Tailkinker

Answer: I think any glider pilot would take issue with that last statement. This is a choice by the filmmakers in their portrayal of the Dementors - the books never state, as far as I can remember, that the Dementors aren't capable of leaving the ground, so it's not necessarily an incorrect interpretation. J.K. Rowling is consulted during the making of these films, so she presumably has no problem with this.

Tailkinker ★

Answer: Sean Bean does show up, for about a second, in a flashback - this was enough to give him a credit.

Tailkinker ★

Answer: Aragorn rules until 210 FA, then passes away, leaving the kingdom to his son, Eldarion. Sam becomes Mayor of the Shire, seven times, and has thirteen children with Rose. After her death in 61 FA, he leaves the Shire and takes a ship into the West to be reunited with Frodo - allowed to do so because he too was a Ringbearer. Merry and Pippin become the heads of their respective families. In old age, they leave the Shire together and travel back to Rohan, then on to Gondor. They live out the remainder of their lives there and are buried in the tomb that will eventually house Aragorn's body as well. Legolas settles in Ithilien with other elves from his realm. After Aragorn's death, Legolas builds a ship and sails into the West. Gimli sets up a dwarven colony in the caves behind Helm's Deep. He stays in close contact with Aragorn and Legolas. After the death of the former, he accompanies Legolas in the West, the only dwarf ever to be allowed to do so. Precisely why he's allowed is unclear - it's most likely to do with his unprecedented friendship with Legolas, but another theory is that Galadriel remembered his pure love for her and obtained permission for him.

Tailkinker ★

Answer: Royd Tolkien is seen during the Osgiliath sequence - he says that he's visible handing out spears. A picture of him, with friend and business partner Justin Nicholls, both in costume, can be found at http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/northeast/guides/halloffame/showbiz/royd_tolkien.shtml. As his role was created at the last minute, Royd is actually wearing Viggo Mortensen's Aragorn wig.

Tailkinker ★

Answer: Most of the lists doing the rounds are rather more than gossip - most are based on statements by Peter Jackson and others involved closely with the production, so they should be taken as correct. No definitive list of changes has been issued, however, nor, I suspect, is there likely to be - lists that appeared for the previous Extended Editions all proved to be incomplete when that version was released.

Tailkinker ★

Answer: The other escapees undoubtedly faced some sort of punishment - Hilts was singled out for the Cooler as he caused the most disruption while free.

Tailkinker ★

Answer: Hilts was a habitual prison camp escapee. No matter how many times he was recaptured and punished, he continued to escape, agitating the Germans. He was called the "Cooler King" because of how much time he spent in isolation. That is likely why his punishment was swifter and more severe than the other prisoners. He also caused quite a bit of mayhem before being recaptured.

raywest ★

Chosen answer: In the episode Phases, Oz-Wolf was played by Keith Campbell, a stuntman who regularly doubles for Tom Cruise. I don't know about other episodes, but it seems unlikely that they'd choose not to use Seth Green in one episode, then change to using him to play the Oz-Wolf later on.

Tailkinker ★

Answer: Unless your friend has a direct pipeline to Lucasfilm somehow, he's misinformed - Lucas rarely reveals information ahead of time. While there are obviously to be a number of deaths in Episode 3, due to the extermination of the Jedi, there's nothing to indicate that Jar Jar is to be one of them - it's more likely fanboy wishful thinking. There are distinct indications from the Episode 3 production that a character will fall into lava during the film, which might be what is being thought of. In the interest of not spoiling it, I won't tell you which character, but it's not Jar Jar.

Tailkinker ★

Answer: It's more that she actually likes Ron, but, in typical teenage style, is highly reluctant to show it. Harry's a good friend, so gets a hug. Ron's potentially more, but she's afraid to show it. There's a scene in the trailers for the Prisoner of Azkaban where she grabs Ron's hand when frightened, then lets go immediately looking embarrassed, which seems to fit this.

Tailkinker ★

Answer: Odysseus was, in a way, responsible for the whole thing. He originally courted Helen, then, when Menelaus won her hand, Odysseus advised him to persuade all the other suitors to swear an oath to defend him against any slight to his marriage. It was this oath that gathered together the alliance that struck at Troy. According to the Iliad, Odysseus was one of the ambassadors sent into Troy to negotiate Helen's peaceful return. It was also he who persuaded Achilles to join the fight. He served in the war as one of the finest military commanders, known for his cunning strategies. Check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odysseus.

Tailkinker ★

Answer: Women don't automatically become pregnant every time they have sex - the conception time window is actually relatively small, which is why some couples try for years before successfully conceiving.

Tailkinker ★

Answer: Even if she had been ovulating and the egg had been fertilised, the stress of that night - which would have taken weeks for her body to recover from, would likely have temporarily disrupted her reproductive functioning, making it impossible for the fertilised egg to establish itself. That being said, there was a real-life, starstruck, unmarried couple on Titanic (though they were engaged to be married upon docking, with no rival suitors or pushy families). The man died and the woman survived. She gave birth exactly nine months after the sinking, meaning they possibly made secret, out-of-wedlock love on the ship.

Answer: She disowned the movie completely. The situation was that if no movie had been made from her books by a particular date, then the rights would revert back to Anne Rice herself. In order to forestall this, Warner Brothers threw something together using the bits that they liked from two different books. The result was functional, barely, but was hardly a worthy companion to the books.

