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: At the beginning, M and agents representing the USA, Soviet Union and France try to convince James Bond to come out of retirement. Bond steadfastly refuses; whereupon, M lights his cigar as a signal for British troops in the distance to destroy Bond's estate with mortar fire (M is accidentally killed in the mortar attack). But what was the purpose of destroying Bond's estate? Wouldn't that action only drive Bond further away from rejoining the spy corps? Why would the British government go to such lengths to punish Bond? And then why did Bond return to the secret service, anyway, after such treachery?

Charles Austin Miller

Answer: Given that this is a comedy, the thinking was probably "Well, we'll just blow up your retirement so you've got no choice but to come out of it."

Captain Defenestrator

Answer: It's never known who was responsible.

Question: At the end of the movie George Knox adopts PJ, and Roger. Wouldn't George have had to meet with a social worker before adopting them?

Answer: Maybe he did offscreen?

dizzyd

I meant that as a yes or no question.

Question: When McClane and his boss are in the van with the FBI agents and Gruber guesses who of the FBI is in the van there is a man sitting in the back. Who is he and why doesn't Gruber guess he is in the car as well?

lionhead

Answer: He is actor Richard Russell Ramos and he's credited as FBI Chief. Simon does allude he's there because he uses the plural "FBI agents" and Jarvis is not from the FBI. However, it seems Simon's point is made that he knows who is in the van because he's watching them. There was just no need to identify everyone in the van.

Bishop73

Answer: There's a few reasons. Hermione thinks Ron is over-reacting about it and that he is only trying to blame her for something. She's also being a bit insensitive to the situation, ignoring any real concerns Ron has. It's part of their simmering personality conflict, which they eventually overcome.

raywest

Question: How come Hermione never receives a Weasley jumper? She'd earn one to cancel a trip with her parents after never seeing them to stay with the Weasleys and make sure Arthur was OK, surely?

THE GAMER NEXT DOOR

Answer: Molly wasn't ignoring Hermione. She knew Hermione's parents always gave her nice gifts for her birthday, Christmas, etc. Molly gave Harry a sweater because she knew his Aunt and Uncle never gave him any gifts. She simply didn't want Harry to be left out when everyone else got something. Also, Molly knitted the sweaters herself, taking some time to make them. She did not anticipate Hermione being there.

raywest

Question: Jerry turned Evil into a vampire but he was actually a werewolf when he attacked Peter? So how did that work?

Answer: Traditionally, vampires could turn into wolves. Dracula uses a wolf form throughout the original novel by Bram Stoker, so it isn't completely unheard of. Ed is definitely a vampire but he is one who can also turn into a wolf. Whether or not he can also turn into a bat like Jerry is unknown. Whether or not Jerry can also turn into a wolf is unknown.

BaconIsMyBFF

Answer: After Charlie stabs Jerry with the pencil, Peter Vincent appears on the Fright Night TV show and says, "Do you know, there are some people who don't believe in Vampires? I do, because I know they exist. I have fought them in all their guises: MAN. BAT. WOLF. And I have always WON..."

Angelus73

Question: Before the sequel went into production, the writer of the first film (Roger Avery) was supposed to return to write it, and even worked out a plan to write it from prison after he was jailed for vehicular manslaughter. But he ended up getting dropped. I'm just curious... did he actually ever write a draft for the sequel? And if so, is it available online? The second movie wasn't very good (in fact it pretty much sucked), so I'd be interested to see what he originally had planned before being dropped from the project.

TedStixon

Answer: In an interview Roger Avary said he only started working on a basic outline of the 2nd film which he did not complete. He did not comment on the content of the outline and it is not available online anywhere.

BaconIsMyBFF

Question: Trioxin is supposed to make living things indestructible. Yet these trioxin zombies just like the ones in the fourth film die with just one bullet. Why is that?

21collaw

Question: Every time the otherworld comes, a siren blares in the distance. If Alessa wants revenge why would a siren be on the church and why would it go off? Unless Alessa wanted something to warn Rose when danger is near.

21collaw

Answer: The implication in the film is that the Church blares the siren or has it rigged to blare when the "darkness" is coming. Basically to warn anyone outside to seek shelter. In the original game (on which the movie is very loosely based), the siren is more abstract, and seems to be a sort-of supernatural warning of the impending transition between the "fog" and "dark" worlds. There is no 100% agreed upon reason for the sirens in the games, only fan-theories.

