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: If Lucy's father was the one that gave Henry the Beach Boys CD, how could Henry take that as a sign that Lucy remembers him?

Matty Blast

Chosen answer: Lucy's father previously told Henry that she only sings on days that she meets him - then you see a flash of her painting in the garage, singing a Beach Boys song. Right before he hands Henry the Beach Boys CD, he tells him that she's even singing again. Henry realized as he listened to CD - maybe if she is singing again, she is thinking of him, hence, remembering him. (It happens to be the same song that she was singing in the garage that's playing on the boat when Henry turns around to go back. It's called 'Wouldn't It Be Nice').

Why wouldn't the father just tell him directly "hey she's been painting and singing again, so she probably might remember you"

Question: The T-1000 kills the cop at the beginning. He takes his clothes, but he never takes shape of the cop. So why don't other cops get suspicious? After all, they might have heard a news report that Officer Austin died, and they see a completely different looking man in his uniform.

Answer: Why would they? Throughout the film the T-1000 keeps to himself and only once or twice even comes close to meeting the police. The first is when he tells one officer, "Say, thats a nice bike" and the other when he gets rid of the pilot in the helicopter. We don't know if other police even noticed him or even realised that he wasn't an actual policeman. Being that it had no bearing on the films plot line it was never an issue to discuss further in the film.

Lummie

Chosen answer: No real artifacts were used but they did use real film taken of the actual ship in the movie.

Disney-Freak

Answer: The thing that Rose is laid on is an original bit of the piano from the Titanic wreck.

Question: Was Rose a real passenger on the ship. I know that there was a crew member called Joseph Dawson but was Rose a real person. If so, how did the real life Rose react to herself on screen?

Answer: Both Rose and Jack are entirely fictitious - the similarity of names with the crew member is purely coincidental. Many of the bodies that were recovered were buried in a cemetery in Halifax, Nova Scotia that is called the Titanic Graveyard. One of the headstones reads 'J Dawson'. When James Cameron learned about this victim having a similar name to one of the main characters, he said it was a purely a coincidence.

Tailkinker

Question: Why does Flora only just notice at the end of the film that Aurora's dress is blue? She saw it on her loads of times before then, and never said anything.

Answer: Because she wasn't paying any attention to the color.

Disney-Freak

Question: What was in the attic if there weren't any rats making the noises?

Answer: It was the demon moving objects around. This is seen later as well when object in Regan's bedroom are manipulated.

wizard_of_gore

Why doesn't the mother freak out when Regan is showing how to use the ouija board and the planchette moves into Regans hands by itself? It magically slides across the board into Regans hands by itself, and the mother isn't particularly startled by it? Doesn't make sense to me.

The movement of the planchette was so fast during Regan's insistence that it can be operated by one person that her mother thought Regan "must" have somehow done it.

Erik M.

Answer: She thought that there MUST be a thin filament or something that Regan was manipulating...why ELSE would the game act that way?!

Erik M.

Question: This is a very strange question but I cannot think of anywhere else to put it. In the UK, a poster-advert for this film that is stuck on phone boxes has me confused. The bottom half of the window has Danny (Jet Li) lying down with his face to the camera, looking up slightly (as he is seen during the film sometimes), but the top half has an arm/fist with what looks like a Christmas pudding (on fire and all) on top of it. What is the thing on his fist, and what's its relevance to the film? I've seen the film but I can't remember anything like it.

Gary O'Reilly

Chosen answer: If I am thinking of the same poster, it is someone's foot standing on his wrist. The shoe is really shiny.

James Storck

Question: In the final scene with Bourne and Landy, we find out Bourne's real name is David Webb. As this scene was only added after previews, was the audience originally going to find this out?

Answer: The original final scene, Jason walking through the snow, was described as "dismal". Something slightly more upbeat had to be added, paralleling the happy ending of "The Bourne Identity".

scwilliam

Question: In the scene where Fannie is having trouble giving birth as the baby is breeched, how does Azeem deliver Fannie's baby?

Answer: While it is never explicitly shown, it is implied that Azeem performed a Cesarean Section.

