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.

Chosen answer: At the end of the movie, the police ask Kyle to look at a photo to ID the morgue director. So he was in on it. He had to be because Gene/Carson didn't have the code to open the casket. Therefore he could not have put the explosives into the casket. Remember he needed Kyle to leave it open on the plane.

Chosen answer: It was a bottle of turpentine.

Methylated spirit, always coloured purple.

Answer: It was actually mouthwash.

Question: What is the name of the song that comes on when Ben Affleck wakes up and turns on the radio?

Answer: Hang on, by Seether.

Question: Doesn't the water tower fall completely to the ground during the buffalo stampede in the original theatrical release? It's missing in the DVD release.

Answer: Yes, the water tower did indeed fall completely over in the initial release. I saw it fall all the way to the ground and release a flood of water. What happened was that the tower fell on the rump of one of the buffaloes, and the buffalo stumbled and got up and continued running. Later the animal rights people objected to the scene, so it was removed from the DVD, and all that was left was the tower shown leaning over.

Answer: Footage of the water tower falling has NEVER appeared in the film. My first viewing of the film was in Cinerama in 1962 and the tower doesn't fall over. It doubtless was supposed to fall over but for technical reasons it didn't come out right, and so no footage beyond seeing it wobble a bit has ever been in the film.

This answer is incorrect. The original release did have the tower fall over completely. There's even a picture of the flooding after it falls over. It was since deleted. Http://www.daveswarbirds.com/HTWWW/deleted_scenes.htm.

Bishop73

I agree. The tower fell and water poured out. I saw this movie in Cinerama in 1963. For years later, I wondered why I never saw that scene in its entirety again. A shame that for a mistake that caused the unintentional death of an animal, the scene should no longer be viewed by anyone.

Answer: I saw the film in Cinerama the week it came out and the water tower didn't fall. I remember being puzzled by the shot of it falling in the souvenir program.

Chosen answer: After framing her for the killing at the hotel her and Morgan were staying in he must have known that she would not rest until the quest was over because it was a personal insult to her. He could have known her attitude while studying her as he did the rest of the team. His studies would also show him that Aaron would send her home to rest because he needed her mind fresh. He puts what he knows of the two team mates from studying them and comes to the assumption she was going to be sent home to rest.

oddy knocky

Question: Is it a fair and accurate observation of the movie to say that the plot and Fantasia itself is about Bastian coming to terms with the death of his mother? Also, is it fair to say that the Childlike Empress/ Moonchild in Fantasia is Bastian's mother in reality?

Answer: I think both of those are fair assumptions. If you pay attention to the plot inside fantasia the story is of atreyu paying through difficult times and becoming a man, something a young boy may have to do in order to put the death of his mother in the past. Also he names the empress his mother's name, showing he sees her as somewhat of a mother figure to him even though she is a child herself.

oddy knocky

Question: After the saber-tooth squirrel named Scrat was eaten by a shark, how did he get out of it?

Answer: Because he is a survivor and this is a cartoon. There were plenty of other times through the series scrat was put in a deadly situation only to return later. In the first movie alone he was trampled by a dinosaur, electrocuted with a lightning bolt, and frozen in ice until he thawed near the volcano thousands of years later.

oddy knocky

Question: How did Dent figure out that Lau was dirty? Before the rooftop scene, where he yells at Gordon for not keeping him in the loop, there was never any indication that Dent was aware of Lau's dirty dealings.

Brad

Chosen answer: Lau transferred all the mob bosses' money to China and fled to Hong Kong, because he said the DA's office was about to raid the banks. So if Dent's office was keeping tabs on the mob accounts in preparation for the raid, they would have detected the transfers and linked them to Lau.

Chosen answer: Because his employers discovered he had put grass (marijuana) in the salad and got all the dinner guests high. Well, he didn't, the cook did. But he brought it into the house so he was fired.

Chosen answer: The Matt Smith pronunciation in this episode seems to be the outlier. Metebelis 3 was first mentioned and shown in the Jon Pertwee stories "The Green Death" and "Planet of the Spiders". In those stories, and in Sarah Jane Adventures it was pronounced 'Meh-teh-beel-is'.

Sierra1

Question: I mostly understand the nature of the "kicks", but one thing I don't understand is what the kick was that woke the characters up from the 1st dream layer, the one with the van falling off the bridge. Falling off the skyscraper woke Ariadne up in the snow fortress layer, the fortress collapsing woke them up in the hotel layer, and the elevator crashing woke them up in the van layer. What woke the characters up, all at the same time, in the van layer?

