21st Feb 2006
The Battle - S1-E9
Question: When Picard is preparing to use the Stargazer to attack the Enterprise, Data states that all its main systems are intact, and that only some minor damage was caused by fires during the earlier battle. If the Stargazer's in such good shape, why did Picard have to abandon it?
2nd Feb 2006
Question: How long is it between the three films, "A New Hope" and "Empire Strikes Back" and then "Return of the Jedi"? Did it take years or merely months? I'm sure they wouldn't wait for a year to save Han Solo from Jabba the Hutt.
Answer: There's about three years between ANH and ESB, with the best part of a year elapsing before the events of ROTJ - it was indeed that long before they were able to break Han out of captivity.
2nd Feb 2006
Question: One of the deleted scenes shows a number of politicians discussing with Padme how they wish to form a rebellion. One of the characters is played by Ahmed Best. In Episode II, Ahmed Best has a cameo at the night club on Coruscant. Had the scene of the discussion of the formation of the Rebel Alliance not been deleted, would Ahmed Best's character have been the same between the two movies?
Chosen answer: It's unlikely. Best's appearance in Episode II was fleeting, to say the least. Had he been intended to be a character with greater significance in Episode III, then he's undoubtedly have been given more than just a brief shot in the middle of a crowd. The character being referred to in the question is in fact Giddean Danu, Senator for Kuat and he was played by Christopher Kirby not Ahmed Best.
Question: At the end of the film, Lestat bites Malloy, then offers to turn him into a vampire, much the same way he did to Louie. Does Malloy agree to become a vampire, and if he does, what kind of "life" does Malloy live then on?
Answer: In the books, Daniel Molloy isn't attacked by Lestat at the end of the film - Lestat doesn't appear at all. Molloy began a quest to locate Lestat, a quest that fails, but he does meet Armand instead. For some years the two travelled together, with Armand occasionally granting Daniel a sip of vampiric blood, but refusing to fully turn him. Daniel would frequently run away and sink in an alcoholic despair, but the two would always link up again in the end, usually when Daniel had really hit rock bottom. Eventually, Daniel's alcohol abuse did such damage to his body that Armand was forced to turn him into a vampire to stop him dying altogether. The two seperated shortly after, no longer able to tolerate each other. Daniel vanished for some time, eventually resurfacing, having lost his mind, in the care of Marius. What happened to him after that is unknown, although Marius stated that his insanity was only temporary (although precisely what 'temporary' might mean to the 2000-year-old vampire is anybody's guess).
24th Jan 2006
Question: I've never seen the show myself, but I was wondering what kind of a name "Inara Serra" is. I'm assuming Inara is of Portuguese origin, but mostly because the actress was born in Brazil. Can someone please help me with this?
Answer: Inara is actually Arabic in origin; it means "ray of light" or alternatively "heaven sent". Serra, on the other hand, is Portuguese and means "mountain range" - derived from the same word in Latin, where it means 'saw' (as in the cutting implement, which a mountain range might resemble, rather than the act of seeing).
2nd Feb 2006
Question: When Bond saves Tracey in the beginning and she drives off he comments "This never happened to the other fellow". I know this is a joking reference to Sean Connery, but what is Bond supposed to mean within the context of the film? Connery references aside, why would he be saying this?
Answer: It's an entirely intentional aside to the audience, the one occasion in the entire Bond series where the so-called 'fourth wall' (i.e. the cinema screen itself) is broken. As such, within the context of the film itself, it doesn't really have much of a meaning.
2nd Feb 2006
Question: How did Bruce Wayne determine that Stickley's suicide was a "computer-generated forgery" so quickly? Just because he discovered that Edward Nygma is the Riddler doesn't mean that Stickley was murdered. Is there perhaps something I missed?
Answer: It's a bit of a leap, but it's not entirely unreasonable. He knows that Nygma and Stickley were at odds over Nygma's experiments, and he was suspicious of Stickley's apparent suicide right from the beginning. As such, when it becomes apparent that Nygma's one of the bad guys, it's not much of a stretch to conclude that Nygma killed Stickley, then faked the tape to show a suicide.
2nd Feb 2006
Question: When Mace Windu deflected the sith lightning, did Palpatine fake being weak or in agony? Was it a test to see if Anakin would save him? If so, what did he mean when he shouted unlimited power?
Answer: It may not have been entirely faked, although it does seem somewhat unlikely that a Sith Lord would be affected in any serious way by his own Force lightning, but Palpatine was certainly not remotely as endangered as he made out. It does seem that it was a test, designed to finally ensnare Anakin in the Sith web, by forcing him to turn on another Jedi. His shout of 'unlimited power' seems to have been a final taunt to the suddenly helpless Mace Windu.
2nd Feb 2006
Question: If Padmé is Queen Amidala's name, shouldn't all security forces know that it was her instead of the decoy? Wouldn't it be better to hide that name too?
Answer: It's safe to say that all her security staff will be aware of the decoy procedure - otherwise, they wouldn't know who to protect if things really went wrong. As for outsiders, Queen (later Senator) Amidala is her formal name and would be the one that everyone was familiar with; her birth name of Padme Naberrie is unlikely to be generally known.
29th Jan 2006
Question: Is there anywhere where I can get the music from the Pleasantville trailer?
Chosen answer: Some of it was taken from the soundtrack to "Homeward Bound II: Lost In San Francisco" - the rest was specifically composed for the film.
