Question: Wouldn't David & Jennifer's mom be worried about the sudden disappearance of her daughter, seeing as how Jennifer stayed behind in Pleasantville rather than returning to the "real world"?
lionhead
13th Jun 2006
Pleasantville (1998)
4th Mar 2016
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001)
Question: This question is about the book and movie. Why does Draco make an offer of friendship to Harry? His parents are on Voldemort's side. His father and his aunt are Death Eaters. Surely he considers Harry to be an enemy. If Harry had actually decided to join him, his family would have been very displeased. They would also suffer consequences if Voldemort returned and heard that Draco was friends with Harry.
Answer: Draco, still a child when he met Harry, would not yet fully comprehend his family's involvement as Death Eaters or Harry's specific connection to the Dark Lord. His father, Lucius, rarely shared important information with his son. Draco was also the type who would ingratiate himself to someone famous for his own benefit. Draco's cultivating a bogus friendship with Harry could actually have been advantageous to the Malfoys by gaining his trust and giving them closer access to Harry for Voldemort's purposes. The old adage, "Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer," would certainly apply here.
One other possible reason, I think, it was suggested elsewhere, that the Malfoys did not believe that Voldemort would return, and thought that if Harry had defeated him then Harry must be a very powerful wizard and therefore they wanted to be his friend.
This indeed. This was cut from the movies (it's in one deleted CoS scene), but some people including the Malfoys wondered if Harry "defeated" Voledmort because he was another powerful, dark wizard Voldemort didn't want as a competition. That would make him very appealing to the Malfoys before it is confirmed otherwise. Especially since no-one aside from a few people knew Voldemort would ever come back.
Harry was only a baby when he "defeated" Voldemort though. Why would anyone think he was a powerful dark wizard and competition to Voldemort? I get that they might think Harry has some sort of hidden ability that caused him to vanquish Voldemort, but not that being the reason Voldemort tried to kill him. Everyone knew who Harry's parents were, and that's why he was a target.
12th Apr 2023
The Last Witch Hunter (2015)
Question: When Chloe is looking out the window in Koulter's apartment it shows the city and right there in the skyline are the Twin Towers which went down Sept 11, 2001, but this was filmed in 2015? Was that not New York city or am I wrong about what I saw?
Answer: No, those are not the twin towers. What you are seeing is the Deutsche Bank Center (formerly Time Warner Center) on Columbus Circle. These two towers are at the southwestern corner of Central Park as you might see, whilst the World Trade Center twin towers were located much more south in Manhattan, in the financial district, and wouldn't be viewable from there. The two towers on Columbus Circle were constructed and finished between 2000 and 2004.
Answer: Just to add to the first answer, the Deutsche Bank Center towers are each 55 stories tall. The World Trade Center's North Tower and South Tower each had 110 stories. As for Chloe's "nice view" outside the window, some of the buildings are as follows. The first building on the left is The Plaza, its Central Park South side. The next tall building is the Park Lane Hotel. The very tall glass building near the center is a condominium tower, nicknamed One57.
29th Mar 2023
The Book of Eli (2010)
Question: I see this in nearly all post apocalyptic movies, and in spades in the Book of Eli. The dystopian world they live in is so devoid of necessities that things like chapstick and even water are extremely valuable. OK, fair enough. 30 years ago a nuclear war destroyed society. So how is it that in this world of extreme scarcity, that they are able to keep multiple vehicles running? Beyond gasoline, a car requires a working battery and multiple other fluids, not to mention parts.
Answer: Like you said, society collapsed so the survivors scrounge for food, water, basic needs. Vehicles, their parts, and oil are not basic needs however and are only required when new, primitive, societies start up again. Sure individuals might use a vehicle, but plenty of cars lying around to use until they rust and then you go on to the next. But, these societies can, though crudely, create parts and collect fluids, based on their needs, from whatever they can scavenge. The technology and knowledge is still there, as is the skill to keep cars running. They'd go great lengths to keep them operational, sometimes moreso than food production.
I can appreciate your answer, but 30-year-old gasoline? It just doesn't work. But then it dawned on me that an engine can run on other substances, like grain alcohol. Probably still hard to come by, but nowhere as difficult to create as gasoline would be. So, yep, you're right. Thanks.
Answer: Scavenge and cannibalize from all the derelict cars, and loot abandoned stores?
26th Mar 2023
General questions
Is there a movie/show in which a male character says "Hey, it's me. You're probably wondering how I ended up in this situation"? I've watched a couple of Instagram videos that had this quote.
Answer: It's a common trope, taking various forms. Seemingly the first occurrence of this specific type of voiceover/flashback is from Sunset Boulevard (1950), starting with someone dead in a pool, and the dead character is the one who takes us back to show us what led to that situation.
Yep. Various films start with something similar, like start of the movie Ratatouille (2007), the movie Holes (2003), The Emperor's New Groove (2000), Spiderman (2002) and most episode intros of My name is Earl (2005-2009). None actually use that exact sentence though.
