Answered questions about specific movies, TV shows and more

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Question: In one of the episodes after Phil's death, it was revealed that Phil was actually a rich man. If Phil was very rich, why did he choose to live his life as a vagrant?

Answer: He was a chronic miser who obessively hoarded money, stashing whatever he could in various offshore bank accounts. Some people, no matter how much money they have, are terrified of losing it, therefore, never spend anything. Some suffer from severe neurosis or other mental issues. Others grew up in extreme poverty and fear being poor again. A family friend was just like this. She lived in a small, run-down house, never bought anything, was always terrified she would lose everything, and so on. When she died, her estate was worth over $2,000,000.

raywest

Question: When Cal and Rose first arrive at the Titanic, they get out of a white car. Is this the same model of car that was on the ship? They both look similar, albeit different colors.

Answer: It's the same type of car (1912 Renault replica). I suspect the same replica car was used for both scenes (the dock and the cargo hold), but the fenders were painted differently to make it appear as if it's two separate vehicles.

raywest

Question: If Hal is supposed to be this flawless computer that never makes a mistake or gives false information why then does it tell the astronauts Frank and Dave that a system will fail when that turns out to be wrong?

Answer: This is gleaned from the Internet: The novel explains that HAL is unable to resolve a conflict between his general mission to relay information accurately and the specific orders requiring him to withhold the mission's true purpose from Bowman and Poole. HAL reasons that if the crew is dead, he would then not need to lie to them. He fabricates the failure of the AE-35 unit so that their deaths would appear accidental. In other words, HAL is asked to lie, and he doesn't take to it very well, to say the least. The conflict between his mission objectives backs him into a corner where he has to make some pretty big (and cold) leaps in logic in order to reconcile the paradox in his programmed orders.

raywest

Answer: In the sequel, "2010" it was revealed HAL was programmed with all the information about the mission to the monolith, but Frank and Dave were not. HAL was programmed not to reveal anything until the scientists were taken out of hypersleep. When Frank and Dave tried to uncover the mystery surrounding the mission, HAL was forced to lie in the only way he knew how. He was not programmed to lie.

Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered - S1-E8

Question: Che says to Miranda that she has been f**king her for 3 weeks yet in previous episodes, they had sex in Carrie's kitchen, and then we watch seasons pass as Carrie wrote her book, so how has it only been 3 weeks?

Answer: Che's referring to when they officially began their affair (right after the fund-raiser auction) and had declared their feelings for one another. The kitchen incident was a separate, one-time encounter with a long gap in-between, though with an open invitation for future meet-ups.

raywest

Question: In the 1941 movie "The Wolfman", the poem about werewolves ends with "And the Autumn moon is bright." In this movie, why was it changed to "And the moon is full and bright"?

Answer: It was more folklore than an actual poem. As people verbally repeat fables, legends, and myths to others, the precise wording continually changes.

raywest

Answer: It's not a real movie and it's not Kathleen Turner. It was just done for the scene. The two people in the "movie" are Patrick McKenna and Daliah Novak who are credited as "TV Man" and "TV Woman."

Bishop73

Question: I heard that the marble ashtray that Bedelia uses to kill her father Nathan in the "Father's Day" segment appears in all the stories. Does anyone know the specific scenes it shows up in in the other ones?

Answer: Besides being in "Father's Day", it showed up in "The Lonesome Death Of Jordy Verrill" right next to the cash box at the Department of Meteors. In "Something To Tide You Over" on the nightstand next to Richard's bed. In "The Crate", it was on the writing desk when Henry writes the letter to Wilma. In "They're Creeping Up On You", Upson Pratt uses it as a soap dish. And in the epilogue, it appears on Billy's desk when he starts stabbing the voodoo doll.

Question: In the opening sequence, the younger silo guy is about to shoot his partner for not turning his key as ordered. What would be the point of this? If they have to turn the keys simultaneously then how would killing the other guy help? You'd just have a dead guy with nobody to turn the other key.

Answer: But if he doesn't turn the key, they can't launch anyway. So threatening his life results in either a) his death, and nothing's different from him refusing to turn the key, or b) him giving in and turning his key.

