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 doesn't the daughter just ask her mother who her real father is? Also, couldn't the mother just tell her daughter who her father is? I apologize if I'm missing something, but what is the mother or daughter's motive for not doing something that's common sense? I understand this is the point of the story, but still...

Answer: Her mother honestly doesn't know. She had a relationship with all three men around the same time, and it would take a blood test to know the truth.

Brian Katcher

Answer: When discussing her dad with her friends, Sophie states that everytime she'd ask, Donna would say it was a summer romance and he left before she even knew she was expecting him. Then most of the movie it's suppose to be a huge secret that Sophie knows it's one of the three and that she invited them. Then during the wedding scene, Donna states that Sopie's dad is also present. Sophie proceeds to admit she invited him. Donna asks how because she doesn't know which one he is. So it all builds up to the truth.

Answer: In the book, he's stranded on sol 6, and leaves on sol 549, making it 543 sols (554 days). In the movie, he's stranded on Sol 18 and leaves on sol 561, making it 542 sols.

Question: When Bella was in her room talking with Edward saying like he wanted to try something, when the kissing got intense someone yelled "stop." Was it Edward or Bella?

PrettyOpal

Chosen answer: It was Edward. He was commanding himself to stop, knowing that his becoming physically intimate with Bella could kill her, due to his immense strength, or he might not be able to stop himself biting her.

raywest

Question: After Fredo gives away that he already knows Johnny, Michael gives the nod to his bodyguard to assassinate Roth. But he earlier told Fredo that he was going to kill Roth before the New Year, so he must have known that Fredo would warn Roth. So why make the attempt?

Wink

Chosen answer: Michael knows that Fredo will not warn Roth. Fredo is now running for his life, both terrified and horrified by what he'd done. He wants to hide from Michael's retribution. He had naively believed that there would never be an assassination attempt on Michael's life, and thought what he'd done was relatively minor and would only result in him earning a lot of money.

raywest

Question: I've got a question about the very end of the movie - since I have yet to read the graphic novel. Big Ben starts chiming midnight, and *then* Evey releases the cars in the tube to blow up Parliament. So, when Parliament is blown up, the calendar has changed. Is it then the 6th, or is it the 5th? It seems to me that if November 5th is the key date, then Parliament is destroyed on the 5th, but only seconds into. Just as the blowing up of the Old Bailey happens just seconds into the 5th of the prior year.

Answer: At the stroke of midnight, the date changed over to November 5th.

MasterOfAll

Question: Why would NASA decide to send a botanist on a mission to Mars? A planet where no plants can grow.

Answer: Part of his job, aside from also being a mechanical engineer, was to use soil taken from Earth to Mars, mix it with Martian soil then grow seeds in it to see how Martian soil is for growing crops. This would be preparing for a longer term mission where growing full crops to feed the crew would be part of the mission.

Answer: Botanists going to mars can study the ground and the dirt so they could make life on mars. Botanists are also helpful due to oxygen in space, he grows plants on the spacecraft for the oxygen that they give off.

Good Morning Saigon - S2-E12

Question: At some point Ari asks to Vince: "You want to be Shaq or Kobe? Michael or Scotty? Damon or Affleck?" Who are "Michael or Scotty"? (The other pairs seem quite obvious in comparison).

AnthonyA

Chosen answer: Michael Jordan and Scotty Pippen of the Chicago Bulls.

Bishop73

Question: If the elders know the creatures are an invention they created/use and they know what the outside world is like, then why didn't one of the elders go grab the medicine? They literally create this utopia because of violence in their past, yet are willing to let two members possibly die to preserve what secret?

Answer: The elders made a pact with each that none of them would ever return to the modern world, not for any reason.

raywest

Answer: For one of the Elders to leave, would cause the younger generations to question the danger of 'those we do not speak of' and possibly embolden them to venture into the woods, and possibly finding the limits of their known world, destroying everything the Elders originally sacrificed everything for. The younger villagers are shown already pushing the boundaries of these creatures, so it is not a stretch of the imagination to believe if they witness an Elder going into the woods, that the creatures aren't nearly dangerous as told. This is why the Elders got so angry when August sent Ivy without their consent. Her knowledge of the fabrication risks jeopardizing everything.

