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: When Lance went to go get the car when they were leaving the shelter, and found Harper's black book and iPad, whose purse was that sitting on the front seat of SUV? The purse that had the black book and iPad in it? That totally confused me.

Answer: It was Mia's purse.

Answer: "No More Mr. Nice Guy" by Alice Cooper; this scene directly mirrors a scene from "Dazed and Confused", music and all.

zendaddy621

Question: After Pippin touches the Palantir and he is lying on the ground, is he dead then brought to life by Gandalf? I was under the impression he was dead at first because he is lying with his eyes open then Gandalf closes his eyes with his hand. Why is he lying with his eyes open? Why does Gandalf put his hand over his eyes?

mir92

Chosen answer: He wasn't dead, only stunned. It happened so fast, that his eyes remained opened when he was knocked unconscious. Gandalf is just closing his eyes to protect them. Leaving eyes exposed could cause permanent damage,.

raywest

Question: Hagrid says "There isn't a wizard alive today who's not half-blood or less." But what about Ron, Draco, Neville, and several other characters who are described as purebloods?

Answer: Hagrid is speaking hyperbolically about the declining number of pureblood wizards.

Greg Dwyer

Question: Why would the clones receive brains? Why not just leave them in a coma-like state? If you would replace the owner's brain, then the owner wouldn't be the same person, even if you'd rewrite it. You could say that you could replace part of the brain only, but even in that case, the clones could be kept in a drug-induced coma.

Answer: Merrick explains (albeit briefly) that the clones needed "human emotion...life" or the organs failed.

Friso94

Question: Why aren't Rosalie and Jasper surnamed Cullen? I can't understand why they are Hale and not Cullen.

Answer: Rosalie refuses to give up her human last name - per Stephenie Meyer. She holds on to as much of her past life as she can. Since she and Jasper look enough alike, they pose as brother and sister, therefore Jasper takes the name Hale. They do this to try to fit in with humans - making the story whatever humans will easily believe - the less they have to explain the better. They also take the name Hale to avoid there being confusion or at worst perception of incest with the couples having the same last names, it would raise even more questions about something that's already frowned upon.

Question: True or False: once a missile has been fired at you it's locked on to hit you and no way that banking hard would evade an incoming missile, unless you use countermeasures of flare and or chaff?

TShep81

Chosen answer: False. Missiles are fast, but they are not as agile as most fighter jets. One of the problems the first Sidewinder missiles encountered was that the target planes could simply out turn them (which is explained as the purpose of Top Gun in the movie). Missiles have gotten better, but so have the planes. In close quarter combat, like shown in this movie, fighters could potentially turn away from a missile.

Friso94

Answer: To clarify, there are different types of missiles with different types of seekers. IR (infrared), also known as heat seeking - these are used in close range and track the target aircraft's heat from its engine. To defeat this, the targeted aircraft would use a combination of maneuver and flare (designed to be a hotter heat signature than the engine). SAR (semi active radar) - medium range, where the firing aircraft uses its own radar to lock the missile onto the target. Once the missile has enough tracking fidelity of its own, it takes over its own guidance and the firing aircraft can maneuver away from the target. To defeat, the targeted aircraft uses a combination of maneuver and chaff (metal particles designed to trick the incoming missile into thinking that is the airplane). AR (active radar) - medium to long range, the missile uses its own radar system to track, acquire, and seek. It's defeated the same as SAR missiles.

CUAviator

Chosen answer: He "searched his feelings" as Vader instructed; he reached out with the Force and felt the truth of the statement.

Phixius

Answer: The vision Luke sees in the cave on Dagobah is a clue to this. Luke is realizing he has a lot more in common with Darth Vader than the idealized father he'd always imagined. When Vader tells him he's his father, Luke doesn't want to believe it, but he simply can't deny that it feels much more true that his father would be someone passionate and reckless like himself rather than someone who exemplifies a noble Jedi, which feels like an obvious myth in hindsight.

TonyPH

Question: The trivia section states that this film was originally given an R rating for "a single sound effect." Anybody have any idea what that sound effect was?

Answer: The sound effect that was not included in the movie was the sound of Lucius Hunt being stabbed by Noah. Once this sound effect was removed, the movie was allowed to be rated PG-13.

Question: During the scene where the soldiers are running away from the fighting or "the Mogadishu mile" there is a soldier carrying a SAW who appears in many of the shots during this scene, but never throughout the rest of the movie. He is seen at the lead of the group just before and when they emerge from the fog and are greeted by the African children. He appears to be too tall and broad shouldered to be Twombly or Waddell. Who is this soldier?

Answer: This soldier is Dale "Adonis" Sizemore, played by British actor Matthew Marsden. It was documented that he grabbed a SAW to enter the battle with Struecker's column of Humvees when they made their 2nd trip into the battle of Mogadishu. He was shown in several other scenes of the movie - he was the soldier who cut off his cast.

