GalahadFairlight

24th Apr 2010

Avatar (2009)

Question: This question is more based on the soundtrack of the movie. After comparing the soundtrack CD to the music scores in the movie, I noticed there's some moments where the music is only heard in the movie, such as when we're first introduced to the floating mountains or the flute music that plays when Jake learns to ride on the direhorse. My questions are: Why were these left out of the soundtrack? And where can I find similar tracks to these? Not exact tracks, in case I can't find them, but similar music.

Answer: Simply put, there is only a finite amount of storage space on a CD and something's got to give, so the composer and James Cameron decide what stays and what goes. As for finding similar music, one of the many criticisms of the Avatar soundtrack is that certain parts of it sound too much like other James Horner soundtracks. For instance when Neytiri is in the battlefield looking bewildered as people and animals are dying around her, many of the musical cues are a direct lift from Horner's other composition for Enemy at the Gates, and this is not an isolated case either.

GalahadFairlight

3rd Apr 2010

Jurassic Park (1993)

Question: Where are all the other staff members for Jurassic Park? I can understand most of them left on the boat before disaster struck, however the events also continue throughout the morning/afternoon. It's completely light, the weather is fine so the returning boat shouldn't have had a problem returning to the island. Also much of the final scenes of the film happen in or near the visitors centre. So surely there will be staff returning to the island that could have helped or even been involved with some of the escaped dinosaurs having arrived on the island in the morning.Yet we see no other Jurassic Park staff until the helicopter arrives. Surely we should have been able to see the rest of the staff returning to the park in the morning to continue their day's work.

dancutd

Chosen answer: The inference I got was that people were sent away on the boat and told to stay away until the problems in the Park were resolved.

GalahadFairlight

16th Mar 2010

Toy Story (1995)

Question: I was wondering. Does Sid destroy toys because his father beats/abuses Sid, so Sid lets out his anger on toys? This would explain all the locks on Sid's door, to hide from his father and to hide what he does to toys. When Scud is looking for Woody, he notices Sid's father sleeping, and Scud walks away, which could mean that Scud doesn't want to wake up Sid's father knowing he is a cruel and violent man.

Answer: This is a Disney/Pixar production, at no point are they intimating that kind of a relationship between son and father. If anything, the father simply doesn't care what his son gets up to so long as he isn't disturbed by it. Any other inferences you get from the movie are for you to contend with, but the family nature of the movie would suggest beating/abuse is not the answer.

GalahadFairlight

Question: Why is the hydra able to spit fire, when it suppose to be a water creature?

Answer: Water creature? The Hydra is a MYTHOLOGICAL creature, with many different variations in different stories. She lived in a swamp, had bad breath. This is just another different interpretation of the same Greek myth.

GalahadFairlight

18th Feb 2010

Toy Story 3 (2010)

Question: Is the actor who played Andy in the first two Toy Story movies the same actor in the third movie?

Answer: Yes, John Morris has reprised his role as Andy for Toy Story 3.

GalahadFairlight

9th Feb 2010

Avatar (2009)

Question: Jake's paralyzed legs really look small and thin and weak. How did they make the actor's legs look like that, since he's not really paralyzed? Or did they edit a pair of fake legs in?

Mithcoriel

Chosen answer: It would have been done with digital effects.

GalahadFairlight

Answer: They used prosthetics.

Indeed. They used prosthetics, the mould of which was taken from a real paraplegic person.

Sammo

1st Feb 2010

Jurassic Park (1993)

Question: In the scene where the T-Rex attacks, Lex takes a flashlight from the back seat and flashes it at the dinosaur! The T-Rex then attacks the kids in the car. Why did she take the flashlight out and get the dinosaur's attention?

salieri2121

Chosen answer: She's just a kid, the eldest thinking shes doing the right thing. She hasn't grasped that the T-Rex will now home in on them until it's too late. She didn't deliberately try to get the T-Rex's attention.

GalahadFairlight

Answer: She wasn't trying to get the Rex's attention, she got scared as she's just a kid and was trying to signal the other car in the hopes that Dr Grant could do something.

28th Jan 2010

War of the Worlds (2005)

Question: Does anyone have any clue as to why the aliens are vapourising people when they first appear? They never seem to do it again after that one scene (instead opting to grab them and drain them). Any help would be appreciated.

Gavin Jackson

Chosen answer: The aliens saw the humans as an immediate threat to their ship getting out from underground, so opted to vaporise anyone in the near vicinity so that it could leave the ground unimpeded.

GalahadFairlight

Answer: In the movie there are 3 different Tripods 1. Fighting Machine 2. Brute (Seen at the ferry coming out of the water) 3. Harvesters which take the humans.

Answer: My guess is that they are in search of a specific blood type needed for the growth of the vines that is why some people are harvested and other people with "useless" blood types are killed off.

25th Jan 2010

Sherlock Holmes (2009)

Question: I saw a trailer for the film in which the scene in the hotel (between Holmes and Irene Adler) appears to be different - she's wearing a short black and red outfit instead of the peach coloured one, and she physically knocks him out instead of drugging him (she first tries to use her hairclip as a weapon). Why was this changed, and is it on the DVD?

cherry_girl

Chosen answer: Oftentimes scenes that appear in a trailer don't appear in the final movie. The trailers are sometimes created months in advance of the release of the movie, and sometimes scenes are removed for pacing reasons or to reduce the overall runtime, or are only intended for the trailer. Occasionally those scenes might be put back into a movie on its DVD/Blu-ray release, or might be included in a 'deleted scenes' section, or often are simply omitted altogether.

