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: Why not? There's no reason why an actor couldn't play his own father at the same age - indeed, it can serve to emphasise a family resemblence between father and son. It can also serve as a swift way of letting the audience know that this is the father, rather than having a different actor come in and have to have the relationship established through dialogue.

Tailkinker

Show generally

Question: When they settle on New Caprica, is (roughly) 49,000 people sufficiently genetically diverse enough to ensure survival or would the colony start to run into trouble after a few generations?

Sanguis

Chosen answer: 100 breeding couples would be plenty with genetic screening, which Colonial tech seems easily capable of. 50,000 would be more than sufficient even with old-fashioned random pairings.

Grumpy Scot

Question: Where do the staff and crew of Jurassic Park go after the dinosaurs escape? I mean you see a staff member tending to the triceratops, there were many scientists in the dinosaur lab, and would assume that there would be many more people on the island but they are nowhere to be seen after the dinosaurs escape.

mitch_ando9

Chosen answer: They all left on the same boat Nedry was trying to get on with the embryos. You can hear Samuel L Jackson's character announce that the boat will be leaving at a specific time and everyone had to be there or be left behind.

Shannon Jackson

Question: During the curfew, if a human was seen acting dangerously, an NS5 would approach them and grab them by the neck saying "You have been deemed hazardous, will you comply?" This happened to Spooner and Farber. What would the outcome be if one did comply? What would the NS5 do?

Answer: Politely but firmly escort them to an area deemed suitable for temporarily holding "hazardous" individuals. Or, amusingly, compliance would perhaps convince the NS5 that they were no longer a hazard and leave them free to go.

Phixius

Question: When the Joker and Vicky are going up the cathedral, Vicky trips and loses her left shoe; the Joker kisses it and throws it over the railing. When they reach the top both her shoes are gone and she's barefoot. Where did her right shoe go?

curiouskid

Chosen answer: It's quite hard to walk properly with only one shoe on and the stairs they're climbing are not the most even surfaces in the world. It would make sense that she simply kicked the other one off so that she could walk evenly rather than risk tripping again.

Tailkinker

Nightmares and Daydreams - S3-E9

Question: In Aang's first dream, his hair, dress, and movements are supposed to resemble Naruto. In his second dream, he's looks like Vash from Trigun. However in the last dream (the one where Aang tells the Firelord that he is the one without pants), I can't quite place who he's supposed to look like. Any help?

Answer: Aang is meant to resemble Goku from Dragon Ball Z in the first nightmare. Though Naruto's and Goku's outfits are very similar, the hair is the clue here. In the final dream, Aang is a caricature of Jin from Samurai Champloo.

Phixius

Question: Did Patrick Stewart physically perform for this film as Charles Xavier, or was the scene with him either computer-generated or shot with a look-alike?

Answer: Yes, that was Patrick Stewart, digitally de-aged in post-production to look younger than he does in the later-set X-Men films.

Tailkinker

Question: Did Kim tell Edward she loved him, because she really did love him, or did she just feel sorry for him, and make him feel loved?

Answer: She really loved him.

Phixius

Question: Was Vanessa a fembot all along? Or did they get a robot that looked like her?

Answer: There is one theory that is that Vanessa is converted or replaced before we see her being brought into the room by Alotta Fagina.

Oliver Baum

Answer: Supposedly, Austin never met the real Vanessa. She'd been replaced by a fembot before we were ever introduced to the character. "Vanessa" obviously exists within the film, else her mother wouldn't know who'd called her.

Phixius

Question: Exactly what happened at the end? I didn't get it. She stabbed herself and then commits her dad. What did it mean?

Answer: Molly attempts to commit suicide to avoid having to join the Devil. Unfortunately for her, the clock strikes midnight before she can kill herself, and thus, having reached her 18th birthday, her soul now belongs to the Devil, who preserves her life. Molly, now one of the Devil's minions, has her father committed to the asylum, presumably having framed her father for her self-inflicted injuries, leaving her free to continue her life working for her new master.

Tailkinker

Question: When the Death Race is being aired, it describes it as having 100 different angles, including angles from inside the driver's car, but Jason Statham's character, imitating Frankenstein, has his masks off, and doesn't have a face "ruined by crashes so he has to wear a mask". Surely if anyone viewed this angle, they could see it wasn't really Frankenstein at all?

JonTheRandom

Chosen answer: The cameras INSIDE the car are facing out. So that the viewers see what Jenson and Case see, not looking at Case and Jenson.

Ssiscool

Question: I'm a little confused as to the reason why Esther wore dentures. Obviously she had to conceal her bad teeth to A) have a better chance of getting adopted and B) try to seduce the men in the families she lived with. But why didn't she just let someone in one of the orphanages see her real teeth and take her to a dentist/orthodontist? Seems a lot easier than having to wear dentures all the time, not to mention always being worried about someone discovering them.

Answer: Also, the dentist would have realised her age.

Answer: Esther wanted to look like a young child who still had her baby teeth. Tooth size is not linked to pituitary hormones so her normal sized adult teeth would make people wonder about her age.

Myridon

Ester's real teeth were baby teeth; people with hypopituitarism retain their baby teeth well into their 40s. She did not wear dentures, she wore veneers to make it look like she had adult teeth like a normal nine-year old, Shirley Temple wore them to hide her braces they are purely cosmetic and not designed for eating which explains why Ester ate funny and didn't want to go to the dentist. She probably murdered the dentist that made them for her in some horrible way.

