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: Is the movie supposed to have any connection with the Avengers? Is Xandar one of the nine realms? Does the orb have anything to do with the power of the Tesseract?

dhavami

Chosen answer: Each realm is actually more of a dimension than a single world. So Xandar would be part of Midgard. The orb is the housing for one of the Infinity Gems. The Tesseract is also an Infinity Gem. The stone in Loki's scepter and the Aether from Thor: The Dark world are two others. All 6 gems can be combined on the Infinity Gauntlet which enables the user to do whatever he wishes just by thinking about it. Wielded by Thanos, among others, in the comics.

Grumpy Scot

Question: What kind of helicopter is that Alex was about to get into but didn't?

Answer: Sikorsky S-55.

Answer: There's no indication they were meeting for the first time, in fact they seem to know each other as Sgt. Carter addresses Andy only as "Sheriff". Gomer Pyle just says his two favorite people are "meeting face to face", and obviously in the pilot episode Sgt. Carter wasn't one of Pyle's favorite people yet.

Bishop73

Question: What is the orchestral music playing while Howard is chasing the ball through the Mall of America?

Answer: "Russian Dance" from the ballet "The Nutcracker" by Pyotr Tchaikovsky.

Michael Albert

Question: I haven't read the books, but Aragorn was born 10 years before the events of "the Hobbit", and given the fact that he's therefore 70 in Lord of the Rings I'm assuming Middle Earth years are somewhat faster than years as we know them. So that means Aragorn is really about 5-6. And I know Legolas isn't meant to be there in the first place, but when Thranduil tells Legolas to seek out a ranger by the name of "Strider", surely that's a plot hole or something that has happened in the "future" in the books that they've added to the movie as an explanation as to how Legolas came to find Aragorn. Also the last we see of Saruman and Sauron is Saruman saying "leave Sauron to me " So... What happens? We're kinda left hanging, we don't know what happens between them or for that matter how Sauron ends up in Mordor. Loved the movie but unfortunately I have questions.

Answer: When Aragorn was 25 he left Rivendell to travel the world, having had his proposal to marry Arwen rejected by Elrond. Hence he is absent during the time period of the Hobbit, having gone to Rohan and then Gondor in disguise. During his travels he becomes very well known among the Elves, owing to Elrond raising him and Galadriel welcoming him to Lothlorien after he comes back from his long travels. Even before, he had served in the Rangers of the North as he was growing up, where he gained the nickname Strider. Legolas already knows Aragorn before LoTR, as Aragorn had initially left Gollum in the care of the wood-Elves before someone helped Gollum escape.

Answer: Aragon is 87 in LOTR: Two Towers (as mentioned in the extended edition). The Hobbit takes place about 60 years before that so Aragon is 27 at the time. Sauron is banished to Mordor in Battle of the 5 Armies. You see his "spirit" flee and the White Council, mention he went back to the east. Between Sauron and Sarumon, it's mentioned more in other LOTR books, but Sarumon (while still technically good) has been looking for the One Ring. He does not join Sauron as much as uses the alliance for his benefit hoping to find the ring first.

Answer: The years are not significantly different, Aragorn is simply descended from a race of very long-lived men.

Phixius

Answer: Mr. Scrooge is a moneylender and Bob is his clerk. Moneylendering is different than something like a bank loan because interest rates are much steeper and usually the last resort for poor people who can't get bank loans. In essence he's a loan shark.

Bishop73

Salvation - S9-E21

Question: Why did Kira not disappear with the Kandorians when Clark opened the portal, since she is Kryptonian as well and was not infected with blue Kryptonite?

Answer: It is most likely that Kara was not on earth at the time. She had gone off on her own to look for Kandorians, not knowing the survivors she heard rumors of were the ones Tess releases. How she leaves earth is never fully explained, but since the Martian Manhunter was introduced, he may have lent her a ship. She only returns to earth when Jor'el calls her when he feels Clark will not be able to defeat Darkseid.

Question: After Voldemort's death, is anyone able to teach Defense Against Dark Arts for more than a year?

Answer: Yes. According to J.K. Rowling in interviews, the curse Voldemort had cast on the Defense Against the Dark Arts position preventing any teacher lasting more than one year, was finally broken upon his death, and from then on any instructor lasted beyond twelve months.

raywest

In the movies it is never mentioned that Voldemort cursed the DADA post or even applied for this position.

It is mentioned in the books.

Question: Does Voldemort look the way he did before he was defeated by one-year-old Harry, or is his appearance a side effect of the graveyard ritual?

Answer: He did have distorted looks before going after Harry due to the Horcruxes he created, however, the main reason he looks the way he does is because he drank unicorn blood to stay alive.

