Questions about specific movies, TV shows and more

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Chosen answer: Bit of a tenous link that to be honest, I just put it down to her and Amanda liking the band and wanted to go on the European tour to see them.

GalahadFairlight

Question: I have a 4 part question. 1. If Batman really represents what's good and true, then why does he allow Harvey keep his clean public image when Batman knows this isn't true? 2. Does Batman realize that this might have adverse effects? 3. Given that Batman has a better than average knowledge of the law, why doesn't he realize that he is essentially becoming an accessory after the fact (he knows that Dent killed several officers), or committing conspiracy to pervert the course of justice? 4. Finally does Batman think the people will be upset by the oh-so-shocking concept (note sarcasm) of a politician being involved in a scandal?

Answer: If people only have one hope, you don't take it away from them. A martyr is a powerful symbol - if people believe that Harvey Dent died as a good man fighting against the forces of lawlessness and corruption, then he becomes a rallying point, a battle cry for those looking to carry on the fight in his name. It doesn't matter that it's not true - what matters is that people believe, and continue to believe, in Harvey Dent. If the truth, that Harvey died a deranged killer, came out, then everything that Harvey did will be tainted, morale would plummet and the city would be right back to square one. As for Bruce becoming an accessory after the fact, of course he knows, but do you really think he cares? Likewise representing "what's good and true" - most of what he does as Batman is completely illegal - assault, kidnapping, property damage, illicit surveillance, just in this film alone. But he does it for the good of the city. Same with covering up for Harvey. It's what's right - doesn't matter if it's legal, or even true, it's what needs to be done.

Tailkinker

Plus as stated in the film, if Harvey is exposed, all the criminals he put away would be released. It doesn't matter if Harvey was good when he locked them up, him being exposed as a criminal would taint his reputation and the criminals could claim he falsified evidence, etc.

Question: When the dad and his cop friend are heading to 666 Shadowbrook Road, they drive through Dracula's hearse, but in the next scene Dracula gets out of the hearse. So when did Dracula turn into a ghost?

Answer: Being able to turn into mist or dust is a an ability often attributed to vampires in fiction.

Grumpy Scot

Question: Does anyone know what the book is that Inman carries Ada's picture in?

Answer: Its short title is "Bartram's Travels". The complete name of the book is: Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida, the Cherokee Country, the Extensive Territories of the Muscogulges or Creek Confederacy, and the Country of the Chactaws. Containing an Account of the Soil and Natural Productions of Those Regions; Together with Observations on the Manners of the Indians.

ChiChi

Question: In the scene when Batman is kidnapping Lau, how does he vanish when getting shot at in the office?

Answer: Batman was trained as a ninja and can seemingly disappear at will. It isn't known where he goes when he dives behind the glass, just that he vanishes and then reappears behind Lau and the shooters to take them out.

Question: How did the bomb at MCU leave everyone else totally incapacitated, while the Joker was completely unharmed? I know he has remarkable tolerance for pain, but come on! Also, if he was wearing some kind of protective clothing, they would have discovered it. So how did all the cops get knocked out while the Joker just walked away?

Answer: Look where he's standing just before it goes off. The Joker's carefully positioned himself close to a set of heavy filing cabinets, which are between him and the blast, protecting his legs and almost all of his torso. As the bomb goes off, you can see him duck his head down, allowing the blast to pass him by almost completely. He gets to walk away unscathed because the blast never really hits him.

Tailkinker

Answer: Yes, he appeared in an episode called "Judgement Day", shown in 2000.

Tailkinker

Question: When Aramis is reading at the beginning, saying that bit about the storming of the Bastille and of records being found of the prisoner who was only known as "the man in the iron mask", was that actually true - about the prisoner number and/or the iron-masked man part?

Answer: It is partially true. Author Alexander Dumas based his character on records that were recovered about an unknown prisoner whose identity was kept secret by a black cloth that constantly covered his head. The facts gradually changed as a myth grew up around this account, and the cloth mask was eventually said to be iron. This person, who is believed to have been of high rank, was incarcerated in several prisons, including the Bastille. Dumas adapted the legend for his novel and made the unknown man the twin brother of King Louis XIV. However, the man's true identity has never been discovered. The movie has also distorted historical facts about the Bastille. It was originally built as a fortress during The Hundred Years War, and only later was it used as a prison. (It only held about 50 people.) When it was stormed by French peasants in 1789, there were only seven inmates, and it is believed the rioters were actually looking for ammunition rather than attempting to free prisoners.

raywest

Question: When Jack first speaks to Isabel, in the book shop, what is Isabel drinking out of? It almost looks like a stainless steel milk jug, instead of the normal cup which is also on the table.

