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: Can someone please explain the photos in the yearbook? It seems like it was the gang in 1999, but they never posed for those photos in the first American Pie.

MikeH

Chosen answer: They have been friends for a long time. They had plenty of time to take pictures. We only see them on screen for a few hours of their lives spread over a short while.

Greg Dwyer

Chosen answer: In a nutshell, tax evasion. He's running the prison like a company doing building work with, as its described by the builder in the movie, a pool of slave labour to allow him undercut other contractors. He is skimming profit for his own pockets, along with taking bribes, etc. that Andy's creative book keeping is hiding from the IRS.

Question: I might be mistaken, but I think I saw the bullies at Arlene's house at the end. Were they there, and if so, why?

MikeH

Chosen answer: The one who stabbed him was not. The others were there because they did not mean for Trevor to get stabbed and killed so now they feel guilty. They were showing Arlene they were sorry.

They were sorry for killing him.

Only one of the bullies killed him. The others were bullying, but didn't think the other would kill him. However, they still had remorse and were showing that remorse to the mother.

Question: When Bruce Willis is shot, how come there's lots of blood on the exit wound but absolutely no blood on the entrance wound?

Answer: The exit wound of a bullet is always much bigger than the entrance wound. Because as the bullet goes through the body, it pushes more and more flesh and body with it tearing a larger and larger hole as it passes through. So a bullet goes in, but bullet and lots of flesh and other bodily parts come out making a large exit wound. As of such blood more readily flows from the larger hole that the tighter entrance wound. Plus it could also be from where the bullet hit. The exit wound may be close to an artery that pushes blood out faster and maybe the entrance wound was not close to any large veins.

Quantom X

Question: Why doesn't Snape just apparate away when Voldemort is about to kill him?

Answer: Snape was taken by surprise and he was confused. He was Voldemort's right-hand man, and wouldn't have expected the Dark Lord to kill him, at least not then or in that way. Appararating also takes some deliberate thought and physical action, and Snape simply didn't have enough time to react.

raywest

Question: Why would M betray Silva like that? What was so bad about hacking the Chinese? If what he did was really that bad, why couldn't she just fire him or even sue him? Why would she try to have him killed? Everyone always talks about how horrible Silva is and how sad is is that M died, but why is there no mention of how despicable M's actions were?

MikeH

Chosen answer: MI6 agents operate in a very grey area legally speaking. Plenty of the things Bond has done over the years could even be classed as acts of war against foreign powers if they were discovered. For this reason, all agents know that if they are caught or captured their government will disavow all knowledge of them or their actions, meaning they're on their own. That's why we learn in Die Another Day that Bond had a cyanide capsule to commit suicide if caught (which he threw away years ago). M was Silva's mentor, meaning he took it very personally when she followed protocol and cut him loose after he hacked the Chinese and was discovered.

Question: When Will Smith is going to the bathroom and says "Jasmine, I think the neighbors are leaving" the vehicle I believe has Wyoming plates on it. Am I correct?

Lucy Shupe

Chosen answer: I believe you are correct. It is a hard to make out, because it goes by so quickly. But it does look like a Wyoming plate. We see a dark design mass in the area where the letters and numbers also appear that looks the cowboy/bucking bronco which distinguishes the Wyoming plate from those of other states.

Michael Albert

Question: Why were Pollux and Archer sent straight to prison without a trial?

MikeH

Chosen answer: It's obvious that enough time hasn't passed for a trial of such magnitude to take place, meaning that the brothers have been remanded in custody to await trial. They should have been arraigned but we don't see that onscreen.

Answer: The speech Walton gives when Archer arrives implies it's a top secret Guantanamo Bay type of prison where due process doesn't exist.

Question: When Jimmy and Henry torture the man into giving them money for a gambling dept he owes to Paulie, we then find out he had a sister who was an FBI informant. Henry says "She gave up everyone. Jimmy, me, even her brother." What did her brother do that was illegal? I thought he was just the victim.

MikeH

Chosen answer: Gambling, especially with a mobster bookie was and is still illegal in the US.