23rd Jul 2022
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017)
Question: Troops were sent to check out the mysterious toxic stuff in the centre of the space city but none returned (as mentioned by Clive Owen). Later it is discovered there is no toxicity. It seems extremely out of character for the pearls to have killed a whole unit of soldiers. This plot point was never explained. Were they killed by the pearls?
Answer: It is never answered, but it's safe to assume the commander has been killing the teams with his guard robots.
Thats nonsense because the commander didn't know the pearls were there so no reason to kill the teams. It was classified toxic because nobody returned, possibly incapacitated by the pearls to avoid discovery but not killed.
21st Mar 2023
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)
Question: The fang of the basilisk has been shown in the other movies to be able to destroy a horcrux. Since Harry was a horcrux himself, when the basilisk bit him, why didn't it kill him or at the least destroy the piece of Voldemort's soul that was inside of him?
Answer: Because he is alive and the piece of Voldemort inside him is too. He had to die to kill the horcrux inside him, but Fawkes the phoenix healed him before that could happen.
25th Mar 2018
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010)
Question: I've heard that Lucius was right in Voldemort's inner circle so why is he treated even worse than Pettigrew?
Answer: In addition, Lucius is directly responsible for the destruction of his first horcrux, the diary, for the frivolous reason of trying to discredit Arthur Weasley.
Voldemort was angry with Lucius because he repeatedly failed him. Lucius smuggled the Diary Horcrux into Hogwarts via Ginny, the plan failed. Lucius also failed to retrieve the prophecy orb from the Ministry of Magic, resulting in a huge battle and certain Death Eaters being sent to Azkaban prison. Voldemort usually severely punished anyone who failed him.
Except Voldemort was still in hiding in Albania when Lucius did this. He never told Lucius to give it to Ginny.
Lucius took advantage of an opportunity to use Ginny to get the Diary into Hogwarts rather than as an act to discredit Arthur. He couldn't risk giving it to Draco, who he would not have trusted to carry out the mission.
Except that Lucius putting Tom Riddles' diary into Ginny's cauldron happened in "The Chamber Of Secrets." Not in this movie. The question was why Voldemort treated Lucius even worse then Pettigrew.
It might have happened in an earlier movie, but that doesn't mean Voldemort forgot.
3rd Jun 2004
Star Wars (1977)
Question: While perusing an art book on this movie I came across several foreign movie posters where the Death Star is shown with the laser dish in the southern hemisphere rather than the northern (almost as if it were upside down). Anyone know why this is?
Answer: Judging from the movies, the laser doesn't seem to have much of an aiming system so the whole Death Star might need to rotate so the dish faces its target and in some cases this could mean needing to be "upside down". Just a hunch.
Wouldn't an upside-down Death Star be problematic for the countless amount of Stormtroopers, Imperial officers etc. on it?
No more than for any other large planetary body. Either artificial gravity or it's large enough to create its own.
No, as demonstrated on the Millennium Falcon and star destroyers, the Star Wars universe has some form of artificial gravity.
It's space, there is no up direction.
When there is gravity, there is an up and down. I think in terms of spaceships north is usually taken as up and south as down, relative to an astronomical body. But only because most maps are made that way. Determining an up and down helps with a sense of direction.
21st Feb 2023
Loki (2021)
Question: He Who Remains talks about reincarnation, and says "see you soon" to Sylvie. Does he literally mean this version of himself will return? If so how, given he's, y'know, dead? Or does he just mean that another version of him will encounter Sylvie in due course, either his younger self or another variant?
Answer: No he doesn't mean this version of himself, he means the other versions. They are all basically him.
21st Feb 2023
Men in Black 3 (2012)
Question: Griffin can almost exactly predict when and what happens next, but when it comes to Boris the animal he can't. Every time Boris got close to Griffin, every possible scenario seems to change. Griffin also says, "Oh no! I didn't think this through or see this happening." Is it some sort of firewall that Boris has on Griffin?
Answer: He doesn't see one future, he sees multiple. So there are multiple possibilities of what is going to happen and he knows all of them and can only predict once something has been confirmed first. This is demonstrated when he and J first meet.
17th Feb 2023
Die Hard (1988)
Question: When Hans is interrogating Takagi, why would he remove a silencer to fire the weapon indoors without hearing protection? Wouldn't it be more menacing to put a silencer on in that situation?
Answer: I think he's just subtly showing Takagi that he's in control of the situation - there's no need to hide behind a silencer, which they were using earlier. They've taken over and can do whatever they want, including loudly executing people. It's a very subtle power-play.
Answer: They used guns with silencers to access the building and take control swiftly and quietly. Now that they no longer need to do that he takes off the silencer. A silencer affects the gun's accuracy. It is also highly likely he wanted the people in the other room to hear the shot.
17th Feb 2023
The Rock (1996)
Question: Why does Mason give Goodspeed the location of where he hid the top secret microfilm? I thought the whole point of why Mason was locked up was because he wouldn't tell the FBI where he hid it, so why divulge this information to Goodspeed? Does Mason think Goodspeed isn't going to hand in the microfilm to his superiors?
Answer: Mason got a clean slate, no more secrets for him because of Goodspeed. So, as a token of appreciation he tells him where he hid the government secrets, to do what he pleased with it. It was no longer his burden.
