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: Being a huge fan of the Back to the Future movies, there has been something in this movie I've always wondered about. In this Austin Powers movie, Frau says that Scott is a test tube baby. However, The Spy Who Shagged Me reveals otherwise, and that Scott isn't a test tube baby. Can we assume that in the first movie, Frau knows that Scott isn't a test tube baby, and that she is lying so that Dr. Evil can continue the timeline unchanged? Or was Scott actually a test tube baby in the first movie, and in the second movie the timeline is changed so that he isn't a test tube baby? Hope I worded this right.

Answer: Frau was lying. Of course she would know that Scott wasn't a test tube baby: she carried him to term and delivered him! She kept this from Dr. Evil because she knew he would have no recollection of fathering Scott since he hadn't done it yet. That's a lot of pressure to put on a guy.

Phixius

Question: How old is Anakin in this movie, at least when he and Padme get married at the end (depending on how much time passes throughout the movie)? I've read both eighteen and twenty.

Answer: Anakin was born in 42BBY and the events of the film take place in 22BBY, making Anakin nineteen or twenty when he marries, depending on precisely when it occurred in the year.

Tailkinker

Question: How much did Louis and Valentine make after they scored at the commodity exchange?

Answer: Without knowing precisely how many stocks Winthorp and Valentine sold at the beginning, there is no way to get an exact figure. But we can make some educated guesses. Frozen Concentrated Orange Juice is sold in contracts, with each contract containing 15,000 pounds. By the end of the day, Winthorp and Valentine were making at least an 84 cent profit on each pound, and $12,600 on each contract. If they sold 20,000 contracts, their profit would be $252 million. Considering the Duke's lost $394 million, that estimate seems to fit (and is likely even a little low).

Question: Does anyone have any clue as to why the aliens are vapourising people when they first appear? They never seem to do it again after that one scene (instead opting to grab them and drain them). Any help would be appreciated.

Gavin Jackson

Chosen answer: The aliens saw the humans as an immediate threat to their ship getting out from underground, so opted to vaporise anyone in the near vicinity so that it could leave the ground unimpeded.

GalahadFairlight

Answer: In the movie there are 3 different Tripods 1. Fighting Machine 2. Brute (Seen at the ferry coming out of the water) 3. Harvesters which take the humans.

Answer: My guess is that they are in search of a specific blood type needed for the growth of the vines that is why some people are harvested and other people with "useless" blood types are killed off.

Question: In the scene where the three boy have climbed through the vent system and are approaching the actual vent, Ox says "Hey! I found a Buffalo nickel!" Does this reference a specific movie or was this just a random line they threw in?

lexius1000

Chosen answer: It is a random line. referencing the rarity of buffalo nickles.

MasterOfAll

Question: I saw a trailer for the film in which the scene in the hotel (between Holmes and Irene Adler) appears to be different - she's wearing a short black and red outfit instead of the peach coloured one, and she physically knocks him out instead of drugging him (she first tries to use her hairclip as a weapon). Why was this changed, and is it on the DVD?

cherry_girl

Chosen answer: Oftentimes scenes that appear in a trailer don't appear in the final movie. The trailers are sometimes created months in advance of the release of the movie, and sometimes scenes are removed for pacing reasons or to reduce the overall runtime, or are only intended for the trailer. Occasionally those scenes might be put back into a movie on its DVD/Blu-ray release, or might be included in a 'deleted scenes' section, or often are simply omitted altogether.

GalahadFairlight

Question: What in the world was 8 doing when he had the magnet over his head and he became all relaxed?

Answer: The magnet was acting as a drug on him. He was in a way getting high off a magnet.

Answer: You know the Futurama scene where bender gets high off electricity? Same thing. Magnets make electrical things not work (I'm pretty sure I heard it from some where). It's like how drinking alcohol and taking drugs makes us not totally there. It's what story writers believe happens. Pretty cool story element really.

