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: What happened between Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman after she asked him about the necklace? I was a bit confused as to what happened to their relationship, for example, did they spilt-up or did they just try to work through it?

Answer: I think it's left up to the viewer to decide. From what we are shown (the final scene at Heathrow) they could have been working through it or they could have broken up, so the viewer must decide what outcome they believe more plausible or pleasing.

Question: I'm not really sure about it, because I realized it only after I went out of the movie theater but I think that when the Bride removed Elle's eye, it's the wrong eye - left eye instead of right eye. am I right?

Answer: Elle's eye patch is always on HER right eye, so Beatrix removed Elle's left eye.

Melissa

Question: Was Minas Morgul (originally Minas Ithil by the Gondorians and sister city of Minas Tirith) reclaimed by the Gondorians after the war?

Answer: It's never stated. Assuming that it survived the turmoil of Sauron's destruction, the Gondorians would have taken control. Whether they would allow such a place of evil to continue to stand is an open question.

Tailkinker

Answer: Check out the trivia. It's already in there. (Yes, same swords).

Nikki

Question: After the fall of Sauron, Barad-Dur and Mordor as a whole, what was Mordor used as? Did it serve any purpose after the war? For example, did the survivors build a city/buildings?

Answer: It's never stated. It's certainly unlikely that there were any survivors on the plain of Gorgoroth, the north-west part of Mordor where Mount Doom and the fortress of Barad-dur were located. The remainder of Mordor, the more-fertile lowland area called Nurn, where slave-farms produced food for Sauron's armies, probably fared much better, but precisely what happened after Sauron's fall is never mentioned.

Tailkinker

Question: After King Elessar (Aragorn) dies in 120 FA, what exactly happens to Arwen?

Answer: Arwen leaves Gondor after Aragorn's death, now ruled by Eldarion, their son. She travels north, to the now-deserted remains of Lorien, to Cerin Amroth, a grassy mound at the very heart of the realm where she and Aragorn first pledged their love to each other. She passes away there in 121 FA.

Tailkinker

Question: What happens to Osgiliath after the war? Is the city rebuilt?

Answer: It's not clear what happens. Minas Tirith continues to be the capital of Gondor. It seems likely that Osgiliath would be rebuilt to some extent, but it probably never regained its full glory.

Tailkinker

Question: Does anyone know the name of the ruins that the Fellowship pass on their journey? (a friend told me it was Weathertop revisited - I know that's not it.)

Answer: You're right, it's not Weathertop - looks totally different and completely the wrong direction. The Fellowship are heading south at this point, parallel to the Misty Mountains, so they're most probably in the land of Eregion, which, as a trivia point, is where all the Rings (other than the One Ring) were forged. Eregion and its largely Elven population were destroyed by Sauron during the Second Age, thousands of years prior to the War of the Ring - no placenames from that era are known, and the region is still largely uninhabited. The ruins that they pass are most likely the remains of some sort of outpost - it looks too small to be an actual settlement.

Tailkinker

Question: What is A.J. doing when he burns Mark's CD? Why would he ruin his CD, if that's what he's doing?

Melissa

Chosen answer: He is making sure the CD can't be played anymore because nobody really likes Mark's music.

wolfchild

I never understood that part because they were singing along to the song Mark chose to play.

Question: During the "woman in the red dress" scene what is the music playing in the background?

Answer: The track is 'Clubbed to Death', the Kurayamino mix, by Rob D.

STP

Question: Does Voigt Kampff (sp?) mean anything?

Answer: Not specifically named for anything, but the following snippets of an essay called "Philip K Dicks Human Vision" by Kyla Bremner, shed some light on possible influences on the name: "The German and Italian names of these tests perhaps allude to the fascist regimes of Hitler (Mein Kampf perhaps?)...and the crimes against humanity which [were] perpetrated less than thirty years before Dick was writing this novel...Deckard and Bryant's discussion of Lurie Kampff, who modified Voight's scale to make the Voight-Kampff Altered Scale...[he] is deliberately portrayed as a psychiatrist in the mould of the likes of late nineteenth-century sexual psychologists such as Havelock Ellis or Richard von Krafft-Ebing, both of whom were instrumental in laying down the foundation from which Sigmund Freud developed his theories...The curious similarity between the name of the Voight-Kampff test, Krafft-Ebing's name, and Hitler's manifesto, Mein Kampf, seems to link the three in a manner that suggest they are all interrelated..."

