Questions about specific movies, TV shows and more

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Question: When Forrest is introducing the members of his Platoon in Vietnam all of the character names are the names of cities, he then tells where each solider is from but their hometown is different then their nick name. (for example "Dallas from Phoenix") why would each person have a name of a city as their name?

Answer: This is just a bit of incidental humor. For example: Dallas is the young man's real name. Why would his parents name him Dallas if he was from Phoenix? Same with Cleveland.

Macalou

Theyre just nicknames aren't they? Like Bubba.

Tex seems to be an obvious nickname, but Dallas and Cleveland are more than likely their real names since many people have those names.

Bishop73

Answer: Forest is mistaking their nicknames for their actual names, and misremembering where they were from. The soldiers are given nicknames based on where they are from. Tex from Texas, Dallas from Dallas. Etc. The funny bit is that Forest isn't putting it together.

There's nothing to indicate Dallas and Cleveland aren't their real names, just like Dan is his real name. The joke being he's remembering where those two are from but when it comes to Tex, an obvious nickname, he can't remember where he's from. Plus, why would a guy from Texas get the nickname Dallas and another guy from Texas get the nickname Tex and not the city he's from?

Bishop73

Show generally

Question: What happened to Carol's clinic? It stopped running just after she left, but she wasn't actually running it at that point?

Answer: Carol stopped being involved with the clinic in Season 5 - The Storm (2) so that it wouldn't be shut down because of her "borrowing" some equipment. Her last episode was Season 6 - Such Sweet Sorrow, that's 22 episodes later which would be a long time for a sub-plot to last with none of the major characters having any involvement in it.

Myridon

Answer: It's an instrumental version of "Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want" by The Dream Academy. The original song is by The Smiths.

Myridon

Question: This is actually to do with the book. When Sam finds that Frodo is dead he says: 'Gilthoniel A Elbereth. A Elbereth Gilthoniel o menel palan-diriel, le nallon sí di'nguruthos. A tiro nin, Fanuilos'. What does this mean?

Answer: O Elbereth Star-kindler, from heaven gazing afar, to thee I cry now in the shadow of death! O watch over me, Everwhite!

Myridon

Out of Mind (1) - S2-E22

Question: This goes for 'Into The Fire' as well. Where did Hathor get her Jaffa? In 'Hathor' she breathed on the men. That doesn't work on Jaffa. Where / how did she get her Ship?

Answer: Once a Goa'uld defeats another, the winner claims all the loser's worlds, ships, Jaffa, etc. Hathor either had a ship hidden or killed another system lord (through treachery most likely) and took over his resources.

Grumpy Scot

Question: Forgive me for being stupid, but what's the point about Sam's salt box in the extended cut? Was it originally going to be Galadriel's gift to Sam (he receives one in the book) and then they changed it? That part seems a little useless to me as it is.

Answer: It's to show that he's still holding on to something from home, that he still has hope for their mission. Peter Jackson mentions this on the commentary. He was always intended to get rope from Galadriel.

Nick N.

Question: What is it that Yen is stacking up when he is sitting on the diving board?

Answer: It is a house of playing cards.

moviemogul

Question: Did anyone notice that the sky during the scene where Fait and Ling are driving across a bridge is particularly deep blue? I can't decide if that's a really deep blue sky or it's a blue screen without the sky added in.

Answer: The whole scene shows them driving on the bridge obviously shot from a helicopter. The whole sky is blue, so unless they had a very large blue screen, then I would say NO. Besides that scene is supposed to represent night-time. Therefore it's supposed to be the glow of the moon.

XIII

Question: The character of Pie Mei: what does his name mean?

Answer: Pai Mei means "White Lotus", though some sites seem to think it means "White Eyebrow." He's a character that appears in a lot of '70's Kung Fu movies and is played by Gordon Liu (who also plays the first of the large group of Crazy 88's (the one who runs in and yells) in Vol. 1).

Myridon

Answer: Faramir's personality is completely different from Boromir's. It would not be in his nature to seize it by himself.

scwilliam

Question: I doubt whether if this is a movie mistake or not so I better ask this question first: Where does the "lightning effect" come from in the Mount Doom sequence? Is this just a filmmaking technique to make the scene scary and climactic? As you can notice from other movies like Titanic where Jack and Rose where running along the flooded corridors of the ship and saving a child, there are broken electric wires that create this effect (lights flashing on and off continuously). In horror movies, there are always thunderstorm to justify that the "lightning effect" come from a real lightning. And now in ROTK, especially when Frodo is having his last look on the Ring before he says 'The Ring is mine.', there are "lightning effects." I don't think it's from the lava nor a thunderstorm and not certainly from a broken electric wire.

