Corrected entry: It makes no sense why the Gecko brothers took the bank teller hostage at the beginning. Their plan was to get across the border into Mexico and to the rendezvous using the Fuller family, and their RV was perfect. But what was their original plan? Were they gonna have the hostage drive their car while they hid in the trunk? She would have given them up immediately. Also let's not forget that her face was on TV news programs which makes her a liability at the border gate. Basically there is no logical reason and all they would have done (if Richie didn't kill her) was create unneeded collateral.
jshy7979
9th Oct 2018
From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)
Correction: They had Gloria hostage in case they had a run in with the police.
12th Aug 2021
Back to the Future Part III (1990)
Question: Doc seemed hell-bent on destroying the DeLorean. So why did he go to the future and get a hover conversion done on the train? Why didn't he just build the train, return to his own time and then destroy the train?
Answer: He didn't return to the Old West, both of them had a desire to go to the final frontier. Their favorite author is Jules Verne, who wrote "From Earth to the Moon."
This is pure speculation, as there is nothing in the movie to support this.
Answer: Doc was happy living in the Old West but returned to the future to collect his dog, Einstein, and he didn't want Marty to worry about him. He probably also wanted to make sure that Marty had made it safely back to his own time, to properly say goodbye, and make sure the DeLorean was never used again. He never indicated he would destroy the train, only the DeLorean. The hover conversion on the train would have been done in the Old West, not in the future.
I doubt he was able to make the train hover in the old west, whilst he could easily go to the future with it and do it there, like he did with the DeLorean. He did say he has been to the future with it, so it's logical to assume that's where he upgraded it.
Doc never says he went further into the future with the train or did the hover conversion there. If he could build a time-traveling locomotive in the 1880s, then he could create a hovering one, as he had the knowledge. Marty asks if he's going back to the future, and Doc says no because he's already been there. That could be interpreted a number of ways. It's a sci-fi movie, and there is a lot of suspension of disbelief employed here.
While the movie isn't explicit about when or where the Time Train was built, other sources do indicate its hoverconversion was done in the future. While Doc could invent a machine that was capable of time travel (the mechanics of which aren't really discussed), he had to travel to the future to convert the DeLorean and couldn't even fix the DeLorean in the past.
What 'other sources' indicate Doc travelled to the future for the hover conversion? Any fan speculation is invalid. I also don't get the argument. While Doc was unable to fix the DeLorean when Marty was in the Old West, he could, and did, in later years, build the time-travel train in the past. He could not otherwise have gone anywhere into the future to do anything. Time-travelling without the hover ability would be extremely difficult as a locomotive would be noticeable and require taking off and landing on empty train tracks. Doc would have to hide the locomotive while converting it. He would also have to know before time-travelling that the railroad tracks he took off on still existed in the future, as he could possibly arrive smashing into what became an urban development. This should be considered as both a deliberate plot hole and a plot device using "suspension of disbelief" solely intended to give the series a spectacular finale.
The comics reveal that Doc Brown traveled to 2017 in a prototype time machine and purchased materials which he brought back with him to the 1890s to use on the Time Train.
1st Sep 2020
Face/Off (1997)
Question: Why wasn't Castor Troy cuffed to the bed and watched by several agents? And how did he know which agents knew of the switch and thus kill only them?
Answer: It's possible the doctors did not expect him to wake up (at least so soon). Also, when Castor woke up, there were no doctors around, but he was watching a video of the procedure. So, even though we don't see it on screen, maybe somewhere in the video he saw the head doctor and the other two coordinating everything before the part we see him watching. A valid set of questions here, though, is: why would a doctor film all this and then leave the tape around, and how did Castor know where to find it?
Answer: For the first question, in the chance that he did wake up (which he did). He's a very dangerous man in a coma and could wake up and escape if not watched or cuffed. Second question, he would have watched the video seen when the doctor comes in and saw which agents were there, as well as would have tortured the information out of the doctor about it.
Good answer to the second question, but the first one asked why Troy WASN'T watched and cuffed. In the film, he wakes up alone and unrestrained.
The medical staff thought that Castor Troy was so far into his coma that he wouldn't wake up, as made apparent when the agent put her cigarette out on his arm. They were not expecting him to wake up.
