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.

Chosen answer: No specific year is given, but it's set in the early 1900's.

Bishop73

Question: How did Lt. Wade wind up over North Korea when she was flying South/Southeast from Tajikistan as instructed by Lt. Gannon? North Korea is East/Northeast of Tajikistan.

Answer: The writers didn't understand geography.

Question: How far down was Anakin's left arm cut off? His right arm was cut down to just the elbow.

Answer: Anakin's rage drives him to make a deadly blunder, and he tries to attack Obi-Wan uphill; whereupon, Obi-Wan handily amputates both of Anakin's legs above the knee and amputates his left arm above the elbow.

Charles Austin Miller

Question: Given that Truman is being watched (by multiple cameras) 24/7, how does he manage to escape from his house and get out to "sea" on a boat without any of the crew seeing him?

Answer: As the film depicts the control room during the overnight hours, while Truman typically sleeps, the crew is greatly reduced, and not paying very close attention. By that point in the film, Truman had moved into the basement of his home, having separated from his wife. He managed to sneak out of his house while the crew thought he was asleep. Truman had configured his sleeping area to look like he was in it, and had added a recording of himself snoring. We must suspend a bit of disbelief to imagine he could pull this off without anyone, crew nor devoted viewing audience, noticing. But presuming he was able to accomplish the deception, he was able to escape out to sea because nobody was paying attention to any of the thousands of other cameras in town, as all of the focus was on the allegedly sleeping Truman.

Michael Albert

Question: In the final fight between T-850 and the new T-X, there is a nuclear explosion. But this is not behind the shelter door, it explodes under the door. How could John and Kate survive such a massive nuclear explosion?

alko

Chosen answer: The explosion isn't massive, it is caused by the T-850's hydrogen fuel cell. The T-850 throws its damaged first cell out of the car window earlier, and it causes a mini mushroom cloud but not the same as a true hydrogen bomb, which would have destroyed their car.

Sierra1

Chosen answer: A simple question with a complex answer. When Ed Norton's narrator character mercilessly beats Jared Leto's Angel Face to a pulp in the film, Norton only explains that he "wanted to destroy something beautiful"; in the novel by Chuck Palahniuk, however, he gives a more psychotic reason: "What Tyler says about being the crap and slaves of history, that's how I felt. I wanted to destroy everything beautiful I'd never have. Burn the Amazon rain forests. Pump chlorofluorocarbons straight up to gobble the ozone. Open the dump valves on supertankers and uncap offshore oil wells. I wanted to kill all the fish I couldn't afford to eat, and smother the French beaches I'd never see. I wanted the whole world to hit bottom. Pounding that kid, I really wanted to put a bullet between the eyes of every endangered panda that wouldn't screw to save its species and every whale and dolphin that gave up and ran itself aground. Don't think of it as extinction. Think of it as downsizing. For thousands of years, human beings had screwed up and trashed and crapped on this planet, and now history expected me to clean up after everyone. I have to wash out and flatten my soup cans. And account for every drop of used motor oil. And I have to foot the bill for nuclear waste and buried gasoline tanks and landfilled toxic sludge dumped a generation before I was born. I held the face of Mister Angel like a baby or a football in the crook of my arm and bashed him with my knuckles, bashed him until his teeth broke through his lips. Bashed him with my elbow after that until he fell through my arms into a heap at my feet. Until the skin was pounded thin across his cheekbones and turned black. I wanted to breathe smoke. Birds and deer are a silly luxury, and all the fish should be floating. I wanted to burn the Louvre. I'd do the Elgin Marbles with a sledgehammer and wipe my ass with the Mona Lisa. This is my world, now. This is my world, my world, and those ancient people are dead." - Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk.

Charles Austin Miller

Answer: The simpler answer is: from the Narrator's point of view Tyler appeared to favoring Leto, since the Narrator hadn't come to terms with the split personality yet he obviously felt deep seated jealousy. It says right in the scene beforehand that "I am Jack's inflamed sense of rejection."