Question: Why does Alex die before Clear? Wasn't she supposed to be next after Carter? I mean, Alex was supposed to die first but Carter intervened making death repeat the cycle according to the path of the explosion which included Carter dying first, then Clear second and finally Alex. Why didn't this happen?

filsch

Chosen answer: His death happened between movies. We don't know how many times they intervened with each other before he finally was killed.

lartaker1975

Answer: In the movie clear tells the others she and Alex saved each other countless times, however if you pause the movie and enlarge the scenes where it's flashing all the news paper articles it tells you that Alex was killed by a falling brick. I do believe Alex pushed clear out of the way of the brick.

Rachel Borden

Answer: Death works backwards now in this movie.

Question: When the Fat Lady portrait is found shredded (by Sirius) there is a baby crying. In the scene you can see a youngish girl holding a crying baby, off to the left in the screen. Why is there a baby at Hogwarts?

Hide Ledge

Chosen answer: It is not an actual mother and baby. Like the Fat Lady, they are one of the many moving portraits hanging on Hogwarts' walls. Look a little closer and you'll see the picture frame surrounding them.

raywest

Question: In the dark future where Sentinels rule all, Xavier and Magneto say that in 1973, Mystique assassinated Trask and was subsequently captured, tortured and presumably killed, leading to the Sentinels' creation. All fine and good, except in a world where Mystique has been dead for 50 years, how did the other X-Men movies happen? Mystique played a large part in those films, and when young Xavier reads Logan's mind, he sees the events of X-Men 3 almost uninterrupted.

Brad

Chosen answer: Evidently she wasn't killed. It took the manufacturers of the Sentinels decades to create Sentinels that could adapt to mutant powers. They likely wouldn't kill Mystique as she would be more useful to them alive, and she probably escaped.

Phaneron

Chosen answer: The post credits scene from "X-Men: The Last Stand" showed that Xavier transferred his consciousness into another person (who was revealed to be his twin brother by the writers) and the final shot in the same film showed Magneto was gaining his powers back, indicating that the cure wasn't permanent.

Phaneron

Question: Could somebody tell me once and for all why every mutant in these films have nicknames?

Gavin Jackson

Chosen answer: Because just like in the comic books, all super heroes and villains have names that are a representation of either the abilities they possess, paraphernalia they use, their personalities, and/or the circumstances of their origin. Magneto is a much more compelling and memorable name for a character than simply calling him Erik. Presumably it also avoids confusion if there are several mutants with the same "regular" name, to have a unique nickname for each one.

Phaneron

Answer: In addition to what was said, the nicknames also provide the individual mutant a way to identity more closely with the fact that they are mutants. As Mystique said in "X-Men: The Last Stand" when addressed as Raven, "I don't answer to my slave name." Many mutants are rejected by their parents when they find out they're mutants, so the "nickname" serves as a way to distance themselves from those that rejected them. In addition, at times their nicknames are called "code names." In this case, it would be a way to address a mutant without using their real identity, in essence a secret identity that's common in almost all superheroes and super villains.

Bishop73

Question: Why is it that Arthur Weasley doesn't die when Nagini bites him, but Severus Snape later dies after being bitten by her?

Answer: Arthur was quickly brought to the hospital after the attack, and it seems like it may have been cut short by Voldemort realizing Harry could sense Nagini and the intervention of the Order. Snape was bitten several times in the face and neck and left to die with no help around. Not only that, but Voldemort magically slits Snape's throat before setting Nagini onto him, which would have sped up his death considerably.

Greg Dwyer

Question: This question is actually about all of the books. Is a "double" class twice as long as normal, or does it contain twice as many students?

Answer: "Double" classes are twice as long.

Cubs Fan

Question: I don't understand why Voldemort needed the prophecy from the Department of Mysteries. Doesn't he already know that Harry can possibly kill him, since Harry conquered him on the night of James and Lily's murders?

Answer: When Voldemort originally attacked Harry, he was acting on information provided to him by Snape. But Snape's information was not complete, ergo why Voldemort lost his powers. He wants the prophecy in order to hear it in its entirety, because he believes it will give him the information he needs to kill Harry.

Cubs Fan

Question: Can someone explain me what are the waves in the edge of the rooms? Sometimes it's like something changed but we see still the same room. I also wonder what are the sounds that we hear in some rooms of people talking at a strange way.

Loesjuh1985

Chosen answer: If by speaking strange you're referring to Max and Julia, then it is because they are in different timed rooms, Julia is in a fast speaking time room whereas Max is in a slow speaking time room, hence the strange speaking.

Question: How did they film the shot with the different colour medicines coming out of the same bottle?

Answer: Most likely a variation on the "inexhaustible bottle" magic trick which has existed in various forms for hundreds of years - it relies on different chambers holding different liquids, and air holes in the bottle being covered or not change the pressure and allow the desired liquid to flow out. As the scene is one continuous shot with the entire bottle visible, this seems most likely - the air holes could be on the side away from the camera, with Julie Andrews repositioning her thumb for each colour. More info here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inexhaustible_bottle.

Jon Sandys

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