Question: My question is related to the end of the movie after Jack has escaped. Governor Swann says "Perhaps on the rare occasion that the right course demands an act of piracy; piracy itself can be the right course." What does he mean? Is he referring to something else in the movie?
Twotall
1st Mar 2005
Shrek 2 (2004)
Question: I must have missed something. When did Shrek spare Puss' life? All I saw was Puss attacking him, then coughing up a hairball. Puss makes such a huge deal of the spared-my-life debt but it didn't make much sense to me.
Answer: Shrek did eventually get ahold of Puss after the hairball, Shrek then asking who sent him. This is the moment Puss says "and the King offered me much in gold." Shrek is too shocked by this news to care to hurt Puss. Since Shrek is an ogre, Puss believes his life has been spared.
1st Mar 2005
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
11th Feb 2005
Alien Vs. Predator (2004)
Question: Why did it take so long for the Alien to burst out of the Predator? One burst out of Adele almost immediately upon her waking but it took about half an hour for it to happen to the Predator.
Answer: As mentioned in another correction, the aliens were genetically engineered for fast "hatching" and growth, with a human host. It is not unthinkable that the predator's different anatomy/biochemistry made it harder for the chestburster to develop inside it.
3rd Feb 2005
A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)
Question: What did Gigolo Joe mean when he said, "I am. I was."?
Chosen answer: He wants David to remember him, but he knows he is going to be destroyed, and so gets a bit poetical. "I am" as a message to David to remember Joe was a real person (kind of...) and "I was" because he knows they will never see each other again.
Not quite. "I am" - A commentary on consciousness and what existance really means (or could mean) to a Mecha. "I was" - I am more than just "now". I have a past. I learned, I grew, I experienced. Joe is the philosopher of the film...a family-friendly version of Roy Batty in his final scene in Bladerunner - "Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion...I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in the rain" = "I was."
22nd Jan 2005
Spider-Man 2 (2004)
Question: Doc Ock's power comes from his actuators. Without them he is just a normal man. Spiderman has superpowers ie strength, recuparative powers etc. So why after all their fighting does only Spiderman show visible injuries? Even after being crushed between a flying table from the bank, and a taxi,which rocks the taxi onto two wheels, he gets up with no apparent injuries.
Answer: In the comics, the radiation from his experiment also gave him some extra strength and toughness. Not as much as Spider-Man, of course, but enough to be able to withstand a beating.
22nd Jan 2005
Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987)
Question: All of the computer monitors on TNG are referred to as "LCARS." What does LCARS mean?
Answer: It is short for "Library Computer Access and Retrieval System", the ship's computer system.
Question: Does Legolas have an age? I've read somewhere that it's 2931, but did Tolkien ever record one? Also, now that I'm on that subject, what is Aragorn's age? Did Tolkien record THAT as well?
Answer: There is no record of when Legolas was born. But it is commonly believed that Arwen is the last Elf born in Middle-Earth, and she is 2,777 years old at the time of the War of the Ring. So Legolas is older than that. Aragorn was born (according to the timeline in the appendix to "Lord of the Rings") in year 2931 of the Third Age, 87 years before the War.
25th Oct 2004
Conan the Barbarian (1982)
18th Oct 2004
The Mummy (1999)
1st Sep 2004
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
8th Jul 2004
Shrek 2 (2004)
Question: When Shrek and the gang decide to visit the Muffin Man, Shrek says, "We're going to need flour, lots and lots of flour." I remember a similar line (but not referring to flour) from another movie. What movie was that from and what was the line?
Answer: Quite possibly from "The Matrix". "We need guns. Lots of guns."
6th Jul 2004
Detroit Rock City (1999)
7th Jun 2004
Reservoir Dogs (1992)
Question: Why is the film called "Reservoir Dogs"? Is there any special significance to why Tarantino chose the title?
Answer: Both previous answers are technically correct, as Tarantino has offered both explanations as to the title's origin. Fact is, there have been so many explanations put out by both Tarantino and movie fans that we may never know.