Answer: In the context of the movie, the air around the area is toxic due to the coal-mine fires underground. Therefore, it's a prohibited area. Additionally, there had been illegal activity in the past (like Cybil says, a child-abductor once used the area to store the boy he kidnapped), which is also likely a factor as to why it's completely fenced in.

TedStixon

Question: At the end, during the battle with Lotto, Rabbit tells him to "Pay attention. You're saying the same shit he said" while pointing to Lyckety-Splyt. Lotto's insults were all racist, while Lyckety (whose only racial comment was calling Rabbit a Nazi), focused his insults towards beating Rabbit and insulting his friends. Therefore how was Lotto repeating Lickety's insults?

lartaker1975

Answer: Lyckety made several racial insults in addition to calling Rabbit a Nazi: "You the New Kid on the Block about to get smacked back to the boondocks", "form a squad with Vanilla Ice", "this guy's a hillbilly, this ain't Willie Nelson music", "you'll get dropped so hard that Elvis will start turnin' in his grave", "need to take your white a** back across 8 Mile to the trailer park." Cleverly, all of Lyckety's racial insults refer specifically to white recording artists besides his final insult. Lotto does essentially the same thing, saying generic things about Rabbit's race. This is why Rabbit says "you see how far the white jokes get you" when he battles Lotto.

BaconIsMyBFF

Question: When Harry became the champion, why did Dumbledore get mad? I know in the book, he doesn't get mad, he asks Harry calmly. Why did the screenwriters change this?

DFirst1

Answer: It's typical for scenes taken from a book to be depicted a bit differently in a film adaptation. Movies are visual and in this instance, the filmmakers were going for a more dramatic, ramped-up effect. Dumbledore was never mad at Harry, but upset by the turn of events and he had to be certain Harry was not in any way involved.

raywest

Answer: He's not mad per se, he is concerned that Harry did it himself and that he put himself in danger. He felt it was careless of him to do that, that's why he asked so furiously.

lionhead

Question: Why does the grudge seem to torture the elderly lady in the beginning and keep her alive but kill everyone else immediately?

Answer: It's not entirely accurate to say that the ghosts kill all their other victims immediately. They torment the other victims in various ways and definitely seem to drag things out with pretty much every victim. There are several opportunities where the ghosts could easily kill someone but choose to simply frighten them instead, killing them when they are at the height of their terror.

BaconIsMyBFF

Question: When Rachel and Ray were down in the basement, how did that tentacle with the flashlight know that they were down there?

Answer: It didn't. It was checking to see if the place had anyone in it. The only way it would know is if it was following them the whole time, which it wasn't.

Question: What happened to that Asian nurse in the hospital that was last seen sliding down and scratching a sort of metal wall?

Answer: It's implied that all the doctors and nurses in that scene were killed. And she wasn't scratching a metal wall. She was being dragged across the floor and her fingernails were peeling up the floor surface in a desperate attempt to cling to safety.

Phaneron

Question: Did Omar Shariff make it out of the collapsing rock canyon alive? I missed the ending.

Answer: Colorado and MacKenna both make it out of the canyon alive and then go their separate ways. The gold was buried in the collapse, but McKenna is seen riding off on Sgt. Tibbs horse. The saddle bag is stuffed with gold nuggets.

raywest

Question: Why didn't the prisoners just walk through the tunnel to Switzerland on the other side?

Answer: The majority of prisoners were heading towards Switzerland through the tunnel, only a few prisoners with weapons were acting as a rear guard to hold off the German troops chasing them and buy the prisoners time to escape.

Scott215

All the prisoners were on the train. I've contended before, they didn't need to fix the track. Just leave the train on the bridge and go straight through the tunnel. That route HAD to be shorter than going around on the walkway, and they would have had a much larger head start than waiting to fix the track.

kaevanoff

Dead Man Dating - S1-E4

Question: Does anyone know the song that is played right after the intro? Not Secret Smile, but the one played on the Netflix version.

Answer: The song is a studio band original song and not available. I think they didn't even name it. Many of the licensed songs used in "Charmed" originally that Netflix can't or won't pay for have been replaced with similar sounding songs from a studio band. This is one of the few completely different sounding songs.

Bishop73

Question: Was that egg timer type in use or even invented in 1962?

Answer: Yes, clockwork timers were invented in the 1920's. This sort of egg timer was in heavy use by the 1960's.

BaconIsMyBFF

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