Answer: It's a big volcano jam-packed full of Sauron's wild magical power flashing around, also the volcano must have some sort of magic power in and of itself if it can be used to forge/unforge magical rings.

Myridon

Question: I heard from a friend that the astronaut guy (MJ's boyfriend in the movie) is the man who will later become Venom, one of Spider-Man's worst enemies. Is that true?

Answer: According to Marvel, Venom is a former Daily Bugle reporter named Eddie Brock. You can read about him at marvel.com. John Jameson becomes the Wolfman after coming into contact with a red gemstone on the moon (in the comics at least), an affliction he is eventually cured of.

Question: I've heard that in the U.K., a part of the film had to be cut to give it a PG rating, does anybody know what this part was?

Answer: It was a headbutt - when Spider-Man and Doc Oc are free falling, Aunt May is struggling to hold on to the umbrella, and Spider-Man throws a head butt at Doc. It's included in a Blu-Ray version.

KingofallSamurai

Question: What exactly is the lysine thing Muldoon mentions? I didn't really understand it. And if it is the only way to save the others then why does Hammond say it's completely out of the question?

Answer: The so-called scientists genetically engineered the dinosaurs to not be able to produce the amino acid lysine so that they would need lysine supplements in their diet or they would die. Muldoon wants to stop giving them the supplement. Hammond doesn't want to stop giving it because the dinosaurs will die - all his money down the drain. Unfortunately, they goofed up because there were edible plants on the island that contain lysine (probably planted by the same idiot who planted the poisonous ferns), so the herbivores eat those, the carnivores eat the herbivores, and VOILA! all the dinosaurs have plenty of lysine without the supplement.

Myridon

Question: I have never read the comics, but I heard somewhere that in them, Aunt May makes Peter's costume. But in the film Peter says he made it himself. Which is it?

Answer: Peter makes his own costume in both the comic book and in the movie.

Macalou

Question: Does the special features DVD have any deleted scenes? If so, how do I get to them?

Answer: The deleted scenes are on Disc 2. In the classroom-looking room with the parchment scrolls in the shelves and the picture of Filch on the desk, etc., move the cursor up towards the top of the screen, and look for (I believe) "Extended Scenes," and select it.

Answer: If you are talking about when they break up and ignore eachother at school, its 'Crazy' by Kacy and Jo Jo.

Answer: 'Crazy' by K-Ci and JoJo.

Question: The early versions of the M16 had severe problems with jamming. There may have been several causes; instructions issued that the rifle was "self-cleaning", improper ammunition design, improper magazine design (therefore in a later stage 18 rounds instead of 20 were used in the mag). It is not necessarily a mistake, certainly not by the filmmaker, but there are several writers mentioning serious casualties amongst fighting troops specifically because of jamming M16 rifles. Why does this book/film not even include a hint of that problem which surely must have existed at that time and place?

Airborne Ranger

Chosen answer: There is no definitive information on this topic, and although factually accurate, a technical problem with a weapon was probably not enough to build an entire sub-plot, and would not hold the interest of the moviegoer. There were enough casualties without having to take into consideration weapon malfunction.

Macalou

Answer: The M16's used in this battle were second generation M16A1's easily distinguished by the forward bolt assist on the right hand side of the rifle. The original M16 had no bolt assist and the jamming was caused by a different propellant that made the weapon very dirty.

stiiggy

Question: When Norman says the guy "that wrote that book he loves" (Shumway?) congratulated him on Spencer's Theorem, then Claire says "He didn't know your father was dead?" and Norman says "He knew". What does one thing have to do with the other? I've seen this movie at least 20 times and I can't figure out this conversation.

Ingabritzen

Chosen answer: Spencer's theorem was Norman's father's theorem. Norman wants to be greater than his father was, so to be accidentally complemented on something that his father did would be bad enough. To say that the guy knows that his father is dead is to imply that the guy probably insulted him intentionally.

Myridon

Answer: Pretty sure this qualifies as a mistake, just like the llamas in Troy. Armadillos only live in the Americas. Later on, they have opossums too! So the story about not wanting to show rats could very well be true. Nevetheless, if this isn't a mistake, I don't know what is.

Spiny Norman

Chosen answer: If memory serves, that version was filmed in Mexico and they used the same sets to film the Spanish version AT THE SAME TIME. English crew on days, Mexican crew at night. Being the desert there would be armadillos and I'm sure the crew thought they'd make good rats or something. Wouldn't you find some sort of exotic wildlife living in Castle Dracula?

Answer: Actually, in that time period, rats were deemed too "gross" to show so armadillos were substituted. I got this answer straight from David Skal, the noted horror film historian.

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