Answered 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: Why didn't the prisoners just walk through the tunnel to Switzerland on the other side?

Answer: The majority of prisoners were heading towards Switzerland through the tunnel, only a few prisoners with weapons were acting as a rear guard to hold off the German troops chasing them and buy the prisoners time to escape.

Scott215

All the prisoners were on the train. I've contended before, they didn't need to fix the track. Just leave the train on the bridge and go straight through the tunnel. That route HAD to be shorter than going around on the walkway, and they would have had a much larger head start than waiting to fix the track.

kaevanoff

Question: What happened to that Asian nurse in the hospital that was last seen sliding down and scratching a sort of metal wall?

Answer: It's implied that all the doctors and nurses in that scene were killed. And she wasn't scratching a metal wall. She was being dragged across the floor and her fingernails were peeling up the floor surface in a desperate attempt to cling to safety.

Phaneron

Dead Man Dating - S1-E4

Question: Does anyone know the song that is played right after the intro? Not Secret Smile, but the one played on the Netflix version.

Answer: The song is a studio band original song and not available. I think they didn't even name it. Many of the licensed songs used in "Charmed" originally that Netflix can't or won't pay for have been replaced with similar sounding songs from a studio band. This is one of the few completely different sounding songs.

Bishop73

Question: How could Shen know that Po would be the baby panda from the village attacked by Shen's army?

Bunch Son

Answer: Since Po's father was presumably the only panda to attack Shen's wolves head-on, there's a chance Shen could have seen him. Plus in the flashback, Shen orders his wolves to attack Po and his mother before Po's father defends them both with his mallet.

Answer: You could assume that Pascal was attached to Rapunzel's hair during the whole scene/musical number, but since he's not visible it's likely that the animators didn't draw him into every shot to reduce costs, plus putting such a small 3D model on Rapunzel's shoulders/within her hair would have been very difficult and too time-consuming to animate.

Question: At the end when Tom Hanks is going over the map and the woman drives up, where exactly is the crossroads location?

Answer: The credits mention Canadian, TX. Canadian is on Hwy 83 in the Texas panhandle. The directions given mention Hwy 83 south and I-40 east. I-40 is roughly 30 miles or so south of Canadian on 83. Texas road signs are visible at the intersection. The ranch, a bed and breakfast and museum are at 9760 County Road 5, Canadian, TX. It looks like the crossroads was actually filmed maybe eight or ten miles south at the intersection of Z and 5.

Answer: Somewhere in the Great Plains, you heard the Woman's vague directions, "Whole lotta nothing 'till you get to Canada", and from the looks of things, it's not important anyway, the generic nature seems to be a plot device.

dizzyd

She also mentions that the next town heading west is Amarillo, so probably close to there.

raywest

True enough, but "close" is a relative term in the Great Plains, like I said, the location is broad and generic.

dizzyd

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.

Triviani

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.

Jon Sandys

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.

Question: When Bernie kisses the random reporter near the end of the movie, does anyone know if that was a scripted moment? She looks genuinely surprised.

Answer: According to this site, it was planned. http://nldslab.soe.ucsc.edu/charactercreator/film_corpus/film_2012xxxx/imsdb.com/Notting-Hill.html They both smile - suddenly the press gets what's going on - music - noise - they all turn and flash, flash, flash photos of William. Max and Bella kiss. Bernie kisses a total stranger. Spike finally makes it - he's bright red from running.

Triviani

Question: Amelie goes to visit the parents of the green grocer to find out the name of the boy that lived in her apartment in the 50's. As she arrives at the parents' house there is a very tall bridge or walkway, does anyone know its name or location?

Donvogel

Answer: Looking at the height of the bridge, this is most likely the Aqueducs d'Arcueil et de Cachan (which is in Paris).

Sierra1

Question: The clerk Darren voiced by Paul Rudd asks somebody "why he keeps calling him that" while he takes cover in the climax. What does he mean?

Answer: He hears the food calling him the "dark lord."

Show generally

Question: When Phoebe's mom died she went and lived on the street. But why? I am sure they had a house. Why would someone take it away from them? And what about her Grandmother?

Answer: Any answer would be a guess, it's never explained. But she mostly likely ran away from home and lived on the streets and later reconnected with her grandmother.

Answer: It's unlikely Phoebe's surrogate mother, Lily, owned a house. They lived in NYC, had little money, and probably rented a cheap apartment. Young Phoebe would be unable to support herself after Lily's suicide. It's unknown why Phoebe did not immediately go to live with her adoptive grandmother, Frances, but there appeared to be a rift between Lily and her mother. Frances may not have known right away that Phoebe was left homeless and assumed she and her twin sister, Ursula, were with their blood relatives. Phoebe, still a minor, may have run away to avoid being placed in foster care, and later lived with Frances.

raywest

Answer: According to Phoebe her mother had severe mental problems. It could be that had a house but lost it because of it, they lived on the streets and sometime later after her mother died she went to live with her grandmother. They could have lived with her grandmother, but the mother's mental problems drove her out. Either way Phoebe would want be with her to take care of her.