28th Apr 2017
Ocean's Eleven (2001)
Question: When Saul is dressing up in front of the mirror for the final night, he collapses on the bed. Rusty, who's watching the scene, doesn't seem too bothered about it. Was Saul simply rehearsing his part, including the fainting, or did Rusty have enough confidence in him to believe he would not fail even if he felt ill?
Chosen answer: Rusty is aware that Saul is just rehearsing. He knows Saul well enough to be able to tell if he was really having a medical episode.
I see this a little differently. When Saul struggles to stand, I think it's real; he's having trouble. Rusty notices, but they have to keep moving. From a filmmaking standpoint, this moment is meant to make the audience wonder if Saul is having an episode, helping build tension in the security room scene later. While his struggle is real when getting dressed, it serves as misdirection, making us think the heist is falling apart when it's actually going perfectly to plan.
30th Mar 2009
Con Air (1997)
Question: What is the actual likelihood that a decorated serviceman, with no prior criminal record (we know this because if Poe had any priors he wouldn't have been in the Army) would actually get prison time for killing two men who attacked himself and his girlfriend? Seeing as there were witnesses (said girlfriend and bartender) I find it hard to believe he would have gotten more than an extended period of probation. A prison term, even a year or two, seems severely harsh considering the circumstances.
Chosen answer: Zero. As you said, he was attacked and there are witnesses that he tried to avoid the fight and the killings were in self-defense. It is an extremely weak plot hammer to get Poe onto a plane full of criminals. It's foolish as well. The writers could have had Poe framed for a crime then exonerated and put in the same situation much more believably.
It's in Alabama. People are put in prison here for much less.
First, Poe is a federal prisoner, not subject to State laws or legal procedures. Secondly, he is not in Alabama. During a conversation with Billy Bedlam we hear that he is incarcerated in the "Q" - prison slang for San Quentin in California. It makes you wonder why a Federal prisoner is in a State prison, but that's another type of mistake.
He was incarcerated in San Quentin, but the incident in which he was arrested happened in Alabama.
Would it really be considered self-defense, though? After he beat the guys to the ground he could have just stopped and walked away, but he didn't. He kept beating them until they died.
He is defending his wife against two armed assailants, and use of lethal force is allowable. No DA in the United States would even think about pressing charges, knowing full well a grand jury would throw them out in a second.
This is not at all how it happened. Two of the assailants survived; we see them get up and run away. Cameron killed only one person, unintentionally, accidentally killing him with a lethal blow under the chin.
15th May 2022
Seven (1995)
Question: When Mills and Somerset are investigating John Doe's apartment Somerset comes across the hand of the Sloth victim in a jar. I'm wondering how exactly John Doe was able to use that hand to place fingerprints on the wall behind the painting. He either cut it off recently, or cut it off a year ago and kept it until he needed it. The second is highly unlikely, but even if the first case is true, is that hand capable of giving clean, traceable fingerprints? Because the hand is decayed pretty badly.
Answer: We don't know that John Doe left the fingerprints at the same time as he murdered the Greed victim. He's put a lot of work into each killing, and has meticulously planned each victim and detail, so it's possible he left the fingerprints behind the painting long ago, when the Sloth victim's hand was still, for lack of a better word, fresh.
But long before he killed the greed guy? That doesn't make sense.
2nd Jan 2005
Catch Me If You Can (2002)
Question: I may have missed this, but why does Frank tear the labels off bottles?
Answer: He was taking the labels off the bottles to make fake checks, using the logos as this is the one thing that he could not create on the checks. The MICR printer was only used to print the routing and account numbers and the emboss the checks.
This is incorrect. Frank exclusively makes Pan Am checks until his arrest in France. A logo from a ketchup bottle or peanut butter jar would be far too large for a check. Instead, as shown, Carl examines Frank's wallet, which is filled with labels taken from various items—supporting the more accurate explanation provided in the other answer.
Answer: He does it so he will have things in his wallet. As he has no identity of his own and steals or creates others, filling his wallet with labels is fulfilling a subconscious desire to be normal and have an identity.
