Answered questions about specific movies, TV shows and more

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Question: On the IMDB Trivia page, it says that little of Terry Jones' script was kept past the point where Sarah eats the peach. I have two questions concerning this: 1) Who wrote the rest of the film? and 2) Why was some of his material removed?

Answer: As with any film, there are often numerous rewrites of the script as the writing process progresses, and it's not at all uncommon for different writers to be brought in to tweak plot points, enhance dialogue and so forth as the script is honed towards the point where they have a finished product that they can shoot. Who ends up with the eventual credit is a highly complex and somewhat arcane process, involving judgement calls on who has contributed what towards the final script. As such, Jones' script being heavily rewritten after a certain point is nothing particularly unusual, but what amounts to standard practice in the movie industry - presumably it was felt that his script subsequent to that point lacked punch in some way, leading to another writer being brought in to revamp it. Other writers known to have worked on the script include screenwriter Elaine May, childrens author Dennis Lee and the film's director Jim Henson. There may well have been others.

Tailkinker

Question: Is Aragog smaller in this film, than in the Chamber of Secrets?

Answer: Yes, much smaller. I'd estimate that the Aragog in Half-Blood Prince is about one third the size of the spider in Chamber of Secrets.

raywest

Answer: Yes. They needed to make the effect that his body has dried out and has no life.

Question: What happens to the girl that had Kim's jacket? Is it assumed that he just left her in the hotel?

Answer: It's never stated, but it's likely Bryan had made arrangements with his friend (the hotel manager) to help her return home once she recovered enough from the drugs.

raywest

Question: When McClane ejected from the cockpit of the military plane, why didn't Colonel Stewart and his men shoot him while he was in the air? These men deliberately crashed a commercial plane killing innocent civilians and by doing this, it's obvious that they are ruthless, so why wouldn't they try to kill their main enemy when he is at his most vulnerable? (With the weapons the soldiers had, McClane was still in range to be hit.) Can someone explain this for me?

Answer: Because the police were moments away from arriving at the scene. They needed as much time to get away without being tracked. Every moment counts. And a target rocking about a few hundred feet in the air doesn't seem to be such an "easy target".

XIII

Question: Why did Elle kill Budd? Was it really just to get her hands on Kiddo's sword? or was it more to it? As poor as he was seems like she could have just offered him a small amount of money for it. Why kill him?

Carl Missouri

Chosen answer: The way she talks to Budd as he lies dying, seems to indicate that she has disliked and hated him for years, plus the fact that she feels that he was not "worthy" of killing Kiddo (seeing how Kiddo was a fantastic warrior, while Budd is an alcoholic hick). However, it would be difficult for her to get close enough to kill him earlier, as he would not buy any excuse why she just came visiting. But when Budd actually invites her over, she gets a chance to get back at him, and in the same while take the credit for killing the Bride and retrieving her Hanzo sword for Bill. Vengeance and personal gain in one swoop.

Twotall

Chosen answer: Nope. Joey is the only friend who has never gotten drunk.

Brad

Question: What do the curls on Navy officer's white wigs signify? Some have one curl on each side, while others have two, and so on. Are they an indication of rank?

raywest

Chosen answer: They are an indication of rank, however I am unsure what each one represents. But they do represent a rank.

Ssiscool

Question: Why was Terry the one who arranged his and Lara's escape from Hong Kong? Of the both of them, Lara logically would be the one to do this, as she has the clout, money and contacts. Terry was imprisoned and disgraced prior to this and unlikely to have contacts/someone who would help him. Even if the contact was part of an Asian criminal world, Terry still wouldn't be able to do it as he was an enemy of the Shay-Ling.

Answer: Terry was specifically taken to Hong Kong because of his contacts and dealings with people there.

GalahadFairlight

Question: When Ripley takes the gun and goes to see Newt, who is then under the bed, she puts the gun on the bed. But then the gun is in the next room when the alien is attacking. Have I just mistaken this and it was placed on the table, or is this a mistake? Thanks.

greengirl

Chosen answer: Neither, it's a plot point. When Burke released the facehuggers into their room, with the aim of impregnating Ripley and Newt with aliens so that he could get them back to Earth, he took Ripley's gun and moved it outside the room before he locked them in, so that she couldn't use it to defend themselves.

Tailkinker

Question: In a movie with talking ogres, pigs, mice, wolves, and all sorts of animals, why is everyone so surprised to find a talking donkey?

Carl Missouri

Chosen answer: Who is "everyone"? The only person surprised he can talk is the one human who is processing the fairytale creatures for banishment, and this was used as a plot device to highlight a joke (between him flying and talking).

MovieFan612

Fiona also says "it talks", after he "saves his ass."

To be fair, she was locked in a castle for the majority of her life, so she wouldn't know that donkeys would be able to talk.

And yet he wasn't the only one surprised by it; watch the scene again and Fiona was surprised, too.

