Question: Who's idea was it, or the reason, Kubrick decided to kill off Gunnery Sergeant Hartman? Was it to merely show the casualty of war?
Answer: It was to show what someone might do (someone with a loaded gun and confronted by their abuser) whilst in the process of having a mental breakdown.
Question: At the end of the movie, Martin stabs Tavington in the stomach, and then in the throat. How does he know Tavington is really dead this time? Earlier in the film, Tavington pretended to be dead twice after Martin's sons shot him.
Answer: Guns were less powerful during Revolutionary times and the wounds were more survivable. Deep and ripping knife stabs to areas like the abdomen and the neck area are more likely to be fatal. Tavington may not die instantly, but he would probably bleed out and/or bleed internally fairly quickly.
Would being stabbed in the stomach, and in the throat have been enough to kill a person as tough as Tavington?
Absolutely. A deep stab to the stomach/intestinal area would be very deadly even today. Being stabbed directly in the throat would kill someone very fast due to a lack of air and inhaling blood into the lungs.
Question: How exactly do both the Terminator and Kyle find addresses? We are led to believe that is the reason for the phone books, but none of the addresses in the phone books match up to the addresses where either the first Sarah is killed, nor the apartment of our Sarah.
Answer: Gonna be totally honest... that might just be nothing more than a simple continuity error. They accidentally made a phonebook prop that didn't match up with the locations where they shot, and assumed most people wouldn't notice or care. (And to be even more honest, I never noticed it until I saw this question today.)
Answer: My two cents: The T-800 Terminator does indeed, rip out the page of a phonebook for the address, but remember, he was looking for any and all Sarah Connors, not a specific address. He did not know which Sarah would give birth to John Connor, so by process of elimination he began terminating any woman with the name Sarah Connor. He did plug the first Sarah Connor (a housewife), then went to kill the other Sarah Connors in the phone book.
I already gave that answer, but apparently that's not what the question is asking.
Answer: Kyle, as we are shown, uses a police computer to find the addresses. The T800 just uses the phonebook as you mentioned. He rips the page out and takes it with him.
Except 2 of the addresses in the phone book don't match. So how does the Terminator find them using the phonebook?
The Terminator is just blindly killing everyone in the phone book whose name is Sarah Connor (apparently a common name). Process of elimination. So, the day he arrives, unrelated women named Sarah Connor start dropping like flies, and the police believe it's the work of a serial killer. Our heroine Sarah Connor barely escapes this sweeping extermination by sheer luck and Kyle's intervention.
You just described the plot. Were you trying to answer the question? Because the question still stands. (As it is, it's either a mistake or plot hole in the film).
Perhaps I'm not getting the question. What is meant by "none of the addresses in the phone books match up"? Match up to what, the murder scene addresses? I wasn't aware that the murder scene addresses were prominently displayed.
Exactly. The addresses seen don't match. Specifically the first Sarah Connor's house number is "14239", but in the phonebook it is listed as "1823." And the real Sarah Connor lives in an apartment but the phonebook doesn't list an apartment number.
Perhaps though this all doesn't matter because phone books can quickly become outdated, the phone book he found could be over a year old. Someone moves but can still be listed in the phone book with their old address. He could have gone to the addresses but found someone else living there and then asked where the previous owner might be, and he was told (or he forced them). This might be how he found all the Sarah Connors.
Are any of the Sarahs listed as living at 1823? I've not got access to the film right now to check.
The first is listed as "1823." The second is "2816." The 3rd is "309." Although after reviewing the scene and thinking about it, for "309" (which is supposedly our Sarah J Connor), the full address isn't actually seen and the apartment number could have been listed.
Reese never uses a police computer; that's the T-1000 in Terminator 2. He rips out the page from the phonebook. The T800 also uses the phonebook but is never shown ripping out a page.
No! Kyle and the T800 both use the phone book. The Terminator even pulls away a guy who was on the phone ("Hey man! You got a serious attitude problem!") Kyle rips out a page, not the T800. It's the T-1000 in T2 that uses a police computer.
Question: When Jack asks for Tia Dalma's help, she asks him what he brought for her. Jack then lifts the cage containing the monkey and shoots it. Jack then says, "An undead monkey". How is it possible for the monkey to be undead, wasn't the curse on the Black Pearl lifted?