Answer: It was the stainless steel milk jug (creamer). She was nervous when he came to the table. She absent-mindedly put sugar in the cream and then drank from it. Look at her face when she sips it, she realized her error and put the creamer down.

Question: This applies to all 3 films. Wouldn't someone eventually see Spiderman coming out of Peter Parker's apartment and put 2 and 2 together? Doesn't this seem just a bit careless on Peter's part?

dablues7

Chosen answer: Answered in the comics: Peter's Spider-Sense tells him if someone is looking when he's about to enter/exit the apartment as Spider-Man.

Captain Defenestrator

Question: Everything that happens in the bedtime stories and then occurs to Skeeter in real life has a (pretty much) rational explanation (e.g. the rain of gumballs, "Abe Lincoln" actually being a penny), but why on earth do the women in the restaurant jump up and start doing the hokey pokey, apparently against their will?

Answer: The only reason for them to do the hokey pokey is because it's possible. Patrick said that they would do it in the story, and even in the story it's not impossible. Patrick made it happen.

Question: This is admittedly more a matter of opinion than actual mistake, but could anyone offer up a logical explanation for why, out of the numerous ways AUTO could have destroyed the plant (chucking it in the reactor/tossing it down into the garbage compactor area/having the stewards crispy fry it with their lasers in private to name a few), he settled for having GO-4 place it in an escape pod and blast it a short distance from the ship before blowing it up? I'm aware plot convenience and an easy means for it to be recovered is obviously the main reason, but that still doesn't really explain why he would take such a unnecessarily risky course of action, given the waste of the escape pod would no doubt be noticed and rouse suspicions and, as WALL-E and EVE demonstrate, the chance of the plant being intercepted and saved from destruction is increased significantly.

Answer: The autopilot probably had to make sure every single cell of the plant was either destroyed, or eliminated from the ship. The computer concluded that putting the plant physically off the ship was the only certain way to do so. It's also a computer and its creativity may be limited - the garbage is thrown off the ship and thus eliminated, and it is possible it concluded it was the only way the plant could be properly eliminated as well.

Question: At the end they want the public to believe that Batman killed those people because they could see him as a villain since he is dark, etc., but why not say the Joker killed those people? The public would believe that for sure.

Answer: Harvey Dent dies after the Joker is finally in police custody, so the Joker couldn't have killed him. The only other people who could have killed him are Gordon or Batman. Blaming Gordon would be just as bad as saying Dent turned bad, so Batman took the blame. The film ends before anyone is officially blamed, so it's possible that the Joker could be blamed for some of the cops' deaths, but the death of Dent (which is the most symbolic) would still be blamed on Batman.

Madstunts

Question: In FOTR, Bilbo says something like "There has always been a Baggins living at Bag End, and there always will be." Presumably he thinks Frodo, and Frodo's descendants, will always live there, but Frodo goes to the Undying Lands, leaving no heirs behind. In the book, Sam and Rosie move into Bag End, but this does not happen in the movie - at the end of ROTK, you can see that the hobbit hole Sam goes home to is not Bag End. My question is, why did the filmmakers change these 2 things? In other words, if Bilbo's line is supposed to make it important who ends up in Bag End, why not show who does end up there in ROTK? If it is not important who lives there (thus explaining why Sam and Rosie don't appear there), then why have Bilbo make a fuss over it in FOTR? I just don't understand what the point is.

Answer: Bilbo is simply stating the way things have always been. At that point, he has no reason to believe that Frodo and his descendants will not live in Bag End. As to Sam returning to 3 Bagshot Row instead of Bag End, having him go to Bag End would have caused some extra time to be added to the film. The film is long enough, and explaining that Frodo left Bag End to Sam and his family would've added too much unnecessary time.

Question: I can't help noticing that in every scene on Earth the terrain is bathed in brilliant sunlight yet the entire planet is meant to be permanently covered in thick (presumably toxic) clouds. Is this at all possible?

