Question: What exactly is or was the "Shadows of the Empire?
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: The enemy is referred to as "tommies". Why do they call them that?
Answer: Tommy or Tommy Atkins is a term for a common soldier in the British Army. It is particularly associated with being used by the Germans during WWI, but may have been around as early as 1743 - see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommies.
Question: Who is responsible for taking pictures of Brad Pitt's character in Amsterdam while he is following Catherine Zeta Jones' character? Is it Toulour?
Answer: More likely, it was simply a detective that Jones' character set on Brad Pitt; she knew he was there and knew he was tailing her.
Answer: If you watch, in certain scenes with CZJ character and Rusty, you'll see her with a couple of guys that look kind of like MI6 or our version of Men in Black with the Black hats and everything. These are the guys that probably were tailing Rusty and taking the pictures of him watching her. I believe these were the same guys she got in trouble with her boss for wasting their time and forging the form to get approval to use them.
Question: I'm unclear about the mother of the young girl who died. Did she intentionally kill her daughter or was it accidental? That is, was this supposed to be a Munchhausen by Proxy Disorder situation where the mother only intended to keep her daughter sick enough so she was under constant medical supervision?
Answer: At best, it was Munchhausen by Proxy. However, it could have been a well-planned murder of one, and then the other child. But the mother's reaction when everyone is looking at her seems a little more mental than criminal.
"But the mother's reaction when everyone is looking at her seems a little more mental than criminal." This is personal opinion. I've never interpreted her expression that way. I've seen it as someone who intentionally killed the child having the first realisation that she's been found out.
Question: I was talking with a friend and we were trying to figure out why the little birds and black hawks took off from the base and arrived at the city in such a tight and uniform formation. Wouldn't this have been a clear sign from miles away the Americans were up to something?
Answer: While its minor, the militia does pick up that the Americans are up to something and they call each to warn everyone the Americans are heading their way. The best explanation as to why the helicopters and black hawks took off altogether was they wanted to give the militia as little time to organise an offense. The Americans' plan was to have helicopters land many of the troops on the ground to capture the prisoners and to give cover to the troops travelling by armored vehicles. As the film shows the Americans under-estimated the Somalians and their plans from the beginning were very questionable. In the film Tom Sizemore's character goes into detail after the briefing about all the problems including going in the day instead of night.
Question: Why do they sometimes put "La" in front of Carlotta's name? I'm sure it's something to do with the Italian/Spanish language but I took the class a long time ago.
Answer: It is a common practice to refer to an operatic diva as La
Question: In the courtroom scene, the first question Eric Idle asks Michael Palin is "You live at 46 Horton Terrace?", to which Palin replies in the affirmative. A few questions later, Idle says "You did say 46 Horton Terrace?", Palin says he did, and Idle says "Got him.", he bangs a small gong, and the courtroom (and the studio audience) laughs uproariously and applaudes. I do not get the joke here. The address is the same in both questions. I have watched this scene many many times and am still at a loss. Can someone help me?
Answer: Eric Idle bangs the gong because Michael Palin said 'Yes' - They're playing the 'yes-no' game, where the idea is to answer questions without using the words yes or no. At the time there was a quiz show called Take Your Pick, the first round of which was the 'yes-no' game - contestants had to answer questions for 60 seconds to pass through to the next round.
The One Where Joey Moves Out - S2-E16
Question: When Jack and Judy are talking in the bathroom, Jack says something like "It's like a scene from 'Cocoon'." I haven't seen 'Cocoon', so can someone tell me what he's talking about?
Answer: In the movie Cocoon, some retired elderly people swim in a pool with some alien cocoons in them. The energy produced from these cocoons gives them a new lease of life, giving them more energy like when they were younger. Jack's reference to the movie in relation to Richard is that he is acting the same since he has started seeing his "twinky" (Monica).
Question: What does Agamemnon yell right before the Greeks charge in the first battle?
Answer: He doesn't yell any words, just an expression of anguish over his brothers death.
Question: Will there be a sequel to Team America, because the ending seemed so open?
Answer: Trey Parker and Matt Stone said that there will never be a sequel and they will probably never do that kind of film again because it was too difficult.
Question: What is the title of the music played when Lucy Liu and co. are walking down the corridor in slow motion before the massacre begins?