Answer: There is a scene after the credits of "The Curse of the Black Pearl": the monkey got back to the cave and took a coin. That way he turned undead again.
Question: I'm not sure if I was seeing things but during the fight between Hancock and Mary, when it goes all windy and stormy, at one point it cuts to some people who are screaming and running away. I thought I saw a figure that appears to be made out of rocks or similar material and about 10 foot tall, it wasn't our hero or heroine as they were not in that scene so what on earth was it?
Answer: I saw it, too, and wondered. He's a street performer in L.A. that just happened to be around during filming. See: http://io9.com/5023487/hancock-giant-robot-mystery-++-solved.
Question: When McClane ejected from the cockpit of the military plane, why didn't Colonel Stewart and his men shoot him while he was in the air? These men deliberately crashed a commercial plane killing innocent civilians and by doing this, it's obvious that they are ruthless, so why wouldn't they try to kill their main enemy when he is at his most vulnerable? (With the weapons the soldiers had, McClane was still in range to be hit.) Can someone explain this for me?
Answer: Because the police were moments away from arriving at the scene. They needed as much time to get away without being tracked. Every moment counts. And a target rocking about a few hundred feet in the air doesn't seem to be such an "easy target".
Question: How did Palpatine come back? Cloned? Or somehow survived the Death Star explosion, which seems unlikely.
Chosen answer: According to the novelization, Palpatine sensed Vader's internal conflict and created a clone as a backup in the event that Vader betrayed him. When Vader threw him down the shaft, Palpatine transferred his consciousness into the clone's body.
Answer: It is not said exactly how he came back. He says that he had died before which presumably is him dying in ROTJ. The most we get is the reference to Sith ability that some consider unnatural.
It is not said how he came back, but I get the idea that he was using the Force to keep himself alive. At least that's the message I was getting when I saw that Palpatine's fingers were wilted away. And I thought that the power he was using was urging his life to go on, but his physical appearence was being dragged behind.
Answer: The line "The dark side is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural" is a direct reference to Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, in which Palpatine says the same line verbatim to Anakin. Recall that a major plot point to that prequel is that the Sith have long been rumored to have found a method to cheat death. This film strongly suggests that Palpatine had indeed discovered this method. The film doesn't go into specifics. My understanding is the novelization says his body is a clone. Going by his appearance in the film (blank eyes; body manipulated by machine), it suggests to me that he is a reanimated corpse.
Question: Why is the man's groin blurred out in the fight-scene at the Japanese sauna? It's an R-rated movie (or unrated, depending on the cut of the film you watch), so it's not like they couldn't have shown it. The best I can figure is that it's a reference to the fact that genitals are blurred out in Japanese media due to "decency" laws. Is that what the joke was?
Answer: It is a possibility. In Japan, the showing of a person's genital area and/or pubic hair is considered obscene.
Question: Why did the spitfire pilot land on the beach at the end of the movie facing certain internment when he could have ditched and be taken back to Blighty?
Answer: After running out of fuel, he kept his craft aloft as long as he could so he could shoot down the enemy plane. He then landed when and where he safely could, which was on the beach but in enemy territory. Ditching a plane in water is dangerous and would have meant far less chance of survival.
Question: At the very beginning of the film, young Henry boards the Flying Dutchman to speak to Will. When Will looks behind him, he sees the shadows of several crew member starting to make their way towards him and he suddenly gets frightened that the crew will see Henry. Why would he react this way? Since he's captain of the Flying Dutchman, if his men saw Henry, Will could order them to leave Henry alone.
Answer: He's probably worried that either the crew will attack or at very least frighten Henry. Or he just doesn't want Henry to see how horribly the curse can affect people.
But because Will is ferrying souls to the after life, like Davy Jones should have done for the full time, he was captain of the Dutchman. There is no curse that would make the men look like sea monsters. They only started to look like that because Jones denied his duties after 10 years of service, when Calipso didn't show up. So the crew would look like normal men, so Will being worried that Henry will be frightened by them, can't be the reason he started to panic.
Question: When Kylo Ren tries to use the Force on Rey, he mentions that they need the last piece of the map, and that they have the rest. However, when R2-D2 wakes up, we find out that he had the map the entire time. Was Kylo bluffing or did he know where the rest of it was? Was there a copy or did I miss something?