YellowBird

Question: Why is it that when the Trojans invade the shores at daybreak to initiate the second battle, it is quite obvious that Brad Pitt was playing the role of Patroclus only until his throat was cut? First, you can see Pitt's face in Achilles' helmet in the close-up shots when he is about to start fighting with Hector. Second, you can see the significant change in Patroclus' physique before and after Hector cut his throat.

Ivan-sama

Chosen answer: Watching the scene carefully, I would say that Garrett Hedlund plays the character throughout. Hedlund does bear a notable resemblence to Pitt - he was undoubtedly cast as Patroclus for that reason, both because their characters are cousins and because of the requirement to successfully pull off the masquerade as Achilles during the scene - and thus could readily be mistaken for him, given that his face is rarely seen clearly throughout the scene. However, it's not unreasonable that they might have used Pitt in a couple of key shots, in order to preserve the illusion that this really is Achilles fighting, to bring the audience along in making the same mistake that the Greek army have. As for the physique, it can be seen in their introductory sword-fighting scene that Hedlund and Pitt have roughly similar builds - any perceived change in physique is most likely an illusion caused by the shift between standing in a fighting stance and lying limply on the ground.

Tailkinker

Question: I'm really confused, and need help with this. I saw the second BTTF, so I saw the scene when Doc explains the two timelines and changing the future, but I'm still confused. If what Doc said was true, when Marty got hit by the car, he would have changed the future by preventing his parents from marrying. Therefore, there are now several timelines in the movie all going off at the same time. According to the movie, the first one is a timeline where Marty goes into the time machine back to 1955, and he has a loser for a father. There is also a timeline just like the first one, but George punched Biff, making him cool in the future. Another, alternate timeline is also present where Marty's parents haven't married, Marty doesn't exist, and none of the events from the first two timelines happen in this timeline. However, if this were true, all three timelines would have to be there, as Marty jumps from timeline to timeline in the movie and then in the end, watched himself do it again. First he would be in the regular timeline, then as he prevents his parents from meeting, he is in the other timeline. As he puts his parents back together and goes to 1985, he is now in the "cool father timeline". That is how I see the movie. Can somebody help shed some light on the subject for me?

Answer: To be honest, it sounds like you've got a reasonably good handle on the situation. Initially Marty's in a 1955 where his parents will marry after George is hit by the car, but his father will be the loser we see in Marty's original 1985. The moment that Marty gets hit by the car, the future is changed and he's now in a timeline where his parents will never get married and thus he will not be born. The timeline begins to slowly alter (time is shown to have a resistance to change in the series), giving Marty enough time to reengineer his parents' meeting before he's erased from existence as the new timeline exerts itself. The way he handles it creates a third timeline where his parents do get married and go on to be cool and thus when he returns to 1985 at the end of the first film, that's the timeline he's in. The other Marty that he sees there is one who grew up in that third timeline, with the cool parents, and thus may be a bit different, but who still met Doc at some point, rendezvoused with him at the mall and ultimately went back in time after encountering the terrorists, where he'll encounter the young loser version of his father and will have to turn him into the cool, confident man that he grew up with. In the second film, old Biff goes back in time and gives his younger self the sports almanac, which changes the timeline again, now creating a fourth timeline where George and Lorraine still marry and are cool, but George will subsequently be murdered by this timeline's rich and powerful version of Biff, leading to the 1985 we see in the middle section of the second film. When Marty and Doc go back to 1955 from there, they arrive in the same timeline, the one where Biff will go on to be rich and powerful. As a result of their actions there, stealing the almanac from young Biff and destroying it, they technically create a fifth timeline, one where events in 1955 played out slightly differently but which is otherwise effectively identical to the third timeline, where Marty's parents are cool and successful in the present day. It is quite a complicated situation, with several different timelines involved, and I have no idea how well I explained it, but hopefully that helped a little bit, at least.

Tailkinker

Chosen answer: Toph had Katara use it to send a letter to her parents. It never returned.

Question: Why, when he gets shot, does he put duct tape on his abdomen over his shirt? Shouldn't it be under?

Answer: Not really, imagine how painful the duct tape would be to remove from the bare skin around a wound. Putting it over the shirt still applies the pressure needed but with out the adhesive skin contact which would cause more problems later on.

