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: If Laura was unconscious from blood poisoning, how did they introduce penicillin?

Answer: When they went to the abandoned ship, outside the library, to retrieved penicillin from the infirmary, they must have also gotten a medical kit with supplies.

Question: What happened to Flounder's girl Sissy? Flounder never mentions her after he brings her to the toga party.

Answer: Nothing "happens" to her, she just isn't in the movie anymore. She's only in a single sequence and is completely inconsequential to the plot, so there's no need for to the film to address her or her movements after the party. Flounder has no reason to mention her.

Question: Who played the saleswoman Clark talked to at the mall in the beginning?

Answer: Nicolette Scorsese (no relation to director Martin Scorsese). She's credited as "Mary" in the film.

Bishop73

Question: Why, in the 3 hour TV version of the movie, does Luthor waste time on that elaborate trap if he already knows, from reading Lois' interview, that bullets, fire, and cold won't stop Superman?

Rob245

Answer: He wanted to see for himself if the stories were true. Some reporters tend to exaggerate the facts and if he had any other weaknesses. He couldn't be sure the kryptonite would work.

While I don't exactly disagree that Lex wanted to see for himself how invincible Superman is, I don't think that's the main reason why he did it. The bullets and fire were simply a charade to make it look like this was his security system. Keep in mind, he wanted Superman to enter his lair because the real trap was the Kryptonite that he had in the lead box.

jshy7979

Answer: Ash can understand Pikachu from his gestures and movements and from his imitations as well. He pretty much can understand because he has had Pikachu the longest and has a really strong bond with Pikachu.

Question: What happened to Miles? He stops his motorcycle to look back at the flood and - nothing else.

Answer: That has been a question of debate for years. Some say he died, others say he lived. The only real answer I can give is, there were talks of making a sequel. In it, Lou and Maria were living in San Francisco, while Miles and his partner were headlining his motorcycle act in Las Vegas, when another, stronger earthquake hits.

Answer: Since Elsa created Marshmallow, it's very likely since after creating him, he threw Anna and Kristoff out of the ice castle.

Elsa is extremely emotional at this point. While she can make sentient things with her powers, it doesn't seem like she is in direct control of them. Most likely she gave Marshmallow the idea to keep everyone away from her castle and that's it. Elsa would never purposely hurt Anna, therefore Marshmallow is acting on his own, albeit following the last orders Elsa gave. So yes, he obeys her but is not under her direct control.

oldbaldyone

Question: Stewart gives the tower 2 minutes to talk to planes and tell them to hold at the outer marker. Why didn't they just use that 2 minutes to say they are under attack or something and to land elsewhere? They could have said it quickly and the bad guys wouldn't have had enough time to turn their communications off.

Answer: Because then the movie would be over. The filmmakers have said that they included deliberate mistakes in the plot so that actual terrorists would not be able to "recreate" the scenario in real life. This is one of those instances where, in reality, the control tower WOULD do what you say, but in an action film, it's a deliberate deviation from reality in order to advance the plot.

Answer: Because the Control Tower employees would have been murdered or some innocent person. The Terrorists could have taken over given the wrong landing coordinates to crash a plane as punishment, as they did later on in the movie.

That's not how it would work. If the tower tells all the planes that someone has taken over their systems, and they've lost all control, then the terrorists wouldn't be able to crash any planes because the pilots would already be aware of it. It's simply because like the other reply said, if the tower warned the planes during the time Stewart gives them, then there would be no film.

Question: How did Honolulu know that it was the castaways on that boat hut so fast? How did all those people get to greet them get there so fast?

Answer: When the Coast Guard chopper found them they radioed ahead, that they found the castaways that went missing all those years ago.

Show generally

Question: On every planet SG-1 travels to, plants are the same color as those on earth. Shouldn't plants have different colors on different planets?

Answer: The Aliens choose planets that were similar to Earth. They possessed human beings, so they needed worlds with vegetation and atmosphere. In the original movie, their race was dying and humans were the only ones who could give them eternal life - they took many inhabitants as slave labor.

Answer: There have been times where plants are different color, but generally speaking, green is evolutionarily better at capturing the best amount of sunlight energy for photosynthesis. Thus, plants evolved to have green chlorophyll on other planets as well.

Bishop73

Answer: Planets with Stargates were chosen because of the similarities to Earth.

That's ridiculous. Stargate command would never choose a planet based on similarities to earth unless it would to make sure it was safe to travel to.

Stargate command had nothing to do with where the Stargates were. The answer is saying those that placed the Stargates throughout the galaxy chose Earth-like planets. More accurately though, inhabitable planets, which tend to be similar to Earth.

Bishop73

The Ancients put the Stargates on planets, and since their physiology was very similar to modern Earth humans, it stands to reason that they only chose to put planets which could support a similar lifeform. Hence, why most planets or moons resembled Earth at some point in their history.

