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: Near the beginning of the movie, how could the first-year students' luggage have been brought to their dormitories if it wasn't yet known what houses they would be in?

Answer: We actually see in the second movie, when Ron and Harry are late for dinner because of the accident with the car, that there is a lot of luggage in the hallways, waiting there for students to be sorted.

Answer: The first-years' luggage is likely brought all to one area, then transported by the house elves once the sorting is completed.

Greg Dwyer

Answer: No, it's right. The miniseries wasn't a complete renewal of the original series, but instead was promoted as a 'limited-run' series. Since it only covered twelve hours instead of twenty-four, the final episode skips over the eleven hours after 11:00 pm and picks up in the last few minutes between 10:00 am and 11:00 am.

Cubs Fan

Question: The Harry Potter Wiki website says that Hermione was born in 1979, if this is true then why is she starting school at age 12 instead of 11, especially with her being such a good student?

Answer: The Harry Potter Wiki says Hermione was born on September 19, 1979, the Hogwarts year begins in August which would make Hermione still 11 years old when she begins Hogwarts, she would then become 12 years old the following month. She still began Hogwarts at the same age as all of the other students, not a year later.

Casual Person

Question: Why does Colin not want his girlfriend's pictures out in the apartment?

Answer: Because he's a sh*tty boyfriend (as reinforced by purposely making a point of showing Costigan hanging it on the wall later on).

Answer: Because he doesn't want her to be in trouble if he gets into trouble. Also he wants as little information about himself in the apartment. Another option is psychological issues. He had a hard childhood after all.

You are mixing the characters up, it was Damon that didn't want the pic up, not Billy.

The person talking about Billy is correct but for the wrong scene. Billy hangs the picture up in her old apartment, because she still has time on the lease.

Answer: Damon did not want Costello to know where she was from if he came over, either because Damon was embarrassed by it, or to protect her from them.

I disagree, Costello has all kinds of informants and people working for him, he probably already knows everything there is to know about Madelyn.

Answer: Colin is Damon, not a mixup. I agree that it is to protect her identity from someone who may enter the apartment.

Answer: My interpretation is to emphasize the divide between the two characters and show how the person one conveys on the surface could be vastly different from someone's true nature. Colin is a cop (arguably a good one who is granted his own team investigating organized crime). As a cop, society views him as a good, well-intentioned, selfless person who serves a greater purpose. Furthermore, we are shown that he is highly ambitious (pursuing a law degree and aspiring to a life in politics). All of this shows that on a societal level, he is a good fit or match for Madelyn. She is a doctor, therapist, university educated, decent person who would typically end up with someone in a similar social class and circle. This juxtaposes Billy, who despite the fact that he went to a prestigious and private private school, is extremely intelligent and we know from the beginning a good person, to the rest of society is simply a low-life murderer, criminal and thug and member of Costello's inner circle. This is not the kind of person that Madelyn nor society would pair her with. So, on the outside, the characters are written as such. But this small interaction with the childhood photo shows that surface interpretations are not an accurate representation of the true man. Colin isn't actually the right match on a more intimate level, and Billy, for all intents and purposes is more loving and compassionate to Madelyn's true self.

Question: Why at the end, after the Predators have appeared before Danny Glover to give him the pistol, do they camouflage themselves again? Being that they're on their own ship, and no hunt is in progress... Camouflaging themselves just seems like the special effects technicians wanted to indulge themselves one more time before the end of the movie.

Paul Weston

Chosen answer: It could be a precaution to keep him from attacking them once their backs are turned.

Captain Defenestrator

Question: In one of the very first scenes set in one of the plantation slave huts, Solomon is struggling to sleep. He is sleeping on the floor squashed amongst many other slaves. During this scene, what looks like a white youngish woman encourages him to touch her. A little earlier we see her sitting on the porch of the slave hut eating alone whilst the slaves are eating. As far as I could tell, she doesn't appear again in the film. Who is she? Does she play a greater role in the book? Was there more of a story here that ended up on the cutting room floor?