Answer: Catch-as-catch-can is a style of wrestling in which the wrestlers are allowed to use methods which are illegal in most traditional wrestling matches. These include tackling, tripping, and holds below the waist. The humor lies in how the character of Mr. Humphries references it in his line: "I was known as Hugger Humphries. They had to pull me off people. I was the 'catch as catch can' champion of the Barley Road Mixed Infants."

Michael Albert

Answer: There are 4 years between Sam and Dean so Dean was 4 or 4 1/2 when he took Sam out of the house. Sam was 6 months.

Answer: Dean is 33 and Sam is 29 around season 9.

Answer: Early 30's. The flashback shows them 22 years earlier when their dad says "Dean take your brother and go." Dean looks to be 5 and Sam is just a baby.

Question: For those of us who live in countries where Cornettos aren't sold, what flavors are the three colors in the Cornetto Trilogy?

Captain Defenestrator

Chosen answer: Strawberry Red for "Shaun of the Dead", Original Blue for "Hot Fuzz", Green Mint Choc Chip for "The World's End".

Sierra1

Question: How come Hadley was arrested for Tommy's murder but nobody cares about Fat Ass's murder? There were hundreds of witnesses.

MikeH

Chosen answer: 1) This is almost twenty years down the road. Many of those witnesses are either gone from the prison, dead, or may have forgotten any details. 2) Hadley beat Fatass because he wouldn't stop talking, breaking the rules. Tommy was just standing there talking to the warden. It's cold blooded murder vs. Simple brutality. 3) Prisoners are often reluctant to testify against guards because of fear of retribution from other guards.

Greg Dwyer

Chosen answer: The helicopters aren't flying backwards, they are simply not moving through the camera view as fast as the camera is moving.

Greg Dwyer

Question: Does this movie bear any relation to the previous 2, beside from being in the same series?

Answer: No, none whatsoever. None of the characters from the previous movies appear or are ever mentioned.

THGhost

Question: If the police were so sure Jamal cheated, why are they so desperate to find out how?

MikeH

Chosen answer: It's not enough to be sure about a crime or other wrongdoing. It has to be proven with facts. They want to show how he did it.

raywest

Q Who? - S2-E16

Question: Picard orders the away team to be beamed from the Borg ship directly to the bridge of the Enterprise. If this was possible, why was there ever a need for anyone to go to a transporter room and stand on a transporter platform?

Answer: Several reasons. While it is possible to beam people to and from just about anywhere, for efficiency and safety there needs to be a centralized location. If an away team was being transported at the same time, then they are transported as a group from the platform and not from a random location within the ship. Transporting people to places other than to the transporter platform is risky and it is usually only done in extreme circumstances. Precise coordinates are needed to find and safely beam someone from one place to another. The bridge is an emergency transport site and the those coordinates are already known. It has also been seen that the transport can go awry. In that event, the transporter officer needs to be able to see what is happening in order to make adjustments to safely re-materialize the passengers. It has been mentioned in Star Trek canon that it is possible for someone being transported to re-materialize inside a bulkhead or some other object if the coordinates are incorrect or the surrounding environment had changed, thus injuring or killing them.

raywest

Question: Does Lily Potter scream anything in particular when she dies? Some fans (according to Google searches) seem to think that she is screaming "Always", but it sounds more like "Harry" to me. Has JK Rowling ever answered this?

Answer: She is screaming Harry.

Answer: I've listened to this a number of times, and her scream is just that - a scream, somewhat enhanced with special sound effects. It's too unintelligible to make out if she was saying anything. I have not found anything about J.K. Rowling commenting on whether Lily said anything.

raywest

Show generally

Question: Is there anyway to see the scenes at the end of each episode without the theme song playing over it so the dialogue can be heard?

strikeand

Chosen answer: There is no dialogue - the end scenes are deliberately constructed to be visual, with no audio.

Question: How did the movie get nominated for Best Picture? I thought there was a separate category for animated films.

MikeH

Chosen answer: There's a separate section just for animated films to highlight them and give a wider selection recognition, similar to foreign movies, but they're not excluded from the best picture category, which is open to every feature.

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