Question: At the end of the movie, George Clooney and Nicole Kidman are trying to remove one of the small explosive plates that surround the plutonium sphere in a nuclear weapon. Couldn't they have just disconnected the wire connected to the explosive plate to prevent that trigger charge detonating properly? Or would it have detonated because it was touching the other plates?
Jon Sandys
14th Aug 2018
The Peacemaker (1997)
7th Aug 2018
General questions
I am looking for a film, likely from the 80s/90s with a poster depicting a skull impressing from behind fabric e.g. https://tinyurl.com/y8kz22wp.
Answer: The Frighteners is one of the better known examples of that: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116365/.
14th Sep 2017
Shooter (2007)
Question: The movie says that the senator who helped the colonel cannot be charged because the crime was committed outside the United States. Is that realistic? If not then why?
Answer: This is not realistic. The Senator would be charged with conspiracy regardless of where the actual crime took place. Simply being overseas does not give an American citizen immunity.
Not even being in a nation without an extradition treaty gives an American citizen immunity?
No, they'd still be charged, but the logistics become harder. Regardless, that's a legal question best suited for another site, not one about movies.
I'm sorry. I was just asking if the idea that senator cannot be charged for his crimes because the crime was committed outside the United States is realistic. I'm not trying to be rude or offensive. If I am I apologize.
Not rude or offensive, it's just that this is a topic with endless articles available elsewhere on the internet, and I try not to let things get *too* off topic around here, otherwise some entries would have pages and pages of unrelated back and forth debates, cluttering up the site somewhat.
Thank you for understanding. I really appreciate it.
I wouldn't know where to look for that says committing in a nation without an extradition treaty doesn't an American citizen immunity.
29th Jul 2018
Doom (2016)
Question: Listen closely to this audio. Https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLkotrb1O5o The subtitles in the game show that he says; "All UAC employees are subject to regular Med-Checks to ensure their production capabilities are not degraded." However when listening to it... to me it sounds like he's saying "That" instead of "Their." I've listened to it over and over trying to decipher if the word he uses is "That" or "Their." I think there is a mistake here in the game with the subtitle using the wrong word... However I can't be certain. Is this guy saying "That" or "Their"? What do you think?
Answer: Sounds like "their" to me. The accent and rolling into the "production" means I can see it could go either way, but it's certainly not definitively "that" enough to be a mistake, I'd say.
29th Jul 2004
The Matrix Revolutions (2003)
Question: On the DVD, for 2 frames at 0:17:42, I see the number "506" go across the screen, from right to left, Trinity's arm then the guy's back. Does anyone else have that, or is it my copy?
Answer: I'd say that it is. I went through the scene six times, didn't see it.
Answer: I'm sure I've read somewhere that DVDs have numbers onscreen for a frame every so often - for either copyright or other protection purposes. Now can't find a relevant link, but that might be something to do with it.
26th Apr 2018
The Family Man (2000)
Question: In the scene on the stairs with the chocolate cake when he pushes cake in Kate's face - was that supposed to happen? I ask because she is laughing so hard, and after a second or 2, Nicolas looks up as if to look at the director.
Answer: Http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Family-Man, -The.html ///// In section 69 /// jack (out of breath) I want it... She looks at him, then takes the whole piece in her hand and smooshes it right in his mouth... Beat. Then, Jack starts laughing... jack (CONT'D) Thank you... KATE It's good, right? He takes a big clump of it and smooshes it in her mouth. They stay there a moment, lying on the stairs, feeding each other cake, laughing. Jack leans back on the stairs. He looks at Kate's face, practically covered in cake, smiling, and realises... ...he hasn't laughed like this in thirteen years. Then.
Is it clear if that's a transcript of the film or the original shooting script? Because if the former it doesn't really answer the question.
That's the original script. A transcript of the film after it has come out does not contain blocking information or information about the character's mindset. Those only contain dialogue and the name of the music scores playing similar to movie subtitles. An original script contains blocking and the character's mindset to give the actors/film crew an idea of what to do and the meaning of the scene.
26th Apr 2018
Lucifer (2015)
Question: Lucifer is shot at by Jimmy Barnes 6 times but suffers no harm while Chloe is in the same room, but later episodes show he is not immortal when she is near. What's the deal?
Answer: As Cain theorises in a later episode, it's Chloe's love, not presence. This early on, Chloe had no strong feelings for Lucifer, so had no effect on his immortality. In fact even more recently he's back to being invulnerable around her after speculation that he chose to let himself be vulnerable. So while there's a degree of flexibility / retconning going on, it's all explained in-show.
