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.

Answer: If you're talking about in the beginning and the relationship they had, when Katniss' father died (her mom's husband), her mom became severely depressed and shut down. 11 year old Katniss had to take it upon herself to basically raise her sister and herself at a time she really needed a mother, especially emotionally. Before she goes to the Hunger Games she tells her mother she has to be there for Prim.

Bishop73

Chosen answer: It is part of the ritual for la Santa Muerte. It is a sign of humility and sacrifice.

djm

Question: Could someone please explain to me what I consider two of the biggest plot holes in this film. Firstly, how was Snake going to get his glider back in the air? If it had jets or thrusters on it, that would make sense, but when it first took off, it was being towed by a plane which means it is just a standard glider (Plissken does admit to Hauk that it will be an issue, but that explains little). Also given that it is a one-seat glider, how was he going to bring back the president on it? In fact, how were Brain, Maggie and the President (in their attempted double-cross) all going to squeeze onboard?

Gavin Jackson

Answer: When Snake is told how he getting in the other guys said he can take off from a free fall.

Chosen answer: You are correct in citing these problems as plot holes. Writer-director John Carpenter is notorious for glaring plot holes in his films over the decades, inasmuch as Carpenter crafts his films for shock effect, rather than continuity. Other examples of Carpenter's plot holes can be found in the original "Halloween" (for instance, how did the killer Michael Myers, who had been confined in a mental institution since he was a child, learn to drive an automobile like a stunt driver his first time behind the wheel?), and in "The Thing" (why is the Thing discovered frozen in ice only about 4 feet below the modern surface while its spaceship is buried ten yards deep in 100,000-year-old ice?), as well as in "Prince of Darkness," "Vampires" and other Carpenter films. One explanation is that Carpenter tends to edit-out slower, extraneous scenes that more fully explain the plot, in order to maintain a fast-paced storyline.

Charles Austin Miller

I would assume he would push free fall and build up enough speed to fly, and then pull up, the WTC was the largest building in NY at the time anyway.

Question: In the shot of Scooby and Shaggy in the Mystery Machine leaving the Wow-O-Toy Factory, where were they headed?

Answer: It's never mentioned where they went afterwards.

MasterOfAll

Answer: Their affair began in series 1, episode 6 ("Countrycide") and ended in episode 11 ("Combat").

Sierra1

Question: I find the logic in this movie confusing! How can the mom be pregnant with Boss Baby while he's in Baby Corp? How did he get out of the taxi walking and dancing to the door without the parents noticing yet enter the house with him in their arms? Are babies Suzie, the triplets, and Jimbo also from Baby Corp since they talk and act like Boss Baby? If Suzie is from Baby Corp, would she lose her formula after being "accepted" into kindergarten with a picture of a smiley face? If the Boss Baby quits his job to be part of the Templeton family again, wouldn't he have ended up with some other family unintentionally? Finally, if the Boss Baby came back as a regular baby, why wasn't the mom pregnant?

Answer: Tim is shown to have an extremely active imagination, so he probably just imagined the whole Baby Corp and Puppy Co plots as a way of dealing with the arrival of a new (real) baby brother.

Sierra1

Question: Why did they change Shell cottage belonging to Bill and Fleur after they were married as it was in the book to saying in the movie that it belongs to the order? I know that they change certain things in the movies but doesn't it seem a bit pointless to change just a little thing like that?

THE GAMER NEXT DOOR

Answer: Bill Weasley never said Shell Cottage was owned by the Order. He tells Luna Lovegood that Shell Cottage belonged to his aunt but that the Order now uses it as a safe house.

raywest

Question: I recently purchased the soundtrack to Rocky IV and one of the songs is called Man Against The World. The small pamphlet that came with the CD stated that this song was originally going to be in the movie but was eventually left out. Had this song been in the movie, what scene would this song have appeared in?

