Questions about specific movies, TV shows and more

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Answer: That was the ejector seat. Triggering it with the car upside down flipped the car over.

Alan Keddie

Question: I know that nowadays, the F.B.I. does have operations abroad. However when this film was made 20 years ago showing the F.B.I. operating in Moscow... did the F.B.I. conduct operations outside of the country as depicted? I was under the impression that was the CIA's job.

Quantom X

Answer: It is stated that the FBI is working with their Russian equivalent, the MVD on a joint operation. The FBI primarily focuses on domestic issues but does on occasion engage in operations outside of the United States with the assistance and in the aid of foreign governments. The CIA would not be the appropriate government agency to handle the operation in the movie because that mission is a law enforcement operation. The CIA is strictly an intelligence gathering organization with no law enforcement authority.

BaconIsMyBFF

Answer: Since 1940 (prior to the CIA being established), the FBI have been stationed in various foreign countries. Usually agent don't have the authority to make arrests, however, they can if Congress has granted the FBI extraterritorial jurisdiction and the host country agrees. The FBI establishes attaché offices, commonly known as legats, in foreign cities. In 1993 there were 21 of these offices and the new FBI director, Louis Freeh, wanted more and by 1997 there were 32. So, yes, 20 years ago the FBI conducted operations in foreign countries. I know currently there's a legat in Moscow, although I don't know when it was established. However, given the nature of the film, it's not unreasonable to think the FBI could quickly set up operations in Moscow, if they were not already established there, with no explanations needed since it's already something the FBI does.

Bishop73

Answer: It is the C.I.A's job to conduct foreign investigations. You're right in that respect. Why the FBI is involved is either unexplained or not mentioned.

Alan Keddie

Question: When Major Koslova confronts Ghazzi in the club, he speaks first with a joke or line of some sort. "What, no kick back this week?" What is that supposed to mean? A google search revealed nothing to me. (00:05:55)

Quantom X

Answer: Kick back means bribe. He's insinuating that he can bribe anyone to look the other way whilst he continues his dealings.

Alan Keddie

Answer: A "kickback" (one word) could be considered a type of bribe, but more commonly it is an arranged pay-off for some type of business transaction. Someone does something to make money, either legally or illegally, and someone who aids or is in someway useful to them is paid a percentage of the profits.

raywest

Question: Was the spinosaurus following the group, if so how? Or were they merely bumping into each other?

Answer: Being a predator, it would probably have a defined territory that it roamed looking for prey. The group is always traveling on foot and in the time frame they have been on the island, they likely were always in close proximity to where the spinosaurus hunted. It could possibly have detected them by sight, sound, or smell, or a combination of those factors.

raywest

Answer: Probably by smell.

lionhead

Mr. Monk and the Election - S3-E15

Question: Mr. Monk, given all his quirks, is apprehensive to enter the voting booth and even comes back out due to his anxiety. My question is; do you have to be in the booth to vote? He had a paper ballot and there was no voting machine inside the booth. I saw a table and chairs in the background, so if Monk chose to, could he (or anyone) fill out the ballot at the table, in the open?

Bishop73

Answer: Yes, with a paper ballot, Monk (or anyone) can choose to fill it out at the table as long as they are not concerned about the lack of privacy.

Answer: Because Kreese never loses. Ever. Period. He's not a loser. Especially considering his opponent.

Alan Keddie

Question: Who was the dwarf in the castle scene when the children arrive at the castle in the child catcher cage?

Question: When VEGA starts giving Doomguy the report on the facility casualties after Dr Hayden tells him to, I picked up on a couple number references in what he says. His lines are thus... "61,337 UAC members deceased, 81% of the facility is on lockdown, demonic presence through the Mars installation is critical. According to the records, Dr. Hayden, the invasion originated in the Lazarus Facility. It seems that a Hellwave was activated transforming 64% of all UAC employees into the creatures you see roaming through the facility. The rest were killed by the demons released from cells by Olivia Pierce." 61,1337 seems to be a reference/joke to the number 1337 being Leet, or elite with the 6 as a demonic figure. Demon Elite. And then the 64% seems to be a reference to doom 64. So what's the significance of the 81% number then? Or are these numbers all just a coincidence?

