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: Since Daryl was forced to swallow a transmitter, instead of killing him, wouldn't it make more sense to simply leave him behind or even tie him to a tree so that he couldn't follow them and give away their position again?

Answer: Daryl's actions of swallowing the transmitter AND returning to the Wolverine camp branded him as both a coward and a traitor. He was killed, not as a safety precaution, but as a sentence for his "crime."

Michael Albert

Question: Why were the women and children ordered to the lifeboats first and then the men? Why not just let anybody who could make it to the lifeboats get on?

Answer: Though not a requirement of maritime law, it was a matter of historical codes of chivalry that, in life threatening situations where limited numbers of life-saving resources were available, the lives of women and children were to be saved first. That was captain Smith's order the night the RMS Titanic sank. Some of the crew interpreted this to mean "women and children only." Thus, several of the lifeboats were launched only partially full, as men were prevented from occupying empty seats even when all nearby women and children had been boarded. The rescue efforts on the Titanic were further hampered by the fact that, initially, many of the passengers thought that the launching of lifeboats was unnecessary precaution, as the Titanic was thought unsinkable. The night air was cold. The lifeboats seemed uncomfortable. Thus, many preferred to stay on board the ship until reality of the magnitude of the situation became more evident and panic began to set in. Many of the men who survived in lifeboats, like White Star Line chairman Bruce Ismay, were branded cowards upon return to shore, even though many of them occupied seats that would have otherwise gone unused.

Michael Albert

Answer: Furthermore, the "Code of Conduct" would put many boats in the water without anybody being able to row them.

Chosen answer: The gold saucer crashed in middle of the street was the ship Boris stole to get to earth. While they are in the restaurant Kay gets a call that tells him a ship was taken from lunar max and it was Boris who took it.

Question: Just wondering what finally became of Alfrid, the Master's clerk and Bejorn, the skinchanger.

Answer: In both the novel and the movie, Alfrid's (who is not named in the book) fate is unknown. Beorn, in the book, stopped his reclusiveness and became a leader of the local woodmen and protected the area from orcs and goblins. He died sometime before the War of the Ring and was succeeded by his son Grimbeorn.

Greg Dwyer

Answer: The Extended Edition of this film shows Alfrid being inadvertently catapulted into the mouth of a troll during the eponymous battle, and it is heavily implied that he dies from the ordeal, as he is motionless when the troll collapses to the ground.

Phaneron

Answer: We don't know what happenned to Alfrid and the Master, but in the book we know that the Master took his bit of the gold and ran off somewhere, leaving Bard to bring Lake-Town into the re-established Kingdom of Dale. Beorn continued to guard the High Pass, eventually had children and grandchildren called the Beornings, who still charge tolls for Dwarves to cross the bridge across the river.

Question: Why do the shirts the contestants wear change from green to purple during the event?

Answer: The shirts don't change color, it's just the lighting that seems to give a different tint to them. The film switches from the typical movie lighting that gives the shirt a duller and darker look (which you may see as green), to the "live TV" lighting which brightens the shirt color to a blue (or purple) color.

Bishop73

Question: I have two questions about Robert and Caroline. First, why are there two separate beds in their bedroom? I know that Colin and Mary's hotel room might have had two single beds by default, but was it common practice for Italian homes to still contain separate beds in the 1990s? Also, why did Robert and Caroline murder Colin?

Answer: While it's possible that they slept in separate beds because of Caroline's chronic back pain, and Robert could accidentally hurt her in the night by moving, it's more likely that it's a sexual kink of sorts, a way to 'deprive' them both of each other. They murdered Colin because Robert was highly unstable (Caroline was utterly dependent on him and was also unstable as a result) and since they enjoyed pain during sex, it's implied that they thought it would be a great sexual thrill to seriously hurt someone else, which would explain why they appeared amorous with each other as soon as Robert cut Colin's throat.

