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: Lord Blackwood dies through a set of circumstances that cause him to be hanged via chain. My question is this - was it merely coincidence that he ended up in the wrong place and the wrong time for the chain of events to kill him? Or did Holmes know it was going to happen that way it did? It seems a little too convenient to me, so I can't help but wonder if Holmes knew the crane would collapse as it did, setting off the chain of events. (Whether or not he knew if would kill Blackwood).

Answer: It was a coincidence.

MasterOfAll

Question: In the film credits for American Hustle, I have rewound it several times and cannot find Robert De Niro listed, or the character that he plays, Mr. Tellegio. Is there a reason for this?

Answer: It was a cameo role, and most times those are non-credited. Often it is for contractual reasons and whether or not a known actor has to be paid a fee. De Niro appeared as a favor to the director.

raywest

Question: Was Doctor Zaius really aware of what happened to the human race? Many times during the film, he does things that indicate such a possibility, like crushing the paper airplane.

Answer: Yes, he knows what happened and does whatever he can to suppress knowledge about it. He does not want his kind to know that humans were once far superior, which he believes led to their destruction.

raywest

Question: In a post-credit scene, it shows Sinestro taking off his green ring and replacing it with a yellow one. What was the reason for it?

Answer: In the comics Sinestro founded and led the Sinestro Corps, a group similar to the Green Lanterns, but they use the yellow part of the emotional spectrum: fear, rather the the green energy of willpower.

Question: What was Tony's reason that he was afraid of Apollo fighting Rocky again?

Answer: With all the damage Apollo did to Rocky, Rocky still wasn't knocked out. In the film series, Rocky is depicted as having an almost superhuman ability to absorb punches. Rocky also caused internal bleeding in Apollo. Tony knew that Rocky was far more dangerous than anyone realized.

Greg Dwyer

Question: Why is it that the students at Hogwarts are only wearing wizarding hats in the first movie?

Answer: It is typical in a movie series for changes to be made from film-to-film, particularly concerning things like costumes, make-up, set designs, etc. It's a matter of trying something and later deciding it is not really working well. It may have been that the hats were just too cumbersome, were constantly falling off, and were affecting the actors' performances. Also, in the Harry Potter series, there were a number of different directors and each has their own artistic vision and often make subtle changes.

raywest

Question: What did Jack mean when he said "You wouldn't have jumped" after he told Rose that he could see her?

Answer: He means that she never intended to actually jump off from the balcony. He knew she was just acting in a desperate manner because she was so unhappy, but that she did not actually want to kill herself.

raywest

Question: King Kandy, actually being Turbo, is not native to Sugar Rush. But instead of dying when eaten by a cy-bug, he merges into that cy-bug and becomes it. How is it possible that King Kandy is not killed when eaten by a cy-bug? Would have happened to Ralph or anyone else if they got eaten by a cy-bug?

Answer: Calhoun mentions that the Cybugs become what they eat, hence one developing guns after eating a gun, and others developing candy features after eating the candy of sugar rush. The cybug that ate King Kandy became King Kandy, so it's easy to assume, yes, the same thing would happen to Ralph or anyone else.

MasterOfAll

Question: What was that rotting corpse lying in the bath at Buffalo Bill's basement, minutes before the light is shut down? Who did it belong to and what has happened to it?

Answer: The body in the bathtub is Mrs. Lippman, the previous owner of Jame Gumb's home. Notice the long grey hair coming from the scalp. He would have wanted someone young, large, and whole.

Question: Isn't the National Guard supposed to be in the US only? Then why did the sergeant talk about them being in Kandahar?

Answer: The President of the United States could have sent them there. Remember G.W. Bush sent some National Guard troops to Iraq and Afghanistan during the wars.

lartaker1975

Answer: Based on accounts from 5th Office Harold Lowe (played by Ioan Gruffudd), he waited approximately 20 minutes after the sinking to begin the process of freeing up a lifeboat to look for survivors. His whole operation took about 45 minutes. Jack and Rose would have been in the water for probably close to an hour.

Question: When George Clooney and Matt Damon are going to break into the vault they have two small silver round disks that they slide towards the guards. You see these disks pop open but don't see any type of gas or vapor emerge. Any idea what those things were?

Answer: According to the script, they are gas pellets. Most gases are invisible, but a lot of movies show visible vapour for theatrical effect.

