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: Why did Snape have Filch treat his wounds from the three-headed dog? Why not go to Madam Pomfrey in the hospital wing, considering that Snape wasn't really doing anything wrong after all?

Answer: I think Snape wanted to keep what happened quiet while he investigated Professor Quirrell, and Madam Pomfrey was more likely to inform Professor Dumbledore. Filch, who would consider Snape something of a kindred spirit, would not feel a need to report it to anyone, particularly if Snape asked him to say nothing about it.

raywest

Question: The girls try to persuade the police that Liz had sex with a strange man who then killed her. Why then didn't the police do a DNA test and forensics, which would prove that there was no semen in Liz's body, and so show the girls were lying?

beckhamsfauxhawk

Chosen answer: I believe the idea was to take the DNA from Marilyn Manson out of Courtney and put it into Liz's corpse.

Greg Dwyer

Question: The whole point of the trick is to persuade the police that Liz was murdered after having sex with a random stranger. The police decide to accept this suggestion. Why do they accept this, when they know that a woman pretending to be Liz's mother called the school to say Liz wouldn't come in - ie. the police know that a woman must have been involved, yet they decide it was just a man who did it?

beckhamsfauxhawk

Answer: They have no reason to follow up the call or never did all they know is that she was at home.

Question: My media studies teacher has a theory that there are no ghosts in this film and everything that Jack sees is in his imagination. He also thinks that when Wendy sees the man in the costume, it is meant to be a realisation to her that Danny may be a victim of sexual assault, from his father, Jack. He also believes that the costume is a bear and that Jack is associated with a bear throughout the film. He says that Danny may have opened the pantry door to let Jack out because he had formulated a plan to kill Jack by getting him lost in the maze. Also, the woman in 237, he thinks that there is no woman and that Jack himself hurt Danny's neck. Leading to Wendy's realisation of Jack's abusiveness. I'm not really sure if I agree with him or not. There are a lot of holes in his theory, but you never know. Just wondering if anyone would like to share their opinion and shed some light on the situation. Do you think his theory is possible?

Answer: The sexual assault thing is completely wrong. As far as the rest, it is highly debated. However, ghosts, I think, is the accepted answer. Some of the things that Wendy and Danny see can't be explained by Jack's psychosis. Also, the costume is suppose to be a dog. There is a whole back story to that character.

MasterOfAll

Answer: The episode was "Homer Alone".

Sierra1

All That Remains - S8-E14

Question: I have the DVD sets for all the seasons, and I am wondering if anyone else noticed this issue with season 8, Disc 4, episodes "all that remain" and the next episode "broken", the descriptors of the episodes on the DVD case are correct and in the right order of when they were aired, but when I click "All That Remains" it plays the "broken" episode and vice versa, I wouldn't have noticed if I didn't happen to look up one of the actors in an episode, just wondering if anyone else had this issue with their DVDs, or any other similar issues with their DVDs? Thanks.

Answer: I just noticed the same thing about season 8 disk four, Broken and All That Remains are reversed on the DVD.

Question: What was that thing that Mole picked off Milo's finger to examine with his binoculars?

Answer: Just a piece of dirt.

Brad

Question: What I don't get about this movie is when ever they fight one of these giant monsters, why do they always engage in hand to hand combat for most of the fight? Its not until the end of most of the battles that they remember they have weapons to fire at these beasts and kill them which works with the category 1-3 beasts just fine. Why not just shoot the things?

Carl Missouri

Chosen answer: Most likely they only use it when they know they have a guaranteed shot and won't waste it. It can't be reloaded that easily. Like having one bullet to kill a zombie vs a sword so go for the sword save the bullet it's more valuable. That's typical military tactics. Possible firing whatever weapons could cost a ridiculous amount of money just like missiles do. It's not exactly like Yeager weapons were mass produced they are all different. Last reason is reducing extra casualties by making sure they don't miss when they fire or making firing weapons the last resort. And just for the movie's sake it would be boring as crap if they just blew the heads off in seconds.

