Question: I'm not sure if I was seeing things but during the fight between Hancock and Mary, when it goes all windy and stormy, at one point it cuts to some people who are screaming and running away. I thought I saw a figure that appears to be made out of rocks or similar material and about 10 foot tall, it wasn't our hero or heroine as they were not in that scene so what on earth was it?
Question: (Spoiler warning) I didn't really understand why the wildfire was put into the story. I know that fires happen in California often and that the scene at the end of the movie looks creepy with all of the smoke and fires in the background, but was there supposed to be any other special meaning or symbolism?
Answer: As far as symbolism, from a film student's perspective (mine), it's like destruction or division, two common themes in the film. The two characters are split in values and the fire is raging between them. As the fire gets closer to the houses, it increases in intensity, as does the fighting between neighbors. I think in this film, fire was used not only as a plot device, but a metaphor for the story as well.
Question: Technically, these people would not die from the neurotoxin directly, so do you think it could have eventually worn off? That is, of course, if the people didn't kill themselves first. The government could have sent in troops with gas masks and everyone put in straight jackets and padded rooms so not to get hurt until the toxin wore off. That could have worked; what do you think?
Chosen answer: If it would/could wear off would be debatable. As far as sending troops in wearing gas masks: The masks are simply filters that block molecules of certain sizes. If the neurotoxin molecular structure was small enough, it could pass through the filters. And then there is, if you really wanted to die, you will find a way regardless of the situation.
Question: When Caleb is in the house rescuing a young girl, would it really have made sense for Caleb to take off his mask, and put it on the child he is rescuing? I mean the child was unconscious, and he would still need oxygen. It's really hard to breathe in buildings. I would like an actual firefighter to answer this question.
Answer: As a Firefighter, in a fire your own life and safety are your top priority. You can't save anybody if you become a casualty. And you never take your mask off. We are trained to work in all our gear, it all stays on until we come out.
Answer: I'm not a Firefighter but I believe that the masks are uncomfortable and he took it off so he can work faster. It only makes since to give the mask to the unconscious girl because it might help her breathe better or start to breathe again. He is trained to do these types of things.
Caleb would have a pretty hard time breathing by taking his the oxygen mask off.
Question: At the end of the movie the town clock that was removed from the train station is shown stored in a basement just as the basement floods. The clock is seen to still be working, but how, given that there was no one there to wind it? As the clock was made during the first world war it would be mechanical, not battery powered.
Answer: It is symbolic, showing that time never stops. Everyone will be swept up by the tsunami eventually. No force of nature can compare to time itself. Nothing at all.
Question: I am very curious as to how Ben, i.e. Tim, is able to donate his heart to Emily, who had a very rare blood type. I just find it unusual that Tim would have the same blood type as Emily. Also, how would Tim have known Emily's blood type?
Answer: In the course of the film it's revealed that Ben has done extensive homework and taken drastic steps to find the right person, i.e. a "righteous good person" to give them what he has left to offer. Therefore, he would have to find someone with his own rare blood type AND needed a heart...which he eventually did.
Question: What would have eventually happened to Marko after Bryan left him in the basement? Would he just have died and continued to have current surge through him till someone found him? Would he eventually burst in to flames? Would his heart explode? I know he dies, that much is obvious. Just curious as to what happens in the longer term.
Chosen answer: Depends on how much current is actually running through him. Since it didn't kill him right away, even after a few jolts to get him to talk, it's unlikely it was enough that he would ever burst into flames or that his heart would explode. Most likely, he just slowly cooked until he dried up and burnt like a turkey left too long in the oven.
Question: Why does Salim sit in a bathtub surrounded by rupee notes of various denominations before shooting at the mob boss and getting shot in return?
Answer: People have said that it may possibly be a metaphor in that the rupees he is surrounded by is actually "blood money" that the mob bosses had amounted, and he was intent on staining the notes with his own blood. But there is no correct answer to this - it's something that you need to interpret for yourself.
Question: Do the earphones Ryan Reynolds uses at the beginning actually exist? I don't think I've ever seen wireless earphones that small.
Chosen answer: The closest thing to them available in reality appears to be these: http://www.sennheiser.com/sennheiser/icm_eng.nsf/root/press_releases__07.01.2008.
Question: What was the significance of Rex's cameraman being in on the assassination plot?
Chosen answer: It's not stated in the film, but if I had to make an educated guess I'd say his job is to make sure the news channel doesn't get any footage of any of the terrorist agents or the window the shots come from.
Question: Why wouldn't Shmuel escape? It would've been very easy. He could've done it the same way he let Bruno in.
Answer: Samuel knew the dangers of the camp and knew that trying to escape would result in death. He knows Bruno is likely to be allowed IN to the camp as he is a German and Germans are running the camp. Plus, if Shmuel did escape, where would he go? He's 8, on his own and alone in the woods.
Question: Was Mrs. Collins' son ever found?
Answer: No. He was murdered at age nine. The movie uses creative license to bring up the suspicion that he could have somehow survived to create a dramatic hope in the end. Moreover, the killer was very unstable and retracted his testimony more than once. There is no solid proof of the boy surviving the killings. The police even found partial evidence of Walter Collins at the burial site. See the Wikipedia article for more information.
Question: What does the "hurt locker" mean?
Answer: It's a term similar to "a world of hurt". It's both outside of you and within you. The outside definition is that a hurt locker is anywhere you go to find pain. In the film's case, war-torn Iraq is the hurt locker. Inside, your hurt locker is the place you bury your anguish.
Question: On the corrections page for this movie, someone stated that Henry was the father of both of Mary's children. How? Didn't he stop seeing her while she was still on bed rest during the pregnancy of their first child?
Answer: The information on the corrections page is inaccurate. Mary Boleyn married William Carey in 1520. Because her exact birth date is unknown, no one knows how old she was when she married. It was shortly after her wedding that she began her affair with Henry VIII. It is also unknown if either of the two children she bore during this time were fathered by Henry, though there was certainly a high probability that he sired one or both. However, Henry never publicly acknowledged either child, unlike the illegitimate son he had with another mistress. The events in the film and book are fictional, and they vary from the historical facts. It is never mentioned in the film that Mary had a second child, either by Henry or William Carey.
Question: Would a Korean war veteran be allowed to keep his Garand rifle? I assume that the film wants to depict the rifle and the Colt pistol as being the very ones he had in Korea. Wouldn't that be like a lot of guys stowing M16s in their old footlockers?
Answer: Well, a lot of veterans actually buy their weapons once they have retired, since they have the constitutional right to keep and bear those weapons. However, I don't think it is said in the movie that those arms were exactly the ones Kowalsky used during the war.
Actually, yes he did say that it was the one he carried. When Tao asked what it was like to kill a man, Walt says I shot the kid in the face with that rifle you were holding earlier.
Question: Just need to check on this. I just saw the new X-Files movie last week and believe that I saw a funny mistake in the movie. At a certaian part in the movie Mulder goes to call Scully on his cell phone and when he gets to her name it in fact says Gillian not Scully. Anyone else see this?
Answer: Sadly, it's not true - already been submitted and corrected. When we see the screen, it reads "Scully" correctly. All the other names on the screen are surnames of crew members who worked on the TV show, including, immediately underneath Scully's name, Gilligan, for Vince Gilligan, a writer on the show. Understandably, given the brevity of the shot, this is easily misreadable as Gillian.
Answer: I saw it, too, and wondered. He's a street performer in L.A. that just happened to be around during filming. See: http://io9.com/5023487/hancock-giant-robot-mystery-++-solved.
johnrosa