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: When Frodo has been taken captive by the Orcs, and Sam kills three Orcs to get to him, for the first two he says "That's for Frodo." and "That's for the Shire.", but I couldn't make out what he says for the third. What is it?

Answer: And that's for my old Gaffer.

jle

Answer: This would be a reference to the Girl Scout cookie selling drive each year, to raise money for the organization. Girl Scouts are typically (not always) known as being younger children. So Monica is making fun of how young Elizabeth is by referring to her as a Girl Scout. The Thin Mint is one of the perennial best-sellers, chocolate-mint wafers coated in a layer of dark chocolate - Ross is saying it so the professor that walks in on him and Elizabeth will think he's just buying cookies.

Rooster of Doom

Chosen answer: In the appendix of the RotK it does briefly talk about Legolas' leaving. It is said he waited until Aragorn died then built himself a boat and him and Gimli left Middle Earth and were the last of the fellowship to leave.

bessytheevilcow

Question: In the scene in Joe's bar there's a jazz singer named Mae Mercer. I could swear that the voice is the absolutely unique one of Nina Simone's, even the way she plays the piano, but there is no hint either in the cast or the list of song. I'd like to hear other people's opinion on that. (00:49:55)

NancyFelix

Chosen answer: Just my opinion: Mae Mercer is a great jazz singer - and there is a soundtrack of this movie, just in case someone wants to check it out - and I am sure she was the one singing.

Question: Who is the kid in the mansion changing the channels by blinking? I recognized most of the "background" mutants (Siren, Jubilee, Artie, etc.) but this one's eluding me.

Xofer

Chosen answer: In the comic book there was a mutant with the same powers called 'Blink' but blink was a girl, so i guess they just gave the kid some random ability from the comics.

Question: At the end of the film, Malthazar says "The ship was a model as big as this - a very clever deception indeed." Does he mean that the Thermians now accept they were decieved by the "historical documents", or does he still believe the "documents" were real and the Captian was deceiving Sarris by pretending to admit they were false?

Moose

Chosen answer: He thinks that the Captain was just tricking Sarris and the "documents" were real.

J I Cohen

Show generally

Question: The title music. Is this a proper song, or was it someting written for the show? If it is a proper song, what is it called, and who is it by?

Scrappy

Chosen answer: It's called Superman, and it's by Lazlo Bane, from their album All The Time In The World (see http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/lazlobane).

J I Cohen

Question: Im confused. I know Magneto isn't psychic and he doesn't have cerebro so how does know where Rogue is, or who she is to send Sabertooth to get her? How does he know when exactly to send Mystique to the school to tell Rogue to leave? How would he know what's going on?

Asdfaeou

Chosen answer: There were news reports about Rogue's experience with her boyfriend. Magneto was pursuing her during her journey to Canada. Mystique was at the school off and on for quite a while to spy on the X-Men.

Timothy Cheseborough

Chosen answer: It's only the 4th complete film he's directed - Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, now this. "My Best Friend's Birthday" isn't a proper film - as far as I can see it's only a half-made collection of footage, and he only directed one segment of "Four Rooms".

Jon Sandys

Answer: By the third film, the original "Baron Frankenstein," played by Frederick Kerr is supposed to have died. Therefore, his son Henry had inherited the title of "Baron Frankenstein," and as part of Germanic aristocratic inheritance this automatically places a "von" between the Christian name and Surname of the holder. This in turn has happened when Henry died and Wolf took up the Baronetcy.

David Mercier

Question: What/who is Leonard listening to through the wall (with the empty glass), or is it meant to be ambigious?

Nick N.

Chosen answer: He was paranoid, so he was listening to hear if they were cops.

Josh Appelbaum

Chosen answer: Yes, she did all the singing for the film herself. She further demonstrates her singing abilities in the film 'Chicago'.

