Questions about specific movies, TV shows and more

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Question: When the Ghostbusters went on trial, did they CHOOSE to waive their right to trial by jury and be tried by the judge? Given the obvious bias of this judge against them, if I were them, I would certainly not have waived my right to a jury trial.

Answer: Violating a restraining order is regarded as Contempt of Court, and thus is not subject to trial by jury.

Captain Defenestrator

But what about the other charges, willful destruction of public property, fraud, and malicious mischief? (Also, it should be noted that no-one goes to trial a day or two after they're arrested, so it seemed it was written as a bench trial just so the judge could later reverse his decision).

Bishop73

Louis is a tax attorney and since he got his degree in night school, it's implied that he has very little experience even being a tax attorney, let alone a criminal defense lawyer. I took it as the underlying humor in this scene being that everything went wrong, yet they still managed to save the day.

The charge that the prosecution really wants to stick them on is Ghostbusting and therefore, violating a restraining order. So that's what they're pushing for.

Captain Defenestrator

Chosen answer: It's not "referencing" anything. It's a joke that Monica excitedly thinks she might be pregnant due to Joey's remark, when the truth is she's not, and knows she isn't, so wants to move on quickly to spare her embarrassment.

Brad

Answer: The joke also makes more sense if you write her response as "Really?...Okay, let's get past the moment."

Question: I am aware that this is not a mistake (possibly a deliberate one) but I just had to ask: As Warner is about to say "I want to break up" and Elle thinks he is proposing, she says "I do". Assuming he was going to propose, wouldn't her answer need to be "Yes" in response to "Will you marry me?" which is the proper way to propose?

Answer: Maybe she was getting a little ahead of herself, already picturing the ceremony. It was (supposed to be) the happiest moment of her life, and she might be understandably flustered.

Answer: It was probably not something to make sense in the movie world but more to make sense to the audience. If she simply said yes it could make it kinda ambiguous and maybe some people wouldn't catch on what she really thought was going on. But the words "I do" are highly associated to marriage so it would make it easy for the audience to know she thought he was proposing.

Question: What exactly was Dennis Nedry's plan overall? The shutting down of the command building's doors makes sense but shutting down all the park fences always struck me as a really pointless risk, especially considering he then proceeds to drive through the very areas he just disabled. Was he trying to create a distraction to cover his abrupt departure (in which case are we to infer he was actually willing to leave his boss, his colleagues and several visitors stranded with the dinosaurs?) or did he simply not have a safer means of smuggling the embryos off the island?

Answer: Twofold. He had to shut down the fences because they contained the exit gates so he could leave to get to the docks, presumably because he didn't have the time to override the individual doors as he happened upon them. Secondly, it also serves as a massive distraction so that he's highly unlikely to be chased by anyone from the park (Dinosaurs not withstanding!). He had to shut down security features on the island to access the embryos, to navigate through the park, and cause a distraction. All security ran on the same power. He was meant to only be gone for 5 minutes. That was what he had planned.

GalahadFairlight

I agree with the above explanation. Also, Nedry needed the power off so as to not be seen on surveillance cameras.

Question: Right at the beginning of the movie, one of Rob's men sniffs at and even takes a bite out of a piece of a cow pat and can estimate the tinkers head start. How is that possible?

Answer: Cow patties leaving the cow and plopping on the ground leave a distinctively odor and start to harden up after a certain length of time. It isn't to hard to speculate that, since these are cattlemen by trade, they would have a systematic way of knowing how long it would take for a cow pie to harden & lose it's odor. Example: they would know that a cow pie left out for 2 days would lose half it's odor & become semi-hard but still have a mushy center.

CCARNI

Question: Forrest reveals (in the voice over) that Jenny was taken from her father's home and sent to live with her grandmother. He indirectly indicates that Jenny was sexually abused by her father. My question is who would have reported the abuse to the police so that Jenny could be removed from the situation? And where would her sisters have gone assuming they were also sent away and, like Jenny, were minors?

Answer: It's never explained. Perhaps the grandmother or a teacher reported the abuse. It's possible the abuse was never reported, maybe Jenny simply asked her grandmother if she could move in with her. Maybe there was no proof that the other girls were being abused, or they didn't want to leave, or they were moved to foster families or other relatives.

