Sierra1

6th May 2014

Frozen (2013)

Question: To date, Frozen is the highest grossing animated film of all time, beating Toy Story 3. I was wondering if anyone out there could tell me what animated film is highest if you account for inflation, or only count the number of tickets sold. For example, I know that Gone with the Wind out performed Avatar by ether criteria.

Answer: The website Box Office Mojo calculates inflation adjustment for box office grosses and worked out that the highest-grossing animated films was Disney's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves" from 1937.

Sierra1

6th May 2014

Blackadder (1986)

Answer: The Baron tells Blackadder they will be sent to a convent school outside Heidelberg to spend the rest of the war teaching young girls home economics, which he sees as the ultimate humiliation. Blackadder, however, is delighted to be spending the rest of the war "teaching nuns how to boil eggs" rather than being shot at every day.

Sierra1

Question: Why does Saruman have the orcs cut down the trees to make the orcs, when it looks like the orcs are being "born" out of mud sacs...what's the significance of what the orcs are doing down in the hole in the ground?

Answer: In addition to "birthing" the Uruk-hai (the enhanced orc soldiers), Saruman's orcs were also forging armour and weapons for the army of Isengard, which is why they were cutting down the trees to use as fuel. They were underground as the Uruk-hai process seems to involve the earth or ground in some way.

Sierra1

Answer: Pushkin pushes a button on his watch to summon his bodyguard, but Bond sees him do it. He rips Ava's top off so the incoming guard will be "distracted" by her semi-nudity, allowing Bond to take him out.

Sierra1

Question: At the beginning of the film, when some of the monsters introduce themselves, what does the clown say after he takes his face off?

Answer: "I am the clown with the tear-away face, here in a flash and gone without a trace."

Sierra1

Answer: He had been arrested and was released on bail, so he was collecting his personal effects from the property officer, which were a gold watch, a gold lighter and packet of cigarettes.

Sierra1

21st Apr 2014

General questions

There was an animated movie in the 80's or 90's about a small girl being chased by werewolves. If I remember, they want to turn her into a werewolf as well. She is helped by a talking toad and with his help she manages to escape.

Answer: This sounds like "The Talking Parcel", a 1978 animated TV film made by Cosgrove Hall based on a book by Gerald Durrell.

Sierra1

21st Apr 2014

The Simpsons (1989)

Show generally

Question: Which episode has Maggie in a crib, rattling a cup against the bars like a prisoner?

Answer: The episode was "Homer Alone".

Sierra1

Question: Chased by agents, Trinity chooses to jump out the window. With no reason to think she can be rescued, the fall will kill her. Why would she do that?

Answer: The script just says "With no choice left, Trinity dives through the window." I think she was pretty resigned to the fact she was going to die and just wanted to go out fighting as long as possible, with the very small possibility that she would survive the fall somehow.

Sierra1

15th Apr 2014

General questions

I am looking for a made for television movie that came out years ago. The movie is about a family with 2 young sons. The father favors the youngest son and is cold to the other. One day both boys went for a boat ride. The youngest boy accidentally falls off the boat and starts to drown. The older son tries to save him but he hesitates at first. The young boy drowns. The older son is under suspicion and might go to court. The father blames his older son for what happened. I believe that the mother separates from the father and supports her son and the father doesn't support him. That's the plot does anyone know the name? Thanks.

Answer: This is "Family Sins", a CBS TV movie from 1987.

Sierra1

15th Apr 2014

Seinfeld (1990)

Answer: Elaine's co-worker Sam, played by Molly Shannon, in the episode "The Summer of George". Raquel Welch does this too in the same episode.

Sierra1

9th Apr 2014

Casino Royale (2006)

Chosen answer: It revealed that Bond was likely falling in love with her, so either they were "tears of joy" and she was emotional at this revelation, or she was actually quite upset as she had feelings for him too and was about to betray him by stealing the money for Quantum.

Sierra1

Answer: Or she didn't need him for the password after all. Which means she could have kept him out of the whole thing.

Question: How many people are maimed or killed in the fight with the 88, from the bathroom to the death of O-Ren?

Answer: There are several answers to this question floating around the net which are supposedly based on an freeze-frame analysis of the film conducted by "Jonathan R. From Bouncing Ferret Films": 67 killed, 12 maimed, 1 killed by an axe thrown by somebody else, one possibly killed, one spanked. +1 for O-Ren I guess, so around 70 killed, 12 maimed. A few less than 88, but perhaps they were elsewhere, were killed previously or died in the club but were not shown.

Sierra1

They state there really aren't 88 they just call themselves that because it's cool.

1st Apr 2014

Love Actually (2003)

Question: Who is the actress we only see as photographs or slides in her funeral that played Liam Neeson's wife and Sam's mother?

