Question: How many people were on the bus throughout the movie (counting Jack, Annie, Sam, & Helen)?
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Question: I'm really bad at remembering faces - was just wondering if the guy who Brad Pitt, George Clooney and Matt Damon meet, and eat with - and play the weird phrases game, is also Le Marque - so technically, did CZJ met her father unofficially, (before Pitt introduces him) when she was interrogating him?
Answer: Le Marque and Matsui (the weird phrase guy) are played by Albert Finney and Robbie Coltrane, respectively (so no, she never met him before).
Question: What does the Saxon who rallies the troops actually yell? He yells it twice: once, after Cerdic meets with Arthur in front of the wall and gives the order to "prepare the men for battle", and then a second time when Cerdic gives the signal after the only survivor of the first "wave" comes back through the wall. (And I don't mean his cry of "battle formation.").
Answer: I don't think it's supposed to be German. Probably Old Saxon. Could be something like "slahten fiand" - slaughter enemy.
Answer: He yells 'Schlachtet den feind!' (In very, very bad "German") - 'slaughter the enemy!'. And his army seems to yell: "Schlachtung! Schlachtung! Schlachtung..." - "Slaughter! Slaughter! Slaughter..."
Question: Why on earth does Marion take her bra off before putting on the white dress given to her by Belloc?
Answer: She takes off her bra because the dress has a very low back.
Answer: She was trying to "seduce" Belloc and get him drunk so she could escape. What better way to take a man's attention off your real plans, than to wear a white dress with no bra on.
Question: Why does the helicopter explode at the end? Did the high-tension electrical wire set it off? I never see it hit the chopper, no matter how many times I see the scene. Or does he fact that the helicopter blades hit the pole have something to do with it?
Answer: Willis' character shot the power lines, which fell from the pole and got tangled up in the helicopter blades. Since the blades couldn't spin, the helicopter fell from the air and exploded as it hit the ground.
That's not what happened. John shot the power lines and in an effort to avoid them the helicopter pilot clipped a pole which took them down.
Answer: The sparks seen above the helicopter is meant to be the live wire wrapping around the blades. The helicopter does try to avoid the wire, but it's too late. If you look closely, it doesn't seem like the helicopter hit the pylon, maybe the blades knick it. But the helicopter explodes while in the air before it hit the ground.
Question: Where is the David Schwimmer reference in this movie? I know that there is a Jennifer Aniston reference, but I heard that there was one about David Schwimmer.
Answer: It's when Dewey and Randy are talking about the movie Stab. Randy says to him "At least you get played by David Schwimmer, I get the guy who rode the stage coach through one episode of Dr Quinn".
Question: Does Greit say yes when Peiter asks her to marry him? I couldn't work this out.
Answer: Obviously, since she married him in the end.
Question: Is it me, or just before Hot Rod smashes through the barrier at the beginning of the movie, you see the Autobots who were building it run away to avoid being hit, isn't one of them Brawn?, but he died only minutes before the scene with Hot Rod.
Answer: A lot of people get confused by this, but the Transformer you see at the road block is actually Huffer, who is of a very similar design to Brawn.
Question: Are we ever told why Maggie's family cares so little about her? I can only assume it's because they think she's run off to California and left them (and returning later with lots of money doesn't help) but that's just my interpretation, unless I missed something.
Chosen answer: We might just call it an exaggerated portrayal of the "white trash" family. Part of what makes Maggie so endearing is that she struggled and made herself out of nothing, and to create this history, it is expected that her family is awful, and never expected anything out of her.
Question: How do the hovercraft work? I know the glowing pads contribute to the hovering ability, but is that based on any real technology? And why don't the sentinels have the hover-pads?
Chosen answer: The hover pads work by electro-magnetic repulsion much like the mag-lev trains we have today only much more so. They would not leave a trace of propellant to be followed/tracked/traced nor would they be especially hotter than ambient temperature like jet engines etc. The sentinals do not care if they are tracked, but it is not clear if they use a more advanced form of this technology or something else. Remember that the Zion people have to start over from scratch every so often while the machine culture is constantly advancing so the humans' technology would not necessarily be as advanced.
Question: What kind of bird is Nigel? He looks a lot like an Albatross to me.
Chosen answer: Nigel is a pelican - he appears to be modelled on a Brown pelican (although that particular species is not actually native to Australia).
Question: What was in the hat box in the garden?
Question: Does "Vilnius Nastavnic" really translate to "Vilnius Schoolmaster"?
Chosen answer: The literal translation is "Vilnius Principal", but that doesn't sound as imposing.
Schoolmaster is correct. Nastavnik means male teacher or instructor, i.e. a schoolmaster. It does not mean "Principal/Headmaster/Head Teacher."
Question: At the very end, when the boy walks up to Violet, Violet is talking to another girl and saying something that sounds like "Why do they even have to have cheerleaders." Given the film's many political correctness references, is this also a reference to something?
Chosen answer: Traditional cheerleaders are very un-pc for many reasons. They are basically popularity contests, promote beauty/thinness as an ideal, etc.
Question: When Gimli, Legolas, and Aragorn are leaving the troops to go summon that ghost army in the mountain, all of the troops and even Eowyn think he is abandoning them. Why does he not explain where he is going? If he would have told them that he was going to summon a great army to help it would have done a lot for their morale. What does the book say about this?
Chosen answer: The Dead who live under the mountain are feared and hated by pretty much everyone - note Aragorn's reaction when Elrond first suggests recruiting them. The Rohirrim will be well aware of all the tales - if Aragorn were to tell them what his mission was, they'd likely consider him to be insane. Better for them to think that one of their leaders has to go on some unspecified mission than for them to think that he's actually nuts. Besides, Aragorn has no idea whether the Dead will actually choose to fight - he seems reasonably convinced at first that they won't, and he's not likely to be alone in that opinion - most of the Rohirrim would probably consider him to be a fool for even contemplating it - also not exactly great for morale.
Question: I'm not sure if this is a mistake or not, but shouldn't Greg be wearing a yarmulke during his wedding? He and his family are Jewish so why would he not be wearing one?
Chosen answer: Wearing a yarmulke is a custom, not a religious law. There are orthodox jews who don't wear them, as well, since it's a cultural thing.
Not so. Many Jews don't wear yarmulkes, but Orthodox male Jews do-as a religious law, not a custom.
Question: When they pass in front of the library, there are only two books "Fiction" and "Non-fiction". I remember seeing something similar in a science-fiction film when I was a kid. A man says something like "All the knowledge of the Martians is contained in this disc". Is it a reference to this film, and if so, what is its name?
Chosen answer: I don't know that it is a reference, but it sounds like you are thinking of The Martian Chronicles.
Question: Spoiler! Doesn't Maggie have the legal right to refuse any type of life support? She's completely cognitive and in possession of all her mental faculties. Why does Frankie have to sneak in and illegally participate in her assisted suicide?
Answer: Yes, there was an article in last week's Sunday paper about how the medical community is up in arms over the mis-portrayal of patient's rights issues.
Answer: Suicide is a sin and is said that you go to hell if you commit suicide. By Frankie doing it, it frees her spiritually from damnation in the eyes of God.
Question: Does anyone know what happened to Pete ? Dim and Georgie become cops, but they never say anything about Pete.
Answer: In the original version of the book, after Alex has his treatment (or, more acurately, his reversal of the treatment) Alex visits Pete, who is living in the suburbs with a wife and kids. Alex then decides that this is what he wants in life, so he gets married and settles. This ending is only in the British copy.
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Answer: There appears to be 20. On IMDb, some have character names and others are listed as "bus passenger".
Macalou