Answered 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: When Travis first entered the porn theater, why was it blurred? Was that Martin Scorcese blurring the picture to avoid an NC-17 rating, or was the porn movie supposed to be blurry?

MikeH

Chosen answer: It could be for several reasons. As you pointed out, it could be to avoid an NC-17 rating, though Scorcese could easily have used scenes that were not specifically pornographic. It may also be to keep the audience's attention focused on Travis and what was is going on in the scene and not be distracted by any pornographic material. Also, if you are referring to when the movie was being aired on TV, then any pornographic materials would have been blurred out to comply with FCC standards. Nudity and pornography cannot be shown on general TV stations.

raywest

Question: I'm just wondering from the way how Hermione says she has non magic parents, is she ashamed of her parents?

THE GAMER NEXT DOOR

Chosen answer: She was not ashamed of her parents. Because she was raised a Muggle, she was never exposed to the magical world. She feels awkward and out-of-place and at a disadvantage compared to those who were born into magical families. Hermione does not like feeling inferior to others.

raywest

Also, due to her parents being non-magical she is considered by many pure bloods to be a mud blood meaning dirty blood. Its something she is ridiculed for throughout her education and so simply doesn't want to, as Ray said, feel inferior.

Ssiscool

Chosen answer: No reason is given in the film. But the books make mention that he has to have room for the oxygenator, water reclaimer and atmospheric regulator. All of which only work in pressurized areas.

MasterOfAll

Answer: No she colored her hair.

Question: Who played Al Dutcher? He was the bank robber in the clown mask who was killed in the first few minutes.

Answer: The Internet Movie Database lists actor-stuntman Fred Scheiwiller as the cast member who played Al Dutcher. Scheiwiller had a fairly impressive filmography as a supporting actor before his death in 2001. http://m.imdb.com/title/tt0069865/fullcredits/cast.

Charles Austin Miller

Question: When Jason shows Nicky the picture of Nathan Daniels and Ward Abbott she says she doesn't know who Ward Abbott is, but I could have sworn they had a scene together in the Bourne Supremacy. Is she lying?

Answer: The man in the picture was Albert Hirsch, not Ward Abbott, and he was never seen in The Bourne Supremacy. She is not lying and she does not know who he is.

Casual Person

Answer: They look so similar! I had the same question, glad someone thought of it first.

Question: If the characters are younger versions of the original crew, why does the picture young Mr. Spock views when he is told that ambassador Spock has died include all of the original crew members? Who are they supposed to be?

Answer: Those are the personal effects of the old/original Spock. He lived a full life with the original Enterprise crew, as documented in the TV shows and movies, then came back in time to the new/altered timeline.

Jon Sandys

Question: A few questions regarding the pigeon lady. 1. Other than being heartbroken from so many people, is more revealed about how she became homeless? 2. In the room where Kevin and the pigeon lady are watching the orchestra, how did they get in? Does she live there? Did she break in?

Answer: I think that she couldn't handle her divorce and then lost her job and home because of it. And she kind of lost the will to live and now just survives. Odds are a back stairwell or fire escape.

Greg Dwyer

Answer: She says "facacta" ghoul. It's a Yiddish word meaning ridiculous. It's not a type of ghoul, just her being annoyed at Buckle.

Bishop73

Question: The police find the accomplice's body in the trailer. In the last scenes the same body appears in the trunk of the car before it explodes. How did it get there if police had discovered it earlier?

Drummerboy

Chosen answer: The police never find Harman (the dead guy). Charley was hiding outside the trailer when Harman was killed and he's the one who found him and took his body. When the police bust into the trailer, no one (dead or alive) is there.

Bishop73

Question: Why did Castor shoot Dietrich? They were on the same side.

MikeH

Chosen answer: Although they were on the same side, Troy is currently posing as Archer, which means he would have to do everything that the FBI would expect Archer to be doing. The whole point of the raid was to take out Archer, as well as Troy's gang. He would have rather risked killing part of his own gang than risk exposing his identity to anyone else.

Casual Person

That doesn't really make sense. In the scene, he goes out of his way to shoot him and smiles while doing so, carefully and slowly. Was not a collateral damage situation. The question is why he deliberately goes out of his way to kill him.

