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 Davy Jones summons the Kraken after Will escapes with the key, why does Bootstrap Bill not scream "No" until after Davy Jones announces what he's doing (..."and let this day be cursed by we who are ready to wake... The Kraken")... He must know what the Kraken hammer does, why doesn't he react when they first start charging it up?

Answer: I would say it was about timing and building up to the dramatic effect so the audience knows why Bootstrap is reacting that way. If he screamed out too soon, it would be confusing about what he was upset about.

raywest

Question: Chief Brody and his wife are looking at a shark book in their den and their sons are playing outside in the boat the older son Michael got for his birthday. What is the title of that book? I know I had the same book when I was young kid.

Answer: It's called "Food for Thought".

Question: When the Proctector leaves spacedock, there are Thermians inside the spaceport watching it leave. Later on Mathesar says the Thermians on the Protector are the last ones left. What happened to the Thermians left behind at the spacedock?

Answer: I believe Mathesar was referring to both the Thermians on the Protector and at the base as being all that was left. Not just the ones on the Protector.

TedStixon

Mathesar meant only the Thermians on the Protector were the ones that were still left. The Protector does not go back to the base to pick up the Thermians that were left behind.

We do not know if the Protector went back to pick up the surviving Thermians at the spaceport, as the last act of the Thermians on the Protector was to separate the ship and send the GQ cast back to Earth. Maybe the Thermians did head back to the spaceport to reunite with the Thermians there.

Scott215

Answer: At 01:01:09, Jason says, "You can drop us off, and you guys can be back to your home planet before supper." Teb answers, "Oh, no, sir. We have no reason to go back." Jason then mentions family and friends. Then, Teb says, "We are all that is left." Based on the shocked silence that follows, it's apparent that Sarris has completed his plan to slaughter all other Thermians, as Mathesar had told Jason earlier.

Answer: Why, certainly they all were transported back to the ship after watching the great moment of the first undocking. After all they have the technology, right?

Question: The alien predators are blind and hunt by pheromones. Why don't humans just wear hermetically sealed suits to block the pheromones, or use false pheromones as decoys?

Answer: Probably because it wouldn't work. On "Mythbusters," Adam and Jamie tested whether a tracking dog could still trace a human clad in a hermetically-sealed suit to contain the scent. The dog easily tracked Jamie.

raywest

Track of a Soldier - S12-E18

Question: When we figure out at the end that Juan was Lloyd's killer, how come it didn't show a flashback of him stabbing Lloyd? Like the other scene where it shows Peter discovering his dead body and picks up the knife, and also at the end it shows Greta discovered his body too and turned his body around to look for the diamond, but didn't show Juan murdering him.

Trainman

Answer: It may simply have been a matter of time, as this was a one-hour show. The murderer is always revealed at the end, though it is not necessary to show the actual murder. Also, at that that time, it may have been considered too graphic to show someone being stabbed on a family TV show.

raywest

Question: At the end of the first Mummy, Ank Su Na Mun was resurrected into her mummy corpse, but how can that be if, as we saw in the Mummy Returns, that Ank Su Na Mun is reincarnated into this modern era. That would have to have meant that she was alive when her soul went into another corpse. How does that work?

Answer: The same way Evie's memories are entwined with that of someone from ancient Egypt. Imhotep's followers used magic to bring Anck Su Namun's soul back, basically using someone else's body (one of her ancestors) and put her soul into it. So it's not really her body, just her mind/soul.

lionhead

Answer: It's also likely a case of "Flanderization", where as the show progresses, the writers zero in on a single aspect of a character that they get the most material out of, and think is the funniest, and expand it at the expense of realism or development, to the point where it is the character's entire personality.

Answer: It was likely a group of male executives who decided the show's format. The sexy, ditzy/dumb blonde was an over-used and cliched trope in an era when women were blatantly objectified.

raywest

Question: Jack Sparrow comes to Port Royal to commandeer a ship, but gets stopped by two marines, who tell him the dock is off limits to civilians. Why is the dock off limits to civilians?

