Sierra1

20th Sep 2007

Heroes (2006)

Question: Any body know what type of phone Claire Bennett has. It's the pink mobile.

Answer: It looks like a T-mobile Sidekick II.

13th Sep 2007

The Simpsons Movie (2007)

Question: Didn't anyone notice Maggie, Lisa, Bart and Marge jump from the treehouse to the sandbox portal without anyone from the very large mob noticing? It seemed like nobody noticed until Homer jumped in and got stuck initially. Everyone in the mob were around the sandbox, how come no one noticed the other four Simpsons jump?

Answer: The tree kept bending down over the sandpit, so maybe the mob didn't see them jump in. Also, they were pretty much just after Homer anyway, so maybe they didn't care if the rest of the family got away.

9th Apr 2007

The Young Ones (1982)

Question: What is it exactly that Rik reads from the paper? The thing that Neil repeats that brings the little devil to them? I'm assuming it's a poorly pronounced version of something that was in the papers at that time, but I can't think of anything that fits it.

Chosen answer: It wasn't referring to anything real, just that the government's bureaucratic naming, The Guardian's mangled spelling or Rick's bad pronounciation resulted in the unlikely word "Footumch" being spoken.

27th Aug 2007

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1981)

Episode 6 - S1-E6

Question: When Marvin is left behind in the Disaster Area ship as the others teleport away, he says, "I'm so intelligent I've probably got time to go through the five." before he is cut off. Is there anything in the books or rest of the series which suggests what we was about to say?

Chosen answer: That seems to be an error in the subtitling of the episode. What Marvin actually says is: "I may just be a menial robot, but I'm far too intelligent to expect to think of me for a moment... far too intelligent..."

18th Mar 2007

General questions

I'm looking for the name of a film and in it there was a detective investigating a snuff movie. It ISN'T 8mm. There's a bit where one of the characters jumps / falls down a lift shaft to hide from the bad guys and there's a load of dead bodies hidden in the lift shaft all cut up.

Answer: This sounds like "Mute Witness" (1994). A mute makeup artist working on a horror film in Russia witnesses an on-set murder/snuff filming. Has a cameo by Alec Guinness at the end.

18th Mar 2007

Little Britain (2003)

Question: The IMDb says that Patricia Kane starred in Little Britain - who did she play?

Answer: She played an elderly (and presumably gay) resident of Llandewi Breffi, Daffyd's village.

17th Jan 2007

Lorenzo's Oil (1992)

Question: What is the name of the Language Omouri speaks? It's never identified in the movie.

Answer: According to the script, it's Swahili.

28th Jan 2007

Mission: Impossible 3 (2006)

Question: When Benji Dunn is guiding Ethan through the streets via satellite to find his wife at the end of the film, Ethan is on a silver phone. Does anyone know the make and model it was? I've been told that it is a Bang and Olufsen but I can't find it.

Answer: It's a Nokia N92. Nokia had promotional tie-ins with the film, and all the phones in the film were made by them.

28th Mar 2007

Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)

Question: I've read that Prince Xizor was thought to be at the pod race. I know that he's probably not there in the movie, but does anyone know if putting him in was ever considered?

Answer: The model of the pod race stands in the long shot used mostly colored Q-tips (cotton buds) as audience members, but tiny Micro-Machines action figures were also used, including the figures of Prince Xizor and Boba Fett. They can't be seen in the film, but you can see a close-up of the model in the "Making of" book.

29th Aug 2006

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993)

The Way of the Warrior (2) - S4-E2

Question: What does Dax say to Worf when she first meets him? Where it loses something in the translation.

Answer: Worf: Curzon's name is an honored one among my people. Dax: (in Klingon) Yeah, but I'm a lot better looking than he was.

4th Sep 2006

Red Dwarf (1988)

Timeslides - S3-E5

Question: At The End of 'Timeslides', even though all has returned to normal, Rimmer has altered history sufficiently so that he is now alive rather than a hologram. As the Dwarfers walk through the cargo decks Rimmer excitedly yells "I am alive.", The End of which is punctuated by an explosion that presumably kills him. The question is: What in God's name causes this explosion? And why do Lister and the Cat appear completely uninterested that one of their crewmates has just been killed?

Chosen answer: Rimmer pounds his fists on two large crates labelled "Explosives", which causes the explosion. The others had wandered off by the time Holly and Rimmer realised he was alive, so they heard Rimmer yelling followed by the explosion but didn't know Rimmer had been harmed, as they didn't know he was alive to start with.

27th Aug 2006

Saving Private Ryan (1998)

Question: In the beach scene, they keep talking about something called "dog one exit". What is "dog one"?

