Question: Does the art museum catch fire from the lava even though they tried to stop it by putting a bus against it?
Question: Much ado is made near the start of the film about the kidnappers sending Elise's finger back to her family as a threat, but we learn later that she was never harmed. Did the film ever explain where the finger actually came from, or if it was even sent at all?
Answer: The finger is never shown, only mentioned. Since Elise looked to have all her fingers one must assume it was made up as part of the scheme to fool everyone.
Question: Why is Danny Glover as judge Tyrone Kipler not credited?
Answer: I don't know how prevalent this is (or how it actually works), but one possibility would be that he was under contract with a particular agency (or company/ business) and could only receive credit for work performed under this contract and/or no other agency could benefit from using him. His name cannot show up in something he did outside of that contract.
Chosen answer: I don't know why, but he asked not to be in the credits.
Question: Why did the Event Horizon choose to come back after seven years? In fact, why come back at all?
Chosen answer: The movie never explicitly says; but science is as yet unsure what happens to a given piece of matter once it crosses a black hole's event horizon, so who knows? The ship could have been thrown seven years forward in time, or far enough away that it took seven years for it to drift close to Neptune. Pick any explanation you like.
Question: If you read the book version of Contact you know that the stuff about transcendental numbers and the Artist's Signature was left out of the movie. This makes no sense to me, since it's not only the real ending, it's the whole POINT of the story. Without this information, the story's fundamental question (does God exist?) is not answered in the movie. Does anyone know why this was left out?
Answer: If anything, I think the film's producers deliberately left godly topics unaddressed (and questions dangling, unanswered) because they didn't want to alienate any particular audience. However, we know the producers of "Contact" certainly did vilify religion through the sinister scenes with Joseph, the evangelical extremist. At the same time, the film created empathy for the president's glib theological adviser, Palmer Joss. So, I don't think the film was shying away from religious topics, and I think it was pretty fair to the religious viewpoint, for the most part. But this movie wasn't about religion; it was about a primitive, materialistic, self-centered and aggressive species (humanity) reluctantly acknowledging the existence of vastly more intelligent and even godlike entities throughout the cosmos. Even the first-contact entities, advanced as they are, acknowledge other entities much more ancient and much more advanced (the virtual architects of the space/time conduit). The implication was that we live in a universe that may be populated with many intelligent entities that answer every human criteria of godhood. Ellie's narrow-minded atheism was surely shaken to its foundation by her experience; and, while she didn't "convert" to archaic earthly religions, she was spiritually a different person upon her return. The film, however, is open-ended and fence-straddling and doesn't presume to definitively answer the question of the existence of god, leaving it up to the audience to decide.
Answer: The film chooses to focus on Ellie's personal journey and how she deals with and comes to terms with what happens - it doesn't really involve God at all, other than the inclusion of Palmer Joss as a religious advocate, choosing to restrict itself to the much less theologically controversial theme of a straight first contact scenario, without the religious overtones. Given the depth of feeling on religious matters in the US, it's hardly surprising that the filmmakers preferred to leave this particular hot topic out. While Carl Sagan died during production of the film, he both co-produced and was involved in the story process, so he was clearly not concerned about this change.
Question: Is there any reason the humans can't simply use nukes, chemical weapons, fuel-air bombs, or bioweapons,, any kind of especially powerful, destructive bomb, shot from long distance, dropped from a plane, or better still, orbit, to fight the bugs? Yes, of course there are big downsides to any such action, but this does not strike me as a society restrained, patient, enlightened or with sufficient foresight to care about those.
Chosen answer: They do use nukes (to clear out bug caves) and fuel-air bombs (like they do before landing troops). It's possible biological and chemical weapons don't work on the bugs because of their physiology. Only nukes and Thermobaric weapons work.
Answer: Nukes, chemical, and bio weapons would render the planets uninhabitable. Not a goal when they want to colonize.
I have already stated these people are not that far-thinking.
Question: What happened to the terrorist Harrison Ford apprehended? Did he parachute with everyone else?
