Question: How come the vampires don't die during the day and are awake? How can the werewolves transform at will instead of by a full moon?
raywest
20th Nov 2019
Twilight (2008)
Answer: The moon has no effect on the Quileutes because they are not werewolves. In the books, they are shape-shifters that can change at will. Rather than being created by a werewolf's bite, some Quileutes are born with a gene that becomes active and transforms them into wolves when vampires are near. They cannot turn other people into wolves. The movie series glossed over this fact, apparently to avoid confusion about the differences. Even though they are called "werewolves" in the movies, that is not what they are.
In addition, actual werewolves do exist in the Twilight universe. They are called "Children of the Moon." They follow most of the standard werewolf myths: changing only during the night of a full moon, feral behavior, infecting others by biting them, etc... They are also immune to vampire venom. The Volturi hunted them nearly to extinction after one nearly killed Caius.
Answer: It seems like you already decided your own answer, but like a lot of mythology and lore, hundreds of variations occur. Most often werewolves can change at will once they've gone through their first transformation. In a lot of lore, the full moon only forces them to change, even if it's against their will. It does not mean it's the only way to change. Meyer did add a twist to vampires in the sun, but in many stories, sunlight is not fatal, they can be safe in the shadows, or the sunlight only weakens, not kills, them, and/or they are strengthened by the moonlight (which is why they came out at night).
Didn't decide, only observed what I'd seen with the like of Chaney's Wolfman and Lugosi's Dracula, that's all.
The horror movies of that era, like Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolfman, etc. freely adapted their own interpretation of traditional folklore.
10th Nov 2019
Scooby-Doo (2002)
Question: If the airport and a plane don't allow dogs, then why is a cat is allowed on a plane?
Answer: Maybe because cats are smaller than dogs and all felines are relatively the same size and fit into a small pet carrier. Dogs range in size from a few pounds to over a hundred, making crating them more difficult.
Answer: Well before boarding Shaggy said they wouldn't allow large dogs on board. Implying smaller dogs would be OK.
24th Jul 2009
Twilight (2008)
Question: When they are in the garage, before they split up to throw off James, Edward tells Alice to "Please keep your thoughts to yourself". I've read the book and I'm pretty sure it explains this but I can't remember. What is Alice thinking?
Answer: If Alice tells Bella that she will be a vampire she will be scared and shocked.
Answer: I thought Alice was thinking about how tasty Bella smells because they had to wear her belongings to confuse Victoria and lead her off Bella's actual scent. If not please do reply as I am curious about this.
22nd Oct 2019
Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)
Question: Luke lost his lightsaber in Cloud City, how has it been retrieved?
Answer: It has not yet been answered in a canon source. The novel series that continued the stories after Return of the Jedi had Luke's lightsaber being found along with his severed hand which was then used to make a clone. The new movie series has made those stories no longer canon. It is possible Rise of Skywalker will answer this question.
Answer: In "Return Of The Jedi", after Luke turns himself over to Darth Vader, he is handed Luke's lightsaber to which Vader says, "I see you've constructed a new light saber." This would mean that after Luke lost his first lightsaber at Cloud City, he made himself another one.
Luke did make a new lightsaber after losing the first one, but he was the sole owner of it. In The Force Awakens, when Rey finds the lightsaber in the dungeon, Maz Kanata tells her that it once belonged to Luke Skywalker, and before him, it was his father's (Darth Vader). This would mean it is the same one that Luke lost when Vader sliced off his hand that was holding the lightsaber during their duel in Cloud City (The Empire Strikes Back). Somehow, that lightsaber was found on the planet's surface and made its way into Maz's possession. It now belongs to Rey.
Answer: When asked about how she came into possession of Luke's old lightsaber, which once belonged to Anakin Skywalker, Maz Kanata says that it's a tale for another time. Presumably it will be explained in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
It is not.
7th Oct 2019
Knight Rider (1982)
Knight Rider [Pilot; a.k.a. Knight of the Phoenix] (1) - S1-E1
Question: At one point, after promising help, Michael parks, and goes to a pay phone to call Devon. As he gets to the booth, over his left shoulder, there is a badly altered Pepsi sign. Black tape has been put over the word 'PEPSI' in the familiar logo, and also over the "si" in the phrase 'say Pepsi please'. What type of mistake would this be?
