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.

Chosen answer: Well Magic does come to mind. The White Walkers bring with them the winter. Because of this, the seasons are very unpredictable. "Winter Is Coming" refers to this.

lionhead

Question: I've seen this movie on television and on DVD. It appears that there are 2 versions in some scenes. One noticeable one is when Adam is in the store asking the clerk if he has a wife under the counter. Are there 2 different versions of some of the scenes?

Answer: Believe it or not, there were actually two original versions of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers filmed simultaneously in the early 1950s. One version was filmed in "CinemaScope" format and the other version was filmed in "Flat Screen" format. They did this in order to accommodate theatres that couldn't run CinemaScope. They would film a scene or scenes in one format in the morning, then film the same scene or scenes in the other format in the afternoon, using the same actors, costumes, sets, et cetera. Naturally, the camera angles, camera movements, performances and even sound recordings are noticeably different from one version to the other. The non-widescreen one wasn't used, but was released on DVD, and there's a chance TV stations might have used it before widescreen became more prevalent.

Question: When Pericles is sent out into space, he enters the wormhole, Leo next and then the Oberon. So how did the Oberon land first, then Leo and Pericles last?

Answer: The anomaly they encountered was not merely a spatial wormhole, it was a rift in time. The order in which they entered the time-rift didn't matter; they could exit the rift in any random order, minutes or months or millennia apart.

Charles Austin Miller

Answer: It is understood the order-of-exit is reversed to the order of Entry, although not stated.

dizzyd

Question: When the historical figures are arrested for causing chaos at the mall, it's clear what most of them did; i.e. Billy the Kid fired his gun, Genghis Khan wrecked the sporting goods store, etc. So what exactly did Sigmund Freud and Socrates do to get arrested?

zendaddy621

Chosen answer: It was critical to the storyline to keep all of the historical figures together, which is the primary reason they were all arrested at once. We might speculate that mall security received a number of reports of "odd" characters wandering around the mall. In addition to the shenanigans of Billy and Genghis, Beethoven was pounding out a raucous keyboard performance, Joan of Arc essentially hijacked a dancercize session, and Abraham Lincoln was accused of theft and fled from a vintage photography studio. Importantly, Socrates and Freud made rather strange advances on a couple of (probably underage) teenage girls in the food court, which would surely be enough to get two elderly men arrested in this day and age.

Charles Austin Miller

Also, Socrates with Billy when he was shooting up the mall.

Brian Katcher

Question: Is it possible to tell what Hermione was doing to Ron in the background when Harry and Sirius are talking after they get out of the whomping willow? I thought she was untying his shoelaces but his laces are still tied so what was she doing?

THE GAMER NEXT DOOR

Chosen answer: She was tending to the bite wound on Ron's leg.

Casual Person

How? She didn't make any difference?

How do you know she didn't make any difference. Hermione was inspecting Ron's leg to see how badly injured it was and then could have performed a spell that would temporarily treat the wound until they got him to the infirmary for more extensive care. In HP and the Half-Blood Prince, Luna Lovegood repaired Harry's broken nose by casting a spell.

raywest

Because we just see her looking at it and if she treated it while Sirius and Harry are talking and I missed it, All the blood is still there on the leg.

As you mentioned, you don't see everything she's doing. She could have cast a spell to numb the pain or slow the bleeding, etc. The blood would still be there. She may merely be looking at the wound to see "if" she can do anything before getting him to the infirmary. There's just no way of knowing exactly what she did, but she certainly would not have just ignored it. Anyone in that position would check the wound to see how severe it was and whether they could do anything at the time. Mostly, she's just sitting next to Ron to comfort him, as he's rather excitable.

raywest

Answer: Ashely Blake.

Question: Why was Travis labeled a hero at the end and not arrested? He murdered several people.

MikeH

Chosen answer: One theory about the end of the film is that it is Travis' dying thoughts, but this is not the view of Scorsese or writer Paul Schrader...they intended the ending to be ambiguous and an ironic critique of the media's, and the public's, reaction to and interpretation of violence (Travis is hailed as a hero for rescuing Iris, but we can imagine a very different reaction had he followed his original plan of assassinating a senator). Interestingly, when the film was originally shown on television, the following "disclaimer" of sorts accompanied the closing credits: "In the aftermath of violence, the distinction between hero and villain is sometimes a matter of interpretation or misinterpretation of facts. 'Taxi Driver' suggests that tragic errors can be made. The Filmmakers."

Question: Is the doctor carrying a double barrel shotgun but his ammo belt has rifle bullets?

Answer: He's carrying a Holland and Holland "Royal" Double Rifle (popularly known as an "elephant gun"), which was introduced in 1918 using large-caliber rim-fire rifle cartridges. The H&H Royal Double Rifle was (and still is) available in a variety of calibers, the largest of which is a truly enormous.700 cal, typically used by big-game hunters on African safaris.

Charles Austin Miller

Question: What was the underlying reason for Sutherland for wanting to dump Michael Douglas? Was he aware that Demi Moore had fouled up the production line in Malaysia? If so, why was he backing her? The buyout/merger would be tainted with the bad CD/ROM drives so was he hoping to merge before the bad units came to light? He wanted Douglas to stay on until the merger at least. Why make bad drives to start with if he truly hoped to spin off the CD/ROM production. Was Demi acting on her own when she attempted to frame Douglas for sexual assault? What would have been the outcome if Douglas had gone all the way with her? Was she hoping to pin a rape charge on him but since that didn't work opted for the assault? Was she just hoping to dominate/humiliate him and when that didn't work opted for the assault charge? Douglas was the driving force behind development of the CD/ROM drives so why attempt to get rid of him in the first place? There are so many unanswered questions.

