Question: Who killed Martha Tabram? Just like in the real world, doubt is cast on her murder as to whether or not it was Jack the Ripper due to the differences in her murder and those of the other prostitutes. So was it just another member of the Freemasons?
Questions about specific movies, TV shows and more
These are questions relating to specific titles. General questions for movies and TV shows are here. Members get e-mailed when any of their questions are answered.
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?
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
Citadel on the Edge of Vengeance - S2-E8
Question: Mary talks about her time in Sokovia, a country which featured heavily in Avengers: Age of Ultron. But as far as the MCU has covered, it was only the Avengers who fought there, against Ultron and his army. Mary talks about being special forces and how "Sokovians like knives." What were US troops doing there, and why were they fighting the Sokovians? The altercation with Ultron seemed like everyone would be on the same side, trying to save lives.
Answer: Sokovia is a nation in the Iron Curtain. It is just as likely for a US operative to end up there as any of the other former Soviet nations. There is no reason to believe she was there at the same time as the Avengers. It was likely some form of covert mission there years beforehand.
Question: What game do the young men play to demonstrate their courage to one another?
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: Why did Jack and Max try to kill Mason's son Sonny? They have their masks on and there's no way that Sonny would have identified them.
Answer: He survived the first attempt of his family's murder. There's no telling what he saw or heard. As for the masks, the bad guys were taking no chances, security cameras, cell phones and the unexpected eyewitness.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Question: What was with the scene where John picks up and smells the grass after he's snuck out to help Melinda? And what did John mean when he said 'no matter how it happened, Del was the lucky one.' Did John somehow take all that pain so Del wouldn't? I never really got it.
Answer: He smelled the grass because he had missed it being locked up. As for the other thing, John was tired, he constantly felt the pain of others around him, he wanted it to stop. Del died, to John that's the way out, to get rid of the pain. Even though Del felt a lot of pain, for John it doesn't matter, as long as he gets out, so the pain stops. He didn't take Del's pain.
Watch John closely during Del's execution. His body reacts the same as Del's throughout. He said Del's the lucky one because he wouldn't know earthly pain any longer, something that John is longing for by the time of his own execution.
He didn't take his pain.
I believe that John himself had lived a long time because of his powers, maybe he couldn't die from old age, but could be killed like other people, he was tired of being alive, so the execution was his way out.
Answer: He smells the grass, because it's pure.
Question: At the end of the film when Marty sees Doc get shot at the mall the second time why is he crying when he runs over to check Doc? Couldn't he have just grabbed the plutonium that was sitting next to Doc's van, run back to the Delorean with it and travelled back much earlier to warn Doc?
Answer: Technically he could have done so, but that doesn't make it any less distressing to see his friend murdered.
Next to that he doesn't know how the DeLorean works, he doesn't know how to put the plutonium in (or doesn't want to risk using it wrongly, having only seen it loaded once) and he and Doc from 1955 have tampered with it to have it be powered by lightning so it probably wouldn't work properly anyway.
Question: Toward the beginning of the movie, when Sonny is being chastised by Miss McGee for dawdling in the hallway, he mutters something in Italian when she turns away. It's audible enough to cause her to turn back and suggest a session of "banging erasers." Does anyone know what he's muttering?
Answer: Its not really Italian, but roughly he says something like "Fanabala Puttana" which means "You bitch whore." Again, not fully correctly spoken as the actor knows hardly any Italian.
Answer: Sonny says "un altra brutta putana" which translates to another dirty slut.
Answer: Translates to "another stupid b****".
Question: How come Davos has two iron fists? The power transfer shouldn't have doubled it.
Answer: In the comics Iron Fist is able to use the power on both hands. There is no reason why Danny shouldn't be able to. Presumably he chooses to only use the one fist at a time, focusing all his power into one hand rather than distributing it between 2.
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.
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.
Question: So I have seen several places where people have been claiming that The Mad Scientist in this first episode was based on Nikola Tesla, and have seen many people complaining about him being portrayed as a bad guy in this. However, IMDb trivia states that "Boris Karloff' engineer Poelzig in Edgar G. Ulmer's The Black Cat (1934) was the inspiration for The Mad Scientist..." I've tried looking into it a little bit, but I can't seem to determine which is the correct person that The Mad Scientist was based on... Maybe both?
Question: Can someone explain to me what a red shirt means? I know in one episode when someone broke Bill's high school touchdown record that Hank mentioned that Bill was red shirted because Bill went into the army before he graduated thus compelled Bill to go back to high school and try and break the record again.
Answer: The main point of being red-shirted is that a student athlete only has 4-years of eligibility to play. By red-shirting as a freshman, a student is allowed to practice, to get better, bigger, etc and then still be able to play for 4 years (seasons).
Question: What did Sarah and Enrique say to each other in Spanish, before greeting each other?
Answer: Sarah also calls Enrique "sneaky like a snake."
Answer: All I hear is Sarah saying, "Enrique? You here?" And Enrique says, "Good to see you, Connor. Always knew you'd come back" or something like that.
Question: I thought Johnny and Daniel patched things up at the end of the first movie? So why do they still hate each other?
Answer: The first episode really only shows that Johnny still hates Daniel. Daniel is shown being friendly with Johnny when Johnny visited the car shop. Johnny was down and out and he was most likely jealous of Daniel's success. Only when Johnny was still giving Daniel a hard time did Daniel start feeling the hate again.
Answer: Also, a key point: 34 years have gone by in the story from the first film until this first episode here. In all those years, anything could have happened that we don't see in the film.
Answer: Actually, at the end of the first film (and by extension the beginning of the second), the only interaction they have is when Johnny presents Daniel with the trophy and compliments him on the match. Daniel never intervenes in the parking lot confrontation, and there is no indication that Johnny and Daniel have become friendly to any degree. This does not necessarily mean they've patched things up. Also, the previous answer that points out Daniel's initial friendliness and Johnny's hostility is correct.
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: Why is it that when Selene was bitten by Viktor she didn't receive his memories, which would tell her he was the one who killed her family, but when Michael was bitten by Lucian he got his memories which told him about Sonia?
Answer: Firstly, Vampire Elders like Viktor have control over the memories they pass on. Secondly, Selene was not an immortal when bitten so she would not have seen any blood memory visions. Thirdly, it seems generally only the blood drinker sees the memories. So why did Michael see Lucian's memories? Could be because he was a descendent of Corvinus and had this latent ability, or he did ingest some Lycan blood (as Lucian had just been shot by Selene).
Join the mailing list
Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.
Answer: I've always suspected (thought) that the man who murdered Martha was the guy with the knife who threatened Mary Kelly and used the weapon to cut off her buttons. McQueen. Wasn't he the 1888s version of a pimp?
ChristmasJonesfan
I think that would make the most sense. If he didn't do the deed himself, then having one of his men do it to send a message to the other prostitutes tracks.
Phaneron ★