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.

Chosen answer: Half sisters (or brothers) share either a mother or a father, but not both. Step sisters mean there is no blood relationship at all and one's mother and the other's father got married to each other.

shortdanzr

Answer: "Kike" is an ethnic slur that refers to Jews. To elaborate, when illiterate Jewish immigrants would be asked to sign their names on Ellis Island, they would simply put a circle on the signature line. The Yiddish word for "circle" is "kikel."

OneHappyHusky

Question: What's with the necklace Will wears throughout the movie? I think he wears it in "At World's End" too. I'm just wondering if it says anywhere where he got it, or why he wears it.

Answer: None of the movies address it, nor wether it has any special significance. Barbossa also wears a necklace that is unmentioned.

Question: After watching the film, I was wondering, does anyone know if the novella (upon which this film is based) or any similar Stephen King works served as inspiration to Konami's "Silent Hill" video game franchise? I am asking, because there are certainly some similarities between these works, both stylistic and in terms of tone.

Answer: I'll have to answer my own question here. After doing some research, it appears that yes, "The Mist" was partially an inspiration for Konami when they created the "Silent Hill" series.

Question: In the scene in the forge where Will and Jack are fighting, Jack asks "Do you think this wise, boy? Crossing blades with a pirate?" Then Will says "You threatened Miss Swann" I never got this, Jack says something after this, I have watched that three second bit over and over and I still don't know what he says, can anyone straighten this out for me?

Answer: He says "Only a little".

Tailkinker

Question: Just after Jack's entrance, he yells at one of himselves for tying a knot badly and hallucination Jack says something to the effect of "Perhaps you could give us another chance?" and real Jack says "Shall I?" stabs hallucination Jack and says in his ear "That's exactly the sort of thinking that got us into this mess". What does he mean by this?

Answer: In the previous movie, when Jack abandons the Black Pearl and its crew in a small boat, he has a sudden change of heart and decides to turn back - the second chance hallucination Jack is referring too. The consequences of turning back are that he ends up being handcuffed to the ship and swallowed by the Kraken. When hallucination Jack says that giving people a second chance is what got him in that mess, he is referring to that change of heart and decision to go back.

Answer: "The sort of thinking that got us into this mess" implies essentially, being less ruthless / a good person, the type to give second chances or do something for someone else etc. He believed that if he wasn't such a 'softie', he wouldn't have been conned into becoming kraken bait for others' survival at his expense.

Question: In the scene just before the party at Brad Wesley's house, Dalton is reading a book by the window in his room. What is the name of the book he's reading?

Joe Hiles

Chosen answer: Legends of the Fall by Jim Harrison.

Question: There is a scene where Canton says he believes the creatures were a strange offshoot of the ARCHAEA OTTOIA family. He then describes how big they get based on how deep down they are as well as what they do to their victims. Question is does the Archaea Ottoia really exist? If so is anything Canton said about it true? I tried looking for this creature in the search engine but with no luck.

SAZOO1975

Chosen answer: According to the DVD commentary, the monsters in the film are a combination of 3 different undersea creatures. All of them are microscopic.

Grumpy Scot

Question: This applies more to the book: Buckbeak's appeal is set for two in the afternoon, and his execution at sundown. If the Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures is so certain of Buckbeak's guilt, why (besides the gaping plot hole) do they wait so long between appeal and execution?

Cubs Fan

Chosen answer: The gap is to get all the formalities done. There was probably lots of paperwork to be done.

Ssiscool

Question: What car did Blackout cut up when he was trying to get Sam running away with the allspark?

Answer: A 2007 Pontiac GTO.

Brad

Question: What are the physical dimensions, if any, of all the enemy ship types? Is there any biological information like height, weight of the enemy beings? I am looking at using this enemy in a fanfic of another show.

Answer: Try http://www.merzo.net/ This site is devoted to size comparisons of ships and aliens from different shows and movies.

Grumpy Scot

Answer: It's unclear whether he knows or not. What IS clear is that he knows Norman was the Green Goblin.

Answer: He means that is is covered by a "grandfather clause", where someone in charge lets you have an exeption to the rules, using an older rule instead. In Westmoreland's case, he had had a cat before they were disallowed in prisons, and so the warden makes an exeption in his case. See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandfather_clause.

Twotall

Show generally

Question: Link is on Death Row for one murder, why aren't T-bag and John Abruzzi also on death row? Fair enough Link was set up by higher powers to ensure his execution but wouldn't dangerous people like T-bag and Abruzzi, convicted murderers, also be on death row? T-bag especially, since he raped and murdered children.