28th Jun 2016
Catch Me If You Can (2002)
Question: After Frank is essentially forced to abandon Brenda in order to avoid not getting caught at the airport he resumes his farce as a pilot and recruits young women as his accompanying stewardesses. Roughly how long does this thing with the stewardesses possibly last? Did he really risk to include them in his "trip" around the world to various countries to continue his fraud because obviously he abandoned them at some point and ended up in France where he was caught.
Answer: It lasts several months. The stewardesses were juniors and seniors from the University of Arizona, whom he fake-recruited for a PR project for Pan-Am (they were not supposed to be real stewardesses, but dress like them and be photographed in various European capitols). Frank was frequently being asked where his "crew" was, so he thought it would lend him credibility.
This is inaccurate. When he leaves Brenda, he calls the university immediately and says that he will be stopping by the next morning, and we see that they return to Miami International Airport. So, it was definitely not the University of Arizona. And I don't recall anyone asking Frank where his crew was; the question he got was what kind of equipment he was on. As far as the ladies are concerned, he likely left them right there in Miami. Much easier to keep a low profile on his own.
16th Jan 2009
Snatch (2000)
Corrected entry: Several times during the film, Cousin Avi refers to Frankie Four Fingers as "Bubbe" which is a Yiddish term of endearment for "Grandma" and would be inappropriate when addressing a man.
Correction: Yes, the term does mean Grandma. There is also a Yiddish term "Bubele" (not sure of the spelling), which means "baby." Jewish people often shorten that to "bubbe" as a term of endearment, and the way he is using it in this film is exactly how many Jewish people use it in real life.
Maybe not an acceptable comment to this correction, but is this the word Harry Ellis uses in "Die Hard" when talking to Hans?
Funny, I was absolutely going to use that EXACT instance as an example! I decided not to, though, in case some people hadn't seen that movie. But yes, same word and meaning. "Hans, Bubbe, I'm your white knight!" Both Ellis and Avi are using it correctly.
3rd Jul 2008
Get Smart (2008)
Corrected entry: When Max is 'captured' by Sigfreid and they are watching Agent 99 on the video feed, Max says something like, "Mrs. Spalkis must be lost," as well as making several other obvious references to the fact that he has been caught. Agent 99 can hear every word he says, and yet she doesn't even react to Max's suspicious quotes until he says, "99, we've been compromised."
Correction: What's the problem?, 99 simply don't understand Max. It's a character mistake.
No, this is a valid mistake. Siegfried threatens to kill Max and even refers to him by his real name. Max then gets into a fight, which 99 would have heard as well.
13th Mar 2005
Total Recall (1990)
Corrected entry: Never mind the absolute ridiculousness of having machine guns in a vacuum environment with many glass windows (and huge glass domes), why for safety's sake didn't the Mars colony have bullet proof glass?
Correction: Simply, money. Cohagen simply doesn't care. Bullet-proof glass is an expense he would rather not have.
I don't know about this, since there was apparently enough money to build the safety shields that came down. My question would be, if we could have the safety shields, why would they install glass at all?
The glass gives the ability to look outside; for the tourists, the safety shields do not.
30th Jul 2013
Minority Report (2002)
Question: There is a huge question for me. Is the vision of Leo Crow vs. Anderton the vision of what effectively happens (Leo Crow pushes the gun into the hand of Anderton who doesn't want to kill him) or the vision of the homicide WANTED by Anderton (that in the reality changes his idea)? My opinion is that the first answer is correct, because in the vision we see Crow that says to Anderton "Wait!" because he wants to be killed by him. So, if my opinion is correct, Anderton does NOT change the vision?
Chosen answer: Correct, Anderton does not change the vision. The movie is named after what you've just described: the minority report. Agatha always sees the true future, the other two precogs usually see the same as her but sometimes they only see a possible future instead. When Agatha's predictions conflict with theirs, her vision is termed a "minority report" and is disregarded. Anderton was never actually going to kill Crow, it was only ever merely a possibility.
I don't think there is ever a "true future", as in Agatha's own words to John - "You can still choose! You have a choice!" Even the final red ball, Lamar chose to go against the precogs' prevision, which was something that the 3 precogs agreed on. Therefore, a "true future" can be broken and does not exist.
