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: Throughout the movie, why are there sprigs of tree branches on the floors of various places?

Answer: It was a typical practice and served multiple purposes. Castles were cold and the tree springs provided insulation. They also were fragrant and masked bad odors, thought to repel insects and other vermin, and absorbed various spilled liquids and food. The practice was also unsanitary, as the branches were infrequently replaced and actually attracted bugs, mice, etc.

raywest

Answer: He knows that Professor Higgins is trying to pull a fast one by having Eliza pretend to be someone else, and he fancies himself as much of a linguistic expert as Higgins. He's correct that there's something going on; he just gets the wrong end of the stick and assumes she's "high born," thus proving Higgins right that he could "train" Eliza to pass as upper class.

Answer: Because he's a gullible foreigner.

raywest

Episode #1.3 - S1-E3

Question: When the Gardiners arrive at Longbourn for Christmas, where are their children? Surely, they would not have travelled without their children at Christmas.

Answer: The children were probably left with a nanny or relatives. It's very likely that the Longborns would have left them at home. Travelling for days by horse-drawn carriage over bumpy dirt roads is difficult in the best of circumstances, and particularly hard during winter. The trip would be too arduous for young children.

raywest

Question: Why did Alex offer up his chair to Nagata?

Answer: He was a captain.

Answer: Xavier can only control one person; Jean is controlling Toad. If he takes off the helmet, he can control Magneto, but he would lose control of Sabretooth, which would start an incident. As always, Xavier tries to resolve it peacefully.

lionhead

Answer: Magneto's helmet cannot be simply knocked off like a hat. It would have to be lifted off his head. It's possible that Xavier thought attempting to do so would lead to Magneto killing all of the police officers.

Phaneron

Question: When Daniel and his mum are eating and talking at the restaurant, what are the Cobras outside saying to each other? What does Tommy say to the group when he points out Daniel?

Answer: Although we never hear the dialogue between the Cobras, we can assume they were coming up with a plan to harass Daniel for showing up at their dojo.

Question: Near the end of the movie, when Harry hallucinates talking to Norman with Norman ordering him to avenge his death, why did Harry scream "No!"?

Answer: His "father" just told him to avenge him... which meant Harry would have to kill Peter, his best friend.

Quantom X

Question: To establish quicker communication with NASA, Whatley savages a previously sent probe that was on Mars. He initially finds it by stepping on its parachute and finds the probe in remarkably good condition. Later in the film, NASA directs him to remove the nose cap of the capsule he will be leaving Mars in and cover the opening with canvas. This is described as being viable as the atmosphere on Mars is so thin it's not a problem. Wouldn't the previous probe have crashed on Mars and thus be damaged?

Answer: You also have to consider that Mars has about 1/3 of the gravity of Earth, so when things are falling, it takes much less air to slow it down, and the impact would also not be near as hard.

Quantom X

Question: I know it's based off the book, but when the big Urak-Hai is heading to the bombs to blow up the wall at Helms Deep, why is Aragorn only asking Legolas to kill him? Aragorn knew killing him was of great importance, which is why he was saying "Take him down, Legolas" and "Kill him, kill him." Wouldn't it make more sense to ask everyone to shoot at him or even take a shot at him himself?

Answer: I believe it was because supposedly Legolas was the best archer there. In the book, the other elves were not there like in the movie, so it does sort of play fast and loose with the logic around that fact. However, Aragorn knew Legolas's abilities and that over all the battle noise he could hear him when the humans could not. While the other elves could have helped, it was more of just an in-the-moment thing most likely.

Quantom X

Question: What I have never understood is why Jim wires the money to Ethan's parents' bank account. He would have presumably had to have done that some time before the mission took place, at a time when Jim didn't know it was a mole hunt. What would have been his reason for setting Ethan up well in advance of the Prague mission?

Answer: Jim had been setting up Ethan the entire time. He knew that there was always a possibility of his actions being discovered, and he wanted Ethan as a fall guy.

LorgSkyegon

Question: How did Alan or Ellie know about Site B, considering that they only visited Isla Nublar?

Answer: It became public after the events of the previous film.

