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: How did Kowalski and Ryan cause the tether rope to break? It takes more than 220 Gs of force to cause the type of tether NASA has to break - they're specifically made of a material designed to absorb a lot of shock.

Answer: There are three possible answers: 1) The tether became damaged during the start of the cascade and was hanging by threads. 2) The tether encountered a jagged edge. 3) The script said "the tether breaks" and it did because "movie logic." Remember at the start of the movie "Cliffhanger", where a climbing aid breaks out of the blue? Remember that the maker of that harness (Black Diamond) then won a millionary lawsuit for defamation against TriStar and Carolco Pictures?

Question: When you look at Abuelita's ofrenda, the bottom row has more pictures of family members. Where were they during Día de Los Muertos? They couldn't have gone to the true afterlife since they were on the ofrenda right?

Answer: I believe they are in-laws. Hector said when trying to cross the petal bridge when impersonating Frida that he was probably on lots of ofrendas. So they could be visiting other family ofrendas. Also we saw that the riveira family didn't cross the bridge all at once as the twins came later so they possibly crossed over before the Miguel situation happened. Also when they went back to see Mama Imelda, they went back to an office where a lot of people were being held up like it was customs. So they also possibly could have affairs to sort out before being able to cross. But as the Riveira family made no attempt to contact them when looking for Miguel as they needed a family's blessing I would stick to the assumption that they are in-laws.

Answer: They simply didn't appear on the screen, and the film wasn't about them. That's all. By the way: "Abuelita" means "grandmother" in Spanish. The character's first name was Elena. (You probably know her last name was Rivera).

FleetCommand

Answer: These other ancestors may only be faces on the family's altar. Their photographs may still be put up, but if there are no anecdotes to remember them by, their names and faces may not be strong enough to count as being remembered.

Question: Why was Alison in detention? The others had a valid reason but throughout the whole movie, never once did it look like she should have been there. No one just simply walks into detention, so what would her reason be, seeing as how she didn't do anything wrong like the others?

Answer: No, she did not do anything wrong. She did explain to everyone there later in the film that she had nothing better to do on a Saturday, as she had no friends in school, nor did it seem her parents had any interest in her welfare or care what she did.

Scott215

Answer: Because he liked to practise Kata.

Question: Why does Scott want to be Santa?

Answer: Seeing as he has been Santa for quite some time now - he doesn't want to stop being Santa, he likes it, and is happy with the way things are.

Answer: Scott wants to keep being Santa because he realised that being Santa helped him be a better person and that it's quite enjoyable, being able to to give gifts to all the children of the world.

Answer: Scott wanted to be Santa so that children would believe in him, otherwise the elves and the whole North Pole world would cease to exist.

Question: What were the Serbians' motives for killing the citizens in Bosnia? Why did they hate them?

Answer: It was primarily religious and cultural difference. Serbians are primarily Orthodox Christian, Croatians are mostly Catholic, and Bosnians are majority Muslim.

Greg Dwyer

Question: Shouldn't Piquet have been punished for his bad attitude towards rescue missions, and for only caring about the peace treaty?

Answer: It's a matter of perspective. Piquet was interested in keeping the peace treaty, and therefore saving thousands of lives, more than he was interested in the two pilots.

Greg Dwyer

Why does piquet think sending a rescue a rescue mission would cause the peace treaty to collapse? The US military has sent hundreds of rescue missions, and not one of them has ever caused a peace treaty to collapse.

Question: Hancock and Mary are fighting in the street and the tornados are swirling. When it shows Hancock, just before they pounce each other, there is a transformer like thing running across the street from left to right behind cars. What is that? (01:07:00)

DarlaSquyres1966

Answer: The scene takes place on Hollywood Blvd, which is known for having people dress in costumes (and tourists take pictures with them, usually for money). There are also people who, as part of their costume, wear stilts. There was a guy who wore stilts as part of his seaweed monster costume who claims that's him, although in the film, the creature seems more robotic than seaweed covered. It seems the film makers were going to use this mystery extra for a more iconic establishing shot, but forewent it and so this is all we see of him.

Bishop73

Answer: I don't remember the guy's name, but he's a Hollywood Blvd street performer who wears a really well done, Transformers, Bumblebee costume.

Answer: Well my best guess after watching it and freezing the frame is that it's supposed to be someone in a costume. The street they are at has a theater, so there could be a premiere and someone is doing PR or advertisement dressed as a character. It's definitely someone on stilts wearing a cowboy hat and some kind of body armour.

Question: After Sadness is shown typing on the console, why does a core memory form instead of a normal memory?

Answer: Core memories are formed when an event has a profound impact on a person's life, shaping their very personality going forward. Riley crying in front of her class on her first day of school was intensely embarrassing, thus a core memory was formed instead of a normal memory.