I think this is accurate. I have in-laws whose children have been taken away, and the children went to households of different relatives. It's also possible that Jenny's sisters were older and left home on their own. During this time, it would have been easier for teenagers to leave town and not be discovered.

Answer: I think you're reading things into it. He was certainly talking about real life sisters.

Answer: It doesn't matter who reported it to the policeman. It doesn't have to happen on the same day. And regarding Jenny's sister, there was never a sister. When the policeman send the kid to her grandmother, it was only Jenny. The 'sister' word was from the voiceover of Forrest who didn't really understand what kind of misery happened. The 'sister' was Jenny's privates. Her father touched them improperly.

I'm approaching middle age and have lived in the southern USA for my entire life. I have never heard of "sisters" being slang for a person's private parts. At least not around here. Also, Jenny understands that Forrest is mentally slower than than the other kids at their school. I don't think she would use such a term when speaking to him. And I can't imagine him choosing to use it.

Chosen answer: Rafiki is a bit of a msytic or a shaman; a quasi-magical character. He was able to smell Simba on the wind that we followed from one to the other.

Phixius

Answer: Rafiki just knows because he's wise.

Question: Does anyone know if the Jaguar hearse car still exists or who the manufacturer was?

CCARNI

Chosen answer: The hearse seen was custom built for the film, and was destroyed as seen in the film. other Jaguar hearses have been built, but they all have been custom built.

MasterOfAll

Question: Why did the Jackal pick up Douglas at the gay bar? How did that fit into his plan?

Chosen answer: A couple of reasons. Douglas was a presidential aide, and could be giving Jackal information about the president and family's movements, even without meaning to. Secondly, he needed to be near DC to carry out the assassination attempt, and since the FBI et al were looking for him since they knew he had entered the States, having a place to live without having to go to a hotel where it is likely the staff would have been notified to be on the lookout for him gave him some anonymity.

Question: Help me out if I'm wildly off: The Ugandan gangster attacks LeChiffre in his hotel, who Bond later kills. LeChiffre then continues with the game and panics when Mr. White demands the money. I was under the assumption that LeChiffre only owed money to the gangster and therefore needed to win the game to pay him back. Why does he continue with the game after the gangster is killed?

Brad

Chosen answer: Le Chiffre operates as the banker for Mr White's entire organisation. The Ugandan is only one of many individuals and groups for whom Le Chiffre provides financial services; killing him does little to solve the problem of the missing money. Plus there's the question of trust - if Le Chiffre can't keep the money safe, then Mr White's organisation have no use for him and, as we see in the movie, will readily eliminate him. Le Chiffre's desperate to recover the money to prove his trustworthiness and save his own life.

Tailkinker

Question: After touring the cinema, why does Goebbels become so angry when someone mentions Lillian Harvey. Who is she?

Answer: Lilian Harvey was a British-born actress who made her career in Germany. While under Nazi scrutiny for having too many friends in the Jewish community, she'd helped a Jewish friend escape the country before escaping herself and performing for Allied troops. So yeah, Goebbels hated her. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilian_Harvey)

Captain Defenestrator

Question: Why does the train where the action takes place have the locomotive as the last car? When two trains pass each other at one moment, the others locomotive is at the beginning.

Billcow

Chosen answer: Trains that shuttle back and forth on shorter stretches don't usually turn around at the terminus. They simply go "backwards". So, in one direction the loco is in the front, on the way back it's at the end of the train.

Ioreth

Question: What happened to Special Agent Starling and why isn't she in Red Dragon? And how come the new agent didn't know who Hannibal Lecter is (recognition), when nearly the whole of America (let alone the FBI) had heard/seen at least a picture of him?

Answer: Red Dragon is a prequel to Silence of the Lambs. The events took place while Clarice Starling was still at the FBI academy. At the very end of the film, Chilton tells Lecter that a woman (Starling) from the FBI wants to meet with him. Also, when Special Agent Will Graham first met Dr. Hanibal Lecter while investigating another case, Lecter had not yet been convicted of any crime. Therefore, no one knew him to be anything other than a noted psychiatrist.

raywest

Show generally

Question: This is actually for Doctor 1 but I couldn't find it anywhere. I heard it somewhere that they were going to do only 10 series, but when Doctor 1 fell ill they put in the idea he can regenerate. Is this true? Also is this why a lot of the later episodes were destroyed?