Question: I've always wondered this even as a kid. I never read any of the novels associated with the movies so it might have been addressed there. If a computer system became self aware and a computer system is what launched all the nukes, then what created the first Terminator? I get how they're all made on an assembly line but someone or something had to make the machines and equipment that makes the Terminators.

Robert Waner

Chosen answer: Skynet being an artificial intelligence, it could take control of existing machines to repurpose them. It doesn't become self aware until 1997, by which point robotic technology would be much more advanced than in 1984 (and it had already been somewhat self-reliant before that point, so presumably a degree of military fabrication was already set up to be controlled automatically). With its vastly accelerated rate of development and intelligence, it could use existing factories to create basic machines, use those to retool and create more complicated machines, etc. From what Kyle says the ultra-realistic Terminator model we see here is a relatively new development (he comes from 2029) so Skynet has had about 30 years to set up a series of self-improving machines and its own murderous infrastructure.

Jon Sandys

The One With The Kips - S5-E5

Question: In this episode, Chandler and Monica go on a small trip together. They have a fight because Chandler is too obsessed with watching a car-chase on TV and Monica keeps switching rooms. When they come home, they have a conversation in Monica's apartment where Chandler says "I guess it's over now", to which Monica replies "Why, exactly?" Chandler says " Cause we had a fight" and Monica's respond is "That's silly. If you were going to give up every time you had a fight with someone, you'd never be with anyone longer than...OH!" They both seem to realize something here. What is it??

Rebekka Hildre

Chosen answer: They both realise that one of the reasons Chandler hasn't had a long term relationship is because he assumes a fight means the end of things (together with his generally rocky attitude towards relationships!). Monica never realised that's how he thought, and Chandler never realised that was wrong.

Jon Sandys

Answer: Is that the entire answer? The way Monica responds makes it sound like she's finally understanding an incident that occurred many episodes or seasons before. Like they expect the audience to realise it's the punchline to a joke long-ago uttered.

She kind of is - Chandler has had a string of failed relationships, Monica has clearly never identified a common point of failure with some of them, and now she's realising he assumes one fight = breakup, his love life history makes sense.

Chosen answer: He simply doesn't like Canseco, which is why he sarcastically asks Casey if he actually paid money for the Canseco bat.

Phaneron

Answer: Canseco was a star in the 80s, so a bat with his name on it would have been very expensive. Raphael is basically calling him a thief, probably because he doesn't look like he can afford it.

LorgSkyegon

Answer: Jose Canseco had one of the best baseball careers, so anything with his name became priceless but it all came to an end when it was revealed he used steroids.

Answer: The Oakland A's with Canseco on the team won the World Series the year before this movie came out, while the New York Yankees and Mets both posted abysmal seasons. As a proud New Yorker, Raph was surely disgusted that Casey Jones would carry merch bearing the name of another team's star player, especially right after they won a ring! That's the behavior of a band-wagon fan, after all. It seems Casey would agree with him as well, as his response to the insult is not to defend Canseco or the A's, but to shrug and say he got the bats on a 2-for-1 Sale.

Question: It is 1968, and in the trailer it says "42 B.G" which 42 years later would be 2010, which is the first film. But the ending of this movie implies that the minions have been working for Gru since he was a child. So why is "42 years Before Gru"?

JaxxJaxx

Chosen answer: The writers wanted to keep Gru's cameo at the end of the film a secret for the fans of the franchise. So, saying "42 Years B.G" (before Gru) in the trailer doesn't give the surprise away.

Chosen answer: Roughly 5 years. Abel is suppose to be 5 in season 7 and was born during the pilot. Most season cover just a few months with the the next season picking up where they left off, for example; season 1 covers 68 days and at the start of season 2, three weeks has past and it covers no more than 2 months, then season 3 picks up one day later. The big gap happens during the break between season 3 and 4. Season 4 starts 14 months later (when they finish their prison sentence). In season 7, each episode covers one day.