Adding to that, the precog vision of Anderton killing Crow I totally different from what actually happened. In the vision Anderton says to Crow "Goodbye Crow" and shoots him from a distance, which he didn't do at the actual event. So the precog knowledge Anderton has definitely changed the future. He already decided not to kill Crow, but Crow died anyway.
I might disagree with the idea that Anderton was never going to kill Crow. He hacks into Agatha searching for his minority report, and even asks her straight out if he has one, which she tells him he does not. When he is in the hotel room, he confirms that he indeed intends to kill Crow, but Agatha begs him to choose otherwise. Which he eventually does, as does Lamar, proving that precrime is not a perfect system and leads to it being shut down.
14th Oct 2010
Minority Report (2002)
Question: In the virtual reality bar, a man comes up to the operator with a request. On television I've seen this line as, "I want to kill my boss." But I remember the line being much less family friendly in the theater. Was this line changed since the move left theaters, or am I mistaken?
Answer: You are not mistaken. Movie scenes are filmed multiple times, often with small changes to the dialogue, actors reacting differently, and so on, to see which one works best. However, some more adult scenes that are appropriate for a movie theater or certain cable channels are also filmed with a more family-friendly version that can be edited into the film for later TV viewings. This eliminates having to "bleep" out offensive words, dubbing in non-offensive words, which sounds unnatural, or otherwise chopping up or cutting scenes entirely due to nudity. This method is less distracting and makes for better viewing. A good example is the TV series, "Sex and the City." The show actually filmed many racier scenes in two versions, one for the very adult-oriented HBO, and also tamer scenes that eliminated all nudity and offensive dialogue for later syndication to general cable channels while keeping the overall content intact.
While I completely agree that this has happened repeatedly in many movies, this question is asking if it had happened in this particular movie with this particular scene. Which, according to my memory of seeing it in the theater, there was no change to this scene.
Answer: I believe you are mistaken. I've checked the DVD and the guy says, "I want to kill my boss." Rufus Riley (the owner of the bar) looks taken aback for a second. Given that Rufus had just been talking about people using the bar for sex (and shown someone in a pod doing that), he'd likely not be surprised by someone saying they wanted to use it for sex. But saying they wanted to kill a specific person might give him reason to pause.
24th Dec 2003
Training Day (2001)
Corrected entry: When Ethan Hawke is upside down in the bathtub with a shotgun in his face you can see that he has spare magazines. In the previous scene when his pistol was handed back to him (unloaded) all he had to do was reload using one of his spares.
Correction: How? Ethan had handcuffs on. So I doubt he could reload his weapon turn himself around and shoot three guys! Especially considering the fact that he had a shotgun right up next to his face.
No he's actually right. He could have used his other magazines.
The mistake is referring to before he was cuffed. When they are still at the kitchen table, they give him his empty gun back, at which time he could have used one of the other magazines to reload.
26th Aug 2003
Fight Club (1999)
Corrected entry: When Ed Norton calls Tyler in the phone booth, Tyler star 69's him to call him. Yet when we go back to Tyler's house, all of the phones are the old fashioned phones - not touch tone ones. He would not be able to do star 69 on his phones. Even Chuck Palahniuk points this out on the DVD.
Correction: On a rotary dial phone 1169 is the equivalent of star 69.
Which doesn't much matter either way, as the phone call never happened. Tyler, being a figment of the narrator's imagination, does not exist so he could not have made the phone call. This is backed up in this very scene if you look closely at the pay phone, which says "no incoming calls allowed."
15th Mar 2004
Jackie Brown (1997)
Corrected entry: When Bridget Fonda comes to the door of the dressing room to exchange the bags, Jackie knows she's there because she can see her feet. However, when Max goes to get the real bag, you can see that the dressing room doors go all the way to the floor.
Correction: The exchange happens between stalls (which one can see do not go all the way to the ground) and not under the door.
Correction: When Max walks in to the dressing room to retrieve the bag, both side walls also go to the floor.
Incorrect. When he walks in, the wall on his left goes all the way to the floor, as that is the last dressing room. But the wall on the right does not, which falls right in line with how Jackie handed the bag to Melanie.
27th Aug 2001
Die Hard 2 (1990)
Corrected entry: The plane crashes into the runway because they think they are higher than they really are, but the runway lights are never turned on. I'm no pilot, but I don't think a pilot would try to land a plane on an unlit runway.
