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.

The Yoko Factor (1) - S4-E20

Question: At the last moment before leaving for good, Angel pauses to tell Buffy "I don't like him" [Riley], to which she replies with a large smile "Thank you." Why does she take this comment surprisingly well? From an ex boyfriend to her new boyfriend? It's not like it sounds like a friendly warning of any sort, nor a joke given the tense situation between the two guys in the episode. And the smile on Buffy's face does not make her response look ironic either, more like loving/caring. Is that a cross over reference to another dialogue in the Angel series?

AnthonyA

Chosen answer: Angel is saying that he is still jealous and Buffy recognizes that this is his way of saying he wishes that they could be together. That is why they both smile.

Question: What exactly did the ghosts want with Carol Anne?

Answer: They were attracted to her life force. She was such a young child, that it was particularly pure and strong within her.

raywest

Answer: They were partly attracted to Carol Anne because she she was born in her house.

She was not literally born inside the house. She was born while the family was living there.

raywest

The movie literally says she was born IN the house. When Teague asks, "One of your children was born in your house, huh?" and Steve replies, "Carol Anne."

Dr. C and the Women - S13-E13

Question: Where's the joke in prescribing a "lesbian shoe" (Doc Martin) to sick people? Not angered by it or anything. It's just that I understand most every joke and am wondering if this one even has a point or if it's just one of the absurd jokes?

jlubera3773

Chosen answer: The doctor's name is Doc Martens, and it's playing on a stereotype that lesbians wear Doc Martens boots.

Sierra1

Jump, Push, Fall - S4-E2

Question: In season 3 Peter could only absorb one power at a time and only when he touches the person. How could he suddenly go back to being the empath who automatically absorbs the power of people around him in season 4?

Answer: There must have been some confusion in what you saw (or you caught an error). After "Dual" (s03e13) until the end of the series, Peter's altered abilities always required him to touch someone to gain their powers, he was never able to absorb the power without physical contact and never had more than 1 power at a time (although later he gains the ability to touch someone and not absorb their power).

Bishop73

Question: Right before the fight between Preston and DuPont, DuPont re-quotes Sean Bean "you tread on my dreams." How did he know that quote, and why did he know it would mean anything to Preston?

Answer: Since Preston is the one who discovered Partridge's sense-offense and executed him, he was probably required to give a report of how it went down and mentioned Partridge's last words, which one would expect would make its way to DuPont.

Phaneron

Answer: "Father" is a very human psychopath in my opinion. I don't believe he was ever dosing. Therefore, he was probably already familiar with Yeats. Just like his "office" at the end is filled with illegal artwork, which if he didn't "feel" would be completely unnecessary. He tells Preston at the end that he "feels," and that's true. It's just that he "feels" only as a psychopath can feel. And, since he was setting Preston up from the very beginning, he also probably knew exactly what book Partridge had been reading when Preston shot him. And he used that phrase right before his fight with Preston, why? Perhaps to attempt to throw him off his game by reminding him that he had killed his partner (something that he guessed - correctly - about which Preston felt incredible sadness and guilt).

Season 7 generally

Question: How do Jesse and Sam intend to continue as P.Is, when their faces were broadcast over the state news? Undercover/stealth work is torpedoed by that.

dizzyd

Chosen answer: They could wear disguises to hide their appearance.

raywest

Question: Is there any significance to Justine looking almost the same - wearing a jacket over jeans, with her hair tied back - for much of the movie?

Answer: I would say her similar clothing style represents that although she wanted her life to change, it never did, and she ultimately remained stuck in her never-ending routine, always looking the same, never moving forward in a new direction.

raywest

Question: The first scene with Lynn shows her with a man who asks for a divorce. He doesn't look like Jeff, or am I wrong?

Answer: You are not wrong. The man is her lover, he wants her to get a divorce.

MasterOfAll

Question: Does anybody know what Batman means by questioning whether he can beat two of Ra's al Ghul's pawns?

