Question: Can someone please tell me the order in which the Hellboy graphic novels take place? I want to start collecting, but they don't have numbers or anything on the spine, so I don't know where to begin.
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: I know the phrase "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" is supposed to be scary, but I don't understand. Why is it scary and what does it mean?
Answer: The phrase depicts how in the 20s while doing the human flesh butcher job over and over, Jack had started to become dull. This is also visible in 80s Jack's behavior. This ultimately led him to take extreme step of killing his wife and kid out of hunger.
Question: Would it be possible for someone to explain something to me? What is the significance of the time 2:06? Obviously it's when David wakes up in the middle of the night, but why?
Answer: That is the time the he supposedly woke up to find his wife dead in the beginning of the movie, so now he has nightmares and wakes up at the exact same time.
Question: Is it a coincidence that the name of the plane EDI is made following a pattern similar to the one used with HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey with the name of IBM? Letter "E" is 3 letters before "H", "D" is 3 letters after "A", and "I" is 3 letters before "L". Is it just a coincidence?
Answer: Not a coincidence, this is what happens when a screenwriter or producer decides that he is terribly clever. They probably assumed they were paying homage to 2001: A Space Odyssey with their whole "dangerous AI loses control" schtick, so they thought it'd be coy to make that kind of reference.
Question: In the scene where Hermione grabs Ron's hand, you can see Malfoy in the background pointing and laughing at something. Is he pointing at Harry and Buckbeak or has he noticed Ron and Hermione's awkward hand-grab?
Answer: He's laughing at Harry's situation, expecting him to get mauled at any moment.
Question: I don't understand how Lincoln Six Echo ended up with Tom Lincoln's memories. If they explained it, I missed it.
Answer: This is a concept usually referred to as genetic memory or racial memory, which suggests that an individual can receive memories and knowledge from their forebears even without direct contact with them - that the information is, in some way, coded into DNA. Lincoln Six Echo is created from a sample of Tom Lincoln's DNA and has therefore inherited some of his memories, albeit in an apparently disjointed and vague form. There's no scientific evidence that genetic memory transferral actually occurs in human beings (although some scientists have claimed to have observed it in chimpanzees), but it has nevertheless formed a major plot point in numerous works of science fiction.
Question: Tom Hardy puts his shotgun shells in his mouth before swimming from his patrol boat to the larger boat. Why is this?
Answer: Because they'd be completely useless if he allowed them to get soaked by the water.
But his head comes out of the water. So the shells got wet anyway.
Answer: That's not true but the shotgun shells he was using are waterproof.
The One With Phoebe's Dad - S2-E9
Question: I don't get the joke when Chandler says "Don't you have to be Claymation to say stuff like that?" Can someone explain this?
Question: The opening synopsis says that the Trade Federation blocked all shipping to Naboo. Do we know what the shipments consisted of? Was it raw materials, food, machinery, or are we not really meant to know?
Chosen answer: Put purely and simply, we have no particular need to know for the purposes of the plot. That being said, Naboo seems to be a largely pastoral world, so is likely to be self-sufficient on the food front, but may require the import of more industrially based goods, like machinery and so forth. Books related to the series suggest that Naboo has a highly profitable plasma-fuel industry - presumably fuel shipments would also be blockaded, depriving the planet of vital income.
Question: Did Herb Brooks really push the team as hard as depicted in the film?
Chosen answer: Oh definitely. His strategy was to make the team hate him....together. They united under that, and it clicked at the right time.
Question: In the film they are referring to the Somalians as "skinnies". Can anyone confirm if this was the actual name used by Americans to call the locals in Somalia in the 1993 conflict?
Chosen answer: My source is one of the real life members of the Black Hawk crew and he tells me that the Somalians were indeed regularly called "Skinnies", as well as "Smallies" and, unfortunately, the "N" word, too. He is not proud of this, but said in the spirit of truth and honesty felt this was the best answer to this question and hopes sincerely no-one finds this offensive. Additionally, the term "Skinnies" itself comes from Starship Troopers, a 1959 book that has become required reading for the modern US Military (and which was also made as a movie in 1997). The word references the alien antagonists in the book.