Answer: Sutherland was aware there were problems with the production line, but he did not know it was Moore's doing. He had perfect reason to put the blame on Douglas as he was responsible for the production line, and Douglas had almost taken $100 million from him and Meredith, who he believed to be the key to the merger and deeply cared about, unaware of how much he was of her manipulation of him. Moore impulsively changed Douglas' specifications on the production line as it was his responsibility and to attempt to improve costs, but her incompetence led to the problems. She did not frame Douglas because she was spurned, but premeditated to do so after discovering the problems to try to get him fired before he discovered the problems with the line. She also blackmailed Arthur Khan into lying to Douglas and send the drives late (in the novel she was having an affair with Conley-White CEO Ed Nichols). On the other hand, Moore does appear to have an ulterior motive as she appears jealous that Douglas has a family and typically demonstrates herself throughout the novel and film as a woman scorned and has a manipulative personality.

Chosen answer: Back in Target Rich, a hitman named Giuseppe Montolo dies whilst being interrogated by Derek. The men who abducted Derek were hired by his father, Chazz, who seems to blame Derek for his son's death. It's explained further in A Beautiful Disaster.

Annabel Keeley

Question: What did it say on the bench in the garden they climbed over the fence for?

Answer: "For June who loved this garden - from Joseph who always sat beside her." And below that, "June Wetherby 1917-1992" with a picture of a three leaf clover underneath. Upon seeing the inscription, Julia Roberts comments, "some people *do* spend their whole lives together."

Michael Albert

Question: How did Danny not get charged for taking hostages? He is even reinstated back into the police force.

Answer: Given the department-wide conspiracy he uncovered it's clear the authorities were unwilling to prosecute him.

Question: Since the destruction of Cyberdyne in the end of the movie, even considering that "Pops" is from the original (now alternate) timeline, wouldn't that fact alone delete the existence of the Terminator?

Movie Nut

Chosen answer: If we accept the theory that alternate timelines even exist, branching off every time there is deliberate interference through time travel, then it becomes entirely possible for time travelers to continue existing in alternate timelines, even if they erased their own origins.

Charles Austin Miller

Question: When Mr. Nobody and Dom are negotiating a deal to help each other out Dom says he will only do it if it's his way and his team. Mr Nobody agrees and Brian, Tej, and Roman arrive. My question is: Dom had left Han's funeral to pursue Shaw before encountering Mr. Nobody and his men and they apparently don't take long to come to an agreement so how were Brian, Roman, and Tej able to change clothes from the funeral and get the call from Mr. Nobody so fast?

Answer: Mr. Nobody is shown to know Dom very well by the way he grabs a bucket of Coronas on ice as soon as Dom says he is a Corona man. Therefore it's easy to predict that Dom would want his team, so got his men to collect them.

Ssiscool

Question: David Nix is talking about how they saw the iceberg and warned the Titanic, but the monitor was built after the world fair in 1963, and the Titanic sank in 1912 - how is it possible for that to happen?

Answer: He was using it as a metaphor. The Titanic being mankind heading towards its own destruction. Man was warned of the dangers (wars, global warming, etc) and we didn't do anything to change our ways, "went full stem ahead".

Bishop73

Question: Is it ever explained why Dory has her memory problems? Why she has such an incredibly bad memory, even for one of her species? Head injury, exposure to a chemical, genetic?

dizzyd

Chosen answer: In the absence of a neuropsychological work-up, we have only Dory's word for it: "I have short term memory loss...It runs in my family...at least, I think it does." So, Dory believes it to be genetic. At least, I think she does.

Michael Albert

Answer: Because she has short term memory loss.

Question: Unless it was stated in the movie, why was there a beacon or signal from the Empire State Building? And how did the surviving humans know how to create a signal to bring the spaceship back to earth?

Answer: There are already, in real life, a large amount of communication dishes on top of the ESB. It would be easier to modify that existing setup rather than building a new array from scratch. In the movie it says that the survivors opted for a longer term plan and hint that they had the know-how for a while but were waiting for a "Jack with a soul" to action it. As for the specifics of the signal, real life recovery beacons used in maritime and airplane landing approach can basically remote control a ship or plane. If someone knew the specific system used by the shuttle (and only a few exist in real life, making that a lot simpler that one might think), it would not be a hard thing to set up. It is not unbelievable that one or more of the survivors would have that knowledge.

Question: Why was the key broken off in the lock to the hoodoo room? Don't the servants use the room every few years to transfer their souls into someone else? Why break the lock to the main room you need to do your sacrifices in?

sunfox35

Chosen answer: I believe it was part of the plan to get Caroline to believe in hoodoo. Violet sent Caroline to the attic to get Caroline to witness the occurrence of the door rattling. This would cause Caroline to become curious and enter the room. Once Caroline saw the hoodoo artifacts, the idea of hoodoo becomes more real for her. They had to get her to believe in hoodoo in order for the magic to work.

The Corbomite Maneuver - S1-E11

Question: In this episode, the navigator, Mr. Bailey, has an earpiece only for the length of time it takes to notify the crew of the message coming in over the navigation beam. Why is it that no time before, or since, that anyone at the conn or navigation positions never had one?

Movie Nut

Chosen answer: This was an early episode and TV shows often make small changes to set design, props, equipment, and so on as the program progresses. Most likely it was felt that this particular prop was not effective and the producers decided to eliminate it.

raywest

Question: In the post-credit scene, The Tank gang are seen still trapped in their now algae-covered plastic bags as they reach California. Since this movie takes place a year after "Finding Nemo" (2003), how did these fish survive without eating anything for a whole year?

Answer: Algae on the inside of the bag?

dizzyd

Then what about being able to breathe or not being eaten?

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