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: It's just a sarcastic response people say when they catch someone staring at them. As if the person staring is trying to burn an image in their mind of what that person looks like and a picture will last longer than the memory.

Bishop73

Answer: Along with the other answer, it's a sarcastic thing that people say to someone who they don't want to be friends with or date. ie. a group of "cool" kids not letting a "loser" type into their group, or a woman rejecting a guy who wants to date her. They are basically saying "I want to get away from you as fast as possible, so you might as well take a picture - it'll last longer than our friendship/relationship would."

Question: Bond doesn't have actual proof that Matilde is his daughter, even though she has blonde hair and blue eyes like him. It could just be a coincidence. So why does Madeline tell him at the end that "she does have his eyes"? Did she tell him that simply to try to give him some peace in his final moments before his death?

Answer: Madeleine was being truthful that Matilde was his daughter, and Bond believes her. It was just a more poetic (and slightly corny) movie dialogue way to tell him that before he died.

raywest

Question: How was Bond able to get Madeleine pregnant after the sadistic torture he endured at the hands of Le Chiffre in Casino Royale, where that was supposed to disable his ability to procreate? Also, why did Madeleine insist that her child was not Bond's?

Answer: There's no explanation, but there is much Internet speculation that, without being too graphic, believes Bond's injuries were probably treatable and less extensive than was shown, leaving him fertile. Also, movies often change, minimize, or ignore previous plot points in order to fit the current narrative.

raywest

Question: What is the significance of the Roman/Greek soldier statue in the opening credit sequence?

Answer: Most likely symbolic foreshadowing of James Bond becoming a "fallen warrior" at the end.

raywest

Question: In the opening credit sequence, were the vines growing inside the statue of the woman supposed to hint at the fact that Bond's child was growing inside of Madeleine?

Answer: While it's open to individual interpretation, vines symbolically represent connections, strength, growth, and continuation. It could very well represent Bond's progeny. There was also some DNA symbolism/imagery in the opening sequence that further hints at that.

raywest

Answer: Season 3, when they received the Ninja powers, the glasses didn't work with the ninja hood and mask.

Answer: Presumably, because his eyesight has improved.

This answers the question of why, but not the original question of when.

Ssiscool

Question: What exactly was somatic reconditioning? What was supposed to happen to the rebellious Kryptonians during their "300 cycles of somatic reconditioning"? And why did the Council banish them to the Phantom Zone when Zod and his followers could have just died anyway from Krypton exploding?

Answer: From the context of the trial and sentencing, somatic reconditioning seems to be akin to forced rehabilitation. They would be held in custody while their brains would be subjected to treatments designed to reform them. I get the impression that 300 cycles is A LOT of reconditioning, probably bordering on punishment. The Council was still in denial about Krypton exploding and Zod posed an immediate threat, so they wanted to get him off Krypton as soon as possible.

Question: Where are those golden doors located in Italy that Paris and Romeo fight in front of at the tomb?

Answer: Verona.

Answer: On the old episodes, it looks like God of fire, but the newer episodes look like a box of Opus X.

Question: This was the first of Toho's "Minilla" films (Minilla being the diminutive son of Godzilla), featuring an actor known as "Marchan the Dwarf" in the role of Minilla. Is there an official or even unofficial biography of Marchan the Dwarf? I'm not seeing anything on him through conventional searches.

Charles Austin Miller

Answer: All that I could find of him are his IMDb and Wikizilla pages.

Question: Is there some significance that both Andie's and Ben's first and last initials are the same?

Answer: No.

Question: I know that originally, Cal was supposed to kill Fabrizio with an oar, and this scene was even partially filmed, but it was abandoned. Why was it scrapped?

Answer: This was cut, and Fabrizio's death scene was re-edited because James Cameron felt Cal was turning into a cartoon villain by that point.

Ssiscool

Question: Was there really someone named Irv Britzer in the 1972 games that cheated and cost the USA the gold medal? If not, what really happened in 1972? Because I am thinking that in the scene where he goes to the Alliance and says 'go ahead, disqualify me, banish me, do whatever you want, but do it to me', it seems that if they had, they would have still been disqualified because they would have been without a coach.

Answer: Irv Blitzer was a character created for the film. His real-life counterpart is Howard Siler, who was a successful U.S. Olympic bobsledder and coach and was the man who coached the Jamaican team. However, unlike Blitzer, Howard Siler did not cheat and leave the sport in disgrace. He coached the Jamaican team because he found them to be dedicated athletes and was annoyed by their representation in the film as happy-go-lucky goofballs. None of the characters in the film existed in real life, the film is loosely "inspired by" the story of the first Jamaican bobsled team.

