Question: Why did Jack cut himself before throwing the coin to Will? I thought the curse only needed Will's blood?
lionhead
Question: Why did one of the Nazgûl stab Frodo at weathertop?
Answer: Because they were trying to kill him and take the One Ring for Sauron.
Why didn't the nazgûl simply take ring from Frodo?
How was one of the nazgûl able to stab Frodo when he put the ring on at weathertop? Considering that people who put the ring on are usually invisible.
To mortal people, yes. But the Nazgûl can sense when someone is using it. Note how they immediately changed directions when Frodo put it on at the Prancing Pony.
12th Aug 2021
Back to the Future Part III (1990)
Question: Doc seemed hell-bent on destroying the DeLorean. So why did he go to the future and get a hover conversion done on the train? Why didn't he just build the train, return to his own time and then destroy the train?
Answer: He didn't return to the Old West, both of them had a desire to go to the final frontier. Their favorite author is Jules Verne, who wrote "From Earth to the Moon."
Answer: Doc was happy living in the Old West but returned to the future to collect his dog, Einstein, and he didn't want Marty to worry about him. He probably also wanted to make sure that Marty had made it safely back to his own time, to properly say goodbye, and make sure the DeLorean was never used again. He never indicated he would destroy the train, only the DeLorean. The hover conversion on the train would have been done in the Old West, not in the future.
I doubt he was able to make the train hover in the old west, whilst he could easily go to the future with it and do it there, like he did with the DeLorean. He did say he has been to the future with it, so it's logical to assume that's where he upgraded it.
Doc never says he went further into the future with the train or did the hover conversion there. If he could build a time-traveling locomotive in the 1880s, then he could create a hovering one, as he had the knowledge. Marty asks if he's going back to the future, and Doc says no because he's already been there. That could be interpreted a number of ways. It's a sci-fi movie, and there is a lot of suspension of disbelief employed here.
While the movie isn't explicit about when or where the Time Train was built, other sources do indicate its hoverconversion was done in the future. While Doc could invent a machine that was capable of time travel (the mechanics of which aren't really discussed), he had to travel to the future to convert the DeLorean and couldn't even fix the DeLorean in the past.
What 'other sources' indicate Doc travelled to the future for the hover conversion? Any fan speculation is invalid. I also don't get the argument. While Doc was unable to fix the DeLorean when Marty was in the Old West, he could, and did, in later years, build the time-travel train in the past. He could not otherwise have gone anywhere into the future to do anything. Time-travelling without the hover ability would be extremely difficult as a locomotive would be noticeable and require taking off and landing on empty train tracks. Doc would have to hide the locomotive while converting it. He would also have to know before time-travelling that the railroad tracks he took off on still existed in the future, as he could possibly arrive smashing into what became an urban development. This should be considered as both a deliberate plot hole and a plot device using "suspension of disbelief" solely intended to give the series a spectacular finale.
The comics reveal that Doc Brown traveled to 2017 in a prototype time machine and purchased materials which he brought back with him to the 1890s to use on the Time Train.
30th Jul 2013
Minority Report (2002)
Question: There is a huge question for me. Is the vision of Leo Crow vs. Anderton the vision of what effectively happens (Leo Crow pushes the gun into the hand of Anderton who doesn't want to kill him) or the vision of the homicide WANTED by Anderton (that in the reality changes his idea)? My opinion is that the first answer is correct, because in the vision we see Crow that says to Anderton "Wait!" because he wants to be killed by him. So, if my opinion is correct, Anderton does NOT change the vision?
Chosen answer: Correct, Anderton does not change the vision. The movie is named after what you've just described: the minority report. Agatha always sees the true future, the other two precogs usually see the same as her but sometimes they only see a possible future instead. When Agatha's predictions conflict with theirs, her vision is termed a "minority report" and is disregarded. Anderton was never actually going to kill Crow, it was only ever merely a possibility.
I don't think there is ever a "true future", as in Agatha's own words to John - "You can still choose! You have a choice!" Even the final red ball, Lamar chose to go against the precogs' prevision, which was something that the 3 precogs agreed on. Therefore, a "true future" can be broken and does not exist.
