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.

Chosen answer: Because his employers discovered he had put grass (marijuana) in the salad and got all the dinner guests high. Well, he didn't, the cook did. But he brought it into the house so he was fired.

Answer: Mort is Jewish, and Walt Disney was said to be antisemitic. So it would make sense in a Disney universe all the inhabitants would share his supposed beliefs.

MasterOfAll

Question: When Tom Cruise is battling to get free of the tentacle pulling him into the ship from the cage, there is alien (presumably) writing visible on the underside of the tripod just beyond his arm and above the lights. Can someone shed light on what this may say (theories, previously suggested writer/director thoughts)?

scodoc

Chosen answer: My guess is that it could be a manufacturing symbol or name like you would see on today's construction machines. It could also be a warning like, "Caution: Hot Vent", or something along those lines. To my knowledge it is never clarified by anyone. Also could have been the number/name of the unit the tripod belonged to.

Answer: Like it stated in the movie these tripods were buried years upon years ago, and if you slow don't the movie it appears to be Egyptian writing.

Question: I mostly understand the nature of the "kicks", but one thing I don't understand is what the kick was that woke the characters up from the 1st dream layer, the one with the van falling off the bridge. Falling off the skyscraper woke Ariadne up in the snow fortress layer, the fortress collapsing woke them up in the hotel layer, and the elevator crashing woke them up in the van layer. What woke the characters up, all at the same time, in the van layer?

Answer: You've got it a bit backward. Falling off the skyscraper (dying) got her out of limbo and back to the snow fortress so that when the elevator crashed at the hotel, THAT kick would be able to wake her out of the snow fortress. Then the van crashing woke her from the hotel, and finally the time entered into the dream machine itself expired and woke them all simultaneously for the final time. The only ways to wake up are to die within the dream or receive a kick from the level above the dream you're in, whether that's in another dream or the waking world.

Phixius

Question: How did Dent figure out that Lau was dirty? Before the rooftop scene, where he yells at Gordon for not keeping him in the loop, there was never any indication that Dent was aware of Lau's dirty dealings.

Brad

Chosen answer: Lau transferred all the mob bosses' money to China and fled to Hong Kong, because he said the DA's office was about to raid the banks. So if Dent's office was keeping tabs on the mob accounts in preparation for the raid, they would have detected the transfers and linked them to Lau.

Chosen answer: The Matt Smith pronunciation in this episode seems to be the outlier. Metebelis 3 was first mentioned and shown in the Jon Pertwee stories "The Green Death" and "Planet of the Spiders". In those stories, and in Sarah Jane Adventures it was pronounced 'Meh-teh-beel-is'.

Sierra1

Question: How can a woman with such a serious heart condition have such toned arms? Muscles like Emily's requires some serious weight lifting which I doubt a serious ill woman like Emily could do.

Answer: In real life she probably would not have this type of physique or be able to maintain it. While some actors change their looks to reflect a character, it is typical for others to look unlike everyday people, such as being ultra-thin and having excessively toned muscles.

raywest

Chosen answer: He most likely has an artificial heart or some type of system that circulates his blood, this system doesn't necessarily have to take the shape of a typical human heart. However if his biological heart is still functional, it may be behind the lungs.

Answer: Watch again the scene (s), especially close to the end when his armor is reverted to silver and just between his lungs; his heart is just behind his lungs and beating, though if you blink you might miss it.

Erik M.

Except the heart is located in front of the lungs, not behind them.

lionhead

Why Murphy's heart isn't where it should be in a normal human is up to speculation-perhaps the transformation into a cyborg necessitated it's being repositioned, perhaps. The heart is there, though.

Erik M.

Question: How did Kate Hudson pay the cab fare after she left Mathew McConaughey's apartment, after she left her pocketbook in the apartment?

Answer: She could have been carrying money and/or a credit card in a pocket of her clothing.

raywest

Question: Mortianna is seen practicing some sort of magic, and in the extended addition we see the Sheriff "praying" (I think) in front of an upside-down crucifix. And he assures Mortianna that his true faith lies in the "old ways." I'm trying to figure out: Is this art Mortianna and the Sheriff practice supposed to be Devil worship? Black magic with no real base, that they just invented for the movie? A form of pre-Christian religion, e.g. something like the Druidic religions of pre-Roman Britain? For the life of me, I can't put my finger on it.

Answer: The white robes, reference to "the old ways", and pentagram across the map when the Sheriff meets the Barons suggests per-Christian Druidism; the upside down crucifix certainly implies Devil-worship. These two spiritual paths are, by nature, mutually exclusive. In short, a fictional pseudo-witchcraft invented for the film, yes.

Answer: It is a type of witchcraft which involves devil worship, yes.

Phixius

Question: When Daryl is confronted by his friends, he tells them that he was forced to swallow something. What was it and why kill him if he was forced to do it?

Answer: It was a tracking device which gave away their location. Since they couldn't remove it, they decided to kill him as he was now a liability.

Gavin Jackson

They killed him because he betrayed them.

How was Daryl forced to swallow it? Did they manage to apprehend him and force it down his throat, or was it something else entirely?

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: 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: 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

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

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.

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

Question: I understand that Frank is part of the manipulated dead and I also understand that he does not travel through time, but rather manipulates it as it happens. This leads me to ask, how was it possible for Frank to guide Donnie before Donnie kills him? Is this implying that the loop has happens over and over until Donnie gets it 'right' and sacrifices himself?

Answer: No, the timeline is not a loop. Frank's death is just bound to happen and he is supposed to make sure Donnie kills him, after accidentally killing the girl. That is the "trap" as they call it. To make sure that Donnie is forced to fix the universe and saves everyone.

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

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.