Question: On the Star Wars website is a picture of Mara Jade. It's supposed to be her dancing in Jabba's palace. I've looked and can't spot her. Can anyone tell me what shot she is in or near?
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Question: Did DaimlerChrysler re-introduce the Dodge Charger in conjunction with the film, or was their timing merely coincidental?
Answer: Given the massive hype surrounding the film, and the untold publicity it garnered the Charger, I think it's highly unlikely that it was a coincidence, more a cynical marketing strategy.
Question: Are we ever told exactly why Jerry needs the money? His $750,000 deal with the parking lot falls through and he owes GMAC $320,000. He is going to give the kidnappers $40,000, but then it's increased to $80,000. But he sets the ransom at only $1 million. So what is the deal?
Answer: This is incorrect. Jerry had already devised the kidnapping plot before his father-in-law refused to loan him the money. It's never stated why Jerry needs the money. He owes $320,000 to GMAC but why he took that money from GMAC in the first place is never stated. Jerry is a greedy person who got himself into massive debt. He even balks when Carl demands they get $80,000 instead of $40,000, when, if the plan works, Jerry would still get $920,000. He's greedy and desperate and is willing to do foolish things for money. That's basically the "moral" of the story.
Jerry's balking when Carl demands $80,000 could be acting on his part. That amount is supposed to be the entire ransom, so Jerry had to pretend as if Carl's demand was unacceptable. Jerry may well be greedy, which could be why he's in financial trouble to begin with, but in the movie he needs money out of desperation, not greed.
Answer: The business deal didn't actually fall through. Jerry needed $750,000 to proceed with it. He tried borrowing the capital from his father-in-law, who refused to lend it to him. Instead, the father-in-law wanted to invest in the deal himself and to give Jerry a small finder's commission. Outraged, Jerry devised the phony kidnap scheme so he could get the money to invest in the parking lot. (He never intended for his wife to be harmed.) Presumably he planned to pay off the kidnappers and partially repay GMAC with some of the $1,000,000 ransom money, and use the rest for the investment deal.
This is incorrect - he meets with the kidnappers before visiting Wade (the father-in-law) about the loan for the deal.
Question: Am I mistaken, or did Sylvia say she was born in the US before moving to Africa? I'm just puzzled as to why she was deported in the end even if she has dual citizenship.
Chosen answer: Dual citizenship is complicated, and it does not guarantee a person equal rights, privileges, and obligations in both countries. Nor does one country or the other always recognize dual citizenship. Since Sylvia's main residency has been in Africa, the US would consider that her primary homeland and could legally deport her there. Basically, the government is giving Sylvia a way to avoid prosecution in the US by allowing her to leave the country.
Question: In the scene where General Esperanza takes control of the plane he is on, it shows him locked in chains, but then later it shows him strangling the guard aboard the plane. it is never shown how he got out of the chains, so how did he do that?
Answer: He wasn't released from the chains when he strangled the guard, he would have sweet talked the guard into coming near him for something, killed him and then got the key from him.
Mirror Image - August 8, 1953 - S5-E22
Question: I believe in the final episode, Al the bartender asked Sam where he would like to go and Sam said home. He then said he couldn't because he had a wrong to put right for his hologram friend Al, which he did. After telling Al's wife that Al is alive he leaps. I think it said after that that Sam never makes it home. So does he continue leaping forever or is he stuck in the last person he leaps into? I know he lost his memory but what happened after that?
Chosen answer: Per the Quantum leap page at http://www.scifi.com/quantum/episodes/season5.html. 8 August 1953: An enigmatic leap lands Sam in a Pennsylvania tavern, as his own grown self on the day of his birth. As Al and Gushie work frantically to locate him, Sam befriends a wise bartender (popular character actor McGill, who'd appeared in a different role in the very first "leap") and a group of coal miners. As a host of familiar-looking faces pass through the bar - with different identities than Sam remembers - Sam ponders his life of leaping with Al the bartender, who tells Sam he controls his own destiny. Pressed for more, Al the bartender simply shrugs and says, "Sometimes, 'that's the way it is' is the best explanation." Sam realizes he must right at least one more wrong before he can go home, and leaps back to tell Al Calvavicci's wife Beth (from "M.I.A.") to wait for Al, who will survive Vietnam and come home to her. The closing title cards state that Beth and Al have four daughters and will shortly celebrate their 39th wedding anniversary ... and that Sam Beckett never returned home.
Question: What's the building the UFO nuts are on top of; it looks very familiar to a building in Grand Theft Auto San Andreas.