Answer: Because it's a navy dock, not a public one and there are naval ships moored there.

raywest

In much the same way as modern naval docks are off limits to civilians.

Ssiscool

Jack would have been able to get one the of ships if he had permission.

Ok. But my question is are naval docks off limits to keep civilians from stealing or sabotaging their ships?

It will be off limits for many reasons. Including, but not limited to, preventing sabotage, preventing stealing, security of naval secrets and general security.

Ssiscool

One of those civilians could be a pirate you know.

lionhead

Question: Morpheus points out that he has seen agents punch through brick walls, during his fight with Smith, Morpheus is punched several times, now the rebels in the matrix still experience pain and can die, so shouldn't a punch from Smith, who we seen punch through brick walls in the subway scene, shouldn't the punches that hit Morpheus kill him? Or at least break his face so badly he ends up brain dead?

Swan90EFC

Answer: Smith or the other agents don't want to kill him. They need his brain for information. They basically fight like that against all of them as they can extract information from all of them.

lionhead

Question: When Smith interrogates Morpheus, Smith says "I must be free", the other 2 agents come in and say "what are you doing", what's this about? Why were they concerned with what he was doing and why does Smith seem less "robotic" than the other 2 agents, it is like he has actual wants and needs?

Swan90EFC

Answer: Smith has spent too long in the Matrix, according to himself, and wants to leave. He has gone quite insane already unlike the other agents, call it a bug. He might be older than the other agents and malfunctioned, or something went wrong with his programming. In any case he went outside of his programming as an agent, developed a personality and emotions.

lionhead

Answer: When Agent Brown says "What were you doing?", I believe he is asking why Smith removed his earpiece and disconnected himself from the others, meaning they don't know what he said to Morpheus and he doesn't know about the rooftop attack.

Sierra1

Show generally

Question: Where do the stairs in the substation lead? It has been said multiple times that they lead to the living room of their loft but they are never seen. There are stairs on the sides but the ones going down are to their basement.

Answer: Honestly I've been confused too. Thought the ones going down went to Justin's bedroom or to the station. Then the ones out the door went maybe to an elevator to those stairs I guess. Then the one to the side went to the lair But the freezer also leads to the lair or a secret spot sometimes too.

I think the ones in the sub shop go right up to a hallway in front of the loft, then the ones in the lair go to the bedrooms upstairs. Now there's a way to get to the lair from the loft and I believe it would be past the kitchen down to the hallway where we don't really see except in like one episode. Now what confuses me the most is the lair because when Harper finds out you see Alex using magic to open it into the lair but in every other episode you open it and it's the lair.

Question: When Kimberly's friends died first in her vision she and her friends died last, but why were they killed before everyone in reality?

Answer: Kimberly and her friends died last in the premonition. By not getting on the highway, they're cheating death already. The diesel ends up on its way to kill Kimberly and her friends, but the cop pulls Kimberly out of the way, causing her to cheat death again.

Answer: I'm not sure of a very logical explanation for this, but it should be noted that the premonitions in the films are not 100% accurate as the accidents are not caused by Death itself and may not be based on reality. They are just premonitions that the characters have of an impending accident that happens due to some unfortunate circumstances such as malfunction or improper precautions. In short, It is merely Death's job to clean up those who manage to cheat death in these misfortunes. He plays no part in causing the accident itself.

Movielover1996

Then why do several characters talk about Death stalking them? Or the fact that the chances of somebody strangling themselves in a bathtub, for example, are one in a million? Or what about Death's design, the signs, and Death's list?

Question: At the beginning with the 3 cars coming after the bus, you can see Mia driving one and Brian driving the second car. Who's driving the 3rd car?

Answer: Leo and Santos are driving the 3rd car. This scene is a continuation of the ending scene from Fast and Furious (the 4th movie) where the pair are shown driving that car.