Question: When Ranse confronts Liberty and reaches for the dropped gun, there appears to be something written at Ranse's feet in the dirt. What is it?

Answer: At first glance, it looks like the word "LEFT" in large, widely-spaced lettering. It's very unlikely that this would be a blocking cue, telling Jimmy Stewart to move left (which he does from that point). That's not the way blocking cues are done, for one thing, and a seasoned actor such as Jimmy Stewart wouldn't need such a cue. It's also very unlikely that it's a warning message from John Wayne who is hiding in an alley across the street, on Stewart's right. John Wayne didn't want anyone to know that he actually killed Valance, so he wouldn't alert Jimmy Stewart with any messages scrawled in the street. All hypothesis aside, it's probably just footprints in the dirt, an illusion of light and shadow.

Question: Because of time constraints, the only way that J, K, and Griff could get to Cape Canaveral fast enough was with those clunky jet packs. How did Boris the Animal manage to get to Cape Canaveral as quickly?

Answer: The most likely assumption, they took a bus ride or a plane to get to Cape Canaveral. If there was not enough time to do this, then they probably just used the time travel device to go back a few hours, giving them enough time.

Casual Person

Mr. Bean Goes To Town - S1-E6

Question: In the first act when Bean can only get a decent TV signal by sitting in a certain part of the room, we can hear the soundtrack of a programme "on" Bean's TV. Does anybody know what programme Bean was trying to watch please?

Neil Jones

Question: If Scar chose Kovu, why is Kovu not the same age as Simba? Instead, he's the same age as Kiara, but Kiara is born only after Scar's death. Even if Scar chose Kovu say, a week prior to his death, Kovu would still be older than Kiara, and Scar would likely have had the pride of Outland lionesses at his back, rather than the Hyenas that killed him. Instead, the only lionesses we see are the Prideland lionesses. If Scar was able to lead the outlanders as their king with Zira at his side, I'm rather confused about his desire for Pride rock in the first place.

Lizzie Turley

Answer: It's since been revealed that Zira completely made up the bit about Scar choosing Kovu as his successor. Any errors or plot holes can thus be chalked up to that.

Chosen answer: The Kovu age discrepancy, and the lack of outlander support for Scar during his Pridelands rule, are plot holes, pretty much unavoidably created by the very story in this sequel.

Purple_Girl

Answer: Perhaps Zira had just got pregnant with him and Scar had no choice but to select the unborn cub to be the new leader if it was male, and he was lucky that it was. He might have guessed that Simba would come back some time and he made this decision in a panic, forgetting about anyone else. Nala would get pregnant with Kiara around this time and she and Simba were seen possibly mating (though well hidden by Disney) during the love song in the first movie. Some time may have passed since this moment, meaning she could give birth around the same time as Zira. One more thing is that baby Kiara is a lot chubbier than Simba was, so the ceremony could be a bit late and she is a bit older than people think at that moment.

The Builders - S1-E2

Question: After Manuel has been punched by the builder, there is a close-up of the telephone receiver, and we hear Basil say something that ends in "thank you very much." What does Basil say?

Answer: Basil says "Well done, Manuel, thank you very much."

Sierra1

Question: In Godfather Part 2 Michael was convinced Fredo was the traitor in his family. Who opened the drapes in his bedroom, certainly not the nimble handed Fredo who couldn't hold a gun when his father was being gunned down. Who killed the 2 assassins after Michael told Rocco he wants them alive? If Fredo was the only traitor, as Michael said, can we really accept the premise that Fredo was capable of killing those two men? Fredo says to Michael "I got involved because Johnny Ola said you were being hard on the negotiations," letting in assassins to the compound doesn't fit with "being hard on the negotiations." It all doesn't make sense, can someone explain?

