Answered questions about specific movies, TV shows and more

These are questions relating to specific titles. General questions for movies and TV shows are here. Members get e-mailed when any of their questions are answered.

Question: Is there any particular reason the ghosts are still there after Tangina has declared the place clean, other than these are just the biggest, baddest ghosts on the block? I'm fine with that explanation but I always wondered if there was more to it.

TonyPH

Answer: Tangina may have believed the house was "clean," but the dark spirit she called the "Beast" was more powerful than she realised and was preventing the other spirits from moving on. The real estate development that the Freelings' house was built on was supposed to be a former cemetery. However, no-one, including Tangina, knew that the bodies were still buried there (the developers had only moved the tombstones) and was why the spirits were angry.

raywest

Question: When Professor McGonagall acquires a Nimbus 2000 for Harry, that's pretty much the state-of-the-art broom, and very expensive (given no-one else has apparently got one, and only the wealthy Malfoys can afford the next-gen 2001's in the second film). It seems unlikely for a teacher, or a school, to buy an untried first year a state-of-the-art broom when the school is generally muddling along with old cast-offs that he could have used. Who paid for Harry's Nimbus 2000?

Answer: Prof. McGonagall personally bought the Nimbus 2000 as an anonymous gift for Harry, though he knew it was from her. The Nimbus 2000 may have been too pricey for Hogwarts to buy for all four Quidditch teams, but it was not beyond what most wizard families could afford for their own children. Lucius Malfoy was rich and could afford to buy the entire Slytherin Quidditch team the more expensive brooms, which he provided as a bribe for Draco being made the new Seeker. Up until then, all teams used school brooms, though some individual players may have had their own. It's unclear what the rules are about what brooms can or cannot be used.

raywest

Show generally

Question: In one episode, Nash sees that the hood to his 'Cuda is missing. Sometime later, he sees the hood in a display window of a store and proceeds to tell the proprietor that it was stolen from his car. The end of the episode has Nash buying the hood back. 1. What is the name of this episode? 2. Why didn't Nash arrest the proprietor for receiving stolen property? 3. Why did Nash buy the hood back instead of simply taking it with him?

Answer: The show is "Rip Off." Season 5 Episode 11. The "Cuda" hood is a subplot. A separate storyline for recurring character, Boz Bishop. Nash is busy trying to catch a robber/con artist.

Question: What song is playing when Will dumps Gwen?

Answer: Voices carry.

Question: Eddie reveals that he's not even a direct descendant of the original staff but was actually adopted. Why would the Darkness still try to kill Eddie even though he had no ties to the staff or institute?

Answer: The Darkness thought he was lying to save himself, everyone killed had the seven deadly sins. Greed, Lust, Envy, Sloth, Gluttony, Wrath and Pride.

Question: Were the "four horsemen" fakes? If not, how did they get the nukes inside them in the first place?

Answer: They were most likely fakes, they just built the statues around the nukes. Like making a parade float containing a small motor for it to move.

Question: When Cutter says, "Have you ever played roulette?", how did Cutter know Charles' and Vincent's names? On the phone with Charles, he mentions both names.

Answer: I just rewatched it this morning. When Rane is trying to persuade Sheriff Biggs that he means business, one body (presumably The Captain) is thrown out of the plane. Just before the passengers are released, we see a quick shot of yo ambulances. One has 3 full occupied body bags in it. Therefore, it's implied the other two are in the other ambulance. This takes place before the FBI guy gets there. The fact that he tells Rane, those guys you killed were my friends" means that at some point they were identified by name. He could've found out numerous ways (Washington told him, briefing, the paramedics, Biggs, etc).

Answer: Everyone knows Charles Bane as the world's most dangerous terrorist. Plus, flight attendant Marti kept him informed of what was happening and who was involved. When they went below, Vincent introduced himself and explained he was not one of the terrorists.

Answer: Most likely from Juno Skinner. When Harry approached her in Washington, he gave a business card, his cover identity, which most likely contained his phone and address numbers.

In all fairness, any guesses I would have would be strictly speculation. But this is likely not the answer. As we saw in the movie, Harry's fake job came complete with a phone number and a fake secretary, who Helen knew by name. If Harry went through those lengths to hide his identity from his own wife, surely there would not be any clues on a fake business card that could lead a terrorist to him. Even Juno herself mentioned that Harry "checked out OK."

jshy7979

Question: How did Lauren know what hotel Pacino was in? Pacino never told her or her mom where he was going, as far as I remember.

Answer: When Pacino is comforting his wife at the hospital, she says "She chose you. She picked your place." Guess the implication is he had been staying there for a long time and both Justine and Lauren knew where that was. Best explanation I have been able to find.

Examination Day - S1-E14

Question: At the end of the episode, Dicky's parents are called and informed that the government has killed him? Why did they do this?

Answer: They live in a totalitarian state where people who are deemed too smart (and therefore a threat to the authorities) are done away with. That's the point of the test, to eliminate potential troublemakers.

Brian Katcher

Answer: It's the opposite - not smart but dumb. The voice said he failed to get a perfect score, less than one hundred percent.

Quote: "We regret to inform you that your son's intelligence quotient has EXCEEDED the government standard, according to section blah blah blah of the New Code." As in the original short story, they were eliminating intelligent people.

Brian Katcher

Where can I find the short story?

It's in the compilation "100 Great Science Fiction Short Stories" edited by Isaac Asimov.