Guy

Answer: It was never revealed what caused Frank's death.

raywest

Question: Does Magneto understand that his special radiation machine kills normal humans or not? He ignores Storm when she tells him she saw Sen. Kelly die. Is his plan to make the world leaders mutants so they'll become sympathetic to the mutant cause, or is it to just kill everybody?

Answer: No, he doesn't realise that it ultimately kills them. His entire aim is to turn the world's leaders into mutants, thus getting them onto his side. If he killed them, he'd simply put new leaders into office who now had even more of a reason to hate mutants, which really isn't going to help matters. When Storm tells him that Kelly died, he simply asks her if she really saw what she thinks she saw - a certain degree of denial, but one that's understandable. After all, he wouldn't want to think that all his planning was for naught.

Tailkinker

Answer: Magento didn't care if the Senator died. They either become mutants or they die. Either way he considers it a win win situation.

Question: When David is starting to turn into a werewolf, he sees his entire body starting to change. So why is it that when he is talking to Alex the next morning he can't remember it happening and the last thing he remembers is reading a book?

Answer: Traumatic events have a tendency to disrupt the memory - people who have been involved in a car accident, for example, often have no memory of the events leading up to the accident, even though they would obviously have perceived those events at the time. The physical and mental stresses of the werewolf transformation have clearly disrupted David's memories in a similar fashion.

Tailkinker

Answer: No, despite more than enough clues and close calls. Peggy and John Redcorn are the only ones who have come close to telling Dale that Joseph is not his real son but both Dale and Joseph have never found it out.

Lummie

Question: Does anyone know anything about the word "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious?" Who made it up, how they came about to making it up etc.

Hamster

Chosen answer: For a good explanation, go to The Straight Dope: http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/msupercali.html. It will give you pretty much everything that is known about this odd word.

Richard Welty

Answer: Earlier in the episode, Horatio tells Mac that Penrod was seen in Tribeca getting his leg set, only to bolt when he learned a nurse wised up the cops. Caine and the NYPD probably got Penrod's address from the hospital.

Cubs Fan

Question: Why are the implants called ZOE? Does it stand for something?

Answer: The movie provides no answer as to why the device was named "ZOE." However, one should note the word "Zoe" is actually a greek word for "life." Since the ZOE implant records someone's life, this sounds like the most logical answer to why it was named ZOE. On a side note: The first device to display moving images was called the "Zoetrope", the similar name could have had further influence as to why this implant was named ZOE.

Kelsey H.

Question: After seeing 'Gladiator' I looked up a few pictures of Tommy Flanagan (Cicero, Maximus' friend) and in all of them he has a noticeable mark on the side of his face. Is this a scar or a birth mark or something? Could someone please tell me?

Answer: He received that scar when he was attacked by a knife-wielding assailant outside a pub.

Myridon

Question: When Stiller is trying to flirt with the one lady at her house he says "Freakinare" or something. Whatever it is, what does it mean?

Answer: I think you may be mishearing "freaky naughty", which is pretty self-explanatory.

Nick N.

Question: Can someone please explain what a snuff film actually is? I've heard that they don't exist, and they are just a rumor, but can someone clarify all this?

Answer: A snuff film is a movie where someone is actually killed on film, where the intention is to sell the movie afterwards. There are several other instanses where people are shown murdered on film (news reports, the Zapruder film, dictatorships documenting executions, etc.), but if the purpose of making the movie is not commercial, it is not a geniune "snuff" film. FBI experts and other law agencies state that they have never seen a genuine "snuff", and that it is most likely just a rumor, especially since the concept of someone willingly selling evidence of their own crimes to strangers and remaining undetected for 30 years, is highly unlikely. See http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_258.html for more details.

Twotall

Question: Does anybody know why Zaphod has two faces and not two heads? In the book there are two separate heads and he never gets one cut off. Was this a deliberate choice by the filmmakers for a reason? Thanks.

Answer: It was a choice by Douglas Adams prior to his demise, largely to avoid the large amount of effects required to continuously portray a character with two heads. It was also probably prompted, at least in part, by his dissatisfaction with the second head used in the 1980's TV version, causing him to think of other ways that Zaphod could be portrayed.

Tailkinker

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