Answered 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: Just as the bad guy fell into the water two sharks came for him at once, but not for James and Melina (even though he had a wound from earlier). Is there a logical explanation of why the sharks weren't interested in them as well?

Answer: There's no logical reason, though possibly because he was thrashing around and it attracted the sharks that are sensitive to vibrations in the water. Mostly it's a plot device where the bad guy gets what's coming to him rather than depicting reality.

raywest

Question: When Reginald says to Cecil "You really think he (Larry) is the one?" and then Cecil replies "Oh yes, he's the one", are we already suppose to know that Cecil, Reginald and Gus are the villains?

Answer: Not necessarily know it, but it's a clue that foreshadows their culpability.

raywest

Question: If Ned couldn't open the boathouse door and got blown up at the end - how did Kathleen Turner do it and survive the explosion?

Answer: Matty had Teddy tell her how to rig the bomb with a timer. She activated the bomb, escaped in a boat on the water, leaving Ned holding the bag. But, with a good lawyer, he would have easily beat the case. Unfortunately, he confesses to his cop friend, Oscar, in the jailhouse (which might be inadmissible).

Answer: It wasn't revealed, but since she was the one who orchestrated the plot, there was likely an inside escape hatch for her to get out of the boat house before it exploded.

raywest

Answer: Timer.

If you look at the yearbook, you will see Mary Ann Simpson was a competitive swimmer for 2 years.

Question: At the end Paul makes it rain on Arrakis - wouldn't this harm the sandworms? If so, it seems like a mean move on his part, especially considering the role they played in his coup.

Answer: Arrakis did, at one time, have lakes and oceans, and the Fremen (desert people) have an ongoing secret project to restore the surface water of Arrakis (they have multi-million-liter water reservoirs all over the place beneath the planet's surface). Additionally, in the first novel it is mentioned that attempts to drill wells on Arrakis fail because they are inexplicably "plugged up" soon after they start producing water. All of this implies that the Fremen and the worms are working together to protect and hoard a great deal of the water that already exists on Arrakis. If this is the case, then the worms may value the return of surface water as much as everyone else.

Charles Austin Miller

Later on in the Dune universe the worms are limited to a large desert on the very fertile world of Arrakis, where they still produce the spice.

lionhead

Question: There is something I don't get about the bad guys. Why would they kidnap a teenage boy?

Answer: If you're talking about why they kidnapped Zack, Zack is the younger brother of Jake. Jake still owed Johnny money, but when Johnny and his gang go look for Jake, they can't find him. They see Zack and kidnap him, essentially for ransom, until Jake fully pays Johnny back.

Bishop73

It's also important to remember that this is a film based on true events, the kidnapping and murder of Nicolas Markowitz. All the names in the film have been changed.

Why did they murder Nick?

Although this should be posted as a different question, in real life, Jesse (the one Nick's brother owed money to) had decided to let Nick go home. However, Jesse found out what kind of legal consequences he'd face for kidnapping Nick and decided to have Nick killed instead (obviously thinking he could get away with murder and deny any kidnapping allegations).

Bishop73

Answer: She wanted to use them to discourage Lisa from playing hockey and probably felt ashamed/embarrassed for keeping them when Milhouse asked if she had them.

Phaneron

Question: In the 'War Room' scene, there appeared to be a sheet of plastic or acetate covering the wall with the map of the enemy's movements. Was that premature for plastic to be available in that size for that time frame?

Myke

Answer: It was probably Perspex, an acrylic plastic commonly available at the time, used for, amongst other things, fighter plane cockpit canopies and windscreens.

stiiggy

Answer: It may be polyethylene, which was in wide use by the 1930s. Other plastics were also available at that time.

raywest

Question: My question is the fact of Davy Jones, and now Will Turner, not being able to step on land except for once every ten years. What exactly is physically stopping them? It is hinted at in Dead Men Tell No Tales, that he would turn to ash, however, my question is, if that were to happen, the Dutchman would have no captain and the Dutchman must always have a captain. That is said repeatedly. So, unless there is some physical boundary, which, to me would make the buckets in the meeting in At World's End, be not possible, why can they not walk on land? Also, this one kinda ties in to the first, the Dutchman must always have a captain, so why did the soldiers' of the East India Trading Company point the cannons at it? There must be a captain. So, that couldn't actually work because then who would be captain? And I understand that it was the Mercer showing his power over Davy Jones, but they both had to know that it does not follow the logic of the Dutchman having to have a captain. Any ideas?

