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 didn't the toys even talk about coming alive and talking to Andy? Seems they were desperate enough for him to play with them that somebody should have considered this option.

Answer: Because they simply don't do that, it's a fundamental rule of their existence. They're played with as toys, not as sentient moving creatures. Plus there's every possibility that Andy would simply freak out - imagine how you'd feel if all your childhood toys suddenly revealed that they'd been intelligent, with lives of their own, all along. Woody revealing himself to Sid in the first film was a unique case to prevent the deaths of more toys, and Sid was a sufficiently disturbed child that nobody would be surprised if he suddenly freaked. With Andy, it's a normal situation that he's simply grown up and doesn't play with them any more - there's no possible grounds for breaking the rules there.

Tailkinker

Chosen answer: No, the closest we ever get to see is at the end when a hatch opens up and one of the aliens slips out of the hatch.

GalahadFairlight

Chosen answer: It was both. Wynn, a fine character actor, was suffering from pancreatic cancer while this film was being made. He died in 1986, the same year the film was released.

raywest

Chosen answer: According to IMDb there were over a 1000 extras. I don't think you will find an exact number anywhere.

Mortug

Chosen answer: Probably the only known conflict among them was when Matthew Perry had issues with prescription drugs and alcohol; the other Friends pressured him into seeking help during the series' run. Other than that, it appears the six had a pretty close relationship. They apparently have not all been together in a long time (until the Friends Reunion on MAX), but that's largely due to scheduling issues and that some of them are naturally closer to some of the cast than others. Cox, Anniston, and Kudrow are the closest. Anniston was the one who reached out to Perry the most.

raywest

Chosen answer: De-atomized. The same thing that was happening to Wolverine at the climax, except Cyclops couldn't heal himself as it was happening.

Phixius

Question: Near the end, before the fair, Wendy is looking at the pictures on the computer, and she sees her picture. The clue is that Ian will cause Wendy's death, but Jason is next to her, and his face is blurred out. Is this another clue to Wendy's death?

M0vi3

Chosen answer: Yes, it is another part of Wendy's death. At the end, on Train 081, Wendy was looking out the window, and the people were blurry, and then Wendy saw Jason's face blurred out in the window.

M0vi3

Question: In the beginning, Richy gets his foot caught in a bear trap. Did Jason put this there or did the people put it there?

tetracore99

Chosen answer: It was left by hunters. Jason doesn't have the mental capacity to set traps for his victims.

razoprill

Jason had set up an elaborate warning trip wire that rang bells at his house. I am sure he could have set a bear trap.

I agree. Jason has shown to be quite intelligent and even able to carefully plan his attacks so setting up a bear trap wouldn't be hard to do.

Question: I've seen the movie several times now but I still don't know the answer to this: in the beginning of the movie, who kills the two Japanese snipers - zombies or some clones of Alice?

Answer: Based on the sounds to go with the scene, I'd say it is zombies taking the guards out. However, considering following events it is more likely that Alice and her friends have something to do with it.

Question: What's the story behind Langdon's Mickey Mouse watch? He alludes to it, but never explains it.

raywest

Chosen answer: In the book it is explained that the watch was a gift from his parents on his ninth birthday.

Mortug

Question: When Clyde is about to die from the bomb, why didn't he just end the call on the phone he was calling from? He could have probably cancelled the detonation.

tetracore99

Chosen answer: Unfortunately, that wouldn't have done it. Once the phone on the bomb received the signal there was no going back.

Phixius

Oh, and you know this how?

Because that's generally how cellphone bombs work. Nobody's on the other end to answer it, so it's not triggered by being answered. As soon as any call signal is received, game over.

Unless I'm misremembering, when they find the bomb at city hall, the bomb expert even mentions that the bomb can't be disarmed once the call goes through.

Phaneron

Question: How did the Terminator manage to find a hotel room already equipped with surgical tools and bandages? Doesn't seem like he set it up with supplies earlier since the first we see is him breaking in via the fire escape.

Answer: He isn't breaking in via the fire escape, hes just using it as a means of coming and going without being seen by the hotel staff, so at any point during the movie, he could have equipped himself with those tools. It is not necessary for a movie to show every intervening action onscreen.

GalahadFairlight

Question: When Marty wakes up in the new 1985, the clock changes from 10:27 to 10:28. Why would his siblings be eating breakfast and preparing to go to work this late in the morning?

geezer

Chosen answer: It's Saturday. A lot of office jobs, if you're going to them on the weekend, would start later and end earlier.

