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.

Answer: Loons are aquatic birds that make a very unique sound. Early, when Peter and Louis are going up to the cabin, Peter stops and gets out of the car to listen to a loon. It's just showing how easily Peter gets distracted because he's suppose to be hurrying to prevent Quagmire and Meg having sex. "We heard a loon" is what Lois writes in the guest book, which indicates they had a pleasant trip up to the cabin when really they should still be mad at Quagmire. I haven't found any joke or movie reference to the line, but it fits Peter.

Answer: It's Lois who writes "we heard the loon" to the guest book.

Answer: Old people usually have poorly maintained butts for some reason. I work at a hospital, and it's the first place they check for sores.

Answer: He might've been on the show "Stabbed in the Butt", which was in a Family Guy cutaway.

Answer: Old people tend to be wrinkly. Stewie is a baby who doesn't understand that.

Question: Throughout the movie we rarely see Clayton reload his gun. It looks like a twin barrel shotgun. During the final fight between Tarzan and Clayton how could he have fired more than 2 rounds without reloading it?

Chris Thomson

Chosen answer: Simply put he couldn't. It's a clear mistake.

BaconIsMyBFF

Answer: Venice Fung (HK).

Answer: Nobody in particular. Just a random woman he slept with.

BaconIsMyBFF

Question: Where did they get their training? I assume Christmas was SAS, but what about everyone else?

Answer: The back stories of the individual members of the team have never been elaborated upon. It is never stated where the members received training.

BaconIsMyBFF

Question: Did the Morehead state game against Marshall in 1971 happen as shown in the movie? How did Morehead state score their touchdowns in the actual game?

Answer: According to Wikipedia: "For the season opener, the team visited the Morehead State Eagles for the I-64 Rivalry. Despite losing 29-6, the [Thundering] Herd (Marshall's team nickname) managed to score late in the game with Reggie Oliver's touchdown pass to Tom Smyth, prompting a standing ovation from the crowd." I have been unable to find a play-by-play account of the Morehead State touchdowns.

Michael Albert

Question: When Josh is in the further looking for Dalton, what is the deal with the family that looks like mannequins and has the creepy smiles? Why does the one girl shoot the family? Is there any back story on it?

Answer: It's implied that the girl went crazy and killed her family, but it's not really elaborated on. They're just some of the many spirits to be trapped in and haunt the Further, likely due to the violent nature of their deaths.

Answer: They are just people trapped in the further after their terrible death. It would be nice to later find out the back story on them in a future film.

Sarah Kotzbauer

Question: What was the main antagonist's name? And what are his motives for trying to kill the president?

Answer: Suarez is the name of the main antagonist. His motivations for the assassination attempt are never mentioned.

BaconIsMyBFF

Question: What was Lokar hiding? And why did he want to keep it a secret?

Answer: Lokar was conducting a genocidal campaign against the Bosniak population, a severe war crime. The photos of the mass grave would have exposed him.

BaconIsMyBFF

Question: When Channing Tatum fixes the chain on the gate in the time replay, why does he yank the West Virginia insignia off the gate? Where is it used? Does the film explain why this is important?

bikeloveny

Chosen answer: There was nothing wrong with the gate, he set the sign up to cover the laser sensor so the gate wouldn't open, this held them up and gave Logan time he needed to load the other bags. He yanked the chain to make it look like the chain was caught and causing the problem.

Question: Did Eric Stoltz dye his hair blonde for this film? His natural hair colour is red, but it looks lighter in this film.

EK8829

Chosen answer: His hair is not blonde in this film. It is the lighting that makes it appear so.

MasterOfAll

Chosen answer: When Andy is fighting Claude in the subway car, he looks at Claude's right shoulder and see a wound on it. He suddenly remembers back in the sewers of Paris how he took a part of a broken gate and stabbed a werewolf with it giving it the very same wound.

Question: What was with that scene when Sidney was going through her closet and a dramatic change in music occurred. Did something in the background occur that I didn't see? Was there nothing?

Answer: The dramatic change in music is a red herring and arguably an example of foreshadowing. Initially, the unsettling music was supposed to trick viewers into thinking Ghostface was in the closet when Sidney first opened it. Later on though, Ghostface hides in the same closet before attacking Sidney.

