Questions about specific movies, TV shows and more

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Question: As Al arrives, the terrorists run to a window and talk in German, laughing at him. What are they saying?

Answer: Based on the original film, it's almost impossible to say, as the actors could not actually speak German and were faking it. A search of the Die Hard script shows no specific German words or phrases, only vague notations such as "they speak briefly in German"; so, the German dialogue scenes were improvised outside of the script. Thus, most of the terrorists' "German" dialogue is incoherent gibberish with terrible pronunciation and grammar, such that it's incomprehensible. When they released this film in Germany, they even changed the terrorists' nationality from German to "European" (rather than insult German audiences with the garbled, nonsensical dialogue). Supposedly, when the movie was first released on VHS, they went back and dubbed in real German dialogue, but I've never seen or heard that version.

Charles Austin Miller

Answer: "nür einmal" - literally "only one"

"Nür ein mann" - literally "only one man".

Answer: I wonder why they didn't take the German subbed version for it where they say "Wieviele Bullen sind es?" to which the other one replies "Nur so ein Fettsack" which translates to "how many cops are there?" "Just one fat guy" and is grammatically correct.

Answer: I always thought that they were discussing the fact that it was just the one policeman responding. Something about einman meaning one man. But that's my broken gcse German from secondary school.

Alan Keddie

Answer: "Neuer ein man..." literally means 'One new man." But he says it more Anglicised so "neuer" sounds like English "newer."

Nür ein Mann is what's said - Only one man.

I believe it was 'nur ein man' - or 'only one man'.

Question: When John is first on the construction floor, he looks across and the shot lingers on a woman in another building. There doesn't seem to be any real point to that shot - am I missing something?

Answer: When Hans and the gang enter the floor and take everyone hostage, that's when John's phone gets cut out while talking to Argyle in the garage. He then escapes up to the unfinished floors and sees the construction foreman's phone and runs over to try that phone and of course the same thing; the phone is dead. He looks out the window and sees the woman talking on her phone in the adjacent building and it confirms to John that the Nakatomi Towers phone lines have been cut since it's not affecting the building next door.

Answer: He's waiting to see if she looks in his direction, so he can try to signal her. She doesn't, so he moves on.

If you look closely, she is talking on the phone, which confirms to John that the phone lines had been cut.

Question: After Sadness is shown typing on the console, why does a core memory form instead of a normal memory?

Answer: Core memories are formed when an event has a profound impact on a person's life, shaping their very personality going forward. Riley crying in front of her class on her first day of school was intensely embarrassing, thus a core memory was formed instead of a normal memory.

BaconIsMyBFF

Question: Why was Lois so uncomfortable when Clark said "Swell"? It's a word that was extremely popular in the 70s (the timeframe of this movie) and although not as common nowadays, it's still used to this day.

Answer: It's not that Lois was uncomfortable with the word, she said there are very few people left who feel comfortable saying swell these days. She is basically saying there's not a lot of people left who speak like they're still living in the 50's. Swell was more popular in the 40's and 50's as slang for "excellent." In the late 70's, it wasn't really a popular slang word, or had dissolved into meaning "fine" or "ok." Today the word is used more ironically "oh, you need me to pay because your forgot your wallet, swell." It would be similar to if someone said "neat-o" unironically and the reply was "who says neat-o these days?"

Bishop73

Answer: "Swell" is not really a slang expression that was widely used in the 1970s. By that time it was considered quite dated in the manner that Clark is using it. It was more popularly used in the mid-20th century (40s and 50s).

raywest

Answer: Technically, he was on neither side. When Aberforth found out that Albus and Grindelwald had been collaborating on suppressing non-magical humans, he was outraged and strongly opposed his brother; it led to the three-way duel between Aberforth, Albus, and Grindelwald that resulted in Ariana's accidental death. Although Albus had rejected Grindelwald's beliefs and later defeated him in their own duel, the two brothers never fully reconciled.

raywest

Question: Near the end of the movie when Carson is searching for Kyle, he looks like he injured his leg. How did that happen?