Adding to that, the precog vision of Anderton killing Crow I totally different from what actually happened. In the vision Anderton says to Crow "Goodbye Crow" and shoots him from a distance, which he didn't do at the actual event. So the precog knowledge Anderton has definitely changed the future. He already decided not to kill Crow, but Crow died anyway.
5th Apr 2005
Alien (1979)
Corrected entry: When the face sucker jumps at Kane, he only jumps onto Kane's helmet. This is best seen when in slo-mo on the DVD. Having it jump through his helmet, as we are led to believe, would have resulted in some glass breaking and facial lacerations to Kane and injury to the face sucker alien. (00:34:20)
Correction: The face-hugger emits a quantity of acid and burns its way through the helmet visor. The visor is visibly affected - the sides of the hole appear melted, not broken.
Then wouldn't Kane's face be melted?
It secretes enough acid to just melt the helmet and not damage the host.
13th Jan 2004
Enemy of the State (1998)
Corrected entry: In the early scene where Will Smith is confronting the "Mafia Boss" with the video of him consorting with union representatives, the Boss is shown mugging for the camera. Obviously, he knows he is being taped. Immediately thereafter, he starts to threaten Smith, demanding to know who made the tape, as if it had been made surreptitiously.
Correction: He wanted to know how Smith got the tape and more importantly, who made the copy so he could make sure no more were produced.
That's not made clear in the film. Yes he later asks how he got it, but before and even after he keeps saying, "who made the tape?" And eventually he says, "I wanna know who made the tape, and I wanna know in a week." Which giving him a week is another valid question altogether, but unrelated. But this seems to be a mistake as it seems odd that Pintero wouldn't know who's responsible despite mugging for the camera. Without any other explanation or dialogue, this is a plot error.
He wants to know who gave this tape to Smith, who made a version of it that got in the hands of a lawyer. That's what he wants to know. He may or may not know who was actually filming, but he wants to know who it was that got it out of private hands and into the hands of Smith.
Pintero's question "Who made the tape?" refers to the copy that Dean has, not the original which, as already pointed out, he was well aware of.
2nd Aug 2021
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)
Question: Why would Dumbledore hire Lockhart to be a professor at Hogwarts? Dumbledore knows how incompetent Lockhart is and that the DADA is cursed.
Answer: This is better explained in the book. Dumbledore, and also the other Hogwarts' staff, always doubted the narcissistic Lockhart's credentials and abilities, but no-one else would accept the job, knowing it was cursed and no instructor lasted more than a year. At the time, Dumbledore was pressed to hire a new teacher before the school year started, and Lockhart was the only option and better than nothing.
Answer: On paper, Lockheart is far from incompetent. Look at all his books. It appears he has exceptional experience of the Dark Arts and creatures such as Hag's Banshee's etc. So as far as Dumbledore knows he's the best position of the job. With regards to the job being cursed, it's been cursed for 13 years with no teacher lasting more than a year. He still needs a teacher. And all the teachers get more and more qualified as time goes on. Consider the fact that he hires ex-auror, Moody.
In the novels, Lockheart has admitted to Harry and Ron that he's a fraud. His backstory goes that all of his "accomplishments" were told to him by other wizards that actually achieved them and after he learned the whole story, he used Obliviate on them to make them forget what they did and claimed them as his own. Even the spell that he claims would work on pixies failed.
In the movie he tells them too. Nobody knew that though, not even Dumbledore when he hired him. Although some do start getting suspicious, like Snape.
Dumbledore was aware of Lockhart being a fraud as two of the wizards that had their memories erased were friends of his and was able to correctly guess that Lockhart was responsible.
I wouldn't consider Dolores Umbridge, who succeeded (the fake) Mad Eye Moody, as an improvement. She was mediocre in addition to being corrupt. The real Mad Eye, never taught, so it's unknown how well he would have done. Barty Crouch, Jr. (the fake Moody) was a dark wizard, making him an effective instructor. Lupin was an excellent teacher, as was Snape, though he didn't last a full year.
Question: Do we ever see the wraiths in their true forms?
Answer: Technically what you see is their true form after being corrupted by the rings and turned into wraiths. Before that they were simply men, you can see what is left of that when Frodo puts on the ring at Weather Top.
I thought those white ugly faces you see, when Frodo puts the ring on at weather top, were their true forms.
