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: How is August 5th the day to take out the trash when July 5th was also?

Answer: The city may have fluctuating trash days. Or more likely, the July 5th schedule wasn't the regular pick up day due to the July 4th holiday.

Question: When Mancuso is sending morse code to Ramius, why does Ramius need to use a sonar ping to communicate back (possibly raising the suspicions of his crew) instead of discreetly flashing his periscope light back?

Answer: It's faster than clicking out a response in morse code, and the captain suddenly flipping the periscope light on and off repeatedly would be just as suspicious to the bridge crew, so why not save time?

Captain Defenestrator

Chosen answer: How his parents died is never mentioned.

Chosen answer: Their official name is Stalfos.

Question: Has anyone ever tried zooming in on the various photographs on the walls of The Overlook, other than the final scene one? I bet Kubrick has placed crazy details in those too.

Answer: The pictures in Danny's room are pictures of bears. Going along with the motif of bears throughout the film.

Chosen answer: It's not explained where he is. The most likely assumption is that he is probably married to Carly living somewhere. He is not in the movie because it is mainly the choice of the writers to not have him in the movie.

Casual Person

Question: On Fred's first day of his new promotion, he says "I'm only one man, Barney." To which Barney responds."Not from the back" and they both laugh. Could someone please explain this gag to me. I have tried for years to understand it, with no luck.

Gavin Jackson

Chosen answer: He means Fred is fat. That from behind, he looks big enough to be two or more people.

Quantom X

Question: If you speak French, I am curious about this: Snoopy, driving a rental car, gets into a multi-car fender bender. Marcie stands up through the sun roof and chastises the drivers behind them in French. This happens again at the end of the film. A short time after they resume driving, Snoopy starts to whistle and Marcie says something else in French. Can anyone tell me what she is saying? I have been curious for years. Thanks!

Michael Albert

Chosen answer: I just found a possible answer to my own question! According to a post in the question section of the IMDb entry for this film, one poster (dioro on March 23, 2009) claims that Marcie says: "Qu'est-ce que tu as dans la crane? Oooh, les cornes! Qu'est-ce que tu veux que je fasse? Que dalle! Le pied de nez! Tu veux nous frotter?" The poster goes on to say, "I'm fairly positive everything is correct, except for maybe the last question. I'd translate it something like: 'What's going on in your head? Ooh, [the] horns! What do you want me to do? Absolutely nothing (Jack schidt) Le pied de nez' is a gesture, putting the thumb on the nose and [wiggling] your fingers. Snoopy does this when Marcie says the line. 'You want a piece of us?' Then as they're leaving Marcie says, 'Ah, de la couille.' I put the last sentence into a Google translator, and it yielded "Ah, the testicle." I have my doubts about that last one.

Michael Albert

Answer: To make the other person's answer better, when snoopy jumped up beside marcy and started gesturing, he was saying "f*ck you" in american sign language.

Question: In the scene where Jessica Rabbit performs, when she's interacting with different objects in the room, such as the cloth napkin on Mr. Acme's table (to polish his bald head) and Eddie Valliant's tie and coat, how did they accomplish that if Jessica was drawn on the film later (so I've been led to believe is the process with cartoon/reality movies). Did they actually have a stand-in/actress that they drew over?

Answer: According to the Disney Wiki (http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/Who_Framed_Roger_Rabbit) : "During production, one of the biggest challenges faced by the makers of the film was how to get the cartoon characters to realistically interact with real on-set props. This was ultimately accomplished in two different ways. Certain props (such as Baby Herman's cigar or the plates Roger smashes over his head) were moved on-set via motion control machines hooked up to operator who would move the objects in exactly the desired manner. Then, in post, the character was simply drawn 'over' the machine. The other way of doing it was by using puppeteers. This is most seen in the scene in the Ink & Paint club. The glasses held by the octopus bartender were in fact being controlled by puppeteers from above, whilst the trays carried by the penguin waiters were on sticks being controlled from below - both the wires and the sticks were simply removed in post and the cartoons added in." While Jessica's performance model is credited as Betsy Brantley, it appears she was the basis for the animation, rather than actually being present on-set.

Michael Albert

Question: This is more for the book than the movie, but how was Rue able to enter the arena with a "homemade" sling shot if no weapons could be taken in there?

Jessica Wren

Chosen answer: The tributes could not take anything in with them, but the arena is filled with different types of weapons and tools, if they can get them. Rue was clever and agile, and she could have found or stolen the slingshot or the tools with which to make one. Also, anyone, for a price, can send "gifts" into the arena to sponsor a favorite tribute.

raywest

Answer: In the book Rue never received any gifts she only grabbed a few things from the cornucopia so the slingshot must have been one of them.

Question: I'm surprised no one has asked this question. The whole tense moment during the final battle is someone making it safely down the trench to shoot the exhaust holes and destroy the death star. Besides dramatic effect why would they all start from so far away?

Jeremy 'David Dancer' McLaurin

Answer: It's explicitly stated that the targeting computers will have difficulty targeting the small exhaust port. The long approach was to give the computers time to make their calculations as accurate as possible.

Chosen answer: The trench near the exhaust port is protected by laser cannon batteries. To come in below them, the trench run has to be started from a long distance away.

