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: Is there ever indication as to how and why the three filmmakers are killed?

MovieBuff09

Chosen answer: It is implied that Josh is murdered by someone (or thing) in the woods, and since the legend says that one child would face into the corner while the other was killed, we can assume that is how Heather met her end, and finally, since the child looking into the corner was killed afterwards, we can assume that is how Mike was killed.

Answer: Bludgeoned to death with a heavy object or strangled. Because they were trespassing.

Alan Keddie

Question: Jack's buddy, the lawyer, had come up with the plan that Jack would black-mail Joy into signing the "contract", saying that if she didn't - then Jack would tell everybody at the retreat the truth about them. However, he never gave her the option to sign it, he actually never even showed it to her but went right up on stage, planning to tell the crowd the truth. Can someone explain the logic in that?

Answer: He didn't actually want to show her the contract because he was falling for her and didn't want to hurt her, but his friend was putting pressure on him, so he went to go on stage because of the pressure, and decided to resist.

Question: Why does Kevin scream when he slaps the aftershave on his face? He didn't shave so he doesn't have any cuts, so it wouldn't burn at all.

Carl Missouri

Chosen answer: Kevin did shave his face. His skin is sensitive from his first shave so the alcohol in the aftershave makes his face sting. Hence, the screaming.

Shannon Jackson

Answer: The high alcohol content could hurt/sting a very sensitive (such as a kid's) skin even without cuts or abrasions.

Show generally

Question: I remember an episode where Moe picked up a hitchhiker in his car, then asked the man if he had seen some movie. When the man said no, Moe told him something like "Then this will all be new to you" and then drove down a scary-looking road. Does anyone know what part of what movie he was referring to?

Answer: He's referring to Misery, a book/film where a writer gets injured and then kidnapped by a rather overzealous fan.

Gary O'Reilly

Question: Hammond gets Grant and Satler to go to Jurassic Park by saying he will fully fund their dig for 3 years. Since Grant says he isn't going to endorse the park, does he still get the grant money? In other words, was the grant dependent on Grant and Satler visiting the park, or on their endorsement?

zephalis

Chosen answer: Hammond's proposal appears to be that Grant only had to visit the park and render an honest opinion about it, although Hammond is confident Grant will endorse it. It was never actually revealed whether or not Hammond continued funding Grant after his refusal to endorse the park (which was sarcasm). However, since Hammond agreed with him, it seems likely he would probably fund Grant's dig in appreciation for everything Grant did (saving his grandchildren) and also to compensate Grant for nearly getting him killed.

raywest

Question: At what point does Will actually realise that Thomas Kent is really Viola?

rachypoos

Chosen answer: When they are in the boat, just after "Thomas Kent" delivered Viola's farewell letter to Shakespeare. After a brief discussion about Will's feeling's for Viola, Thomas (Viola) kisses a surprised Will Shakespeare, then rushes away when the boat docks. The ferryman comments to Will that it was actually Lady Viola.

raywest

Question: I have wondered this for ages. Laurie went over to the Wallace house because she thought they were all playing a prank on her. So when she found the bodies in the bedroom, why did she never assume that this could all just be a practical joke set-up? How did she know straight away that it was the real thing?

Gavin Jackson

Chosen answer: Because it was too graphic and elaborate for her to think it might be a prank. Not to mention that there was probably a very distinctive smell to the room.

JC Fernandez

Question: The Phantom refers to himself as Christine's "angel of music" in the song called "The Mirror". How did he know that Christine thought her father would send her an angel? Did he know her father?

Answer: As shown in the movie, Christine has spent time praying in the chapel as a child. It would not be unexpected for a child of such a young age to literally speak to her dead father in such situations, mentioning his promise in the process, thus allowing the Phantom to hear about it. In the book, though, it is understood that Mr. Daaé and the Phantom knew each other. By sending his daughter to the Opéra populaire after his death, he might have wanted the Phantom to look over her.

Sereenie

Show generally

Question: I'm really confused about Jason Earles' age. IMDB and Wikipedia say he's 32, but his resume and the Houston Chronicle say he is 19. So where are people getting the information he's 32? Has Jason Earles actually stated his age somewhere? Help me out here, please.

