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: In the movie Detroit all the police cars had blue lights. Wasn't 1967 a bit early for blue lights? I'm thinking seventies.

Answer: Color photos from the incident as well as car restorer enthusiasts have shown that they already had blue lights. The Michigan State Police however used red lights.

Question: Why would Henry become a sailor in the British Royal Navy knowing he would be abused and mistreated by the Navy?

Answer: It was a common occupation for many men, who knew it was a hard life. Sailors were generally treated fairly and were well fed and housed as long they obeyed orders and followed the rules. Punishments for any wrong-doing could be moderate to severe depending on the circumstances. Henry knew this when he enlisted. He was not being abused. He was punished for having done something wrong.

raywest

Question: I know Voldemort has lost all faith in Lucius, but why break his wand when he is needing a wand to kill Harry?

THE GAMER NEXT DOOR

Answer: He didn't break it. Lucius' wand had some kind of custom-made handle which Voldemort snapped off when he confiscated it.

Brian Katcher

Answer: Lucius' wand was part of his walking stick. The wand, that was attached to an ornate silver handle, fit into the cane's shaft and was removable. Lucius can be seen removing the wand from the cane at the end of Chamber of Secrets when he was about to curse Harry. When Lucius hands the wand to Voldemort, the Dark Lord detaches the silver handle from it. The "snapping" that was heard was an added sound effect that was a bit overdone.

raywest

Answer: He's angry because one of his men was using one of their alien weapons out in the open.

Answer: He's been stealing advanced technology and money unimpeded for several years, but now Spider-Man has interfered in two of his heists. He's frustrated and concerned about what will happen if the Avengers catch onto him.

Phaneron

Question: Why did God choose Jerry to spread his word around to other people?

Answer: He tells Jerry he chose him specifically because he was an average person. As he put it "better than some, not as good as others."

Question: Where did the hijackers hide Julia?

Answer: They hid her in the avionics section. Stephanie would have made sure that she "searched" that section since she is one of the hijackers.

Which part of the avionics section? The nose of the plane?

The avionics section can be much larger than the nose of the plane. On a 747 for example, it's "1.7 metres tall, and about 60cms wide, but goes the full width of the plane." A photo is here, and you could easily stash a child in it. Http://www.billzilla.org/aviationpage3.html.

Jon Sandys

Actually if you look at the shape of the interior where they hid Julia you can tell that it's the nose of the plane, and it would have been far too full with all kinds of equipment to put a child inside.

OK, well there's already a mistake mentioning that, so there's your answer. In the plot they hide her in the nose, but in the real world that's impossible.

Jon Sandys

Question: What did Houston mean by they need Omni bravo?

Answer: The Apollo spacecraft had 4 omni-directional control antennas, designated A, B, C, and D. "Omni Bravo" was the B antenna. When Mission Control in Houston said they needed Omni Bravo, it meant they wanted Apollo 13 to try to activate the B antenna.

Charles Austin Miller

What were Omni-directional control antennas?

Omni Directional Control Antennas were capable of sending and receiving signals from any direction. The Apollo 13 spacecraft had 4 redundant antennas of this type, which allowed Mission Control in Houston to remotely control certain systems when necessary.

Answer: Omni directional antennas can broadcast in any direction at once, as opposed to one that can only broadcast to a particular spot.

stiiggy

Question: In Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, Luke's replacement hand looks like a normal human one (though it was mechanical). In this film he has a more obviously robotic hand. Other than to remind today's audiences that he previously lost his hand, was there any point to this change?

Gavin Jackson

Answer: The outer skin could have been destroyed when Ben attacked Luke and ransacked the temple. We see Luke's robotic hand rise out of the rubble. Perhaps it had skin before that, and Luke never fixed it as a reminder of his "failure."

Answer: At the beginning of Return of the Jedi Luke gets shot in the robotic hand and just wears a glove over it for the whole movie even though he could have had the skin fixed. Apparently in the many years between the movies he never bothered having any damage to the face flesh and skin fixed.

Answer: After thirty plus years, it could just be the natural degradation of the organic flesh covering the robotic parts.

Answer: He likely downgraded to a simpler, easier to maintain version at some point. Presumably before going off to the island.

The robotic hand Luke has in The Last Jedi has the scorch mark he got from a blaster from Return of the Jedi. It's the same hand, just without the artificial skin covering.

Bishop73

Question: Why do Snoke's guards attack Kylo Ren and Rey after Kylo kills Snoke? They no longer need to obey him, and he is past protecting.

Answer: Kylo Ren has betrayed the First Order. They were loyal to the First Order. You are assuming they only did so out of fear of Snoke rather than out of loyalty.

Answer: Kylo killing Snoke is no different than any leader being assassinated. If the U.S. President is assassinated, the Secret Service will come after the assailant (s) even though the president is past protecting.

jshy7979

Question: As Al arrives, the terrorists run to a window and talk in German, laughing at him. What are they saying?

Answer: Based on the original film, it's almost impossible to say, as the actors could not actually speak German and were faking it. A search of the Die Hard script shows no specific German words or phrases, only vague notations such as "they speak briefly in German"; so, the German dialogue scenes were improvised outside of the script. Thus, most of the terrorists' "German" dialogue is incoherent gibberish with terrible pronunciation and grammar, such that it's incomprehensible. When they released this film in Germany, they even changed the terrorists' nationality from German to "European" (rather than insult German audiences with the garbled, nonsensical dialogue). Supposedly, when the movie was first released on VHS, they went back and dubbed in real German dialogue, but I've never seen or heard that version.