Chosen answer: The Allied forces identified five heavily-defended "exits" off Omaha Beach, which had to be cleared in order for the invasion to proceed inland: Dog One, Dog Three, Easy One, Easy Three and Fox One. The real Dog One was a road off the beach, although the movie portrays it as a stepped footpath.

27th Aug 2006

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

Question: How exactly did Peter Jackson get the rights to this series? He is obviously a talented director but, and this is no offence intended, his previous credits are basically limited to relatively small-time comedy horror movies. To go from that to producing the first live action movie adaptations of what is perhaps the most famous book series in the world seems a bit odd, especially given how little Hollywood likes to take risks nowadays.

Chosen answer: Presumably you are referring to "Bad Taste" and "Braindead" as Jackson's low-budget horror films. Bear in mind though, that Jackson had directed "Heavenly Creatures", a highly-acclaimed drama, and "The Frighteners" starring Michael J. Fox, which despite being quite a low-budget horror film showcased high-quality visual effects from Jackson's Weta Digital company. Also, it may have been Jackson's ability to work on a small budget that won him the gig: the LOTR films had often been considered too expensive to make. Plus this isn't unprecendented - when the Wachowski Brothers presented their idea for The Matrix the studio didn't want to give them a massive budget straight away. They made "Bound" first for a relative pittance, and that was enough to convince the studio they had the talent necessary for a huge movie.

11th May 2006

The Simpsons (1989)

Question: Did anything happen to either of Marge's parents? We almost never see or hear from them, especially her father.

Answer: Marge's mother, Jacqueline Bouvier, has appeared in several episodes, notably "Lady Bouvier's Lover" where she dated both Abe Simpson and Mr Burns. Her father appeared in the episode "Fear of Flying" where Marge revealed that her Fear of Flying was due to the shame of her father being a flight attendant. It was mentioned in "Bart the Lover" that after leaving the Navy, his swearing almost cost him his job as a baby photographer. Both Marge's parents appear in the flashback episode "The Way We Was" when both Homer and Artie Ziff arrive to take Marge to the prom.

13th Jun 2006

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005)

Question: How did Marvin get the point of view gun to function the way it did (The front part popping open and firing a huge, wide-coverage blast)? That never occurred any other time the weapon was fired, and Marvin couldn't have known how to do it since they had recently discovered the gun.

Answer: Marvin does have a brain the size of a planet! He could have easily worked out the controls or directly interfaced with the weapon.

16th Sep 2005

Futurama (1999)

The Honking - S3-E1

Question: What does the reflected binary code (the one that freaks Bender out) actually say?

Answer: The initial number is 0101100101 = 357. When reflected in a mirror, however, it reads 1010011010 = 666 (the number of the Beast). It is a parody of The Shining, where the words Red Rum are seen as the word murder in the mirror.

2nd Sep 2005

Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004)

Question: In the book, Jude marries Vile Richard and Uncle Geoffrey is discovered to be gay and has a 'toy boy'. These are two major story-lines in the book, and to the films, because Jude is Bridget's best friend and Uncle Geoffrey is made out be be a sex/woman mad freak, so why were they dropped? And also, could we therefore see the story-lines in a possible third movie?

Answer: These storylines were probably cut out because they focus on secondary characters other than Bridget, which are usually the first things to go in movie adaptions of novels. Even if they had been included, it wouldn't have been more than a passing mention.

2nd Sep 2005

Willow (1988)

Question: Why did Queen Bavmorda need a ritual to get rid of the child? Why didn't she simply kill the baby on the spot?

Answer: Bavmorda's ritual was the Ritual of Obliteration - a spell that is used to destroy a living spirit's essence or soul. Presuambly if she'd just killed Elora, the soul would have been later reborn into another baby.

6th Jul 2005

Strange Days (1995)

Question: There were two times in this film where sound effects seemed to come straight from 'Terminator 2'. Both appeared in the scene where Mace and Lenny are being chased by Steckler and Engelman. First, the sound of screeching car tires sounded identical to the T-1000's skidding tires as he swerves to the off-ramp in the liquid nitrogen truck. Second, when Engelman fired the machine gun at the car, the sound was the same as Sarah shooting Dyson's computers at his home. Is it the same sounds or just similar ones?

Answer: It's almost certainly the same stock sound effects. Both films are produced by Cameron's Lightstorm Entertainment. In addition, they share the same sound department crew which would have sourced sound effects from the same collection for both films.

15th Aug 2005

Goldeneye (1995)

Question: In the James Bond universe, are 00 numbers unique, as in only one person can ever have them? For example, Sean Bean's character was 006. So after he died, would his designation be given to someone else, or is the number considered "retired"?

Answer: The numbers appear to be passed on to other agents: it is mentioned that Scaramanga killed 002, and another 002 is killed in "The Living Daylights".

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