Question: I know what excelsior means, I googled it, but is there more of a significance for it here?
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Question: What was with him vomiting throughout the movie? Did it mean something?
Answer: Hank threw up in the toilet because the picture of Letitia's husband as scratched by her son. He had escorted him to the death chamber.
Chosen answer: Hank is a deputy warden in a Georgia state prison.He oversees the executions of condemned prisoners, and before each one he is literally sickened by having to perform this duty.
No - he threw up after sex with Berry which is well after he quit. He threw up after drinking heavily the night before.
Per the vomit-after-sex scene. I too, thought that the drinking must have caused it. I rewound and watched the scene again and BAM, I'd missed it! He's in the bathroom at the sink facing the mirror. THERE, TWICE, he can see the reflected picture of her dead executed husband: in the main mirror plus in the little round mirror to the right. (Musgrove's pic must be hung on the wall behind him.) That execution memory = vomiting.
He threw up because he saw her husband's picture.
Answer: It's quite evident that he vomited after seeing Leticia's husband's pic juxtaposed with his image which fortified guilt, it was sickening to him.
Question: At the beginning after Callahan has killed two guys who shot at him, the third is running away. In real life, would he have faced charges for this? The first two were self defense but the 3rd guy was running away. He is not the type of person to deny the shooter was fleeing and not a threat.
Chosen answer: Under those circumstances, when someone has just committed an extreme act to protect themselves it would be hard to claim that the third shooting was deliberate murder, that he was thinking normally, and that there was no further danger. From Callahan's perspective, he might have believed the shooter was not actually fleeing and still posed a threat if he came back.
Question: Liam Neeson says he needed Johnny Squares as "a video tie-in." What does he mean by this? How does a music video help a film or vice versa?
Chosen answer: MTV was extremely popular in 1988, especially with the young demographic his film was intended for. Having a music video tie-in would increase the film's exposure as well as its potential box office performance.
Question: I was reading the mistakes for "Hellboy" and I saw one that completely blew me away: In the scenes down in the disused train tunnels, Hellboy comes out of one with his massive arm now on his left and he's holding a gun in his right. How could the make-up people make such a huge mistake, and how come Ron Perlman, the actor who played Hellboy, not notice the difference?
Question: Why does Hellboy have to live inside a huge safe, with a massively thick door? This is his home; he chooses to live there. Why is he locked up?
Chosen answer: A movie conversation explains Hellboy actually doesn't like being cooped up and enjoys going out from time to time, but this causes a big problem for the secret organization he's supposed to work for. Long story short, he has a curfew and the safe is the only way to make sure he doesn't break out.
Question: When Hellboy has the stinger on his arm, in the alley behind the library, he tosses it to Myers, who throws it away, but it's back home - it was thrown away; how did it get back home? Or who took it home?
Chosen answer: Myers just threw it a short distance away because he didn't really want to hold it. He obviously picked it up and took it back to base.
Question: Why didn't Hans Gruber simply place 5 hostages in a room and threaten to blow their brains out if John McClane doesn't hand himself in? John McClane is the good guy with a conscience and Hans Gruber is the ruthless killer that kills 2 people in a heartbeat, John would have been forced to hand himself in or be responsible for their deaths. Even if Hans didn't want to kill anyone, he could have pretended to shoot people one by one. John wouldn't know any better.
Answer: We don't know what John would have done in that circumstance. Obviously Hans was planning to kill everyone with the explosives anyway at the end. Perhaps John would have suspected that. Also, doing that would invite more police incursions.
Hans thought Ellis was a good friend of John's and John still didn't give up when he was going to shoot him. If John wouldn't save his friend, why would he care about others. Plus Hans told Karl earlier he could stall the police but not if they heard gun shots. The police would have absolutely stormed the building if he started killing the hostages.
The fact that we don't know how John McClane would have acted doesn't remove the fact that it would most likely have been a good way to coax him out. Also, depending on when Hans Gruber would have decided do implement this strategy, John probably wouldn't have known about the explosives on the roof as he only finds out about them at the 3rd act break. As for the "more police incursions" part, I couldn't disagree more; Hans already killed two hostages - one on speaker with the police -, all the cops in LA seem to be there already, and don't forget that the involvement of the FBI is part of their plan anyway. This is definitely the one major plot hole of this otherwise perfect film.
