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: What do the Wakandans chant when lined up, ready for the battle?

Bishop73

Answer: From what I've read, they are chanting "yibambe," which is Xhosa for "we hold our ground."

Phaneron

Question: Why doesn't anyone ever destroy the stones? What purpose do they serve other than no one person should have them?

DetectiveGadget85

Answer: "Doctor Strange" demonstrates that the Infinity Stones are useful in the most dire of situations, when Strange used the Time Stone to prevent Dormammu from taking over the Earth. It's also possible that some of the stones are indestructible. Wanda is able to temporarily destroy the Mind Stone by using her own powers, but the Power Stone will destroy any being that doesn't possess the strength to wield it, and the Reality Stone is shown to have a will of its own and defended itself when it bonded with Jane Foster.

Phaneron

Also, in the comics, if the stones are destroyed they will simply be replaced by something else or even stones again. They represent the existence of the universe and cannot be destroyed for real. Always only temporarily.

lionhead

Question: Is it true Jimmy Harrell was taking a shower as the disaster began?

Answer: Yes. There are actually many cases where the actors portray what the actual people were doing at the time of the disaster. Another example is when the guy (I can't remember his name off the top of my head) rubs mud off the main drill pipe.

Ssiscool

The guy who rubs the mud off the main pipe name is Caleb.

Thanks it's been a few weeks since I last watched the film.

Ssiscool

Answer: Yes.

Question: In the Bourne Identity, Conklin orders all Treadstone operatives to kill Bourne and Jarda was neither shown in any scene or mentioned. In the Bourne Supremacy, Bourne hunts Jarda down and Jarda says, "we are the last two." How is this possible?

GYC315

Answer: Only three Treadstone assets are shown being activated for the Bourne mission (there had to have been more), and all in Western Europe, so by "all of them" and "everyone" Conklin presumably meant all local/available assets. Manheim was based in Germany, so Jarda was probably elsewhere at the time, as he was in Germany in The Bourne Supremacy.

Sierra1

Question: A flashback showed that the Fabrication Machine was taken from the scientist before he can give it life. If he did get to give the machine life, then create the stitchpunks, would that mean he wouldn't be able to create 9, dying after giving life to 8?

Answer: He already gave it life. Then it was taken away. The machine's life and the life of the stitch punks do not correlate. The only thing that he needed to create life was that key with the three ruins on it. So the scientist kept creating life until all of his soul was gone and he died.

YellowBird

Question: Besides saying "Quiet" and "He warned you", does 8 have any other lines of dialogue?

Answer: Nope. Only some sounds (like the magnet scene).

YellowBird

Answer: Jean reads minds, so she might read his mind at the first encounter and realised that he was arrogant at the time and not very fond of the place that his brother took him.Also Jean was cold with everyone because of her powers and that every person there afraid of her.

Anastasios Anastasatos

Question: Why do the soldiers (Mellish and Reiben) air kiss when they talk about sleep in the church scene?

Answer: Mellish was pulling his chain with the comment about his mom before. The air kisses were meant to be sarcastic.

lionhead

Question: Why did they put "A special thanks to Mexico City: A very special place" in the credits? Was that supposed to be a joke? The movie didn't portray it as very special.

MikeH

Answer: This was likely meant as an appreciation to the city and its people for their support and assistance during the film's production, and was not a jokey reference to how Mexico City was portrayed in the movie. It's typical for movies to express gratitude to a city, state, the citizens, etc. for their cooperation.

raywest

Answer: It could also be sarcasm cause I read that the crew was robbed at gunpoint several times during filming.

Question: Why was Bianca's father attempting to take her home instead of letting her continue her journey?

Answer: To become the best.

Question: Why does the grudge seem to torture the elderly lady in the beginning and keep her alive but kill everyone else immediately?

Answer: It's not entirely accurate to say that the ghosts kill all their other victims immediately. They torment the other victims in various ways and definitely seem to drag things out with pretty much every victim. There are several opportunities where the ghosts could easily kill someone but choose to simply frighten them instead, killing them when they are at the height of their terror.

BaconIsMyBFF

Question: Who was supplying the Hutu army?

Answer: French.

Question: When private investigator Milton Arbogast is attacked on the stairway, this film inserts two non sequitur pieces of footage right in the middle of the attack sequence: Just as Arbogast's face is slashed twice, a shot of a virtually-nude woman wearing a sleep-mask is inserted for a split-second, followed a moment later by a split-second insert of what appears to be a small calf standing in the middle of a road in a rainstorm. What is the meaning of those two inserts?

Charles Austin Miller

Answer: I'm sorry. There are no answers to your question. Or. The inserts were added to make the movie, which I liked, even more horrible.

ChristmasJonesfan

Answer: His life flashing before his eyes? Snapshots of Norman's fractured psyche? The director's vision?

Alan Keddie

Those are just more questions.

Charles Austin Miller

Question: Why do the bad guys want the video tape that they are after?

Answer: The cocaine deal, that had gone bad, between the mob and gang. They were afraid it would be turned into the police.

Bishop73

How did the video get recorded in the first place?

