks like today. Only the exterior shots were of a real house. The interior was a studio set and it did not exactly match the real home's floor plan. There are also some YouTube virtual tours of the house that explore the interior. If you Google "Brady Bunch House" you will find much information about this.

raywest

Question: Towards the end when the briefcase has been recovered and Hobbs asks what the reward should be, Dom replies "1327." What do these numbers refer to? Shaw's former hideout? Or an amnesty law code or something?

mNemesis

Chosen answer: It's the house number of Dom's old house in Los Angeles, from the first film. Hobbs says "name your price", so I guess Dom was asking him to buy his old house back (the gang are having a BBQ there in the next scene).

Sierra1

Question: Can someone please tell me what the entire board said when Jack Black was describing all the different types of rock, while song is playing?

Movieman123

Chosen answer: Bonzo goes to Bitburg - The Ramones.

Question: How did the ancient predator see the mark on Lex's face when predators can only see in infrared?

Answer: It is possible with their infrared vision which shows body heat that the burn from the blood was in fact hotter, which allowed it to be seen more visibly to the commander.

He didn't have a mask on at the time.

Predators can see infa red without masks. The masks give them other vision.

Question: Why do they have rifles and equipment wrapped up in plastic before they actually fight?

Answer: The bags were meant to keep sand out of the actions and magazines as long as possible before they needed to be used in combat.

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.