Yes, that's exactly right. The rings turned them into wraiths, meaning their spirits moved on to the shadow realm and their real bodies pretty much destroyed. All that's left of them under the cloaks is invisible (in the books) and only seen in the shadow realm, where Frodo enters when he puts on the ring. The danger is too that Frodo would pass into the shadow realm too if he puts on the ring too often, becoming like them.
11th Nov 2007
Twelve Monkeys (1995)
Corrected entry: Katherine's phone message that is responsible for the hypothesis about the Army of the 12 Monkeys is left as a direct result of her experience with Cole, and at the same time what leads to him being sent back in the first place. Well, if that message is there all along, then why isn't the one Cole left at the airport contradicting it also present from the beginning? It should have created a paradox, as it would have stopped the investigation into the Army before it started, hence the first message would never have been left.
Correction: Both messages are there all the time but one (Coles) was more degraded than the other (Katherines), and the scientists needed more time to work on it.
30th May 2020
Twelve Monkeys (1995)
Plot hole: At the end the police shoot Cole while he was chasing Dr Peters but the police do not stop Dr Peters and question him as to why a man was chasing him at the airport with a gun, instead he is unchallenged and allowed to continue his journey.
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Suggested correction: There is no connection between Cole and Dr. Peters, nobody knows he is specifically chasing him. Dr. Peters is beyond the gates and on his way into the plane so unless they want to stop the entire flight, which is unlikely, he is left alone. Perfectly reasonable.
Cole is chasing a man and Dr. Peters is running away (and knocking people over in the process). Further, they were screaming "there he is...stop him he's got a deadly virus" and pointing at Dr. Peters. Highly unlikely they would have let the plane depart.
There was a dude with a gun, a lot of people were running, panicking. Perfectly reasonable reaction from Peters. The police were after Cole anyway, so the attention was on him, not on Peters. And as I said, Peters was already past the inspection, so he was where he was supposed to be and there was no reason to stop him.
Not to mention that Dr. Railly can also corroborate the reason Dr. Peters is being chased.
Dr. Railly can corroborate the reason Cole is chasing Dr. Peters. When she points out that he is even on the front page of USA Today with a Nobel Prize winner, I think they'd definitely investigate.
The shrink was still alive and seemed to give up quickly on her mission to stop a virus from killing billions. Like she just let them take her while she remained silent instead of continuing to scream that he had a virus so Cole died in vain. And they would know why he was chasing them because all they would need to do was ask him.
Her concern was with Cole, she tries to protect him throughout the movie. After Cole is shot she knows there is no way they let her continue the chase, all she cares about is Cole. Cole is being chased by the cops, no reason for them to believe what he is yelling, no reason to believe her either, since she is as an accomplice.
30th Oct 2017
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
Question: Why doesn't Gandalf want Pippin to touch the crystal ball, whatever it's called? Does it give Sauron the ability to read minds?
Answer: In a word, yes. The palantír (as it is called) forms a mental link between itself and others like it, and a strong mind (such as Sauron) can manipulate weaker ones (as he did with Saruman and Denethor).
15th Jul 2021
Alien (1979)
Question: How did the company know about the Alien in the first place? Presumably no-one had been there before and the signal they picked up didn't indicate the presence of an Alien lifeform.
Answer: It was never fully explained. "The Company" had a standing directive that any signal detected which indicated alien life was to be investigated and specimens collected and returned. Failure to comply would result in the crew forfeiting their profit shares. The company apparently had previously detected the crashed alien astronaut's warning signal from LV-46 and wanted to search for alien lifeforms without specifically knowing what would be found.
Actually in the movie it is indicated that the company definitely knew about the xenomorphs, given Ash's directive. It is not explained how in this movie but it is in the movies "Prometheus" and "Alien: covenant." The standing directive about investigating signals was just an excuse to use an expendable crew to procure a specimen.
13th Oct 2003
Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985)
Character mistake: In the showdown scene between the Vietnamese officer and Rambo, the Vietnamese officer empties an entire magazine at Rambo from only about 20 metres away but only manages to hit the ground around Rambo's feet. What was he doing, aiming at his feet? He deserved to get blown up to bits for that effort.
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3rd May 2003
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
Corrected entry: John Connor in the future should have sent back a terminator that didn't resemble the first one. Since he did, it tipped off the police and nearly made an enemy of Sarah Connor, when it should have been unrecognizable and earned her trust faster.