Answer: Fredo was not directly involved in the assassination attempt on Michael, nor did he know about it. He was duped by Ola and Roth into believing that they only wanted his help because Michael was being difficult during negotiations. Fredo was offered a large sum of money in exchange for some inside information that was then used to set up the assassination attempt. It's unknown who opened the drapes, how the assassins got in or who killed them, but it was not Fredo.

raywest

Question: Why did Ocean's team leave the drill behind at Van der Woude's house? Was it to tip Isabel off about the Night Fox's involvement in the stealing of the document?

Answer: Isabel was going to find out they had been there anyway. There was no reason to hide their tracks by taking the drill back with them. The drill was going to be left behind anyway, it didn't have any purpose anymore.

lionhead

Question: Why did Freddy Fernandez stop being Daniel's friend after Johnny won the fight at the beach? It's not like Freddy Fernandez would have done any better, since he has no knowledge in karate.

Answer: Because any friend of Daniel's is likely to be an enemy of Johnny's. Simple matter of self-preservation.

Phixius

Answer: Freddy's friends made fun of Freddy for befriending a loser like Daniel. After the fight, Freddy's friend says, "You sure pick cool people to be friends with, Freddy. Where did you find this guy?"

Question: When Nick goes to the restaurant when it is closed for the day and night, and Nick has tried to explain everything to Joanna, then she has to answer the phone, why does the camera zoom in on a pair of sunglasses at the far end of the bar?

kh1616

Chosen answer: It's not the sunglasses. It's the matches. Nick is acting as though he is coming closer to Joanna to get a pack of matches, which she then notices he already has. She realises that he is trying to eavesdrop on her conversation, and although she was previously buying his apology her demeanor changes drastically once she is finished with the phone call.

Oh my gosh, thank you! One of my favourite movies, yet I didn't get this scene.

Answer: They are zooming in on the lighter not the sunglasses. He approaches her to pretend he needs matches in order to overhear who she is speaking with, she notices the lighter and that he didn't need to move from his seat, he already had a way to light his cigarette.

Question: What was the point of showing us the living-room doors opening, then closing, after Ruth has gone to bed, leaving Charles and Elvira alone?

kh1616

Show generally

Question: Assuming that Moonbase Alpha is on the side facing the Earth (which is seen on the horizon over the base in the pilot episode "Breakaway"), making travel to it and back easier, and the nuclear waste on the far side, away from Earth, wouldn't the explosion propel the moon towards the Earth, thereby dooming Alpha to certain destruction?

Movie Nut

Answer: Not necessarily - The gravitational fields of Earth and the Sun could have deflected the moon away from the solar system.

Seniram

Question: What happened to the other Redcoats who were in the canoes during the escape from the ambush? By the time they send the canoes over the waterfall and retreat to the cave, only the six of them are left.

Answer: Major Hayward is supporting one of the soldiers as they enter the cave. After they make their way down the rocks, he puts the soldier down on the ground. The other soldier appears to be killed by one of Magua's gang.

Question: After the raid on his farm and he has buried his wife and son, where did he get the ammunition (powder, caps and balls) to do all the practising with, as they would have burned up in the fire and the lead balls would have melted?

Answer: At first, the story advances very rapidly, essentially giving the audience a primer lesson on Josey's angry motivation; so, many minute details aren't explored, such as where he acquired his ammunition. We might conjecture that Josey had a separate out-building, called a "powder house" (which was common in that era) where gunpowder and shot was kept for safety reasons. If he did, that raises the question of why the raiders didn't ransack and burn his powder house as well.

Charles Austin Miller

Question: I remember a scene in the movie where a female crew member tell the captain that she always tried to get him to look at her, then she said something like, "look at me" and unzips her suit to reveal something like flesh eating bacteria. But I don't find it in the movie. Was that in a remake or in some other movie? There is a scene like that in a Star Trek episode, but that is not what I am referring to.

Answer: This is most likely the 2000 horror movie "Sideshow." A group of high school students go to a circus and one of the side show performers has the ability of opening her skin to reveal to the audience her internal organs. She uses this ability to seduce and kill one of the students.

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