Answer: His age is never revealed, but probably anywhere from 15-25 years older.

raywest

Question: In the scene where Jake is driving Andrew to find Melanie, he tells the story about the cat. The cat had cancer and Melanie wanted it to die a "humane" death. What is humane about blowing it up and if it was gonna die of cancer all those years ago why is it still roaming around town?

Answer: It was only humane from Melanie's skewed, immature-at-the-time perspective, believing the cat would be killed instantly. It is still roaming town because it somehow survived the attempt to blow it up and it either never had cancer or has gone into remission.

raywest

Show generally

Question: Is it me, or do the turbo-lifts lack the double-door, as our current-day elevators have?

Answer: Whilst there does not appear to be a double door (one for the deck and one for the turbolift itself), the fact that we never see the door left behind in interior shots, or the door move away from the deck in exterior shots, we must assume there is a secondary door. Perhaps with the advanced technology it is just much thinner than we are used to.

Question: What motivated Bob Taylor (an earlier abductee of the same perpetrators) to implicate himself in the current abductions by stealing the girls' clothing items and taking them to his home?

BF

Chosen answer: Because he was once abducted by the same kidnappers when he was a child, and it has damaged him emotionally. He is recreating the abductions, playing the part of a kidnapper, and be keeps the clothes as a memento of his past experience.

raywest

Question: In the few seconds (Earth time) it took for the pod to fall through the time travel device, it would have been impossible for Ellie to have become detached from the safety seat. It would have been even less possible for the seat to have become dislodged from the pod, AND for the seat to smash against the side of the pod with sufficient force crush it. I understand there was a cover-up (e.g., the 18 hours of static on her recording device), but Ellie, herself, would have remembered the dislodged, smashed seat. Why did she never bring it up in defense of her version of the facts? Was there a reason someone knows of, or is this just a plot hole?

Michael Albert

Chosen answer: Ellie defended her version of the facts with everything she had to work with, but the simple fact was that the government cover-up was just too strong for her to overcome. The points you raise are perfectly reasonable, but the version of events released by the powers-that-be denies everything that happened and, without any other proof, Ellie has only her word to convince people with. For some, that's enough, as we see in the film, even if a majority choose to believe the "official" version.

Tailkinker

Question: Tom Cruise is a Manhattan doctor living on Central Park West. We can see in the movie it's a large, beautiful apartment. To buy a Central Park West apartment of this type is in the range of 5 to 12 million dollars. Being a doctor he's highly educated. Why don't the rich people in the naked group want him as a member? He the perfect recruit.

Answer: Perhaps the group is full or bans certain groups of people. It is also possible that they excluded him because in New York, physicians are mandatory reporters and they were afraid of being found out.

Greg Dwyer

Show generally

Question: In an episode with all Vivian's sisters around she says "the Smith sisters are together again" or something like that. Later in Fresh Prince we meet Will's father, who we hear has the surname "Smith" as well, does this mean Will's dad and Vi shared a surname?

Makungu Tata Kunda

Chosen answer: Yes, though remember that Smith is the most common surname in the United States.

Greg Dwyer

Chosen answer: The actual song is called "The Portrait". It was not included in the original soundtrack. It is, however, on the "Back to Titanic" soundtrack. This piece is the entire song that plays in the scene.

Question: Doug says they are going home with some money, but how much is the damage to the hotel room going to cost?

Answer: It was never stated but it would cost thousands of dollars to repair the damage.

raywest

Least of their problems, the only one they could give to someone else, and easily covered by all those casino chips.

dizzyd

Question: Who overrode the tunnel's explosion? Was it Marty since he had access to the system from the maintenance hatch?

Answer: It's stated that the tunnel should have blown hours ago, so the initial failure is most likely human error, that the order to blow the tunnel simply didn't get through to the demolition team on schedule. The subsequent problem blowing it up is referred to as being related to "a glitch up top", later stated as a "power re-route upstairs". While not stated outright, the only plausible explanation is that this was, as you rightly stated, due to Marty messing around with the equipment that he found in the hatch.

Tailkinker

Show generally

Question: In the actor/actress introductions at the end is "someone" in a long black dress who is not identified - who is the actress?

Chosen answer: They wouldn't have believed him. Or brushed it off, because Grandpa was probably trying to get them to kill him too.

Captain Defenestrator

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