Quantom X

Answer: Another thing I've noticed is that if you add up all the individual numbers in 61,337 and then reverse the two letters you get 20 and 16. Both together is 2016, the year the film was released. Could be a coincidence but I doubt it.

Answer: The original "Castle Wolfenstein" was released in 1981. The popular "Wolfenstein 3D" was released in 1992 by Id Software, and gained them significant credibility.

Answer: Jamming the gate by blocking the sensor delayed Joe Bang's brothers long enough for Mellie to come and collect some bags full of cash. Jimmy specifically did not trust them to know his entire plan. This part of the ruse allowed them to steal a separate stash of money so they could pretend to return the stolen money, whilst secretly keeping some to distribute later.

Question: What blew the door to Mike's workshop off its hinges?

Answer: That was the initial gas blow-out, prior to the explosion. Pressurized gas was coming out of the drill pipe with sufficient force to tear the place apart, even before it ignited.

Charles Austin Miller

What caused the gases to ignite?

Gas blowouts are notorious for igniting themselves. The vast quantity of gas and particulates, expelled under high pressure, create an electrostatic charge in the gas cloud that arcs to the nearest grounding point. It's like shuffling across a carpet and then touching a metal doorknob: a tiny electrostatic spark is created. Such a tiny spark is all that is necessary to ignite a cloud of petroleum gas.

Charles Austin Miller

Question: When the soldiers were skydiving into the city why did they have red flares attached to their boots?

Answer: Due to the storm, it became difficult for the soldiers to see one another. The flares were used to help them keep track of their positions during the skydive.

Casual Person

Answer: The US had been to the moon twice before. America had already become jaded with NASA's successes and weren't interested in minute by minute coverage before they'd even reached the lunar surface.

Brian Katcher

The American public was not jaded with the lunar program so much as it was the Big Three television networks that had become complacent.

Charles Austin Miller

Show generally

Question: At the start of each episode of Mission Impossible Briggs or Phelps received details of the mission from a tape recording that was 'hidden in plain sight', say a telephone booth displaying a poster saying 'Telephone Out Of Order. Do Not Use'. So, what would happen if somebody went into the kiosk before Briggs or Phelps, picked up the telephone and got the secret message ahead of the Mission Impossible team?

Rob Halliday

Answer: We don't know what would happen because the show never addressed this issue. Any answer would be speculation. This is a TV show, and the plot is structured so that only IMF team will retrieve the secret message.

raywest

Answer: This is not really a serious question. When I posted this question I was fully aware that Mission Impossible is only a television programme. Like many espionage thrillers (Man From Uncle, The Avengers, James Bond) it is meant to entertain, it is never meant to be taken literally seriously. It was essential to the story that Briggs or Phelps received a secret message, which would give them a mission to accomplish. If they did not receive the message you would not have had the story. When I used to watch Mission Impossible it just used to amuse me to wonder what might have happened had somebody picked up the phone containing the secret message ahead of Briggs or Phelps. I even considered writing to a comedian and suggesting that they devise a comedy sketch in which this happened. My question was only meant to be a joke, that I posted to amuse people.

Rob Halliday

The Lucy Show or Here's Lucy did an episode of exactly this scenario.

Question: Listen closely to this audio. Https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLkotrb1O5o The subtitles in the game show that he says; "All UAC employees are subject to regular Med-Checks to ensure their production capabilities are not degraded." However when listening to it... to me it sounds like he's saying "That" instead of "Their." I've listened to it over and over trying to decipher if the word he uses is "That" or "Their." I think there is a mistake here in the game with the subtitle using the wrong word... However I can't be certain. Is this guy saying "That" or "Their"? What do you think?