Answer: It was a fellow slave. As to whether or not she has a greater role in the book I can't say, but I interpreted the scene to demonstrate how far removed from his former life Solomon had fallen; rutting on the floor in front of everyone else like an animal.

Phixius

Question: The other night me and some friends were arguing whether or not the shot that Brody makes to blow the tank up to kill Bruce was possible, or would it be too hard to make?

liezander

Chosen answer: It would certainly be very difficult, with the shark moving and hitting the tank while slightly underwater. But it wouldn't be impossible.

Greg Dwyer

Answer: This theory was tested on "Mythbusters" and the myth was "busted", twice. https://mythresults.com/mythbusters-vs-jaws.

wizard_of_gore

The Mythbusters did indeed bust that myth by failing to cause the tanks to explode. In case anyone disputes the technology, they used the same type of scuba tanks, rifle, and ammunition that were used in the movie.

raywest

Answer: While taking the shot and hitting the tank could be possible, it would not result in an explosion.

What was shown on Mythbusters was the tank, when filled with compressed air, became a flailing projectile as the air escaped from a bullet hole.

raywest

Question: The Hogwarts letter states that the recipient has been "accepted" into the school, so are there other magical schools for those who aren't chosen for Hogwarts?

Answer: Every wizard child is accepted to Hogwarts. It's merely the school's way of formally wording the letters to new students. For Muggle-born wizard children or ones like Harry who never knew he was a wizard, the wording may be slightly different. There are other schools of magic, but not in England. As seen in HP and the Goblet of Fire, there is also Durmstrang and Beaux Batons, among others. Also, not all English wizard children attend Hogwarts. Some study in another country or at home, though most go Hogwarts. Muggle-born wizard children are not forced to be trained in magic.

raywest

Question: I've always wondered if Booth shot those hunters because he was pissed off at that one guy for shooting the duck; or because he felt it was the perfect time to test the effectiveness of his home made gun. Any thoughts on this?

Enchantress

Chosen answer: The two hunters had now seen his face so they had to be killed. If they reported Booth to the police as "a weirdo in the woods with a powerful gun" (or whatever) his face would become known to the authorities and his chances of getting anywhere near the president would be zero.

The_Iceman

Question: In the apartment scene where Nick is sitting awkwardly listening to Tom and Myrtle "do it", what is the dog eating on the plate? Because, at one point, the plate is empty and then you hear a plopping noise and there is more (food?) on the plate. What is it?

Answer: According to the script, it's a "soggy dog biscuit [dissolving] into a saucer of milk".

Sierra1

Question: I have 2 questions. When Billy takes the mogwai to his science teacher to demonstrate how they multiply, is it Gizmo that he drips the water on? Or is it one of the first five? Also what happens to him when he changes into a gremlin? Is it safe to assume that he ended up joining with the others? I don't recall the movie ever explaining what happened to him when he escaped through the air vent.

Enchantress

Chosen answer: It is one of the first five. You can easily tell after he drops the water on it, the 2 gremlins are on either side of the box communicating with each other. They show them both and neither is Gizmo. As for what happened after it escaped in the air vent, it never shows so we assume it joined the others.

lartaker1975

Question: What did Cyborg do with Yo-Yo after he catches her? Right after he catches her, he suddenly jumps up on the roof with Batman and talks with very little time in between.

Quantom X

Chosen answer: He probably turned her over to the police. There's no knowing how much time passed between when he caught her and when he jumped on the roof to chat with Batman.

Casual Person

Show generally

Question: In the movie, Mr. Krabs opens "The Krusty Krab 2" and looks like it's succeeding. But the episodes premiered after the movie came out don't show the restaurant. Did it go out of business?

Answer: SpongeBob creator Stephen Hillenburg said that the movie is set after all episodes of the TV series, even the ones that were made after the film was released, so Krusty Krab 2 hasn't opened in the TV show timeline.

Sierra1

Answer: Even if it did open during the TV series, we know that Mr. Krabs is extremely cheap and might have not wanted to pay taxes.

Question: When Blazcowicz wakes up after the head trauma, why is he in a mental institution and not a hospital? He wasn't crazy, merely injured from shrapnel that got stuck in his head.