Answer: The photos of Joanna (Daniel's wife and Sam's mother) were of documentary filmmaker Rebecca Frayn.

Sierra1

Question: How did Moira, Charles and the others get away from the island? They did not have someone who can teleport them away, the jet is broken and they had no possibility to communicate with the others. You can hardly expect the Russians or the Americans, who wanted to kill them a few minutes ago, to suddenly want to help them.

Answer: They do have the ability to communicate with the other mutants, via the powerful telepath Charles Xavier. He could also use mind control on the navy captains to make them rescue them, or any number of other possibilities.

Sierra1

18th Mar 2014

Ocean's Eleven (2001)

Question: When George Clooney and Matt Damon are going to break into the vault they have two small silver round disks that they slide towards the guards. You see these disks pop open but don't see any type of gas or vapor emerge. Any idea what those things were?

Answer: According to the script, they are gas pellets. Most gases are invisible, but a lot of movies show visible vapour for theatrical effect.

Sierra1

Question: After Marty enters 1885, in his fleeing from the Indians, the DeLorean's fuel line gets ruptured and it loses all its gas. When Marty tells Doc this, Doc says gasoline doesn't even exist yet. However, Doc's DeLorean, which is now hidden in a cave, has its own gas supply in its gas tank and will not need it anymore, as 1955 Doc would just refill it after getting it out of the cave. Why didn't Doc siphon the gas from his DeLorean, and refill Marty's? He said the only problem at that moment was no gas. Not that he could not patch the fuel line, which would have been easy.

Scott Miller

Chosen answer: We don't know how much gas was in the De Lorean when it got struck by lightning - Doc may not have bothered to top-up regularly as he was using the anti-gravity (powered by Mr Fusion) a lot, and also Biff had used the car and may have used up some fuel. As Doc was putting it in storage, he would have drained the fuel before putting it in the mine to prevent damage (and 1955 Doc implies the tank was empty and that he filled it up) He also may have been reluctant to tamper with the car in the 1880s as it could have been damaged or destroyed (by a mine collapse), thus leaving him stranded in the 1880s and Marty in the 1950s with no time machine.

Sierra1

Answer: When putting any vehicle into storage for a long time, fluids must be drained from the vehicle. 1985 Doc most likely did this after being sent to 1885.

15th Mar 2014

Goldeneye (1995)

Question: If the opening scene was staged to get 007 to surrender, then it seems it was a terrible plan. Look how many Russians got killed by Bond and 006. It seems very awkward that the whole thing was staged. Why did Bond need to surrender? Why couldn't 006 just shoot him (besides the usual reason that 007 must be executed through an overly involved and escape-riddled plan) What would they do with him once he was captured? Too many questions and a weird scenario.

Answer: The plan was not to capture 007, it was to stage 006's death. Trevelyan's long-term goal was to steal money from the Bank of England and cover it up using the GoldenEye satellite - he presumably did not have time to run the Janus Syndicate and implement this very elaborate plan whilst serving as a full-time MI6 officer. In fact, it was probably the intention that Bond should escape and tell the British government that 006 had died a hero's death.

Sierra1

2nd Mar 2014

Avatar (2009)

Question: How come Trudi sometimes needs an oxygen mask but mostly doesn't - I can understand her not needing one (apparently, there is a glass partition between her and the rest of the helicopter; so whoever is with her has to wear masks, as they are behind the glass partition. But at one stage, Trudi and Norm are up front and Jake and Grace are behind them, and none of them are wearing masks - is the glass partition movable? And during the battle scene, you can see a bullet hole in Trudi's helicopter glass - shouldn't she need a mask now, as the outside air is getting in? Finally, how come Trudi needs a mask just after the home tree is destroyed and she and Norm and Jake and Grace (who was shot and is dying) escape and head for the Tree of Souls? What makes this time so special?

kh1616

Chosen answer: The cabin on the Aerospatiale SA-2 Samson is pressurised, and there are two sealed doors with windows separating it from the open cargo area. There are actually four seats in the cabin which is why Jake and Grace don't need masks. The cabin pressure is slightly higher than the atmosphere (+0.3 psi) which means that if there is a small rupture in the hull or canopy (such as a bullet hole) the oxygen will leak out rather than toxic gas leaking in.

Sierra1

24th Feb 2014

Doctor Who (2005)

Chosen answer: The Matt Smith pronunciation in this episode seems to be the outlier. Metebelis 3 was first mentioned and shown in the Jon Pertwee stories "The Green Death" and "Planet of the Spiders". In those stories, and in Sarah Jane Adventures it was pronounced 'Meh-teh-beel-is'.

Sierra1

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