Question: When some Jedi die, they disappear (Yoda, Obi-wan). When others die, they don't (Qui-gon, Vader). Why is that? I thought this phenomenon would be explained in this movie, but unless I missed something, no explanation was given.
Matty Blast
24th May 2005
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005)
Answer: Towards the end of the movie Yoda tells Obi Wan that Qui Gon has learned the path to imortality and offers to teach this to Obi Wan. In the Clone Wars TV series we see the journey Yoda takes to learn this power. The power to become one with the force is a power you have to learn as opposed to being achievable to all Jedi. Both yoda and Obi Wan has the years between ROTS and ANH/ESB to fine tune and master this power. It is possible that Darth Vader, having seen Obi Wan become one with the force, spent the following years after A New Hope, studying and learning this skill by himself, hence how he was able to appear as a force ghost towards the end of Return of the Jedi, but not quite skilled enough to dissapear on cue.
20th May 2005
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005)
Question: Was the number 1138 hidden somewhere in the movie? If so, does anyone know where?
Chosen answer: One of the commanders of the clone army has 1138 as his uniform number.
20th May 2005
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005)
Question: In the Attack of the Clones DVD commentary, Lucas promised that in this third movie we would finally find out who Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas is, and how he managed to place the order for the clone army without the Council's authorization. I didn't notice any explanation at all - was there one given?
Chosen answer: There was no explanation in the film. An explanation appears in the (authorised) book called, I think, Labyrinth of Evil, which was released shortly before the film and deals with events leading up to the events of the film. To sum it up, Sifo-Dyas was a respected Jedi who had become disaffected with the policies of the Jedi Council. Encouraged by his colleague, Count Dooku (by then secretly studying the Sith arts), he placed the order for the clone army before being killed by Dooku to prevent anyone from finding out about it.
20th May 2005
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005)
19th May 2005
Dead Poets Society (1989)
Continuity mistake: At the very end, about 14-15 students are seen stepping to the tops of their desks. The last shot before the credits, however, shows only 10-11 students on their desktops.
9th May 2005
Sliders (1995)
Other mistake: The Sliders discover the reverse-time issue when they notice that the clock on the wall is backward. However, in other shots, clocks look normal. Look carefully at the clocks on the judge's desk as the camera pans by.
29th Apr 2005
Dead Poets Society (1989)
Question: Just before Todd Anderson has his emotional breakdown about Neil's death, one of his friends grabs a handful of snow and shoves it at his mouth. Why did he do that? It makes no sense.
Chosen answer: He is just trying to get something to help wash the taste of vomit out of Todd's mouth.
14th Apr 2005
Bruce Almighty (2003)
Question: The address for Omni Presents is something like 77526 23rd St. Does anyone know if there's a hidden Biblical or religious reference in those numbers?
Chosen answer: It's 77256 23rd St. The #'s spell out "Psalm" on a phone number pad. So it's Psalm 23 - "The Lord is my Shepherd...".
7th Apr 2005
Bruce Almighty (2003)
Continuity mistake: Just before Bruce hands his camcorder to the kid, to videotape the discovery of the body of Jimmy Hoffa. The eyepiece instantly points up and away from it, from one shot to the next, yet Bruce didn't move it. (00:49:45)
7th Apr 2005
Bruce Almighty (2003)
Audio problem: At the classy restaurant, watch the man playing the drums. The brushes that he's supposedly using to play the snare drum are an absurd 5-6 inches higher than the drum, making it obvious that he wasn't really playing, and that the music was dubbed in. (00:53:15)
7th Apr 2005
Bruce Almighty (2003)
Continuity mistake: When we first see the "homeless man" holding the "R EWE BLIND" sign, his right hand is on the top, about an inch from the edge. The camera cuts to a view from behind him, and his right hand is now slightly wrapped around the top right edge. (00:09:15)
1st Apr 2005
Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987)
Factual error: Picard reaches for the bowl of rotten fruit, winces in pain, and suddenly his fingernails have grown about an inch. This was due to the fruit bowl being inside an area where time was moving much faster. The problem is, in order for his fingernails to grow, blood would have to supply the needed nutrients to his fingers at the accelerated rate. Since his heart is in normal time, being away from the bowl of fruit, there is no way his fingernails could have grown like that - his heart is only supplying a normal-time-continuum's worth of blood.
Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.
Suggested correction: This entry conflates rapid growth with sped up time.