Bishop73

Question: I'm very confused about the opening scene with Raoul and Madame (Meg?) Giry at the auction. Which one is it? Meg or Madame Giry? At one point on the corrections page for this movie it says that it is indeed Meg, yet on the questions page it says that it is Madame Giry. Is there any absolute idea to who it is?

Answer: This keeps going back and forth with arguments on both sides. I'll present them both and readers can make up their own minds! 1. It is Madame Giry. Andrew Lloyd Webber and Joel Schumacher said it was her. If you look really closely you can see the appearance is the same, just wrinkled. Besides, Raoul and Meg barely interacted so to make it that Madame Giry and Raoul are seeing each other again makes it more powerful. 2. It is Meg because Madame Giry would be dead, considering the fact that she and the Phantom were about the same age. Considering the fact that Meg and Christine were the best-est of friends, she would know why Raoul was bidding higher than Meg was. The monkey was yet another symbol of love between the Phantom and Christine and the monkey was a dear artifact for Raoul and Christine. Since Raoul was older during that scene, so would be Meg, when, they too, were about the same age.

Question: I heard this movie was a remake or a compilation of different themes used in 1950's mars B-movie remakes. What are some of the themes of the movies that this movie takes? Such as, In Mars Attacks they use the music to kill the aliens I believe is a rip from a 50's movie where they use sound waves to down martian spaceships. What movie was that?

iceverything776

Chosen answer: While the movie is a parody of the 50's sci-fi B-movies, the film is actually based on the Topps 1962 science fiction trading card collection called "Mars Attacks!", which tells the tale of the Martians' attack.

Bishop73

Question: Why are there 2 swords on the plane with the bride?

Answer: Because they are being carried by the other passengers.

Greg Dwyer

Answer: There are more than 2. They are positioned similarly and look similar to The Bride's. So, Tarantino is saying The Bride isn't the only passenger with a kill list. This is where Tarantino reminds us that this is an allegory with The Bride representing all good people seeking revenge against the evil people who wronged them. A common theme in Tarantino films.

Question: At the end when Miranda smiles in her limo after dismissing Andi's wave, what does this mean? Is she secretly proud of Andi for leaving? Is there director's commentary on this? Also, Andi giggles at Miranda's dismissal. Is it because she knows Miranda endorsed her?

Answer: Miranda smiles because she is admitting to herself that she has come to like and respect Andi, who was unlike any assistant she'd ever had before. She did not want to let Andi see that. As she told Andi, she saw a lot of herself in her. Mirianda always is protecting her work image of being a powerful corporate leader, but once she is inside the taxi where Andi cannot see her, she lets her guard down. Andi smiles, as she often does, because she easily shrugs things off, but she can also see through Miranda's tough facade. Andi also appreciates that Miranda did support her.

raywest

Question: What did Drew say in the bloopers of Charlie's Angles Full Throttle at 0:41? I don't understand what she is saying.

Answer: If you mean the bit in the welding costumes, she says "Ahhhh, there's an ember in my ass!"

Sierra1

Question: In the first movie when Selene went to get Michael, she got stabbed by a blade in the shoulder by Lucian. Why didn't she heal? Don't vampires heal?

Answer: Selene's wound does heal rapidly, but not instantly. When she regains consciousness after Michael has bandaged the wound, only a scar is visible. When Michael wakes up in the coven's mansion, the wound and scar have healed completely.

Sierra1

Question: Bond was 12 when his parents were killed, and spent the next 2 years with his guardian, who taught him to ski, climb and hunt before his death. It is mentioned a few times that it happened 20 years ago, making Bond 34, but he's clearly much older - just wondered if I was missing something here.

Answer: It is mentioned that Oberhauser died 20 years ago. This could have been many years after James stopped living with him.

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