It would have been, but plenty of movie plots don't pan out the "perfect" way without it being a plot hole. Killing Ellis is a reasonable first step, it doesn't work, and then the events of the plot pick up pace - Gruber goes to check the detonators, as that's a priority. He's hoping/assuming they can get through the rest of their plan by isolating McClane, or at least prevent him causing more chaos. They want the power shut off - they don't want to cause such massive carnage that the building is stormed before then. They need to get helicopters, blow the roof, and escape as planned. Hans doesn't want to derail things any more than they already have been.
Seems to me like they have all their bases covered; the police isn't even able to get in with a tank as he blows them up so I don't think the police "storming the building" is even a possibility in the reality of the film. Also, after blowing up that tank, that's two hostages and a bunch of cops dead so I would say the situation is pretty derailed. Everything is going as planned for Hans and his team, except for McClane, so he should be in damage control mode and this is an obvious solution. He doesn't even have to change his plans, just tell McClane he's gonna kill one hostage every 10 minutes until he shows up unarmed and tell one of his henchmen guarding the hostages to do it while they go along with the plan and maybe even try to find McClane at the same time. I think this is something Hans should have at least considered, but the screenwriters just didn't think about it/didn't want to address because they couldn't think of a good reason for him not to do it.
There are no cops dead, Hans says "Just wound them" and despite the awesome explosion, the APC isn't actually penetrated or destroyed. But Hans needed this to turn into a standoff, a show of force would prevent a SWAT raid from expediting the deadline, he needed to get all of the hostages up on the roof to make his getaway downstairs, and executing a bunch of them would bring suspicion onto how cooperative he is (His plan to blow up the roof relies heavily on the police sending in choppers) they cooperate with him, which they won't do if they think Hans is a crazed lunatic who's only interested in more and more carnage, if he wounds the cops and only shows he can defend himself, and that he was being reasonable. The cops would play ball, and they would believe he's willing to spare the hostages lives, plus he always planned on taking one hostage as a contingency, if they thought they were gonna be killed they'd become a liability. Patton Oswalt talks of a real plothole though lol.
John McClane would know they'd kill him as soon as he shows up, as soon as he heard "We'll have to tell Karl that his brother is dead" he knew that all bets were off, he lost his chance to end it civil, if they had no personal connection to the first terrorist John kills then maybe putting 5 people into a room and doing an Air Force One on them would work, but not when John knows he'll be body number 6. Al says it best "If he gave himself up they'd both be dead" with Ellis execution, John watched them take control of the hostages, watched them execute the Takagi, and when the first Terrorist thinks he's found John he shoots first after saying "I promise I won't hurt you" and then taking his bag and realizing how well financed and equipped, these guys weren't domestic terrorists, they used serious money, serious contacts, and serious planning to get themselves into this building on this night. He knew the only way to play ball with them was fists and elbows.
Just because a character doesn't do a thing I doesn't make it a plot hole. The plot was that he didn't do it. You may consider a different approach "better" but that's irrelevant. You may as well try to argue that any character choice that doesn't fit with a perceived meta is a plot hole. It isn't, it's just the plot.
Answer: Hans Gruber needed the last vault lock to open by cutting off the electricity; he didn't want to escalate it further so that the FBI would start getting more aggressive. He needed them to play ball so he could make it seem like he's just a terrorist who martyrs himself and the hostages, and by the time they figured out he and his men aren't among the remains, they'll already have left in the basement with the ambulance. Shooting 5 people would have escalated it to the point that the FBI wouldn't play ball with him.
Question: Who played the balladeer and why was Blackadder trying to kill him?
Answer: Tony Aitken played the Balladeer. Blackadder wants to kill him because he annoys him and usually sings songs about what a fool he is.
Question: What's the background story about the demon women? How did it all start?
Answer: She was a witch that committed suicide. Before, she cursed everyone who set foot on her property.
Answer: She was a person of interest in the Salem Witch Trials. Before hanging herself, she put a curse on her land that basically is that if you are a parent, you will sacrifice your child and then kill yourself. She did this, sacrificing her seven day old baby then killing herself.
