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: In the vault scene, isn't forger Eames impersonating the Elder Fischer on his deathbed in the vault? If so, then how can he also be across the room at the door?

Answer: No, he isn't. Everything in that room is out of Fischer's subconscious - as the film explains, the team design the dreams to include a secure area, a vault, safe, whatever, which the target will then fill. In the higher levels of the dream, the team have been surreptitiously guiding Fischer towards the idea of splitting the company up; this is the level where it pays off, where Fischer's own subconscious fills the vault with the things he needs to see or hear to make the idea real, to complete the inception.

Tailkinker

Question: During the attack on Klendathu when the fleet is bombarded by the plasma bugs, you can see a plasma burst impact the bridge of the Roger Young and kill everyone in it, Carmen included. But later the fleet regroups to repair and the ship arrives with everyone safe and alive. What's with that?

Zvriith

Chosen answer: It doesn't kill everyone on the bridge, it just destroys a lot of it, and presumably the ship has the ability to seal hull breaches so everyone doesn't get sucked out.

GalahadFairlight

Question: If the real Henry Hill wrote a book and co-wrote the screenplay (with Martin Scorsese), how is it that the Mob never found him? Or did they, and we (the viewers/general public) were never told about that?

Answer: He went into the witness protection programme along with his family under assumed names, however was expelled from that programme after being arrested for drugs offences in Seattle in the late 1980s. Since then he apparently lived quite openly, including a number of media appearances, although he continued to have problems with the law, mostly due to a long battle with alcoholism. He lived in Malibu up until his death in 2012. As to why the Mob appeared to be disinterested in pursuing him, you'd have to ask them.

Tailkinker

By his own loud admission on Howard Stern, he had no idea why he was able to live such an incredibly long time for his circumstances.

dizzyd

Also, Henry Hill, in the last years of his life wasn't so worried anymore about getting whacked. All the people that were a threat to him were either in prison or dead by that time.

Question: I have three questions. First, on one of the holo-screens in the beginning, (the one saying: "Too much garbage in your space? There's plenty of space out in space"), there are two Axiom cruisers leaving. I thought it was just one. Question number two: What's the purpose of that robot that is clicking on a keyboard? (The one that lets GO-4, Wall-E and Eve pass to the bridge.) Last question: In the Axiom garbage disposal thing area, there are two gigantic Wall-A's. What does the A stand for?

Answer: (1) If you continue to listen to the announcement that you quote, the next line is "BnL Starliners leaving each day". Clearly there's a sizeable fleet of ships, as you'd expect, given the necessity to completely evacuate Earth's population, with the Axiom, described as "the jewel in the BnL fleet", presumably being the flagship. Whether any of the other ships were also still functioning remains unrevealed. (2) It's presumably some sort of administration robot, with specific duties regarding access to the captain's office. (3) It stands for "Axiom".

Tailkinker

Question: When Cobb finally gets home to see his children at the end why don't they look any different from his memories? The story implies that he's been gone for a long time yet they don't appear to have aged.

Answer: The answer above is solid and I agree, but there's another plausible way of looking at it. It is implied at the end that Cobb could still be dreaming (we never see if the top stops spinning). If that's the case, then he would likely dream his children to be exactly how he remembers them.

jshy7979

Answer: The story really doesn't imply too heavily exactly how long Cobb has been on the run. Very few clues are given, so it could quite plausibly be less than a year since his wife's death, in which case their children would not have aged dramatically. Their voices on the phone seem compatible with children of the ages shown at the end of the film and Cobb shows no concern when reunited with them that they should be older than they are. Two sets of children are listed in the credits, of different ages.

Tailkinker

Question: I'm not sure if it was just one song or not, but what was the song played that cued the "kick"?

nbafanscw

Chosen answer: Édith Piaf's "Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien".

Tailkinker

Question: What happened to the original timeline to cause such a dramatic change in Marty's mom? In the original timeline, Marty's mom was 'born a nun' as Marty described her to Jennifer. But when Marty goes back to 1955, Lorraine is a drinking, smoking, parking with boys kind of girl. In the original timeline, what would have made it to where Lorraine thinks it's inappropriate for a girl to make advances on a boy? She seems to already be a boy chaser before Marty even gets there.

unicorngoddess

Chosen answer: Actually, nothing happened to the original timeline to change Marty's mom. It's Marty, like many children, who had a rather unrealistic view about what Lorraine was actually like when she was a teenager. He always believed (and was deliberately given the impression) that she was extremely shy and proper, when in fact, she was a boy-crazy flirt, though she apparently changed after falling in love with George. Parents are often evasive regarding their own youthful behavior.

raywest

Question: Where did the Mask get the limo before the scene in Cocoa Bongo?