Season 1 generally

Question: To create a lock-down situation in the prison, Michael breaks the AC unit and the doctor later says that it's the hottest April on record. However the beginning of the episode where Lincoln sits in the electric chair and is then let out again (forgot the name of it) shows it snowing pretty heavily. Up to this point the programme has been set within one month so my question is this. Is this meteorologically possible? And if so is it probable to have heavy snowfall in the hottest April on record?

strikeand

Chosen answer: While this might be an oversight in the show itself, speaking from experience there is a possibility of snow coming and going despite being a warm month. I remember in 2014 going from a high of 8° Celsius (46F) and sunny to -16 C (3.2F) and heavy snow the very next day. The statement as you put means it's the hottest April on record, not the hottest temperatures for the entire year. It may have been unusual temperatures for that time of year and warmer than usual. The snow might have only been for a brief period and disappeared shortly after.

Lummie

Question: The method of identifying citizens by a "tattoo" burned into their arm seems awfully prehistoric for such an advanced environment. The government would "know" the number of legit citizens and would know that the black market citizens were fake, right?

applejackson

Chosen answer: There is virtually no system in the world that is completely foolproof when it comes to regulating a large scale system related to identification. We only know the tattoo are for certain services. There might be more high tech security features for more restricted areas. As for whether they have an accurate count of all their citizens, they might, but again, how you go about regulating these systems is generally the tougher part. At the end of the day people required special transports to even reach Elysium, so it might have not been as big a concern.

Lummie

Question: If Nizam and Dastan were both holding onto the knife at the end when they got sucked up by the sand, why is it that only Dastan remembers what happened?

Quantom X

Chosen answer: The knife can only carry one person, and Dastan had the better grip.

Phixius

Question: When they come across the girl crying over her mother's body, one of the guards says she has the sickness, and when they arrive in the city, they come across an old man who has the laughing sickness - what sicknesses are they referring to?

Answer: It is not specifically identified, but it appears to be the degenerative neurological disease called kuru. It is fatal and believed to have been spread in ancient sub-tropical cultures by cannibalism. Its symptoms resembles the encephalopathy disease known as Creutzfeldt-Jakob (Mad Cow), which is also called the laughing sickness, and is contracted by eating contaminated flesh.

raywest

Answer: Kuru only happens when you eat your relatives and the disease was discovered and studied in Papua New Guinea where eating your dead relatives was a way to carry them with you. There are books about it, fascinating stuff. Eating strangers is safe, not that I recommend eating anyone. The disease the girl has is smallpox brought by the Spanish, thus the ships at the end of the movie are not the first Spanish to visit the area. The laughing sickness could be straight up madness considering the horrible times everyone is living through, or a side effect of the limestone quarrying.

Question: What is the name of the principal's rocking horse? Harley or Harvey?

Answer: It was Harvey. She says, "One year was a rocking horse, and I named it Harvey."

raywest

Question: What's going on with Tommy in the final scene when he's hugging Trish in the hospital? Is he possessed or what?

Orlando Rocha

Chosen answer: He's not possessed. Dealing with Jason made him go crazy. In part 5, we find out he was in a mental hospital for a while, then gets sent to a home for troubled kids.

Chosen answer: The Nokia 9300 is a Nokia Series 80 Symbian Smartphone introduced in 2004. It is used as a normal though bulky mobile phone in closed mode; when it is flipped open it can be used like a very small notebook computer with a 640 x 200 screen. The phone also has speakerphone functionally, which is activated automatically when the phone is flipped open. - Wikipedia.

Question: I just want to know the name of a song. When Cruise goes into his house to tell his wife it's bugged there's a jazz song playing. You know, the one where he turns up the volume and whispers in her ear. Then she takes off running. Who sings that song? I can't find it anywhere!

mp73

Chosen answer: M-O-N-E-Y by Lyle Lovett.

Question: What is the name of the song that's playing when Josh is dropping the his girlfriend home? I tried using shazam but I got nothing.

Answer: It's Counting Crows' cover of "The Ghost In You".

Bishop73

Question: What is the first carol sung in the car?

Answer: If you're referring to the opening scene, they're finishing up "Oh Come All Ye Faithful"

Bishop73

Question: In some of the scenes they are driving on the left side. I thought that all of Europe drove on the right?

Answer: Currently, there are 161 countries and territories world-wide with right-handed traffic, and there are 75 with left-side traffic. The 75 include several countries which were once part of the British Empire. Of these, seven are European, including the United Kingdom and Ireland. In the film, any driving in the UK would be on the left side of the road.

Michael Albert

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