Answer: It's a really great piece of music, and it is called "Battle without honor or humanity" and is made by Tomoyasu Hotei. Track no. 9 on the Kill Bill Vol. 1 Soundtrack.
All the songs are aptly named for the scene!
Question: This question applies to all three Harry Potter movies. Why is no one allowed to say Voldemorts name?
Answer: There's no actual law preventing it, it's largely traditional, left over from when Voldemort was previously active. He was considered so terrifying that people were frightened simply by the power of his name, so it became the norm to use an alternate method of referring to him if it was necessary to do so. Despite his apparent fall, the tendency remains. Later on, when Voldemort rises to power once again and gets hold of the ministry, a taboo is placed upon his name. Meaning that those who speak the dark lords name will immediately be attacked by death eaters. Some speculate the taboo was placed so as to find Harry more easily, as after Dumbledores death he was the only one brave enough to speak the name.
Question: When Shrek, Donkey and Puss find the "Happily Ever After" potion on the glass-enclosed shelf in the Fairy Godmother's factory, Puss uses one of his claws to cut the glass and get the bottle out. But I've heard that the only substance that can cut glass is a diamond. Were Puss' claws made of diamond? Or was this just for dramatic effect, since it's a fairy tale?
Answer: It was just a dramatic effect, since it was a fairy tale.
Question: Is it true that Harrison Ford stapled his hat to his head so that it would not fall off? I've heard its a myth but also that it was true.
Answer: This started because of an outtake from the movie. Harrison Ford pretends to staple his hat to his head because it keeps blowing off for a particular scene, then they show the scene again and his hat doesn't blow off. Being that Harrison Ford is neither insane nor displays masochistic tendencies, I think it's safe to say that this is untrue.
Question: I understand why Ocean's group had to botch the heist at the end but why did they have to drag Tess into it if they already had the real egg? This would have removed the interesting twist where Julia Roberts plays Julia Roberts but other than that the second heist attempt seems unnecessary. Am I missing something?
Answer: As evidenced from the first film and the sequel Danny Ocean was meticulous about every part of his heists and these botched attempts would fool Toulour into thinking they were failing to steal the "fake" egg. If the crew didn't make any attempts Toulour would know something was up. This was a large wager they had going between them and Toulour would be very suspicious as to why they weren't trying to steal the egg. Making them very public just enforced the fact that the crew had probably failed.
Answer: When Danny and Rusty are shown visiting Le Marque to talk to him about the Night Fox and the whole elaborate plan, Le Marque says to them that they will have to keep up an elaborate show or the Night Fox will become suspicious. He (The Night Fox) was watching Danny and the others the whole time.Like mentioned above, if they didn't put on a show he would have become suspicious. The Night Fox had them arrested twice and was trying to trip them up at every chance he had. Remember he called Danny and said it was the Front Desk with his wake up call at 5am when it was 11:30 the night before? Then him and Rusty spent the rest of the night drinking wine and watching bad Italian-TV with reruns of Happy Days.
Question: I know practically nothing about submarines, so this seemed a bit strange to me. When there's that huge storm, why do they keep staying at the surface, only going down for an hour at a time?
Answer: U-boats also travelled much faster on the surface...about 18 knots, vs only 8 knots or so beneath the surface.
Answer: Because that's what the U-boat was designed to do. Unlike modern nuclear boats, they didn't have the capacity to stay submerged for long periods - basically just as long as the air lasted; there wasn't atmosphere control equipment. They would 'snorkel' near the surface, recharge the batteries with the diesel engines, and then dive for a few hours at most before having to come back up and repeat the process.
Question: In the special edition there's a lot of mentioning of Randy Quaid's younger son being ill and having to take his medication. It's implied that the mother died of the same illness. What is he ill with?
Answer: The reference to the boy's adrenal cortex, and the few symptoms that appear, sound like Addison's Disease.
Join the mailing list
Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.
Answer: "Shadows of the Empire" is essentially Episode 5.5: the story of what happened between "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi". It was a multimedia project created by Lucasfilm in 1996, with a novel, comic series, computer game, RPG sourcebooks, toys and even its own soundtrack - everything except an actual movie.
Sierra1 ★