Chosen answer: He fell out the back without a parachute when the door blew open. We see him both tumble off the ramp, and another shot of him falling from below.
Question: Who is the man in the picture in the office of the hospital? Is it supposed to be Nick Nolte when he was young, working as the night watchman?
Chosen answer: It is intended as a nod to the original 1994 version of the film, which supposedly featured the same picture in the watchman's booth.
Question: Wouldn't they know something was up when the train explosion wasn't as huge as it should have been (because many of the bombs were missing, and thus making the explosion smaller)?
Answer: The two train engines colliding caused the explosions, all the other cars derailed. All the warheads were carefully packed and disarmed.
Question: Shouldn't Dr Jonas and his men have been arrested for what they did? And shouldn't the guys who employed have been arrested too?
Question: What song is playing when the killer is putting on make-up and dancing around in his silk robe?
Answer: I think you're talking about 'Silence of the Lambs,' not Kiss the Girls. The song is 'Goodbye Horses' by Psyche.
Question: From the way it is portrayed in the movie, it looks like Bond & Wai Lin just head straight for the stealth boat once they spot it. They come at it from the front. I don't see why they would do that. Even if the surveillance guy wasn't paying attention (there's no way Bond could've known that), shouldn't someone on the bridge be able to see the dingy approaching straight at it? It would've made more sense to me if Bond waited for the ship to pass and then come from behind or the sides.
Answer: It's getting dark by this point - Bond and Wai Lin are dressed in black in a dark coloured boat. Anyone looking out of the window would be looking down towards them - they wouldn't be able to pick them out against the sea.
Question: Is there any story as to why the overall quality of this production was much less than the first Mortal Kombat? For example, the computer-animated creatures and morph effects seemed much worse than the first movies, and certainly worse than any other movie of the year. Also, the costumes and sets were of a lower quality than the first movie. Everything seemed to be a step down from Mortal Kombat 1. You would think that the sequel would have a bigger budget, but it seemed just the opposite with this movie.
Answer: Mortal Kombat 2 was given a budget around the same as the first one probably indicating that New Line (makers of the film) were not convinced the film would not be as much an success as the original was. The buget of 30 million is not too high of a risk for a major film studio. The original was more built on the novelty of the video game and the interest of how it would translate to the screen so a sequel was always going to be tough. While it's hard to find out why the quality was unimpressive, this can just be more from different film crews from the first or just tougher f/x to try and create for the film in the time available. Take The Mummy Returns for example. The Scorpion King near the end looked far too computer generated. This was despite a massive budget and impressive CGI for both films.
Answer: From what I've gathered about the film, the entire production was rushed by the studio and producers, as they wanted to capitalize on the first film's success. Pre-production was troubled at best. Funds weren't allocated to the right places. The film was often being re-written on the fly on set, so large chunks of the movie were being changed at the last minute. It also had a first-time director at the helm who supposedly had a very bad time making the movie due to how hectic it was. And finally, the studio forced them to release the film before it was completely finished, hence the effects and editing were never finalized. So basically, it was a perfect storm of a rushed production without a finished script, an overwhelmed first-time director, and a studio that wouldn't let the producers properly "complete" the movie. Hence, the entire film was a complete mess and was very low-quality.
Question: The Secret Service Agents rush up the mansion stairs to the bedroom grabbing the stair banister multiple times without gloves. Why didn't the police pick up their fingerprints? And where did they get the crowbar? Is that standard issue for agents?
Answer: The female detective states the carpet is spotlessly clean, indicating they had performed an intense cleanup not shown on camera so they would no doubt cover the staircase as well and wipe it clean of prints. As for the crowbar, it is more than likely part of a "kit" in the boot (trunk) of secret service vehicles.
Question: How exactly did they make John Leguizamo look so short? Was he just sitting on some seat concealed inside the fat suit?
Chosen answer: He is squatting the entire time in every scene. The suit probably helped in ways to balance himself whilst squatting, so he could hold on much longer than normally.
Answer: Lava is extremely hot. It heats the air above and around it to such a degree that it can reach the flash point of various items.
Greg Dwyer