Answered questions about specific movies, TV shows and more

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Question: In the US, can you really be taken to a police station for (presumably) making a phony phone call? To me it seems like a waste of resources since it is probably a common occurrence. Also Jeannie would have stuck to her story that it was true...as break-ins do happen all the time.

Gavin Jackson

Answer: In the United States, phoning in a false report to police can be treated as either a misdemeanor or felony offense (depending on jurisdiction). A false report is considered obstructing law enforcement, which is pretty serious. A misdemeanor offense can result in jail time of a year or less, while a felony offense can result in more than a year's jail time and heavy fines. The important factor that makes it a crime is knowingly trying to mislead the police, not accidentally reporting false information. In "Ferris Beuller's Day Off," Jean was not trying to mislead the police; but, lacking evidence, the police assumed she was knowingly phoning in a false report, so they arrested her (probably on a misdemeanor).

Charles Austin Miller

Answer: Illinois law makes making a false report on 911 a form of disorderly conduct.

LorgSkyegon

Answer: I think the main thing was Jeanie wasn't in school and was probably taken in for truancy as well as the supposedly phony call. But it's unlikely that they would have taken her to the police station if she was picked up at home.

Bishop73

Question: Not sure this is a movie mistake. When the mom is sawing off her own head, wouldn't the sawing have stopped once she cut through her spinal cord? The muscles in her arms/hands would have gone limp and her head would not completely fall off - though it would fall forward. You don't actually see her head fall but you hear the bang on the floor and her head is missing at the end.

odelphi

Answer: There were supernatural forces at work, so basic rules of human anatomy and physics don't really apply in the situation.

Phaneron

Answer: When she's sawing off her own head, she's also suspended about 12 feet in the air. Afterwards, you also see the headless mom's body levitating up to the treehouse. So, obviously, there were powerful demonic forces that suspended her in the air, sawed off her head, then carried her up into the treehouse.

Charles Austin Miller

Question: It is implied that Satan and the forces of evil are always watching out for Damien so that when anybody gets anywhere near to hurting him they invariably meet a very sticky end. So how is it that, at the end of the film, Kate Reynolds is able to stab Damien to death with such apparent ease when all previous efforts to kill him have failed so dismally?

Rob Halliday

Answer: Damien states at one point that as the birth of the Nazarene gets closer, his strength fades accordingly. Presumably this also applies to any forces assisting him.

Question: What is that green thing that Chuck tries to break open by throwing it against a rock wall, and then by hitting it with a rock? Is it really that difficult to break open?

Answer: They were coconuts. Coconuts come in a green shell which is their husk and they are hard to open up, especially when they get older. Most people use a machete or pick ax to get the husk off.

Bishop73

Is the shell as difficult to break open as shown in the movie?

The film does seem to accurately depict how hard it would be for someone who has never opened one before to get into a green coconut. I've never tried throwing one against a rock wall before though.

Bishop73

I was asking if the shell is as difficult to break open by hitting it with a rock as shown in the movie.

For someone who has never tried opening a green coconut, yes it would be.

Bishop73

The inner shell itself is not that difficult to open. Using a pointed rock, you can break through the round-shaped holes at the end to pour out of the liquid. By hitting the coconut's seam running lengthwise down the shell hard against a rock, it will completely split the shell in two around the circumference.

raywest

I'm talking about opening the outer shell, not the inner shell.

Answer: It sure is. You have to be gentle when you break it so all the water doesn't just go everywhere, like it would if you pounded it with say, a large rock.

stiiggy

Question: At the end, how were they supposed to rescue Katniss inside the dome? Because her shooting the wire at the dome just as the lightning struck couldn't have been their plan all along? It just seems like a lot of risk for them getting into the flying machine and waiting outside waiting for her to figure out how to incapacitate the dome and to actually manage it.

Answer: Whatever the plan to remove Katniss from the arena was, which was never revealed, it was circumvented by her shooting the dome ceiling with an arrow.

raywest

Answer: More than likely she wasn't in the tower when it was destroyed. She directly confronts Shen about destroying the tower and makes no mention of having survived it's collapse. She only comments on his recklessness in destroying his ancestral home.