The two reporters, Diana and Richard, were hiding above and filming it. After the shootout there's a explosion which exposes them. The mob boss sees them and tells his men to go after them.

Bishop73

Answer: TV Reporter Diane, played by Gabrielle Fitzpatrick, and her crew film the drug deal between the mob boss and the street gang.

Answer: Because of what George said to him in the house after he was robbed. He hurt Dennis' feelings so he ran away.

Question: How did the single souls on the boats die? Did they also die by drowning at sea like the others swimming in the water and why are they in individual boats? Are they special souls?

Answer: They died at sea or their bodies were dropped in the sea (like Elizabeth's father). These are the souls that are at peace with their deaths and are being transported calmly to the other end, opposed to ones in the water who are not at peace and supposed to be escorted by Davey Jones to find it.

lionhead

Question: When Kirk and McCoy try to rescue Chekov at Mercy Hospital, Kirk removes the 20th Century medical team into an adjacent room and uses his phaser to instantly fuse the metal door lock. The medical team cannot directly see Kirk do this, as they are visibly several feet away on the other side of the door. It's also safe to say that the medical team has never seen a phaser and can't comprehend its function or capabilities. As Kirk turns away from the door to rejoin McCoy, the trapped medical team only then rushes up to the door, and the trauma surgeon exclaims, "He melted the lock!" However, it seems that you'd have to laboriously dismantle the doorknob to determine that the lock's internal components were fused. So, how did a 20th Century surgeon deduce at a glance that Kirk had somehow melted the lock?

Charles Austin Miller

Answer: The lock, and the area around it, would have become hot as a result of melting the lock. The hospital staff would then jump to the conclusion that the lock was melted. The real reason they mention it, however, is so the audience knows what he did to the lock.

But you would think, if the doorknob was still searing hot two seconds after being fused, that the first thing out of the surgeon's mouth would be a scream of pain, rather than "He melted the lock!"

Charles Austin Miller

Answer: The doctors were watching through the window the entire time. There was a visible red laser beam from the phaser, culminating with a puff of smoke or vapor emanating from the knob. It wouldn't be a huge leap for anyone to surmise that the knob had likely been melted.

Try watching the scene. No doctors are looking through the window when Kirk phasers the door lock.

Charles Austin Miller

Answer: Or perhaps the part of lock on the doctors' side is visibility melted.

Answer: The knob would have been super-heated by the phaser blast. Enough that it could be felt without touching, and he simply could have come to the conclusion that a metal object that hot would likely have its internal components melted without a systematic analysis of the doorknob. He's also a surgeon and needs his hands. He wouldn't last long at the job if he was someone who went around putting his hand on glowing-hot doorknobs.

Captain Defenestrator

He could've also been guessing as it appears he tries opening the door. Why they don't break the glass is beyond me, but that's a character mistake, and not up for debate here.

Question: Why does everyone think Street turned in Gamble? Wouldn't he be back actually working SWAT instead of being stuck in the gun cage?

Answer: The SWAT Captain originally kicked Street and Gamble off the team and out of the SWAT Division completely for disobeying orders resulting in a hostage being shot. The SWAT Lieutenant convinced the Captain to keep the two officers in the division on a probationary basis to work back towards getting back on the team. Gamble was insulted by the probationary assignment and later resigned. The Captain offered Street the chance for immediate reinstatement to the team if he placed all blame on Gamble. When Street chose the probationary assignment over blaming Gamble or resigning alongside Gamble, everyone assumed Street cut some type of deal to remain in the SWAT Division without knowing the whole story.

Question: Why do those charms disappear at the end? Does Ren use the force to destroy them?

Answer: Luke took them from the Millennium Falcon and gave them to Leia. He wasn't actually there, and was instead a force-projection. When he died and his projection disappeared, so did the illusion of the dice that he had brought with him.

Luke disappears well before the charm. Also, the charm had a physical presence (I.E. you could pick them up) whereas Luke did not.

Luke didn't disappear "well before" the charm. The scene of his death plays out first for the audience but his disappearance and the disappearance of the dice were supposed to be concurrent. It's also not entirely true that Luke didn't have a physical presence. He holds Leia's head and kisses her physically. Presumably he could choose what was physical and what was not and chose to not have a physical presence when he dueled Kylo Ren. This is further evidenced throughout the film when Kylo Ren's hand gets wet from the rain after "force Skyping" with Rey and later on when the two are able to physically touch.

BaconIsMyBFF

Question: What happened to the kid who was fishing at the end who the guy Harry was after took hostage? I don't think Harry shot through him, but I didn't see him when the camera pans out for the credits, is he dead?

Answer: If you watch closely, you see the killer throw him to the side and then take aim at Harry, at which point Harry shoots him. Since we don't see the kid again, we can assume he ran away as soon as the killer let him go.

Not true. Actually, Harry sees the boy, and appears to be lowering his weapon, and then blasts Scorpio... and when the bullet hits him, he is still holding the boy hostage... It is only after Harry shoots him, and he falls to the ground, that we see the boy running away.

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