Answered questions about specific movies, TV shows and more

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Question: Gretel was 5 years old and the mother died seven years ago. Who is Gretel's mom?

Answer: In the film, the Mother Abess explains to Maria that the Captain Von Trapp's wife died "several years" ago. This is commonly misheard by viewers as "seven years." In reality, the actual mother of the Von Trapp children was Agathe Whitehead, who died of scarlet fever in 1922, just four years before Maria came to the Von Trapp home, initially as a tutor (not a governess) in 1926.

Michael Albert

Answer: However when Captain Von Trapp gets the children to step forward and introduce themselves to Maria he states that their mother died 7 years ago.

Not in the 1965 film, perhaps in another version. In the 1965 film the only thing he says about his late wife when he first meets Maria is "you'll be the 12th governess...since their mother died." When he has the children introduce themselves, he only advises Maria to pay attention to their signals and names. Later after he leaves and the children say how old they are, Marta says "I'll be 7 on Tuesday."

Bishop73

Question: When they look at the map showing the route to the time machine, is the line a different color than the line they actually follow to get to the time machine? (My 11 yr old son thinks it was blue and then they followed the red line).

Answer: There are two lines on the map. The red line leads to the time machine and the blue line leads to freedom. Reggie refused to go on an adventure and just wanted to spend his freedom eating pizza and watching TV, so when looking for the way out, he told Jake that the blue line was the way to the time machine in hopes of escaping. Unfortunately, because they were chased by government agents, they ended up following the red line and finding the time machine.

Question: The narrative for this franchise takes place over thousands of years, yet Middle Earth is always in a medieval stasis. Has any reason been provided as to why Middle Earth never advances technologically?

Phaneron

Chosen answer: The presence of real magic in the world, and the fact that evil demi-gods and sorcerers keep trying to destroy it every few thousand years, makes technological advancement an endeavor no one sees much need for. Saruman makes some advances in it at Isengard, and in the novel the Shire had been very industrialized by Saruman's takeover when the hobbits return home to it.

Phixius

Answer: The simple answer would be "he must have trained and gotten fitter." If it were the other way around, fit then a season later unfit, it would be more confusing.

XIII

Answer: The two scenarios are very different. When Kripke and Sheldon are playing basketball, Kripke is not familiar with the sport, and in trying to win, uses up a lot of his energy too quickly, without preserving it properly. When Kripke is using the cross trainer, he is familiar with how to use it, and knows what the appropriate speed he should be running at, and preserves more of his energy, so in this scenario, doesn't become exhausted as easily. Plus, since he is more familiar with the cross trainer, it is likely that he has exercised before and the condition of his health has improved in between episodes.

Casual Person

Question: Todd has been raised from birth to be totally emotionless. When he is thrown out of the colony, what caused him to cry?

Answer: Emotions aren't just learned. Some are inborn and can't be fully suppressed.

Greg Dwyer

Question: If everyone involved in the scheme knew that Clayton's mother would get in the way and really didn't want to let Jack do the surgery why did they call her to the hospital? Yes she's on the call sheet but couldn't they erase her name of the sheet to make the surgery and scheme go smoother? I mean it's $100 million dollars at stake and they have had a year to plan everything out.

sunfox35

Chosen answer: They still had to follow hospital protocol, they couldn't risk getting into trouble over a technicality at such a critical stage of their plan. Since he had just married Jessica Alba, her rights as his wife now superseded those of his mother, and so as far as the scheming group knew, the mother was essentially powerless to make decisions for her son. They had no way of knowing she would go to the lengths that she did to save him.

Purple_Girl

Question: Libria does have technology and computer abilities. This is evident with the screens showing Father, the vehicles, and the TV station in a later scene. But when Preston was asking about the book that he thought Partridge had archived, the man behind the desk has a gigantic book to have to flip through to find it. If they do have and use technology, why would they use a book for archiving items like that when a computer would make it SO much easier?

Quantom X

Chosen answer: Because the information is very important to them, they could have decided against having it all on a computer system which could theoretically break down in the event of a power cut/surge or hacker sabotage, while a book cannot lose information unless physically destroyed.

Purple_Girl

Question: I've seen this movie over 100 times and I know every single word, but when I watched it a few days ago on Netflix I noticed straight away that the talking sounded completely different and some words where changed, in the cold turkey scene Renton was supposed to say "i don't feel the sickness yet but it's in the POST, that's for sure", but on the Netflix version he says "I don't feel the sickness yet but its in the MAIL, that's for sure", why was this changed and did all the actors have to re-do the whole film in audio?

dan coakley..

Chosen answer: I can only assume it would have been done for the benefit of international audiences. To Brits, 'post' is commonly used as a noun describing any item received that was posted in the mail system, rather than just as a verb to describe the act of sending something in the mail. Typical small changes of word meanings that makes perfect sense to someone in Britain may easily confuse a viewer from another country.

Purple_Girl

Is this for real they don't think people are smart enough to know the post is the mail? Like we have post offices it's not like it's so far out there we couldn't figure it out my god.

