Question: Is it true that the Jamaica bobsled team performed poorly at first during training as shown in in the film?
Question: How is it possible for everybody from other countries to know about the wager that Phileas made when the only ones who knew about were the members of the Academy of Science?
Answer: In order to stop Fogg from completing the journey, his rivals at the Academy wired (telegraphed) details to confederates in the countries he visited with instructions to waylay him.
Question: If I understand correctly, Lily Potter's "love" protection no longer keeps Harry safe after the graveyard ritual, due to Voldemort getting some of Harry's blood. Why, then, doesn't Voldemort attack Harry at the Dursleys' house in the summer?
Answer: Voldemort's spell undid the Sacrificial Protection that Lily bestowed on Harry, but the Bond of Blood is a separate protection bestowed if the person sacrificing their lives is a relative. THAT spell is still renewed as long as Harry keeps returning to the Dursleys until age seventeen. Voldemort has removed one protection, but a second is still in place.
Question: At the end of the scene in Brodie's comic book shop, Brodie says "cue the music." What song are Brody, Jay, and Silent Bob imitating?
Answer: Apparently it was a song that was improvised by Jason Lee and Jason Mewes. Stated on the commentary.
Question: At the end of the "We Are One" song, Simba and Kiara have returned to pride rock around sunset. Fine, fine, but the thing that's been bugging me for years is: Kiara stares intently at something, causing Simba to frown and look up to see what she sees. He seems to chuckle, then turns back to her. What is it that they were looking at before he says "You'll understand some day" and why is it there?
Answer: Kiara is staring at the tip of Pride Rock and thinking of the that she will be a leader one day, due to the fact that shown in the first movie that this is where the new kings/queens roar to show that they are the new rulers. Simba notices her looking and chuckles at the irony of him having wanting to be leader so badly at her age and Kiara not wanting to be a leader at all.
Question: Why does Hugo Stiglitz kill the German officers in the first place? The film mentions his enlistment, but how is this related to his killings?
Answer: Based on his willingness to join the Basterds, we can assume he killed them because he didn't believe in what the Nazis were doing.
There is a cut of him being whipped during the bar scene. I think he was taking revenge for harsh and perhaps undeserved punishment.
No, the whipping is how it feels in his mind sitting next to that SS officer and having to pretend to like him and be a Nazi. He's ready to snap.
Question: In the scene when the Mad Hatter is "fixing" the rabbit's watch, the Hatter exclaims "It was!" before the rabbit states that the watch was an unbirthday present. Is this on purpose? Or an editing mistake?
Answer: Actually, the White Rabbit sees his damaged watch, says "Oh! My watch". THEN the Mad Hatter says "It was!", then the White Rabbit says that it was an unbirthday gift. So the exchange of dialogue makes sense.
Question: I'm confused. Palpatine wanted to use Queen Amidala to get himself voted as chancellor so he could have control over the republic. Why did he send Darth Maul after the Queen's ship when it escaped if he needed the Queen alive?
Question: When Alan has reached Jumanji, why were the bullet and rifle pulled into the game? They weren't from the game, but purchased by Van Pelt from a gun store.
Answer: The game is essentially "resetting reality" back to the point Alan was first sucked into the game. So it is undoing everything that has been done - including taking away the gun and bullets Van Pelt had purchased.
Answer: The gun and bullets may have been from the real world but they were Van Pelt's property. He purchased them at the gun store. Apparently the game pulls in Van Pelt and anything of his he was using to hunt Alan. It makes sense that the game would do this because Alan defeats Van Pelt by following the rules of the game. Having Van Pelt be able to simply purchase a gun in the real world and kill a player with it even after they've completed the game would be a huge cheat.
Question: Why is the man's groin blurred out in the fight-scene at the Japanese sauna? It's an R-rated movie (or unrated, depending on the cut of the film you watch), so it's not like they couldn't have shown it. The best I can figure is that it's a reference to the fact that genitals are blurred out in Japanese media due to "decency" laws. Is that what the joke was?
Answer: It is a possibility. In Japan, the showing of a person's genital area and/or pubic hair is considered obscene.
Question: I have three questions regarding the end scene. 1. How come Jean can't crush Wolverine's body? I ask this because we can see her easily kill all people who walk too close to her. 2. Why didn't Wolverine inject Jean with the cure instead of killing her? 3. What would happen if Jean got injected with the cure?
