Question: I can understand how zombie saliva can spread the disease, but how can scratches spread the disease?
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: What exactly is the experiment all about?
Answer: To test the bond between children and their parents.
Question: Does anyone know the calls of a bosun's whistle? Does it mean "get on it" or are there certain tunes for certain calls, etc.
Answer: The boatswain's calls are to tell the crew what time it is, or what to do. So, there are different calls for different things. Two good pages to check out are http://www.btinternet.com/~fourthgill.seascouts/bosuncall.htm and http://home.usaa.net/~crowmax/bosun.htm.
Question: I need this answered. My wife and I saw The Forgotten movie tonight, and we noticed MAJOR MISTAKES. We literally saw microphones hanging over their head dozens of times. Let me repeat that...DOZENS OF TIMES. I have to know if this was on purpose, because on the net some say they saw the same thing and others said they never noticed it... It happened so often it was distracting... DOZENS OF TIMES.
Answer: When movies are made the actual picture captured onto the film is larger than what is intended to be shown in the theater. The projector in the theater is supposed to be adjusted to not show this portion of the film, however occasionally the projector gets out of whack and you get to see all the trash at the top or the bottom that wasn't supposed to be there. Sometimes when a movie is "panned and scanned" to fit TV screens some of this trash also accidentally sneaks in. It's the cinema's fault, not the movie.
Question: What is Gollum? I thought he was supposed to have once been a hobbit but what happened to him?
Answer: He was indeed a hobbit, probably of the Stoor sub-race. After the finding of the Ring, he fell under its influence and he took it. The Ring kept him alive, prolonging his life far beyond the norm (he's around 500 years old at the time of the films). His physical change is related to the Ring - the precise mechanism is unclear, but it's most likely due to repeated exposure to the wraithworld that parallels our own; wearers of the Ring are transported at least partially into that world, rendering them invisible in ours. The same process happened with the kings who became the Nazgul.
Question: What sort of fabric is Neo's trench coat made of? I would guess wool, but can anyone be more specific?
Answer: It was a custom-length black wool garbardine coat. In an interview with the costume designers, they stated a need for a lighter fabric, but still light and sleek for the actors to wear. About half of Morpheus's crew wear black wool gabardine when they jack into the Matrix. The rest use PVC, leather, or a combination of both.
Question: Where can I find the lyrics to the version of the song, "Hot, Hot, Hot" in the movie?
Answer: Find it here: www.osierra.com/index.php?p=63&c=1.
Question: How did the Thin Man survive the explosion in the first movie? And if he is such an "angel," then why was he attacking Lucy Liu?
Answer: Creepy Thin Man has a talent for surviving otherwise sure deaths, like exploding, crashing in motorcycles, etc. As for attacking Alex, I guess he's just a weird, creepy guy. Maybe he only likes Dylan?
Answer: He was wasn't attacking her, he was defending himself from her attack. When she naturally assumed he was there to kill them. When he killed the bad guy sneaking up behind Alex, she realised he was a good guy.
Question: Why does Obi-Wan freely admit he is a Jedi, when he is supposedly in hiding from Vader? He sure made no secret of his last name.
Answer: It's a very large galaxy - Vader's hardly going to track down some old hermit living out in the middle of nowhere on a backwards planet based purely on a surname that, for all we know, might be quite a common one, and remember that nobody knows him as 'Obi-wan', only as Ben. The only person that he admits to being a Jedi to is Luke, who's not going to go running to the Empire to turn in a man who was a friend of his fathers. Everyone else seems to regard him as a crazy old hermit, not a Jedi Knight or anything like that. Okay, he cuts loose with his sabre in the Mos Eisley cantina, but (a) he's about to leave the planet anyway and (b) it's not as if he had a lot of choice. By the time that Vader might hear about it, he'll be long gone.
Question: Why does Thomas Reynolds want the telecommunications security and privacy act to be passed into law so bad that he has a congressman killed? To advance his career?