LorgSkyegon

Question: In the bar scene where the German officer has 2 guns pointed at his testicles, why does he insist on not letting the British go? The semi-answer he gives that they are outnumbered is irrelevant because they still would have no choice but to kill him. Practically speaking, it's suicide.

Answer: It is suicide, just like running into battle when there are hundreds of guns pointed at you. He has just caught a British spy, who potentially could be doing terrible things to his country. Sacrificing himself to save Germany isn't a bad trade for him.

LorgSkyegon

Answer: He knows they are going to kill him anyway. The "basterds" have that reputation, and he knows who he's dealing with. So, he can either betray his honour and tell them the information and die anyway, or retain his honour to not betray his own people or nation/military and die with what would be perceived as dignity for him.

Quantom X

You're referencing a different scene when the Basterds are questioning the German officer after ambushing his squad. The question is about the scene in the bar between Hicox and Hellström and the ensuing gunfight.

Question: What exactly caused Bruce to become so angry at the lab that triggered his first transformation into the Hulk?

Answer: He had just had a bunch of information dropped on him by his father earlier, and a ton of repressed childhood memories and trauma was rushing back to him. Stuff he put away and buried deep in his mind long ago. And now, suddenly, it was all coming back to him, and he was remembering seeing his father kill his mother. A flood of emotions, trauma, and repressed memories all surfacing back at once, and he couldn't handle it.

Quantom X

Answer: He said so himself, "Some get VD from a one-night stand, I got a kid." In a movie, Cinderella Liberty, James Caan got involved with a woman, Marsha Mason, who had a 12-year-old son and a baby on the way.

Answer: Just because they slept together doesn't mean he's the father. She was likely already born by the time he met her mother.

LorgSkyegon

Murder - S4-E12

Question: At the end of the episode, why did Dan say *God bless you* to the robber and then what looks like kiss the man's wrist?

Answer: Dan had been celibate for an unusually long time (for him). He was so desperate for release that he was willing to sleep with the geriatric woman from the sperm bank. The Mugger prevented him from having a regrettable sexual encounter, and he's grateful.

Brian Katcher

Question: Why does the audio sound so odd when Dutch screams "Get to the chopper!"? It almost sounds like he's shouting it into a tin can.

Phaneron

Answer: Being an editor myself for YouTube and other projects, and working with audio editing, to me this sounds like they tried to double layer the audio in that moment to make him sound a bit louder. But the syncing on the two layers was not perfect. That's an easy trick to get a robotic sound to a voice: to layer it twice and have the second layer slightly off and at a different pitch, but doubling it also makes it louder. That's just my guess based on my own editing experience.

Quantom X

Question: Things are vastly different these days, obviously, but back when this movie was made, would a bank really have $30 mn in their vault like that and let him take $3 mn with him, or is this just for the movie?

The_Iceman

Answer: A bank would never have that much money on hand. Not only would it be poor asset management to keep millions in cash on hand instead of in some sort of investment, it would be a safety hazard as well. Even in modern day, most banks would have less than $50,000 in cash on hand.

LorgSkyegon

Show generally

Question: What's the name of the episode where Mimi's head blows up and somehow disappears right after she calls Drew "pig"? I remember seeing it when I was 8.

Answer: The episode where they give a date away with Kate as part of a contest for Buzz Beer. Season 2 or 3.

Question: Why did Glen hate Rod? I get that Glen was a mommy's boy who lived in a nice big house, whereas Rod was a troubled person who probably came from a poor broken home, and as such, Glen possibly viewed him as a worthless lowlife. But we later see a picture of Glen, Rod, Nancy, and Tina together, which meant they were all close once. So I'm curious why Glen despised him.

Gavin Jackson

Answer: A group of friends might include someone who you don't like much, but you need to tolerate/deal with them if you want to be with the rest of the group. Maybe Glen and Rod took the picture because the girls wanted them to. Or they used to be better friends with each other when the picture was taken, but something happened.

Question: When Bourne meets Dr. Albert Hirsh, he gets a keycard to enter. Where did he get it from?

Answer: The keycard to Johnston Medical Center (SRD) was in the safe in Noah Vosen's office. You see Bourne grab it after he takes the folder of Blackbriar documents.

Sierra1