Answer: Presumably it would have been used in the scene where Rocky and company arrive in Russia. Burning Heart (also by Survivor) was chosen to be used in this scene instead.

BaconIsMyBFF

Question: At the very beginning of the film, young Henry boards the Flying Dutchman to speak to Will. When Will looks behind him, he sees the shadows of several crew member starting to make their way towards him and he suddenly gets frightened that the crew will see Henry. Why would he react this way? Since he's captain of the Flying Dutchman, if his men saw Henry, Will could order them to leave Henry alone.

Answer: He's probably worried that either the crew will attack or at very least frighten Henry. Or he just doesn't want Henry to see how horribly the curse can affect people.

But because Will is ferrying souls to the after life, like Davy Jones should have done for the full time, he was captain of the Dutchman. There is no curse that would make the men look like sea monsters. They only started to look like that because Jones denied his duties after 10 years of service, when Calipso didn't show up. So the crew would look like normal men, so Will being worried that Henry will be frightened by them, can't be the reason he started to panic.

Question: How did the throttle lever slip from idle to full power? Throttle are notched, and built to require significant force to move to prevent that from happening.

Answer: The throttle lever didn't shift from idle to full throttle. When Connie asked Dewey about the throttle, he acknowledged that he set the throttle to full to get the long train to move. It was the brake lever that moved out of position.

Answer: It's a complicated answer that the movie somewhat glosses over but in the real life incident this film is based on, the engineer purposefully set the throttle at 100% believing that the dynamic braking system would slow the train. The dynamic brake was not properly set, however and this coupled with the fact the automatic air brake was not applied caused the train to slowly accelerate out of control. To read more, visit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSX_8888_incident.

BaconIsMyBFF

Dynamic does not work at the speed they were going in the yard.

It's possible that the throttle lever in the movie had a design flaw that allowed it slip.

Question: Wouldn't Shinzon have had to know where the enterprise is being assigned in order lure them to pick up B-4? Data's brain has a safeguard so his positronic energy signature cannot be tracked. And how did he know a different ship instead of the enterprise wouldn't come to Remus to pick up B-4?

Answer: Long range sensors can show the general location of specific ships (this is part of the reason Romulans and Klingons use cloaking devices). All Shinzon has to do is find a remote planet close enough to the Enterprise that would cause them to be the most prudent choice to investigate. It's definitely a gamble but not one that is made without calculation.

BaconIsMyBFF

Question: How did Doe manage to kill Mills' wife? He says "this morning" in the last scene, but that morning he was already in jail.

Answer: He had a busy morning. It is a bit far-fetched, but Somerset did express appreciation for how "methodical, exacting" John Doe was. So it's not totally unbelievable that, 1) Mills leaves for work - maybe even earlier bc he picks up Somerset, 2) John Doe arrives at Mills', maybe he even bought a box the night before to save time, 3) He finds a delivery guy, gives him the box plus $500 - good chunk of $ in 1995 (even more in 1986), 4) Hails a cab, to the police station. My question is...what was the cabbie thinking? Guy is covered in blood and asks for a ride to the police station.

Well, the guy wanted to go to the police station. He probably told the cabbie he'd been the victim of or witnessed a crime he needed to report immediately.

Brian Katcher

Answer: The events of John Doe arriving at the police station and the last scene where Mills kills him takes place on the same day.

lionhead

What about the 7:01 am time?

When? where do you see that? What is the significance? Would be nice if you could give that info so I won't have to search myself.

lionhead

It was 07.01pm. You will remember at the end of the film Mills was in the police car at night. If it was 07.01am more than 12 hours would elapse before Mills was picked up. Highly unlikely.

Bigiainmac

Question: General Veers was a badass and did not screw up at all on the assault on Hoth. Why promote Piett to Admiral and not Veers?

Answer: General Veers was part of the Imperial Army, hence his command of the ground troops. Piett and Ozzel were members of the Imperial Navy, hence their command of the ships.

