Answered questions about specific movies, TV shows and more

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Question: I still don't understand why Leonard switches clothes with Jimmy and steals his car after he kills him. "I'd rather be mistaken for a dead guy than a killer." That makes absolutely no sense. Driving around in Jimmy's car and wearing his suit would make him the prime suspect in the investigation. He was much safer when he was just an anonymous guy driving around in a pickup truck.

Answer: It is never explicitly given. The most Leonard says on the subject is: "I'd rather be mistaken for a dead guy than a killer." Speculations include (you can make up your own motives as well) : (1) The clothes and car are so much nicer than his. If you are willing to kill someone: stealing is not really a "crime." Why not take the nicer objects? (2) It could be part of his "routine": Kill a man, take his clothes and car. The clothes he had on and the truck may be from the man he killed a year ago. (3) It could be that he wants to make the killer of his wife suffer even more, and takes his clothes as a way of humiliating him. Leonard takes the man's life-his clothes and car, which are wrapped up in his identity-just as the man took his. This idea seems to work with a theme in Memento about "Identity" (especially mistaken identity). Natalie thinks Leonard is Jimmy, then thinks he is Teddy, then learns he is Leonard. Teddy is "mistaken" for the second killer, Jimmy is "mistaken" for the 2nd killer. Sammy's story as a part of Leonard's story, etc. (4) It could "simply" be explained as a "plot device": Leonard has to do it, otherwise he won't find the note in "his pocket" and meet Natalie. (5) Leonard doesn't want to admit he's a murderer. He's lying to himself. If he's the victim, then he cannot be the murderer. (6) Leonard takes Jimmy's clothing as part of his routine of killing J.G.'s he becomes another person, he's the victim not the killer, thus "I'd rather be mistaken for a dead guy than a killer." and that's why he also takes his car, so he has to, once again, find his wife's killer and kill him.

Answer: Leonard's only goal in life was to find his wife's killer, and he thought he had just achieved that. With nothing more to live for, the clothes would attract the attention of Jimmy's associates - a method of suicide as indirect as his eventual approach to killing Teddy.

Question: It isn't that important to the plot but what does the back of the bus say? The second word looks like "rules" but I can't distinguish the "M" word.

Answer: The writing on the window of the bus says "Mongrels rule". That is the name of the school mascot statue, a mongrel.

Question: In The Fairy Godmother's song, there is one line about something to do with the moon. What does she say?

Answer: You can spoon on the moon with a prince to this tune.

Question: When Woody and Buzz are at Sid's house, at one point the baby with the spider legs taps something in Morse code to Sid's other toys. Is he really tapping something in Morse code or is it just a random jumble of dots and dashes?

Answer: Baby face taps RR TOYS COME OUT. Telling the other toys to come out from hiding. Pixar stated this in their Toy Story character overview.

But why "RR"?

"RR" is shorthand for "Message Received." Babyface is telling Woody that he understands Woody's problem and then taps out to the other toys to come out.

Question: How did Superman get his powers back? I don't understand what that green crystal did.

Answer: In the theatrical cut, nobody really knows why the green crystal restored his powers. However if you watch the Richard Donner cut, it is explained that the green crystal is a communication device that helps Superman talks to the residual essence/spirit/ghost of his father Jor-El. Before he died, Jor-El gave the crystal to his son. Jor-El anticipated that Kal-El might give up his powers, and he also anticipated that Zod might eventually escape the Phantom Zone, so Jor-El lets his son absorb the leftover energy of his spirit, thus restoring all his Kryptonian powers.

Matt Van Gogh

Chosen answer: Wahlberg's songs were sung by Miljenko Matijevic, lead singer of "Steelheart".

Jon Sandys

Chosen answer: The agent on the plane watching Indy was not Toht, and was played by ILM staffer Dennis Muren, although they look similar. The Nazis were spying on Indy but this doesn't mean they didn't know where the Ravenwoods' bar was.

Sierra1

Question: When Dom is contacting everyone about the job in London, what was the purpose of the whole spectacle when Han and Gisele get the call? Who were all those people? And how did Dom get in contact with them first? Is it explained outside of the film (interviews etc)?

Answer: An assumption here, but since they are plain-clothes agents and law enforcement officers (one of them is actually listed in the credits as "Lead Chinese Agent"), it could be that Hobbs pulled some law muscle to track Han and Gisele (who may have gone incommunicado after the Rio heist) so Dom could talk to them on the phone.

Question: Why is the King's face hardly ever shown?

Answer: Deliberate production choice, and to show him from the younger child's point of view - also remember The King, when in his drunken state, is a child abuser, so the younger boy will see him as a large and terrifying presence - that is, so big he won't fit in the frame of the shot.

