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: What did the Jackal put on the rear handle of his van that caused such a severe and swift reaction on contact?

Answer: It's a shellfish poison that goes straight into the bloodstream and attacks the respiratory system (as stated on the director's commentary).

Jason Riley

Answer: It's a question of appearance. Sidious needs to discredit the Jedi, make it appear as if they've turned against the Republic so that he can use their clone troops to eliminate them without major public outcry. He can't let the Seperatists take them out; it would have the potential effect of making them martyrs, plus it would effectively mean letting the Seperatists win the war, which would jeopardise his political position. Tyranus's public persona is the leader of the Seperatist movement, so he could hardly be used to lead the clone troops; the public would never accept a supposed change of heart of that nature. Nor could Tyranus simply eliminate the Jedi himself - he's powerful, but not powerful enough to single-handedly take them all out. Sidious ultimately needs an apprentice who can be seen to be loyal and who can lead the clone troops to eliminate the Jedi without awkward questions about said loyalty. Either way, Tyranus is out of the question; with Sidious' plan coming to fruition, Tyranus is no longer useful to him, except in that his death can be used to bring his successor closer to the Dark Side. Anakin, who fits the required role perfectly, is the one that Sidious has really been waiting for to help him finish the job.

Tailkinker

Question: Why do Darth Sidious and Nute Gunray care about getting the queen's signature on the treaty? Nute already allowed the Trade Federation to be on the planet illegally, so why doesn't the Federation just continue their occupation whether the treaty gets signed or not?

Answer: They can continue their occupation, but, without compliance from the elected head of state of Naboo, that occupation is illegal, and thus could face opposition from the Senate, leading to potential sanctions, up to and potentially including a military response to remove them. With Amidala's signature on the treaty, bringing Naboo into the Trade Federation properly, their occupation of the planet becomes entirely legal, allowing them to continue unhindered by Senate sanctions.

Tailkinker

Question: How did Larry find out that "Dakota" was the word for making the horses stop the carriage?

Answer: He looked the information up at some point during the montage that showed him doing all the historical research.

Phixius

Is it actually shown on the website he looks at on screen or just implied?

Question: When the woman at the employment agency tells Larry about the job, she says that everyone who has been sent to the museum has been turned down for the position. If the old night guards just wanted to steal things from the museum, couldn't they have just given anyone the job and the instruction book?

Answer: They were looking for someone who would be willing to KEEP the job after finding out that everything comes to life at night. All the other applicants freaked out and quit after the first night, just as Larry would have if not for his son.

Question: What is the significance of Rae repeating what Lazarus's ex wife said at the beginning of the film, "See if I give a s**t about all you people"? Is this to suggest that the two met or what? I don't get it. Could someone explain it to me?

Answer: No, it's just a phrase they both blurt out when they are angry. However, for the audience watching (us), it foreshadows the similarities between Rae's and Lazarus' lives that makes them connect so well.

Twotall

Answer: It looks like a T-mobile Sidekick II.

Sierra1

Question: Is is true that Mace Windu's lightsaber has the letters BMF on it somewhere?

Answer: Reportedly so, yes; the prop department replaced the activation plate stud with a small plate with these letters on it, in reference to Jackson's Pulp Fiction character. Sadly, the authorised replicas available do not include that particular feature.

Tailkinker

Question: Didn't anyone notice Maggie, Lisa, Bart and Marge jump from the treehouse to the sandbox portal without anyone from the very large mob noticing? It seemed like nobody noticed until Homer jumped in and got stuck initially. Everyone in the mob were around the sandbox, how come no one noticed the other four Simpsons jump?

Answer: The tree kept bending down over the sandpit, so maybe the mob didn't see them jump in. Also, they were pretty much just after Homer anyway, so maybe they didn't care if the rest of the family got away.

Sierra1

Boring - S1-E3

Question: What is it exactly that Rik reads from the paper? The thing that Neil repeats that brings the little devil to them? I'm assuming it's a poorly pronounced version of something that was in the papers at that time, but I can't think of anything that fits it.