24th Jan 2006
Question: When he stabs the Witch King Merry seems to be breaking his arm. Later when Pippin finds him he is close to unconscious. Éowyn on the other hand seems to be doing quite alright. Yet in the extended edition Éowyn is brought to a hospital and appears to be ill while Merry is fit to get back into battle the next day. Is this a mistake, or am I missing something.
Answer: Merry doesn't actually break his arm - it's more that the foul energy that surrounds up the Witch King affects Merry when he makes the stab. The energies have a detrimental effect of those exposed to it - Eowyn is close to the Witch King for longer, plus she's the one who makes the killing blow, so she gets a more potent dose. Also, her arm is severely damaged physically during the fight, making it necessary for her to receive greater care than Merry does. In the books, both are taken to the hospital and neither goes to the fight at the Black Gate - it was presumably considered better for a cinematic audience that Merry should go, rather than sidelining one of the Fellowship during the climax of the film.
24th Jan 2006
Question: When Pippin and Merry collide with Frodo and Sam in the corn field they seem to be acquainted with Frodo but nothing more than that. Yet they still end up going with him on the journey. I didn't quite understand why they chose to do so, are they better friends in the books?
Answer: In the book, Frodo's departure is much less rushed - it takes him several months to depart rather than leaving the same night. Merry and Pippin, being among his closest friends, help him pack and so are with him right from the start of the journey. In the film, the timeframe has been considerably compressed for dramatic reasons, so things are much less organised - as such, it became necessary for Frodo and Sam to encounter Merry and Pippin along the way. They're still intended to be friends, but the depth of that friendship is less clear.
24th Jan 2006
Question: I remember seeing a mini series about the Ripper when I was younger, in which Mary Kelley had a new young prostitute (Ada) "under her wing", just as in this film. Did Ada really exist, and if so are there any evidence that might support that she was murdered in Kelley's place?
Answer: Kelly regularly spent time with several other prostitutes, as we see in the film, but there's no particular evidence that Kelly was acting in a sort of mentor role to any of them. There is, however, evidence that Kelly did share a room with another prostitute, so the fictional 'Ada' may have some small basis in fact. However, none of the reports of Kelly's murder give any indication that there was any doubt about the identity of the victim.
20th Jan 2006
Question: In the scene where Shaun gave all the zombies 'the slip', David asks Shaun how he lost them. My question is, why does David act so suspicious towards Shaun when he asks him that?
Answer: Given that Shaun's plan to go to the pub has so far managed to expose them to a considerable degree of risk, it's not unreasonable that David might be rather skeptical when Shaun claims to have simply given the zombies the slip.
20th Jan 2006
Question: The appendix mentions Merry having a son, but no name is given in the family tree. Why is his son not included in the family tree when he is mentioned elsewhere in the text, and what was his name? Did Merry have any other children as well?
Answer: Tolkien never gives the name of Merry's son, which is probably why he's not on the family tree, nor does he tell us whether he had any other children. As to why he doesn't mention this, why should he? It's not as if they're important characters. There's a lot of information that Tolkien doesn't provide - understandable, given that he's produced a history of a fictional world that covers many thousands of years, that he wouldn't be able to include everything. Minor details, like the names of people who never actually appear in any of the stories (Merry's son, Aragorn and Arwen's daughters, Legolas' mother and so forth), were simply left out in favour of more important items.
5th Jan 2006
I am trying to remember a movie I saw at least 10 years ago, probably 15 or more. The only thing I can remember about it was that a kid had to race this car around town. While he was doing it I think he had a device to switch red lights to green and I think he went through a car wash and had the outer layer of paint washed off to get away from the cops. At the end I think he ramped through the goal post at the football field, then they buried the car in the end zone. Any ideas?
Answer: I believe this was a 1989 film called "Catch Me If You Can".
4th Jan 2006
Question: Was Captain Hook called Hook before he lost his hand, and had it replaced by a hook?
Chosen answer: No, he wasn't. To quote J.M. Barrie, "Hook was not his true name. To reveal who he really was would even at this date set the country in a blaze", which rather implies that Hook was supposed to have been an important individual at some earlier point in his life. The only other clue to his history is that Barrie mentions that he attended Eton.
4th Jan 2006
Question: Why does the film involve two Queen songs, one in the pub ("Don't Stop Me Now") and one in the credits?
Answer: Is there some reason why it shouldn't? They presumably chose them because they liked them and thought that they fitted well.
1st Jan 2006
Question: Does anyone know, or has anyone noticed if Peter Jackson makes a cameo in this film?
Answer: He appears as one of the biplane gunners in the closing sequence. Other cameos in this sequence include Rick Porras, Jackson's co-producer on The Lord of the Rings, and Frank Darabont, writer and director of The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile, also both playing gunners, and Rick Baker, make-up artist extraordinaire who played Kong in the 1976 remake, appearing here as one of the pilots.
29th Dec 2005
Question: Near the end of the movie Max figures out that 2004 Mccomb came back to 1994 to make sure that he wins the presidency. Since the first half of the film takes place in 1994, how could 2004 Mccomb travel to 1994 when the TEC hasn't been fully formed yet?
Answer: The fact that the TEC doesn't exist in 1994 is irrelevant - McComb has access to time travel equipment in 2004 and uses it to travel back. There's no apparent limitation on when they can travel to - in the course of the film, we see characters who have travelled much further back than '94.
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Chosen answer: The Stargazer was seriously damaged in the previous battle, which is why she had to be abandoned. When the Ferengi salvaged her, they repaired the damage to the major systems in order to get her functional, but didn't bother with the minor fire damage.
Tailkinker ★