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.

Show generally

Question: At the start of each episode of Mission Impossible Briggs or Phelps received details of the mission from a tape recording that was 'hidden in plain sight', say a telephone booth displaying a poster saying 'Telephone Out Of Order. Do Not Use'. So, what would happen if somebody went into the kiosk before Briggs or Phelps, picked up the telephone and got the secret message ahead of the Mission Impossible team?

Rob Halliday

Answer: We don't know what would happen because the show never addressed this issue. Any answer would be speculation. This is a TV show, and the plot is structured so that only IMF team will retrieve the secret message.

raywest

Answer: This is not really a serious question. When I posted this question I was fully aware that Mission Impossible is only a television programme. Like many espionage thrillers (Man From Uncle, The Avengers, James Bond) it is meant to entertain, it is never meant to be taken literally seriously. It was essential to the story that Briggs or Phelps received a secret message, which would give them a mission to accomplish. If they did not receive the message you would not have had the story. When I used to watch Mission Impossible it just used to amuse me to wonder what might have happened had somebody picked up the phone containing the secret message ahead of Briggs or Phelps. I even considered writing to a comedian and suggesting that they devise a comedy sketch in which this happened. My question was only meant to be a joke, that I posted to amuse people.

Rob Halliday

The Lucy Show or Here's Lucy did an episode of exactly this scenario.

Question: Listen closely to this audio. Https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLkotrb1O5o The subtitles in the game show that he says; "All UAC employees are subject to regular Med-Checks to ensure their production capabilities are not degraded." However when listening to it... to me it sounds like he's saying "That" instead of "Their." I've listened to it over and over trying to decipher if the word he uses is "That" or "Their." I think there is a mistake here in the game with the subtitle using the wrong word... However I can't be certain. Is this guy saying "That" or "Their"? What do you think?

Quantom X

Answer: Sounds like "their" to me. The accent and rolling into the "production" means I can see it could go either way, but it's certainly not definitively "that" enough to be a mistake, I'd say.

Jon Sandys

Question: Why did Vidrine not think there was anything wrong with the drill pipe, even though the drill pipe test showed a lot of pressure? Second, why did the test on the kill line show no pressure?

Answer: Vidrine didn't think there was anything wrong with the the drill pipe because there was nothing wrong with it. The problem was the cement cap they tried installing to seal the well. The thing to keep in mind is that British Petroleum didn't intend to immediately tap that well. Managers and crew of the floating platform rig planned to just cap the well and let another rig come along to handle actual production later. The crew was thus a little anxious to cement the well closed and abandon it. Some think it was this anxiousness to move on that produced the blowout. Of many procedures performed prior to abandonment was the "negative test" (whereby drilling mud was pulled out of the well to determine whether the cement cap could withstand the pressure). The negative test was bad, showing pressure in the drill line, an indication that gas had entered the well because they were applying suction to it, and the integrity of the cement cap was compromised. That's when Vidrine ordered the second test, this time on the kill line, and got a reading of no pressure (which was good, but was probably a false reading). Obviously, something wasn't right; but Vidrine, anxious to wrap the operation, decided to trust the kill line reading and basically ignore the drill line reading. This was a major mistake. As they continued pulling the drilling mud out, highly-pressurized gas shot straight up the drill pipe to the rig, and that was the end of Deepwater Horizon.

Charles Austin Miller

In the movie, the reason the kill line got no pressure is because the pipe got clogged. (if you listen to the audio description, you'll hear the audio describer the mud clogs the pipe during the kill line pressure test scene).

I thought it was mud that shot straight up from the drill pipe to the rig.

They were sucking the drilling mud up the pipe, but there was high-pressure petroleum gas behind it. They only realised too late that they had failed to cap the well; and then hell, as they say, broke loose.

Charles Austin Miller

Then what was that fluid flying upward through derrick?

You can liken a gas blow-out to somebody popping the top on a pressurized can of soda; gas and fluid alike come spewing out of what was, a moment before, a fairly stable fluid. Under tremendous pressure, all you need to do is give natural gas an escape route and all kinds of stuff comes up with it, including crude oil, asphalt, drilling mud, water, etc. The gas is blasting out of the earth and carrying anything and everything with it.

Charles Austin Miller

The mud contained a certain methane gas proportion, which ignited and caused the explosions.

Authorities don't think Vidrine was ultimately responsible though. They believe the an employee who died in the disaster was, because he was responsible for the bladder effect hypothesis. I think what the film is actually trying to say is that the person who made the mistake of trusting the kill line was ultimately responsible.