Bear in mind "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" was retitled entirely to "Sorcerer's Stone" in the USA. Movie studios are desperate to avoid audiences being confused, whether that's warranted or not.

Chosen answer: Due to the relatively shallow depth that the microwave heat reaches to in a short time, a large chunk of raw meat (i.e. a human) would take a very long time to 'cook' to the core, so the reality of 'bursting' like that is very unlikely; death is more likely to come from the extensive level of damage done to the skin and layers beneath, and the progressive boiling of bodily fluids. It would certainly take longer than a few seconds as portrayed in the film.

Purple_Girl

Question: Who is the man in the picture in the office of the hospital? Is it supposed to be Nick Nolte when he was young, working as the night watchman?

dan coakley..

Chosen answer: It is intended as a nod to the original 1994 version of the film, which supposedly featured the same picture in the watchman's booth.

Purple_Girl

The Girl with Two Breasts - S1-E5

Question: What language is Jeff speaking when we see through Shedayem's point of view? I suppose it could be gibberish, but I really do think it's a real language, if only for the fact that you can plainly understand when he says "translator" as "translatet."

Knever

Chosen answer: It is completely improvised gibberish, created by actor Richard Coyle.

Purple_Girl

Something About Dr. Mary - S7-E16

Question: In the café, Chuck tells Roz something about his wife leaving him for someone. What does he say? I can't make out the last part of his sentence.

Answer: He says that his wife left him in the Caribbean for a Rastafarian. It sounds like 'wasta-fah-wian' due to his speech impediment.

Purple_Girl

Answer: It's called "We've only just begun".

Bonnie Cottrell

Question: Are Telly's husband Jim, her friend Eliot and Dr. Munce a part of the aliens' plot and if so, why would they agree to such an experiment?

Answer: They weren't and they didn't. They were "brainwashed" into believing that there never was a child.

Bonnie Cottrell

Well true except for Dr. Munce, who was aware but didn't think he had a choice.

Answer: My best guess from examining the necklace in pictures would be that it is a silver chain accented with small diamonds placed at equidistant intervals. The pendant looks to be a shell cameo, but it's hard to make out from a distance. The costume designer for the episode is listed as Lori Eskowitz-Carter. She does have a Facebook page. In service to your question, I sent her a message asking about the necklace, and will add an update to this post if and when I receive an answer. You might get a faster response by paying Facebook $1.00, which will get the message directly to her in-box. She may not see my question unless she looks for it.

Michael Albert

Question: When the demonologist comes over, Micah says that they shouldn't invite Katie's mother over anymore since the demon feeds on negative energy. Didn't her mother die (as seen in the third movie)? I know she didn't die in the fire. But she died before the first movie, right?

Answer: Yes, the Paranormal Activity series is rife with timeline plot holes such as this.

Purple_Girl

Answer: When their mother died and the girls got brainwashed by the cult and got some of their memory erased another woman in the coven (I'm assuming she was a part of the coven) took on the role as their mother, it was mentioned in Paranormal activity the ghost dimension, also you can hear their "mother" talking to them in a deleted scene from the paranormal activity ghost dimension.

Question: On Endor when the rebels get caught, there is one rebel dressed as a speeder bike rider with no helmet. What is with that?

Answer: The rebel was left outside to guard from Imperial attacks, he couldn't have just stood out there in his rebel forest gear.

TJ Brandt

A Benihana Christmas - S3-E10

Question: Is there a specific reason that the two girls from the restaurant are played by different actors when they get to the office? I couldn't imagine it has anything to do with the idea of Asian people looking similar out-of-universe, so I know there must be something else.

Knever

Chosen answer: Why couldn't that be the reason? As you can see, throughout the rest of the episode, one of the running jokes is that Michael can't figure out which girl is which anyway. That's not the writers saying that all Asians look alike. They're saying that they simply look alike to Michael. Because for all his profession that he is open-minded and forward-thinking, it's clear throughout the run of the show that he's actually not quite as forward-thinking as he thinks he is.

Garlonuss

Additionally, the fact is that, due to scheduling issues, they were unable to get the same actresses as they used for the earlier scene. If I remember correctly, they mention this in the commentary for that episode. It just also happened to become another level of the joke that they were already planning on making later on.

Garlonuss

Question: When Dr. Kogan is meeting with Marcus, she gets Marcus to sign over his body for research following his death. Later in the film, Marcus discovers that he's been turned into a cyborg. Why did she do this to him and what did she hope to accomplish from it?

Answer: Marcus was a prototype. It was to be the first to actually retain your human self within a machine, in other words your soul.

Answer: She worked for Cyberdyne. She did it for whatever reason Cyberdyne wanted her to. They made Cyborgs.

XIII

Question: What song is playing when Jack walks into the Grand Staircase area around 54 and a half minutes into the movie?

jvoz

Chosen answer: "The Blue Danube Waltz" by Johann Strauss II.

Michael Albert

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