26th Apr 2018
Friends (1994)
The One With Rachel's Crush - S4-E13
Question: Rachel meets Joshua at work. She goes back home after work and as she enters home announces: "I have the best job in the entire world" and keeps on repeating Joshua's name and enjoys it when suddenly Ross gets upset about it and says "hello?" which implies that "I am sitting right here, and you shouldn't be making me jealous." She answers "hi" apologetically. My question is: what right does Ross have to get upset? they're not in a relationship.
Answer: True, but they've not been broken up all that long and are still friends - it would be kind of Rachel to at least not flaunt her latest love interest in his face.
Answer: Plus, Ross acting like an entitled arsehole is a constant in the show, his behaviour regarding Rachel and her love life outside of him is wildly inappropriate on many occasions.
As a man who had complete security in his life until his wife announces lesbianism and ends in divorce, I think his paranoia regarding relationships and behaviour in the show are justified. It's all well and good to say he should be over it, but Rachel's actions inside and out of the relationship don't help him.
Answer: Rachel was being insensitive when gushing about Joshua, and it hurt Ross. Though they became friends again, Ross never stopped loving Rachel and felt she also caused their split and then played the victim. Rachel seemed more oblivious than apologetic when saying, "Hi," back to Ross, and was in denial about still loving him and her part in the breakup. She was equally jealous when Ross started dating Emily and never expected him to move on so quickly. She told Monica that she always believed they'd someday get back together.
9th Apr 2018
Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
Question: Deanna Troi states that they will get rid of poverty, disease, and war within next 50 years. How would they get rid of things like autism, ADHD, or dyslexia? Aren't those medical conditions that cannot be cured?
Answer: Troi says that future medical research is far more advanced and humanity has learned to work together and overcome many social problems without being specific. It's unknown how these conditions will be cured, but possibly through advanced gene therapy, new drugs, new surgical techniques, etc.
Answer: The things you listed are not diseases, they are conditions. It is more plausible that she was referring to things like cancer, diabetes, stroke, and other similar disorders which, at some point in time, there might be a cure.
Troi said poverty disease war would all be gone within the next 50 years. I thought she meant things like autism ADHD and dyslexia would be gone too not just disease.
No, that's why she said disease.
Well the movie tells us that all bad things on earth would be gone within the next 50 years. I thought that would have included conditions like autism dyslexia or ADHD as well as disease.
The movie doesn't say "all bad things." She specifically says "disease." In other words things that can be cured, get cured. No doubt some things will be curable that we currently can't cure, and some things will never be curable. You're overanalysing a line used simply to explain that humanity advances itself in a short space of time.
6th Jul 2005
Batman Begins (2005)
Question: A few times in the movie, you can see Illinois license plates. Is Gotham supposed to be in Illinois?
Answer: Actually in the DC universe, Gotham is meant to represent an over-the-top version of Chicago. Metropolis is the New York stand in.
Answer: Gotham is understood to be NYC on steroids and/or acid.
Answer: It is a mistake, Gotham City is canonically in New Jersey. It's a short distance from Metropolis.
True of the comics, but the Christopher Nolan Batman films are their own self-contained universe.
1st Jan 2018
Friends (1994)
Question: What does Joey mean when he says "quarters, or rolls of quarters?" when he replied to the lady that says she can "pick up quarters with her toes"?
Answer: She says quarters, but then starts sliding her foot up his thigh and demonstrates that her toes are more dextrous than he first realised.
Answer: This can be answered two ways. Joey could be asking if she is nimble enough with her toes to be able to pick up an individual quarter as well as grab an entire roll of them. However, this is Joey, and he is likely implying a sexual double entendre to the meaning of "rolls of quarters" by implying they are phallic in shape.
16th Dec 2017
Flightplan (2005)
Question: Where did the hijackers hide Julia?
Answer: They hid her in the avionics section. Stephanie would have made sure that she "searched" that section since she is one of the hijackers.
Which part of the avionics section? The nose of the plane?
The avionics section can be much larger than the nose of the plane. On a 747 for example, it's "1.7 metres tall, and about 60cms wide, but goes the full width of the plane." A photo is here, and you could easily stash a child in it. Http://www.billzilla.org/aviationpage3.html.
Actually if you look at the shape of the interior where they hid Julia you can tell that it's the nose of the plane, and it would have been far too full with all kinds of equipment to put a child inside.