BaconIsMyBFF

Answer: The most likely scenario is that a ghost at the school told him.

Answer: Near the end, it is revealed that Cole has seen the ghosts of teachers that died in the fire at the school when "Stuttering Stanley" was a student, so it would make sense that one of them told him.

Question: Why would Henry become a sailor in the British Royal Navy knowing he would be abused and mistreated by the Navy?

Answer: It was a common occupation for many men, who knew it was a hard life. Sailors were generally treated fairly and were well fed and housed as long they obeyed orders and followed the rules. Punishments for any wrong-doing could be moderate to severe depending on the circumstances. Henry knew this when he enlisted. He was not being abused. He was punished for having done something wrong.

raywest

Answer: Being that close to active lava mean his clothes would easily catch on fire. Both Anakin and Obi-Wan were likely using the force in some way to shield themselves from the heat. Once Anakin was injured, he became vulnerable, and lying on the ground made that worse.

To be honest I think there was a spec of lava that caught him.

Answer: He went there to stop Anakin at any cost, whether by converting him back from the dark side, subduing him, or killing him.

Question: Does Sidious just use his apprentices as advantages to his evil needs, and doesn't care at all when they die?

Answer: The "rule of two" the Sith adhere to means there are always only a master and apprentice. Both continually look to improve their situation. The apprentice hopes to eventually kill his master and become master himself, while the master is constantly searching for a better apprentice.

I don't think Sidious really wanted to carry on the Sith Order, though. His true goal was to rule the galaxy and find ways to extend his life. He was focused on himself.

Answer: Precisely, look at what he did to Dooku and Vader in ROTS and ROTJ, respectively. They are both replaced by a powerful Jedi setup by Sidious himself.

DFirst1

Question: What did Houston mean by they need Omni bravo?

Answer: The Apollo spacecraft had 4 omni-directional control antennas, designated A, B, C, and D. "Omni Bravo" was the B antenna. When Mission Control in Houston said they needed Omni Bravo, it meant they wanted Apollo 13 to try to activate the B antenna.

Charles Austin Miller

What were Omni-directional control antennas?

Omni Directional Control Antennas were capable of sending and receiving signals from any direction. The Apollo 13 spacecraft had 4 redundant antennas of this type, which allowed Mission Control in Houston to remotely control certain systems when necessary.

Answer: Omni directional antennas can broadcast in any direction at once, as opposed to one that can only broadcast to a particular spot.

stiiggy

Question: When Batman and Robin are asked to get out of the prison, they run up the prison floor by floor. And we can see some locked villains. All their cell numbers are either 1091 or 1092. Is it an Easter Egg or a goof?

Lee Lap Fung

Answer: Goof.

Safe and Sound - S4-E5

Question: In this episode they are digging the hole to get through to 'Scylla', when digging the hole the concrete bar drops or something. Brad goes in to the pipe help but he can't get out in order to get them to Scylla, so therefore he is left in there to die. That tunnel though is the source of the water to L.A. So there would be a dead body in the water and everyone would be drinking water where a dead guy was, am I right? Or did I miss out on something?

Jaylen110

Answer: They got Brad's body out.

Answer: Yes you are right, the entire city of LA was drinking water contaminated by a dead body.

Question: Wasn't the crew of the Black Pearl trapped in the bottle? I'm just wondering how Marty got out or why he made no appearance in "On Stranger Tides"?

Answer: There's no definitive answer to this because it was not explained what had happened to the rest of the crew or whether or not they were aboard the Black Pearl when it was shrunk. Only the monkey was shown to be on it.

raywest

Question: If Barbossa claimed he left Carina at an orphanage for her to have a better life, why would he let her be arrested and sent to death for alleged witchcraft?

Answer: After he left Carina at the orphanage, anything that happened to her as she got older, he wasn't made aware of. So he had no knowledge of her being arrested and sentenced to death for witchcraft. If he had, he probably would have gone to rescue Carina.

Question: Where did the hijackers hide Julia?

Answer: They hid her in the avionics section. Stephanie would have made sure that she "searched" that section since she is one of the hijackers.

Which part of the avionics section? The nose of the plane?

The avionics section can be much larger than the nose of the plane. On a 747 for example, it's "1.7 metres tall, and about 60cms wide, but goes the full width of the plane." A photo is here, and you could easily stash a child in it. Http://www.billzilla.org/aviationpage3.html.

Jon Sandys

Actually if you look at the shape of the interior where they hid Julia you can tell that it's the nose of the plane, and it would have been far too full with all kinds of equipment to put a child inside.

OK, well there's already a mistake mentioning that, so there's your answer. In the plot they hide her in the nose, but in the real world that's impossible.

Jon Sandys

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