Answer: It may be an evening affair.

Chosen answer: It's possible. Some brides will agree to get married on a weekday in order to have it at the location they really want. Some places book way in advance and are hard to book.

Shannon Jackson

Answer: Sometimes it is cheaper to hold a wedding on a weekday rather then the weekend.

Question: When Helen and Madelin have finished fighting and they asked Earnest to fix them, how did he fix the great big hole in Helen's stomach?

curiouskid

Chosen answer: He most likely filled it with something soft, then covered it. You'll notice the lingerie she is wearing completely covers her midsection.

Question: The ending seems to be shown as a happy one. They find land and head towards it. However, the earth was being cooked from the inside, so what happened? Did the earth just stop being destroyed?

T.Rex.Sheffield.Can+Ash

Chosen answer: The intense solar activity ceased, thereby allowing the core temperature to return to normal and leave us with the new look continents.

jonathan

Question: I was just wondering why, at the end of the movie, the name of the company changed from Colston to something like Ruiz and Hunt. I mean, Margaret's last name was "Tate" so her leaving shouldn't have caused a name change. (I apologize if the names are incorrect, I've only gotten to watch it once at a friend's house, so the movie isn't readily available for me to check).

Jazaray

Chosen answer: The building is named Ruik and Hunt, the publishing company is Colston, which is housed inside the building. The company never changed names.

Question: Why did the popular kids hate Aldys so much? What did she ever do to them? I know that they don't like "geeks" /"nerds" and all, but they were not even that horrible to her male nerd friend or Josie. They seem to be the meanest towards her.

Answer: Popular kids make fun of geeks because the are different. They may dislike Aldys more because she is antagonistic towards them, like when she bought the prom ticket.

LorgSkyegon

Answer: I think it is only because she is not intimidated by them, and she always talks back and stands for herself.

Question: Did Guy only like Josie because she became popular, or did he always like her, but was afraid to tell her because she was a "geek"? And it would ruin his reputation as a cool guy?

Answer: He only began noticing her after she became popular. You can see Guy ignoring her several times when he sees her as a geek.

LorgSkyegon

Question: How did Anna save Robert on the night he tried to kill himself by fighting the zombies in his car? It was seen that the zombies knocked his car over and suddenly there was a blinding white light. The next scene shows Anna driving a half conscious Robert back.

Answer: The obvious assumption is that she used a UV light to kill or drive off the darkseekers, then pulled Neville from the SUV.

Answer: OR - the other possible scenario based on Matheson's source novel: Ruth. She is a ranking officer in the "new society" of living vampires and can tolerate light. Anna could be a parallel figure to Ruth whose only purpose is to get the cure which she does.

Question: So what exactly happens to Alotta Fagina at the end of the movie? She's knocked out cold by Vanessa and then the self-destruct sequence kicks in, giving her only 30 seconds to escape (fat chance, since she's knocked out). Do I go with the alternate ending, and if so, how did she survive?

Answer: You can't go by the alternate ending. We can assume Ms. Fagina died.

Question: How long had it been since the time Kate stabbed Simon in the eye and the time he captured Sasha? You can tell by his appearance that it's been a nice length of time, but it's never specified. I don't know much about survival, but it's evident that he had been cannibalizing even before that point, so he had probably been eating people in that whole time so it could have been a very long time. I'm inclined to believe that it's been at least a month, given the dramatic change in his appearance. Can anybody give a clearer response? As mine is just a blind guess. (01:19:00 - 01:19:40)

Knever

Chosen answer: I'm inclined to think it was longer than a month because of the lack of proper needed care for such an injury would prolong the healing process. But he only had a handful of souvenirs on him, which means he probably stopped collecting after a while. I concur with your cannibalism theory, there's no other way he would have survived. However that doesn't explain what he could have done for water. This theory of Simon spending possibly months in the cube also brings up the question: If the cube breaks down at 6:06:59, then how is it possible to live in there for months? Well, as we saw, certain rooms have slower and faster rates of time. So, he could have spent all that time in a room with a slow time rate waiting for people to wander into it and feed off of them.

Question: Where and why did Gregor go? If he was going in search of dry land, why has he not gone earlier? Why did the mariner not try to find him, as he could have been a useful person to have on the boat and was a friend of the females? Why did the smoker's plane not shoot down Gregor?

Answer: Lot of questions here. 1) Gregor was building the airship to find Dryland and he left to get away from the Smokers. 2) He didn't go earlier because he wanted to be able to figure out the map on Enola's back first. 3) When they left, the Mariner didn't care about Gregor, Helen, or Enola and he couldn't catch Gregor anyway with his boat torn up. 4) The Smokers did try to shoot the airship down with the gunship, but they got distracted shooting one of their own people down, giving Gregor time to escape. The plane may not have had a gunner in at the moment. It was being used to tow the skiers.

LorgSkyegon

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