Mad Ade

Show generally

Question: So what exactly did happen to Carly's parents that she is left with her brother, Spencer? I think in one episode Carly mentions the Marines or something, but that still doesn't answer where her mom is.

Answer: Their father is in the military and is on a submarine and the mother is never mentioned.

Shannon Jackson

Question: There is one part of the film I didn't quite understand. The whole war at the end of the movie was to stop the humans to bomb the Tree of Souls. However, wasn't that tree already destroyed by the dozers the morning after they "mate for life"? Also, how was Jake with the tree praying before the war when it was destroyed?

Answer: I was confused about that too, when I saw the flim, but it's actually the tree of voices that is destroyed, not the tree of souls. They look almost identical, the tree of souls is never destroyed. That's what Jake is praying to before the war.

Question: Do the Avatar alien creatures on Pandora connect with horses, dragons, the soul tree or whatever with their tail or a pigtail in their hair or both?

Answer: The connect with the pink fibrous tentacles contained in their hair.

Sanguis

Question: The terrorist group is called the ten rings. Does that refer to The Mandarin whose power in the cartoon came from his ten rings?

Ivan-sama

Chosen answer: It's intended as a subtle nod to the character, yes. It's been suggested that the Mandarin might be the villain in a future third film, so using the name "The Ten Rings" was a bit of foreshadowing that there might be a greater power behind the terrorist group.

Tailkinker

Question: Where did Agamemnon get the horses for his chariot? Did he bring them with the ship? Because I can't imagine having a horse on a ship.

Ivan-sama

Chosen answer: Difficult as it might be to imagine, they did indeed transport the horses by ship. Historical evidence indicates that ships of the period could have specific modifications made to their decks in order to carry horses safely. As such, while Agamemnon would not have had them on board his personal ship that we see in the film, it's reasonable to assume that he had a modified "horse carrier" among his fleet.

Tailkinker

Answer: According to me, it's possible that they stole the horses from Trojans after the first battle on the beach, where only Hector left alive and took his own horse, whereas the other horses were held by Achilles' men.

Question: Couldn't the events of the movie have been avoided if Frank just let Donnie get hit by the jet engine and die from the beginning instead of waking him up and taking him out of his room?

sccrkeepa00

Chosen answer: In short: no. Because of the films themes of wormholes, time travel, alternative dimensions/parallel universes and meta-physics the events of the film had to happen the way the did or else they wouldn't have happened at all! It's very difficult to wrap your head around but it's one of the many many paradoxes caused by time travel (cause and effect becoming effect and cause).

Sanguis

Show generally

Question: In a few episodes, I've noticed a small black 'Reserved' sign on the coffee table that the friends always hang out at, is this how they always manage to get that sofa every time they go to the Central Perk? I didn't know that you could call and reserve tables at coffee shops.

Eclipse

Chosen answer: Obviously, you can't. But this is a TV show and much of the action takes place around the sofa and coffee table. This employs the viewer using "suspension of disbelief" to allow the plots to play out.

raywest

Question: This question might sound odd, but how has La Carlotta become so successful if a lot of people don't like her voice very much (as seen when she sings "Think of Me" before Christine tries)?

Answer: The fact that the "in the know" people don't like her doesn't mean that she doesn't have a huge public and make a killing at the box office. On top of that, she was their "Diva." She may not have necessarily had many fans (in some versions they comment that there were no refunds, with Christine singing). Therefore, it can be assumed that given that she was the Diva if she didn't get her way, things would be bad on their end. Likely why her husband (who also did not sing well, due to his deep accent) was another main role in all the operas. They may have also thought there was nobody else who could handle the main roles. It takes a strong person to take on so many lines. And you need to project your voice, which heaven knows she had a loud one.

Sereenie

Question: Jessie is using a car design program from the Supra. Does anyone know either what the program is or where to get it?

Neon_Turbo

Chosen answer: It's not a real program, just some CGI. As well as when the pictures of "what it could look like" show up. Those are existing pictures of the car.

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