Purple_Girl

Question: Why does Le Chiffre torture Bond for the code when the Swiss banker would obviously only allow Bond himself to punch in the code in the banking briefcase?

Answer: If Le Chiffre is willing to torture Bond to get the code, he's certainly willing to torture the banker into letting him use it.

Captain Defenestrator

Answer: It's reasonable that the Swiss banker would have dispensed the money to anyone with the account number and code, just like how Swiss bank accounts can be accessed with just the number and why you keep it safe. Their "different" security is what makes them so useful to some.

Question: At the end of the film, King Candy as a bug is seen being hypnotised by the "beacon" and he flies into the light... Does he die? You'd think that he would since he's not originally from Sugar Rush, but he recoded the game so that he existed as his alter ego, King Candy. Would he respawn or is it as Sonic says at the start, game over for Turbo?

Answer: He does die, because that's how the Cy-Bugs end their games - they all die. Turbo is a Cy-bug after being eaten. And it's not his game, so he would not respawn.

Greg Dwyer

Question: The bullies think there is a real high school reunion going on. Yet having sat outside the boarded up and abandoned school for 3 hours, they do not seem in the least surprised and begin to doubt a reunion is taking place. They are not suspicious even when they have to break a window to get in to the school.Surely they would be suspicious by then and not go in?

swordfish

Answer: Some people are not the brightest button in the box. If wanting something enough they will overlook the obvious.

Ssiscool

Question: Draco said in the previous book/movie that Voldemort would kill him if he didn't kill Dumbledore, so why didn't Voldemort kill him after he refused and Severus had to do it instead?

Answer: Draco didn't refuse outright, though he did not want to kill Dumbledore. Voldemort threatened to kill Draco's family if he failed. Draco did make attempts, but they were half-hearted ones that failed. Snape stepped in before Draco was forced into killing Dumbledore. Voldemort would have killed Draco eventually, but keeping him alive was useful in his controlling both Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy (Draco's parents) and also Bellatrix Lestrange (Draco's aunt). Killing Draco early on would have turned them against him.

raywest

Once More, With Feeling - S6-E7

Question: Is there something wrong with Sweet (Hinton Battle)'s left eye? He seems to keep it closed or half-lidded during his introductory song, the camera and lighting keeps it out of sight most of the time, and when he does open it, such as at 29:58, it's looking ahead in comparison to his right, which is focused on something else.

Wink

Chosen answer: He could have a lazy eye, (aka Amblyopia) but doesn't in other work and interviews, so it's probably just selective camera/lighting work.

Question: Why did Exley appear so traumatised after killing the man in the elevator? He is, after all, a police officer in homicide, and he killed people before that. Also, did he kill him intentionally?

MikeH

Chosen answer: A 12g shotgun blast at that range would cause an incredibly bloody death, especially as there is a good chance it hit the man in the face. Exley has killed a person in the line of duty before this, but not in such a spectacular way. And while he may not have meant to kill him he chose to shoot over letting the man escape.

Grumpy Scot

Question: Why would Falcone's assassin kill Chill in front of many cops? Why would she choose to go to jail just to protect one person who was already in jail? And if she was so intent on protecting him, why would she say "Falcone says hi"? That would just make Falcone even more indictable.

MikeH

Chosen answer: Falcone has the entire justice system of Gotham in his pocket. He'd believe he could beat any charge and probably convinced the assassin that he'd do the same for her.

Captain Defenestrator

Question: When the man was hanged on the fan, what exactly happened? It seems like he was cut by the fan, but then there's no blood or anything. How exactly did he die? And why did the fan suddenly stop when he hit it?

MikeH

Chosen answer: His neck was snapped by the whip getting caught in the fan. There isn't always blood with a hanging. Since the fan wasn't designed to hold a man's weight, the motor in it would have stopped or given out.

Captain Defenestrator

Question: Queen Victoria made Phileas realize that he won the wager because it was still day 79. If she knew that Phileas arrived a day early, how come everybody else in London, including Lord Kelvin, thought it was actually day 80 and that he lost the wager when the tower bells began to ring?

