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: Was it just me or did the Earth not stand still in this film at all? And also can you explain the film's events to me.

Shadow5

Chosen answer: No, it sure didn't. It's just a figure of speech referring to everyone's attention being focused on the alien sphere. In the opening of the film, a man's genetic material is harvested in order to grow a body for a member of an alien race to inhabit. Many years later, this alien individual comes to Earth to warn the population that their violent nature has marked them for termination now that they have developed space travel and their violence poses a threat to the rest of the universe. They must stop immediately to avoid this fate. The alien ambassador is attacked before he can deliver this message, rather proving the point he came to make. His robotic guardian is provoked to the point of initiating the extinction sequence, and a small group of humans sets out to prove to him that the human race is worth saving before it is too late.

Phixius

Question: Does this film take place in time before or after Puss meets Shrek?

Answer: It takes place before Puss meets Shrek and Donkey.

raywest

Question: A couple of questions that I hope someone can answer. First, what was the name of the ship that was found in the Mongolian desert? And second, was it a real-life vessel or something created for the movie? I've heard about the 5 real-life planes that were uncovered in Mexico, but the ship is a mystery to me. If so, where can I find info on it?

Answer: The ship that was found in the Gobi desert is called the "Cotopaxi." It was a real tramp steamer, named after a stratovolcano in the Andes Mountains. The ship and its entire crew disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle sometime in December, 1925 while en route to Havana, Cuba. You can find more information here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Cotopaxi.

raywest

Answer: It didn't disappear in the Bermuda Triangle. It lies 40 miles from St. Augustine, Florida, which is 314 miles from Miami.

Amy Emerick Tice

Question: Probably a dumb question, but when I first saw this film.I thought that the opening scene where a young family is mugged in an alleyway was supposed to be a flashback to when a young Bruce Wayne lost his parents. Of course we know it isn't, but is that what the filmmakers wanted us to think. Or was it just my way of thinking?

Gavin Jackson

Chosen answer: It foreshadows what will be learned about what happened to Bruce Wayne's family and what set Batman on his path.

raywest

Answer: It's not just you. No matter how many times I watch I find it refreshing that this Batman movie doesn't start off by making us watch Bruce's parents get murdered for the dozenth time. But fans of the character definitely would have fallen for it in the theater, so it's like a clever inside joke for their benefit, I think.

CountArtha

Question: Do continuity mistakes really count for this film considering it is a haunted room and one could say that the room itself is moving things around or manipulating objects?

Gavin Jackson

Chosen answer: There would have to be a point made within the movie of things being different from shot to shot. Otherwise it would have to be considered a mistake.

Phixius

Question: I understand that the Autobots conveniently landed in America, but why do they only side with the Americans in their missions? There's a scene where Optimus and Sideswipe go on a mission to the Middle East. I just thought that Optimus and the other Autobots would've considered who was the best country to side with, not just agree to go out with the Americans.

GabbyMac

Chosen answer: Because it's the Americans specifically who are helping them, so, as Optimus explains in the opening monologue, they help the Americans with their conflicts in return.

Phixius

Question: In Gordon's ''secret room'', why is there a Union Jack-flag with a swastika in the middle? Does Gordon sympathise with Nazis or was there something behind it? It seemed a little odd to me, since a Neo-Nazi wouldn't enjoy reading the Quran and, more importantly, be gay.

Answer: The item in question is intended to be a protest poster - it's an artistic piece protesting the similarity between the totalitarian government taking power in the UK and Nazi Germany, a comparison that Gordon likely feels is not unjustified. A poster of that nature would likely be banned immediately; as such, Gordon has every reason to want to keep one as a symbol, but obviously keep it well concealed.

Tailkinker

Answer: Simple, he's always depressed this time of year. He's ugly, he's alone and getting older. Christmas is the worst time of year to be all of all the above. That's why he tries to off himself every Christmas, and lucky for us he fails.

Rydersriot87

Question: When Prof. Rosa asks Ben to answer a "quiz-question" in college about 3 doors of which only one has a brand new car behind it, he explains he has a chance of 33.3% of choosing the correct door. However, when Prof. Rosa opens one door and leaves Ben a new chance to choose he claims that his chances of choosing correctly have increased from 33.3% to 66.7%, but as he already knows what is behind one of the doors, the car must be behind one of the other doors. Shouldn't his chances now be 50% in stead of 66.7%?

martijnvdvelden

Chosen answer: No, the 66.7% (2/3) chance, while counter-intuitive, is correct. See here for a much more detailed and thorough explanation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem.

Guy

Question: When Harry enters the Great Hall after Voldemort calls a break to the battle so Hogwarts can bury their dead, who is it that Professor Sprout and Professor Trelawney cover up? It was so quick I was unable to see it.

SAZOO1975

Chosen answer: As Harry enters the Great Hall he passes Sprout dabbing at a male student's head wound (we see Sprout and this student again later in the background as Ron realizes his brother Fred is dead). After walking past Sprout, Harry comes across Professor Trelawney and Parvati Patel. Trelawney murmurs, "She's gone," and then she and Parvati pull a blanket over the still form of a girl. All we see of her is a quick glimpse of her nose and nostrils before her face is covered This student is Lavender Brown, who in the film was killed by werewolf Fenrir Greyback. The film writers took the liberty of having Lavender die at the end, confirmed in the movie tie-in book "Harry Potter: Page to Screen." However, J. K. Rowling left it ambiguous in the novel whether Lavender Brown actually died from her injuries.

