Questions about specific movies, TV shows and more

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Question: Why is the animal host switched out between the theatre release and the DVD release? Does this switch have any major differences between the two versions? I've only ever seen the theatre version.

Answer: There are two quite different versions of the film, due to problems behind the scenes while shooting. The director, David Fincher, was repeatedly subjected to studio interference, culminating with them effectively locking him out of the edit suite and creating the final cut of the movie themselves - this became the theatrical version, with the dog being used as the alien host. Some years later, a new version of the film was created using footage that Fincher shot that was rejected by the executives; known as the "Assembly Cut", the result was much closer to Fincher's original intent and contains a number of significant differences from the original - it's this version of the film that uses an ox as the alien host. Most box-sets of the film series will contain both the original theatrical cut and the assembly cut.

Tailkinker

Question: Why did it take Bella almost dying for a house full of thirsty vampires to realize that the vampire fetus would want to drink blood?

sunfox35

Chosen answer: It was the first time that a vampire ever got a human pregnant, and they didn't know what will happen.

Anastasios Anastasatos

It wasn't the first time a vampire impregnated a human, as shown by the half-human/half-vampire South American native that appears at the end. However, the Cullens knew nothing about his existence until that time, nor could they assume the fetus was fully vampire. They therefore had no idea how to treat Bella's pregnancy.

raywest

Question: Regarding Mad Eye Moody. 1: Why is he drinking a polyjuice potion in front of Harry in the classroom? 2: Why does it starts storming in the great hall when Mad Eye Moody enters? Does this has anything to do with it being the wrong Moody? 3: Was Barty Crouch killed by Moody? If yes, did Barty senior know it was his son?

Loesjuh1985

Chosen answer: 1. Because nobody knows it's polyjuice potion, and it's not suspicious at all for Mad-Eye Moody to drink from his own flask. 2. It's a storytelling technique called foreshadowing. So while, in the movie's world, the storm has nothing to do with this Moody being an impostor, within the context of the film as a storytelling medium it does. 3. Yes, Barty Sr. was killed by Barty Jr. Barty Sr. was breaking down mentally from spending so long under the Imperius Curse. In his brief moments of sanity, he was able to connect the dots and figure out that what his son was up to.

Phixius

Question: At first I thought that Jaws was chasing Bond throughout the movie, because he failed to kill him in the previous movie, The Spy Who Loved Me, but it turns out that he works for Drax now, whereas he first worked for Stromberg in TSWLM. As far as I know, Drax and Stromberg have nothing to do with each other, so is it purely a coincidence that Jaws now works for a new employer, which happens to be Bond's new target?

Answer: There's a scene where Drax is on the phone trying to hire someone to kill Bond. He says to the person on the other end "Well, of COURSE, if you can get HIM!" This is when he hires Jaws.

Captain Defenestrator

Question: I don't understand something about the last part of the movie. Before they going back in time, they are leaving Hagrid's hut and watch somebody pretending to eliminate the hippogriff. Shouldn't they've seen Harry and Hermione rescuing the hippogiff before? Because they were observing until the bad people came outside Hagrid's hut. Or do we must assume that they were rescuing the hippogriff in the meantime they were running behind the rocks?

Loesjuh1985

Chosen answer: Harry and friends leave Hagrid's hut, then watch as Fudge and company arrive, go into the hut for a short time, then exit and supposedly execute Buckbeak. However, as they can't actually see the area where Buckbeak is, they don't realise that what they think is an execution is actually the executioner slamming his axe onto the floor in frustration at Buckbeak being missing. Buckbeak was rescued by the future Harry and Hermione while Fudge was in the hut; as Buckbeak was out of sight, their younger selves didn't see it happen.

Tailkinker

Question: When Chechen meets the Joker in the warehouse, why did his men suddenly turn on him and start working for the Joker? The Joker was the only one in the warehouse, so it would have made sense for Chechen's men to simply say no or even beat him into submission.

Answer: Members of the mob typically respect strength and audacity. The Joker has repeatedly shown himself to have plenty of both in his confrontations with the police, rather more so than the Chechen has shown. Plus, and this is quite a key point, the Joker has all the mob's money. Plenty of reasons why the Chechen's men might find themselves interested in working for him instead.

Tailkinker

Question: On Dagobah, when Luke goes into the cave he finds Darth Vader and kills him, his helmet explodes and turns out Darth Vader is Luke. How does this make any sense?

Chosen answer: Luke is seeing visions relating to possible futures. In this case, it's effectively a warning that, if he embraces the path of violence, which he has at this point by keeping his weapons with him when Yoda told him to leave them behind, then he risks falling to the Dark Side and becoming just as bad as Vader.

Tailkinker

Question: What is Chris McNeal's assistant listening to on the radio when Father Merrit arrives?

Answer: When it cuts to Chris MacNeil's PA, Sharon, listening to the radio it's only for about 20 seconds, and all we hear is a voice which presumably belongs to a random radio host or guest who is in the midst of offering motivational advice. This short scene serves to show Sharon's tension with what's going on in the house.

Super Grover

Question: If Klaatu chooses to save the policeman that he injures/kills, and seemingly has the power to do this as many times as he wishes, why does he let the man using the Polygraph die?

Answer: He wasn't sensitive enough to earth people at that time. He came for a job.

Anastasios Anastasatos

Question: Did that officer who Vader attempts to choke, throw up on the table afterwards? I can't tell if that's vomit or just some buttons on the table, but as I haven't watched the film in some time, any help would be great.

Gavin Jackson

Chosen answer: Every person on the table has a monitor in front of them, and what you see is a yellow button or some kind of mouse or joystick that glows.