Captain Defenestrator

Question: Twice in the film, Bumblebee is shown turning around and a close up of his license plate is show, reading 900 STRA. Is this a reference to anything?

Quantom X

Chosen answer: There is no reference. 900 STRA was just the number plate of the car he adapted from.

Casual Person

Question: If Myers switched with the paramedic (as shown at the start of the next movie) and the medic couldn't speak because his larynx was crushed, why didn't he take the mask off to show Laurie it wasn't Myers? At the end you can see that he was able to have full use of his arms and hands when he got out of the body bag, then got up after he got hit by the van and when he was pinned he raised his hands to her.

danley1973

Chosen answer: There is no answer to that. Its simply bad work by the writers. They never tried to explain that. You could perhaps assume shock had prevented the paramedic from immediately taking the mask off. Unlikely though,.

Answer: Because they didn't think there'd be another movie, as this one appeared to be Myers' swan song, as it should've been.

Rob245

Answer: And seriously, only a Michael Myers could survive all of that trauma. It was a Hollywood ending that could go either way and if the ratings and the income was savory enough, the paramedic dies! So yes, maybe this paramedic was a Myers relation.

Question: At one point Rita says she "had it and then lost it." How does she know she became mortal again? The only way Cage knows he's immortal is by dying and then waking up again.

Answer: Cage and Rita have a connection to the Omega. It gets stronger the longer they go on. Rita lost the connection, so she knew it was gone.

MasterOfAll

Question: When Prime leads the Dino bots into battle with the prototypes, how do the Dinobots know not to attack the Autobots or how to distinguish between them and the prototypes?

Quantom X

Chosen answer: Easy answer, the prototypes are shooting at them. It's easy to tell who the bad guys are.

MasterOfAll

Question: How exactly did Optimus wind up in a beat down theater in Texas? Didn't they say the ambush that he escaped from was in Chicago? If he was hit by the missile there, or wherever it was that he was hit, how did he get to that theater in the middle of Texas and some how wind up inside. It seemed by how he reacted when he was revived that he was still in the heat of it when he went unconscious from the attack, and didn't get to the theater after the fact to just fade away. So how?

Quantom X

Chosen answer: The battle that lead the government to hunting all transformers was in Chicago, but the incident that took Optimus out of commission was not. He'd been on the run for however long, even changing his appearance to avoid detection, when he was ambushed. Wounded, he snuck into the theater to hide before transforming one last time into vehicle form at which point he basically passed out, lost consciousness, or whatever it is robots call it when they involuntarily shut down (stasis). His aggressive reaction upon waking is simply down to his instinctive warrior reflexes immediately kicking in. All humans are a potential threat to him now, so he reacted accordingly in an instant.

Phixius

Question: When the movie first came out, there was a whole different song playing near the end when Mark and Stacy see each other in the mall. In more recent years, "So In Love" is the song playing whenever this scene is shown. Why did the music change over the years? (I believe the song is different now in the swimming pool scene when Mike and Mark go into the pool from what I remember too). Anyone agree with this or have an explanation?

Answer: From what I can gather, "So Much in Love" by Timothy B. Schmit was in the original release of the film, but due to licensing rights issues, home video and cable TV versions of the film replaced this and two or three other tracks. For the 1999 DVD release, the rights seem to have been renewed and the soundtrack matches the original theatrical release.

Question: Why did Kurt Russell sound the alarm when the thing was attacking the dogs? He was nowhere near the area and could not see what was going on. Also before he pulled the alarm, the sound he would hear was too faint to think something was wrong.

lartaker1975

Answer: Remember that he'd just spent the whole day investigating how something mysterious and horrible destroyed the Norwegian camp, so he's already in a spooked state of mind. Hearing the dogs screaming at night is already unusual on its own, and also reminds him how this whole episode all started with a crazed Norwegian trying to kill a dog. Deep down he knows whatever happened to the Norwegians is now starting at their own camp.

TonyPH

Chosen answer: He sensed something was wrong and wanted as much help from the others as possible.

Answer: Having investigated the Norwegian camp, he could have conceived that the use of fire would be helpful. As such, he would need fire extinguishers after combating whatever the thing might be with the flamethrowers. It could have been foresight on his part that by ringing the fire alarms, somebody was more likely to bring fire extinguishers with them, thus allowing better control of the fire.

Question: What happened to the shield that Thor dropped in the town before he faced The Destroyer? They do not show any of the warriors three come through the gate with it.

Answer: Lady Sif brought it with her and gave it to Thor.

Friso94

Question: If Binx could talk the moment he became a cat, why didn't he talk to his dad?

Answer: Notice that Max, Dani and Allison can only understand Binx after Max lights the black flame candle. Max is fulfilling a centuries-old prophecy and therefore is becoming part of the same magic that was used to curse Binx. Binx does try to talk to his father right after the Sanderson sisters are hung, but it only comes out as meows.

Answer: Back in the 1600s in Salem, cats were considered to be servants of witches and were killed if caught. If Binx tried to talk to his dad, his dad would most likely believe that the cat was possessed by a demon and would have definitely killed him, not knowing that he had killed his own son.

But his dad couldn't have killed him because of the immortality curse.

Answer: It's never really explained and most likely a missing plot hole. Binx might have felt guilty for nor being able to rescue his sister.

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.