Jon Sandys

Answer: The younger one threatening to shoot knows that if he kills the other guy, he cannot launch the missiles alone. He is betting that by threatening to shoot his partner, he will force him into complying with the order in order to save his own life. It's a situation where the older guy may or may not comply, but at least there's a chance.

raywest

Answer: The reason the missile launch crew is armed is to stop one from going rogue and trying to launch without permission. The scene where he threatens to shoot the other one for refusing to launch is dramatic, but totally untrue.

stiiggy

Answer: The opening sequence was a test and I think only the older guy didn't know it was a test. The younger guy actually knew it was a test and was there to threaten him with death as part of the test. Later we find out that 22% of missile commanders failed to launch. So the fact that the younger guy calls the other one "sir", makes it seem (to me) that the older guy was the missile commander and was the only one actually being tested. So when they kept saying "these men", I think they're referring to the commanders being tested and not the pair of men we saw.

Bishop73

Question: Why was Lucy known as Tom Tom? I've been wondering for the last 17 years and now I really want to know. It seems like the type of nickname that would come from a surname (like Thompson) but it's not. Older Lucy says that no-one's called her Tom Tom since her nose job, so is it a nose-related nickname? I don't get it.

Answer: Young Matt Flamhaff listens to "Burning Down the House" by The Talking Heads at Jenna's 13th birthday party. The drummer for the Talking Heads, Chris Frantz, and his wife, Talking Heads bassist Tina Weymouth, were also members of the side project Tom Tom Club. "Tom Tom" was Lucy Wyman's nickname as a 13-year-old in the film.

But Lucy has no idea what the song is so that makes no sense why it would be her nickname. It makes no sense to the movie.

Question: What is Hannibal doing on the fifth floor and what is he's shooting at when 3 shots were heard after he kills two guards and escape?

Trainman

Answer: Hannibal swapped clothes with one of the guards (Pembry), cut his face off, then threw him down the elevator shaft and fired several shots. He was trying to make the arriving police believe that Pembry had shot and hit Lecter as he tried to escape. He then put Pembry's face over his own, posing as him and was placed in an ambulance. As per his plan, the police believed it was Lecter on the roof of the elevator, until they opened the roof hatch and saw the removed face. By then it was too late, and Lecter had killed the ambulance crew and escaped.

Sierra1

Question: In the bloodbath scene, is it really possible for someone to lose that much blood and remain conscious, even if barely? Not to the mention the fact that the person was a young woman.

Movielover1996

Answer: Probably not, but given the actual murder was only about 1 minute long, you could argue that with enough adrenaline, you might be able to stay awake just long enough for the scene to play out. Obviously, you should take the movie with a grain of salt since it's for entertainment, and they're exaggerating the volume of blood, the spray, etc. for the sake of cool visuals. In reality, your risk for passing out starts getting higher and higher as you hit 30%+ blood loss, and they say you experience organ failure and will probably fall into a coma when you hit 50% blood loss. But at the same time, I actually know a guy who recently had to get emergency surgery and an absolutely massive emergency blood transfusion after losing more than 50% of his blood internally... and he took himself to the friggin' hospital because he was feeling a bit weird and was worried he might have COVID. He didn't even know what was going on until he was examined. So stranger things have happened. The human body is weird.

TedStixon

Question: At the beginning, in the animation cut, Dolittle frees the gorilla from a cage, and he gives a blanket or cape-looking thing to the gorilla who seems to very much like it. What exactly is that and what does it suggest?

Bunch Son

Answer: Like any rescue victim, he was giving him comfort and aid.

Question: How accurate is the music in the game compared to the real music?

Answer: For the first couple, most songs were covers as presented onscreen with "As Made Famous By: " In later games they used the guitar master tracks from the recordings of the songs. One notable song is Anarchy in the UK by The Sex Pistols on Guitar Hero 3. The band had lost the original master recordings so they returned to the studio to record the song again just for the game.

Ssiscool

Answer: Pretty darned accurate. Granted, it's been a few years since I've played it, but pretty much the only difference I can recall is that the music in the first few "Guitar Hero" games were covers instead of the original recordings. But other than that, they sounded quite close.

TedStixon

Question: Why did Frank's co-worker (whom he sent flowers to) file a sexual harassment complaint against Frank, when she appeared interested in him?

MekuCube

Answer: It's been a while since I've seen it, but I believe it's because he went behind her back and found out her address without asking her first, which probably came across as a little creepy or stalker-ish to her, even if he didn't intend it that way. It's weird when someone you don't know finds out your address or phone number and contacts you or sends you something.