BaconIsMyBFF

Answer: We don't actually see however it would be a safe bet that it would be one of their accomplices from their contacts. The events are actually a direct follow on to Fast and Furious 4 so would be someone from that film if anyone.

Ssiscool

Question: Why don't Nicholas' two goons wait for Harry and Lloyd to come back to their apartment? The woman said they'd have to come back sometime, so why not wait, instead of killing their bird as a message?

Rob245

Answer: At this point, Shay and Mental think that Harry and Lloyd are professional criminals who have been following them secretly for long enough to know about the entire kidnapping operation. They don't want to wait because it could leave them as sitting ducks if Harry and Lloyd were violent. In addition, waiting simply puts them for a long time and in front of many witnesses at the scene of what could be a murder (if they killed Harry and Lloyd).

Answer: Plus, Nicholas' cronies think that Harry and Lloyd work for someone who's trying to stop them retrieving the briefcase, which is shown when they go to confront them the second time and find the note on the apartment door. It's not until later on, that they realise that Lloyd and Harry aren't the pros that they think they are, and it's then that they try to kill them at Dante's Inferno.

Answer: Because if they had, the movie would be over in 20 minutes, and on a very violent note. It's a common film convention: To advance the plot, and to fit the tone of the film (here, a goofy comedy rather than a gangster thriller), characters behave in ways that real people in their position would not. There is no in-universe explanation.

Question: There are 2 scenes in this film that reminded me of Shaun of the Dead, the first is the scene in which they use times to aim and shoot, they use the same funny specific times like "11:45" etc. The second is the having characters who look like the main characters. Has the director ever commented on inspiration from Shaun of the Dead, is it a nod or a ripoff?

Swan90EFC

Question: Before Tris went on the zip line, why didn't anybody tell her there would be obstacles in her way that could have killed her if she didn't avoid them?

Dano

Answer: There aren't really obstacles. On a zip wire, there isn't really much scope for manoeuvrability. You follow the wire.

Answer: That and they do crazy stuff like this all the time so not telling her about these obstacles is keeping in character as they leap into everything seemingly blindly.

Rob245

Answer: That was the Dauntless way - you have to be prepared for the unexpected and meet the challenge. Just because her team won does not mean the competition is entirely over, nor can one assume it's an easy ride to the finish line.

raywest

Question: They mention his dad leaving with no follow-up or importance to the film (apart from him finding his new father figure). What do we know about his father leaving, and why? Or was it a set-up for the Treasure Planet 2 film which was unfortunately cancelled?

Answer: The father abandoned the family because he apparently did not want the responsibility of providing for them. It's an old story of wayward irresponsible men leaving their wife and children for their own selfish reasons. Whether or not it would have figured in a sequel is unknown.

raywest

Question: When Obi-Wan is told by Dooku that the republic is controlled by Darth Sidious, he does not immediately believe it. Later in the movie he mentions it to Yoda and Mace Windu and he remarks that it does not feel right. Why were the Jedi not able to connect the dots and figure out a pattern when Palpatine stayed in office longer than he should have? That should have been a red flag. Are the Jedi not clued in at all?

Answer: The influence of the dark side of the force clouds their judgements, it causes a disturb in the force so they can't see through it to discover the truth. Even at the end of the war all they feel is that the dark side of the force surrounds the chancellor but they can't figure out what that means.

lionhead

Question: In the film, the way the actors and actresses are dressed refers to the late thirties (rain coats, Panama hats, sophisticated dresses), why?

Answer: No reason. It is simply retro-fashion. Fashion trends go in cycles. In the 1960s, the film "Bonnie and Clyde" led to a popularity in '30s style fashion. In the 1990s, fashion trends from the '70s was revived. It's also an artistic choice. The costume designer on this movie likely was inspired by vintage styles that he/she incorporated into a futuristic film.

raywest

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