Question: One of the trivia entries states that Ridley Scott prevented any members of the cast from seeing the chestburster until the scene was filmed so their reactions would look more natural. However I've dug up numerous sources (such as IMDB) that says this is not the case and the cast had indeed seen the creature before hand. Which is the correct version of this story?

Answer: The version that I've heard the most often, which seems the most plausible, is that the cast were pretty much aware of what was going to happen - the chestburst effect requires machinery, a fake torso and so forth, so it's a bit daft to imagine that they weren't aware of what was coming. What they weren't expecting was the sheer amount of blood squirted everywhere, so their reactions to being sprayed with blood are, to some extent, natural.

Tailkinker

Poor old Lambert got the brunt of it.

Answer: Yes. Immediately after the Space Monkeys assault the police commissioner at the banquet, as they walk out the back exit, his pants fall off and he pulls them back up quickly.

Phoenix

Question: When Dr. Cornbluth first sees the mermaid under water and unsuccessfully tries to take her picture, how come he has an oxygen tank AND an air hose coming from the boat topside? I thought it may be a mistake but I am not a scuba diver so I though I would ask.

William Bergquist

Chosen answer: Whilst it may be a tad unusual, each system serves as a back-up for the other.

David Mercier

Question: In the extended version, The Mouth of Sauron tells the heroes that Frodo is dead and the Ring is on it's way to Barad-Dur. The heroes give up hope but continue to fight in honour of what Frodo has tried to do. But when the Great Eye glows brighter at the Rings destruction, the heroes all look up at it before it explodes and Barad-Dur collapses. Do they think Sauron has reclaimed the Ring or he has been defeated?

Answer: You can't really say what a character is thinking, unless there's a voiceover or something, but, given that they believe that the Ring has been captured, it seems likely that most may well believe that Sauron has reclaimed the Ring. Whatever they actually think, it's clear that something must be happening, hence their attention being drawn. If there is an exception to this, it would be Gandalf - given that he's of the same race as Sauron (lesser Ainur, known as Maiar), and both have powerful magical abilities, it seems possible that Gandalf might be able to sense what has really happened before any actual physical signs became apparent.

Tailkinker

Question: Can anybody tell me where I can download the trailer found on this page: http://www.theonering.net/movie/preview/teaser01.html (This page is the frame by frame analysis of the trailer). I usually end up in a bad link.

Answer: http://www.apple.com/trailers/newline/lord_of_the_rings/.

Tailkinker

Question: Apart from Gandalf, the Rohirrim and the Huorns, who survived the initial stages of the Battle Of The Hornburg?

Answer: As Helm's Deep doesn't really have initial stages, as such, and, even if it did, none of those you mention would have been there, as they arrive at the very end, I'll assume that the question is really "who survived the Battle of the Hornburg?" The survivors obviously include Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas and Theoden. Gamling, Theoden's right-hand man also survives. Other than that, it seems fair to say that a number of the other human and elven defenders would have lived through the battle - some are seen to ride forth with Theoden, others presumably remained behind in the fortress. In addition, there are all those women (including Eowyn) and children who hid in the caves behind the fortress.

Tailkinker

Question: I'm kinda unclear on this - why exactly does the ground cave in and swallow the orcs and other evil creatures when Sauron's defeated (when the ring is destroyed)? I did notice that it got most of the bad guys and didn't come too near aragon and the gondor/rohan army.

Answer: Sauron's power affects Mordor - it's his power, for example, that prevents the forging chamber in Mount Doom from filling with lava. With the defeat of Sauron, Mordor is badly affected - the uncontrolled eruption of Mount Doom, the fall of the Black Gate and so forth. Aragorn's forces are outside the Black Gate, so the destruction doesn't quite reach them, but many of the Mordor forces are within that area, between the Gondor/Rohan troops and the Gate itself. The others simply run away when it becomes apparent that their master has fallen.

Tailkinker

Question: What is the song that Johnny dances to in the bathroom, and who is it by?

Answer: It's 'Does your Mother Know that you're out' by ABBA.

rabid anarchist

Question: The head of the Vampire Nation is named Damaskinos. Does this name have any significance outside the movie?

Answer: Damaskinos was a Greek Archbishop. He became bishop of Corinth, and in 1938 he was elected archbishop of Athens.

Jane Doe

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