Shadow5

Chosen answer: The show was intended to be ongoing, with no particular plan as to how many series might be involved. But you are indeed correct that William Hartnell's failing health was the principal factor that led to the concept of the regeneration being introduced, with Hartnell himself suggesting Patrick Troughton as his successor, a suggestion that was taken up. This is not, however, why many episodes from that era are missing. At the time, it simply wasn't standard policy to keep episodes indefinitely after transmission, due to the limitations in storage space, and thus many early episodes were simply wiped.

Tailkinker

Question: I'm no expert on apes so can someone tell me if the conversation in sign language that Caesar has with the orangutan is possible? We know that apes can be taught to sign and hereby communicate basic concepts and identify objects. But the orangutan, which has not had the benefit at this point in the film of the mind altering drug, communicates that humans do not like smart apes and, by extension, it has kept its ability to sign secret. This is complex behaviour that requires the ape to understand human motivations and decide to deceive its captors. Is this possible?

Answer: It's not necessarily a sign that the orangutan understands human motivations. It could be, and probably more likely *is*, a sign that the ape has shown its intelligence previously during its stay in the habitat, was abused by the humans as a direct or indirect result, and was subsequently conditioned to play dumb.

Phixius

Question: Mearing says that the Xantium brought the second wave of Autobots. Which wave does she mean? Because so far, there have been three waves: Optimus, Jazz, Ironhide, Bumblebee and Ratchet, Sideswipe, The Twins, Arcee, Chromia, and Flareup and lastly, The Wreckers, Brains, Dino and Wheeljack. Which one didn't arrive by ship, and how did they arrive?

Friso94

Chosen answer: Optimus, Jazz, Ironhide, Bumblebee and Rachet all arrived on Earth via separate pods which carried them in Transformers (2007). Sideswipe, The Twins, Arcee, Chormia and Flareup are wave one, introduced into Revenge Of The Fallen. The Wreckers, Brains, Dino (Mirage) and Wheeljack are wave two, introduced in Dark Of The Moon.

Aidan2011

Answer: All the Autobots after the first movie like sideswipe, the twins, the wreckers and even Wheeljack are all from the second wave but were just in different places doing different things. When the wreckers are first introduced it is mentioned that they came down with the second wave but just never leave site. So they weren't seen during the second film because they spent their time on site with the ship. As for the others, Wheeljack is a top scientist and was probably too busy making weapons etc somewhere. Brains and Dino could have been ex Decepticons who changed to the Autobots side after the second movie or if they were Autobots from the start where just somewhere else at the time. Brian's being pretty small probably didn't want to be involved in the battles etc. and could have been helping the humans or Wheeljack somewhere, and seeing a Dino has an Italian accent could have been doing other work elsewhere in the word.

Question: Does Emmanuelle Mimieux know of the Bastard's plan to blow up the cinema and do the Bastards know that Emmanuelle Mimieux is going to burn it down, or are the plans not connected at all?

Answer: They're unconnected. As happens often in Tarantino's films, their storylines are completely separate until they intersect at that point.

Captain Defenestrator

Chosen answer: There's a behind the scenes feature on a Friends DVD that shows an example: In "The One After Vegas"(Season 6 premiere), Chandler's line was originally "I don't think they're as much dating as they are drunk." Matthew Perry thought the line wasn't funny and came up with the alternative seen in the episode: "I don't think they're as much dating as they are two bottles of vodka walking around in human form."

Brad

Chosen answer: No, she wasn't in the movie.

rswarrior

Question: Cobb tells Ariadne that his wife buried something deep inside her and never let it out. What was he referring to?

Answer: She buried the truth that she was living in a dream. She'd chosen to make the dream life her real life. She did it by hiding the totem (which is what they use to distinguish reality from dream) in a safe box.

Garlonuss

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