1st Apr 2005
General questions
I always assumed that the widescreen versions of films were the entire viewing area, and the fullscreen versions had part of the viewing area cut off from the sides so that it would fill the television screen. However, I recently noticed a couple of movies whose fullscreen versions had *more* to see on the top and bottom, meaning that the widescreen versions had part of the top and bottom cut off. Why on earth would they cut portions of the top and bottom off of the viewing area, when it is completely unnecessary to do so?
Chosen answer: A frame of film is square, rather than rectangular, so there are two options to get a widescreen picture. If an anamorphic lens is used, then the entire frame is used to capture a slightly horizontally squashed image, then in projection the entire frame is stretched out into widescreen. The other route taken is to block off the top and bottom of the frame, resulting in the correct rectangular shape. In projection a metal plate is used to only display this rectangular area. Because only the central region is meant to be shown, filmmakers will very often put boom mikes or other things just outside of that area - after all, otherwise a microphone will have to be further away from the actors just to avoid an unused area of film anyway. However, if a fullscreen (4:3 ratio) version is created by including these top and bottom sections rather than cropping the sides (possibly because both edges of the screen have to be seen in that shot, otherwise something important will be cropped), some things will be seen which were never meant to be. A good example is seen in the fullscreen version of "The Matrix" - when Neo receives the mobile phone near the start, you can see a crew member's hand in shot at the bottom of the screen. This is also the reason some people think a boom mike is accidentally in shot for the entirety of a movie when they see it in a theatre. If the projectionist hasn't positioned the metal plate properly, the bottom of the correct area is cut off, and too much of the top is shown, frequently exposing the microphone. So ultimately the top and bottom can only be used when they don't contain film-making equipment, and even then the framing of the shot may look odd, as the film was never shot with those parts of the screen in mind.
21st Mar 2005
The Mighty Ducks (1992)
Continuity mistake: When Gordon's long-time friend shows him the hockey skates he'd like him to put on, he's holding them with his fingers on the laces and his thumbs underneath. The camera angle changes, and now his thumbs are on the laces with his fingers underneath. It goes back and forth like this several times.
19th Mar 2005
Bruce Almighty (2003)
Other mistake: When Bruce is answering the prayers individually, he's just typing "YES" to each one, but his fingers are hitting a bunch of different keys, as though typing many different words.
15th Mar 2005
Miracle (2004)
Trivia: At the Christmas party we see that one of the players was given a toy helmet with a flashlight on it. The reason for that particular gag gift was that in one of the pre-Olympic games he accidentally bashed into another US player on the ice.
15th Mar 2005
Pump up the Volume (1990)
Question: I've always wondered if Mark, just before his final broadcast, told his parents the whole truth. It would seem that way because Mark tells his girlfriend his mom let him use the Jeep ("She kinda loaned it to me"). Also, his Dad was at the gathering in the school's athletic field, but there is no shot of him acting surprised or horrified when Mark pulls in to where the crowd is and gets arrested. So the question is: did Mark fess up to his parents? Or is it irrelevant/left for us to wonder?
Chosen answer: Well, with no actual scene where he confesses, it's left up to us to wonder. Personally, I find it unlikely that he'd actually admit the whole thing to his parents, but they're not stupid and already had their suspicions, so the lack of any great surprise on his father's part isn't unreasonable. You also have to remember that Mark's voice changer had already broken before they drove down to the crowd - his father would have easily recognised his voice before his actual arrival, giving him a certain amount of time to get through the initial shock.
15th Mar 2005
Miracle (2004)
Question: What would have been the tiebreaker in the medal round, if two teams ended up with the same amount of points?
Chosen answer: Sudden-death overtime, in which the game ends when the first team scores.
11th Mar 2005
Pump up the Volume (1990)
Audio problem: Just about every time someone starts or stops a cassette tape, we can see that they're either faking it or pressing the wrong button. In one shot, the 'Pause' button is down both before and after the actor presses 'Play,' which would of course mean that the tape shouldn't play at all.
7th Mar 2005
Sliders (1995)
Post Traumatic Slide Syndrome - S2-E8
Question: At the end of the episode, do we know for sure that the right Arturo slid with the others, instead of the Arturo of the world that they were on? Or is it simply meant for us to wonder?
Answer: The show's creator admitted that it was the wrong Arturo.
Chosen answer: It's left for us to wonder.
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Chosen answer: Powerful force users seem to have some degree of control over their bodies even after death. In the later series, Luke's wife Mara Jade Skywalker only allows her body to disappear when her killer, and nephew Jacen Solo arrives at her funeral as a clue. Thus it appears that a powerful force user can simply choose if they wish their body to disappear.
Darius Angel