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: Why did Harry say Snape was the bravest man he ever knew?

Chosen answer: Snape spent years pretending to be working for the most powerful Dark Wizard who ever existed, reporting back to Voldemort's greatest enemy, every moment risking the possibility of being found out and executed, probably in a very horrible and painfully prolonged fashion, knowing that if he died, there was every possibility that his name might never be cleared. Pretty good definition of bravery, I think you'll agree.

Tailkinker

Question: At the start of the movie, does the sky change because Harry gets angry or because the dementors were coming?

Loesjuh1985

Chosen answer: The latter - the Dementors are on their way and they have that sort of effect on the environment around them.

Tailkinker

Question: Is there ever an explanation given as to why the Aliens visited Earth in the first place?

Answer: Yes. They weren't intending to visit Earth at all, but their ship became crippled somehow and they were all slowly dying. They made their way to Earth looking for help.

Phixius

Question: If I've seen it correctly, you are supposed to save if you made a copy of the tape. But what would happen if you watch the tape again, do you have to make another copy then to prevent her coming out of the television?

Answer: No. The main character watches the tape several times looking for clues to solve the mystery, but only makes one copy and is still spared.

Phixius

Show generally

Question: 1. How did Sarah-Jane Smith get introduced to the Doctor? 2.Does she have a 'title'? (eg. Amelia is the girl that waited) 3. How did she get written out?

Shadow5

Chosen answer: 1) She broke into a UNIT base during the story "The Time Warrior", masquerading as her aunt, a respected scientist, and met the Doctor there when she investigated the strange blue box that she found there. 2) No, she doesn't. 3) She left the series at the end of The Hand of Fear, after the Doctor was summoned home to Gallifrey and decided that it would be too dangerous to take her there with him. He dropped her off, ostensibly near her home in South London, but actually in Aberdeen, due to the navigational eccentricities of the TARDIS.

Tailkinker

Question: Wayne is supposed to lead the reactor back to the containment chamber so it can be flooded, as the waters will cause it to safely shut down. When Talia floods the chambers, Bruce is then forced to carry the bomb a safe distance away, over the ocean. If the flooding of the chamber could've stopped it, why couldn't Wayne just drop the reactor into the ocean to "kill it", rather than, say, going to all of the effort of carrying it a safe distance away? Or was it all just part of his ploy to appear dead?

Answer: You've misunderstood, I'm afraid. Bruce and Selina were battling to get the reactor core back to the containment chamber so that it could be reconnected to its support equipment, which would stabilise the core and prevent detonation, not so that it could be flooded there, which would do nothing to stop it blowing. Talia ordered the flooding of the chamber so that reconnection was no longer possible, forcing Bruce to fly the core out to sea, getting it out of range of Gotham before it blew.

Tailkinker

Question: What is the picture on Pink's wall (about 33 minutes in) that some people claim is an Obama Hope poster?

Answer: It's a portrait of Bob Dylan by Andy Warhol.

Question: How on earth did agent O'Reilly manage to survive the gas explosion? He is in the crowd at the end of the movie.

Answer: When it is revealed two years later that he is alive, there is no explanation given as to how he survived the blast. Any answer would be speculation.

raywest

Question: How do One, Rain and Olivera end up in this one? All of them were very thoroughly killed off and the end of their respective movies. Are they clones as well, and if so, why doesn't Umbrella just use new guards?

Friso94

Chosen answer: Umbrella can produce their DNA's again and again.They use them because Alice acts mostly with her feelings and all these persons mean something to her.

Anastasios Anastasatos

Question: Why is the animal host switched out between the theatre release and the DVD release? Does this switch have any major differences between the two versions? I've only ever seen the theatre version.

Answer: There are two quite different versions of the film, due to problems behind the scenes while shooting. The director, David Fincher, was repeatedly subjected to studio interference, culminating with them effectively locking him out of the edit suite and creating the final cut of the movie themselves - this became the theatrical version, with the dog being used as the alien host. Some years later, a new version of the film was created using footage that Fincher shot that was rejected by the executives; known as the "Assembly Cut", the result was much closer to Fincher's original intent and contains a number of significant differences from the original - it's this version of the film that uses an ox as the alien host. Most box-sets of the film series will contain both the original theatrical cut and the assembly cut.

Tailkinker

Question: Why did it take Bella almost dying for a house full of thirsty vampires to realize that the vampire fetus would want to drink blood?

sunfox35

Chosen answer: It was the first time that a vampire ever got a human pregnant, and they didn't know what will happen.

Anastasios Anastasatos

It wasn't the first time a vampire impregnated a human, as shown by the half-human/half-vampire South American native that appears at the end. However, the Cullens knew nothing about his existence until that time, nor could they assume the fetus was fully vampire. They therefore had no idea how to treat Bella's pregnancy.

raywest

Question: Regarding Mad Eye Moody. 1: Why is he drinking a polyjuice potion in front of Harry in the classroom? 2: Why does it starts storming in the great hall when Mad Eye Moody enters? Does this has anything to do with it being the wrong Moody? 3: Was Barty Crouch killed by Moody? If yes, did Barty senior know it was his son?