Chosen answer: Before "product placement" became common, name-brand products were rarely, if ever seen in TV shows, mostly due to avoid advertising conflicts with program sponsors. The Pepsi logo may have been taped out to prevent any commercial infringements.
Are you kidding? Product placement was so rampant in the 50s that sometimes you'd wonder if you were watching a TV show or a paid ad.
Knight Rider wasn't produced in the 1950s. TV shows of that era had advertising more similar to the old radio shows from the 30s and 40s. The early 50s series often had a sole sponsor, so their product (and related items) was likely seen in a program. An announcer also informed the audience at the beginning that, "This program is brought to you by (insert brand name). " From the 60s on, brand-name products weren't generally seen in TV programs. Networks sold air time to multiple advertisers, and their ads were shown during the long commercial breaks. So no, I'm not kidding.
Answer: It wouldn't be a mistake. Anyone could have taped the sign for a number of reasons.
17th Oct 2019
The Hunger Games (2012)
Question: How do they know when someone in the arena is dead?
Answer: The tracking chip that is inserted into their arm tracks their vital signs. From this, the control centre is able to monitor all the tributes heart rates. As such, they can see when their heart has stopped and declare them dead and fire the cannon. Plus they have got the ability to bring a camera up at any location to help visually confirm the death of a tribute.
Answer: They are tracking and watching everyone. They have a whole control room to run the games.
Answer: As mentioned, the tracking devices would indicate if a person was dead. However, even if a fallen tribute was still alive when removed from the arena, the evil and inhumane capital would execute them. Up until Katniss and Peta were declared dual victors, there was always only one survivor/winner of the Hunger Games.
Would the Capitol just simply not remove the tribute if they're still alive? At least in film 1 the bodies aren't removed straight away. Take Rue for example - she was killed and Katniss had plenty of time to arrange her body.
It really depended on the circumstances. If a tribute was barely alive with no hope of recovery, then the game keeper could decide when to remove them, dead or not. Other bodies may have been removed at a time that was simply convenient to do so. It did take time to remove Rue, but basically, because of Katniss arranging the flowers around Rue's body the way she did, singing, mourning her, saluting Rue's district, etc. Seneca Crane, the gamekeeper, knew it made a good show for the television viewers. He was wringing out all the drama and emotion that he could because the viewers loved seeing that. That was the way the games were operated.
8th Oct 2019
Barbarella (1968)
Question: Serious spoiler alert, but this has always puzzled me. At the end of Barbarella the Black Queen unleashes "Matmos", an evil energy which destroys nearly everybody and everything in the film. Pygar (the blind angel) escapes, only rescuing two people from the cataclysm: Barbarella and the Black Queen. Barbarella asks Pygar why he saved the Black Queen after all the evil things she did (she even blinded Pygar). Pygar replies "an angel has no memory." I never got the point of that. What did Pygar mean? (In his previous conversation he recalled things that happened before he was blinded, so obviously he did have a memory.) And I could not see the point of or meaning to this ending at all. Did any of this make sense to anybody else?
Answer: You say that Barbarella was beyond lame-it was totally atrociously bad and ludicrous. It was released in autumn 1968, when I was 12, and too young to see it at the cinema. I finally got to see Barbarella when I was 18 and it was shown late one night on television. I wholly concur: I thought it was totally, atrociously bad and ludicrous, and my opinion has not changed since.
Answer: I concede your point. Perhaps I was being a bit too literal. When Pygar says he has no memory, he may not mean that all past events clear from his mind (in the way that, for example, you could delete a computer file from your laptop). Instead, he might mean he does not dwell on the past, or he does not retain bitterness or anger for past wrongs, or he does not return evil on those who were bad to him. I think the film was based on a comic that ended in pretty much the same way. All the same, I always thought the ending was rather lame. It was as if somebody told Roger Vadim (the director) "hey, this film is supposed to be 90 minutes long, but we've done 89 minutes filming, and we still haven't got an ending." So Roger Vadim got the Black Queen to unleash Matmos and destroy everything. (To be pedantic, Barbarella is 98 minutes long, but I hope you understand what I mean.) Personally I thought the ending of "Monty Python And The Holy Grail", where a police force stops the film, was a similar disappointment.
