Questions about specific movies, TV shows and more

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Question: James lures Bella to the ballet studio with the threat that her mother will be harmed. She hears her mother's scared voice and I'd assume that Bella would be able to tell if it was Victoria and not her mother on the phone. Yet when she wakes up to her mother at the hospital, it's like this never happened. Can anyone tell me what I missed here?

Answer: When James was in Bella's house in Arizona, he had found an old video recording that Bella's mother had made of a very young Bella at the ballet studio. While filming it, Rene' couldn't find Bella, and was frantically calling for her. That was the portion of the tape that James played when he was on the phone with Bella, fooling her that her mother was James' captive. Bella discovered the deception when she arrived at the ballet studio and discovered that her mother was never there or in any danger. When Bella awakens in the hospital, there was no need for any explanation of what happened because her mother believed that Bella had fallen down a hotel staircase.

raywest

Answer: The mother was never on the phone with Bella; it was a recording of an old message that James used to lure Bella to the dance studio Mimi's.

Tricia Webster

Answer: I guess you missed the video recorder! When she thinks she's found her mom at the studio all she finds is a video recorder playing a video of when Bella was a child! He was never near her mother.

Answer: The mother was given a set of memories by the cullens, so that all this was explainable. The cullens could not let the mother know that vampire's existed. I assume that Bella was given similar memories so that she can keep up with the lie, Bella of course remember what had really happened.

Safe - S1-E7

Question: When Shepherd Book gets shot and they take him to an Alliance base at first they do not want to treat him but he tells them to look at his Ident card and suddenly they are rushing to help him. What is so special about his ident card or him?

grannycindy

Chosen answer: Very little of Book's past was revealed in either the series or the follow-up movie. He's been shown to know a surprisingly large amount about the criminal underworld, government covert operations, firearms and so forth, which, combined with his apparent priority status with the Alliance, suggests that he, at some point, held a high rank of some nature within that organisation - one theory is that he knows about the covert Operatives (as seen in Serenity) because he used to be one. Ron Glass, with Joss Whedon's blessing, revealed a few details in 2007, including that Derrial Book is not his real name, but was taken from "somebody he killed", that he has at least one artificial body-part, that he is known for "his greatest failure" and that he apparently found God in a bowl of soup. Further details of any of these remain unrevealed. A comic-book series entitled The Shepherd's Tale, which will deal with his back-story, was announced for release in late 2008 but has, as yet, failed to appear.

Tailkinker

Answer: To answer the questions further, here's some details from the book "The Shepherd's Tale," which is the official, canonical comic-book. Shepherd Book was born "Henry Evans." As a youth, he ran away from home to escape his abusive father, and he eventually turned to a life of crime before being recruited by the Independence movement. He eventually agreed to become a spy for the Independents, and had one of his eyeballs removed and replaced with a camera that fed directly back to them. He kills a man named "Derrial Book" and assumed his identity, and over time becomes a mole within the Alliance. Years later, Book is dishonorably discharged after an operation he spearheads results in thousands dying, and he becomes a homeless drunk. He eventually "finds god" while eating a bowl of chicken soup in a shelter. He becomes a Shepherd and several years later, finds his way to Serenity.

TedStixon

Show generally

Question: I need someone from across the pond to help settle an argument between me and my wife. In the episode "i Rock the Vote", Wade Collins repeatedly uses the term "hob knocker." My kids asked, "What's a 'hob knocker'?" I said that it was something they made up that sounds somewhat British, probably insulting, and possibly vulgar. My wife insists that she has heard it somewhere else. So, for the record, what, if anything, does "hob knocker" mean?

Answer: In direction translation it means 'Mischievous Spirit'. 'Hob' as in HobGoblin means clown or prankster, and 'Knocker' was an old age term for Poltergeists in mines. Miners would often complain of hearing knocking sounds down mines when there was no-one else down there, hence 'Knocker'. It's not a regular English expression though.

GalahadFairlight

Question: Are there any lyrics available for what is being sung in the theme score ("Main Title" and "What we Need is a Hero")?

Answer: Lyrics can be found here http://www.lyricstime.com/aaron-waters-we-need-a-hero-lyrics.html.