Padzter

Question: When McClane kills one of the terrorists and sends him down the elevator, why the elaborate plan to send him down? He hits the buttons for floors 31 and 30, hits the stop button, props open the doors of the elevator and floor 32, crawls out, then flips the swith to run. As long something is in the door, it won't close. Why didn't he just put a chair in the doorway, put the bad guy in the elevator, hit floors 31 and 30, exit the elevator and remove the chair?

luchador

Chosen answer: He wants to ride on top of the elevator. If he did it the way you propose, he'd have to time it just right to reopen the doors on his floor and get on the roof without the elevator being too far down. By riding down in it, he allows himself to stop it past the point where the open doors on 32 will interfere with elevator operation, get out on 32, hit the switch to start the elevator again and still get on top before the elevator begins to descend to 30. It's all a matter of timing.

Kaite13

Question: Why is Agent Smith able to fly at the end of this film? He must've picked it up sometime between the Burly Brawl and the Super Brawl, but I have no idea how.

Nick N.

Chosen answer: Agent Smith is on a hyper-advanced learning curve because of all the personalities he has been integrating. Flying is certainly not the only advance - he's developed control over the weather, has superfast healing, and probably has limited precognition after his encounter with the Oracle.

Rooster of Doom

Question: The ending apparently had to be reshot, because the original ending leaked out. What was this original ending?

Answer: The original ending features a huge shoot-em-up, involving more than 150 cops, but it was changed to a shoot-em-up on a much smaller scale that involves only Kevin Spacey, Samuel L. Jackson and Ron Rifkin.

Question: Okay first of all, what happened to the Twins? They didn't die in Reloaded for as they flew into the air, they shifted to their ghost forms thus keeping them safe. Second; what was the reason the French Man's wife kissed Neo in Reloaded? I heard that she was supposed to be some type of vampire and have a bigger role in this movie. Was that scene cut out?

Answer: They never explain what happened to the twins. Persephone kissed Neo because she wanted to remember what true love felt like.

Question: When Spaceball 1 achieves ludicrous speed and overshoots the Winnebago, Barf is heard to remark "they've gone to plaid". Is this just a joke about eighties style special effects or is it a reference to a specific film?

Answer: Its a reference to how the stars streak around the ships in "Star Wars". "Ludicrous speed" had to have a ludicrous color. It is also referencing 2001: A Space Odyssey, where this "tartan" effect occurs when Dave is in the pod towards the end of the film.

Grumpy Scot

Those answers are quite correct and possible, but how about this: Warp and weft are the two directions of yarn in weaving (of plaids and other things). It might be a very meta joke since plaid is at much higher level than warp. On the other hand, it's Mel Brooks. On the gripping hand, he was born in Brooklyn in the mid 20's and might have been exposed to the basics and vocabulary of the tailor at a young age.

Btw, it's also a clear reference to the sentence from Star Trek "They've gone to warp."

Question: This question is about the scene where John Candy is the driver, and Steve Martin is the passenger in the rented car. Steve is unaware at one point, that they are going the wrong way on the highway. He becomes aware, after looking out the window and down onto the shoulder of the road with the wet snow splashing up. As soon as he looks at that, he knows they are going the wrong way. What was it about the road that made him realize it?

Answer: The reason was that the snowbank was on his side (the passenger side) when it should have been on the driver's side if they were driving in the right direction. Also and I'm not sure if you could see this in the film but the deflecters on the road which separate the lanes if you are going in the right direction shine yellow and if you are going the wrong way shine red.

Tobin OReilly

Question: Who exactly is the person that Melissa sees behind her before it attacks her?

Answer: The ghost that kills Melissa is the patient Vannacutt was dissecting. When Melissa initially sees them through her camera, what she's really seeing is the ghosts re-living their last moments.

Answer: Just a generic ghost/monster as it has no face.

Grumpy Scot

Question: After Matt Damon shoots the sinner on the bus he and Ben Affleck get off the bus and Matt Damon starts singing a strange song. What is that song all about?

Answer: In the bus, Ben Affleck teases Matt Damon for thinking that the movie "Krush Groove" was going to leave a greater legacy than "E.T." So after they leave the bus, Matt Damon's starts with this riff from Krush Groove. The words are, "Whose house? Run's house. I said whose house? Run's house." The "Run" is from "Run DMC," stars of Krush Groove.

K.C. Sierra

I was under the impression that Damon sings the song in victory after proving that he could recognize whether the couple in front of them on the bus were actually married to each other. Damon establishes that the man is married, but not to the woman he's making out with on the bus.

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