Answer: Ra's al Ghul initially left just two of his henchmen to fight Batman. Batman says "I can't beat two of your pawns?" as a way of rubbing it in Ghul's face that the two henchmen would not get the job done, which is why Ra's has more henchmen stay behind.

Phaneron

Answer: Watching this before without subtitles, I thought it was more interesting without the question mark. "I can't beat two of your pawns." After all, one star student SHOULDN'T be able to beat two second-tier ones. I liked the extra weight of the insurmountable odds "as you wish." Adding just one question mark changes this scene completely.

Question: Just wondering what finally became of Alfrid, the Master's clerk and Bejorn, the skinchanger.

Answer: In both the novel and the movie, Alfrid's (who is not named in the book) fate is unknown. Beorn, in the book, stopped his reclusiveness and became a leader of the local woodmen and protected the area from orcs and goblins. He died sometime before the War of the Ring and was succeeded by his son Grimbeorn.

Greg Dwyer

Answer: The Extended Edition of this film shows Alfrid being inadvertently catapulted into the mouth of a troll during the eponymous battle, and it is heavily implied that he dies from the ordeal, as he is motionless when the troll collapses to the ground.

Phaneron

Answer: We don't know what happenned to Alfrid and the Master, but in the book we know that the Master took his bit of the gold and ran off somewhere, leaving Bard to bring Lake-Town into the re-established Kingdom of Dale. Beorn continued to guard the High Pass, eventually had children and grandchildren called the Beornings, who still charge tolls for Dwarves to cross the bridge across the river.

Question: Since Daryl was forced to swallow a transmitter, instead of killing him, wouldn't it make more sense to simply leave him behind or even tie him to a tree so that he couldn't follow them and give away their position again?

Answer: Daryl's actions of swallowing the transmitter AND returning to the Wolverine camp branded him as both a coward and a traitor. He was killed, not as a safety precaution, but as a sentence for his "crime."

Michael Albert

Question: Why were the women and children ordered to the lifeboats first and then the men? Why not just let anybody who could make it to the lifeboats get on?

Answer: Though not a requirement of maritime law, it was a matter of historical codes of chivalry that, in life threatening situations where limited numbers of life-saving resources were available, the lives of women and children were to be saved first. That was captain Smith's order the night the RMS Titanic sank. Some of the crew interpreted this to mean "women and children only." Thus, several of the lifeboats were launched only partially full, as men were prevented from occupying empty seats even when all nearby women and children had been boarded. The rescue efforts on the Titanic were further hampered by the fact that, initially, many of the passengers thought that the launching of lifeboats was unnecessary precaution, as the Titanic was thought unsinkable. The night air was cold. The lifeboats seemed uncomfortable. Thus, many preferred to stay on board the ship until reality of the magnitude of the situation became more evident and panic began to set in. Many of the men who survived in lifeboats, like White Star Line chairman Bruce Ismay, were branded cowards upon return to shore, even though many of them occupied seats that would have otherwise gone unused.

Michael Albert

Answer: Furthermore, the "Code of Conduct" would put many boats in the water without anybody being able to row them.

Question: Why do the shirts the contestants wear change from green to purple during the event?

Answer: The shirts don't change color, it's just the lighting that seems to give a different tint to them. The film switches from the typical movie lighting that gives the shirt a duller and darker look (which you may see as green), to the "live TV" lighting which brightens the shirt color to a blue (or purple) color.

Bishop73

Question: What does Manolo's mother mean when she says, "Wait until he gets here," as she refers to Manolo's father?

John Ohman

Chosen answer: She's saying "wait until he gets here" as in 'wait until his time comes and he's in the land of the remembered'. As in, more morbidly, just wait until Manolo's father dies & she's able to scold him in the land of the remembered.

Question: Why does Le Chiffre torture Bond for the code when the Swiss banker would obviously only allow Bond himself to punch in the code in the banking briefcase?

Answer: If Le Chiffre is willing to torture Bond to get the code, he's certainly willing to torture the banker into letting him use it.