I don't believe it likely Phoebe and her mother would have been on the streets / homeless at the time of her mother's suicide. Multiple times in the series Phoebe explicitly states that her mom committed suicide by putting her head in an oven / was "in the kitchen." The context and phrasing as Phoebe describes it strongly implies they were in their house at the time.

Question: In the scene right before the big bank heist, a detective comes into the situation room informing the team that a CI Hugh Benny had a tip about Neil McCauley looking at Far East National Bank. How the heck did Waingro (working for Benny and VanZandt) even know about this score? McCauley hadn't even discussed it with Kelso when Waingro took down the armored car.

Answer: Waingro helped Van Zandt track down Trejo. Waingro then tortured Trejo and threatened his family if he didn't give up McCauley. With his back to the wall, Trejo gave Waingro and Hugh Benny the details of the bank heist, but Waingro killed Trejo's family anyway and beat Trejo almost to death. Benny then gives the tip to the police on Van Zandt's order.

BaconIsMyBFF

I wonder how Trejo was tracked, I don't remember his name being revealed during Waingro's time with the crew, or any other information.

Well, we never see the crew prior to their first heist. Trejo could have given Waingro his name during the planning of that heist.

BaconIsMyBFF

Waingro met this crew only once. How would he know who Trejo is or where he lives? Right before the heist, Trejo is asked to mislead police away from the heist.

Question: Why does Forrest's mother say "This is not for children's eyes" when they were watching Elvis perform 'Hound Dog'?

surfjawn

Answer: Many adults in the 50's, like Forrest's mom, found Elvis' gyrations and hip movements to be too sexual and inappropriate for children (especially teens) to watch. In fact, when Elvis appeared on the Ed Sullivan show for the third time, they only filmed him from the waist up to prevent an outcry from these types of parents. Many also found Rock 'N' Roll music in general to be inappropriate for children to listen to.

Bishop73

Pilot - S1-E1

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.

Jon Sandys

Question: After she finds out that her father's dead, Elizabeth looks absolutely devastated and Will asks Tia Dalma if there is a way. What exactly does Tia say in reply? And why can't she bring back Elizabeth's father from the dead like she brought back Barbossa?

Answer: She says that he is at peace. It's probably possible that she could bring him back, but he doesn't want to go back.

Greg Dwyer

If she would bring him back, he will be very distraught and not be able to live on normally. He'd probably go insane and commit suicide.

lionhead

Answer: Tia Dalma (Calypso) brought Barbossa back only because she needed him as part of her plan to escape her corporeal form. The Pirate Lords had imprisoned her in a human body, and only they, which included Barbossa and Jack Sparrow, could release her. There was no reason for her to bring Elizabeth's father back from the dead, particularly as he is at peace and will be reunited with his dead wife.

raywest

Answer: Even if she is stronger, loyalty would also play a part in whether or not he would want to recruit her. Snoke probably knows that like Luke Skywalker, she would never turn to the dark side.

raywest

Answer: Snoke, like previous Sith Leaders, is a manipulator who wants to pit the other Force-powerful individuals against one another for amusement, to weed out any hesitancy in his apprentice, destroy potential rivals, etc. He knew that he would accomplish all of these by using Rey to test and torment Kylo Ren, but miscalculated Ren's own ambitions.

Erik M.

Question: What causes pressure in an oil well?

Answer: That largely goes back to how oil is formed: from dead organic material. That sinks to the bottom of the sea, and if certain layers of sediment build up over that, it gets buried deep enough that's it's compressed, and after enough time passes, it becomes oil. But that pressure from the massive weight of miles and miles of rock on top of it never actually goes away, so when you poke a hole in it, that pressure suddenly has a way to go, via the oil spewing up through the well.

Friso94

So basically the pressure is created by massive weight of miles and miles of rock on top of the oil that creates the well pressure. Is that correct?

Geologic forces are one thing, but there are different types of petroleum wells, ranging from crude oil to natural gas to combinations thereof. The lattermost, a oil/gas well, is most dangerous because it can suddenly start spewing natural gas when crude oil was expected. Tapping into an oil/gas well can be like popping the top on a can of soda: Gases are released from the fluid and expand rapidly, creating immense and unexpected pressure. In the case of the can of soda, the thing unexpectedly spews soda all over you and your clothing. In the case of an oil/gas well, the thing unexpectedly undergoes a gas blow-out and, potentially, a catastrophic explosion when it reaches the surface.

Charles Austin Miller

Answer: He is dead. Although a Jedi can still interact with the living as a Force Ghost, so expect to see Luke in Star Wars IX. It wasn't a hologram of Luke, he used Force Projection to be there. However, the act required too much energy and was too strenuous for Luke's body to handle, and the strain is what caused him to die.

Bishop73

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.

Jon Sandys

Answer: Rachel was always the toxic one between Ross and Rachel whenever Ross became happy with someone, Rachel always put her foot in it.

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.

Purple_Girl

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.

raywest

Answer: Butch the breakdown truck must have pulled Gordon's tender all the way up the rails so the breakdown train can reach it and also Butch helped to get Gordon close to the winch.

Answer: Ropes and a winch.

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.