BaconIsMyBFF

Question: Was that egg timer type in use or even invented in 1962?

Answer: Yes, clockwork timers were invented in the 1920's. This sort of egg timer was in heavy use by the 1960's.

BaconIsMyBFF

Question: Did the emotions know that Riley missed Minnesota before she admitted it? Was the sad core memory a possible clue?

Answer: The other emotions are certainly aware that Riley misses Minnesota, Anger especially. He complains quite a bit about how much he hates San Francisco. What the emotions don't seem to realise is that missing Minnesota is making Riley incredibly sad. Because Joy works so hard to suppress sad feelings, the other emotions don't seem to understand that by not allowing Riley to acknowledge her feelings they are causing her to become depressed.

BaconIsMyBFF

Question: Am I missing something? Michael technically isn't the man of the house. The grandfather is as he owns the house. So when Max says that he won't come in until the man of the house invites him in, he wasn't asked by the right person, making his invite invalid.

Answer: The requirement isn't that the man of the house invites him in, just that he's invited in. He uses the "man of the house" line to trick Michael into inviting him in.

Answer: Didn't think he had to.

Answer: While it's purely speculation, here are few ideas: 1. He didn't think he needed to. He now possesses the most powerful weapon in the universe and thought hitting Thanos in the chest would be enough. 2. He may have aimed for the head, but Thanos was trying to repel the axe, which caused the aim to be off. 3. He wanted Thanos to die slowly so that he could deliver his "I told you..." line.

Plus, he didn't know Thanos already had all the gems.

lionhead

Or just because the head is a much smaller target and Thor was pretty far away, even when throwing a magic axe.

Friso94

Question: Rosie is carrying a long pointed item off the boat and you see it again when they get to the resort. What’s is she carrying?

Answer: I don't think there's a definitive answer for this, but I have two possible answers which fit with Rosie's personality and the storyline. Rosie tells Donna that she's taking Bill and Sam fishing, and since we see that Rosie also brings this mysterious item with her when she goes to Bill's boat, so either a fishing rod or a monopod would make sense.

Super Grover

Question: If you have the film on iTunes, or Blu ray, it has descriptive audio. Turn on the descriptive audio, and go to the beginning of the credits. It says" this has been described by miles [somebody]." How do you spell his last name?

Answer: It's Miles Neff.

Question: Was the daughter possessed the entire time before she died? I noticed at the end one of the cult members at the end said something about the demon being released from the female host.

Answer: As the film progresses, we learn that the mother's side of the family has a history of serious mental illness, and the maternal grandmother was a secret devil-worshipper who was trying to fulfill an evil prophecy (crowning one of The Eight Kings of Hell from her own family). The little girl, Charlie, did apparently suffer some sort of mental illness, and she was raised and heavily influenced for 13 years by her devil-worshipping grandmother. Near the end it is revealed that Charlie actually was, all her life, a temporary female host for one of The Eight Kings of Hell; but she had to die because the prophecy called for a male host to be crowned King. At the very end, Charlie's cursed soul migrates into her older brother Peter's body; whereupon, he is crowned one of The Eight Kings of Hell.

Charles Austin Miller

Question: When they are heading down in the lift to the vault in the SWAT suits, who is the character to left of Brad Pitt? Because as you can see his face he doesn't look like any of the Oceans 11 characters at all.

Answer: This is actually a mistake in the movie, there is an extra person in the elevator. It is listed in the mistakes.

lionhead

Question: What game do the young men play to demonstrate their courage to one another?

Answer: To expand on the previous answer, the village youth were raised to believe the non-existent creatures would never harm anyone so long as they did not cross the boundary. The boys are engaging in a game of "dare."

raywest

Answer: There isn't a particular name for the game they're playing. It was more game of courage of who could stand on the stump with their arms spread out wide the longest without running away scared.

Question: Would any company in their right mind build a theme park (or any business for that matter) on a private island with a volcano? I know populated areas like Hawaii just assume the risk, but wouldn't a company that has the money to purchase their own island do their due diligence and make sure they won't be prone to a major catastrophe like that?

Phaneron

Answer: As it was stated in the film, the volcano had been dormant for many many years. Presumably even since well before the events of the first Jurassic Park movie in the early 90's. It was only recently, between the events of this film and the prior Jurassic World that the volcano had its surprise re-awakening.

