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: The Dr. 1's are repeatedly shown opening their attack by diving down on their enemy. I know that Dr. 1's (because of their tri-wing configuration) had excellent climbing abilities, but it was hopeless at diving. So my question is: was this a common tactic for German pilots (specifically in the Dr. 1) to do this?

Friso94

Answer: Easy answer. In WW1 and WW2 pilots would attack with the sun behind them as it made them very hard to spot. "Beware of the Hun in the sun" Once the missile age started it didn't matter.

stiiggy

Question: At the start, why does Tango empty his gun (of unused cartridges) and reload with different bullets before shooting the tanker? Unless I missed something, it's never explained.

Jon Sandys

Answer: He was doing a combat reload, where you eject all the rounds, spent or not and fill the revolver with new ones. It guarantees six shots, rather than relying on "indexing" where you count every round fired.

stiiggy

That doesn't make any sense since he hadn't fired a single round and the gun was fully loaded.

It's hard to tell, but it does look like there were at least some empty shells that land on the ground. A revolver isn't going to eject spent shells, so there's no way to say it was fully loaded.

Bishop73

Answer: It's not specified, but I would suspect that he changed from a .38 Special to a .357 round or something. You can shoot a .38 Special out of a .357 Magnum gun and maybe for the movie they wanted to add a shot of him doing a reload to a higher power cartridge for the effect. Why anyone with a .357 Magnum gun would routinely carry a .38 Special round is beyond me.

It is common to carry .38 special rounds in a .357 carry revolver to reduce the risk of over penetration and target reacquisition. In a nutshell, .38 is a self defense round while .357 is a hunting or combat round.

Question: Were any Japanese killed by the bombardment by the battleships?

Answer: Not many. The Americans had grossly underestimated the level of preparedness the Japanese had achieved. Their artillery was dug in underground, as were there soldiers. It was only after bitter hand to hand fighting that the extent of the Japanese defences was revealed. Certainly more them were killed by committing suicide than the very ineffectual naval bombardment.

stiiggy

Question: There is a fanfic that I am looking for that is a version of Prisoner of Azkaban. I've been looking for it for a long time. The only helpful thing I can say is the 6th chapter is called "Harry protects Hermione." Does anyone know where I can find it?

THE GAMER NEXT DOOR

Answer: You could try fanfiction.net. It has fictional stories written by many people.

I have. That's where I first found it years ago.

Show generally

Question: Why is the driveway in front of the station always wet? Day or night, whenever they pull in or out it looks like it was just hosed down.

Answer: It is standard practice to wet down driveways so that they stand out in a long shot.

stiiggy

Question: What does "follow the flame to the desert fruit" mean?

Answer: In the building with the Jumanji berry tree, there were flames on the wall. By following the flames on the wall, Ruby was able to get to the tree, rather than try to cross the waters somehow.

Bishop73

Answer: The flame is Bravestone's "old flame" the Lady in Red, who leads them to the desert fruit, the Jumanji Berry.

Sierra1

That's what the characters thought it was, but that's not what the clue entirely was.

Bishop73

Answer: Preston was loosely based on the real-life Lincoln Kirstein. Prior to WWII, he was a noted writer and an influential person in the cultural arts in America. When the war broke out, he enlisted in the army with the rank of private. He eventually joined the Army's Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives unit, later known as the Monuments Men. He was selected for his abilities, regardless of his military rank. The movie reflected that.

raywest

Answer: Yes, she stole the dress.

raywest

Question: Why didn't Damien's parents notice the 666 when he was an infant?

Answer: It's possible that the mark didn't appear until Mrs Baylock showed up and began teaching him about his heritage. The mark of the devil is said to appear only when Satan accepts a follower, and up until Mrs Baylock appears, Damien is a normal boy. Yes, he's the devil's son, but he knows nothing of his evil nature until she starts teaching him. In fact, at one point, Robert mentions that he knew every inch of Damien's body since he raised him and never saw anything, so more than likely the mark didn't appear until Damien had areas on his body where it could be hidden more easily.

dewinela

But it's a birthmark. He had it when he was born.

Answer: Damien already had an impressively full head of hair by the time they first saw him as an infant.

TonyPH

Question: When they say Susan B Anthony, what are they referring to?