GalahadFairlight

Question: Why was Terry the one who arranged his and Lara's escape from Hong Kong? Of the both of them, Lara logically would be the one to do this, as she has the clout, money and contacts. Terry was imprisoned and disgraced prior to this and unlikely to have contacts/someone who would help him. Even if the contact was part of an Asian criminal world, Terry still wouldn't be able to do it as he was an enemy of the Shay-Ling.

Answer: Terry was specifically taken to Hong Kong because of his contacts and dealings with people there.

GalahadFairlight

27th Nov 2009

2012 (2009)

Question: How come a high tech ship would be unable to start its engine merely with the reason that the gate is unable to close?

gblontok

Chosen answer: Its a safety device so the ship doesn't put to sea and ends up flooding the ship. The passenger ferry Herald of Free Enterprise capsized in the port of Zebrugge in 1987, precisely because the doors were not shut properly.

GalahadFairlight

16th Nov 2009

Shooter (2007)

Question: In the scene where Swagger and Memphis go to talk to the old man, why does the old man look at their hands? What is he looking for?

Answer: He's looking for callouses on the hands. Professional snipers end up getting hard skin inbetween the webbed part of the skin between the thumb and forefinger because of constant rubbing on the trigger guard. By checking the hands, he could tell whether or not he was talking to a proper sniper, and in particular Swagger.

GalahadFairlight

The webbing between the thumb and forefinger would rub on the stock or grip not the trigger guard.

Answer: Just to see if he's a working man with rough hands. Shooters get bad callouses on elbows, not so much hands.

Question: Is it true that Keira Knightly almost played Padme in this movie and Episode III, because Natalie Portman didn't want to do it anymore?

Answer: No. All the main actors were contractually obliged to do all three prequel movies.

GalahadFairlight

11th Aug 2009

Taken (2008)

Chosen answer: No.

GalahadFairlight

Question: Is it ever implied what happened to the other Basterds? Obviously, Hugo and Wilhelm die in the Mexican standoff. Donnie and Omar die in the explosion. Aldo and Utivitch are seen at the end. But what of the missing Basterds?

Answer: The implication is only Aldo and Utivitch survived.

GalahadFairlight

Answer: Hirschberg and one of the other unnamed Basterds were visible in the vet clinic when Bridget von Hammersmark was getting her leg attended to. Since the Basterds' next mission involved infiltrating the Nazi film premiere, some members may have been instructed to remain elsewhere so as not to risk arousing suspicion.

Phaneron

Answer: Even though this timeline is diverging from the original one, Kyle Reese is still in John Connor's future whatever the timeline, and presumably if any sequels are to be made, Kyle Reese will then be sent back in time to save Sarah Connor.

GalahadFairlight

Question: Why is it that in this film, a Decepticon now suddenly has the ability to "transform" into a human, instead of a vehicle, like all the other Transformers?

Answer: It's actually an established Decepticon called a 'Pretender' that was in the Transformers comics a long time ago. That this movie didn't bother to explain it properly or even make great use of the character, or even to explain why all Decepticons couldn't be Pretenders is just one of many problems with this movie.

GalahadFairlight

28th Jul 2009

Cast Away (2000)

Question: Ton Hanks spends 4 years on the island, subsisting on nothing more than rainwater, coconuts, and fish. It's not shown, but possibly he might have caught some birds, too. He lost weight on that diet, but wouldn't the lack of certain vitamins and nutrients given him scurvy, pellagra, beri-beri to the point of death? (Scurvy takes just a few weeks to set in.).

Answer: Scurvy is prevented by Vitamin C, middle aged coconuts have Vitamin C in them, so that's scurvy prevented. Pellagra is mainly caused by malnutrition, but a diet consisting of fish, water and coconuts would be enough to prevent that, because middle aged coconuts also have vitamins A and B. Beri Beri is a result of a lack of vitamin B and thiamin, Fish have vitamin B necessary to keep Beri Beri at bay.

GalahadFairlight

20th Jul 2009

The Goonies (1985)

Question: At the end, when they see the ship floating away, Data says "Wow" followed by something in Chinese. However, what he says is subtitled in Chinese instead of English. Why subtitle Chinese dialogue with Chinese? Was there a reason the filmmakers did that? Some joke I missed?

Carl Missouri

Chosen answer: "Wow" is English, its simply a film joke. Whenever Datas parents speak in their native tongue, it puts English subtitles onscreen, and as a joke when Data responds in English it puts the translation in Chinese.

GalahadFairlight

15th Jul 2009

Love Actually (2003)

Question: Why are Girls Aloud credited with being on the soundtrack, when that isn't their version of "Jump" which the Prime Minister listens to?

Josman

Chosen answer: Irrelevant when it comes to soundtracks, Girls Aloud released a version of Jump to coincide with the movie's release and the video for the song featured scenes from the movie, hence its inclusion.

GalahadFairlight

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