10th Oct 2019
Matilda (1996)
Question: Since Trunchbull hates kids so much why is she an elementary school principal?
Answer: The answer is: "Power." Miss Trunchbull is a sadistic bully, as a school headteacher she can terrorise, frighten and dominate children and teachers. Also the job pays a good salary. She has probably arranged things so the other teachers do all the real work and the difficult jobs. She lives in a house attached to the school, so she gets free accommodation. She can run scams: for example the pupils must be fed, so she gives the catering contract to a company who pay her a "backhander." Thus she has a lucrative job where she does very little work. Plus, you cannot have a story without a villain to be defeated, so Miss Trunchbull is a brilliant opponent for Matilda.
Answer: It's a common enough trope to the point where it has become cliche. Stories set in a school will almost always have a teacher or principal (or both) openly dislike their students. Stories aimed at a younger audience will often exaggerate this to an extreme, where the teacher/administrator has a hatred of children in general that borders on insanity.
23rd Sep 2019
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001)
Question: During flight class, when we see Hermione's broom rolling just above the ground, there is something black in front of the broom. I don't mean Hermione's sleeve. What is it?
Answer: I don't think you mean this but you can see the shoe of the person standing next to her. If you mean on the bottom side of the screen then you can see Hermione (or whoever is standing there) kick the broom to make it move I think. But it's not causing all the movement of the broom though, but there is definite contact with a foot. You can't see the top of the broom (I'd say that's the front BTW).
4th Apr 2017
Passengers (2016)
Corrected entry: When the ship loses gravity, only Gus' arms rise from the bed. His head, the rest of his body, the blanket, etc. should show some effects of being weightless but do not.
Correction: In that scene, the blanket doesn't appear to move at all, while (as you said) his arms float into the air, which suggests that the blanket itself is held down magnetically (or through some other mechanism). His bed may have this extra feature because he's a crew member.
Even if your explanation was accurate, for which there is no evidence, Gus' body, not just his arms, would still show effects of the lost gravity. His head would move, his body would attempt to lift up and be shown to be restrained by the "magnetic" blanket holders. Even if it was magnetic, there was enough slack in the blanket that his body would have risen an inch or two.
When gravity disappears, objects do not attempt to lift up; they stay where they are, unless there is some force applied to them.
21st May 2006
Roseanne (1988)
Corrected entry: Over the course of the show, the entrance into DJ's bedroom changes position. In the earlier seasons, the entry was on the right-hand side of the screen and the bathroom door was to the left. In later episodes, the characters entered the bedroom from the left-hand side. Everything else in the room remains the same.
7th Aug 2014
Jaws (1975)
Question: The other night me and some friends were arguing whether or not the shot that Brody makes to blow the tank up to kill Bruce was possible, or would it be too hard to make?
Chosen answer: It would certainly be very difficult, with the shark moving and hitting the tank while slightly underwater. But it wouldn't be impossible.
Answer: This theory was tested on "Mythbusters" and the myth was "busted", twice. https://mythresults.com/mythbusters-vs-jaws.
12th Sep 2019
The Faculty (1998)
Question: Why are the aliens in that town? If they come from a oceanic planet then why not go directly into one of our five or so oceans?
Answer: The aliens needed fresh water. All the infected were drinking bottled water. When the gang were examining the slug in the garage, it dried up and died from salt, like a snail.
Answer: Whales and dolphins also lack manipulating appendages and the ability to survive on land.
Answer: The aliens need to infect intelligent life to thrive. There is no intelligent life in our oceans.
Answer: Well if they need to stay hydrated whales and dolphins make more sense than inhabiting people.
Dolphins and whales are also far less numerous. With populations numbering fewer than 10 million total across all species versus nearly 6 billion at the time for humanity.
Answer: It could be the salt or pollution. The aliens were drinking nothing but pure bottled water.
Good answer. Dang all you guys on this site are pretty good at this. I enjoy these answers you give since hardly anybody ever listens to me.