Answer: Either A: he rented the limo with the stolen money, or B: the limo itself is just another one of The Mask's absurd creations, given it is just so dang long.

Brad

Question: Does Hanzo have the katana with him from the beginning? My brother thinks he picked it up in Nolan's hideout, but I'm pretty sure a Yakuza would know how to conceal a katana, and in any case, it just makes more sense that way. Which of us is right?

Answer: Your brother is correct, he picked it up at Noland's hideout.

GalahadFairlight

Answer: When he found it in Nolen's hideout, he noticed how old the sword was and therefore made the comment about the Predators doing this for a very long time.

lartaker1975

Question: What was the eventual fate of the Earth President? His 'A113' message ends with him muttering about "getting the hell out of here" which would suggest he went on the space liners with the other humans but no further mention is ever made of him.

Answer: He almost certainly boarded the Axiom, and lived out the remainder of his days in luxury.

Phixius

Actually, I think he stayed on earth. In the message, he says Earth is beyond saving, and that everyone should remain in space and not return to earth. He then puts on a gas mask, accepting that Earth is a lost cause. There'd be no need for a gas mask if he was aboard the Axiom. Also, we see the message was sent to the Axiom in 2110. If you look at the date of the 1st captain, it is 2105. So, he stayed on earth to clean up the planet, and after 5 years they deemed it a lost cause and sent that message.

jshy7979

Question: I am confused about a scene near the beginning of the film, when all the SPECTRE agents, among them Largo (Adolfo Celi), are in a secret room being quizzed by the unseen Blofeld (number 1). At one point, an agent named Number 11 is talking about money he and Number 9 (seated to his left) collected. Blofeld says "One of you is guilty of embezzlement." Number 11 has a guilty look on his face, and Number 9 gives him a smug look. It's as if Number 11 is about to be "punished" and he expects it, but suddenly, Number 9 is electrocuted in his chair and dumped beneath the floor. Afterwards, Number 11 is seen wiping his sweaty face. What exactly happened? Were Numbers 11 and 9 in cahoots and Number 9 was the only one that was caught? Did Number 9 set up Number 11 to look guilty and was found out by SPECTRE and punished accordingly? Or did SPECTRE simply make a mistake and kill the wrong guy?

Answer: They're both embezzling. Number 11 expects that he's about to be caught and Number 9 might have tried to pin his own embezzlement on 11, but Number 1 saw through it.

Captain Defenestrator

Question: Why does Doc suddenly change his ideas (about time travel and not learning too much of your own future) in Part 2? In Part 1, he was determined not to learn too much about his own future, despite Marty trying to warn him that his life depended on it. But in Part 2, suddenly it's okay to bring Marty to the future and give him enough information to try to change the course of destiny for his son. Also, wouldn't it have just been easier to warn Marty about the accident he was going to have that caused his life to go so wrong to begin with? One would have to think that if Marty becomes successful and lives out an entirely different life, then maybe his son doesn't turn into such a wimp.

unicorngoddess

Chosen answer: Marty's saving his life with the note made him realize that some events are worth tampering with. He wasn't aware that Marty's entire life had taken a wrong turn, he'd just read that his son goes to prison after the robbery and takes action on that one thing.

Captain Defenestrator

Question: When Captain Marshfield goes to arrest Captain Cummins, he says, "You gave intel to a foreign government" (or something like that). What is Marshfield referring to?

Answer: He gave the Russians EDI's energy signature so they could shoot him down, which is pretty classified information.

Brad

Question: The trivia for this movie says that a cameo of a toy from Toy Story 2 appears during the credits. I did not notice this cameo. What toy was it, and what happens in the scene?

Answer: I believe it is the cameo of Emperor Zurg, who was last seen playing catch with his "son". This is the only character of significance that I noticed in the credits, though knowing Pixar there may well be more.

Craig Thompson

Question: Can someone please tell me why Stark brought strawberries when he visits Pepper in her office? He knows that she is allergic to them and we know that he likes/loves her, but it was a spiteful and mean thing to do. Not to mention insensitive. If he did that just to get the model, couldn't he had done it differently? The whole idea just doesn't make sense to me.