TedStixon

Question: If you beat Brain Andross on the Red Path, the "ghost" of James McCloud, Fox's father, appears and helps Fox escape the exploding base. What is the explanation for this? Is it actually the ghost of James? Was Fox hallucinating? Was James really alive the whole time? What happened exactly?

Quantom X

Answer: There isn't really an agreed answer to this, and the game leaves it purposely ambiguous. It's entirely possible that James is just a figment of Fox's imagination. It's also possible that his spirit is guiding him or that he's secretly alive. So in truth, any answer would be pure, 100% speculation.

TedStixon

Question: Is there another version of the movie? Because when I saw it on TV some scenes were cut or changed. It wasn't to remove swearing or anything, it was completely random, for example they cut Dave asking Buddy if he can eat Fiddle Faddles, and they changed Chuck's line "That's a letter I'm writing to Geraldo Rivera" to "That's a letter I'm writing to my father." This version is the version they use on the website Subzin, a website for finding movie quotes. Can someone please explain this version? What it is, how it's different, where it's used, etc.

MikeH

Answer: It's really not uncommon for movies to remove bits and pieces when broadcast on TV. Movies aren't just cut for content, they're also cut for timing. (Ex. "Shanghai Knights" used to be absolutely butchered when shown on cable - there were entire scenes missing, which created glaring mistakes.) It's also not uncommon for TV versions or foreign releases to change or remove cultural references, or use alternate takes depending on the language used. Depending on where you live, it could very easily just be that the version you're seeing is one of these alternate versions that was then also trimmed down to fit a TV timeblock.

TedStixon

Question: I've noticed that throughout the movie, the first two fingers on many character's right hand are orange. Most noticeable when Holden sees Banky at the end and in the lesbian bar when Banky is swapping stories with Alyssa. What's the significance of this?

Brad

Answer: I'm gonna be totally honest... I'm 99% sure there's no significance. In fact, I think it's just stained skin from all the smoking people do in the movie. Most people hold their cigarettes between their first two fingers. And most of the characters are depicted smoking throughout the film, which means they had to smoke a LOT during filming to maintain continuity. I used to get occasional orange (and sometimes yellow or light brown) stains on my fingers and hands when I smoked cigarettes. Especially if I smoked more than one in a short period of time and didn't wash me hands between them. So it's probably just smoking stains on the actor's fingers. In fact, I looked, and you see Banky holding a lit cigarette in his right hand and smoking during the story swapping scene you mentioned, with gives some direct evidence to my theory. (For reference, those stains can wash off with some good scrubbing).

TedStixon

Question: Why was Angier's first name of Rupert in the novel changed to Robert for the film?

Phaneron

Answer: I learned the answer to this today while reading the novel, in which Angier states that the name "Rupert" attracts amused inquisitiveness from Americans, so while traveling in the United States, he goes by Robert or Robbie.

Phaneron

Question: Near the end Frazier marches into a restaurant and delivers to the mayor a phone number related to war crimes. Presumably he is ensuring that Case gets his just desserts and is exposed/prosecuted. But why the mayor? And what has the Jodie Foster's character got to do with it? She looks so happy but also took Case's tainted money.

Giamanman

Answer: My thought: The mayor is the highest-ranking person in the city and Frazier, being a NYC cop, is openly letting him and everyone know that he (Frazier) is taking credit for uncovering Case's war crimes, leveraging it for a promotion, a commendation, and full exoneration for the missing money he was suspected of taking. He was also not going to allow the bank heist and Case's crimes to be covered up, as his superiors wanted. Frazier had earlier taped the mayor's and White's conversation when they threatened to ruin him and used that as added insurance. White is someone who, for a price, cleans up difficult situations, regardless of most circumstances, for wealthy and powerful clients, including those connected to the mayor and city politics. She is cool, dispassionate, and unflappable. Her bemused expression is mostly a "mask" to appear unaffected by Frazier confronting them. She probably enjoys seeing the mayor put in this situation, as they do not particularly like one another. She took Case's money because she considers it payment for services rendered.

raywest

Question: Why did Bruno place the medallion on the branch before leaving?

Answer: He was showing compassion. Just because he's a bad guy doesn't mean he is heartless.

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