Questions about specific movies, TV and more

This page is for questions relating to a specific title. If you have a more general question, please check out the general movie questions section. Click the button below a question to answer it or click "edit" to correct a spelling mistake. Ask your questions here, and hopefully someone will answer soon. Members get e-mailed when any of their questions are answered.

Question: When Lightning is crushed by the statue at the end of the movie, he sends out dozens of bolts of energy before he dies. The final wisp of electricity forms a Chinese character. Does anyone know what it means?

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Chosen answer: It's the symbol for "carpenter" after the director John Carpenter.

Grumpy Scot

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The Simpsons (1989)

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Question: In the episode with burn's bear bobo, homer trips down the stairs and discoveres bobo behind the fish tank. With the music and the lighting, is the way this was done supposed to represent something, or is it copied from somewhere, or was it just an interesting thing the writers came up with?

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Chosen answer: I thought perhaps it was a parody of a scene from Baz Luhrman's 'Romeo Juliet' when the two title characters see one another through an aquarium. I'm not 100% sure, though.

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The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)

Question: In the song "Into the West," what is silver glass?

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Chosen answer: The surface of the water colored by "the pale moon..."

scwilliam

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The Blues Brothers (1980)

Question: What tune is being played during the mall scene, and again when Cab Calloway introduces Jake and Elwood on stage? (I've heard it many times before, most recently in promos for the 2004 Major League All-State Game.).

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Chosen answer: It's 'Can't Turn You Loose,' often refered to as the Blues Brothers Theme.

rabid anarchist

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Shrek (2001)

Question: Did Fiona kill the bird on purpose to get its eggs?

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Chosen answer: No, it's a dark, ironic joke based on Snow White. There are several reference to Disney and its products throughout the movie.

Phoenix

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Miracle on 34th Street (1994)

Question: Is there any reason that for the re-make it was changed from Santa speaking to a little girl in Dutch to him speaking to a girl in sign language? It seemed like it would be less convincing this way, since it would not be uncommon for any department store Santa to know sign language.

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Chosen answer: The original Dutch girl was a World War II orphan. That wouldn't make sense in the newer remake. And why wouldn't a Santa know sign language? It would seem more common than Dutch.

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Friends (1994)

The One With The Routine - S6-E10

Question: Rachel calls Chandler "Linus", what does she mean?

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Chosen answer: I believe she is referring to Linus Van Pelt from the Peanuts (Charlie Brown) comic strips. See http://g2301m.unileoben.ac.at/~nermal/peanuts/linus.html.

J I Cohen

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The Ring (2002)

Question: Did Becca see Samara too?

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Chosen answer: Yes. She saw Samara come out of the TV and kill Katie. That is why she was in a mental institute, and TVs had to be wheeled by her behind a curtain so she wouldn't see them and freak out.

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Mulholland Drive (2001)

Question: I think I've finally figured this movie out, but there's still something I haven't quite explained. For the duration of Diane's "dream/fantasy", there seems to be a recurring theme of pink: Exaggerated pink make-up, pink clothes, pink paint, etc. What, if any, is the purpose of this? Is it simply to further highlight the idealism and innocence of Diane's dream and past respectively?

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Chosen answer: Pink colour is sometimes associated with same-sex relationships (eg. the pink stripe on the Bisexual Pride flag is for homosexualism), and lesbian love is one of the main themes in the film. Anyway, David Lynch's imagery is perhaps a little too subtle to be reducible to a code of symbols.

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Forrest Gump (1994)

Question: When Forrest and Bubba are talking in Vietnam before and after Bubba says "I wanna go home" after getting shot. There is purple smoke coming from behind them into the camera shot. What is this smoke?

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Chosen answer: Just a smoke grenade. They used color smoke grenades in Vietnam as a signal to evacuation helicopters to show exactly where the troops were.

RJR99SS

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The Matrix (1999)

Question: Trinity tells Neo to trust her because he knows what's in the end of the street. What's in the end of the street?

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Chosen answer: Neo has "been down that road before" for all of his life. It is the road of the mundane, of accepting reality at face value and refusing to take any action to change either oneself or one's environment. Neo's relatively recent search for Morpheus was part of breaking out of this mould. At the end of that road is an empty existence and eventual death after a life of normalcy and conformity.

Phoenix

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Spider-Man 2 (2004)

Question: In the beginning of the movie Peter sees a billboard of MaryJane and becomes distracted by it. Because of this he almost runs into the guy who owns the pizza parlor. Why didn't his Spider-sense warn him that he was in trouble? Not only is his Spider-sense running around the clock, but he doesn't begin to lose his powers until later on in the movie.

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Chosen answer: It's well established in the comics that even though Peter does have the Spidey-sense full time, he has to be paying attention to it in order for it to be effective. If he's sufficiently distracted (ie. by the love of his life) and the threat minimal (ie. a non-fatal bump with another human), it may simply not get through to him.

Rooster of Doom

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Robocop 2 (1990)

Question: If the creation of Robocop 2 called for a brain, then how come when they removed Kane's' brain from his skull did they also take the eyes?

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Chosen answer: Just so it would look creepy in the jar (or maybe they thought they were worth keeping, then decided against it). Notice when Robocop pulls Kane's brain out of the 'bot later, the eyes are no longer there.

Grumpy Scot

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Blade II (2002)

Question: What style shades does Blade wear in the movie?

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Chosen answer: His sunglasses are Oakley Four sunglasses and cost about $79.00.

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Spider-Man 2 (2004)

Question: How did Tobey get his upside down U scar? Or was it drawn on for the movie (if so, why)?

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Chosen answer: This scar is actually from chicken pox.

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Mean Girls (2004)

Question: Why does the principal (Mr. Duvall I believe) have a cast on his right hand? I don't recall seeing him fracture or injure it. Was there something I might have missed?

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Chosen answer: He has carpal tunnel syndrome. He mentions it when he's talking to Tina Fey after she gets coffee spilled on her and she talks about how she got a divorce.

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The Bourne Identity (2002)

Question: During the Greece scene, there is a line strung at the end of the covered area (behind Marie) with several things hanging on it that look like seaweed, pennants, or something. What could that be?

scwilliam

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Chosen answer: They are octopii hung up to dry in the sun. A common sight at Greek islands. If you search Google, there are pictures of them. They are humorously mentioned at http://www.thevisualrecord.com/dbphotopages/photopage.php?photo_id=80

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Collateral (2004)

Question: I noticed from the previews that this movie looks very different. What is it? Is it a digital camera that has been used? Or no lighting effects used? The movie really has a "behind the scene" feel.

Kirill Ostapenko

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Chosen answer: It was shot with a digital camera. IMDB is a great place to answer questions like this. Go to *Technical Specifications* in the *Other Info* section of the menu on the left hand side of the screen. In an interview in American Cinematographer, Michael Mann said that as far as he was aware, this was one of the first movies to attempt to make a "look" out of digital video rather than trying to make Digital Video look like film. This approach meant the movie could be shot in the low-light scenes of urban desolation Mann wanted - because Digital reacts much better to low light than film. The approximately 20% of the picture that was shot on film was mostly, according to Mann, the portion set in the "Fever" nightclub - because this is the scene with the brightest lighting states, a condition in which Digital Video does not perform as well.

J I Cohen

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Titanic (1997)

Question: I read somewhere that during the scene where passengers are falling off the Titanic, the animators added a falling cow. Anyone know if there's any truth in it?

Phil Watts

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Chosen answer: I've seen that movie a thousand times and I've never seen a cow or heard a rumour about a cow. Someone must be pulling your leg.

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