Loesjuh1985

Chosen answer: 1. Because nobody knows it's polyjuice potion, and it's not suspicious at all for Mad-Eye Moody to drink from his own flask. 2. It's a storytelling technique called foreshadowing. So while, in the movie's world, the storm has nothing to do with this Moody being an impostor, within the context of the film as a storytelling medium it does. 3. Yes, Barty Sr. was killed by Barty Jr. Barty Sr. was breaking down mentally from spending so long under the Imperius Curse. In his brief moments of sanity, he was able to connect the dots and figure out that what his son was up to.

Phixius

Question: At first I thought that Jaws was chasing Bond throughout the movie, because he failed to kill him in the previous movie, The Spy Who Loved Me, but it turns out that he works for Drax now, whereas he first worked for Stromberg in TSWLM. As far as I know, Drax and Stromberg have nothing to do with each other, so is it purely a coincidence that Jaws now works for a new employer, which happens to be Bond's new target?

Answer: There's a scene where Drax is on the phone trying to hire someone to kill Bond. He says to the person on the other end "Well, of COURSE, if you can get HIM!" This is when he hires Jaws.

Captain Defenestrator

Question: I don't understand something about the last part of the movie. Before they going back in time, they are leaving Hagrid's hut and watch somebody pretending to eliminate the hippogriff. Shouldn't they've seen Harry and Hermione rescuing the hippogiff before? Because they were observing until the bad people came outside Hagrid's hut. Or do we must assume that they were rescuing the hippogriff in the meantime they were running behind the rocks?

Loesjuh1985

Chosen answer: Harry and friends leave Hagrid's hut, then watch as Fudge and company arrive, go into the hut for a short time, then exit and supposedly execute Buckbeak. However, as they can't actually see the area where Buckbeak is, they don't realise that what they think is an execution is actually the executioner slamming his axe onto the floor in frustration at Buckbeak being missing. Buckbeak was rescued by the future Harry and Hermione while Fudge was in the hut; as Buckbeak was out of sight, their younger selves didn't see it happen.

Tailkinker

Question: When Chechen meets the Joker in the warehouse, why did his men suddenly turn on him and start working for the Joker? The Joker was the only one in the warehouse, so it would have made sense for Chechen's men to simply say no or even beat him into submission.

Answer: Members of the mob typically respect strength and audacity. The Joker has repeatedly shown himself to have plenty of both in his confrontations with the police, rather more so than the Chechen has shown. Plus, and this is quite a key point, the Joker has all the mob's money. Plenty of reasons why the Chechen's men might find themselves interested in working for him instead.

Tailkinker

Question: On Dagobah, when Luke goes into the cave he finds Darth Vader and kills him, his helmet explodes and turns out Darth Vader is Luke. How does this make any sense?

Chosen answer: Luke is seeing visions relating to possible futures. In this case, it's effectively a warning that, if he embraces the path of violence, which he has at this point by keeping his weapons with him when Yoda told him to leave them behind, then he risks falling to the Dark Side and becoming just as bad as Vader.

Tailkinker

Question: What is Chris McNeal's assistant listening to on the radio when Father Merrit arrives?

Answer: When it cuts to Chris MacNeil's PA, Sharon, listening to the radio it's only for about 20 seconds, and all we hear is a voice which presumably belongs to a random radio host or guest who is in the midst of offering motivational advice. This short scene serves to show Sharon's tension with what's going on in the house.

Super Grover

Question: If Klaatu chooses to save the policeman that he injures/kills, and seemingly has the power to do this as many times as he wishes, why does he let the man using the Polygraph die?

Answer: He wasn't sensitive enough to earth people at that time. He came for a job.

Anastasios Anastasatos

Question: Did that officer who Vader attempts to choke, throw up on the table afterwards? I can't tell if that's vomit or just some buttons on the table, but as I haven't watched the film in some time, any help would be great.

Gavin Jackson

Chosen answer: Every person on the table has a monitor in front of them, and what you see is a yellow button or some kind of mouse or joystick that glows.

Anastasios Anastasatos

Question: In Cars 2, it was decided not to bring back Doc Hudsen out of respect for the late Paul Newman. So why was slinky recast for this film? Didn't the filmmakers feel that Jim Varney deserved the same respect? Considering they didn't bring back certain characters like Bo-peep etc, I find it insulting that they felt so little of Varney.

Gavin Jackson

Chosen answer: Well, with all due respect to Mr. Varney, he's no Paul Newman. You respect different actors in different ways. Paul Newman is much more of a "remember in silence" type actor, when Varney's much more relaxed and silly style lends itself more toward celebrating the character over the actor, in which case removing the character would not necessarily be the best decision. I don't know if these were things the Pixar crew specifically thought of, but that's how I view it.

Garlonuss

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