Tailkinker ★

Answer: In the original book, Merrick's appearance is used to show William Gull's education, expertise as an anatomist and that he recognises and respects cultural diversity - Gull assures Merrick that, had he been born in India, he would be worshipped as a descendant of the elephant-headed god, Ganesa. In this spirit, Gull even offers the victim of his first Ripper slaying to Ganesa as a sacrifice, as Indians make a sacrifice to Ganesa at the beginning of an important enterprise. Merrick is present as a vehicle to establish the rich nature of Gull's character. When it comes to the film, however, this subtlety is completely lost - it seems very much that the scriptwriter noted Merrick's appearance in the book and felt that it would be cool to include the character in his script. As such, as you point out, it does feel that Merrick's presence, stripped of the subtleties of the book, is almost entirely pointless.

Tailkinker ★

Chosen answer: Luke failed the test before he even entered the cave - Yoda tells him to leave his weapons behind, but Luke takes them anyway. Seeing his face within Vader's mask is a warning that, if he embraces the path of violence (as he has by taking his weapons into the cave with him) then he could end up falling to the Dark Side as Vader did.

Tailkinker ★

Answer: There are plenty of ruins throughout Middle-Earth, and the area known as Ithilien, where Frodo and co are at that point, is no exception. Once a populous region, it has been deserted for around 1000 years, since the fall of Minas Ithil (now Minas Morgul) and the return of the Nazgul. What Frodo and Sam are resting is no doubt some ruined structure left over from Ithilien's populated days.

Tailkinker ★

Answer: It's shown on at least one other occasion (when Elizabeth stabs Barbossa) that those under the effects of the curse do bleed when stabbed. They have to in order to lift the curse, which requires a sacrifice of blood from each person affected by it, or, in Bootstrap Bill Turner's case, a close blood relative (namely his son).

Tailkinker ★

Answer: As with most paintings, there are undoubtedly different interpretations - everyone has their own views. In the movie, Vermeer's wife felt that it was obscene - that's her interpretation. A number of art critics have commented on a 'subtle eroticism' in the painting, and this may be what is being alluded to, using Catherina to carry the message across. It's worth pointing out that a number of Vermeer experts have disagreed quite vehemently with the portrayal of Catherina in the film - surviving historical evidence would seem to indicate that Vermeer's marriage was a happy one.

Tailkinker ★

Answer: Because her mouth was slightly open.

Answer: Because it was a picture of a servant.

Answer: Neo has developed a form of telekinesis - the ability to move things with the mind - and uses this to bring the weapons to him. This is the same ability that allows him to stop bullets. As to why he doesn't simply take the weapons from his enemies, this would require tearing the weapons from their hands, which might be difficult - I don't think we ever see Neo using his telekinesis directly against sentients, so possibly he can't. Taking weapons from the walls, which won't put up a fight, and engaging the enemy in direct combat is an easier option.

Tailkinker ★

Answer: Within the Matrix, Neo is manipulating the very computer coding that is the foundation of the cyber-world itself. Neo could not only stop bullets and fly, but he could at first erase or overwrite this coding at will, resulting in the instant destruction of his enemies (as seen in the first movie, when Neo overwrites Agent Smith's coding and utterly disintegrates him). The artificial intelligence of the Machine Mind, however, was constantly revising and self-correcting its code (as seen at the beginning of the second movie, when Neo realises the Matrix Agents are even stronger than before, and he muses, "Hm...Upgrade."). The Machine Mind was upgrading all the time, trying to keep up with Neo's abilities; thus, we see Neo still stopping bullets and defying cyber-gravity in the Chateau Brawl, but one of the Frenchman's baddies manages to actually injure Neo with a sword, drawing blood from his hand. This makes it apparent that Neo was always playing a game of chess with the Machine Mind for control of the Matrix code, and the Machine Mind sometimes got the upperhand. The Trainman's coding, for example, was unbreakable, and Neo was helpless against him in the Train Station scene. Outside of the Matrix, in the Real World, Neo's abilities are harder to explain, as they appear literally supernatural.

Charles Austin Miller

Answer: He is in a computer simulated world and is the chosen one because he can use his will to control and manipulate it, like moving objects and flying.

Answer: The battery-related delay doesn't matter - Rusty doesn't call Benedict until after the vault has been successfully breached. Up to that point, Livingston is simply running a looped image of the undisturbed vault. Only once Benedict has reached the control room does the tape of the fake vault start running. This just shows the preparation of the bags and the robbers generally wandering around the vault. Danny and co, down in the vault, would know how roughly long to leave it from the start of the tape to sending the bags up, and they know that the tape will start within a few minutes of them breaching the vault, so that's no real problem, timing-wise. The fake SWAT team show up and head down the liftshaft to the vault area. They then tell Benedict to cut all power to the vault, which he does, and all his screens showing what's going on go blank. During that time, they throw an explosive into the vault and it detonates. When Benedict brings the power back up, he's not looking at the tape any more - he's now seeing real images from the vault cameras. At no point is split-second timing required, nor do they have to worry about the tape being out of time with real events.

Tailkinker ★

Chosen answer: Joss Whedon wanted something in there that was totally inexplicable. The Cheese Guy fit the bill rather nicely.

Tailkinker ★