Answer: Earth is meant to be uninhabitable -- not necessarily due to "thick ... clouds". Earth's environment is inhospitable to humans in many ways, including trash and air quality and presumably water quality. No specific mention of "thick clouds."

Brenda Elzin

Question: When Marty is exploring 2015, who is the man who talks about the Cubs winning the World Series? He looks like a younger actor wearing 'older' make-up, suggesting that he has played another character somewhere within the trilogy.

Answer: He's an older version of Terry, the auto mechanic who fixed Biff's car in 1955 (and charges him "300 bucks"). Originally the scene with old Terry was longer and made his appearance more relevant, but the scene was trimmed for time.

Madstunts

Player Under Pressure - S3-E11

Question: The Season 3 DVD set has two versions of the "Player Under Pressure" episode. I've just watched the unaired version, which seems to fit into season 2 - Hodgins hasn't yet convinced Angela to marry him, and the credits don't contain Larry the psychiatrist. Does anyone know why the episode was not aired in Season 2 as seems originally intended?

Answer: The episode was initially part of Season Two but it was not aired on its originally scheduled date because of the Virginia Tech massacre, a college shooting. Fox thought it was inappropriate to air an episode with a similar plot, however vague the similarities may be, so it was replaced by a repeat of "Aliens in a Spaceship".

Question: Why do the kidnappers take Thornhill to the Townsend home and pretend to be Lester Townsend and members of his household? They could have taken him to some obscure place instead, at less risk of being found out.

Answer: More than likely, they felt that Roger would be dead and they would not be found out. The fact that he survives their DUI plot and returns to the house with the police only serves to makes him look more suspicious and guilty. It's to move the plot along, nothing more.

ChiChi

The bigger plot hole is, if Van Dam really believes Roger is Kaplan, why would he think that Roger would bring the police and go through the trouble of preparing "Mrs. Kaplan" to make the police think he's crazy? If Roger really was a spy, he doesn't need help from the police and would have just disappeared instead of retracing his steps. So if Van Dam anticipated the actions taken by Roger, he must believe at some level that Roger is telling the truth and would have looked deeper into it.

Question: I don't see how killing Grievous could've ended the entire war. He was commander of the droid armies, yes, but what about the leaders of the Trade Federation, the Banking Clan, and the Commerce Guild? They could create more droids and simply promote someone else to Grievous' position. Don't you think the Jedi would've made destroying the Sepratists their highest priority?

Brad

Chosen answer: Grievous is a highly dangerous individual. Through his leadership, the droid armies are scoring a lot of victories they wouldn't have otherwise had. Added to that the fact that Grievous is hunting down and killing Jedi, and he becomes a high priority target for the republic. Get rid of him and the seperatists have lost their greatest general and a highly dangerous combatant.

Gary O'Reilly

Question: I was wondering if the blue diamond necklace that Rose had in the movie is/was an actual necklace?

Answer: The diamond necklace in the film, known as the "Heart of the Ocean," is fictitious, although it is believed to be based on the legendary Hope diamond. However, after "Titanic" became such a huge hit, several jewelers crafted their own versions of the movie diamond. According to Wikipedia, jewelers Asprey & Garrard created a 170 carat heart-shaped sapphire necklace containing 65 diamonds. Celine Dion wore it during her performance of "My Heart Will Go On," at the 1998 Academy Awards ceremony. The necklace was later auction off for charity, fetching $2.2 million. It was bought by Céline Dion's husband, René Angélil, and it is now at the National Shipwreck Museum in Charlestown, Cornwall. Also, actress Gloria Stuart, who played the old Rose in the movie, wore a $20 million dollar blue-diamond necklace that is also called "Heart of the Ocean." Designed by jeweler Harry Winston, it was inspired by the movie.

raywest

Answer: Miss Kate Florence Phillips was gifted this necklace by Henry Samuel Morley as a token of his love which looks very much like the fictional Heart of the Ocean. Https://www.facebook.com/titanictheexhibition/photos/a.423469769891/10159008486209892/?type=3&eid=ARDjJfVyVH8FF8E0ML5Bm3N5QZKHtA_kcHjZzy7TsBod6KCtRjlwa_vOP5zqjJhAJwGzrZvT6HRoiOcy.

-=Kate=-

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