Quantom X

Answer: Sounds like "their" to me. The accent and rolling into the "production" means I can see it could go either way, but it's certainly not definitively "that" enough to be a mistake, I'd say.

Jon Sandys

Question: Why did Vidrine not think there was anything wrong with the drill pipe, even though the drill pipe test showed a lot of pressure? Second, why did the test on the kill line show no pressure?

Answer: Vidrine didn't think there was anything wrong with the the drill pipe because there was nothing wrong with it. The problem was the cement cap they tried installing to seal the well. The thing to keep in mind is that British Petroleum didn't intend to immediately tap that well. Managers and crew of the floating platform rig planned to just cap the well and let another rig come along to handle actual production later. The crew was thus a little anxious to cement the well closed and abandon it. Some think it was this anxiousness to move on that produced the blowout. Of many procedures performed prior to abandonment was the "negative test" (whereby drilling mud was pulled out of the well to determine whether the cement cap could withstand the pressure). The negative test was bad, showing pressure in the drill line, an indication that gas had entered the well because they were applying suction to it, and the integrity of the cement cap was compromised. That's when Vidrine ordered the second test, this time on the kill line, and got a reading of no pressure (which was good, but was probably a false reading). Obviously, something wasn't right; but Vidrine, anxious to wrap the operation, decided to trust the kill line reading and basically ignore the drill line reading. This was a major mistake. As they continued pulling the drilling mud out, highly-pressurized gas shot straight up the drill pipe to the rig, and that was the end of Deepwater Horizon.

Charles Austin Miller

In the movie, the reason the kill line got no pressure is because the pipe got clogged. (if you listen to the audio description, you'll hear the audio describer the mud clogs the pipe during the kill line pressure test scene).

I thought it was mud that shot straight up from the drill pipe to the rig.

They were sucking the drilling mud up the pipe, but there was high-pressure petroleum gas behind it. They only realised too late that they had failed to cap the well; and then hell, as they say, broke loose.

Charles Austin Miller

Then what was that fluid flying upward through derrick?

You can liken a gas blow-out to somebody popping the top on a pressurized can of soda; gas and fluid alike come spewing out of what was, a moment before, a fairly stable fluid. Under tremendous pressure, all you need to do is give natural gas an escape route and all kinds of stuff comes up with it, including crude oil, asphalt, drilling mud, water, etc. The gas is blasting out of the earth and carrying anything and everything with it.

Charles Austin Miller

The mud contained a certain methane gas proportion, which ignited and caused the explosions.

Authorities don't think Vidrine was ultimately responsible though. They believe the an employee who died in the disaster was, because he was responsible for the bladder effect hypothesis. I think what the film is actually trying to say is that the person who made the mistake of trusting the kill line was ultimately responsible.

In real life, it was Vidrine who chose to trust the kill line reading and ignore the drill line reading.

Charles Austin Miller

By blaming someone who isn't around to defend themselves as they died in the disaster is considered cowardly. That's why in my opinion, money exchanged hands between BP and the Authorities to ensure no charges were brought against Vidrine. Again that's my own opinion. Here's a link to where the manslaughter charges against Kaluza and Vidrine are dropped https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/03/manslaughter-charges-dropped-bp-employees-deepwater-horizon-oil-spill.

Ssiscool

Personally I think the idea that the actual villain was the guy who was responsible for the bladder effect hypothesis, and not the guy who chose to trust the kill line reading, and not the drill line reading is absurd.

Question: During "I Need A Hero" when Puss begins fighting the guards a Spanish song briefly plays, what is the name of the song? I know I've heard it somewhere else before.

Answer: It's an instrumental version of "Holding Out for a Hero", but because it's being played as a tango, it has a Spanish flair to it.