Season 5 generally

Question: In season 5, after Harmony comes to work for Angel, it seems like certain scenes look like it's during the day. If it is during the day, does Harmony get around like Angel does, by using sewers and such?

cntrybrat

Chosen answer: Probably so. Or she may have a company car with necro-tempered windows like Angel's.

Captain Defenestrator

Question: Okay, so if all the male werewolves wear nothing but shorts so they have less clothes to destroy, how come Leah still wears a shirt? It just seems that as a werewolf, she wouldn't care about nudity any more then her packmates. And, yes, I am aware they couldn't show her naked for the PG-13 rating. I'm looking for the in-universe answer.

Brad

Chosen answer: How do you know that she or anyone else "wouldn't care." Leah is the lone female shape-shifter among the males, and most women would feel extremely uncomfortable baring their breasts in that situation. Her male counter-parts would likely feel just as exposed and uncomfortable if they went without shorts in front of a group of women. It's a matter of decorum. Also, is a PG-rated movie. Nudity in movies usually results in an "R" rating, which limits the audience and revenue.

raywest

Question: In the scene where Lennox introduces Sam and Carly to Director Mearing, he says that Carly "Knows all about the Autobots and knows Bumblebee". Yet, just one scene prior, she looks at Bumblebee like she's never seen him before. Does she know about the Transformers or not?

Brad

Chosen answer: Sam probably told her all about the Autobots but she had probably never seen Bumblebee 'in person.' Shock and awe.

XIII

Question: Has there ever been a backstory written for Jaws? I would love to know where he came from, and how he came to be, so I was wondering if there has ever been one written, and where I can find it.

Gavin Jackson

Chosen answer: Yes, there was a backstory for the character of Jaws in Christopher Wood's novelisation of the film "James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me", not to be confused with the Ian Fleming novel.

Sierra1

Question: Why was Pocahontas angry and upset when Tomas killed Kocoum? Kocoum tried to kill John, and he would have killed him if Tomas hadn't been there. He saved John's life.

Answer: She didn't exactly hate Kocoum though. She loved John, sure, but Kocoum was someone she'd known her whole life. It's not unreasonable she'd be upset over his death, whatever the circumstances.

Phixius

Answer: The Time Lords gave the Doctor a new regeneration cycle before the last crack in the universe was closed, in "The Time of the Doctor". (They've been shown to have the ability to do so before, as in "The Five Doctors," The Master was offered a new regeneration cycle if he rescued the Doctors).

Captain Defenestrator

Chosen answer: Because he misremembered. It was pretty high-stress moment and he blacked-out immediately. Not surprising he'd be a little hazy on the details.

Phixius

Question: Just before Rose finds Mr. Andrews to ask him how to find Jack, who is under arrest, we see Andrews telling a woman to put on her life jacket and go up to the boats. As he is walking away we see that she goes back in her room. By the look on her face, it didn't really seem like she was going to obey. Assuming she didn't believe him, in general could there really be situations of people who were in shock of the situation and for whatever reason didn't get on a lifeboat, such as the example shown in a deleted scene showing the deaths of Jack's friend Cora and her parents who get trapped behind a locked gate (and the man who Rose tries to get to help her free Jack, but he keeps running down the hallway) as the ship is already close to breaking apart. Would they have really waited that long to go up to the deck on purpose? Because obviously they were all alone and the crew members locked the gate without knowing they were still in their room.

Answer: It was common back then to keep the three classes separated. Most didn't stay down below on purpose. They stayed because they had no choice. The procedure originally would have been to lower the lifeboats according to class. However, with Titanics situation, there wasn't enough boats and there wasn't enough time to carry out a full evacuation procedure in an orderly fashion.

Answer: The primary reason there were so many casualties with the sinking of the Titanic was due to the arrogance of those involved with building and sailing the ship and not having enough lifeboats for such a catastrophe -- they really and truly believed the ship could not be sunk. Many of the passengers felt the same way and failed to see the severity of the disaster until it was too late.

MovieFan612

Question: A few things; first, why is it Davy Jones and his crew, in some scenes towards the end, seem to work along the EIC so readily (for example, Davy Jones launching himself over Mercer to protect him)? I would think it would have been more of a 'following orders grudgingly, because they were forced to'. Also, related to the aforementioned scene, why didn't Jones just order the Dutchman to be taken underwater at the time, then take the chest back? They wouldn't have been able to fire their cannons or shoot guns with wet powder. Finally, was Jones really 'against' the Brethren Court? If he hadn't been fighting for the East India Company, would he have just kinda ignored the whole battle, still perhaps fighting on one side or the other to fulfill his own motives, or maybe even go so far as to fight with the Brethren?

Answer: Jones must keep Mercer alive likely because the soldiers have standing orders to destroy the heart if he comes to any harm. Jones does not submerge the ship because that takes time and it would be immediately apparent what he was doing. At any point before the cannons were submerged the soldiers could destroy the heart. If Jones were not at the mercy of the EIC, he most certainly would have been fighting against the brethren as they sought to free Calypso; something Jones very much did NOT want to happen.

Phixius

Answer: I don't think the ship can sink with living people on it. When Will was aboard the Flying Duchman in "Dead Mans Chest" it never sunk. And *spoiler* in "Dead Men Tell No Tales" the ship immediately rises as soon as Henry sets foot on deck.

Question: When Borden and Fallon are in the same scene, is someone else playing Fallon? Or does Christian Bale play both, the same way Arnie Hammer did on Social Network?

Answer: It's Bale, at least whenever you can see Fallon's face. The same way they do twins played by the same person in any other film.

Phixius

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.