Answer: The trauma left him in a fugue state. An ordinary hospital would not have been equipped for that kind of potentially lifelong care needed in the 1940s, so they would have had him committed.

Captain Defenestrator

Question: When Ripley is climbing into the escape shuttle with Jones in the box, in the background is loads of fire being blasted. It's certainly not coming from Ripley's flamethrower. What's going on here?

Chosen answer: Ripley has initiated the destruct sequence and systems are failing and malfunctioning as the ship prepares to explode. The flames are mostly for visual effect, however, allowing the audience to see what is happening and to heighten the sense of drama and suspense.

raywest

Roomies - S7-E8

Question: In this episode, Samantha moves out of her too noisy dorm room and into a professor's empty house along with an engaged couple, Beth and Benjamin. Benjamin is played by Matthew Perry, who played Chandler Bing on Friends. My question is whether this is the role used to create the Chandler character, because they are so similar.

stormy602

Chosen answer: Most likely this is a type of character he excels at playing and when Friends was being cast he fit the part.

raywest

Question: Why do they simply kill dozens of people in the movie, but with him it has to be something long and drawn out, like poison in the hospital or drugs in the parking garage?

Answer: Because the killers need to make Liam Neeson's death look accidental. The police think Neeson is crazy, and is not telling the truth when he claims Liz is his wife. The police simply think that Neeson is mentally ill and so dismiss his stories and allegations as untrue. However, if Neeson is then found murdered, there is the possibility that the police think Neeson might have been telling the truth, investigate, and foil the villains' plot. Therefore, Neeson must be killed to stop him investigating - but he must he killed inauspiciously, so it looks like an accident, so as not to make the police suspicious. Thus the poison in hospital - hopefully it would be put down as a standard non suspicious hospital death. And the drugs in the car park at the end of the film are deliberately mentioned by Professor Rodney Cole as being essential in making Neeson's death look an accident. Cole says that Neeson will seem to have killed himself with heroin and so will not consider his death suspicious. So basically these elaborate ways of killing are in order to make Neeson's murder seem an accident and so not make the police investigate.

swordfish

Question: Can students arrive at Hogwarts without riding on the train first? Surely some of the Hogsmeade residents have children, and it doesn't make sense for them to go to London and get on a train just to go right back to the Hogsmeade/Hogwarts area.

Answer: Children from anywhere but Hogsmeade must take the train.

Question: A while after the Yule ball scene, after Harry wakes up from a nightmare, Neville comes in. He says something like "I got in! Me!" What is he talking about? What did he get into?

Answer: What Neville means is that he's only just got back in from being at the Ball, despite it being extremely late at night. The "Me!" simply reflects that fact that even Neville is aware that of everyone in the dormitory, he is unquestionably the one you'd least expect to be the last one back. Exactly what Neville has been up to is an open question, but he certainly seems excited about it. Alternatively, since Neville has a reputation for forgetting the password to the Gryffindor common room, "I got in! Me!" probably means that he is marveling at the fact that he remembered the password and actually got in to the common room and dormitories without any help.

Tailkinker

Question: Has it ever been explained what happens to a wizard/witch if they don't repay a life debt? Harry should owe one to Snape after Snape rescues him from Quirrell's curse during the Quidditch game, but he never does throughout the series.

Answer: It does not appear that life debts automatically form whenever somebody saves somebody else - J K Rowling has, for example, stated that Ginny did not incur a life debt to Harry when he saved her in the Chamber of Secrets, although she said nothing about what circumstances need to occur for a debt to exist. In Snape's case, there would seem to be several possibilities. 1) A life debt simply didn't form. 2) Snape is protecting Harry because of his love for Lily and his failure to save her, so he may actually be paying off a debt of sorts himself by doing so. 3) Harry's father James saved Snape from almost certain death when Sirius tried to trick him into going into the Shrieking Shack when Remus Lupin was in his wolf form. As such, Sirius may have owed James a debt, which he paid off by saving Harry. 4) A life debt did form but, as Snape died before Harry could pay it off and, insofar as we know, had no relatives that the debt could pass to, Harry was let off the hook.

Tailkinker

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