In real life, it was Vidrine who chose to trust the kill line reading and ignore the drill line reading.

Charles Austin Miller

By blaming someone who isn't around to defend themselves as they died in the disaster is considered cowardly. That's why in my opinion, money exchanged hands between BP and the Authorities to ensure no charges were brought against Vidrine. Again that's my own opinion. Here's a link to where the manslaughter charges against Kaluza and Vidrine are dropped https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/03/manslaughter-charges-dropped-bp-employees-deepwater-horizon-oil-spill.

Ssiscool

Personally I think the idea that the actual villain was the guy who was responsible for the bladder effect hypothesis, and not the guy who chose to trust the kill line reading, and not the drill line reading is absurd.

Question: During "I Need A Hero" when Puss begins fighting the guards a Spanish song briefly plays, what is the name of the song? I know I've heard it somewhere else before.

Answer: It's an instrumental version of "Holding Out for a Hero", but because it's being played as a tango, it has a Spanish flair to it.

Answer: You're probably referring to "Livin' La Vida Loca", which was the first major hit single for Ricky Martin in 1998; in this film it's performed by Eddie Murphy and Antonio Banderas in character as Donkey and Puss In Boots, respectively.

zendaddy621

I don't think the person who asked this question is referring to Living La Vida Loca. I think the song being referred to is the scene where the Fairy Godmother is singing I Need A Hero whilst Shrek, Donkey and Puss are breaking into the castle, and Puss stops on the way to fight the guards. After Puss gives his kitten eyes and says "En guard", he jumps up, taking his sword out to fight the guards, and heroic Spanish music briefly begins to play in the background. (Watch the video of this scene on YouTube https://youtu.be/WI0mSEzttx8 at the 3:55 mark for confirmation). I think it is that small piece of music that plays that is being referred to in the question, not Living La Vida Loca.

Casual Person

I think it's just an original part of the song to be honest, something Spanish added into it but originally composed for the song.

lionhead

Question: Why is it not possible to breach the security at the storage facility and use the robotic arm to swap the cards? It is an option never discussed.

Answer: This plan is not discussed because they may not have had the hacking skills to take control of the robotic arm. Regardless of whether or not they did, it would not have been the best idea as they are supposed to be infiltrating the facility in complete secrecy. The plan of Ethan holding his breath underwater and manually planting the cards into the system is a lengthier plan, but is less likely to result in them being caught.

Casual Person

Answer: Because no metal was allowed in the system.

Question: Not just this, but every cinema and television adaptation of the legend of The Man in the Iron Mask that I have seen, without exception, has always left me asking the same question. A man is locked up in a lonely prison where his face is hidden by an iron mask. The Three Musketeers or some similar swashbuckling heroes rescue him. He may have worn the iron mask for weeks, months, or even years. So why is it, that, when the iron mask is removed he always emerges clean shaven?

Rob Halliday

Answer: The mask would be periodically removed by the prisoner's attendants to shave his beard and cut his hair. Leaving it on permanently and letting his beard and hair grow endlessly would create physical and medical problems, possibly even suffocating him eventually. The goal was to keep him imprisoned for a long period of time, not to execute him.

raywest

But isn't he wearing the mask so that nobody will know who he is? If the prison staff keep removing the mask to shave him and cut his hair then they will all know exactly what he looks like, and they will be able to identify him. In many versions of the story he has to wear the mask so that nobody will recognise him as the king's twin brother. If the prison guards remove the mask won't they see how he resembles the king? Alternatively, if the prison guards already know that he is the king's twin brother, then why bother to mask his face?

Rob Halliday

Anyone who was guarding and/or attending to the prisoner would be loyal to the king, acting as his agents, and sworn to keep his secrets. Not doing so would be treason. They would likely have minimal knowledge of who this person was, nor would it matter to them. They may or may not notice any resemblance to the king. In the prisoner's disheveled and weakened conditioned, it would not be obvious that he is an identical twin. Also, few people in pre-mass media times, knew what royals looked like, probably only catching occasional glimpses of them from far away, if ever at all.

raywest

Answer: In the 1939 version of The Man in the Iron Mask starring Louis Hayword, when the mask is taken off, he does have a beard. Phillipe even asks Louis how long it will take for his (Louis') beard to grow once he is in the mask.

Season 8 generally

Question: If Ramon Sanchez (Gabby's stepfather) lived in Oklahoma City and was reported missing by his wife who also lived in Oklahoma City, why would Chuck, who lives a plane ride away in Fairview, be investigating the case?