Answer: When Tarantino worked in a video store, he once recommended to a customer "Au revoir les enfants". The customer screamed back that he "did not want any Reservoir Dogs!". Tarantino must have thought it sounded cool.
Answer: The title for the film first came to Quentin Tarantino while visiting a production company and noticing that they had a pile of unsolicited scripts under the label "Reservoir dogs." All those scripts were fighting with each other for attention as dogs trapped in a reservoir tank. The name got stuck in his mind. That's what he first claimed after its release.
11th May 2004
Van Helsing (2004)
Question: If Dracula and his Brides only took 2 or 3 people a month from the village (which both the town people and Dracula commented on when Van Helsing killed a Bride), what or whom did all those other Vampires at the Masquerade Party eat?
Answer: They hunted people in Budapest (where the scene takes place), or in Budapest's surrounding areas.
13th May 2004
Dances with Wolves (1990)
Question: Maybe I just missed something, but what's going on with Dunbar's military superior that he meets at the fort out west? He seems to think he's a king or something, referring to the frontier as the "realm" and Dunbar's travel companion as a "peasant." At the end of the scene he salutes Dunbar very sarcastically and then shoots himself. What does any of that have to do with the story?
Chosen answer: It shows that the officer was mentally disturbed, and he was the only one in the fort who knew about Dunbar's assignment. It sets the story up so that Dunbar could live with the Indians without the Army interfering with his life (No one expected any communications to or from Dunbar).
Answer: So why was his journal so important to him? He knows lots of soldiers and many other whites are coming.
Answer: Because it documented his time at the fort and with the Indians and also what he learned from them during the period when he arrived before the Army did show up - This would have been crucial if there had been any trial which there was not as the Sioux rescued him from the situation.
7th May 2004
Leon (1994)
Question: Near the half-hour mark, Gary Oldman pulls out a small box of green-and-yellow pills and takes one. What exactly is it?
Answer: Some kind of (unnamed) drug. Just to show how nasty the DEA agent is.
7th May 2004
Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)
Question: Why do Anakin and Qui-gon have to cover up the fact that it's Anakin's pod they want him to race? Anakin says, "You could make them think it's yours" (or something like that), and Qui-gon later says that he acquired the pod in a game of chance. Why the deception? What does Watto care, who built the pod?
Chosen answer: As a slave, Anakin is not allowed any possessions of his own. Anything the Skywalkers have, ultimately belongs to Watto, so if Watto discovered Anakin had a pod, he would claim it for himself and maybe have someone else race it. The Jedi, of course, needed Anakin to race, since he was the best pod pilot around (and to test his Jedi capablities).
20th Apr 2004
Kill Bill: Volume 2 (2004)
Question: There is a humorous scene in which we cut to a classroom and Beatrix's name is called, to which she responds she is present. I thought it was funny, but what was it's significance? Where was it from? Was it an homage shot, or just a joke?
Answer: It is just to show that Beatrix Kiddo really is the name of "The Bride". It would not have the same effect if the teacher had called the name and you would see an unknown little girl answer.
Answer: It's homage to the Woody Allen movie, Annie Hall. He plays a comedy writer who reminiscences about his childhood classmates. In the flashback, he is his adult self in a classroom of children.
24th Mar 2004
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
Question: In the extended version, if Faramir is so worried that Gollum will prevent Frodo from completing his quest, then why doesn't he kill him? I know that Frodo 'has to believe he can come back' and so on, but don't you think it is vital Frodo's journey to save the world is made as safe as possible?
Answer: Gollum is the only one who can guide Frodo to the stairs and through the tunnels above it, as he is the only one to have gotten into Mordor that way. And besides, Gollum is under Frodo's protection, and if Faramir had willingly hurt someone in the company of a guest, his and Gondor's honor would be ruined. This may not seem like much in our time and place, but in Middle Earth it matters a lot.
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Answer: He is saying that sometimes you have to break the law to do good things. By this he acknowledges that pirates can be decent people as well, and that this can earn them a second chance. What he is specifically referencing is the crimes Jack and Will committed to rescue Elizabeth and destroy Barbossa.
Twotall