Answer: T-Bag and Abruzzi's cases are not fully discussed in the show so its impossible to state why they weren't on death row as well. The most likely answers is there was not enough evidence on both to convict on Murder One charges or they took plea bargains that would likely have taken the death penalty off the table. If I remember correctly I think there is a work up on the charges of the characters in the show on the official Prison Break website. I don't know if it explains your question but I believe it has the list of convictions against them.

Lummie

Answer: T-Bag and Abruzzi killed ordinary citizens, and they were sentenced to life imprisonment, but Burrows killed the vice president's brother and was sentenced to death because of so much power they had.

Who is killed has nothing to do with death penalty cases. There are a number of factors that has to be taken into consideration. As Lummie said, it could be a case they took plea deals, there might not have been enough evidence for murder in the 1st degree or other factors depending on the state laws with which I'm not familiar.

Ssiscool

Question: At the scene with Anna's art show, what does Anna mean when she tells Larry that he is the cat who got the cream?

Answer: The saying, the cat who got the cream, means that someone is proud of something that they have done.

Question: Before Dan and Alice left for Anna's show, why didn't Dan want Alice to travel with him after the show? I know he wanted to go and talk to Anna, but since he almost gets into a car and then suddenly changes his mind, it seemed like he had just then decided to go and try to talk to Anna.

Answer: Before Anna's show, they were not arguing about Dan and Alice leaving the show together - they were arguing because Dan was travelling straight after the show and staying somewhere else overnight to be at his father's funeral. Alice wanted to go to the funeral with him but Dan said he wanted to be alone. He looked like he was almost getting into a car because he was waiting until Alice's car was out of sight so she would not see him when he went back inside to speak to Anna.

Question: *spoilers* I read that in the play, Alice is hit by a car and killed. At the end of the movie, we see her walking down a street, and she keeps walking as a light changes to a red hand sign. Is this supposed to mean that she also gets hit by a car in this version, but the movie ends and doesn't show her being hit?

Answer: I think you are correct; that's what is implied by the red light at the crosswalk. A note on that same scene... I couldn't figure out why all the other pedestrians are looking at her, before she gets to the crosswalk.

Answer: It's left for your interpretation.

Show generally

Question: In "Greek Bearing Gifts" apparently the doctors sonic screwdriver is on Tosh's desk. Could someone tell me at what time you can see it please?

Answer: Several times during the episode, most notably at the beginning when the old grave is discovered, Tosh holds a devise that looks a great deal like the Sonic Screwdriver that she uses to determine the age of the skeleton. However, a search of Google images shows that it is not the same thing.

OneHappyHusky

Chosen answer: There is no way to be positive as Schumacher has never addressed this issue publicly. I can tell you that there are no common special effects make-up personnel between the two productions.

OneHappyHusky

Question: At the end of the movie, when Tom finds out that Meredith is on the boat, he wants to kill either her or Peter because they both believe different stories about him and might run into each other. Is there any reason why he chose to kill Peter?

Answer: After running into Meredith, Tom's plan was to stay in the cabin with Peter the entire trip to avoid them seeing one another. But after Tom makes that suggestion, Peter tells Tom that he seen him kissing Meredith. He couldn't avoid or kill her since Peter already saw her. Family members also saw Tom with Meredith. If Meredith suddenly vanished or was killed I'm quite sure there'd be an investigation. Peter was the only option. No one is on board to report Peter missing. Once the boat docks, Tom will be long gone before they discover Peters body. Unlike Meredith, her family would be looking for her immediately since they're traveling together. I'm quite sure he'd much rather have killed Meredith, she meant nothing to him.

Answer: Meredith was travelling with many other people and he can't kill all of them, so he has to kill Peter. Anthony Minghella discusses this in the audio commentary of the film.

Answer: I saw a lot of reviews saying killing Meredith would be harder because she traveled with a lot of people on the ship. Considering that Tom was able to figure out the old trick where he made Meredith to coincidentally meet up with Peter and Marge in a cafe, I'm pretty sure he could up with the same plot to tell Meredith to meet him somewhere around the corner of the ship too, say in the middle of the night to look at the moon etc. Peter beforehand can be exhausted due to consumption of alcohol or had steamy session of coitus so he could never find out that Peter went out to see Meredith. I don't know how the cruise ship of the 50s worked out at the time but there must be a range of dinner time where people go to a hall for their meals - therefore Tom could persuade Meredith to have some alone time at her cabin while the rest of her Cos were having dinner. Since Meredith was infatuated of him, anything what Tom could have said or planed something with her she would have agreed.

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