Question: Strangely, unlike seasons 2 & 3, there's no option to branch the deleted scenes back in to season 4 and on disc 7, the first deleted scene is under the heading "Season 4 Director's Cut Promo". Is this really as black and white as it seems or am I missing something? Has anyone heard any rumours, or facts, that Fox is planning to release Season 4 Director's Cut in the near future?
Question: I never understood why the Elf contingent arriving at Helm's Deep was led by Haldir, the marchwarden for Galadiel and Lothlorien. But he brought greetings from Elrond of Rivendell, who wasn't really the equal of Galadriel. Did Rivendell have troops that Lothlorien didn't? And yet, there were plenty of armed Elves as the Fellowsip arrived in Lothlorien in FotR.
Chosen answer: Haldir brings the message from Elrond, who is very much Galadriel's equal, that they fight in honour of the earlier alliance - Elrond fought in that alliance, while Galadriel didn't, so it makes sense that the message would be from him. The elven forces have been sent from Lorien for the simple reason that it's much closer to Rohan - they also don't have to cross the Misty Mountains, which would be a serious problem for any group sent from Rivendell.
Question: Toward the end, when the island is closed off from the rest of Gotham and some of the poison has been vaporized and is drifting around, why isn't the little boy in red affected? Rachel and Gordon have been vaccinated, but everyone else is breathing the stuff in, and we see the some of the hallucinations that those others experience - why is the little boy immune?
Answer: They did show he was affected. Rachel was already immune. So the visual of Scarecrow when the horse was breathing fire and Crane had flames in his eyes was what the boy was seeing. He had no other perception of Batman because he wasn't afraid of him. He knew from earlier in the movie that Batman was good and had no reason to fear him.
Answer: I don't recall it ever being expressed that he is immune. I think it was an editorial decision on the director's/film editor's part just to not show us the effects of the drug on the little boy. It's similar to how they didn't show us Rachel's perspective of Batman while she was drugged. He's also being calmed by Rachel, which helps to minimise the effects.
Question: When the Greeks are trying to burn a mark on Briseis, one of them says "Better to be a Spartan slave than a Trojan." and then someone else yells "Achilles." as Achilles arrives. What did he say? Or what was he going to say?
Answer: He was warning the other soldiers that Achilles was coming.
Question: They're nearly sunk and killed when trying to get through Gibraltar, but through some miracle they make it anyway. Then suddenly they're heading back to La Rochelle. If it was so impossible to get in to the Mediterranean, how come it was so easy to get out?
Answer: We don't actually know that it was particularly easy for them to get out - it may have been quite a tense situation, but, from the cinematic point of view, that situation has already been shown once; repeating it would be an unnecessary duplication and would take time that could be better used on showing other events. All we need to know is that they made it through a second time - the precise details aren't that important to the overall storyline.
Question: Why didn't Val Kilmer play Batman for this movie? Was he not offered the part? Did he not want it? What happened?
Question: During the section toward the end where Bruce Willis is arriving at the farm to rescue Nancy, we see Elijah Wood sitting and reading the bible in the house. Since he is a friend of the yellow freak's family, why doesn't he do anything to stop Bruce Willis? He certainly helped when Mickey Rourke was around but this time he just sits and does nothing and I'm a little confused as to why. If someone could help me I would really appreciate it.
Answer: Elijah Wood's character is shown in the house, distracted as Bruce Willis sneaks by. Perhaps he doesn't do anything because he doesn't know what's going on.
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Answer: They run as follows; Seed Of Destruction, Wake The Devil, The Chained Coffin, The Right Hand Of Doom and Conqueror Worm. There are several other books which collect various stories about the character (often by different authors) - these generally take place in different eras and can be read in any order.
Tailkinker ★