Answer: Later in this scene, we see Ghostface emerge from the closet to attack Sidney. The music was foreshadowing this event, as Ghostface must have already been hiding in that closet for him to be able to emerge later.

Question: How did chief survive getting hit by a train, and falling down, and only ending up with an injured leg?

Answer: He fell into the water so he could have very easily broken his leg on something in the water like a rock.

Question: Is it true that the Jamaica bobsled team performed poorly at first during training as shown in in the film?

Answer: The real Jamaican team performed poorly throughout the Olympics and did not finish.

Greg Dwyer

Question: I know Patton really did slap a soldier named Bennett. I have two questions. Firstly, is the dialogue in the scene where Patton slapped Bennett accurate? Secondly, was Bennett really a coward?

Answer: The entire slapping incident is surprisingly accurate, including the second slap knocking off Bennett's helmet. The dialogue is not verbatim but the scene is accurate in spirit. By today's standards Bennett would not be considered a coward. He suffered from what we call today post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). During Patton's time PTSD was called "shell shock" or other terms and was not treated with the same compassion as today. Patton himself did not believe in the concept of shell shock and thought men like Bennett were simply cowards.

BaconIsMyBFF

Question: John McClane wraps a fire hose around his waist, and uses it to jump 100 feet until the coil catches the lip of the building, the hose catches him. Wouldn't that have seriously injured him, given the inelastic materiel which fire hoses are made of, and the fact that he was not wearing a safety harness?

Answer: In reality, yes tying a fire hose (or any rope strong enough to hold your weight for that matter) around your waist and using it as shown in the film could cause serious injury. It was worth it to try, however because staying where he was would have meant certain death when the bomb explodes.

BaconIsMyBFF

Question: How did Sauron take the form of a fiery eye? Isn't he powerless without the ring?

Answer: Most of Sauron's power was poured into the One Ring, but not all of it. Sauron cannot take a true physical form until the ring is returned to him but he can still use his power to form the eye to keep watch over Middle Earth.

BaconIsMyBFF

Is the eye actually his true form?

If by "true form" you mean the form he originally took when he was created, it is unlikely. Sauron was a good, just, and respected being prior to being corrupted and likely wouldn't have such an evil appearance in his original form. It is important to note, however that the Eye of Sauron takes on a much more physical form in Peter Jackson's film that it does in the books. In the books, the eye is a red light hovering over the tower that has the vague appearance of an eye. The films makes the eye look like an actual, literal eyeball that moves and seems to have a personality.

BaconIsMyBFF

I meant has the eye been his true form ever since he lost the ring?

Sort of, yes. Sauron's spirit existed in a non-corporeal form and eventually built enough strength to form the eye.

BaconIsMyBFF

No, his true form is seen at the beginning of the film.

Question: How does Sauron know Frodo has the ring? He doesn't even know who Frodo is.

Answer: He doesn't. He only knows that someone named "Baggins" from the Shire has the ring. He learns this from torturing Gollum. He sends the ringwraiths to the Shire to search for it, and they sense it enough to figure out who has it.

Why do the wraith have to find it if they can sense it?

The wraiths at this point aren't powerful enough to simply know where it is by sensing it. At this point they can only sense it when they are close and it is put on. Once Frodo put it on, they knew who he was and where the ring was.

lionhead

Question: Why did the Apollo 13 spacecraft need a parachute? They were landing on water not solid ground. It's easier to survive a fall when landing on water, so why would they need a parachute if they were landing on water?

Answer: Spacecraft re-enter Earth's atmosphere at extremely high velocity (thousands of miles per hour). Atmospheric friction slows the spacecraft descent somewhat; but, without parachutes, the Apollo spacecraft would still reach the surface traveling at hundreds of miles per hour. Landing in water at such high speed would be like hitting concrete, which would of course be instantly fatal. Hence the necessity of multiple parachutes. The Apollo program (and all early U.S. manned space programs) chose to land in the ocean for two reasons: 1) It was easier to track spacecraft re-entry from horizon-to-horizon at sea without visual and radar obstacles, and; 2) It was faster and easier to position several Navy vessels in the general splashdown location, then deploy helicopters to rapidly retrieve the astronauts and their spacecraft.

Charles Austin Miller

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