17th Feb 2023
Cube (1997)
12th Mar 2019
The Cloverfield Paradox (2018)
Question: Spoiler Warning: when Tam is killed in the space station by the water flooding out of the vents, and then freezing her when the air lock breaks, it is simply stated that the water was from condensation. However even on a space station that big I don't see how that much condensation could have built up in such a short time to be able to flood an entire air lock room. So my question, is is it supposed to be that the water was actually coming from the other Shepard space station? The other Earth news cast they managed to pick up showed that the Shepard station from that universe had crashed into the ocean and was drowned. So was the water in theirs supposed to be sort of moving through a dimensional portal linked between the space stations, so that they were getting ocean water from the crashed Shepard into theirs? Or was it really just an insane amount of condensation build up?
Answer: In my point of view they use water to cool the particle accelerator. Using the vents to vent out the water once they are ready for another test. My guess is the water came from there. But I like your idea of it being ocean water crossing with the parts of the station from the other dimension. I didn't hear anything about condensation though, and I just watched it.
12th Jan 2023
Die Hard: With a Vengeance (1995)
Question: Why did Zeus and John steal a Yugo to chase the dump trucks? Zeus abandoned the taxi outside the Federal Reserve (in fact you actually see the Yugo about 100 yards back from the taxi when the bomb explodes) wouldn't it have made sense to use that again considering it'd be faster?
Answer: If you look as they drive off in the Yugo, the cab had actually gone. It could've been moved as part of the cleanup operation or given that Zeus probably left it running in his hurry to get to the phone, stolen by someone.
1st Jan 2023
The Mummy (1999)
Question: Why is it said that Imhotep and his priests were mummified alive? Mummification occurs when someone dies and has most of the organs removed. Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that he was buried alive?
Answer: It means the process of removing their organs was performed while they were still alive. Certainly at some point they would die during the process from blood loss or having a vital organ removed. And it was just the priests that were mummified alive, Imhotep was subjected to a different punishment.
Their internal organs were not removed or they'd die instantly. In the movie you see them being bandaged up and put in the sarcophaguses whilst still moving and then sealed up so they still had their organs. It is indeed more like being buried alive but then as a mummy.
Indeed, but you can also see the Medjai using sharp tools against some of the priests. The priest on the left side of the screen with his arm writhing has a Medjai placing a sharp object around his face, indicating he might either be cutting out his tongue or removing his brains through his nose. The Medjai in the immediate foreground is (badly) making a slashing motion with his sword towards the priest lying on the table before him.
13th Dec 2022
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)
Question: In the divination class where Hermione walks out, what exactly is she up to when she says "The Grim, possibly"?
Answer: She was being sarcastic to the professor about her predictions, thinking that it's all just guesswork. She doesn't believe in divination and walks out because she feels it is wasting her time. And she was insulted, of course.
11th Dec 2022
General questions
In some movies/shows, a "bad guy" will visit someone in the hospital with the intent of killing them. One method is to smother them with a pillow until they die. Often their death is signified by us hearing the heart monitor beeping normally and then flatlining. But in reality, if someone was hooked up to hospital monitors, wouldn't other alarms go off as they struggle to breathe before they die? Wouldn't their heart-rate increase in the panic? Doesn't disconnecting monitors set off alarms?
Answer: Absolutely. If the person is awake whilst being smothered and hooked on to a monitoring machine, both heart rate and blood pressure will skyrocket whilst the smothering is taking place. This will send nurses rushing in. It's a common mistake in movies. Unplugging the devices will also indeed trigger alarms. Only thing you can do is turning the machine off properly (if possible without triggering anything) and do the deed before people come to check. If someone is in a coma though, the only alarm that might go off is the heart monitor when the heart stops. Then again, a coma patient usually is attached to a breathing apparatus. Detaching that also gives off alarms. Another far fetched solution is putting the devices on yourself before killing a patient. Or simply setting off a bomb or something.
Answer: They could time it so no-one would be at the nurse's station, do it quickly before anyone arrives or have someone stand outside the door as look out. Also make it look like a natural causes.
20th Nov 2022
Beetlejuice (1988)
Question: What did Jane say to Barbara that upset her? The only thing I could make out was, "This place" and "family."
Answer: Jane says "the house is meant for a couple with a family" and is therefore too big for them. Meaning that Adam and Barbara have no children and thus aren't a family yet. It upset her to be reminded that they don't have any children.
Adam even suggests 'trying again on vacation,' implying they'd tried to have a child before. It's why they bonded with Lydia so well; they'd been hoping to be parents.
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Answer: We don't see much of the "real world" after David returns other than his conversation with his mother. I am sure in time she would have been worried but there seem to be many unanswered questions which might make it not so simple.
Lummie ★
Considering that a couple of days in Pleasantville turned out to be just an hour in the real world, it's possible Jennifer could spend 3-4 years in uni and cone back with it being just a weekend in the real world. David could just make up something in that period she's gone.
Actually if a couple of days is just an hour than 3-4 years is more than 2 weeks.
lionhead