Question: In the legend of Cibola, the ship landed in Florida. Why did they show him the City of Gold in South Dakota? In those days for an entire group of people to travel that far (on foot) would have been deadly.

nala98036

Chosen answer: You (or the movie) have your legends confused. Cibola was supposed to be somewhere north of New Spain (now Mexico). The Spanish conquistadors explored much of the southwest looking for it. Coronado travelled from central Mexico all the way to the northwest of Kansas and back (without dying!) looking for Cibola and Quivera.

Myridon

They mention he wrecked off Florida but when they find the city it's under Mt. Rushmore which is in south Dakota.

Answer: No, although shortly after the event, there was a "I *heart* NY" seen written on the small message board that hangs on Joey and Chandler's front door. A small tribute, no doubt. Also, during the end-credits of the 2001 Season Eight episode, 'The One After "I Do"' there is a dedication to the people of New York. Joey wears an FDNY shirt as well.

raywest

Answer: They actually had to re-shoot the episode following 9/11. Chandler had made a joke about a bomb on a plane while in the airport during the honeymoon episode, so they changed that subplot.

Chosen answer: Nothing has been said and no indications are given as to what is in the cooler.

Ssiscool

Question: When Shrek and Donkey are lost in the woods, one of them says something about passing a bush that looks like Shirley Bassey. Who is she?

Answer: Welsh-born internationally famous singer, who started her career back in the fifties and is still singing today. Probably most famous for her involvement with three different James Bond movies, having performed the theme songs for Goldfinger, Diamonds Are Forever and Moonraker. For further information, try her Wikipedia article.

Tailkinker

Answer: A Black Bush whiskey is also known as a Shirley Bassey.

Shirley Bassey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirley_Bassey What I find most interesting is the animated and nicknamed shrub was inspired by a real bush! Link to pic here: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?FBId=6491477774216765&set=a.6491486730882536 They stopped to sketch my larger than life topiary lady (A Personable Hello in Ligustrum sp.) on a main route to the lake one fine summer day. She used to be part of an overgrown hedgerow and was salvaged from a driveway widening project.

Question: Morpheus says the "one" was born inside the matrix in film 1. What happens if you're born there? This seems like a flaw in the matrix. How can millions of people live in it for hundreds of years and not reproduce? The matrix is their mind world; if they reproduce there, does the mother get pregnant and have her baby in the real world even though she has no idea she's there? How can you be born inside the matrix? I don't understand.

modrique02

Chosen answer: None of the people jacked into the Matrix actually get pregnant. It's likely their bodies experience some of the "symptoms" of pregnancy. That's a real world phenomenon: a woman who sincerely thinks she is pregnant, or very strongly wishes to be pregnant, will start producing the same hormones and undergo the physical changes involved with pregnancy, up to a point. When someone becomes pregnant within the Matrix, another artifically grown human baby is jacked in and "assigned" to be their baby. The original "One" who was born inside the Matrix was like Sati in Matrix: Revolutions. The result of two programs, which were written outside the Matrix and then inserted into it, using bits of their own code to create an entirely new program within the Matrix. This individual had unique powers, having been "born" inside the Matrix rather than inserted into it, and woke up the first humans. The cycle perpetuated from there.

Phixius

I wondered about this too now I watched it again. Aren't the babies supposed to be actual offspring? I mean that's the poit of the fields of humans batteries, to make more and more right? But in order to do that they'd have to taken semen from the right man and artificially inseminate the right woman and then take the baby away and grow it seperately. But that would mean the baby growing inside the woman's belly in the matrix isn't real, so when does it become real? Do they simulate the birth too and then replace the fake baby with the jacked in baby that was grown seperately? That would make you wonder about many things. Or me in any case. It's a problem with that system.

lionhead

Question: I can't remember which film it is (I think it's the second one but I'm not sure). In the film there is a scene where Gollum and Smeagol are fighting and Smeagol tells Gollum to go away. Gollum calls Smeagol a murderer and Smeagol looks ashamed and says something. Gollum laughs and says "Go away" patronisingly. I assume it's "Go away," but it always sounds to me like "You win." Is it "you win" or "go away"?

Answer: It's quiet and a little muffled, but he does say "Go away".

Tailkinker

Answer: No, it's not. Tenacious D is just a duo, with Black and his friend Kyle Gass. If you want to watch them in action, you can see them in Tenacious D: The Pick of Destiny.

Cubs Fan

Question: Did Hannibal like Clarice? The perfume in the letter, the fact that he saved her, and cut off his own arm. He could have easily killed her. What was it about her that he liked, or respected?

Answer: There are many factors here, and his feelings for Clarice are complicated. He's attracted to her in a physical male/female way, and probably loved her as much as he was capable, but, as seen in the first film (and book), it is also her unpretentious innocence, honesty, and vulnerability that drew him to her, causing him to be protective. She is the "lamb" who never inflicts harm on anyone, nor does she ever pretend to be anybody other than who she is. Hannibal's victims lacked those characteristics, and he felt no inhumanity or remorse whatsoever when he killed them.

raywest

That ending was a movie ending. The book is different and at the end they are seen together at an opera by Barney.

Answer: They actually became lovers in the book. So yes, he loved her.

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