Answer: You've got it a bit backward. Falling off the skyscraper (dying) got her out of limbo and back to the snow fortress so that when the elevator crashed at the hotel, THAT kick would be able to wake her out of the snow fortress. Then the van crashing woke her from the hotel, and finally the time entered into the dream machine itself expired and woke them all simultaneously for the final time. The only ways to wake up are to die within the dream or receive a kick from the level above the dream you're in, whether that's in another dream or the waking world.

Phixius

Chosen answer: He most likely has an artificial heart or some type of system that circulates his blood, this system doesn't necessarily have to take the shape of a typical human heart. However if his biological heart is still functional, it may be behind the lungs.

Answer: Watch again the scene (s), especially close to the end when his armor is reverted to silver and just between his lungs; his heart is just behind his lungs and beating, though if you blink you might miss it.

Erik M.

Except the heart is located in front of the lungs, not behind them.

lionhead

Why Murphy's heart isn't where it should be in a normal human is up to speculation-perhaps the transformation into a cyborg necessitated it's being repositioned, perhaps. The heart is there, though.

Erik M.

Answer: Mort is Jewish, and Walt Disney was said to be antisemitic. So it would make sense in a Disney universe all the inhabitants would share his supposed beliefs.

MasterOfAll

Question: When Peter meets up with Gwen after Uncle Ben leaves the school, what does he mean when he says he got "community service"? Does he mean Uncle Ben's request to pick up Aunt May or replying to Gwen's answer of getting expelled?

Answer: He was replying to Gwen's question about being expelled. He didn't get expelled and the school wasn't going to make him pay for the broken backboard, but instead gave him community service, as a way of paying for the backboard and punishment.

Bishop73

Answer: He's telling Gwen that he's been grounded.

How? Peter doesn't tell Gwen that he's "grounded" nor did Uncle Ben tell Peter he's "grounded".

Cody Fairless-Lee

Community Service was probably a way of saying that Peter was grounded.

Question: Mortianna is seen practicing some sort of magic, and in the extended addition we see the Sheriff "praying" (I think) in front of an upside-down crucifix. And he assures Mortianna that his true faith lies in the "old ways." I'm trying to figure out: Is this art Mortianna and the Sheriff practice supposed to be Devil worship? Black magic with no real base, that they just invented for the movie? A form of pre-Christian religion, e.g. something like the Druidic religions of pre-Roman Britain? For the life of me, I can't put my finger on it.

Answer: The white robes, reference to "the old ways", and pentagram across the map when the Sheriff meets the Barons suggests per-Christian Druidism; the upside down crucifix certainly implies Devil-worship. These two spiritual paths are, by nature, mutually exclusive. In short, a fictional pseudo-witchcraft invented for the film, yes.

Answer: It is a type of witchcraft which involves devil worship, yes.

Phixius

Question: When Daryl is confronted by his friends, he tells them that he was forced to swallow something. What was it and why kill him if he was forced to do it?

Answer: It was a tracking device which gave away their location. Since they couldn't remove it, they decided to kill him as he was now a liability.

Gavin Jackson

They killed him because he betrayed them.

How was Daryl forced to swallow it? Did they manage to apprehend him and force it down his throat, or was it something else entirely?

Question: Near the end of the film, the plane stuck on the ground is pressurised before it can move out of the way. Why is it pressurised if it's on the ground and not in the air?

kh1616

Chosen answer: Patroni isn't referring to the cabin pressure, he says to "pressurize the manifold" - part of the engine start procedure of a Boeing 707, which I believe involves a ground crew pumping gas (nitrogen?) from a cart into the intake manifold.

Sierra1

Pressurize - as in the manifold, to turn on bleed air from the APU - on board Auxiliary Power Unit - a small jet engine that provides electrical and pneumatic air to operate aircraft systems including starting engines.

Question: If the island sinks underwater at regular intervals, then what happens to the tiny elephants, giant bees, etc (and the whole ecosystem) while the island is underwater?

Answer: There is a deleted scene on the DVD/Bluray where they attempt to give an explanation. Kailani asks "What happens to the animals when the island sinks? They can't all die!". Alexander replies "Even the mammals develop quasi-amphibian characteristics. They just burrow below the ground's surface and absorb the oxygen through their skin."

Sierra1

Question: After Gimli finds Merry's knife sheath among the dead orcs, Legolas bows and says a few words in Elvish. What are they and what do they mean?

Answer: "Hiro hyn hîdh ab 'wanath." ("May they find peace in death").

Sierra1

Question: When Rene Russo and her team are breaking into his house there is music playing with a great beat. What is the music and artist, or was it made just for the movie?

Answer: Sadly, this track, known as either "Cleaning Service" or "Catherine's Break In" was only ever released on a VERY rare, expanded version of the score in 2001. Since then it has become extremely difficult to find.

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