OK, well there's already a mistake mentioning that, so there's your answer. In the plot they hide her in the nose, but in the real world that's impossible.
12th Jan 2014
Die Hard (1988)
Question: Why didn't Hans Gruber simply place 5 hostages in a room and threaten to blow their brains out if John McClane doesn't hand himself in? John McClane is the good guy with a conscience and Hans Gruber is the ruthless killer that kills 2 people in a heartbeat, John would have been forced to hand himself in or be responsible for their deaths. Even if Hans didn't want to kill anyone, he could have pretended to shoot people one by one. John wouldn't know any better.
Answer: We don't know what John would have done in that circumstance. Obviously Hans was planning to kill everyone with the explosives anyway at the end. Perhaps John would have suspected that. Also, doing that would invite more police incursions.
The fact that we don't know how John McClane would have acted doesn't remove the fact that it would most likely have been a good way to coax him out. Also, depending on when Hans Gruber would have decided do implement this strategy, John probably wouldn't have known about the explosives on the roof as he only finds out about them at the 3rd act break. As for the "more police incursions" part, I couldn't disagree more; Hans already killed two hostages - one on speaker with the police -, all the cops in LA seem to be there already, and don't forget that the involvement of the FBI is part of their plan anyway. This is definitely the one major plot hole of this otherwise perfect film.
It would have been, but plenty of movie plots don't pan out the "perfect" way without it being a plot hole. Killing Ellis is a reasonable first step, it doesn't work, and then the events of the plot pick up pace - Gruber goes to check the detonators, as that's a priority. He's hoping/assuming they can get through the rest of their plan by isolating McClane, or at least prevent him causing more chaos. They want the power shut off - they don't want to cause such massive carnage that the building is stormed before then. They need to get helicopters, blow the roof, and escape as planned. Hans doesn't want to derail things any more than they already have been.
Seems to me like they have all their bases covered; the police isn't even able to get in with a tank as he blows them up so I don't think the police "storming the building" is even a possibility in the reality of the film. Also, after blowing up that tank, that's two hostages and a bunch of cops dead so I would say the situation is pretty derailed. Everything is going as planned for Hans and his team, except for McClane, so he should be in damage control mode and this is an obvious solution. He doesn't even have to change his plans, just tell McClane he's gonna kill one hostage every 10 minutes until he shows up unarmed and tell one of his henchmen guarding the hostages to do it while they go along with the plan and maybe even try to find McClane at the same time. I think this is something Hans should have at least considered, but the screenwriters just didn't think about it/didn't want to address because they couldn't think of a good reason for him not to do it.
There are no cops dead, Hans says "Just wound them" and despite the awesome explosion, the APC isn't actually penetrated or destroyed. But Hans needed this to turn into a standoff, a show of force would prevent a SWAT raid from expediting the deadline, he needed to get all of the hostages up on the roof to make his getaway downstairs, and executing a bunch of them would bring suspicion onto how cooperative he is (His plan to blow up the roof relies heavily on the police sending in choppers) they cooperate with him, which they won't do if they think Hans is a crazed lunatic who's only interested in more and more carnage, if he wounds the cops and only shows he can defend himself, and that he was being reasonable. The cops would play ball, and they would believe he's willing to spare the hostages lives, plus he always planned on taking one hostage as a contingency, if they thought they were gonna be killed they'd become a liability. Patton Oswalt talks of a real plothole though lol.
John McClane would know they'd kill him as soon as he shows up, as soon as he heard "We'll have to tell Karl that his brother is dead" he knew that all bets were off, he lost his chance to end it civil, if they had no personal connection to the first terrorist John kills then maybe putting 5 people into a room and doing an Air Force One on them would work, but not when John knows he'll be body number 6. Al says it best "If he gave himself up they'd both be dead" with Ellis execution, John watched them take control of the hostages, watched them execute the Takagi, and when the first Terrorist thinks he's found John he shoots first after saying "I promise I won't hurt you" and then taking his bag and realizing how well financed and equipped, these guys weren't domestic terrorists, they used serious money, serious contacts, and serious planning to get themselves into this building on this night. He knew the only way to play ball with them was fists and elbows.
Just because a character doesn't do a thing I doesn't make it a plot hole. The plot was that he didn't do it. You may consider a different approach "better" but that's irrelevant. You may as well try to argue that any character choice that doesn't fit with a perceived meta is a plot hole. It isn't, it's just the plot.