Question: What did Dr. Moreau hope to accomplish by turning all of the animals into humans?
Answer: I don't know which movie version you're referring to, but in the 1977 film, he stated by controlling and manipulating the genetic code, he could remove all the defects from humans. No more mental or physical handicaps. No inherent genes passed from generation to generation. No dwarfism, blind or deafness.
Thank you. And I was referring to this version.
Question: Was P.L. Travers left-handed, as Emma Thompson portrays her when she is shown writing?
Chosen answer: It seems P. L. Travers was, in fact, right-handed. With just a bit of research, I found this YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeiEumLxTcM. At time reference 4:05, archive video shows Ms. Travers in her garden, holding a basket hooked on her left arm, and making clippings with a scissors in her right hand. Feeling convinced, I stopped, though I suspect further research (it's a six part biography) would yield other examples of P. L. Travers engaged in right-handed activities.
Only problem with the assumption that travers was right-handed because she trimmed plants with her right hand is that there were no (to my knowledge) scissors for lefties. I was born in 1955 and I am a lefty who cuts right-handed, wear my watch on my left wrist, and made other adaptations due to the fact that left-handers were ignored, and travers was born over 50 years earlier.
Answer: I do not know the actual answer to your question. However, I would like to point out as a lefty myself that we often have to use our right hand for certain activities just due to the fact that left handed options are not readily available. Scissors and shears are a great example of this. Very often you cannot just switch them to your left hand and have them work. They actually have to be put together to be left handed to work properly. Also, many left handed writers are also ambidextrous. For example I golf right handed but bat left handed so the two swings don't negatively affect each other.
Question: Was any reason ever given as to why Gandalf chose Bilbo to go on this journey and not someone else?
Answer: In the film, Gandalf tells the dwarves he chose Bilbo because hobbits are light on their feet, and because Smaug would not recognise the scent of a hobbit as he would a dwarf. Also Bilbo is the most adventurous of the hobbits in the Shire. This reason is not in the book but is from the story "The Quest of Erebor" in Tolkien's Unfinished Tales.
Question: Right before the climatic fight, "Razor" gives a nod to Sally in the audience, then sees another guy in the audience who just smirks and flips him off. Razor just nods and smirks back at him. Who was that guy that flipped him off and why?
Chosen answer: He is the MMA fighter that Razor punched earlier in the film during one of the fight promotions.
Question: When Ralph returns to his game from Sugar Rush after betraying Vanellope, he obviously wears his medal. Did he or did he not get back into his game with the medal without being stopped by the Surge Protector?
Answer: It is not shown in the film, so it is unknown.
Question: In the first movie, in the theatre, I could swear that there was a scene of Zion. It was quick, but it was a modern, high tech view of what Zion supposedly looked like, deep within the earth, out of the range of the AI machines. I remember being disappointed when the 2nd movie came out, and Zion was instead portrayed as a smart but rough kind of camping out place, with obvious dirt issues. Can anyone confirm that they saw such a high tech scene of Zion in the theatrical release? I know the DVD doesn't have it. Things like this do occasionally happen - in the last original cast Star Trek movie, "Undiscovered Country" the Klingon who tries to kill the President and Captain Kirk at the end, and falls to his death, is "de-masked" to reveal a co-conspirator in the theatrical release and the first DVD release, but in subsequent DVD releases, including the Blu-Ray, this scene was removed.
Chosen answer: I've seen The Matrix many times (20+) in the theatre, and I have not seen any such imagery of Zion. There is no artwork in the book "The Art of The Matrix" which shows it either and no mention in the shooting script. It seems unlikely that Zion would be "shiny" and high-tech as the appearance of Zion in the sequel films matches the decor and dress sense of the Nebuchadnezzar and her crew in the first film - grungy and "used". There are some modern looking Zion scenes in Reloaded with the traffic control operators, but they are working in a virtual construct.
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Chosen answer: According to Wikipedia, excelsior is a Latin adjective meaning "higher" or "loftier", used in English as an interjection with a poetic meaning of "ever upward." The characters have a goal and are striving to achieve something lofty.
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