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: How could Richie get the gypsy's dogs to eat the strychnine laced food? Shouldn't the dogs have been able to smell it?

Answer: I believe strychnine is odorless, so a dog would not be able to smell it. At the same time, it apparently has a bitter taste, which would question why a dog would ingest it - but some dogs tend to "swallow" or gulp food without chewing it, so may not notice the strychnine's bitter taste.

KeyZOid

Answer: That doesn't mean the dog wouldn't eat it. Some dogs will eat almost anything, often voraciously, and it is not unusual for dogs to be poisoned in this manner.

raywest

Question: Does the number of wrist-blades matter on a predator?

Answer: A couple weeks ago, I ran into a YouTube video about wrist blades and, although this may not fully answer your question, I remember that the twin blades could be expanded outward to enable the predator to capture prey between the blades without actually harming the prey (for whatever reason). Twin blades were considered "typical." I suspected that the higher number of blades, the more experienced the predator was, but the video pointed out that "Super Predators" prefer a single longer blade.

KeyZOid

Question: Why did Chuck stand up and then spend ages looking at the part of the toilet that had washed up?

Answer: By that time, Chuck had been on the island for four years and was becoming somewhat mentally unstable. When he first sees the toilet wall section washed up against the rocks, he approaches defensively, spear in hand, as if it's something dangerous. He seems to snap back to reality and gradually surmises it is not only benign, but potentially useful. His mind then begins working out he can adapt it as a sail to escape the island.

raywest

Answer: He couldn't believe it, of all the things to wash ashore it was a toilet. So far everything else he found could be used in a certain way, but a toilet. I didn't see the movie at the theaters but I bet the audiences were roaring with laughter.

I saw it in the theater and no-one laughed...it wasn't funny. Chuck is seeing the first man-made object he's seen in years, and he's stunned...and maybe he's getting the idea of using it as a sail.

Brian Katcher

It wasn't the actual toilet. It was just the partial wall section of the plastic enclosure for an outdoor portable toilet.

raywest

Question: Why did Jennifer Jones (actress who played Lisolette) quit acting after appearing in this movie?

Answer: It had nothing to do with the film, and she was already mostly retired anyway, having not appeared in a film since 1969 and in only three throughout the 1960s. However, what probably led to her permanent retirement came in 1976 when her daughter died by suicide; after this, Jones-a survivor of a suicide attempt herself-devoted her life to mental health causes, founding the Jennifer Jones Simon Foundation For Mental Health and Education and working to remove the stigma surrounding mental health.

Answer: No, you didn't miss anything. The writers never say who got tenure. (Although, as a side note, the entire process of getting tenure for the characters is entirely wrong in real life and none of them would have got it).

Bishop73

Question: What was the point of temporarily shutting down every electrical system in the command module?

Answer: To save the re-entry batteries.

David George

Question: In a deleted scene at the beginning before the meeting, leader Cleon tells the gang that the Warriors are a street gang of over 100 members, counting affiliates. Why at the end of the movie when they were running from Luther and the Rogues, they're on their turf, why wouldn't they have used a pay phone to call back up or at least lure the Rogues to their gang house where other members would be able to run them off or hold them in custody until the Riffs could get them?

Answer: Because it would have lessened the impact of the large number of Riffs showing up at the end.

Answer: Based on this exchange, one can also question why the Warriors didn't call for help at any point that night. One phone call saying, "meet us at..." would have brought members running and ended their ordeal. Thoughts?

Yes you're right but you gotta remember they were stuck in the Bronx far away from their turf in Coney Island, so the likelihood of them calling back home for backup when they could have been anywhere at anytime in the Bronx fleeing from rival gangs would not have been possible.

Answer: You answered your own question when you said "deleted scene." With that information cut out of the movie, it wouldn't have made sense to the viewer that the Warriors suddenly have a large number of members at the end.

Answer: Kinski suffered from mental illness for most of his life. He was given to bouts of unprovoked outbursts and violence. He was eventually diagnosed with psychopathy (antisocial personality disorder). On movie sets, he was notorious for being physically and verbally abusive to the crew, who generally hated him. The sword incident was just one of many. On the production of this film, director Werner Herzog carried a gun on him in the event he had to protect himself or others. It was only because Herzog was a long-time friend that he hired Kinski for acting jobs. Kinski was flat-out crazy. He was eventually unable to get any work as an actor.

raywest

Agreed. I forget what film set it was but Kinski also once fired a rifle at a bunch of crew members and blew a guy's finger off. He was unstable.

Jack Vaughan

It was also Aguirre, The Wrath Of God. Kinski was irritated by the noises from a hut where cast and crew were playing cards and, out of anger, repeatedly fired a Winchester rifle into it. One of the bullets took the tip of an unknown extra's finger off.