Answer: Carson injured his leg when he fell from opening above the restroom and smashed into the mirror after Kyle punches Stephanie.

Question: What was the point of getting two FBI agents on the plane if Carson needed the plane cleared to kill Kyle and Julia? Or was that something he was lying about? If so, why did he proceed to get off the plane?

Answer: Carson would not have any authority to prevent the F.B.I. from boarding the plane, and it would be highly suspicious if he in anyway tried to interfere with their investigation. He needed to act as if he was following normal procedures, otherwise his part in the plot would have immediately been exposed.

raywest

Question: Why would Carson have the morgue director send a fake certificate that claimed Julia has died if his goal was to get Kyle in the hold so she can unlock the casket? Wouldn't that interfere with doing so?

Answer: The goal was to make it look like Kyle was so unhinged that she was imagining that her daughter had not died. The fake certificate was to convince the captain that Kyle must be hallucinating. Carson knew that Kyle would not be fooled and would continue to search for her daughter on the plane, eventually looking inside the casket.

raywest

Question: How accurate is the carjacking scene?

Answer: The resurrection stone, one of the three Deathly Hallows, was hidden inside the Quidditch snitch that Dumbledore left Harry in his will. When Harry touched his lips to the snitch, it opened and released the stone. Voldemort had made Tom Marvolo's ring into a horcrux, but the ring itself was not one of the Deathly Hallows. Voldemort never knew that the ring's gem was the resurrection stone. When Dumbledore later found the ring, he removed the stone and hid it in the snitch.

raywest

Question: Why do the soldiers (Mellish and Reiben) air kiss when they talk about sleep in the church scene?

Answer: Mellish was pulling his chain with the comment about his mom before. The air kisses were meant to be sarcastic.

lionhead

Answer: It is shown numerous time in The Big Bang Theory and Young Sheldon that Georgir Jr is not the smartest kid going. They simply tell him Sheldon is getting a hair cut as it is believable. It's also shown that Sheldon has had the same style hair cut since he was 5. Since he is 9 in Young Sheldon, he's had the same style for over 4 years already. Easy to overlook that he hadn't actually had it cut after that long.

Ssiscool

Question: Whenever Samara was still alive was she able to kill someone just by looking at them? Or was that only after she became a spirit she gained that power? Did Samara kill the doctor during the videotape session that Rachel watched of her? All you see at the end of the session is Samara finally looking up at the doctor and the tape ends.

Answer: While in the original Japanese film the character had the ability to kill people with her mind, in this remake the Samara character's abilities aren't quite as powerful- but she still has immense power and can drive people crazy by placing images in their mind. And after death, her spirit gains the ability to kill people via the cursed video.

Answer: She didn't have the ability to kill people just by looking at them while she was alive, although the evil surrounding her did drive the Morgan's horses to commit suicide. Had she killed the doctor, it would have been highly unlikely that they would have let her leave the hospital afterwards.

Phaneron

Question: Did Caesar intentionally mean to kill winter the gorilla, or was he just trying to keep him silent from alerting the alpha omega soldiers?

Joey221995

Answer: He was trying to keep him quiet. He was likely more aggressive about it than he would have been, had his family not been murdered.

Question: In all the articles I have read, Booth shot Lincoln then jumped out of the box into the audience below, spraining his ankle. He managed to escape because the audience thought it was part of the act. In the movie the show is interrupted by the Manager coming onto the stage to announce that Lincoln had just been shot - no disruption during the show until then. Is this a goof or not?

Answer: Lincoln was shot at Ford's theater while attending the play Our American Cousin. The interruption by the manager to announce that Lincoln had been shot was during a different play that Tad Lincoln was watching at the time in a completely different theater.

BaconIsMyBFF

Question: When Harry is stabbing Tom Riddle's diary with the basilisk fang, what is that liquid that coming out of the diary?

Joey221995

Answer: The liquid is the black ink that comprises the diary and is in effect is Tom Riddle's soul. The diary horcrux bleeds to death after being stabbed.

raywest

Answer: It's blood, as well as excess Basilisk venom.