Answer: Now it's the US Bank tower, the tallest structure in downtown Los Angeles, although at the time of filming I believe it belonged to IBM.
Question: In the special edition there's a lot of mentioning of Randy Quaid's younger son being ill and having to take his medication. It's implied that the mother died of the same illness. What is he ill with?
Answer: The reference to the boy's adrenal cortex, and the few symptoms that appear, sound like Addison's Disease.
The One With The Stain - S8-E7
Question: I was wondering if any of our good Dutch friends would be nice enough to translate the conversation between Ross and Gunther at the coffee house?
Answer: Ross starts with the correct translation for "Thanks for the coffee". Gunther: "Je spreekt Nederlands?" (You speak Dutch?) "Dat is te gek!" (That's great!) "Heb je familie daar?" (Do you have family there?) And "ezel". Literally translated it's a donkey, but we also use for the word jerk or idiot. And finally Gunther says "Jij hebt sex met ezels" (You have sex with donkeys).
Question: I understand that John and Jane work for different agencies but who does "Tank" work for? It seems unlikely that two competing agencies would need to bring in a third to solve the Smith problem, as they could both easily arrange for their deaths within their own organisations.
Answer: 'Tank' works for Jane's agency. At the beging he is being watched by David Keith who is Jane's boss (Seen briefly with a pixellated image on her computer screen).
Question: Why didn't V rescue the woman in the cell after rescuing Evey?
Question: I've been trying to figure out the sequence where Jordan is captured. First question is whether it was intentional for her to use the credit/debit card? She has a reaction when she scans it, but the shot seemed more for the audience's benefit, then she waits nearby and doesn't put up much resistance. The thing is how does she know that card can be traced? It's a given she's undeveloped mentally (and we don't know the real Jordan's intellectual ability), can she make that connection? On the other hand, she's been very keen at improvising for her survival. The next is how she got the gun into the facility? Laurent's group has a female agent, so the group (or the agent) would know where to look for it. However, Laurent develops a connection with Jordan and I wondered whether he allowed it/concealed it himself. This is all speculation, and I wanted to know if there's a more definite answer?
Answer: Without reading the minds of the scriptwriters, there can't be any more definitive answers than what's given in the film. I think it's a mistake, however, to consider Jordan to be undeveloped mentally - she lacks experience, true, but shouldn't be considered stupid by any means. It seemed to me that this was a carefully considered plan to get herself inside the facility. McCord tells them earlier that they can only use the card for 24 hours and use cash after that; she knows from that that using the card will attract some sort of attention. Then she simply waits passively until she's captured. As far as the gun goes, it may simply never have crossed their minds to search her - previously she and Lincoln have gone to great lengths to avoid capture, so they may well assume that had she had a gun, she would have used it to try to escape; after all, from their point of view, why would she want to go back?
Question: A friend of mine noticed that despite it being winter in Narnia for a hundred years, no one's breath is visible. Is this a mistake, a director's choice (since it could've been added in post) or an element of Narnia (I am not very familiar with the books)?
Question: What is that castle seen in the beginning? It can't be the beast's castle before it's cursed, because it has stained glass decorations of the night the prince became a beast. It can't be the castle during or after the curse, because it looks nothing like it.
Answer: The whole story is supposed to have already happened when we are seeing it, hence the "Once upon a time" intro, so these stained glass windows might be telling the prince's story. The ending, in fact, has a stained glass window of Belle and the Prince living happily ever after.
Question: When they were showing Hell's Angels in the premiere, when there was a crash sequence, the explosions were in color, but the planes in the background were still in black and white. How is that possible? Why they didn't make the explosion in black and white too?
Answer: They did this by hand to te explosions to add effect.
Question: Why was the poster of Queen Amidala (shown as Novalee runs out of Wal-Mart) supposed to be taken out of the movie?
Answer: Because Natalie Portman played Queen Amidala, and it would have detracted from the reality of "Where the Heart Is" to see the leading lady in costume for another of her films.
Question: What is the conversation between the German soldiers in the Ghetto scene, after they have shot the boy who ran away and the boy's father who interfered?
Answer: Roughly "What is this shit? Did you become moved? You could have shot me. You have shot at me before. An apology is called for. You became moved."
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Answer: In a nutshell, she's not in there, so you can stop looking. When Mara became a pivotal character in the book series that cover the time after the films, a number of images were created for, among other things, the Star Wars collectable card game, using a model named Shannon McRandle (a.k.a. Shannon Baksa) to portray her. There were rumours that Shannon would cameo in the revamped Special Edition of Jedi using newly shot footage, but this did not occur.
Tailkinker ★