Huh? First of all, you're trying to surmise what a fictional agency would do. Second, SG-1 and other SG teams frequently visited both Earth-like planets and planets with toxic conditions.

wizard_of_gore

Stargates were placed at worlds that were similar to Earth, this mostly due to the ancients establishing themselves on Earth over 50 million years ago and finding planets to colonize from there. Some worlds may have become inhospitable over the millions of years after the stargate was built though. It is quite possible all these planets were seeded with life from Earth and planets close to Earth's appearance, hence the same vegetation and animal life.

lionhead

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 Grandpa join the angry mob? It would make much more sense if he was either on his family's side or simply remained completely neutral.

Answer: The family doesn't treat him very well, particularly Homer. He may have wanted some revenge on them. Grampa is also a little senile.

Phaneron

Question: When Chucky pops out to surprise Andy in his apartment towards the end (while Andy is still holding the bat), what does Chucky say?

Answer: When he jumps out, he screams a generic "Ahhh!" and then quickly shouts "Surprise!"

TedStixon

Question: When Conan is learning how to use a sword, why did the teacher slap Conan in the face and then kick the other student in the chest?

Answer: Like an Army Drill Sargent, he was berating them for not doing it better. Toughening them to become the best they could be.

Also, the other student laughs at Conan's punishment, so the teacher kicks him to teach him some humility.

Question: There is something I don't understand about Linus in this special. He is flattered when Sally flirts with him by saying he says the cutest things, and that he's so intelligent. Linus usually rejects Sally's feelings whenever she flirts him. Why should this be any different?

Answer: From what I've seen, usually Sally is often annoying Linus with her flirting when he has nothing in common with her, or he's just trying to do something to help her and she tries to make it into more. Here, Sally's comments make Linus think she believes in the Great Pumpkin too, or is at least interested in hearing more about it. It's more that he's excited she likes the same thing as he does. Later in the pumpkin patch, he's happy she's there because he wants to share the experience with someone, not because he has any feeling towards Sally.

Bishop73

Answer: He can enjoy and bask in the flattery without reciprocating any feelings she may have.

raywest

Except he's never basked in her flattery in the past.

Bishop73

Question: The Spartans come across a village destroyed by Persians, and not long afterwards they arrive at the Hot Gates where they see the Persian army arriving by sea. Granted I wasn't paying full attention, what's going on with the geography?

Jon Sandys

Chosen answer: The village was destroyed by a Persian scouting party. The emissary talking to the Spartans at the Phocian wall told Dienekes that the hills were swarming with scouts. It would make sense that they had a large party going ahead of the partial army on the ships.

LorgSkyegon

Answer: This scene is cut from most adaptations (the 1935 and 1984 movies being two of the only ones that include it). It is most likely cut because it doesn't directly involve Scrooge, and only serves to show what happened to Belle after she broke up with Scrooge. Since it doesn't directly involved Scrooge, it was probably deemed worthy of cutting to bring down the runtime.

Answer: Probably to make the movie's overall length shorter and not every movie version is going to be the same. It is common for films adapted from books to cut scenes and characters or otherwise streamline the plot. Disney family films particularly have shorter, simpler, and age-appropriate story lines, designed for kids who tend to have briefer attention spans. A shorter run time also means the movie can be shown more times per day in theaters during the busy holiday season, increasing profits.

raywest

Question: Why is the rescue pilot helicopter such a selfish person? He complains about working over lunch, refuses to embark on a search-and-rescue mission without hiking his rates, and even extorts desperate townspeople trying to evacuate on his helicopter for all their money. Why was he such a greedy and insensitive egotist?

Answer: Because the character is written to be the stereotypical antagonist whose sole purpose is to create the obligatory plot conflict. This was such a silly, unrealistic, and all-around bad movie, that the two-dimensional villain guy fits right in. I live in Washington and remember when Mt. St. Helen's erupted. Dante's Peak, which was based on it, was nothing like the real-life event.

raywest

Question: When Clark was locked in the attic, watching old home movies, are they clips from real black and white movies and just edited together to make it like Christmas was like when Clark was young?

movielove

Answer: No, they were made for the movie. It was obviously young Clark and younger Uncle Lewis in the clips.

Brian Katcher

Question: Why did John send the elevator down to floor 31 and then floor 30 with the body inside it? Wouldn't it have been better to send it straight to floor 30?

Answer: He sent the elevator down and stopped it halfway between floors so he could get on the top of the car. Once he's on top of the car, he won't be able to hit the button for the 30th floor, so he has to hit both buttons before he gets on top of the car.

BaconIsMyBFF

Answer: I always thought of it more of a last resort thing. His plan was to get on top of it, but if he ran into issues he had time to get out. If he sent it to floor 30 and found out he couldn't stop it or anything to climb up on top, the baddies would have got hold of him. By sending it to 31 and then 30, if he found out he couldn't stop it then he'd just be able to get out on floor 31 instead meaning the baddies wouldn't catch him.

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