Gary O'Reilly

Chosen answer: It wasn't referring to anything real, just that the government's bureaucratic naming, The Guardian's mangled spelling or Rick's bad pronounciation resulted in the unlikely word "Footumch" being spoken.

Sierra1

Question: So did Frau convert to lesbianism through the time after being straight with Dr. Evil?

Answer: It appears so since she was with Dr. Evil in 1969 and was with Unibrow (the female golfer) in the present time. She does say (after the time with Dr. Evil), that she would never love another man again - to which he replies - "That's right", referring, of course, to her future sexual preferences.

Zwn Annwn

Answer: It is supposed to be part of the steering column. It was actually put there for comic relief.

Zwn Annwn

Question: Where were the diamonds hidden on Frank's body?

Answer: Bond's answer to Felix at customs is "alimentary, Mr. Leiter". As in the alimentary canal of a human.

Answer: They were hidden IN Frank's body.

Zwn Annwn

Question: I've looked through all the comic book stores in my area and I can't find any Creepshow comic books. I know the books are real (albeit written after the show), does anyone know where to find them?

Answer: Ebay.http://collectibles.search.ebay.com/creepshow_Comics_W0QQ_trksidZm37QQcatrefZC12QQfromZR40QQsacatZ63.

Rlvlk

Episode 6 - S1-E6

Question: When Marvin is left behind in the Disaster Area ship as the others teleport away, he says, "I'm so intelligent I've probably got time to go through the five." before he is cut off. Is there anything in the books or rest of the series which suggests what we was about to say?

Moose

Chosen answer: That seems to be an error in the subtitling of the episode. What Marvin actually says is: "I may just be a menial robot, but I'm far too intelligent to expect to think of me for a moment... far too intelligent..."

Sierra1

Loco Motives - S7-E10

Question: Ernie dell makes a video email of his suicide and Gil opens it. How did it get emailed? He would have been dead and therefor unable to hit the send button. If it was a live feed, when gill opened the email he would have had to click on the link to the feed, and he would have come into the feed at the live point not at the beginning.

Boobra

Chosen answer: He could have set the email to be sent at a later time automatically. Many mail programs have this feature. If the email was set to send itself with an attachment, it would have sent whatever video had been recorded.

Answer: According to Wikipedia (so add the usual disclaimer), Frasier is six years older than Niles. Daphne's age is never stated - if we were to make the assumption that she's the same age as the actress who plays her, then Daphne would be three years younger than Niles.

Tailkinker

Wikipedia does say Daphne was born in 1969.

Dan23

Question: I heard that there were going to be six Spider-man movies. Does anyone know if that is true?

Answer: No, it's not. Or, at least, it's not planned that way at the moment. The stars were contracted to do three movies; those contracts have now expired and, while Tobey Maguire has indicated that he would do a fourth if the script was good, there is, as of 2007, no apparent movement towards making a fourth film. While the franchise has been very successful, so Sony would undoubtedly be interested in continuing, as things stand at the moment, there are no concrete plans to do six in total.

Tailkinker

Question: In Grandpa's prediction in church, what was the meaning of the "thousand eyes" or something like that? We didn't see whether Marge figured it out.

Answer: It refers to the multi-eyed mutant squirrel that was created by all the pollution in Lake Springfield. Marge probably figured it out, but it was not shown on screen.

Twotall

Question: I read that Bail Organa was going to have a female aide/assistant in this movie, but George Lucas wanted her removed because the actress who played her posed for Playboy magazine. Was her name still in the credits, or are there any scenes where they forgot to or couldn't remove her image?

Answer: The character that you're thinking of wasn't an assistant to Bail Organa, but was a Senator named Bana Breemu, who was working covertly with Organa, Padme and several other Senators to persuade Palpatine to attempt a diplomatic solution to the war. While Bai Ling, the actress who played Breemu, did pose naked for Playboy, Lucas has always denied that this was the reason for the cuts, stating that the subplot involving the group of concerned Senators was cut from the film several months prior to her Playboy appearance. The deleted scenes in question were included on the DVD release - if Lucas was really that concerned about her Playboy appearance, he could easily have left them out.

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.