Answer: The First Order already has the piece that R2-D2 was carrying as well. That is the first piece, the large piece of the map missing a small section. The second piece is carried by BB-8 and only by BB-8, the missing piece in the map. All the first order needs is that second piece, and so does the Resistance. However the Resistance needs R2-D2 to activate again so he can show them the first piece, so they can put the second piece in it.
Answer: The piece of the map that R2 had was also recovered from the archives of the Empire.
Question: How can they use the elevator to get to the surface if the Red Queen shut the power down?
Answer: She must have had trouble in keeping control of the elevator's power as the impact of the explosion blew out some of the windows and the sea came rushing in.
Answer: The force of the water moved the elevator up the shaft, hence why it did not go all the way up.
Question: Since Loki is the son of Laufey the Frost Giant, why doesn't he look like one?
Answer: When initially found by Odin, he does. Something then acts on him that causes him to mimic Odin's more human appearance, which he then keeps until his exposure to the frost giants during the events of the film, which tips him off to his true nature. Whether this was caused by some magic inherent in Loki even as a baby or whether Odin did something to disguise the child's true origin is unrevealed.
Question: When Jake and Neytiri return to Hometree, how did Tsutey know that they had mated with each other?
Chosen answer: Jake and Neytiri were holding hands and Neytiri had her hair unbraided. It is also possible that when Na'vi mate, their appearance changes slightly in a way that only other Na'vi could see.
Question: Why does Hugo Stiglitz kill the German officers in the first place? The film mentions his enlistment, but how is this related to his killings?
Answer: Based on his willingness to join the Basterds, we can assume he killed them because he didn't believe in what the Nazis were doing.
There is a cut of him being whipped during the bar scene. I think he was taking revenge for harsh and perhaps undeserved punishment.
No, the whipping is how it feels in his mind sitting next to that SS officer and having to pretend to like him and be a Nazi. He's ready to snap.
Question: At the beginning of the movie, it was stated that Van Helsing planned to use the amulet to send every monster to limbo but that him and his team blew it. How exactly did they blow it?
Answer: It is shown that Dracula's servants were successful in protecting their master. Dracula escapes while Van Helsing himself is sucked into limbo.
Question: I have three questions regarding the end scene. 1. How come Jean can't crush Wolverine's body? I ask this because we can see her easily kill all people who walk too close to her. 2. Why didn't Wolverine inject Jean with the cure instead of killing her? 3. What would happen if Jean got injected with the cure?
Chosen answer: 1) Apparently the combination of Logan's unbreakable skeleton and healing factor was enough to keep Jean from shredding him - it's possible to see his body getting damaged and repairing itself in a few shots. 2) Because, while he's capable of getting close to her mostly intact, the same isn't really true of anything he might be wearing or holding, so any cure syringe he carried with him would be destroyed. 3) Who knows? Given her extreme power level, the cure might or might not have worked, and, considering the final shot of the movie, which suggests that the cure isn't permanent anyway, her powers would likely return before long.
Question: Are Professor Kirke and Mrs. MacReady both aware of what the wardrobe really is and what it can do?
Answer: Spoiler alert: this gives some important plot twists away. Sometimes a bit of unresolved mystery improves a story, and I think this is the case here. But the book partly answers your questions. At the end of the last chapter it is shown that Mrs MacReady thinks the wardrobe is just a piece of furniture. She knows nothing about Narnia. But Professor Kirke amazes Peter, Edmund, Susan and Lucy by expressing familiarity with Narnia and explaining that a wardrobe might well be a portal into Narnia. If C S Lewis had not written any more books after completing "The Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe" Professor Kirke's knowledge of Narnia would probably have been an unresolved mystery. But C S Lewis later wrote "The Magician's Nephew" which tells how Professor Kirke visited Narnia as a boy. The final chapter of this book says he took an apple back with him, which he planted in his garden. It grew into a tree, was cut down and made into the wardrobe. So Professor Kirke was not consciously aware of what the wardrobe could do, but with hindsight, he realised that he had set up a chain of events that caused the children to discover Narnia.
Answer: While Professor Kirke is aware of the existence of Narnia, as he was there when it was created, he doesn't appear to be aware that the wardrobe can act as a portal (although he may suspect that it has unusual properties, as the tree from which the wood came to create it grew from a Narnian apple). Mrs MacReady doesn't know.
Answer: It was Gustav Hasford's idea. It happened in the original book that the story is based on, "The Short Timers."
Captain Defenestrator