Sierra1

13th Jun 2005

Star Wars (1977)

Question: Five ships survive the destruction of the Death Star: Vader in his custom TIE, Han and Chewie in the Millennium Falcon, Luke and Wedge in their X-Wings, and a Y-Wing. Who's in the Y-Wing?

Phoenix

Chosen answer: The "X-Wing" computer game implies that the pilot of the surviving Y-Wing is the game's lead character, Keyan Farlander.

Sierra1

13th Jun 2005

The Simpsons (1989)

Chosen answer: Homer is imitating a pig's squeal, implying that the kid in the book is too fat for his liking (he can talk!).

Sierra1

Answer: Alternatively, the kid in question could just look like a pig in general.

18th May 2005

Futurama (1999)

Show generally

Question: Sometime during the third season, the animators changed their alien substitute code for a more difficult one. I can't remember what it was called (Modulator 6? Something like that.) but I remember that each symbol could represent any letter depending on the letters/symbols that came before it. I still want to translate the secret messages myself, but could someone please explain to me (in layman terms) how this new code works?

Answer: Each symbol in the second alien alphabet (AA2) corresponds to a number from 1-26, so you'll end up with a series of numbers. The first number corresponds directly with an A-Z letter on another lookup table, but each subsequent letter is the corresponding number from the original numeric series subtracted from the number preceding it. The lookup tables and a tutorial on decoding AA2 is available at http://tfp.killbots.com/?p=aa_02.

Sierra1

Question: What is the music the music box plays (the tune is heard during the Jesse dream sequence mostly)? Was it written for the movie? If it was, what is it called and where can I find it, and if it isn't, is it possible it uses some of the same chords as another song and I am picking up on that one? If this is the case, what is the other song that it sounds like? I've heard of such things happening, for example one of the songs from Aladdin. I've searched and I can't find the answers to anything.

Answer: The music box tune was specially written for the movie by composer Richard Gibbs. It is also used as the background music for the DVD menu. The track is available on the Queen of the Damned Score CD (not to be confused with the rock soundtrack), it's called "Jessie's Dream".

Sierra1

Answer: But what is the name of the instrument song of the DVD main menu? I can't find it any where on YouTube can someone help find it I want it for a ring tone fory cell.

29th Jul 2004

Spooks (2002)

The Lesser of Two Evils - S1-E6

Question: In this episode, Patrick McCann and his IRA splinter group plot to blow up "Broad Street Station" in London. In reality, British Rail beat him to it years ago. The real Broad Street Station closed in 1986, and has since been demolished (an office complex now stands on the site). Does anyone know which railway station (or stations) posed as the fictional Broad Street Station in this episode?

Answer: The shots of the tube station closing and the shot of the concourse were shot at Marylebone station. There is also a shot of the tracks in which a sign is visible pointing to Southwark station and the Jubilee Line, and I suspect this is a stock shot filmed at Waterloo station.

Sierra1

Question: Many of the blasters in the Star Wars films are based on existing small arms, such as the iconic German Mauser for Han's pistol and the British Sterlings for stormtrooper and rebel guns. Then they just add on a bunch of attachments, which isn't all that uncommon in sci-fi in general (ex. Robocop's Auto 9 & the pulse rifles in Terminator)The Naboo security looked like they were using some kind of target pistol (identification?) and Calico submachine guns. The main one I couldn't figure out was the Battledroid blaster, which did need physical props since Panaka's squad picks some up and Padme fires one in AotC. Is this one actually based on an existing weapon? It kinda looks like a sterling, but the handle is completely different.

Answer: The Battle Droid rifle was designed by ILM hardware designer Jay Schuster to look like a precursor to the E-11 rifle used by Imperial Stormtroopers, so the Sterling resemblance is there. In fact, the handle appears to have been based on or molded from the Kenner Stormtrooper Rifle toy!

Sierra1