Question: Eugene says that he was "saved" from transferring to another school because a student had come to school with a knife to kill his teacher, which would've been him if he hadn't transferred at all. This is obviously a reference to Alex when Billy had thought that he killed Mrs. Lewton with a knife, but not only was Alex innocent, her death happened at her own home. Since all of the other stories consist of everyone being somewhere at the exact same time when the original group died, this really doesn't make much sense at all. Am I missing something or did I hear Eugene wrong?

Answer: Eugene was substituting for Valerie Lewton at Mt. Abraham High School when he learned that one of his students at his original school brought a knife to class and killed his substitute teacher.

Question: Isn't this film blatantly derivative of Guillermo del Toro's earlier films, "HellBoy" and "HellBoy: The Golden Army"? It seems to me that the Asset in "The Shape of Water" is a direct knock-off Abe Sapien from the Hellboy films. The amphibious Asset is held at a top secret facility, as was Abe Sapien; the Asset is fed hard-boiled eggs, as was Abe Sapien; the Asset develops a love interest and romantic relationship with a female air-breather, as did Abe Sapien. To top it off, del Toro called in contortionist-actor Doug Jones to play the Asset in "The Shape of Water" (Doug Jones also played Abe Sapien in the HellBoy films). "Shape of Water" could almost be a spin-off the old HellBoy films, given Guillermo del Toro's involvement and recycling of familiar themes.

Charles Austin Miller

Answer: There are a lot of Hellboy fans who speculate this is an origin story of Abe, or at the very least the Asset is the same species, but del Torro has denied it. Abe is a copyrighted character that del Torro's Hellboy was based on, and he doesn't own the copyright. In addition, prior to The Shape of Water, del Torro was in talks with Universal about remaking "The Creature from the Black Lagoon", only making the movie center on the creature's (Gill-Man) perspective and getting together with Kay (the female lead). Del Torro has stated that the Amphibious Man is based on Gill-Man and this film is what he had pitched to Universal, but was turned down by them. Although, a creature developing a love interest in a human female isn't unique, nor is capturing a creature to study (both happen to Gill-Man, Abe, and Amphibious Man). But the fact that Doug Jones plays both Abe and the Amphibious Man only seems to strengthen theories of some connection to Hellboy, but at this point we only have del Torro's word that it's not and why he choose the creature to be so similar at this point would only be a guess.

Bishop73

Question: The second trap, they had to break jars open that were on the ceiling and get into the safety chambers, but there were "only three" for four people... Those were some pretty long, tall chambers. Couldn't the two smallest people share a single chamber, and all four survive? Especially since they look tall enough for two people to lie down right on top of each other.

Answer: That was the entire point of the trap. Each trap in the overall game was meant for them to all work together. The tape for this trap asks "Who will be the odd man out?" They took this to mean that one person had to remain outside the chambers, but what it really meant was two people would each share a chamber (assuming all five survived the first trap) and one person would occupy the third chamber all by themselves. Charles realised this and tried to tell everyone, but was unfortunately killed by the explosion before he could.

Phaneron

Nope actually he said who of you 4 has to die...how he knew was 4 survivors?

He does not say that at all. The exact wording is "With only three points of safety, which of you will be the odd man out?" At no point does the tape say that one of them has to die. That would be completely contradictory to the point that the five of them were supposed to work together to safely get through every trap.

Phaneron

Not what he meant. He knows human nature is survival at the expense of someone else. He set the trap so all could survive, but he knows the panic and self-preservation will lead the group to sacrifice someone.

The_Iceman

Question: Is it true that there was going to be a scene at the start of the movie where the Sulaco exploded, and why wasn't it filmed?

Darth Crucible

Answer: According to the Alien 3 Movie Special magazine from 1992, yes, there was a scene where the Sulaco explodes as the EEV pod ejects, damaging the guidance systems. Apparently it was filmed but not included in the final cut.

Sierra1

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