Answer: Many actors and actresses tend to be quite secretive about their ages, probably to try to fend off being automatically dismissed for possible roles as too old or too young or even just because they consider it to be nobody's business but their own. Earles appears to be one of these; as a result, reports regarding his age tend to conflict. However, as a rule, public records can generally be accessed to give a reasonable idea of their true age. He is, for example, listed as an alumni of Rocky Mountain College, from which he graduated in 2000, unless he graduated at the age of ten, that rules out the idea that he's only nineteen, realistically putting his age at at least thirty years old. A name search engine on the internet turns up a Jason D Earles who lived in Billing, Montana, near the college in the right time period, with a listed birth date of April 1977 - an individual with the same name and birth date also has a listing for California, where the actor currently lives. Other information available online also tends to point to a likely birth year of 1977. While Earles and his agent have every right to fudge his age as it appears on his resume for professional purposes, most of the verifiable information suggests that he is indeed currently 32.

Tailkinker

Question: I hope I'm not missing anything, but why do the machines allow Zion to be rebuilt each time the Matrix is renewed, the code returns to the source, etc. etc. and everything basically starts over? If people can consciously free themselves from The Matrix, fair enough, but wouldn't it just be easier for the machines to detach them, de-tank them and dunk them like they did to Neo? Otherwise they are in effect, re-creating their own enemies over and over again.

diesel123

Chosen answer: The machines use the humans as power so it stands to reason that they would want to hold onto as many humans as possible (even defective/inefficient ones). The Architect, in his enormous speech in Reloaded, states that the Zion "solution" was an acceptable (from the machine point-of-view) way of dealing with people who rejected the Matrix (less than 1% of the total pod-people population). Those freed would then free others who also reject the matrix (this is desirable for the machines as the disbelief could spread and result in more rejecting the matrix resulting in "crashes"). Once the Zion population gets too big the machines eradicate it and start again. So, yes, the machines are creating their own enemies, but strictly on their terms as part of the plan to keep the matrix going.

Sanguis

Question: Why was only one Agent sent after all the Smiths when the woman saw them all in the burly brawl? Couldn't the Matrix itself have turned as many humans as it needed into Agents and outnumbered the rogue Smiths? Or did they interpret one Agent being beaten by a Smith as meaning they would never win against him?

diesel123

Chosen answer: The Matrix only became aware of Smith after the one woman saw the fight, the woman was converted into an Agent and Smith then infected them. Other people nearby would also have been converted into Agents, but this occurred off-camera, as did Smith then infecting these people, the large influx of Smiths that occurs towards the end of the fight are the people who turn into Agents who then get infected by Smith.

Sanguis

Question: Why was the commander of Nest not allowed to see Optimus during the video conference? He was high enough in rank and security clearance to be entrusted with seeing Prime for himself, wasn't he?

Answer: Not exactly. Even the highest level of clearance can still bar people from something if it's considered very important. It was a decision made by the leader of the operation, and whatever he says goes, even if there is someone higher in authority than him.

Knever

Question: Why does AMEE prolong the death of the crew? Why not kill them all the minute they try and remove her power source?

Socks1000

Chosen answer: At first, she's assessing the threat level. After she determines them to be a threat, she then decides how to eliminate them. She decides on guerilla warfare because she can fare better in the environment than humans can. She was damaged, so if she tried to attack them all at the same time, she would likely lose the battle.

Knever

Question: In the movie, AMEE is shown to have various settings, such as 'Navigaton' and 'Military'. It is also stated that AMEE is on loan from the marines. My question is, before giving her to the crew of Mars-1, why didn't the marines remove the the military part of her programming? What possible use could it have been to the crew?

Socks1000

Chosen answer: It was disabled. The part of her program that was in effect was merely the survival instinct, given to it so it could protect itself.

Knever

Question: What exactly are those little bug things on Mars and how do they produce oxygen?

Socks1000

Chosen answer: They aren't given a name. They act like plants, except instead of absorbing carbon dioxide and expelling it as oxygen, they eat plants and release oxygen from their bodies. It's probably more effective than using plants since they weren't expecting to be able to breathe on the surface.

