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: Does this movie take place in the same universe as ALIENS?

Answer: No. The Alien franchise, which kicks off in the year 2122, depicts a human civilisation in possession of faster-than-light transport and multiple interstellar colonies. The civilisation seen in Avatar, the majority of which is set in 2154, do not appear to have FTL travel, as they take six years to travel to the Alpha Centauri system, a distance of approximately 4.5 light years.

Tailkinker

Chosen answer: No, the closest we ever get to see is at the end when a hatch opens up and one of the aliens slips out of the hatch.

GalahadFairlight

Chef Aid - S2-E14

Question: During the trial, why does Johnnie Cochran state that Chewbacca lives on Endor? It's never said in the Star Wars movies that Chewbacca lives there.

Answer: He doesn't. The whole point of the scene is to satirise legal arguments, in that Cochran is basically talking complete nonsense in order to bamboozle the jury into taking his side, distracting them from the real issue with a barrage of red herrings.

Tailkinker

Question: When they realise where Doug is, someone (I can't remember who said it) says, "You can't open hotel room windows in Vegas." Is this true? If so, why not?

Answer: It is true. Its a safety issue. Unfortunately people in Vegas can get a little desperate, and most hotels on the strip are high rises. Someone could lose the rent money or something like that, and jump. Or get drunk and fall out. Most hotels, even in other cities don't have operational windows for safety reasons. I worked for a major strip casino, and we knew of several suicides because of gambling issues, and making the windows non operational helps to eliminate casino/hotel liability. If there are windows you can open, they are usually tiny as to not allow anyone through. Also, its HOT in Vegas, so AC is used most of the time anyway.

Kimberly Mason

Question: I submitted a mistake where the soldiers hear the blockade runner docking with the star destoyer before they come into contact. Someone corrected me saying that they were hearing the effects of a tractor beam on the ship. Does the book mention a tractor beam being used to capture the ship?

Answer: The blockade runner's not going to be docking willingly with the Star Destroyer that's been shooting at it. Something has to be moving the runner into the docking bay, and use of a tractor beam to capture ships is established elsewhere in the movies. It's a reasonable assumption that the same system is used in this scene.

Tailkinker

Chosen answer: De-atomized. The same thing that was happening to Wolverine at the climax, except Cyclops couldn't heal himself as it was happening.

Phixius

Chosen answer: Probably the only known conflict among them was when Matthew Perry had issues with prescription drugs and alcohol; the other Friends pressured him into seeking help during the series' run. Other than that, it appears the six had a pretty close relationship. They apparently have not all been together in a long time (until the Friends Reunion on MAX), but that's largely due to scheduling issues and that some of them are naturally closer to some of the cast than others. Cox, Anniston, and Kudrow are the closest. Anniston was the one who reached out to Perry the most.

raywest

Question: After someone gets his memory erased, Lacuna sends a note to the related to ask them to no longer talk about the erased thing. Why does Lacuna intentionally not inform Joel that he had been erased from Clem's memory? (Joel's father ends up giving him his note and Dr Mierzwiak says he shouldn't have seen it). This won't prevent him getting hurt. After Clem erased him from her memory, he could have talked to her about their relation.

Answer: Clem would have had to tell the doctor the names and addresses of all the people whom she wanted to send a note to. Obviously she didn't want anything sending to Joel for fear of hurting him.

Manky

Question: When the couple had flour on the floor between their room and the hallway at night, I seemed to be the only one that noticed that the footprints of the 'demon', who apparently walked on the flour, only had three toes. I couldn't find the scene when watching it again, so I'm asking you if you've seen the same.

Roar

Chosen answer: I noticed the three toed footprint as well. It was kind of like a chicken's foot.

Question: Where did the filming for this movie take place? I assume there are many different areas, but the place I'm most interested in is the lagoon, where we see the brothers fishing, and where Richard has his encounter with the shark. Also, is this a populated area? It looks like it could be a good tourist attraction.

Knever

Chosen answer: It's Ko Phi Phi Leh island off the coast of Thailand. It's a protected area, off the beaten path, and tourism is discouraged. There are resorts on nearby islands.

rswarrior

Question: I saw a scene in the movie trailer that showed Mr. Burns in a bath filled with gems, this is obviously a deleted scene, why isn't this scene with the deleted scenes?

Joel Sheffield

Chosen answer: Not all deleted scenes make it into the extras on a movie's DVD, usually because of limitations on disc space.

GameBlade

Question: I'm not a medical expert, but surely the level of bone loss shown in the movie would make it impossible for any of the humans to support their own weight?

Orion Hardy

Chosen answer: The level of medicinal care allowed a string of captains to live well into their 130s. Preventing or reversing bone loss seems like a trivial task compared to that.

Question: On the Arcadia, why were two of the human containers open and covered with blood?