Captain Defenestrator

Answer: It's reasonable that the Swiss banker would have dispensed the money to anyone with the account number and code, just like how Swiss bank accounts can be accessed with just the number and why you keep it safe. Their "different" security is what makes them so useful to some.

Question: What was the secret passed on to the carriage boy?

Answer: "The Secret Lies With Charlotte" ~ Charles Carrol of "Charleston".

Question: At the end of the film, King Candy as a bug is seen being hypnotised by the "beacon" and he flies into the light... Does he die? You'd think that he would since he's not originally from Sugar Rush, but he recoded the game so that he existed as his alter ego, King Candy. Would he respawn or is it as Sonic says at the start, game over for Turbo?

Answer: He does die, because that's how the Cy-Bugs end their games - they all die. Turbo is a Cy-bug after being eaten. And it's not his game, so he would not respawn.

Greg Dwyer

Question: When Roz says people think she's a bitch, we can't hear the word bitch. Was the word intentionally mouthed by her or was it muted by the movie's editor? From her body language, facial expression and lip movement, it looks like she actually said it, and possibly yelled it. But why would they want to mute it when it's rated PG-13 and there are worse words said in the movie? And why would they mute it instead of doing something that makes more sense like cutting out or changing the word? And why would Roz refrain from swearing when it's just her and Dewey in the car?

Answer: It wasn't muted. Roz is simply unable to say the word out loud when it refers to herself.

raywest

Question: Why did Exley appear so traumatised after killing the man in the elevator? He is, after all, a police officer in homicide, and he killed people before that. Also, did he kill him intentionally?

MikeH

Chosen answer: A 12g shotgun blast at that range would cause an incredibly bloody death, especially as there is a good chance it hit the man in the face. Exley has killed a person in the line of duty before this, but not in such a spectacular way. And while he may not have meant to kill him he chose to shoot over letting the man escape.

Grumpy Scot

Question: How does Christof talk to the actors? They don't look like they have earpieces, and if they do, why didn't that make Truman suspicious earlier?

MikeH

Answer: They do have earpieces, just minuscule ones that can't be seen unless you are looking directly into a persons ear. As shown in the scene with Marlon on the beach, he is being fed his lines by such an earpiece. They are also present when Truman is in his car and he picks up the signal they are using to show where he is at the given time. Also, even though you can hear what someone is saying, you can't talk back to them which is why Meryl and Marlon had to talk to a camera when requesting help/confirming Truman wasn't there.

Yep, that's it. Also, the earpieces might not even be that small but Truman isn't looking for them and thus doesn't see them.

lionhead

Chosen answer: It appears that Christof and the control team in the moon did not, in fact, have contact with the actors very often. It is more likely he had contact with people on the ground who could make things happen per his instructions. But there were inconsistencies. For example, how could he create instantaneous traffic jams at a moment's notice, and set up a hazardous spill scene on the outskirts of town to prevent Truman from leaving Seahaven, but he couldn't get anyone to interrupt or vary the cycle of movements by extras that Truman watched in his rear view mirror when he was trying to convince his wife something in their town was amiss - even when he was talking aloud, anticipating the next extra's move before it happened? Christof could arrange for a road race to happen by and to have people almost instantaneously hustle Truman's father onto a bus when he showed up in town as a homeless man, but it took quite some time to get Sylvia's father onto the beach to whisk her away to Fiji, even though Christof knew exactly where they were headed. And when Truman and Meryl were having their major argument in their kitchen, Christof could engineer Marlon to show up with a six pack of beer, but he couldn't communicate with Meryl to provide her advice on how to handle the situation, and she ended up screaming for help into a camera. I think Christof did place some sort of communication/listening device on some actors at critical times. We saw that in a couple of instances (e.g. When Marlon went into Truman's basement looking for an already disappeared Truman, Christof was feeding him direct instructions). But I don't think it was routinely done. And when it was, Christof's surely would have had the technical know-how to create a supremely inconspicuous piece of equipment.

Michael Albert

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.