Phixius

Question: This has been an endless point of debate among my friends and I; how sensible is the placing of the pulse rifle's ammo counter? It seems to me that it'd be very problematic since, if the operator were right handed, they'd have to turn the weapon on its side to read how many bullets they had left.

Answer: A digital ammo counter, like the ammo indicators on magazines, wouldn't be useful in the heat of battle. However, it would be very useful while not in battle. For example, with a real firearm, you would need to remove the magazine to check how many rounds remained in it. With a digital display, you could simply look. The larger issue, of course, is that with a display on the gun, your enemy would also know how many rounds you had left.

If you had the counter on the top of the weapon facing you, you could immediately see how many rounds you had left and the enemy could only see it if he were behind you.

Answer: Yes you're right, the ammo counter is badly placed, but then again a seasoned marine wouldn't need to rely on it in the first place as they'd know through experience when they are about to run out.

GalahadFairlight

Answer: In all honesty you really wouldn't need an ammo counter. Either you shoot until the weapon runs dry and then you have to reload or you shoot until the threat is gone in which case you would do a "tactical reload" where you remove the partial mag and insert a fresh mag to ensure you have max ammo again for the next firefight.

That is, if you have another mag to do a tactical reload with. Real life is not like in videogames where you reload and only count bullets, you gotta have magazines.

lionhead

Question: Can a helicopter do barrel rolls and loop-de-loops like Murdock is doing after the A-team leaves the hospital and are being chased to the US border by Tuco?

Answer: They can, but only if they have a set of modified rotor blades to be able to do it. The Apache for one is able to do it. The Huey in the movie however is unlikely in reality to be able to do it - there would be no need to fit the modified rotors to what is essentially a transporter.

GalahadFairlight

Question: Is it possible the king and queen could recognize Rapunzel as their long lost daughter, despite her short brown hair, when they knew she was born with long golden hair? If so, then how?

Answer: It's entirely possible. Rapunzel has a similar face appearance to her mother's, and you could also count the family bond of simply knowing. She also has green eyes, which are uncommon, so the parents probably knew that she was unlikely an impostor.

virtual-toast

Question: I don't fully understand the Game Show part in the beginning. What was the significance of that?

jackdawson

Chosen answer: It's a recreation of when the real Frank Abagnale, Jr. appeared on the TV game show, "To Tell The Truth," that ran on CBS from the mid-1950s to late-1960s. A celebrity panel would try to pick out the genuine contestant who had an unusual secret from among two other imposters, who gave bluff answers to questions.

raywest

Question: Is he actually sane at the end? I ask this because it looks like he makes them think he is insane so they will give him a lobotomy, and in that way he could forget about killing his kids indirectly.

toby1kenobi

Chosen answer: I think it's meant to be ambiguous, as nothing's explicitly stated either way. My take was the same as yours, namely that he'd rather die as a good man than live as a monster, to reference the line he says, but him still being actually insane also fits.

Jon Sandys

Chosen answer: Farina is a hot wheat cereal like Cream of Wheat.

Ingabritzen

Question: Just a quick one: Why the hell didn't Rose just move over on her door to give Jack some room? And why didn't Jack take the piece of wood from the frozen guy with the whistle after he had died?

Answer: In an episode of Myth Busters, they checked to see if Jack could've actually fit on the board and survived. Their first result stated the the movie was correct; there was not enough buoyancy to keep them both afloat. After some thinking they decided to tie Rose's life jacket under the board to increase the amount of buoyancy, and sure enough the board did float, but it's not unreasonable that that wouldn't have occurred to Jack and Rose. When they consulted James Cameron about the results he simply stated, "I think you guys are missing the point here. The script says Jack died. He has to die. So maybe we screwed up and the board should have been a little tiny bit smaller, but the dude's goin' down."

Answer: Insider did an interesting article on this debate. The "door" Rose was floating on was actually a carved piece of wood paneling that hung above the first-class lounge. The evidence for this resides on display at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Nova Scotia where an original panel of the ship served as the inspiration for the design of the wood seen in the movie. This is important because those panels were only made from teak, pine, and oak. Physics Central calculated the possibility of survival for all three based on buoyancy. They estimated teak would have been too heavy and would have sunk under its own weight. Pine may have supported their weight, but was ruled out when the panel flipped when Jack tried to grab it. The oak paneling seen was only strong [and large] enough to contain Rose as the weight of both Rose and Jack would have outweighed its buoyancy.

Invader_Gir

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