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: There are 4 years between Sam and Dean so Dean was 4 or 4 1/2 when he took Sam out of the house. Sam was 6 months.

Answer: Dean is 33 and Sam is 29 around season 9.

Answer: Early 30's. The flashback shows them 22 years earlier when their dad says "Dean take your brother and go." Dean looks to be 5 and Sam is just a baby.

Question: For those of us who live in countries where Cornettos aren't sold, what flavors are the three colors in the Cornetto Trilogy?

Captain Defenestrator

Chosen answer: Strawberry Red for "Shaun of the Dead", Original Blue for "Hot Fuzz", Green Mint Choc Chip for "The World's End".

Sierra1

Question: How come Hadley was arrested for Tommy's murder but nobody cares about Fat Ass's murder? There were hundreds of witnesses.

MikeH

Chosen answer: 1) This is almost twenty years down the road. Many of those witnesses are either gone from the prison, dead, or may have forgotten any details. 2) Hadley beat Fatass because he wouldn't stop talking, breaking the rules. Tommy was just standing there talking to the warden. It's cold blooded murder vs. Simple brutality. 3) Prisoners are often reluctant to testify against guards because of fear of retribution from other guards.

Greg Dwyer

Chosen answer: The helicopters aren't flying backwards, they are simply not moving through the camera view as fast as the camera is moving.

Greg Dwyer

Question: Does this movie bear any relation to the previous 2, beside from being in the same series?

Answer: No, none whatsoever. None of the characters from the previous movies appear or are ever mentioned.

THGhost

Question: If the police were so sure Jamal cheated, why are they so desperate to find out how?

MikeH

Chosen answer: It's not enough to be sure about a crime or other wrongdoing. It has to be proven with facts. They want to show how he did it.

raywest

Q Who? - S2-E16

Question: Picard orders the away team to be beamed from the Borg ship directly to the bridge of the Enterprise. If this was possible, why was there ever a need for anyone to go to a transporter room and stand on a transporter platform?

Answer: Several reasons. While it is possible to beam people to and from just about anywhere, for efficiency and safety there needs to be a centralized location. If an away team was being transported at the same time, then they are transported as a group from the platform and not from a random location within the ship. Transporting people to places other than to the transporter platform is risky and it is usually only done in extreme circumstances. Precise coordinates are needed to find and safely beam someone from one place to another. The bridge is an emergency transport site and the those coordinates are already known. It has also been seen that the transport can go awry. In that event, the transporter officer needs to be able to see what is happening in order to make adjustments to safely re-materialize the passengers. It has been mentioned in Star Trek canon that it is possible for someone being transported to re-materialize inside a bulkhead or some other object if the coordinates are incorrect or the surrounding environment had changed, thus injuring or killing them.

raywest

Question: Does Lily Potter scream anything in particular when she dies? Some fans (according to Google searches) seem to think that she is screaming "Always", but it sounds more like "Harry" to me. Has JK Rowling ever answered this?

Answer: She is screaming Harry.

Answer: I've listened to this a number of times, and her scream is just that - a scream, somewhat enhanced with special sound effects. It's too unintelligible to make out if she was saying anything. I have not found anything about J.K. Rowling commenting on whether Lily said anything.

raywest

Show generally

Question: Is there anyway to see the scenes at the end of each episode without the theme song playing over it so the dialogue can be heard?

strikeand

Chosen answer: There is no dialogue - the end scenes are deliberately constructed to be visual, with no audio.

Question: How did the movie get nominated for Best Picture? I thought there was a separate category for animated films.

MikeH

Chosen answer: There's a separate section just for animated films to highlight them and give a wider selection recognition, similar to foreign movies, but they're not excluded from the best picture category, which is open to every feature.

Question: What does Flynn think will happen if he lets Rapunzel heal him? Why couldn't he wait till after he has healed to cut her hair?

Bob Smith

Chosen answer: Rapunzel had already promised Mother Gothel that she would stay in the tower with her if she let Rapunzel heal Flynn. Rapunzel also said earlier in the film that "When I promise something, I never, ever break that promise. EV-er!" So, since she already made a sacrificial and conditional promise to Gothel, she would not have broken it, so Flynn had to disable Rapunzel from healing him before she was stuck with Gothel for eternity.

She still would have disappeared if he cut Rapunzel's hair after.

If Gothel did not allow the hair to be cut after the healing, it would have been a dead end for Rapunzel. Eugene used the first chance he got.

Flynn didn't want Rapunzel to heal him because he knew that it would kill her. Earlier on she healed his hand with her hair, and he knew that this used some of her life. Furthermore, within this scene Flynn says that she will die if she heals him (obvious hint).

Healing does not use up parts of her life. When she heals Eugene's hand it does not appear as though she is getting hurt. Eugene refers to her being locked in the tower by Gothel as her death.

Question: Why was Oz considered a con man? He was simply doing magic tricks, which everyone should know aren't real.

