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: Just before Jonesy is hit by the car he turns to the guy next to him and asks "What did you say?" (or something similar). What was that about? Did Jonesy hear something in the man's thoughts? Did he hear the guy shout "Look out." before he actually had, like a premonition?

Answer: Yes. He heard the man shout the warning before he was hit as a premonition which prompted him to say "what?" to the man. Then the man shouts in real life afterwards.

Question: Is it a coincidence that the name of the plane EDI is made following a pattern similar to the one used with HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey with the name of IBM? Letter "E" is 3 letters before "H", "D" is 3 letters after "A", and "I" is 3 letters before "L". Is it just a coincidence?

Answer: Not a coincidence, this is what happens when a screenwriter or producer decides that he is terribly clever. They probably assumed they were paying homage to 2001: A Space Odyssey with their whole "dangerous AI loses control" schtick, so they thought it'd be coy to make that kind of reference.

Question: Which movie correctly depicts Roman armor as it looked, is it Gladiator or Ben Hur or some other movie set in the Roman time-period?

Answer: The most correct depiction is in the TV series "Rome".

Question: In the trivia, it's said that the animals that were in Naboo, where Anakin falls off of, were in the asteroid battle with Jango and Obi Wan and in the arena battle running and on fire. I'm just wondering where and when do both of these things are seen.

Answer: I've never seen one in the asteroid field but the second can be seen after the clones arrive at around 1:56:29 - look to the bottom-right of the screen.

Question: How old was Melanie when she married Jake?

Answer: We can assume 17 or 18. Jake tells Andrew that she 'got pregnant and married some loser right out of high school'.

Question: Does anyone know how old Chris is meant to be in the film?

Answer: He is meant to be maybe in his early to mid 20's.

Question: When Lt. Beales has the seizure and Schmidt runs to the floor to grab Beale's upper body another guy gets next to Schmidt [maybe another medic] and grabs Beale's legs. Who is that guy? [name].

Answer: It is Techical Sergeant Tim Wilkinson. Schmidt calls out to him "Wilkie grab his legs" and later in the SSgt Eversmann also calls him "Wilkie". He is an airforce pararescueman or PJ and he ropes down with the CSAR bird to the first crash site.

Answer: Officer Barbrady would be too stupid and incompetent to actually solve any real crime cases. Additionally, his role is only really that of a first line of defence. Detectives such as Sgt Yates solve the real crimes of South Park.

Bend Her - S5-E13

Question: At the end of this episode, when they are performing the "soap opera" for Calculon's benefit, Leela is dressed in a black dress and blonde wig with sunglasses. This ensemble looks really familiar to me, for some reason, and I wondered if it was perhaps a parody or homage to a well known soap character/actor/plot. Can anyone clue me in? And, on that note, is Fry's character of 'Congo Jack' a parody of something or just a stereotypical soap character?

Answer: Ally McBeal.

Question: At the end, why does Sarah look to the side of her (somewhat flinching)?

Answer: Because the three evil shadows are near and she is afraid of them seeing her.

EMTurbo

Answer: Near the end, after Fiona turns into an ogress, Lord Farquaad orders the guards to get both Fiona and Shrek, and as the guards grab hold of the green duo we hear Lord Farquaad say, "This hocus-pocus alters nothing. This marriage is binding, and that makes me king! See? See? Don't just stand there, you morons... I'll make you regret the day we met. I'll see you drawn and quartered! You'll beg for death to save you!" After Farquaad nastily threatens Fiona, he continues to shout, "I am king! I will have order! I will have perfection! I will have..." and then he's eaten.

Super Grover

Answer: "Ugh. It's disgusting. Guards. Guards. I order you to get that out of my sight now. Get them. Get them both."

Nelleke Rietvink

Question: I've heard this movie contains subliminal images and messages. Is this true and if it is, what are they?

Answer: It is true. The director spliced in a few frames of later scenes in the film throughout the film to "help" the viewer figure out the ending. These frames went by so quickly, the viewers couldn't really see them, but the director thought that maybe the subconscious mind would pick up on these clues.

Scary Godparents - S2-E13

Question: During the bit were its raining sweets at the end, is that the music from Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory?

Answer: It's not the exact music but it is similar enough to be recognisable as the song 'Pure Imagination', sung by Gene Wilder in the original Willy Wonka movie.

Answer: He left the show to write for Everybody Loves Raymond, but is currently writing the Simpsons Movie.

Question: In the scene where Nemo gets initiated, Jacques the shrimp wakes him up, says "suivez-moi", swims off and then clarifies - "follow me". In the French version, however, Jacques first says something similar to "suivez-moi", then when he comes back he says something almost completely different. What is the English translation for the second thing he says?

Answer: In the French version, he says "suivez-moi" twice, but it's 2 different voices, and the French dub has a strong French accent, so it sounds different.

Show generally

Question: During the opening title sequence, one of the future shots, there is a shot of a starship flying over the camera. The engines (3 large, with 2 sets of 2 small ones in between, glowing blue) and the ship's movement look very similar to the star destroyer from Star Wars New Hope's opening shot. The theme for the Enterprise's opening is pioneering and exploration, and Star Wars was a revolution in special effects (and ILM has done some shots for Star Trek). Is this a tribute or just coincidence?

Answer: It is likely just coincidence. The ship in question is designed to show the state of space travel about halfway between the flight of the Phoenix and the launch of Enterprise. It is flying over the moon, to highlight the fact that in the early 22nd century, mankind was just mastering the colonization of our own solar system.

Question: How much of the sword fighting/horse stunts were actually done by the actors? For example the scene where Alejandro gets Tornado back after being chased by the Mexican soldiers.

Answer: In the DVD extras for The Legend of Zorro, it is said that Antonio (Alejandro) is extremely keen on doing all his own stunts (to the point where they sometimes have to tell him when to stop) and that even the scenes with the carriage races were done in real life rather than CGI. Judging by this, I'm guessing most of the fighting and stunts in the first film were also done by at least Antonio, and probably the others.

Question: While at the New Year party near the end, Mace tells Lenny that his clip of the Jerico One murder is the only one, and that there are no copies. Yet when Faith was explaining the situation earlier, we see Philo setting fire to a clip with the same content. Did I miss something?

Answer: The clip that Mace and Lenny have is a copy of the original that was made that Philo didn't know about. When he destroys the original by burning it, that leaves only the copy that was made and passed on to Lenny. He then has the only remaining copy, which is what Mace means.

Question: In the "Heidi" scene, when the girls are singing in German, what do they say?

Answer: In the German version of the movie, the text is a rather normal advertising song about the company, the Angels pretend to work for. In the US version however, the actresses' accents are so horrible, it is, besides some "typical German words", impossible to make out if their song has any meaning at all.

Question: In the original novel, it was Shogo (not Shuya) who hacked the system to discover how to disable the collars; at the same time he found out that the class would be doing the Battle Royale and transferred into that class to try and use his knowledge to mess it up. In the film, the person who found out how to disable the collars and the person who found out about the Battle Royale and transferred into it are different people. Does anyone know why this change was made?

Moose

Chosen answer: Kawada hacked the system, learned about the collars, and transferred voluntarily to the class he knew would be participtaing in both versions. The only difference is when he transferred: in the book, it was right after his win, and in the film it was just for the battle. Shuya never hacked anything in either the book or the film. As to why the change was made, I can only assume that, given the shortening of novels involved in film making, it's easier to make Kawada a complete stranger than a loner that the kids recognize.

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