6th Aug 2019
General questions
This has been annoying the hell out of me for years. I'm thinking of an early 1960s (?) black and white American movie that features numerous cameos by A-List Hollywood actors who are so heavily made-up (with wigs and latex facial prosthetics) that they are all thoroughly unrecognizable. At the end of the film, as a complete surprise, there is a sequence of each of these otherwise unremarkable cameo characters removing their makeup for a big reveal. For example, a plain, middle-aged woman who only appeared for a few seconds onscreen grandly removes her latex face to reveal none other than Burt Lancaster. I believe Robert Mitchum and Tony Curtis were also among the reveals. What is this film?
Answer: "The List of Adrian Messenger" (1963). Burt Lancaster, Robert Mitchum, and Tony Curtis, along with Kirk Douglas and Frank Sinatra, remove their heavy makeup during the epilogue to reveal who they are. Although Lancaster and Sinatra didn't actual portray the characters they claimed to have been.
Thank you. The name of this movie has been on the tip of my tongue for many years.
Incidentally, director John Huston (who also made a cameo appearance in the film) tried to convince Elizabeth Taylor to play a disguised part in this movie; but, when Taylor learned that her lovely face would be completely hidden under heavy latex, she turned down the role.
9th Jul 2005
Sleeping with the Enemy (1991)
Corrected entry: In the scene where Julia Roberts is on the bus to Iowa, when she is on the bus, she is seated on the right side of the bus. When they show her traveling into town, she is seated on the left side of the bus.
Correction: There is plenty of time for Laura/Sara to change seats if she desires to.
23rd Jun 2003
Sleeping with the Enemy (1991)
Corrected entry: Martin returns to the empty beach house to looks for clues about Laura's disappearance. While there, he goes through boxes of Laura's papers. But why would these boxes be at the beach house, instead of at the couple's main house in Boston? Or why would he cart them all the way to Cape Cod when he could just look at them in the main house?
Correction: This was a character choice. Simply because something seems odd is not reason enough for it not to happen.
18th Sep 2004
Sleeping with the Enemy (1991)
Corrected entry: When Laura is escaping from the beach house we see her putting on a wig and then lifting a roll of bank notes from her bag. During the film it is clear she doesn't work so she has obviously saved money for her escape. How, then, is she managing to pay for her mother's upkeep in the nursing home without her husband knowing? The part-time library job that's mentioned wouldn't pay nearly enough.
Correction: It is possible that Laura's mother is paying for her own upkeep. It's never mentioned whether she had money or not.
3rd Jun 2014
Sleeping with the Enemy (1991)
Corrected entry: Laura cuts off her hair before putting on the wig. But when she gets to Iowa it's practically the same length it was before.
Correction: She chopped her extensions off. In the beginning of the movie you can see where her real hair starts and ends.
19th Aug 2019
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)
Question: Is there anywhere I could find behind the scenes of Buckbeak's execution? From before they went back in time? If so, can I please have a link?
Answer: Buckbeak was never executed. Harry, Hermione, and Ron had mistakenly believed he was because from their vantage point on the hill, they could not see that Buckbeak had already disappeared. What they initially saw was the executioner swinging his ax in frustration because Buckbeak was gone. We learn later that the "alternate" Harry and Hermione had already rescued him before the execution. Therefore, there are no scenes filmed showing this.
I know that. I meant are there any behind the scenes videos for that scene at all.
Thank you. Please let me know if there's more.
Why would they film scenes that would never make it into the movie?
Happens all the time - they often end up on DVD. They're removed for editing or pacing reasons, or an alternative scene is filmed.
The request was for behind the scenes footage, not unused footage.
12th Aug 2019
Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)
Question: Why would the Trade Federation need the queen to sign a treaty to make their invasion legal if they've already invaded the place and taken over anyway?
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Answer: Because they are fictional characters, and Stephanie Meyer made up new rules for them to suit her narrative.
She should've still respected the lore as most do. This series is her as Bella and the two guys are based on guys she lusted for in high school who ignored her. Read between the lines people.
Rob245
Traditional folklore about vampires does not mention sunlight being harmful to vampires. This is a more modern characteristic.
raywest ★