MikeH

Chosen answer: I believe you are taking a very modern day perspective. In our era of technology, scientific advancement, and general skepticism about everything, we are pretty jaded and cynical about things like magic and paranormal phenomena. At that time and place, audiences were far more willing to accept the possibility of true magic and sorcery, and weren't as prone to disbelieving what their eyes tell them. A "con" (short for "confidence") man is one who attempts to gain the trust of another, subsequently using deception, fraud and/or trickery for their own personal gain. I don't think it's unfair to label Oz this way, particularly at the beginning of the film.

Michael Albert

Question: Isn't Judas' reference to Muhammad an historical inaccuracy? Muhammad lived from 570 AD to 632 AD.

Answer: In the song "Jesus Christ, Superstar, " Judas highlights several anachronisms. He makes comparison to Buddha, about whom he likely would have known little to nothing. He references Muhammad, not yet born. He even brings up the concept of mass communication, also unheard of in the ancient world. However, this number is meant to take place in a spiritual realm, out of place and time, where past and present have no actual meaning. Judas is shown to be eternally struggling with Jesus, his message, his methods, and whether or not he is truly divine. But also, let's face it...like its contemporary, "Godspell, " the entire film is pretty much an anachronism. For starters, it's a rock operetta which puts just about everything in modern terms in its language ("what's the buzz") and its cinematography (Judas being chased down by tanks, for example). If you are looking for temporal realism, there are many options for that. This film is far more allegorical than it is historical.

Michael Albert

The ghost of Judas is speaking from a modern perspective. Consider the lyric "If you'd have come today you would have reached a whole nation, Israel in 4BC had no mass communication." He is in the here and now, not in the times Jesus was alive.

Question: How did the movie win Best Picture? I thought there was a separate category for foreign films.

MikeH

Chosen answer: There's a separate section just for foreign films to highlight them and give a wider selection recognition, similar to animated movies, but they're not excluded from the best picture category, which is open to every feature.

Question: I have always wondered how the movie crew and cast worked with Natasha Ryan, the actress who played young Sybil. There were scenes that were very frightening, dealing with terrible tortures. I always wondered if that was traumatic for the young girl? Or, if not, how was trauma avoided. More generally, does anyone know how movie productions deal with children on the set of films with frightening, traumatic and/or controversial themes?

Michael Albert

Chosen answer: In these types of movies, where young actors are involved in intense scenes, every precaution is taken to ensure that they are never frightened or emotionally compromised. Child psychologists, acting coaches, and the director are on set and work closely with them. A child's parent or guardian is also always close by. Child Protective Services oversee how child actors are being utilized in films and TV shows and there are strict laws and regulations regarding how child actors are treated, how many hours per day they can work, etc. Scenes are also carefully filmed and edited in such a way that can appear to be very intense, but were not emotionally stressful to the child. Also, stand-ins can be used for certain shots.

raywest

The Good News - S4-E3

Question: Did no one get surprised at the price of the Call Girl at the end of the episode? For spending a whole evening and night at Draper's house, the call girl charges $25, about $190 in modern money. Isn't that weirdly low?

AnthonyA

Chosen answer: At that time, call girls did not command the same amount of money as they do today. By that standard, the $25 would be considered a high rate. Today's upper-level prostitutes can demand far more for their services.

raywest

Question: Tolkien has made it clear in his letters that sailing to the Undying Lands does not make a mortal immortal. But this is what I'm curious about: is it possible to give up immortality in the Undying Lands? For instance, if Arwen had remained immortal and sailed there, would she still be able to choose a mortal life? (Not that she would do that, I'm just using her as an example).

Answer: Arwen could have, yes, but only because she specifically has the race of Men in her ancestral lineage.

Phixius

Answer: The Dwarrow Scholar website isn't sure, but suggests it sounds like "Ikhriyi zuzô'z!", meaning "Release the links [of the statue mould]."

Sierra1

Question: If no one on PK's planet communicated using voices, then why did he have vocal cords in the first place?

Yashbhatt

Chosen answer: This would be a complex speculation question. But first off, it's not the vocal chords that allow humans to speak as we do, other animals have vocal chords, yet can't speak. It's about our mouths and muscle structure that allows us to "shape" sounds into words. Given the humanoid figure of PK (i.e. small, non protruding mouth and neck length), we can assume PK's species developed the ability to speak and then evolved past that, but maintained the needed structure for speaking for whatever reason, such as eating.

Bishop73

Answer: It is my opinion that you should absolutely watch Breaking Bad first. If you did not know, Better Call Saul takes place before the events of Breaking Bad. At the time I am posting this, BCS is mid-way through season 5, with season 6 on the way perhaps in a year. So if you binge Better Call Saul now, you would not be able to "flow" right into Breaking Bad. To me, it's better to watch in the order that they came out. Breaking Bad was a phenomenal show, and now watching Better Call Saul, it is fun to watch the events unfold and start to lead up to what we saw in BB. Enjoy.

jshy7979

Answer: Now that it's ended, this question can be fully answered. Better Call Saul includes events after the conclusion of Breaking Bad, as well as references to and descriptions of major events from the latter. Not only would Breaking Bad be spoiled for you by watching Better Call Saul first, but there's a lot that wouldn't be understood.

Chosen answer: So far the show has been about Saul's struggles as a lawyer long before the Breaking Bad timeline (Spoiler Alert: It starts out for the most part at a time when he didn't even go by the name Saul).

Bishop73

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