Answer: In reality, it would be impossible that so many people would make this mistake. However, it serves the movie's plot for the error to be discovered by one person at the last moment because it provides an unexpected upset to a perceived outcome. In this case, it was by Queen Victoria, which added an additional twist.

raywest

Question: At the end of the movie the town clock that was removed from the train station is shown stored in a basement just as the basement floods. The clock is seen to still be working, but how, given that there was no one there to wind it? As the clock was made during the first world war it would be mechanical, not battery powered.

Blair Howden

Answer: It is symbolic, showing that time never stops. Everyone will be swept up by the tsunami eventually. No force of nature can compare to time itself. Nothing at all.

Question: Why did McGonagall send all the Slytherins to the dungeon? It was only one Slytherin who wanted them to turn in Harry, and many times in the series people say not all Slytherins are bad.

MikeH

Chosen answer: Not all Slytherins were bad, but many were and they would fight against Harry. McGonagall did not have time to pick out which ones were allies or enemies. It was simply more efficient to lock them all up at once. Also, even though there were good Slytherins, they would know that taking sides against Voldemort and failing to fully support him could result in later retaliation against them or their families.

raywest

Question: How does Christof talk to the actors? They don't look like they have earpieces, and if they do, why didn't that make Truman suspicious earlier?

MikeH

Answer: They do have earpieces, just minuscule ones that can't be seen unless you are looking directly into a persons ear. As shown in the scene with Marlon on the beach, he is being fed his lines by such an earpiece. They are also present when Truman is in his car and he picks up the signal they are using to show where he is at the given time. Also, even though you can hear what someone is saying, you can't talk back to them which is why Meryl and Marlon had to talk to a camera when requesting help/confirming Truman wasn't there.

Yep, that's it. Also, the earpieces might not even be that small but Truman isn't looking for them and thus doesn't see them.

lionhead

Chosen answer: It appears that Christof and the control team in the moon did not, in fact, have contact with the actors very often. It is more likely he had contact with people on the ground who could make things happen per his instructions. But there were inconsistencies. For example, how could he create instantaneous traffic jams at a moment's notice, and set up a hazardous spill scene on the outskirts of town to prevent Truman from leaving Seahaven, but he couldn't get anyone to interrupt or vary the cycle of movements by extras that Truman watched in his rear view mirror when he was trying to convince his wife something in their town was amiss - even when he was talking aloud, anticipating the next extra's move before it happened? Christof could arrange for a road race to happen by and to have people almost instantaneously hustle Truman's father onto a bus when he showed up in town as a homeless man, but it took quite some time to get Sylvia's father onto the beach to whisk her away to Fiji, even though Christof knew exactly where they were headed. And when Truman and Meryl were having their major argument in their kitchen, Christof could engineer Marlon to show up with a six pack of beer, but he couldn't communicate with Meryl to provide her advice on how to handle the situation, and she ended up screaming for help into a camera. I think Christof did place some sort of communication/listening device on some actors at critical times. We saw that in a couple of instances (e.g. When Marlon went into Truman's basement looking for an already disappeared Truman, Christof was feeding him direct instructions). But I don't think it was routinely done. And when it was, Christof's surely would have had the technical know-how to create a supremely inconspicuous piece of equipment.

Michael Albert

Question: Kat drove with Patrick, Bianca and her friend to Bogey's party; so if Patrick drove Kat home, why did Bianca need a ride after Joey left with the other girl?

Answer: They all went in Kat's car and Patrick drove it home leaving Bianca behind. I guess she thought Joey would drive her home.

Question: Did Dick Warlock play Michael Myers in every scene he's in, even stunts? I was curious considering that Warlock was a stuntman and could have done the balcony fall and Michael burning scenes as well.

Gavin Jackson

Answer: From what I have read: yes.

Alan Keddie

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.