BaconIsMyBFF

Question: Why did the military decide to blow the bridges instead of simply blocking them? Did they think it was simpler than to put armed soldiers at all the bridges and risk them being overrun by the panicked (and possibly turning) crowds of people trying to flee?

Answer: Yes, it was a desperate measure to prevent the spread of a disease which was horrendous, even though it was done too late to contain the outbreak. I'm sure it was a difficult decision for the military commanders, and given the civilian and economic consequences, probably had to be sanctioned by the National Command Authority or President.

Question: Does anyone how many times they had to retake the scene where Gary Busey asks Tommy Lee Jones if he looks like he needed a psychiatrist? Tommy Lee looks so serious when he says "not at all." I just can't see him doing that part and still keeping a straight face. Are there any outtakes or bloopers from the film?

LarryA

Answer: Also, the more times the scene is practiced or additional takes, the less funny it is to the actors. So, it would be easy by the time of filming for Strannix to not laugh. Just like if you have seen a classic comedy TV show, the audience is always laughing because it's generally their first time seeing the scene when filmed. But you as a viewer, seeing the show a hundred times over the years, do not laugh because you have seen it so many times. That, to YOU, it's not funny anymore. Same rules apply here for the actors while filming.

Answer: Think the fact that Strannix looks at Krill with a straight face actually added humor to the scene.

Show generally

Question: Are alleys common in Texas neighborhoods? And are they normally big enough that cars can drive by in two directions? I only ask because they are rare in my part of the US.

Answer: I'm not sure if I'd call it common, but from my experience living in Texas, I do know of plenty of areas that have alleys between houses. They're generally not marked one-way, so cars can travel both ways, but they're also generally not divided into a two-lane road. Arlen is a fictional town meant to be a suburb of Dallas and modeled after Garland. Just looking at the map of Garland, I can tell you alleys seem common in the neighborhoods, but I've never been there personally.

Bishop73

Question: Why is Las Vegas left abandoned for five years as shown on the screen by Dr Emma Russell when it was damaged by the MUTO? Why can't everyone just fix the damage to the city so the tourists can go there again or even repopulate it?

Trainman

Answer: I don't remember if either Godzilla 2014 or Godzilla: King of the Monsters directly said that this was the case, but the MUTOs were feasting on nuclear radiation and warheads, meaning that their presence and deaths in the area would most likely unleash a ton of radiation. Radiation can make entire areas uninhabitable for years.

Question: How did the female MUTO get pregnant if they were hibernating far away from each other? It's either that she was born pregnant and they mated, which made her produce more eggs than usual, but I'm not sure.

Answer: Another person right here answered this question as well, and to paraphrase what they said: the female had produced the eggs. But for all means and technicalities, she wasn't pregnant until she mated with the male and received his sperm that would create the embryos inside the eggs. At least, that's what we can assume based on real-life egg-laying animals.

Question: Maybe I'm missing something here, but why does Dr. Serizawa kill himself at the end by cutting the oxygen cord to his diving suit after activating the oxygen destroyer? What does ending his life accomplish? It seems to me the mission to kill Godzilla still would have been successful if Serizawa had returned to the surface alive.

Answer: I don't remember if that line was in the KOTM American cut as well, but in the Japanese Gojira cut, Serizawa, as he is talking about why the capabilities of microoxygen and the Oxygen Destroyer horrify him, mentions that he fears that "perhaps one day he might have to create the Oxygen Destroyer again," and that horrified him. The reason he allowed himself to die didn't have anything to do with stopping Godzilla; it was to ensure that no-one, including himself, would be able to create the Oxygen Destroyer ever again. That was his entire arc in the movie. He has previous scenes in the movie where he explains why his discovery of microoxygen and its destructive capabilities horrified him, and before he went to unleash the Oxygen Destroyer for its first and final time, he had ensured to destroy all the research in his lab that could be used to recreate the Oxygen Destroyer. Finally, he allowed himself to die so that he would erase the possibility of himself recreating that weapon as well.

Show generally

Question: Throughout the entire show, why is Harry's rank an ensign? Janeway has been seen promoting or demoting other crew members, so why doesn't she promote him?

Answer: In Season 7, Episode 19 "Author, Author," Harry's parents outright ask him why he hasn't yet been promoted. Harry replies, the ship is operating without a full complement of staff, and there is little opportunity for him to be promoted. This, however, was likely added to the script to address complaints fans and Garrett Wang himself had about the character never being promoted.

BaconIsMyBFF

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