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: Tommy mentions something about ace degenerate - what was he talking about?

Answer: Tommy was saying Johnny was the number one, or best in the group, degenerate. Meaning if there was something bad or wrong to do or get into, Johnny would have been the first to do it or lead the way. Tommy offered Johnny a beer and Johnny refused. At this point, they're not even seniors in high school, so they're engaging in illegal underaged drinking (degenerate behavior). Tommy says it in an affectionate/positive way though, like he his proud to be degenerate.

Bishop73

Question: How did Cal manage to get into a lifeboat with the child that wasn't his? All the crew seem to know who he is so shouldn't have been fooled into thinking the child was his?

Answer: Not every crew member would have known him. He was in first class, the crew were lower deck officers, and there was so much confusion about, that nobody was paying close attention to who he was, just that he was a man with a baby.

Answer: While they probably did know that to be the case, they had to consider the possibility the child had already lost their parents. By refusing Cal onto the boat, they could easily have been sentencing the child to death. At least with an adult the child stands a chance of survival. Hence the hesitation by the guard. Let Cal in with a child that's not his and save the child or refuse him and the child and let them fight for survival. In that guard's position I know what I would do.

Ssiscool

Question: Would anyone happen to know what song is playing in the background on the radio beside the intelligence officer sitting at the bar when Martin Sheen enters the Generals trailer and is being interviewed by Harrison Ford for the first time?

Answer: It's not any specific song; it's just the kind of generic piano music you'd hear at dinner at a high-class restaurant of the era. Think of scenes in movies, films, etc. set or made in the '50s and '60s, where the characters go to a nice dinner and there's someone at the piano playing unobtrusive music to accompany the food/conversation.

Answer: Because she is no longer a mutant (at least in his eyes) without powers and can be of no further use to him.

BaconIsMyBFF

Question: Since it was so cold on the return journey to Earth, why didn't the astronauts wear their full space suits they wore on lift-off to keep warm? The just seem to be wearing their lightweight flight overalls.

stiiggy

Answer: Because they need to be able to move quickly through the confined space of the module, and the full suits would be far too bulky in an emergency.

The older Apollo missions all splashed down with full suits and helmet on. Just the launch suits, not the much bulkier EVA (moon walk) suits.

stiiggy

Answer: According to Jim Lovell in a later interview about the mission, the crew considered putting on their space suits but in addition to them being too bulky, there was concern the suits would make them perspire too much, thus making them wet and even colder. It wasn't quite as cold as depicted in the movie, it was always above freezing, and there were no icy windows or frozen hot dogs.

raywest

According to Lovell in his book, there actually were frozen hot dogs.

Answer: In addition, since they have to leave the ship after landing, the suit filling with water would be very dangerous.

LorgSkyegon

The launch abort mode was for an ocean landing, so they would have been just as vulnerable at the start of the mission. I get your line of thinking though.

stiiggy

Answer: Don't remember the source (the actual movie or one of many books) but I do remember there were only two moon suits on board (the CMP, Swigert, doesn't land on the moon). I believe they decided to suffer together. I misread the question, but the option for wearing the Lunar EVA suits was considered. IIRC, they did actually wear the boots at one point.

kayelbe

Answer: If I'm not mistaken, I believe you're referring to his NYC Police Commissioner pin.

Bishop73

Question: Near the end of the film, when everyone is at the pub celebrating, there's a brief shot showing what appears to be an aged man dancing outdoors, in the dark. Is this Ned?

xerop

Answer: Yes.

Question: John Kramer says to Cecil who is tied to a chair, "Some people stop to help a stranded motorist and get taken out by a speeding semi. There's no accounting for it." Who is he referring to by the stranded motorist? And who was killed by a semi while helping the motorist? It's been a while since I watched the movies. I don't remember it.

Bunch Son

Chosen answer: He's just giving a generalized example to point out the irony of how some random stranger who stops to help a person in need in turn gets killed in the process. It's not about any specific person.

raywest

Question: I recently submitted a "mistake" which revealed my own misunderstanding. The package that Chuck eventually delivers to Bettina had been sent to her partner in Moscow, which COULD explain its presence on a westbound trans-Pacific flight. Still, would a package sent from Memphis to Moscow be routed through southeast Asia? It would be shorter, and therefore faster, would it not, to send it across the Atlantic?

bobcarr1689

Answer: There are two packages sent by Bettina Peterson. The first we see goes to Russia to a man also named Peterson. The second never reaches its destination but we don't know where exactly it was being sent. That second package must have been going somewhere that required it being routed through Malaysia.