Answer: He wanted to do something nice for her, but since he is a pretty self-absorbed, shallow multi-billionaire, he forgot about her allergy. He remembered that there was SOMETHING about her and strawberries, but misremembered and thought it meant she really liked them. He makes a simple human mistake, not out of meanness or spite, but because he honestly does not remember.

Twotall

Answer: I've only watched this movie once but I think he got the strawberries from the man on the side of the road, and he just didn't want them. The man did just place them on the seat of Tony's car.

He stopped on the side of the road to get the strawberries. The man didn't throw them into his car as he drove by.

lionhead

Question: Right after the Jamaicans kill Ramon Vega and the predator slaughters all of them, Jerry Lambert says, "she (Ramon's girlfriend) never made it". What could she have died of? She was seen walking with Leona Cantrell and didn't seem wounded, and the predator would not have hurt her because she was unarmed. If she were wounded, she would have been checked out by paramedics right away. (00:31:20)

Chosen answer: Jerry means she never made it to the hospital. Keyes' goon squad intercepted the ambulance and snatched her to interrogate her about the Predator.

Grumpy Scot

Question: Is the scene where Will smith recites all the movie dialogue while it is playing in the original Richard Matheson novel, or was it just a homage to The Omega man (where Charlton Heston does something similar)?

Gavin Jackson

Chosen answer: It's an homage to the Omega Man.

Grumpy Scot

Question: According to the president's addresses EVE was part of the Axiom's crew since it first left Earth, meaning that she and WALL-E would have been manufactured around the same time since he was intended to start cleaning the planet up right after humanity evacuated. Why then do the two have such a major difference in their looks and technological standards if they were both intended for roughly the same behind the scenes purpose (at least in terms of wandering around wastelands and looking through trash)?

Answer: A few reasons, I guess. The Wall-E units were designed for constant, robust use (picking up and compacting garbage, then moving the garbage around), so they're going to be bulkier and have no bells and whistles. The EVE units are designed for relatively little usage (they check out a planet every now and then, and there are multiple units so each one isn't likely to get much use), so they can afford to be more techy. The Wall-E units were designed to work in a huge army to clean up earth, so they needed to be low cost (which often coincides with lower-tech), whereas the Eve units were relatively few, but important, so more money could be spent on each unit. Also the Eve units would be on the ships where the humans are, and likely to be seen by many people, so they had to look nice for them. The Wall-E units would be working unseen, so they can look ugly. It's basically the same reason why a harbour tug and a speedboat are so different in terms of aesthetics and technology, even though they're both made for powering through water.

Gary O'Reilly

Question: Okay, so help me out here. When someone still plugged into the Matrix dies from say, cancer or is hit by a car, does that mean the real world counterpart of that person has been completely drained of energy by the machines? When a human has served its purpose to the machines, do they alter the Matrix to make that person die? I'm very curious to know how how death works in the Matrix.

Brad

Chosen answer: Insofar as can be told from what little we know, the human body will continue to produce energy indefinitely, at least until it dies of old age or from some other cause - there appears to be no precedent for an individual to be fully drained by the machines. If an individual dies in some abnormal manner within the Matrix, such as a car crash, their body will die on the outside and will have to be disposed of. Otherwise, their body will presumably age normally until they expire of natural causes. As for how cancer might operate, we have no information. To theorise, as the digital body represents the actual body with reasonable accuracy, should an individual plugged into the Matrix develop cancer in their real body, then it's a plausible hypothesis that their digital self will demonstrate the same symptoms - the real and virtual afflictions will proceed at the same rate and the digital self will expire when the real body passes away.

Tailkinker

Question: How come Tony doesn't die when Pepper hits the button that blows up the roof? He never cleared the roof as intended and it must have been really powerful if it killed Obediah. Tony's chest piece flickers on and off and then the scene fades. They never give an explanation for this.

Answer: Tony, even wearing the Iron Man armour, is light enough that the shockwave of the blast throws him out of the way, so he escapes the majority of the explosion's effects. Stane, in his much heavier suit, isn't so lucky and so gets the full impact, which kills him. The flickering of the chest piece is merely a device to show that Tony is still in one piece, even if injured.

Tailkinker

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.