Answer: Yes, and to increase the importance of his agency.
Question: At the end, when Mad World is playing and it shows the FAA people talking, is one of them Jon Stewart? He isn't listed in the credits, but I am quite sure of it.
Question: When David is flicking through the channels on the TV, I am sure you can see a guy standing to his left, just on the other side of the curtain. (If you look behind his head, you may be able to see his mouth and nose.) Can anyone tell me if they see this too, or am I wrong?
Answer: There is nobody there. The only thing behind David's head is a poster of an actor.
Question: Why is it that we never see the Blair Witch? Also the cover is very convincing that this is a true story. Is it?
Answer: The Blair Witch does not exist. The reason you didn't see is it is an abstract concept. What you can't see is scarier because you make her up in your own mind. It is a complete hoax of a story. The three actors have been doing many other acting jobs since, especially Heather and Josh.
Question: Does anyone know why Lucy's father, Marlin, took pictures of the mural she painted before he and Doug painted over it with white paint in preparation for the following day? I can't think of any reason he would document that because Lucy was going to paint it again anyways.
Answer: Why wouldn't he want to preserve a record of all his daughter's art works whether she painted over them or not?
Answer: Because she draws something different every day and he wants to keep each one in some way.
Question: There is something I have always wondered about spoofs: Do they actually get permission from the makers of the films they spoof?
Answer: Nope. Parodies aren't usually covered by copyright laws as they are generally considered to be as example of fair usage, provided that it can be demonstrated that the copyrighted material was used in a manner that is considered to be a commentary, ridicule or criticism of that material.
Question: Does anyone know how to build these type of ships, using traditional techniques? And any recommended books to read (i.e. rigging, boat building, etc.)?
Answer: Go to http://www.barkendeavour.com.au/endfox/page1.html and read how a full sized replica of Capt. Cook's ship was built from the original plans in Australia (and see this ship's connection with the movie). There are many such ships sailing the world's oceans. I spent 6 fantastic weeks in (crew sail "in" not "on") HM Barque Endeavour. We left Halifax, Nova Scotia in November, and sailed south to Barbados. So, yes, those people know how to build, and maintain a wooden ship that meets historic museum standards. They even do a certain rope whipping "wrong" because that's the way it was done on the original ship. I was reading the log of one crewmember while lying in his bunk. He described a hand hold he had affixed to the beam above his bunk to help in getting out of the bunk. I reached up, and there it was! Now THAT's attention to detail! Also check out Mystic Seaport to get you started.
Question: I have looked all over the web for the wav of the sound Goofy makes whenever he is falling, which he does at least once in every cartoon he is in. It sounds like 'yah-ha-ha-hooey.' I have never found it, so can someone point me to where I might be able to download it?
Answer: Took about 1 minute to Google this: http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/7451/sounds.html.
Question: It's obviously simple to build a robot that can understand and speak English. Even droids working as short order cooks can speak English, as far back as Episode 2. So why can't R2 talk? He's a friggin' mechanic, he needs to be able to speak with the humans he works for. I know his primary function isn't communication but if 90% of the droids in Star Wars have a speech function surely R2 could have one.
Answer: R2's job is astromech droid and in-flight mechanic, which means that he's supposed to be locked into a fighter most of the time. When that is the case, he can communicate with the pilot through the computer (as seen in Empire Strikes Back, I believe). Since the builders didn't anticipate how much wandering around he would be doing, they didn't see a need to build in a speech function and instead spent that space on extra tools and repair programming. How many astromechs do you see wandering around the Star Wars universe and interacting with people?
Question: Can someone please tell me which season and the name of the episode is the one where Frank buys the two sets of pearl necklaces, (one to give to Margaret and one to give to his wife)?
Answer: Season 3, "Payday" is the episode.
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Answer: If the scratch itself draws blood and the zombie which inflicted it had his own (or another's infected) blood or saliva, the victim then becomes infected too.