Correction: It's probably not very easy to capture a Terminator, especially with (apparently) absolutely zero damage to it. John got what he could and sent it back. Even if he did know that it was the same model that Skynet sent back to kill Sarah (which he may not have), it's still better than nothing, and there's no evidence to suggest that he could have gotten his hands on a different Terminator.
Correction: It should be noted, the T-800's all looked alike (at least the 101 models). Plus, adult John Connor remembers being saved by this particular model and therefore sends it back, regardless if there were other models with a different look.
You are mistaken. The future John Connor that send that terminator back does not remember the events of the movie. The future changes whenever something or someone is sent back without affecting that particular timeline. So the future John Connor that send that T-800 back is from the timeline after the first movie, not this one.
That statement I made regarding John remembering the T-800 comes directly from James Cameron himself, not something I made up or fan theory.
It might have been true when T-2 was the last movie, but later movies change that. I get it if people want to hang on to the original Cameron deal, but the continuity of the franchise disregards the old rules and comes up with new ones. The events of T-2 created the events of T-3 and thus it is a different John Connor.
Many consider T3 a soft reboot and not direct sequel meaning what's established in the film doesn't specifically alter what is established in Terminator 1 and 2.
24th May 2021
Army of the Dead (2021)
Factual error: There is no way in hell they can carry $200,000,000 in cash (over 4,000lbs), let alone load it on the helicopter.
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Suggested correction: They never did and it was never the idea. They simply didn't figure out it's not physically possible. They took as much as they could from the vault in the much more limited time they had, and never got any of it to the helicopter (except for 1 small stack) anyway.
It's true that the team was not meant to recover all the money, but they didn't know that going in. How did Ward and Peters, who seem reasonably smart, not consider the weight when planning the heist? The deal Ward believed was "get paid $50 million to recover $200 million" not "grab what you can and good luck"
I suppose it could be counted as a stupidity, but I'm not sure anyone is really aware of the weight of 200 million in cash, even reasonably smart people. Never seen it, never weighed it.
15th Nov 2014
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)
Question: What is supposed to happen if you say Voldemort's name? Harry says it throughout the series many times, and nothing happens to him. Why do Arthur Weasley (in this movie) and other people always tell him to stop?
Answer: Actually, nothing happens to anyone who says it. The idea is that Voldemort was so evil that nearly everyone feared saying his name aloud, referring to him only as "You-Know-Who" or "The Dark Lord." Only Harry and Dumbledore freely spoke his name aloud, having no fear of it. However, in HP and the Deathly Hallows, Voldemort, knowing this about Harry, places a jinx on his own name, and anyone saying it will immediately reveal their location. Hermione happened to say "Voldemort" out loud right after she, Harry, and Ron escaped the attack at the wedding and were in the coffee shop. Two Death Eaters appear immediately after she says it, and almost capture the trio.
Answer: Voldemort can find whoever says his name. That's why people don't say his name - purely for the sake of their life.
That is only true after the death eaters take over the ministry.
8th May 2019
Game of Thrones (2011)
The Last Of The Starks - S8-E4
Continuity mistake: In this episode, Kings Landing is shown as sitting on flat, plain-like terrain. In previous seasons, it was shown surrounded by water and mountains covered lush greenery.
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Suggested correction: That is correct, however there is actually a reason for this, it was just never adapted from the books. Stains burned the woods during battle of the black water as an offering to the lord of light.
That doesn't remove the hills though.
28th Oct 2003
Jurassic Park (1993)
Corrected entry: Right before the scientists see the dinosaurs for the first time, Ellie is looking at this plant leaf and saying, "This has been extinct since the ____ period." If it's an extinct plant, how could they duplicate it? Mosquitoes don't drink chlorophyll - there's no way it could have been preserved if everything worked the way they said. No organic material from an extinct plant from either the Jurassic or Cretaceous period has ever been found, and given that plant material decays very quickly, it never will be. The engineers did not use some magical "other method" to clone plants because there aren't any.
Correction: As has been pointed out on this site before, inventing deux ex machina explanations for plot holes and factual errors does not invalidate them. No organic material from an extinct plant from either the Jurassic or Cretaceous period has ever been found, and given that plant material decays very quickly, it never will be. The engineers did not use some magical "other method" to clone plants because there aren't any.