Anastasios Anastasatos

Question: In Cars 2, it was decided not to bring back Doc Hudsen out of respect for the late Paul Newman. So why was slinky recast for this film? Didn't the filmmakers feel that Jim Varney deserved the same respect? Considering they didn't bring back certain characters like Bo-peep etc, I find it insulting that they felt so little of Varney.

Gavin Jackson

Chosen answer: Well, with all due respect to Mr. Varney, he's no Paul Newman. You respect different actors in different ways. Paul Newman is much more of a "remember in silence" type actor, when Varney's much more relaxed and silly style lends itself more toward celebrating the character over the actor, in which case removing the character would not necessarily be the best decision. I don't know if these were things the Pixar crew specifically thought of, but that's how I view it.

Garlonuss

Question: During the 'interrogation' scene, where Bond plays the word association game, the interviewer says the word "Skyfall," which elicits a fairly negative response from Bond. At this point, the audience still doesn't know exactly what Skyfall is. My question is, now that we know, why did they use this word on Bond? Exactly what kind of reaction were they looking to get?

Answer: The name Skyfall is the name of his parents estate in Scotland. Obviously this would be in his file. Given that the doctor is trying to determine Bond's psychological state, its very likely that he would try to ask about his childhood and the death of his parents. He was trying to see what Bond would do when asked about that part of his life. Bonds reaction to the word is probably the reason why the doctor puts 'unresolved childhood trauma' in his report.

roboc

Question: Merida points out that the berries Elinor (as a bear) eats are poisonous. I'm sure she meant to say that those berries are poisonous to humans, but are they also poisonous to bears? If not, then did Merida just not know that? (01:33:00)

Answer: The most probable answer is that Merida wouldn't know about a bear's metabolism and what might be fatal to one when berries she knows to be poisonous to humans gets ingested. And although I doubt she wondered if those berries would have been poisonous to a bear, given the fact that she is a sharp girl I assume that if the thought had crossed her mind, in the case of her mother she would choose caution.

Question: Heres something that never made sense to me. I could see how Marty's great-great-grandfather Shemus could resemble Marty (so Michael J. Fox plays him), but why would his great-great-grandmother Maggie McFly resemble his mother when this is his father's side of the family?

Carl Missouri

Chosen answer: This has been covered before. Men tend to be attracted to women who remind them of their mothers, so the McFly men would be attracted to a certain "type" throughout the years until we get to George meeting Lorraine.

Captain Defenestrator

Question: Why, when Thunderbird 5 got hit, did they send the rest of the Tracy family (excluding Alan of course)? They didn't know about The Hood wanting to infiltrate their home base, but at least one of them should have stayed behind if only to have gone to fix any problem the typhoon would have given. (00:23:15)

Answer: Jeff's entire reason for forming International Rescue was to save as many lives as he can following the death of his wife. When T5 is hit, someone's life is in danger, so Jeff drops everything to save a life. It was an ill conceived move, yes, but it was for noble reasons.

Brad

Question: Towards the beginning of the film when Brock and his team are searching for the diamond. They go through what where Rose's, Cal's and Ruth's rooms. They also pass the bathroom and Bodine says "Looks like someone left the water running" My question is how could he tell that? And how could that've happened? When the passengers start going up to the deck Ruth tells the maids to go back and turn up the heaters believing she will return to the room and maids aren't shown again.

Answer: It was a sarcastic remark. The "water left running" flooded the Titanic and caused it to sink. He didn't mean that someone literally left the water running.

shortdanzr

Answer: What they mean by "the water running" is that the Titanic is fully underwater, where Brock is using sarcasm to say the Titanic is flooded.

Question: I find myself confused about the money. The chip from the GT40 contains the information about Reyes' money and cash houses and that there is 100 million dollars spread throughout 10 cash houses. That would mean that there's 10 million in each house. The group decides to split it 9 ways since there's 9 of them (before counting Vince which makes 10). They burn the money from one cash house so wouldn't that mean there's only 90 million dollars left that Reyes' had locked away in the safe and put into the police station to split amongst 10 people?

Answer: Theres no telling how much money is in the safe. First, just because there are 10 safe houses, does not mean it is divided equally between them. Second, there may be more locations where his money is located that we (and the characters in the movie) are not aware of. Third, we have no idea how much money was burned at his safe house. Plus I doubt very much a man this rich and powerful would put every last dollar he has into one safe. Sure there were millions in the safe to split between them, how much though is a mystery.

Carl Missouri

It's also not known how much was in the vault to begin with before all the money was consolidated.

Answer: I think the chip they found gave a pretty accurate amount when they mentioned it was basically a schedule for deliveries and pick-ups to every safe house, and the weight of the money gave the numerical value. So give and take a certain amount, that's where Toretto comes up with one hundred and eleven split equally to Roman that has him changing his tune in about a second.

Chosen answer: He feared them, for one thing, but also felt loyalty to Frodo, who showed him kindness. Gollum, torn between his good and evil nature, was eventually overpowered by his desire for the ring.

raywest

Question: Here is a user comment from the "In and Out" imdb listing. It's about Tom Hank's drama teacher Rawley Farnsworth being the inspiration for this film: "although he provided the idea behind the character, the character as written in the film is not based on Farnsworth himself. The name, the quirky character traits, the Shakespeare lectures, the bicycle, the Midwestern background (Farnsworth was from Oakland CA), the sports coach connection all come from a long term USC theater professor." Does anyone know anything about this?

Question: When Sky Captain's base is attacked, he blasts off with his P-40 from a hangar with the letters E and L between the wings. What does that stand for?

Answer: Pretty sure it's FL, standing for Flying Legion.

Sierra1

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