Ssiscool

Show generally

Question: I remember the first episode of F·R·I·E·N·D·S that I saw was probably the best one, and I would like to know which season and episode number it is. It is one where Ben says "Monka Bang," meaning Monica banged his.

Chosen answer: It's not available officially on any of the released albums. Google is your friend in this instance.

GalahadFairlight

Question: Are they completely ignoring the events of the second movie? I was given the impression that Brian and Roman were going to open a garage together with the money they took from Carter. Plus Brian was on the outs with the FBI. Yet in this movie, he's suddenly an FBI agent.

Answer: No it doesn't ignore 2 Fast 2 Furious, Brian even references it a couple of times. In that movie, Brian was promised a 'clean slate' if he helped them out which presumably gives him the option to rejoin a law enforcement agency. That he chose not to open a garage with Roman is pretty much redundant, Brian simply got a better offer, and as he stated in Fast & Furious with his conversation with Mia, "I'm a good liar".

GalahadFairlight

Question: In the first movie there was a song that played every time the creature was about to attack. Does anyone know why the filmmakers decided not to play that song in the second movie?

Answer: It could be any number of things. The artist in question could have refused to allow them to use the song. In The Fast And The Furious, they had the name "NOS" on the nitrous. But in all other films in the series it is known as "N2O" as NOS didn't want it in the films anymore.

Ssiscool

Answer: The song "Jeepers Creepers" was only relevant to the first movie, and not the second, because it foreshadowed the ending. The song didn't have anything to do with the creature about to strike, it had to do with a vision the resident psychic Jezelle (who only appears in the first film) saw involving the song, a vision that eventually came true. The song was a subtle hint about Darry's fate, which is why it played several times.

Chosen answer: The satisfaction of knowing he'll win, the thrill of pulling one over on someone; maybe like Goldfinger, he just doesn't like to lose under any circumstances.

Captain Defenestrator

Question: When Susan grew after being affected by the Quantonium meteorite, why do no other life forms, such as insects in the grass, not also grow?

The Yeti

Chosen answer: Well, it's a fiction movie; some suspension of disbelief is always needed. There could be a number of explanations: for instance, lifeforms such as insects on the grass, bacteria inside them or even grass itself, being unable to absorb quantonium. It might affect only sentient beings. Or Susan might even be the first being to get in contact with the substance - this would be possible depending on the shape of the meteorite container, the exact means by which quantonium touches her body - which isn't shown... but, first and foremost, this happens because its not happening would leave the filmmakers with a plot issue to be dealt with - so, other beings don't grow simply because they don't.

Show generally

Question: There is an episode where a travelling stage and it's owner get people to perform on the stage to an invisible audience (which cheers and applauds). The people then end up loving the stage and eventually get turned into puppets with strings coming out of the happy/sad faces at the top of the stage. Since most/all of the episodes of Courage are based on, or parodies of, famous tales, myths, stories and films, where is this one from? It sounds very familiar but I can't quite place it.

Gary O'Reilly

Chosen answer: The episode you are referring to is the finale to Season 1, "The Great Fusilli. The episode description is nearly identical to your description. However, I have not been able to find any source of this being a parody. Perhaps this episode was just an original?

MooCow

Question: After Babe first tries to herd sheep on the farm, Rex talks to Fly and mentions that the two of them are ancestors of someone. Could this mean that he and Fly are related and have been inbred? When the puppies are for sale earlier in the movie, the sign for them says that Rex is a champion; it seems like a farmer would be careful not to inbreed a champion dog.

Answer: Rex means that they are both part of the sheepdog family, not that they are closely related. He thinks that when Fly told Babe about sheep-herding, she disgraced her whole species.

Question: In the movie Edward, Emmett and Jasper are wearing matching wristbands with a symbol and Rosalie and Alice are wearing the same symbol on necklaces, what is the significance of these items?

Answer: The amulets that are attached to the wrist bands and the necklaces are of the Cullen family crest. http://www.twilightcullencrestjewelry.com/.

Boobra

Question: Who is actually writing the 'I know who you are' messages to Hoffman? Is it Strahm trying to scare him or is it Jigsaw letting Hoffman know that he knows he killed Seth?