Sierra1

Question: Neither Dunbar nor the non-commissioned officer he talks to just before he makes his suicide run at the beginning of the film appear to have to trouser stripe common to officers and non-commissioned officers. Shouldn't they as part of the Union uniform of the era?

Answer: There were variations of the stripes depending on which branch of the Army a soldier was in. The trousers were sky blue and NCOs had a dark blue (infantry), red (artillery) or yellow (cavalry) stripe down the leg. Junior officers which included corporals, had a French blue stripe. Senior officers wore navy blue trousers with a black or gold stripe.

raywest

Question: Why did Lanning build a robot that functioned independently of the USR mainframe, had alloys strong enough to endure vast drops and steal nanites, had a pre-programmed knowledge of Spooner... And then tell it to kill him? Furthermore, it is Sonny's own suggestion to kill Viki with nanites, so why didn't Lanning just get him to jump out the lab and do that, or at least convey a less cryptic message about what was going on?

Answer: People would not likely listen to just the robot. By killing himself he ensured that Spooner would take him seriously. This would also keep VIKI from finding out and planning around it.

Greg Dwyer

But why couldn't Lanning just kill VIKI in the first place?

Because VIKI basically had complete control over him. She could lock him in the lab, stop his access to information, stop him from communicating with others, etc... Developing Sonny allowed him to deceive VIKI and still kill her in the end.

Answer: VIKI was too powerful to fight on his own. VIKI could control the robots.

Question: When 'Jerome' has his blood tested with the syringe, and jumps up pretending to be in pain, he puts his own test tube down on the trolley, but the sample from his arm was in the syringe; why does the doctor not realise that it's not his? Is he in on it, or is the syringe suppose to be filling from the test tube, like the finger print capsules?

Bryn Charles

Chosen answer: Jerome does a little sleight of hand, switching the vials.

Greg Dwyer

Question: I guess I fell asleep, but what is significant about the unrecorded flight that left 7 hours earlier?

Answer: It means Colonel Jessup was lying about the 6am flight being the first flight off the base. He says a few times, and Kaffe confirms it several other times, that after they made the decision to transfer him (which was itself a lie), the next possible flight was 6am the following day. That was incorrect; there was one that left at 11pm that same day. The missing flight proves that Jessup altered the Gitmo log books to remove the 11pm flight, but the Andrews log books will show that same flight landing, thus demonstrating both the lie and the cover-up.

Answer: It would show that the colonel was lying about getting Santiago out of there as soon as possible.

Greg Dwyer

Question: During the Occlumency lessons, when Snape sees the memory of Aunt Marge's dog attacking Harry, why does he want to know whose dog it was?

Answer: There is no specific reason. It could simply be that he is curious.

kristenlouise3

Question: After Marty enters 1885, in his fleeing from the Indians, the DeLorean's fuel line gets ruptured and it loses all its gas. When Marty tells Doc this, Doc says gasoline doesn't even exist yet. However, Doc's DeLorean, which is now hidden in a cave, has its own gas supply in its gas tank and will not need it anymore, as 1955 Doc would just refill it after getting it out of the cave. Why didn't Doc siphon the gas from his DeLorean, and refill Marty's? He said the only problem at that moment was no gas. Not that he could not patch the fuel line, which would have been easy.

Scott Miller

Chosen answer: We don't know how much gas was in the De Lorean when it got struck by lightning - Doc may not have bothered to top-up regularly as he was using the anti-gravity (powered by Mr Fusion) a lot, and also Biff had used the car and may have used up some fuel. As Doc was putting it in storage, he would have drained the fuel before putting it in the mine to prevent damage (and 1955 Doc implies the tank was empty and that he filled it up) He also may have been reluctant to tamper with the car in the 1880s as it could have been damaged or destroyed (by a mine collapse), thus leaving him stranded in the 1880s and Marty in the 1950s with no time machine.

Sierra1

Answer: When putting any vehicle into storage for a long time, fluids must be drained from the vehicle. 1985 Doc most likely did this after being sent to 1885.

Question: During the scene in which Matt detaches himself from Ryan so that he does not pull her away with him, why didn't he bounce back towards her when the rope snapped taut? Was there something that kept pushing/pulling him away that I missed?

Answer: If they had been tightly tethered to the space station, he would have bounced back toward her. But her foot was only tangled in parachute cords, so that when the tether snapped taught all it did was begin to pull her away from the station as the parachute cords gave more and more slack, slipping more and more loose as they drifted further away.

Phixius

Question: On which continent does the movie start?

Answer: Antarctica.

Friso94

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.