Knever

Question: This applies to both Revolutions and the first Matrix film really - why do the machines have no security around the Matrix itself? In the first film, Morpheus and co. are able to fly near enough to extract Neo once he's been de-tanked, and in Revolutions Neo and Trinity fly right by it - do the machines not think Zion might ever try and disable their main/only source of power, thus beating them once and for all?

diesel123

Chosen answer: The vast majority of the machines live in one central "Machine City" which we see in this movie and is located somewhere in the middle east (The Animatrix:The Second Renaissance), the huge towers we see Neo in when he is first freed are scattered around the earth built on the remnants of the human mega-cities (New York/London/Tokyo/etc). This means that a) they are very very big and b) they are very spread out. The tower/cities are protected by Sentinel patrols (and possibly other defences) and the amount of damage one lone Zion ship can cause is insignificant at best and it's implied that the machines have control over the creation of new humans, so any pod-people lost could quickly be "manufactured" and replaced.

Sanguis

Question: In the scene where the hypertime QT agents are in Zak's house, one of them gets sprayed with liquid nitrogen, bringing him down to normal time. But, if he is in normal time, wouldn't Zak's mom and sister see him? Don't you think they would call the police after seeing a stranger in their house?

Brad

Chosen answer: Probably, but it's not essential to the plot so there's no reason to show it.

Knever

Answer: These are top agent like figures who likely don't want many people knowing what's going on. Those still in hypertime probably carried the normal-time agent out of the building before Zak's mom found him.

Question: Since Marty's actions led to him not existing, shouldn't no Marty mean that there would have been no Marty to get hit by the car in the first place, meaning that Marty would have just reappeared when he ceased to exist?

Answer: The simple answer is NO. According to the time travel rules established in the films, alternate realities are created when changes are made to the past. Marty continues to exist as long as there's the possibility that he exists in 1985. Small changes don't affect him. Marty only begins to disappear after the past has been altered so significantly that he would *never* exist in the present. But at the time he gets hit by the car, Marty hadn't impacted the timeline enough to assure his non-existence.

JC Fernandez

Answer: Technically, yes. He would still have one wish left. After being knocked out, Genie asks Aladdin if he wishes for his life to be saved. After grabbing Aladdin, his head drops down, which Genie takes as a yes, However, since Aladdin was unconscious the whole time, he never actually confirmed the wish. Genie only assumed he did. Also, since Aladdin was out cold, he could once again make a case that he never wished for his life to be saved since he wasn't awake to make it.

Chosen answer: Under the rules that the genie lives by, he can only use his abilities to grant three wishes per person. He's already technically broken those rules once, when he helped Aladdin escape from the cave, despite Aladdin not actually wishing for it, but that wasn't an intentional violation; it can be considered a mistake on the genie's part, a misunderstanding of what Aladdin actually said. As he said after that incident, he can't give Aladdin any more freebies; while he can stretch the rules a bit, he can't consciously break them again by using his power on another non-wish, even to save a life. The genie's taking Aladdin's unconscious "nod" as affirmation that he agrees to use his second wish to be rescued from drowning. By the rules that govern the genie's existence, even though Aladdin didn't actually say it, it has to count as one of his wishes.

Tailkinker

Question: Does anyone know if makeup/cosmetics or other beauty practices, such as women plucking eyebrows and facial hair, existed during this time period? I know that this is just a movie and the actresses are supposed to look attractive, but I'm curious if it would have really been around back then.

Answer: For Dark Age beauty hints look at the website of historical novelist Octavia Randolph, on https://octavia.net/ Your question is brilliantly answered in the section https://octavia.net/early-cosmetics/ The Pre-Christian Anglo-Saxons and Vikings were buried with grave goods, items they used in everyday life. Archaeologists often uncover burials of men and women who were buried with elaborately carved combs for hair care, tweezers for plucking out surplus hair, ear scoops and small wash basins. There is good evidence that people processed herbs and flowers as cosmetics and make-up.

Rob Halliday

Answer: The historical sources from the time in question are scant - it's not called "the dark age" for nothing. Having said that, beauty practices like plucking eyebrows and make-up have existed since ancient times. We can safely assume that there were certain ideals of beauty, and ladies of all times strove to meet them. These ideals have changed frequently over the times, so plucked eyebrows may or may not have been the fashion in early medieaval Britain.

Ioreth

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.