Madiking

Answer: He was investigating the lead not the case.

Question: When Baron Munchausen and his cohorts clean out the Sultan's vault, the Sultan's horrified Treasurer crosses himself in the Catholic fashion. But, in this film, the Sultan is head of the Ottoman Empire (a Muslim empire), and the closest members of his court (such as his Treasurer) would surely be Muslim. So the treasurer's Christian gesture stands out as unlikely, at best. This seems to be a character error, but was it intended as a deliberate joke? If so, what was the joke?

Charles Austin Miller

Answer: The Baron is a teller of tall tales and massively exaggerated stories, so it is all from his limited point of view. The Ottomans did have Christian members of staff, especially doctors and such but the treasurer would never be a non-Muslim.

Answer: Because the part of House was written as an American and the part of Chase wasn't.

Greg Dwyer

Answer: It is important to note that the video in question was obviously facetious in tone. However specifically regarding the fight on the beach, Daniel's fight with Bobby on the soccer field, and Daniel hosing Johnny down in the bathroom it could certainly be argued that Daniel either escalated the situation or directly instigated violent contact. Also of important note, the series Cobra Kai essentially lends credence to these arguments and paints Daniel as a much less honorable hero and Johnny as a much more sympathetic villain.

BaconIsMyBFF

Answer: Like someone mentioned, that video was pretty much a joke. Daniel was never the bully and like others have mentioned in these q/as Johnny wasn't full bully either. Daniel did however have a temper and exacerbated the situations while Johnny let himself be egged on by Dutch and Kreese. In the Cobra Kai show, Johnny did also exaggerate to Miguel and the other Cobra's and even himself that Daniel was the bully, but he was just deluding himself. And you can see by his expressions that he knew he was lying. If you go back to the beach scene you will see Johnny was being an abusive d**k to Ali and Daniel was the only one that stood up for her. Johnny ripped her stereo out of her hands, broke it and got in her face. Yeah she got right back in his face, but this is when he, as the wrong party should have backed down. He did not so Daniel stepped in. If No One stepped in to help her, they would have been all disgraceful in my eyes. The show and movie are pretty nuanced and quite deep.

Answer: It appears that way at certain times throughout the film, Daniel tends to instigate fights such as getting involved between Johnny and Ali's fight on the beach, and spraying Johnny with the hose in the bathroom. Of course Johnny summed it up when he said to Daniel "You couldn't leave well enough alone."

Answer: A number of reasons. Ali's friends are rich snobs who look down on Daniel because is an outsider; he and his mother do not have money; they live in a modest apartment; Daniel's mother drives an old car and she has to drive him and Ali for their date, etc.

raywest

Question: The road leading up to Minnie's has been freshly plowed when the stage arrives. It is obvious because there are sharp borders at the edge of the road and no tracks. Did the bushwhackers plow the road to eliminate evidence of their nefarious deeds?

Answer: Good catch! This should be a revealing mistake entry. The plowing was part of the set preparation. I saw several scenes in the film where the roads had obviously been plowed. It's not hard to see if you look for the small ridges left by the plow on either side of the road.

Answer: Yep, gotta be a mistake. If they even had snow plows back then, the plow would have had to been between the bad guys and the stage and would have arrived, or passed by, at a very inopportune time. I think the director just missed this, or didn't think anyone would notice.

Answer: Think you mean the plow would have arrived before the stage. But yes, a mistake for sure.

Question: When David touches the guy in the stadium he feels that he is carrying a gun but when he actually checks him he doesn't find one. Why?

Answer: I believe you are confusing the man with the gun with the man with the drugs. The man with the gun is never searched because he steps out of line and walks away. The man with the drugs (who is played by director M. Night Shyamalan) is searched for drugs, but David doesn't find any. Either he had the drugs in the stadium at a previous game or he sold/passed them along to someone else before David bumped into him.

Phaneron

Pingpong Rescue - S2-E9

Question: Tory, and the other guys working with him pop most of the balloons, and release only a few. Why not release the entire bunch of balloons they made?

Answer: Because releasing helium balloons is dangerous to wildlife who eat the balloons once they have landed and deflated or popped. Releasing all those balloons would be a major risk.

Ssiscool

I thought it was because a plane might run into them.

Question: Why did they have to call a stealth bomber all the way from Missouri to go to Wyoming to bomb the creatures? There is an air force base in Wyoming. And secondly, why even need a stealth bomber? they are targeting animals in an already heavily publicized event.

Quantom X

Answer: Likely because the bomber was prepared with the necessary payload, compared to any in Wyoming.