Quantom X

For sure, but dormant simply means that the volcano could one day erupt again, so wouldn't it be pretty foolish to gamble on building a multi-billion dollar theme park with the hope that the volcano will never again erupt?

Phaneron

One would think. But just look at our world's history. Like Pompeii, an entire civilization wiped out cause they lived at the base of a dormant volcano. And then even in more recent history. Mount Saint Helens, which I've actually been to and seen the exhibits and footage of it's destruction. Foolish, yeah. But that doesn't stop us from still doing it repeatedly.

Quantom X

I think it's been made pretty clear over the course of all the films that the people building these parks did not exactly think everything through properly. They took a gamble on the volcano, and they lost.

wizard_of_gore

Answer: The volcano has nothing to do with reality. It is a plot device more than twenty years after the original movie. It is contrived for the purpose of telling a new story. Trying to give a logical or scientific explanation is pointless.

raywest

Question: In the last scene when Ripley is escaping in the shuttle, why is the Alien wedged awkwardly in the wall? And why is it so mellow about getting out and killing Ripley?

Answer: The xenomorphs are quite intelligent, despite their savage nature. In this scene, for example, the alien understands that the Nostromo is about to self-destruct, and it correctly anticipates Ripley using a shuttle to escape the blast. The alien carefully hides in the shuttle and goes into a dormant state (so as not to alert Ripley to its presence until they are well underway). When Ripley realises the alien is aboard, she dons her pressure suit and sprays the alien with fire-extinguishing gas to prompt a response. After a startled jump, the alien languidly reveals itself because it is emerging from its dormant state, but also because it knows there is no escape for Ripley in the tiny spacecraft. The implication is that it is in no hurry to kill her, which heightens the tension and horror of the scene.

Charles Austin Miller

Excellent answer.

raywest

Question: Near the start of the film Dallas goes to mother and on the computer he scrolls down to special order 937 and then asks "what's the story, mother?" When he tapped on order 937, why didn't he see the same message that Ripley saw later in the film?

Answer: Dallas doesn't scroll to Special Order 937, he scrolls down to the "Interface" option which is coded as "Interface 2037." Interface 2037 is the program that allows the ship's captain to ask the computer questions in plain language. Ripley sees the message about Special Order 937 because she keeps pressing Mother for additional information that she is not authorized to see. Dallas probably did see the same message about "Science officer's eyes only" but thought nothing of it at the time. Dallas' dialogue to Ripley about Ash having final word on the alien seems to suggest that he did indeed see Special Order 937 and chose to follow his instructions.

BaconIsMyBFF

Yes have rewatched it, you're quite right.

Question: At the end, Charley sees a set of glowing red eyes in the window. Could they be Evil's? The reason I think this is I wasn't to convinced he was really dead after Peter stabbed him. Or could they be Charley's mom's eyes, since we don't know if Evil was really telling the truth about her having to work nights, and attacked her. Or could Charley's eyes just be playing tricks on him?

Answer: There's really no way to answer this, because this scene was just intended as a stinger for the audience. Stingers like these are often added to the end of horror films. You could make an argument that it's supposed to be Evil Ed; the audio from earlier in the film is played with his laugh and the "You're so cool, Brewster!" line. But that wouldn't make sense because if Ed wasn't really dead he would have been freed from being a vampire when Jerry is killed just like Amy. Its definitely not Charley's mother, she is most certainly alive and well. The scene plays out like Charley's eyes may be playing tricks on him. In short, it's not really supposed to be anyone's eyes in particular. It's really just something added to the end of the film to get a rise out of the audience.

BaconIsMyBFF

Question: When RoboCop is being stripped, what is that thing Hob squirts him with before the scene cuts? And how many crazy directives does OCP give RoboCop after he's reprogrammed?

Brandon York

Answer: To answer the first question, it's some sort of tubing and fluid from inside of Robocop... so something like oil or something along those lines. Something that Robocop's robotic body uses to function. As for the second question, I do not believe it's ever mentioned specifically, but online searches say it's over 300 new directives. (Though we never see all of them).

TedStixon

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