Neil Jones

Question: I am confused as to why the House Cup winner (Gryffindor) is named at the feast where Hagrid returns. Shortly after, there is a mention of "the rest of the final term" passing quickly. If school is still in session, couldn't the students' actions/behavior still change the total amounts of points?

Answer: No, the points are tallied and the cup is awarded by a specific time, which is the Leaving Feast. There is only a short period of time after the feast before the students go home for the summer. Anything a student might do during that time does not count against their House for that year. Any penalties or rewards given to a House after the feast could be carried over to the following year.

raywest

Question: In the altered timeline, Flash initially could not travel through time because there was another speedster. How was he able to travel through time in the original timeline, when Zoom was alive there as well?

Answer: Flash couldn't travel through time later in the movie not because Zoom was alive but because Zoom was also tapping into the Speed Force, preventing Flash from gathering enough of the Speed Force to break the Time Barrier. When Flash originally went back in time it's likely because Zoom was in custody, therefore not tapping into the Speed Force at that time.

Answer: Batman kills Zoom so the Flash could use the speed force.

Question: What happened to the guy in the first trap? he killed the other man with the eyes sewed shut to get the key. It looked to me like he got the chain unlocked from his neck but he yelled and blood flowed from his mouth. Was he too late?

The_Iceman

Chosen answer: He wasn't too late. He was the guy supervising the Hoffman/Matthews trap.

Answer: He was barely in time; he was still unlocking the chain from his neck as it was being pulled into the winch, pulling his hands in with it, which made him scream in pain.

Answer: Just what he said: it would set monsters back hundreds of years. Monsters are harmless, sociable creatures in this world yet humanity fears them. To kill a human would justify humanity's fears and set whatever progress monsters may have made toward being accepted in the world back hundreds of years.

Phixius

Question: What was in the picture that Batman gave to Rachel, and how would it have sped things up?

Answer: Pictures of Judge Faden with a woman who was not his wife, to be used as leverage to force him to hear the case against Falcone. A deleted scene shows Bruce gathering the photos himself but only the top one is shown in the final cut.

Phixius

Question: What effect did they use to get the actors' eyes to glow, revealing they are replicants?

Quantom X

Chosen answer: A two-way mirror at a 45 degree angle in front of the camera with the camera pointing at the see-through side. A light was shone at the reflective side and reflected into the actor's eyes on the optical axis of the lens.

Sierra1

Question: After killing Xenia in the Jungle level, you get to dual wield an RCP 90 and a grenade launcher. Other than when using cheat codes, why is this the only time you can wield 2 different weapons at the same time?

Quantom X

Chosen answer: In normal gameplay, yes, this is the only level where you can dual wield two different weapons.

Sierra1

Answer: No reason is given.

Michael Albert

Chosen answer: It seems P. L. Travers was, in fact, right-handed. With just a bit of research, I found this YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeiEumLxTcM. At time reference 4:05, archive video shows Ms. Travers in her garden, holding a basket hooked on her left arm, and making clippings with a scissors in her right hand. Feeling convinced, I stopped, though I suspect further research (it's a six part biography) would yield other examples of P. L. Travers engaged in right-handed activities.

Michael Albert

Only problem with the assumption that travers was right-handed because she trimmed plants with her right hand is that there were no (to my knowledge) scissors for lefties. I was born in 1955 and I am a lefty who cuts right-handed, wear my watch on my left wrist, and made other adaptations due to the fact that left-handers were ignored, and travers was born over 50 years earlier.

Answer: I do not know the actual answer to your question. However, I would like to point out as a lefty myself that we often have to use our right hand for certain activities just due to the fact that left handed options are not readily available. Scissors and shears are a great example of this. Very often you cannot just switch them to your left hand and have them work. They actually have to be put together to be left handed to work properly. Also, many left handed writers are also ambidextrous. For example I golf right handed but bat left handed so the two swings don't negatively affect each other.

Question: At the end of the movie, what is the name of that haunting song as the workers head towards town?

Answer: The song is called "Yerushalayim Shel Zahav" ("Jerusalem of Gold"). This was a somewhat anachronistic choice for the scene, as the song was written in 1967, twenty-two years after the end of World War II, by Israeli folk artist Naomi Shemer. For more information on the song, including an English translation of the lyrics, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerusalem_of_Gold.

Michael Albert

Chosen answer: Phasers fire nadion particle bursts or bolts, which are fictional but are presumably similar to photons, and would therefore have mass and kinetic energy - so depending on the power output of the phaser, it should impart a not insignificant momentum change.

Sierra1

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