Answer: The Wyoming Base most likely did not have the ordinance or aircraft capable of carrying the ordinance required so they used the closed base with the available ordinance and aircraft. Not every base has the same ordinance and aircraft at the same time.

Question: If the Wolf, the Ape, and the Croc were all exposed to the chemical around the same time, then why is it that the Croc grew to almost triple the size of the other two by the time they hit the city? The ape is bigger than the croc at normal sizes and the wolf is more or less the same size. So why did the croc get that much bigger than the other two?

Quantom X

Answer: Perhaps the chemical has different effects on the animals that it is being exposed to, and the crocodile was mutated into a much bigger size than the gorilla and wolf. I don't think the movie is really expecting anyone to question this, but is really just done to give the protagonists an opponent to face.

Casual Person

Answer: He was jealous that Molly was still alive and Candice was dead.

I think this was because Molly witnessed the killing, and he didn't want to go to jail.

Answer: I think that by this point Peter is too far gone to be thinking rationally or to be reasoned with. And as he says himself Molly witnessed the murdered of a federal agent, so she's got to die. And maybe Peter was just making damn sure that he was safe from Death. I mean, he's already murdered one innocent human being, so what's two more?

Alan Keddie

Question: When the guys are getting ready to go into town, one of them says about the sarge "as short as he is he's out of here in 30 days." Someone also said "anyone as short as Brownie shouldn't have been out there". What do they mean by short?

The_Iceman

Answer: "Short" in this context is military slang for someone whose tour of duty is coming close to an end. It's a derivative of "short-timer."

BaconIsMyBFF

Canadian Road Trip - S3-E23

Question: Wisconsin has no land border with Canada. The nearest crossings from a fictional town near Sheboygan would be Sault Ste Marie, MI or Grand Portage, MN, both of which would take well over a day round trip, so just exactly where did the boys go to Canada from?

Answer: The show's universe actually has Point Place as a suburb of Green Bay, which is further north than Sheboygan. Still, quite a drive, roughly eight hours, to the nearest Canadian land border (as you rightly say, it would be in Grand Portage). Obviously the show's creators were hoping no one would check...the border crossing the boys use is left deliberately vague, and is just a plot device rather than a faithful depiction of Wisconsin geography.

I live in Sault Ste Marie, MI it about 5 hours to Green Bay, one way. Totally doable in half a day round trip.

Answer: It should be noted that while a trip across the Canadian border from Wisconsin would take a while, it certainly wouldn't take more than 12 hours to get there. From Green Bay to Sault Ste Marie, one is less than 300 miles away and would take less than 6 hours to get there. However, as stated, where in Canada they are is never said and very vague. In fact, when you see them at the border, there's a sign behind them with different cities and their distances (Thunder Bay, Winnipeg, and Sault Ste Marie). However, the distances don't seem to match any border crossing and Sault Ste Marie is 780 km away, which would put them at a Saskatchewan/Montana border crossing.

Bishop73

Question: Was I the only person to be struck quite forcefully (metaphorically speaking) by the contrast between Julie Andrews' portrayal of Mary Poppins, as the ever-smiling, cheerful, friendly, vivacious character, who melts everybody with her charm, which seemed wholly at odds with PL Travers' portrayal of Mary Poppins as acerbic, dour, and cynical, who always seems to get her way by utter, overwhelming arrogance?

Rob Halliday

Answer: Travers, herself, was pretty much the model for the original Mary Poppins: an inflexible authoritarian who insisted on advising and reviewing nearly every aspect of the film's production. Which is why Disney had such a hell of a time securing the rights and molding Travers' story into a lighthearted romp.

Charles Austin Miller

Mary Poppins may somewhat resemble P.L. Travers, but her great-aunt, Helen Morehead, is largely considered to be the inspiration for the character. Travers' mother moved in with her aunts after P.L.'s father died when she was a young girl. The aunt would often say, "Spit spot, into bed."

raywest

Some aspects of Mary Poppins were based on Travers' great-aunt (the more positive aspects that Travers remembered from childhood) ; but the overall character was Travers herself.

Charles Austin Miller

Answer: No doubt many fans of the books and P.L. Travers agreed with your assessment. However, it was 1964 and Travers' book was heavily "Disneyfied," meaning they imprinted their particular syrupy, family-oriented wholesome stamp on the project, watering down Poppins' dour personality. Travers was appalled by it and would never allow another of her books to be made into a movie. There is a remake in the works, and, hopefully, the current Disney heads will give it a darker tone.

raywest

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