Show generally

Question: What was the episode where Rebecca and Michelle learn that Jesse's real name is Hermes?

Answer: S05e06, "The Legend of Ranger Joe." DJ calls Jesse's mom and she told her his real name.

Bishop73

Question: After Jason ripped off Freddy's arm, why didn't Freddy simply regenerate his limb? He regenerated both of his arms during their first fight.

Answer: Freddy was able to do that only because his powers work in the dream world, not in the real world.

Rob245

Question: During the shaving the heads scene at the start of the film, I've spotted Pyle, Joker, and Cowboy with their heads getting shaved, but not Snowball. Which one is Snowball in the scene?

Answer: Snowball doesn't appear in the sequence.

Question: How is it that when Ackers falls in the large body of water (assumingly boiling) in the funnel, he dies - yet Mr. Rogo jumping in to try to help is submerged for many seconds underwater and then climbs out alive and overall, not burned?

Answer: Because he doesn't boil, there's no suggestion that the water is that hot. After Ackers falls in, and while Rogo tries to save him, there are two large explosions in the shaft; we can presume that, while Rogo was able to escape, Ackers was injured/trapped/otherwise incapacitated below the surface, and drowned.

Question: Didn't the little girl who saw Ironhide out of the pool report what she saw to her parents or anybody?

Trainman

Answer: Thieves, vandals, drunk teens take your pick. They would believe any of that, before they'd believe a giant alien robot.

Answer: It's unknown if she did but if she had, being a little girl, her parents or other people would have either thought of it as being nothing more than a child's playful imagination, or her just having a strange dream.

What about the damages to the pool and the property?

Trainman

Question: Why is there someone (looks like a policeman) lying in the road when Jeff's girlfriend, Diane, vanishes from the service station? (00:22:00 - 00:24:00)

Answer: He is a crew member lying in the road directly behind the brown G.R.S. Dye Works semi-truck (presumably trying to remain hidden from the camera's view), and we even see his right hand waving off the traffic ahead of him (00:22:05).

Question: What was the point of Jack going to NY? What did he actually achieve? They would have sent helicopters to look for survivors anyway...?

Answer: He was a father searching for his only son. What parent wouldn't do that. Besides, the government decided to evacuate all the southwest of the country, leaving the others to fend for themselves. Like the General said, in the conference room, as in war, we save only the ones we can save. When the cold burst hit everywhere, it was assumed everyone else in the country died. It was only after survivors were found in New York that they discovered all the others.

Question: I read somewhere that Rooney Mara almost quit acting after starring in this movie. Is this true? And what was the reason for her to consider quitting acting?

Answer: She has confirmed this is very true - she did almost quit acting after making this movie. While she didn't come right out and say it, she basically heavily hinted that she thought the movie was absolutely awful (which I'll admit I agree with), and she found it disheartening and discouraging since she was mostly getting offers for other similar low-quality films. She's even flat-out said she didn't want to make this movie... she just took it to have a job. But after doing it, she realised she didn't want to just keep doing a bunch of bad movies, so she contemplated quitting acting altogether. Then she got the script for "The Social Network," and it reinvigorated her spirit and made her decide not to quit.

TedStixon

Question: Why did Shanti lure Mowgli into the village at the end? What was her reason for doing so?

Answer: She was a young girl who was instantly smitten by Mowgli (and he with her) and encouraged him to come into the village, hoping he'd stay. It shows that Mowgli has made the decision to live with humans.

raywest

Question: When Hopper asks the men in the boat if there are any hotels nearby, they say "Walk straight ahead" and Hooper's response to that was to laugh and say "They're all gonna die" - Why were the men going to die exactly?

Answer: The entire town went into a frenzy after Mrs. Kintner offered a reward to kill the shark. People who knew nothing about boats or seamanship were heading out on the ocean, armed with shotguns and explosives. When Sheriff Brody saw that the men were dangerously overloading the small outboard boat, he asked Hooper to warn them, which he did. The men ignored Hooper, then made the sarcastic remark about him walking straight ahead, which would lead Hooper off the end of the pier. They were idiots who Hooper believes will probably drown or blow themselves up.

raywest

Question: What happened to Jack's friend? I think his name was Fabrizio or something I know that at one point he falls into the water but what happened to him after? Did he die?

Answer: Yes. As we see the funnel collapse into the water we see a shot of Fabrizio swimming and then turning onto his back just as the funnel comes down and lands on him.

Ssiscool

Question: Why did Freddy create only one glove for his right hand instead of both?

Answer: He would have been completely helpless with knives on all his fingers, unable do anything other than slash. How would he even strap on a second knife glove?

Brian Katcher

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