Answer: In the last Saw movie we find out that it was actually doctor Lawrence Gordon who has been helping Jigsaw (John) the whole time.

Question: This part bugs me every time I watch the film. After Batman has crashed the tanker and the Joker is walking down the street, Batman charges at him with the bike. The Joker refuses to move, and Batman then yells and crashes his bike in an almost comically stupid way. I understand that there's supposed to be some form of turmoil in Batman's mind over whether or not he should just mow the Joker down, and at the end he decides not to, but it just seems so blunt and amusingly done. Is there more to it? Was it even meant to be a spot of comic relief?

Gary O'Reilly

Chosen answer: Comic relief? Naah, it looks odd because it's staged. Batman's putting himself into a vulnerable position to let Gordon get the drop on the Joker. Bruce, as a wanted vigilante, obviously can't make a citizen's arrest and he's not going to risk leaving the Joker tied up somewhere until the police get there. So he crashes the bike intentionally, leaving himself vulnerable. He knows that he'll get the Joker's attention that way, which will give Gordon a chance to get close enough to grab him.

Tailkinker

Answer: Vampires' eyes change color according to their state of hunger. When hungry, their eyes are black. When sated their irises turn red, or in the Cullens' case, they become golden brown because they only drink animal blood. Bella notices that Edward's eyes have changed since she first saw him. Being physically close to Bella, whose blood scent is irresistible to Edward, may have whetted his appetite, causing a color change.

raywest

Question: When Edward and Bella were by the lockers at school, how come Edward couldn't read Bella?

Answer: Edward is able to read anyone's mind "except" for Bella's. He cannot understand why and that confuses and frustrates him. It is learned later that Bella has an unknown ability to block any mental intrusion. That is why Aro could not see Bella's memories and why Jane was unable to mentally inflict pain on her in "Twilight: New Moon."

raywest

Answer: Edward can't read Bellas mind because of an invisible barrier that protects her from mind effects. After she became a vampire, she was actually able to transfer the barrier to protect people. However she had to train to control the power.

Question: Bella, Edward and her friends were getting on the bus, and one of her friends went up to her and was going to ask her to prom. After she said that she wasn't going to be in town, she started walking to get to the bus, and she passed Edward and he started to smile. Why did he smile when she passed him?

Answer: Because Edward has superhuman hearing, he could overhear Bella declining Mike's invitation. Edward is attracted to Bella, and he is pleased that she is uninterested in the other guy and probably also a bit amused over how she awkwardly handled the situation.

raywest

Question: I realise this has been brought up many times, but can it be considered a definite continuity error in the whole series that Obiwan Kenobi is trained by Qui Gon Jinn in this film, despite saying in Empire Strikes Back that it was Yoda who trained him? Some have argued that Qui was working under Yoda, but in Empire, Obiwan said to Yoda, "Was I any different when you taught me?" which to me pretty much says that Yoda was his direct teacher. I'm guessing that Lucas changed the background stories a bit, but I would like to know for sure.

Gavin Jackson

Chosen answer: No, it can't. As we see in Attack of the Clones, Yoda is in charge of training the younglings, the Jedi hopefuls, the ones too young to have been selected as a Padawan. Yoda trained Obi-Wan when he was a child, then Qui-Gon selected him as a Padawan as he reached the proper age. They both trained him, taking responsibility for different stages of his education. It is entirely possible, of course, that Lucas did originally intend Yoda to have been Obi-Wan's sole master when he made The Empire Strikes Back and thus your guess that he changed the background stories may well be accurate, however, if this is the case, then he made the alterations in such a fashion that no continuity error exists, because it all fits together.

Tailkinker

Also, most Jedi probably had friendships with older Jedi who were not their masters. They could think of any Knight/Master as a teacher, despite not being the official apprentice of that Jedi.

Question: When Matrix says to his captors "Why not have Bennett do it, looks like something he will get off on"; did he mean it was something Bennett wouldn't go to jail for (considering he was psychotic), or was it some kind of sexual implication?

Gavin Jackson

Chosen answer: A sexual implication, suggesting that it's something Bennett would find exciting.

Tailkinker

Answer: Not sexual but something that he (Bennet) would find immense joy in doing due to his unstable mental nature akin to a sociopathic tendency.

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