Chosen answer: 1) Apparently the combination of Logan's unbreakable skeleton and healing factor was enough to keep Jean from shredding him - it's possible to see his body getting damaged and repairing itself in a few shots. 2) Because, while he's capable of getting close to her mostly intact, the same isn't really true of anything he might be wearing or holding, so any cure syringe he carried with him would be destroyed. 3) Who knows? Given her extreme power level, the cure might or might not have worked, and, considering the final shot of the movie, which suggests that the cure isn't permanent anyway, her powers would likely return before long.
Question: Are Professor Kirke and Mrs. MacReady both aware of what the wardrobe really is and what it can do?
Answer: Spoiler alert: this gives some important plot twists away. Sometimes a bit of unresolved mystery improves a story, and I think this is the case here. But the book partly answers your questions. At the end of the last chapter it is shown that Mrs MacReady thinks the wardrobe is just a piece of furniture. She knows nothing about Narnia. But Professor Kirke amazes Peter, Edmund, Susan and Lucy by expressing familiarity with Narnia and explaining that a wardrobe might well be a portal into Narnia. If C S Lewis had not written any more books after completing "The Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe" Professor Kirke's knowledge of Narnia would probably have been an unresolved mystery. But C S Lewis later wrote "The Magician's Nephew" which tells how Professor Kirke visited Narnia as a boy. The final chapter of this book says he took an apple back with him, which he planted in his garden. It grew into a tree, was cut down and made into the wardrobe. So Professor Kirke was not consciously aware of what the wardrobe could do, but with hindsight, he realised that he had set up a chain of events that caused the children to discover Narnia.
Answer: While Professor Kirke is aware of the existence of Narnia, as he was there when it was created, he doesn't appear to be aware that the wardrobe can act as a portal (although he may suspect that it has unusual properties, as the tree from which the wood came to create it grew from a Narnian apple). Mrs MacReady doesn't know.
Question: What does Columbus say in another language throughout the film? I know when they're taking down the night guards he says "You are finished", but what else does he say?
Answer: Columbus is speaking Italian. The first night, when Larry asks him about the lions, he says "Go find the lion somewhere else" and then "tourist!" The second night, when they're chased by the animals, he says "Young man, do your job well, take care of the beasts" and when he sees that the window's open, "Kid, what do you say, shall we close the windows?" The last night, when Columbus is guiding the Neanderthals, he says "Fellow Neanderthals, with me!" and to the night guard "It's over!"
Question: The only way that the valley could be flooded by rampaging water is that a dam was broken up river. Otherwise the water rises very slowly. Does the movie explain this? If so I missed it. In which way was that river flooded?
Answer: Probably they have dismantled the coffer dam that was used while constructing the main dam. Hence, the flooding.
Good and reasonable last resort explanation - have the Coens ever addressed it?
Question: Several times in the movie one character is able to ascertain in which hotel room another character is staying simply by asking the front desk for the room number. Was this realistic at the time the movie was made? Today, a hotel would never divulge a guest's room number to a stranger, since such information could potentially be used by burglars and/or predators to gain access to hotel rooms. Was security really that lax in the 1950s?
Answer: Not really. You could (and at some hotels are still able to) keep your room number private or you could not - i.e. you could ask the hotel staff to keep your number secret from strangers, or you could ask them to tell anyone who might ask. Not having seen this movie, I don't know how likely it would be in the situations you speak of that the hotel guest would choose the latter option- it might be a mistake.
Answer: Yes, security was that lax in the 1950s and beyond. People could acquire all kinds of information about individuals from various types of businesses. Not all were so careless, but many were or they naively didn't see a concern. In the late 1980s, I was a student at a university where a non-university person obtained his ex-girlfriend's class schedule simply by requesting it in-person from the registrar's office. Using that information, he was able to locate and fatally shoot her on campus.
Question: Why did Queen Bavmorda need a ritual to get rid of the child? Why didn't she simply kill the baby on the spot?
Question: When Jake and Neytiri return to Hometree, how did Tsutey know that they had mated with each other?
Chosen answer: Jake and Neytiri were holding hands and Neytiri had her hair unbraided. It is also possible that when Na'vi mate, their appearance changes slightly in a way that only other Na'vi could see.
Answer: The real Jamaican team performed poorly throughout the Olympics and did not finish.
Greg Dwyer