Correction: A pilot got in touch with me about this: If necessary we will land a plane without runway lights - there is this thing called an ILS (instrument landing system) which they used to land the plane. If not tampered with you would be able to land the plane safely. On the other hand with that much snow on the runway, no plane would be able to land, not enough space to stop the planes. Another thing there is is a safe altitude and approach slope warning that would have went off no matter what the ILS was telling them.
They think they can't see the lights due to the storm, and are flying through clouds. I've seen and been on planes that have taken off and/or landed in heavy fog. The pilots are assuming the lights are on, and they just can't see them yet.
I agree with everything said here, and we can also add that the pilot was being guided by Colonel Stewart, who he thought was air traffic control.
19th May 2005
Die Hard: With a Vengeance (1995)
Question: What is that gun thing that is pushed into the guy's neck after he says "I thought this was a currency exchange?" Is the guy dead or just knocked out?
Answer: Knocked out. It was a hand held tranquilizer gun like most vets use on animals to put them to sleep.
Answer: I've always wondered this and I don't think you're going to find a good answer. I know everyone is saying it was a tranquilizer. But tranquilizers wear off and if one of those people they gave an injection to regained consciousness it could be a big problem for them. eg. The cops in the subway. That's why I think it was probably a fatal injection of something.
It's not a fatal injection. Remember, Simon says, "I'm a soldier, not a monster." And earlier, one of the henchmen yelled at Otto, "No shooting." Simon doesn't intend to kill anyone (though later he changes his mind when he's ready to blow up the ship). The only people who killed anyone were Otto, Katya, and McClane.
I'm pretty sure the bombing at the beginning of the movie killed people. Plus, the bomb in the subway would have killed a whole bunch of people. Saying Simon doesn't intend to kill anyone is quite naive.
My opinion is it was not a fatal injection. They seem to be strangling and killing the guards in that scene; they could have easily done the same to the manager as well. My thinking is Simon deemed there was no need to kill the manager, so he simply knocked him out and likely tied him up.
19th Jul 2017
Die Hard: With a Vengeance (1995)
Question: I always wondered about this. As a cop, McClane knew about weapons. While handing over the machine gun to Zeus, he explained how it worked. But he did not tell Zeus to switch the safety catch off. How on earth could McClane forget to tell something crucial like that? Zeus isn't even pissed about it later on, while it could have cost him his life.
Answer: And Zeus mentions about brothers knowing how to shoot guns.
He said it was racist to assume that brothers know how to shoot guns. He admitted he didn't know how to use that model.
Chosen answer: A simple omission, in the heat of the moment he forgot to mention it. He may have thought, since he just took the gun off an enemy, that the safety was already off.
McClane probably did that intentionally as Zeus didn't know much about guns. In fact, you hear McClane say "Don't be a hero, you find him, you come get me."
Of all the possible answers, this is definitely not the one. There's no way he handed him the gun and then purposely did not tell him that the safety was engaged. There would be no point in that.
13th Sep 2003
Road House (1989)
Corrected entry: There is a scene that starts with one of the bar waitresses (Kari-Ann) up on the stage singing with the band. Watch the drummer; some of his playing is in perfect sync with the singer and music, but at another time you can hear a cymbal crash when visually he doesn't hit a cymbal.
Correction: He could have had a foot pedal setup for the cymbal.
Cymbals are not operated by foot pedals; you might be thinking of the hi-hat.
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Correction: Criminals behaving illogically don't constitute a plot hole. The fact that Ritchie raped the bank teller may have been his motive for kidnapping her, rather than just killing her right away.
Bishop73
Also, Seth states at some point he does not take hostages (either on leaving Benny's world of liquor or after discovering the teller is dead, I can't remember where he said it) which suggests it was all Ritchie's idea to kidnap her and Seth didn't want, far less plan, to take a hostage, and that he felt it was unnecessary to do so.
The_Iceman
What Seth says is that he doesn't kill people that he doesn't have to, and he doesn't rape women. Which is what Richie just did to the hostage. Seth has no problem taking hostages, as we see in the very next scene when he takes an entire family hostage.
jshy7979