Answer: It's never definitively explained why the Dutchman's captain cannot step on land, but it has to do with the fact that he was supposed to remain in the underworld and ferry lost souls to the 'other side.' The "stepping on land" is a generalized reference that refers to him being allowed to return to the living world once every ten years. Jones abandoned his true purpose by leaving the underworld to stay among the living, thus becoming cursed. He was apparently able to withstand being on solid ground as long as he was not directly in contact with it (hence the bucket). As to Jones' relationship with the East India Company, Lord Becket would only maintain a pact with Jones as long as it was useful and Jones remained loyal. If Jones violated their agreement, Becket would not have hesitated to destroy him, his ship, and the crew.

raywest

Question: While en route to Miller's planet, Romilly explains that due to relativity, for each hour they spend on the surface, 23 years will have passed on earth. Romilly stays aboard the ship, orbiting the planet. The crew goes in, has a tragic accident, then goes back to the ship. Now, this is what I don't get - Romilly has aged 23 years while they explored the planet for a couple of hours. How come Romilly aged at all? He was just outside the planet. Not on earth. There should be no major time difference between the crew and Romilly.

Adi

Answer: It was stated that the time dilation on Miller's planet was a result of its close proximity to Gargantua, the black hole. Romilly kept the Endurance out of range of Gargantua, whilst Cooper, Brand and Doyle went to Miller's planet, so he was not affected by the time dilation, and aged consistently with Earth. Had Romilly gotten the Endurance any closer towards Miller's planet, he would have been affected by the time dilation in the same way Cooper and Brand were, but he did not.

Casual Person

Thanks a lot :).

Adi

Answer: It was actually 1 hour on the planet was 7 years outside of the time slippage. They spent a little over 3 hours on the planet, these a little over 23 years passed for Romilly. As an added interest, in the scene there is a "tick" in the background soundtrack. Each tick is the passage of 1 hour of Earth time.

Question: Was this film a box office hit, did it flop or simply break even? I have heard nothing about it being a huge money-maker. And of all James Cameron's films, it seems to have gotten the least mention (the controversial strip tease scene might be one reason). So I was wondering if someone could clarify it once and for all?

Gavin Jackson

Chosen answer: True Lies did well, earning about $379m worldwide from a $100m+ budget, the first movie to have a production budget that high. It was the third highest grossing movie of 1994.

Jon Sandys

Answer: There was supposed to be a sequel but after 9/11. Middle East Terrorism seemed in poor taste to James Cameron.

Show generally

Question: I have recently bet my friend that at some point in the series the boys were playing penny football. Am I right? And if I'm right when did they play?

Answer: I know Friends pretty well - at least off the top of my head I can't think of a time when they did.

Jon Sandys

In season 5, episode 10: The One With The Inappropriate Sister, Chandler is playing a game on their kitchen peninsula where he launches a spoon into a large bowl while Joey sits in the living room trying to write a screenplay. Joey chastises Chandler for playing with the target so close and tells him to move it further back. They then go on to invent the game Fire Ball. Could this be what you are thinking of?

Season 3 generally

Question: How is it that Butch doesn't get his hand back but Galavan's sister has full control over hers even though it was sliced off?

Answer: Tabitha got her hand sewn back on, Butch didn't.

Question: What exactly were Atlee's intentions with Ilsa? Why did he originally send her to infiltrate the Syndicate and why did he send her back later in the movie? If all he wants to do is keep the Syndicate hidden, what does he hope to accomplish with Ilsa as his woman on the inside? Does he actually know what is on the flashdrive she brings him, or does he also think it's a ledger? It makes sense for him to want to delete it in both cases, so I'm confused trying to figure out which it is. Either way, does Atlee send her back to get killed? Hunt later says he wanted to "frame" her, but I don't understand how.

Answer: When Lane took the Syndicate rogue, Atlee no longer had any control or oversight into the group, so he sent Ilsa Faust to infiltrate them and report to him what Lane was doing. The CIA and IMF already knew about the Syndicate so it was no longer hidden, and Atlee just needed to cover up his role in its creation. As Faust was already undercover there, he could also frame her for any connection to MI6 that might be revealed, particularly if she was killed and could no longer incriminate him.