BaconIsMyBFF

Agree with your answer, but something else occurred to me. Bettina appears to be sending out packages via FedEx fairly regularly. She is an artist, and may sell her work internationally. While she does create large-scale wing sculptures, she may also do smaller types of metal artwork, jewelry, etc. We assume she was only mailing packages to her cheating husband, but she could have been sending something to a customer in Southeast Asia.

raywest

I found an earlier version of the script that explains this. After rescue, FedEx looked at the husband's records, which indicate he had moved from Russia to Kuala Lumpur. The package on the plane was being sent from the lady in Texas to there. The FedEx people could not locate a current address for the now ex-husband, so Tom returned it to the sender address in Texas.

Blood - S2-E3

Question: Why are the people being infected by the pesticide only seeing messages to kill from electronic devices? Why not from hearing voices in their head or from reading a newspaper, magazine, etc.?

Answer: Two reasons. One, it was The Beginning of the electronic age, when devices were becoming an everyday fixture in our lives. Second, to make sure the right message was sent to the right people to perform a specific task.

Question: While Hicks and Vasquez are sealing the door during the attack, you get a good look at the magazine on Hudson's rifle while he is using the motion tracker. On the bottom of the magazine a large letter "D" is visible. Does anyone have any idea why that letter is there? Is this a prop designation?

BaconIsMyBFF

Answer: The prop designation theory is probably right. It could stand for "Dummy" rounds. We can only speculate about future military conventions and best practices, but it's not likely that a magazine would be marked in such a manner because the ammunition it contained could be easily changed depending on the mission requirements. In our time, the ammunition itself is color coded so that it can be identified at a glance.

Question: During Jon's backstory into becoming Dr. Manhattan, why did Janey leave Jon in the chamber instead of letting him out? There was plenty of time for Janey to get Jon out of there, but she simply walked away.

Answer: The door was on a time lock and couldn't be opened again until the experiment was complete, for safety reasons. She left because she didn't want to watch him die.

Phaneron

Answer: Wally says "we can't override the time lock." Janey sees that he's locked in there and leaves because she can't bear to watch him die. That's why she bursts into tears as soon as she leaves the room. If it was possible to open the door, Wally would have done so.

Question: What does the bartender say to Arnold after he gets off the bike, right before Arnold grabs the shotgun?

Answer: "That's it, goddammit."

lionhead

Answer: It's possible it's a different race of Jawas. The ones we saw before with red eyes were on Tatooine. These are a different group of Jawas on a different desert planet, thus probably have mutated or adapted different isolated from the other groups and have their own traits.

Quantom X

Question: When Mystique is in Logan's tent, why did she keep shape-shifting into other people?

Answer: She wants to have sex with him, but he's not going for it, so she takes on the appearance of other women to see if it will entice him.

Phaneron

Question: Why did Lady Lisa look like an ordinary person instead of a Pixel?

Answer: She was a pixel but turned into an ordinary person. Probably to make the fight look epic.

Answer: Strassman didn't want to play the character again in a third feature-length movie and was involved in a number of other acting projects at the time.

raywest

Question: Why is it that the recon unit Gunny Highway leads is comprised of nearly 20 guys (early fall outs) and when they head off to battle the unit only has the 6-8 main characters?

bnemirow

Answer: It's because it's a movie. The plot could not ably handle the stories of twenty different characters while maintaining the action's pace and a cohesive story line within a two-hour time frame. It instead focuses on a few key characters.

raywest

Answer: Mrs. Tredoni was enraged that Father Tom refused to give her communion during Mass after he had given it to Catherine, who Mrs. Tredoni calls a whore.

raywest

Why did he refuse to give her communion?

Answer: In (non-canon) Legends, Thrawn was the central character of a trilogy of novels by Timothy Zahn. He was a Chiss officer in the Imperial Navy, who rose to the rank of grand admiral despite being non-human. Thrawn was brought into canon in the Star Wars Rebels series, where he commanded the Empire's Seventh Fleet and led the occupation of Lothal, which was opposed by the series' protagonists including Ahsoka Tano. In the final episode of Rebels, the Jedi and Rebel Ezra Bridger commands Purrgil space whales to drag Thrawn's Star Destroyer into hyperspace, jumping to an unknown location with himself and Thrawn on board. The final scene of the series shows Ahsoka Tano and Sabine Wren leaving Lothal to search for Bridger, and presumably Thrawn.

Sierra1

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.