Answer: There are two theories as to what this means (a lot of the heist terminology used in the trilogy was invented by the screenwriters). First, it could be a reference to the 1979 Susan B. Anthony dollar coins, which were so similar in size and weight to quarters that a lot of people lost them in vending machines, etc.; thus, the set-up in the film involves people putting coins in the slot machine, ignorant of their true value (until the machine pays out, of course). The second explanation comes from the fact that the ruse pays off for a different person after someone else does all the work setting it up...similar to the life of Susan B. Anthony, who worked tirelessly for nationwide women's suffrage in the US but died long before it became a reality.

Question: Did the language get easier as the film went on, or did I just get used to it?

MikeH

Answer: Getting used to it is certainly a factor, but it also helps that Kubrick cut down on the Nadsat considerably when adapting the novel. What he does leave in is usually easy to understand from context (e.g, "trying to make up our rassoodocks" or "viddy well"). The Nadsat in Alex's narration in the novel is much denser and sometimes not so easy to interpret at first glance, to the point where early American editions had a glossary in the back.

Answer: Yes. The Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp site was a huge area consisting of 3 separate camps, of which Camp II (Birkenau) was the biggest and had the commandant office and SS housing right next to it. The camp commander lived either close to camp II in the small town of Brzezinka or camp I, called the main camp. There were several houses and farms around the area and the town of Oswiecim in between all three camps. There were also several dozen subcamps.

lionhead

Answer: The cheating occurred during "Cheers." Not much was discussed about the reason, but she cheated on him with a colleague of hers, Dr. Pascal (whom she also went to live with in an underground eco-pod). Working closely with someone, especially if the two have similar likes, ideology, etc, can result in romantic feelings being developed. With the burden of marriage and a child, she may have given into her urges. She does obviously feel bad because she asks Frasier to forgive her and take her back. There was also a running gag on "Cheers" that Lilith had a strong libido that she had to work hard to suppress, which may have been a factor if true.

Bishop73

Answer: Earlier Ross was telling the gang Julie left her saline solution on his nightstand. Saline solution is what's used to clean contact lenses. Now Joey knows Julie wears contact lenses. (Ross then shushes Joey because he doesn't want Julie to know he told his friends about her leaving the saline solution on the nightstand or anything else about their relationship).

Bishop73

Question: What was Roy's father doing for so many years? What did he plan to do next? Where did he get all the supplies of air, food, water, etc. to live in the space ship for so many years?

kalpeshgala

Answer: Clifford was continuing to gather data for the Lima project. He was convinced the project could succeed and that there was extraterrestrial life somewhere in the stars. He was apparently planning on gathering data for the rest of his life. Clifford would have plenty of supplies to last more than a lifetime, considering he murdered everyone else on the team.

BaconIsMyBFF

Question: When Snake and the others run away from the WTC, is the building an accurate representation of the real building(s)? I can find lots of images online of WTC 1& 2, and they appear to have the columns all the way to the ground, where in the movie, the ground level is about 20 feet high with no columns. (01:21:55)

DavidRTurner

Answer: The original World Trade Centers did't have columns as such. The floors were supported by the outside "skin" to make more useable space inside. The entrance (lobby) to the WTC has an open look from the outside the floor doesn't have to supported because it's the ground floor.

stiiggy

Answer: Because he is a great cop and gets the job done better than anyone.

Answer: Also, if you watch Season 1 of Chicago Fire it gives a little history of Voight before he goes to jail when he was actually a "dirty cop" and Antonio Dawson is actually the one who takes him down. I found it interesting and was surprised by his character back then.

Answer: And cuz he's only dirty to the bad guys. He takes care of the victims.

Answer: They use stock footage of Time square in the electrocution scene. This is taken from Home Alone 2.

Answer: It's just a joke. Like the Naked Gun movies, the credits contain inside jokes and utter nonsense.

stiiggy

Question: During the missile scene, dropping fuel tanks causes the tanks to explode. Wouldn't that be impossible in real life?

Answer: Totally impossible. You can throw a lit cigarette into a pool of jet fuel and it won't ignite.

stiiggy

Question: Did the OC2 gauge really drop to zero after fuel cells 1 and 3 were closed, as shown in the movie?

Answer: Yes it's absolutely true. The crew didn't realise that the REAC valves had already been damaged by the explosion which is why shutting the valves achieves nothing.

stiiggy

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