Hans thought Ellis was a good friend of John's and John still didn't give up when he was going to shoot him. If John wouldn't save his friend, why would he care about others. Plus Hans told Karl earlier he could stall the police but not if they heard gun shots. The police would have absolutely stormed the building if he started killing the hostages.
Answer: Hans Gruber needed the last vault lock to open by cutting off the electricity, he didn't wanna escalate it further so that the FBI would start getting more aggressive, he needed them to play ball so he could make it seem like he's just a terrorist who martyr's himself and the hostages, and by the time they figured out him and his men aren't among the remains, they'll already have left in the basement with the ambulance. Shooting 5 people would have escalated it to the point that the FBI wouldn't play ball with him.
30th Oct 2017
Escape from Alcatraz (1979)
Question: Why didn't the tower guards spot Frank, and the Anglin brothers while they were in the water?
Answer: Because, in the context of the story, they are in pitch blackness. It is common film practice to illuminate night scenes that would otherwise be in total darkness, for the obvious reason that the audience needs to see what is happening; however, as far as the characters are concerned, there is no such light.
I meant during the real escape.
Same reason - it was dark.
30th Oct 2017
Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay (2008)
Question: Why are the prisoners not allowed to talk to each other in Guantanamo bay? Is it to keep them from planning escapes?
Answer: The Guantanamo prisoners are all perceived terrorists, presumably working in coordination. It's essential that they not communicate with each other, so as to prevent them from leaking info about U.S. security.
I think it's also to prevent the prisoners from planning attacks on the guards.
How would they leak information about U.S. security? Most people in the Middle East have no knowledge about U.S. security.
Because people are occasionally released, and whether terrorists or not, may have information others would find valuable - about what goes on in Guantanamo Bay, if nothing else.
Answer: I guess it is more likely to be for the isolation feeling of not talking to anyone. It is like deprivation sleeping, some kind of psychological thing.
1st Mar 2017
Zootopia (2016)
Question: When Judy cooks carrots in the microwave, she stands too close to the microwave while it's active. Isn't it hazardous to stand too close to a microwave while it's cooking?
Answer: No, that's a complete myth. Paraphrased from http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/10/health/10real.html: "Every microwave must limit the amount of radiation it can leak to five milliwatts per square centimeter at roughly two inches away from the oven. That is far below the levels of radiation that have been shown to harm humans. (By comparison, the most common cellphones operate at a peak power of about 1.6 watts or less, and most studies have found no evidence linking the phones to health problems.) Manufacturers of microwave ovens are also required to line the doors of the machines with metal mesh that prevents microwaves from escaping, and to use a type of door latch that stops the production of microwaves whenever the latch is released. Those features greatly limit exposure to levels of radiation that are already low. And since the radiation levels drop sharply with increasing distance, the levels two feet away are about one-hundredth the amount at two inches."
24th Jan 2017
Star Wars (1977)
Question: How many Death Stars have there been?
Answer: In the official canon, just the two we've seen in the original trilogy - in Star Wars and Return of the Jedi.
Answer: Three if you count Starkiller Base.
Starkiller base was a planet, and much bigger. It does not count as a death star.
10th Aug 2016
Star Trek Beyond (2016)
Question: If the characters are younger versions of the original crew, why does the picture young Mr. Spock views when he is told that ambassador Spock has died include all of the original crew members? Who are they supposed to be?
Answer: Those are the personal effects of the old/original Spock. He lived a full life with the original Enterprise crew, as documented in the TV shows and movies, then came back in time to the new/altered timeline.
11th Jul 2016
Lethal Weapon 2 (1989)
Question: Mel Gibson says "They killed them both." I know he's referring to his wife, but who's the second person?
Chosen answer: Rika Van Den Haas, the South African woman he was seeing whose body he finds tied up under water.
11th Feb 2016
General questions
I am after the name of a movie where a woman goes through a day trying to escape people after her. In the end it turns out the whole town has been acting to scare her. In the end she is tied to a chair and we find out she murdered a child and as punishment she receives an injection at the end of each day and when she wakes up she has to relive the same traumatic day again. I have searched everywhere for this movie.
Chosen answer: This is an episode of the TV show "Black Mirror", called "White Bear". It's season 2, episode 2.
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Answer: Presumably they couldn't take the risk that removing the wire would stop that plate detonating, and/or were worried that there might be a failsafe to detect a wire being cut. Physically removing the charge seemed like the safer bet.
Jon Sandys ★