Answer: If you watch closely, he saw Archer, went out of his way not to shoot him, instead was aiming for his own son that he didn't know was his, to further traumatize Archer.

Question: What exactly is the "Cardinal Rule" that Marcus broke that got him killed by Viggo?

Answer: Viggo put out a contract on John Wick (meaning Viggo offered a large bounty for somebody to kill John Wick). Marcus accepted the contract. The "Cardinal Rule" was that, if you accept the contract, you must kill your target. No ifs, ands, or buts. Marcus broke that Cardinal Rule because he did not kill John Wick when he had the chance.

Charles Austin Miller

Question: A few questions about Snape's death: How did Voldemort slice Snape's throat with his wand without saying anything? Where exactly did Nagini bite Snape? Did he die from wounds or from venom?

MikeH

Answer: Nagini kills Snape by biting him in the neck, it was in the movie.

Chosen answer: More magically advanced wizards do not need to speak the name of the spell to cast it. In the books, Harry and other students spend time learning how to cast spells silently. It is not specifically explained how Nagini kills Snape, but most likely it is a combination of various bites over his body and the venom.

raywest

Question: Why did Willi Cicci testify against Michael in court? Michael didn't do anything to Willi. In fact he even took part in the assassination of the other 4 families on behalf of Michael.

Answer: Willi had mistakenly believed that Michael had betrayed him and was behind the attack that almost killed him.

raywest

Question: When the prisoner is running away from the motel to escape, how does he end up back at the motel again?

Answer: The motel isn't real, and neither are any of the characters in its proximity. They are all aspects of Malcolm's personalities that are being killed off one by one in order to make sure his true murderous personality is vanquished. As such, the session by which Malcolm is being forced to do all this is designed so that all the personalities are stuck within the same place with no chance of leaving, which explains the bad storm, the road obstruction, etc.

Phaneron

Question: How did Marty get by Biff's security downstairs when he confronts him in the hot-tub?

Answer: Doc flies to the roof and drops Marty off. This is why he goes up there. When he reaches the edge, he bangs his fist down in frustration because he expected to find Doc waiting.

Question: Just curious what was on page 47 that the President asked Ben Gates to help him with. Was it finding the City of Gold?

Answer: It is never explained what was on the page. It was just a cliffhanger to set up for a 3rd movie, I think.

Question: When Chekov and Kirk step into their escape pods while on the Enterprise there are wearing their yellow uniforms, but when arriving on the planet they step out of the escape pods and are now wearing a completely different outfit. All of the other crew that used escape pods have not changed outfits. Where did they get the new clothes from?

krissrush

Chosen answer: The outfits were in the escape pods they escaped in. The other crew members didn't change outfits because they were all captured and were unable to. Chekov and Kirk were not captured and were also the only crew on board who successfully escaped in the designated escape pods, so logically they would be the only people wearing different outfits.

Casual Person

Question: People with a rank of 10 or higher are immune from the purge, this means the NFFA and Senator Roan are immune. Why put themselves at risk of getting killed by removing the restriction if they could've had her delivered as plan, killed, and then denied her murder at the conclusion of the purge?

Answer: Because they believed in what the purge represented. In their eyes it is a legal thing, so in order for them to legally get rid of the senator they had to remove the restriction legally, not break the law.

lionhead

Question: Dogs are immune to the disease being airborne, how did they ever get infected then? Did the infected humans bite the dogs? Seems an odd thing to do as that would likely mean the lions and deer would also be infected. 2. Why did the head mutant allow Will Smith to live (alternate ending)? Once he's got his mate back why didn't he just kill them? Was it a sign of mutual respect? Why don't they show that compassion when they first appeared? Smith takes the head mutant's mate, so in return the head mutant kills his dog and best friend, trashes his lab and destroys his research and stops any progress of a cure that Smith had made. Why not go the extra mile and just kill him, as they basically made humans extinct by doing that? The Darkseekers are smart as we know (setting traps and so on) so why not kill them now, as the next night the Darkseekers are going to search for him again and he doesn't have that big defence anymore. Seems rather pointless to let him live another day.

Swan90EFC

Chosen answer: 1) the cure was probably tested on animals before being let out into the public. 2) torture, they killed his dog and any possibility of curing the virus. Killing him would have stopped the suffering.

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