Greg Dwyer

Question: If woody just wanted to go back to Andy's house to be with Andy again, and to prove his innocence why not just tell Buzz the truth about it instead of lying to him, and trying to trick him into going back to Andy? By telling lying to him about what he found and about his intentions, he only made things harder. So why not just tell Buzz that he wants to get back to Andy's house, and needs to take him Buzz with to prove to the other toys that he's innocent?

Answer: Because Woody knocked him flat out the window back at Andy's house earlier, and believing he's an actual space ranger, Buzz decided he would like to go separate ways, and let his guard down with Woody, ending the conflict between the two, and decides to continue the mission he believes he is on elsewhere. Going back with Woody is not an option for him. He says farewell to Woody, and Woody starts to see that Buzz is not interested, so tries to condone Buzz with a plan he knows Buzz would most likely fall for.

Question: If the tape was made when the teenagers tried recording a football game over the well (the main theory), then wouldn't that mean that the four teens are the first people to watch/die from it? If so, how does Becca know about the myth of this deadly tape virus and phone call before Katie dies?

Answer: The theory is wrong. The tape was already there.

MasterOfAll

Answer: It is strongly suggested that the four of them were the first ones to watch the tape. The well was directly beneath Cabin 12, so Samara's spirit took advantage of the blank tape they were using to record the game to burn images into it thus creating the curse. Becca said that somebody from Revere had told her about it, and the high school girls from the funeral told Rachel that Katie was dating somebody from Revere. Rumors fly especially among teenagers. Josh (Katie's boyfriend) told people from his High School about the creepy tape they had watched over the weekend and it quickly spread to the point that Becca and several other teens knew about it.

Answer: Cameos usually go uncredited.

MasterOfAll

Question: Why wouldn't Schmidt at some point retaliate against Captain Dickson for tasering him in the crotch?

Answer: The captain is quite intimidating. Why would Schmidt want to put himself into more trouble just for a prank?

MasterOfAll

Question: Would it be possible for Jim and Aurora to make it to Homestead II if one after another took for example five years of hibernation again and again? If the auto doc would allow such thing. One of them would always become older, then they would change and so on. If I imagine this right, after four periods, that would all take five years, they would became "only" ten years older.

ncaf

Answer: Jim almost went insane after only one year alone aboard the ship, at the beginning of the film. Asking Jim and Aurora to each take turns spending 5 years alone (REPEATEDLY, for the remaining 90 years) would be a psychological hell that they might not survive.

Charles Austin Miller

Chosen answer: Assuming this is something they would want to do, there's no way of knowing if it was medically possible. Continually putting someone into extended hibernation, waking them, then repeating the process may be more than the human body could physically withstand. The autodoc was not designed for long-term hibernation, only short-term for medical purposes. Also, the ship still had 90 years to go before reaching Homestead II, so they would have aged more than ten years.

raywest

Answer: A third person could have been woken up, and if they alternate; two people could stay out of stasis at a time in order to ensure all three have a chance to make it to the colony (each would age 60 years... so they would be old!). The issue with using the pod to suspend someone is that the pod can't be used to medically treat anyone (I would assume).

Answer: It's probably the photo they took at her house of them going to the prom.

lionhead

Question: Do we ever see the wraiths in their true forms?

Answer: Technically what you see is their true form after being corrupted by the rings and turned into wraiths. Before that they were simply men, you can see what is left of that when Frodo puts on the ring at Weather Top.

lionhead

I thought those white ugly faces you see, when Frodo puts the ring on at weather top, were their true forms.

Yes, that's exactly right. The rings turned them into wraiths, meaning their spirits moved on to the shadow realm and their real bodies pretty much destroyed. All that's left of them under the cloaks is invisible (in the books) and only seen in the shadow realm, where Frodo enters when he puts on the ring. The danger is too that Frodo would pass into the shadow realm too if he puts on the ring too often, becoming like them.

lionhead

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.