Question: I don't really understand why Jodie Foster's character didn't tell the police something was wrong when they came to the door. I know she was worried for her daughter but the robbers couldn't overhear and she could have asked the police to come back later, giving her a chance to smash the cameras. Also, considering that she emphatically denied there was anything wrong, why did the police return later with all the guns etc?
Answer: The cop told Jodie "if you can give me some kind of signal." Jodie runs her fingers through her hair, that's the signal.
Answer: One doesn't ask the cops to come back later, especially when one's daughter's life is a stake. Also, the cops came back because they just didn't believe her and felt that something was up (call it intuition).
Not only that, Jodie Foster said that "they were good", why would she say that they are good if not that they were right?
Question: What is Jason doing with the tape and the car window, in the scene before he drives Marie to Eamon's house?
Answer: He taped the door edges so they wouldn't leave fingerprints on the car.
Chosen answer: He is taping up the car window that he broke in order to keep some of the winter weather out.
Question: Does any one know the Japanese golfer joke Uncle Vernon was telling at the beginning of the movie?
Answer: The joke goes like this, "A California business man, while in Japan for some business meetings and a few rounds of golf, arrived in Tokyo a day earlier than expected. Feeling lonely that evening, he employed the services of a beautiful young Japanese girl to be his companion for the evening. Although the Japanese girl spoke very little English and the businessman spoke no Japanese, their passion roared and in the heat of the moment she began yelling "Machigatta ana. Machigatta ana" Hearing this, the Californian believed he had pleased his female Japanese friend and soon afterwards went to sleep. The next day while playing golf with his Japanese business colleague, his Japanese partner holed his shot from 170 yards away. Wanting to impress his friend, the Californian began yelling, "Machigatta ana!" The Japanese business man turned to the Californian and with a confused look on his face asked, "What do you mean wrong hole?"
Question: Does the photo at the end with Sy and the family actually happen or is this just Sy imagining what life could have been like with them?
Chosen answer: This is mentioned on the DVD commentary - it's deilberately open ended so one can interpret it as either it's Sy imagining what he wants to happen OR it's what really happened.
As Neil Jones said, the ending is open for interpretation. However, I think there is reason to believe that Sy imagined the photo. It shows him and the family outside of their house, all looking happy together. Would they want to take such a photo with Sy after the incident at the hotel? And before the incident, they were probably not close enough with Sy that he would be in a photo taken at their home. Him and no other guests/visitors.
Question: I missed something. What was it that Clint Eastwood noticed that made him realize his friend was the killer?
Chosen answer: When looking for clues to the identity of the killer, he comes across a code with the numbers, 903 472 568. He quickly realizes that Noone is the killer because in the code there is "No one".
Question: When does Rachel realise if she shows the film to someone else she won't die? And if she knew, is that why she showed it to Noah, to kill him on purpose?
Answer: At the end of the movie, she is crying about why she wasn't killed and Noah was. She vocalizes "What did I do, that he didn't?" That's when she sees the copy she made. It wasn't that she just showed it to someone else. She made a copy and Aiden watched that copy. Aiden is why it skipped her.
Almost right. It's just the copy. Copying the video makes it skip you. That's why she has Aiden make a copy as well.
You have to show the copy to someone else as well. That's why Aiden asks Rachel at the very end "What about the person we show it to? What happens to them?"
But doesn't he have less than a day left by then? Hardly a time to relax, they need to make a terrible decision, quickly. I always had the idea making a copy was enough because of that.
He watched the tape the morning of either Rachel's 4th or 5th day, so he should have at least 3 days left by this point. Though it appears the film was being inconsistent with the markings that Samara leaves on the tape's viewers, since Rachel noticed Samara's hand print on Aiden's arm and then his nose started bleeding. For Rachel, she got her nosebleed before receiving the mark on her arm.
Actually, you need to do both: make a copy and show it to someone else. This is further explained in The Ring 2. At the beginning, the guy had made a copy but since the girl covered her eyes and didn't watch the whole thing, he was still killed by Samara. So making a copy is not enough in itself to be spared if no-one else watches it. The same goes for Rachel. She made a copy on the 2nd day, but Becca tells her she only has 4 days left when she visits the psych ward indicating she hadn't been spared yet. It's only after Aidan watches the copy she made that death skips her for good.
Answer: No, it's wrong. Just making a copy won't save you; you need to show it to someone else, and then this someone else is cursed instead of you. The Japanese movie explains it well. Plus, in the official second movie, a man dies from Samara after making the copy because nobody watched it. Also, at the end of the 1st movie, Aiden asks from the copy, "What will happen to the one who will watch it?"