Answer: You're probably referring to "Livin' La Vida Loca", which was the first major hit single for Ricky Martin in 1998; in this film it's performed by Eddie Murphy and Antonio Banderas in character as Donkey and Puss In Boots, respectively.

zendaddy621

I don't think the person who asked this question is referring to Living La Vida Loca. I think the song being referred to is the scene where the Fairy Godmother is singing I Need A Hero whilst Shrek, Donkey and Puss are breaking into the castle, and Puss stops on the way to fight the guards. After Puss gives his kitten eyes and says "En guard", he jumps up, taking his sword out to fight the guards, and heroic Spanish music briefly begins to play in the background. (Watch the video of this scene on YouTube https://youtu.be/WI0mSEzttx8 at the 3:55 mark for confirmation). I think it is that small piece of music that plays that is being referred to in the question, not Living La Vida Loca.

Casual Person

I think it's just an original part of the song to be honest, something Spanish added into it but originally composed for the song.

lionhead

Question: Why is it not possible to breach the security at the storage facility and use the robotic arm to swap the cards? It is an option never discussed.

Answer: This plan is not discussed because they may not have had the hacking skills to take control of the robotic arm. Regardless of whether or not they did, it would not have been the best idea as they are supposed to be infiltrating the facility in complete secrecy. The plan of Ethan holding his breath underwater and manually planting the cards into the system is a lengthier plan, but is less likely to result in them being caught.

Casual Person

Answer: Because no metal was allowed in the system.

Question: Not just this, but every cinema and television adaptation of the legend of The Man in the Iron Mask that I have seen, without exception, has always left me asking the same question. A man is locked up in a lonely prison where his face is hidden by an iron mask. The Three Musketeers or some similar swashbuckling heroes rescue him. He may have worn the iron mask for weeks, months, or even years. So why is it, that, when the iron mask is removed he always emerges clean shaven?

Rob Halliday

Answer: The mask would be periodically removed by the prisoner's attendants to shave his beard and cut his hair. Leaving it on permanently and letting his beard and hair grow endlessly would create physical and medical problems, possibly even suffocating him eventually. The goal was to keep him imprisoned for a long period of time, not to execute him.

raywest

But isn't he wearing the mask so that nobody will know who he is? If the prison staff keep removing the mask to shave him and cut his hair then they will all know exactly what he looks like, and they will be able to identify him. In many versions of the story he has to wear the mask so that nobody will recognise him as the king's twin brother. If the prison guards remove the mask won't they see how he resembles the king? Alternatively, if the prison guards already know that he is the king's twin brother, then why bother to mask his face?

Rob Halliday

Anyone who was guarding and/or attending to the prisoner would be loyal to the king, acting as his agents, and sworn to keep his secrets. Not doing so would be treason. They would likely have minimal knowledge of who this person was, nor would it matter to them. They may or may not notice any resemblance to the king. In the prisoner's disheveled and weakened conditioned, it would not be obvious that he is an identical twin. Also, few people in pre-mass media times, knew what royals looked like, probably only catching occasional glimpses of them from far away, if ever at all.

raywest

Answer: In the 1939 version of The Man in the Iron Mask starring Louis Hayword, when the mask is taken off, he does have a beard. Phillipe even asks Louis how long it will take for his (Louis') beard to grow once he is in the mask.

Season 8 generally

Question: If Ramon Sanchez (Gabby's stepfather) lived in Oklahoma City and was reported missing by his wife who also lived in Oklahoma City, why would Chuck, who lives a plane ride away in Fairview, be investigating the case?

Madiking

Answer: He was investigating the lead not the case.

Question: When Baron Munchausen and his cohorts clean out the Sultan's vault, the Sultan's horrified Treasurer crosses himself in the Catholic fashion. But, in this film, the Sultan is head of the Ottoman Empire (a Muslim empire), and the closest members of his court (such as his Treasurer) would surely be Muslim. So the treasurer's Christian gesture stands out as unlikely, at best. This seems to be a character error, but was it intended as a deliberate joke? If so, what was the joke?

Charles Austin Miller

Answer: The Baron is a teller of tall tales and massively exaggerated stories, so it is all from his limited point of view. The Ottomans did have Christian members of staff, especially doctors and such but the treasurer would never be a non-Muslim.

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