Brian Katcher

It's by Henry Slesar and a quick Google search will show you some online copies. It's only two pages.

Brian Katcher

According to Wikipedia, it was first published in the February 1958 issue of Playboy magazine; it may have been reprinted elsewhere since then.

zendaddy621

Question: When Wanda uses her powers on Tony, he sees his friends lying dead on the ground. Later, Tony says that what he saw was something that was actually going to happen? Why would Tony believe that the deaths of the other Avengers is something that would actually come true? Wanda was very good at messing with his mind so, she could have made him believe that their deaths would occur.

Answer: What Wanda did was to amplify Tony's existing anxiety about failing to protect his friends and the world. He was probably already having dreams and thoughts to that effect before encountering Wanda - when she used her powers on him, the resulting vision was so vivid, but in keeping with his previous fears, that Tony was convinced it was an actual premonition of the future.

Sierra1

Question: Is the food fight scene completely imaginary, or are the Lost Boys actually able to will food into existence by imagining it? I always thought it was the latter growing up and we as the audience didn't see it until Peter, as the audience's proxy, saw it for himself, but any YouTube videos I watch about this movie all seem to think all the food was just in everyone's collective imaginations.

Phaneron

Answer: Neverland very much runs on "If you believe, it will happen" which is what Tink means during the meal when she says "If you don't imagine yourself as Peter Pan you won't be Peter Pan." So by the rules of Neverland, as soon as Peter believed it was real it was then real. The dinner was trying to teach him to believe as, in Neverland, if you don't believe it then it won't happen.

Question: I read that, according to Margot Kidder, when working on this movie, Christopher Reeve and Sidney J. Furie didn't get along at all. Is this true? If it is true, then what was the reason behind their feud in the first place?

Answer: There appears to be multiple reasons. They had creative differences, ultimately resulting in a poorly received movie. Kidder said Reeves, who co-wrote the story, had an inflated ego and clashed with Furie.

raywest

Show generally

Question: Many times Hogan and company manage to actually escape Stalag 13, especially at night. If they can escape so easily, then why doesn't everybody in the whole Stalag do it and head to an American Embassy?

Answer: The core POWs regularly escaped and returned to the prison camp because they made it their mission to conduct espionage and commit sabotage in the surrounding German territory. They also collaborated with different underground resistance groups and used a network of secret tunnels to help prisoners from other POW camps to escape, who then relayed vital information back to the Allied forces. Hogan and his men maintained the illusion that Stalag 13 had never had any prisoners escape in order to avoid their covert operations being shut down. Being that the prison camp is set in Germany during WWII, there were no American embassies.

raywest

Hogan has mentioned to different characters that they are actually stationed at Stalag 13 to help allied soldiers and prisoners from other Stalags to escape Germany.

Answer: Agree with the other answer but would add that while the entire cast thought Robert Shaw was a charming and pleasant man, his chronic alcoholism caused problems and tensions on the set. I remember a TV interview with Richard Dreyfuss saying he once lost his patience with Shaw during the production, strongly telling him to just stop drinking after Shaw commiserated about his problem. That may have been the source of the feud rumor.

raywest

Answer: Simply put, they didn't; rumors of a feud between them got blown out of proportion over the years. Richard Dreyfuss himself said that he and Shaw got on famously throughout the shoot, and that there was one altercation between them that was an isolated incident. "It's not true, and where that started I don't know, but trust me, Robert Shaw wouldn't countenance that idea of a feud, forget it." You can read the interview with Dreyfuss from 2019 here: https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/entertainment/celebrity-interviews/jaws-legend-richard-dreyfuss-reveals-17325959.

Question: Why didn't Scar just kill Simba himself right after Mufasa died?

Answer: That would have been a little too suspicious, if both Simba and Mufasa died in the same stampede and Scar, who's made no secret of his desire to rule, declared himself king. It helped him solidify his claim to have Simba go into exile, seemingly renouncing his own right to Mufasa's throne, clearing the way for Scar, as Mufasa's brother, to take it for himself. Making Simba the scapegoat for Mufasa's death didn't hurt, either.

Answer: It would look too suspicious.

Brian Katcher

Answer: Scar didn't tell them Simba killed his father and went into exile. He blamed the stampede for both deaths. Hence, when Simba returns Scar brings up Simba's role in Mufasa's death.

Question: How did the military police chief know the parents were dead?

Answer: The officer knew that David would methodically clean after himself.

Answer: The mother, I'm not sure, but he found the father dead in the car.

Question: In the first film, society was still functioning; there was still law enforcement and a criminal justice system, there were still hospitals, businesses and a news media. However, in this film there is no law and order at all, it's all chaos and kill-or-be-killed. What happened in between films?

Answer: There was a global war causing civilization to collapse after oil supplies were nearly depleted. The world then fell into a state of barbarism.

raywest

Answer: There was a war over oil which included nuclear warfare and the complete loss of civilization. People ended up like the biker gangs, loners like Max or the Refinery people who were trying to get to the presumably safe northern areas of Australia. In the narration the old man tells the whole story.

Answer: In the opening scene, the narrator explains about the fall of civilization with clips of war and social collapse.

Answer: As Sigmund Freud didn't say, "Sometimes a banana is just a banana."

Answer: Probably deliberate. It's a rather common (and overused) film trope to insert some phallic-shaped object into a scene as a sexual reference.

raywest

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.