Answer: Because the Infected were also on board, and attacking the humans in the pods.

rswarrior

Question: How can Riley be missing for a year as well as be a 1 year old vampire if he was made and last seen in May 21 2010 (according to the flyer Charles has)? The opening of the movie, where Riley is attacked, make it seem as though it all "just happened." And with the timing of Bella's journey (she arrives in Forks in March, prom is in late May or early June (most proms are end of the school year), her birthday is in Sept, she begins her time with Jacob in Feb, Edward comes home in April (guessing), she graduates in June 2010. So James was killed in May (before prom). I get Victoria could have made Riley in May just after James was killed BUT then the "last seen" date on the flyer shouldn't be so recent. Did I miss something?

rmargaux

Chosen answer: The date on it is a mistake. Some claim he could've been seen after he officially went missing, so the mistake is not allowed on this site. However, the description of his "last seen" appearance is clearing the opening sequence, which would've happened a year prior to the current events. By the movie's timeline, Victoria would've created him in May 2009 after James was killed, and this is now a year later.

White Lock

Question: When Lawrence is going crazy, he tries to reach the ringing phone using the box he found it in. When this fails, it motivates him to saw through his foot. Since the box was just out of reach, why didn't he pull the phone towards him using the saw (just like Adam tried at the beginning of the movie, with the cassette player)? This couldn't possibly have failed, though. If he had, he could have answered the phone and probably gotten help that way. It would have saved him a lot of trouble and pain. Someone please enlighten me.

Eyexpress333

Chosen answer: First, it's because he was very distraught. Simply reaching the phone wasn't going to help him help his wife. Second, because it was the major plot point the entire movie has been building up to.

LorgSkyegon

Answer: You said it yourself: he's going crazy. He had been sitting in that room for 8 hours, being mentally tortured. If finally comes to a point where he hears his wife and child in torment, along with gunshots. At this point he was simply not thinking and in his state, sawing off his foot was the quickest way to either get to the phone, or get to the gun to kill Adam.

jshy7979

Question: In the scene after the engagement party disaster, Viola is in her bed and Ruby comes and says "Are we getting out of bed today, Camille?" I assume Ruby is using a TV show/character reference. What is it from?

Answer: It's from a film called Camille: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0028683/.

White Lock

Question: Daniel gets his driver's license on his birthday the night before the tournament in part I. In part II, six months later, he went to his senior prom. Did he really start his senior year when he was 15?

Answer: If he skipped a grade in elementary school, sure. I graduated at 17, beginning my senior year at 16, and never skipped a grade.

rswarrior

Answer: Daniel is 17. There are lots of reasons he might have delayed getting his license. The biggest part (though not stated) is that he recently moved from NJ at the start of the movie. He might not have been able to learn to drive and take his test in NJ prior to moving. There should be no presumption that he spent time in an overseas school.

Answer: What I think is more likely is that Ali was a year older, and he escorted her to her senior prom.

LorgSkyegon

Answer: I suspect that for a year or more, Daniel maybe lived in India, South Korea, Japan, or any other country with a higher education system, than America's education system... So Daniel, despite being younger, may be a few grade levels ahead of other students his age.

Answer: Well also when you're a senior you're usually 18 and that's when you get your driver's license or even earlier, at age 16.

Question: Three or four people in the movie claimed to know doctors who can help Edward. Why didn't he ever go see any of these doctors while he stayed with the family?

Answer: First of all, the film only takes place over the course of a few weeks. He's still adapting to the real world. Second, to do so would be to accept that Edward was, in fact, "crippled". One of the film's recurring messages was that Edward was special but not handicapped. Not to mention the financial incentive in having Edward stay the way he is.

JC Fernandez

Answer: In addition to JC Fernandez's explanation: People often say such "nice" things, but never follow through. It's similar to when someone tells you "We should get together sometime." Other than Peg, the people who said it probably got busy and/or lost interest in Edward. They were briefly intrigued by him, but did not truly care about him long-term.

Question: Why does Hugo Stiglitz kill the German officers in the first place? The film mentions his enlistment, but how is this related to his killings?

Answer: Based on his willingness to join the Basterds, we can assume he killed them because he didn't believe in what the Nazis were doing.

There is a cut of him being whipped during the bar scene. I think he was taking revenge for harsh and perhaps undeserved punishment.

No, the whipping is how it feels in his mind sitting next to that SS officer and having to pretend to like him and be a Nazi. He's ready to snap.

lionhead

Question: There are two things I don't understand about the mask party. One, why go through all the ceremonial, quasi-religious rituals with mask and cape, priest, smoke, organ, etc? Why not just show up and have an orgy? Second, how did the masked woman know that Tom Cruise didn't belong there if he was masked himself?

Answer: The quasi-religious rituals are all part of the allure and mystique of the party. There are plenty of places people in power can go to just have an orgy, the ceremony implies a respectability to the whole affair. If the masked woman attends the parties regularly, she'd recognize a different body, even though the face is covered.

rswarrior

Answer: I believe they knew who he was before he entered the party and it was a hoax to scare him off as the wealthy dude said, and so they told the girl to tell him to get away. She was a girl who did experience with drugs as we seen in the beginning of the movie at the party.

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.