Sierra1

Answer: According to Forrest she "died on a Tuesday" and he "bought her a new hat with little flowers on it" and that's all he had to say about that.

Super Grover

Question: When Calhoun punches Ralph as he's watching the Random Roster Race, is she aware that he is Felix's friend that they were trying to find? If so, does Calhoun have a liking for Ralph even though she was angry with him for bringing a cy-bug into "Sugar Rush"? Would she be worried about him and try to rescue him if he was in danger of getting killed by a cy-bug?

Answer: Yes she is aware of who he is (She saw him in the escape pod with the Cy-bug) Just because she hates him for what he caused doesn't mean she will not help him if he is in danger.

Question: If the core stopped spinning, where would all the kinetic energy that keeps it spinning go? Energy cannot be created or destroyed.

Answer: For one thing, the rotation of the core is almost identical to (if not a bit faster than) the rotation of the rest of the planet; so the core coming to a stop relative to the rest of the planet is physically impossible. Over billions of more years, the Earth's core and mantle may eventually cool off and solidify (as has happened on Mars), but the core will still be rotating at the same velocity as the rest of the planet. By that time, of course, Earth will have also lost its Moon, so there will be no tidal forces between the Earth and Moon, which means the planet will be seismically dead, but the Earth will still be rotating on its axis. For the time being, though, it would literally take a miracle, an act of divine intervention, to overcome the physics of planetary rotation. If the core could somehow be stopped relative to the rest of the planet (which is physically impossible), then the core's energy would quite quickly be dissipated into the Earth's mantle, which would become an unimaginable inferno (much more so than it already is), propagating seismic and super-volcano activity all over the globe by a factor of, say, 10,000 times normal activity. The Earth's crust would be effectively ripped to shreds by super-earthquakes and eruptions within a matter of hours, perhaps even causing the entire globe to disintegrate into space. As mentioned, though, it would require something on the order of a true miracle to precipitate this chain of events.

Charles Austin Miller

Answer: The same place it goes normally: dissipated into the Earth.

LorgSkyegon

Answer: Because despite whatever unresolved issues there are between them, he still cares about his son, and probably hopes for reconciliation one day.

raywest

Question: Is it really possible to keep a person warm by putting him inside the body of a large animal? That's what Han does with Luke in the movie.

Answer: There are real life stories of people using horse carcasses for warmth and shelter. There were even old stories of shepherds using their camels in the exact manner as Han does for Luke, although I can't attest to their validity. (DiCaprio does a similar thing in "The Revenant" with a horse). There is residual heat in these animals. Most large animals have an normal temperature over 100°F (a camel's temperature can rise to 104°F during the day). However, what is most likely keeping them relatively warm is using the carcass as a heavy blanket while at the same time blocking the cold winds (creating a small tent) and not using the guts to warm themselves up.

Bishop73

Answer: In the Mythbusters' Star Wars episode #208, Adam and Jamie created a tauntaun and an analog Luke and simulated the same frigid conditions to test whether this was possible. They concluded it was "plausible."

Question: Why did Whitney hide the key to his house that poorly (in the flowerpot on the porch)?

Answer: Many people do this-hide a house key in an outside place that they think is secure when in fact, most burglars would know to look there.

raywest

Question: I have a problem with the scene where Chuck makes a fire by rubbing sticks. While it is possible to make a fire by the rubbing sticks, don't you need to run the stick against bamboo for the trick to work?

Answer: The point of the scene is that he has no idea what he's doing.

Chuck is using the fire plough method. A very established method. This and the fire saw method probably resulted in early sailors bringing back stories of."natives rubbing sticks together" to create fire.

Answer: You can use any wood (although technically bamboo is a grass and not wood), it just should be very dry wood. He's employing the fire trench method where the friction is created by rubbing one stick at a 45° angle against a trench in a wood plank (his trench looks to have been created because the plank was slit).

Bishop73

Actually, I looked up how to make a fire by rubbing sticks because asking this question, and I misread it as suggesting using bamboo. It was actually suggesting using coconut wood.

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.