Correction: The video they watch (with Mr. DNA) only explains how they recreated the dinosaurs, which were the main attraction of the park. The engineers used other methods to make the right environment for the animals, but as it's not half as exciting, the viewer never finds out exactly how.
Correction: The simplest and most likely explanation, once you accept the logic of this movie in the first place, is that the engineers are removing Plant DNA directly from the amber.
Amber is fossilized tree sap, anything fossilized doesn't hold any DNA. However, it is possible amber holds trapped plant parts (called 'inclusion'), from which DNA can be extracted. Theoretically.
Question: When Smeagol first sees the ring, its power drives him insane almost instantly, leading him to kill his own friend and not feel any guilt afterwards. Later it changes him physically as well, turning him into the shrivelled up creature Gollum. When Bilbo Baggins however acquires the ring it doesn't cause him to go insane or commit murder, even after he's had it for some 60 years. Frodo Baggins also holds onto the ring for a good amount of time without ever losing his mind to it. Why the difference?
Answer: The Ring's power affects everyone, but not the same way or at the same pace. We really don't know much about Smeagol or what he was like before he found the Ring, so his personality/character may have been more immediately susceptible to its influence. We do know Bilbo and Frodo are, in general, kindhearted and innocent, so they "hold out" longer before succumbing to the Ring...they both DO lose their minds to it at certain points, albeit briefly (Bilbo transforms into a monster in front of Frodo, and Frodo, spoiler alert, later claims the Ring as his own in Mt. Doom).
Answer: Smeagol was greedy for the fish that Daegol his cousin caught which had the ring in its belly. The Ring influenced him to kill Daegol and run from his home into the caves. He was the guardian of the ring for almost 600 years, so he is quite crazy when Bilbo meets him, with even the Ring warning Gollum not to touch it. Bilbo on the other hand was wholly ignorant of the Ring's influence and kept it in his pocket and only using it to hide from his relatives. Bilbo, being a bit wealthy and a Hobbit didn't have greed in him so the Ring had very little to work with. Frodo, being raised by Bilbo was the same, being more interested in smoking, food and other Hobbit activities. He was chosen by Elrond to bear the ring because it had no real effect on him or his people, given their innocence and lack of desire for power. The Ring kept Bilbo alive for over 130 years with no issues. Frodo is only overcome at the forge in Mt Doom, as Sauron's power is literally everywhere in that place.
Most of this is completely made up.
10th May 2003
Space Jam (1996)
Corrected entry: Can someone explain how the hell the bulldog gets into the cupboard in the scene where Bugs and Daffy are searching for Michael's shorts? It was in the kennel when Daffy burrowed into it, the front door was closed so it couldn't have got in that way, and if it followed them up the tunnel, how exactly did it get into the cupboard (which was also closed) without them seeing it?
Correction: The same way Michael Jordon's arm streched across the court. Things like that happen in cartoons, even if the people are not cartoons themselves.
The scene in question takes place in Michael Jordan's house in the real world, not the cartoon world.
But it does involve Daffy and Bugs. And Daffy already had an encounter with the dog and somehow escaped from it. Basically, the dog got the role of a cartoon character by being involved with cartoon characters. It's also their movie, so their rules.
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Answer: The curse needs the blood of everybody who took a coin from the chest. All the other pirates have already contributed so, as the movie opens, the only blood needed is Will's, substituting for his father. During the finale of the movie, Jack takes a coin from the chest, adding himself to the curse, so his blood is now required as well as Will's.
Tailkinker ★
But I didn't see any blood on the coins, and none of the pirates cut themselves, even before Will became part of the mix.
Yes, the other pirates did cut themselves before Will came into it, off-screen. The lack of blood on the coins can simply be explained as most of it dripping to the bottom of the chest, it being washed away by storms blown into the cave, or by the fact that they didn't drop that much blood on it in the first place.
When they had Elizabeth they believed she was Bill Turner's daughter, but they all thought the curse had failed, none of them had cut themselves so it makes zero sense.
They had been collecting back the coins for years. During that time they repaid their own blood. All they needed was the last coin and the blood of Bill Turner to break the spell.
lionhead