Charles Austin Miller

Answer: "nür einmal" - literally "only one"

"Nür ein mann" - literally "only one man".

Answer: I wonder why they didn't take the German subbed version for it where they say "Wieviele Bullen sind es?" to which the other one replies "Nur so ein Fettsack" which translates to "how many cops are there?" "Just one fat guy" and is grammatically correct.

Answer: I always thought that they were discussing the fact that it was just the one policeman responding. Something about einman meaning one man. But that's my broken gcse German from secondary school.

Alan Keddie

Answer: "Neuer ein man..." literally means 'One new man." But he says it more Anglicised so "neuer" sounds like English "newer."

Nür ein Mann is what's said - Only one man.

I believe it was 'nur ein man' - or 'only one man'.

Question: When John is first on the construction floor, he looks across and the shot lingers on a woman in another building. There doesn't seem to be any real point to that shot - am I missing something?

Answer: When Hans and the gang enter the floor and take everyone hostage, that's when John's phone gets cut out while talking to Argyle in the garage. He then escapes up to the unfinished floors and sees the construction foreman's phone and runs over to try that phone and of course the same thing; the phone is dead. He looks out the window and sees the woman talking on her phone in the adjacent building and it confirms to John that the Nakatomi Towers phone lines have been cut since it's not affecting the building next door.

Answer: He's waiting to see if she looks in his direction, so he can try to signal her. She doesn't, so he moves on.

If you look closely, she is talking on the phone, which confirms to John that the phone lines had been cut.

Question: After Sadness is shown typing on the console, why does a core memory form instead of a normal memory?

Answer: Core memories are formed when an event has a profound impact on a person's life, shaping their very personality going forward. Riley crying in front of her class on her first day of school was intensely embarrassing, thus a core memory was formed instead of a normal memory.

BaconIsMyBFF

Question: Why was Lois so uncomfortable when Clark said "Swell"? It's a word that was extremely popular in the 70s (the timeframe of this movie) and although not as common nowadays, it's still used to this day.

Answer: It's not that Lois was uncomfortable with the word, she said there are very few people left who feel comfortable saying swell these days. She is basically saying there's not a lot of people left who speak like they're still living in the 50's. Swell was more popular in the 40's and 50's as slang for "excellent." In the late 70's, it wasn't really a popular slang word, or had dissolved into meaning "fine" or "ok." Today the word is used more ironically "oh, you need me to pay because your forgot your wallet, swell." It would be similar to if someone said "neat-o" unironically and the reply was "who says neat-o these days?"

Bishop73

Answer: "Swell" is not really a slang expression that was widely used in the 1970s. By that time it was considered quite dated in the manner that Clark is using it. It was more popularly used in the mid-20th century (40s and 50s).

raywest

Answer: Technically, he was on neither side. When Aberforth found out that Albus and Grindelwald had been collaborating on suppressing non-magical humans, he was outraged and strongly opposed his brother; it led to the three-way duel between Aberforth, Albus, and Grindelwald that resulted in Ariana's accidental death. Although Albus had rejected Grindelwald's beliefs and later defeated him in their own duel, the two brothers never fully reconciled.

raywest

Question: Near the end of the movie when Carson is searching for Kyle, he looks like he injured his leg. How did that happen?

Answer: Carson injured his leg when he fell from opening above the restroom and smashed into the mirror after Kyle punches Stephanie.

Question: What was the point of getting two FBI agents on the plane if Carson needed the plane cleared to kill Kyle and Julia? Or was that something he was lying about? If so, why did he proceed to get off the plane?

Answer: Carson would not have any authority to prevent the F.B.I. from boarding the plane, and it would be highly suspicious if he in anyway tried to interfere with their investigation. He needed to act as if he was following normal procedures, otherwise his part in the plot would have immediately been exposed.

raywest

Question: Why would Carson have the morgue director send a fake certificate that claimed Julia has died if his goal was to get Kyle in the hold so she can unlock the casket? Wouldn't that interfere with doing so?

Answer: The goal was to make it look like Kyle was so unhinged that she was imagining that her daughter had not died. The fake certificate was to convince the captain that Kyle must be hallucinating. Carson knew that Kyle would not be fooled and would continue to search for her daughter on the plane, eventually looking inside the casket.

raywest

Question: How accurate is the carjacking scene?

Answer: The resurrection stone, one of the three Deathly Hallows, was hidden inside the Quidditch snitch that Dumbledore left Harry in his will. When Harry touched his lips to the snitch, it opened and released the stone. Voldemort had made Tom Marvolo's ring into a horcrux, but the ring itself was not one of the Deathly Hallows. Voldemort never knew that the ring's gem was the resurrection stone. When Dumbledore later found the ring, he removed the stone and hid it in the snitch.

raywest

Question: Why do the soldiers (Mellish and Reiben) air kiss when they talk about sleep in the church scene?

Answer: Mellish was pulling his chain with the comment about his mom before. The air kisses were meant to be sarcastic.

lionhead

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