Question: If Sasha really is blind and she is Alex Trusk but she IS a computer hacker.What good is a computer hacker that blind wouldn't she not be able to see the screen or anything of the sort?
Chosen answer: Blind people use computers all the time. There are Braille monitors that interpret the visual images on the screen into Braille. They can also use speech synthesisers to convert the images into audible information.
Question: There's a quote that I don't understand: "The fact that you prevented it from happening doesn't change the fact that it was going to happen." I immediately thought, "Yes, it does change the fact that it was going to happen." If Witwer hadn't put his hand there, it would have happened. However, he did, thus "changing the fact that it was going to happen," right? Isn't this the point of the whole movie: determinism is foolish and that different actions produce different consequences?
Answer: No, he didn't change the fact that it was going to happen. He prevented it from happening. But until he stopped it, it was going to happen. And no matter how many times you look back at that sequence, it was going to happen. Up until a point, it was going to happen. It was just prevented.
Answer: The statement involves the idea of arresting people who did not commit the crime yet but are going to. Until the precogs tell someone to change things, the idea is that it will happen. If Anderton had rolled the ball and the other guy was not watching, it was going to fall. The only way to change it would have been for Anderton to say something. Things will happen unless the future is changed. Ultimately the idea is proven sketchy at the end at best.
Question: Why does the girl cut her dad's throat, if she knew that it would fulfill the curse?
Answer: She was trying to help him breathe.
Question: I don't get it. What was the purpose of the aliens coming to Earth? And what exactly happened to them? Where did they go?
Answer: It's left unclear, though the film proposes several possible theories, and there are other possible explanations as well. One major theory brought up in the film is that the aliens were there to acquire Earth's resources after using up their own. Another theory proposed at the end of the movie is that the aliens wanted humans for whatever reason, as a radio DJ mentions seeing his friend's family being dragged away. There is also a very popular fan theory that the aliens are supposed to represent demons that are merely there to create chaos and test the moral strength of humanity, as the film is ultimately about Graham losing and then regaining his faith, although this is more subtext than anything and may not be literally true.
Answer: Near the end of the movie... The morning after in the basement... The guy on the radio says the aliens were there not for the planet, but to harvest humans. For what purpose is unknown, maybe as an energy source, Matrix-style.
Chosen answer: According to the theory in the movie they were there to take the planet for their own because they used up all the resources their own planet. They left the planet when it became apparent to them that the water on Earth was too dangerous.
Question: How did Mary Jane get Scooby snacks? I thought they were made just for Scooby, (Hence the name). I've seen a lot of episodes of Scooby-Doo but not every single one, so that's why I'm asking.
Question: What is the meaning of the flashing lights at the end of the movie (after the camera pans from Alex reading the book at the park)?
Chosen answer: The flashing lights are to create a sense of uneasiness again. Gaspar Noe uses low frequency sound to create nausea, headaches, and disorientation in the beginning and uses it again here to make the viewer feel sick after the mood changes dramatically. Also it symbolizes the chaos that occurs in the universe & how life can easily spiral out of control as it does in the movie.
Question: When Elvis trades places with Sebastian Haff, his limo plate is AZN-700. Later when he is driving Haff's car, the plate is the same. Obviously two cars with different owners can't have the same plates, so it's probably a reference of some sort. Anyone know if that's the case, and if so, what?
Chosen answer: There's no significance I can find anywhere for the number "AZN-700" - it's just a fake plate they used twice due to the limited budget, and its repeated use is a mistake.
Question: After Emery has his fingers cut off and everyone is trapped in the room, Nick informs everyone that Kevin Bollinger hung himself in the Mirror Library after letting Emery's mother into the house. This would make him a ghost obviously, but this creates a problem. How has he been able to appear as a ghost for so long if he must have been alive to let Emery's mother into the house? Did I miss something?
Chosen answer: It was actually the bloated corpse of Kevin that let Emery's mother in, so he wasn't alive when letting her in.
Answer: Then Nick should have said he hung himself before letting Emery's mother in. Also, he turned into a bloated corpse pretty fast but the house has a way of playing tricks.
Answer: But if Jodie Foster was so keen to placate the burglars and protect her daughter's life then why did she smash the cameras after the police left? It doesn't make sense.
She smashed the cameras, so the thieves in the Panic Room couldn't see what she was doing. That's why the thieves had said, "Why didn't we do that?"