Question: Why did Bootstrap Bill join the dice game that Will played with Davy Jones? Will knew that Jones had the key to the chest on him, so just how did Bootstrap help him by also playing?
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: Exactly what is the purpose of the jar of dirt that Tia Dalma gives to Jack?
Answer: The jar was to put Davy Jones heart in. He can't touch dirt ever again since he failed to keep up his duties which means he wouldn't be able to get his heart back.
Chosen answer: Davy Jones cannot set foot on land for ten more years. The jar of dirt is to represent land. Jack carries it with him so that he always has land with him so Davy Jones won't be able to get near him, or so Jack is supposed to believe.
Question: Is is ever explained why Rose kept the Heart of the Ocean all those years? It doesn't seem probable that she assumed she would have the opportunity to travel to the site of the sinking and throw it back into the water.
Chosen answer: It is explained in the alternate ending. It basically goes something like this: Brock Lovett and Lizzy find Rose on the stern of the ship with the diamond in her hand and asks her why she kept it all those years. Rose then says that she often thought about selling the diamond, but then it reminded her of Cal and that she could make it without his money.
Answer: I like to think she kept it because in a strange way, although it was a gift from Cal and a reminder of his possessiveness, it was also her last physical link with Jack, the drawing having gone down with the ship, and whilst nobody but her knew about Jack she needed that reminder that he really existed and really loved her and was gunning for her in life. She likely brought it along to the wreck site opportunistically, since she knew she would never get another chance to return it to there in person. Returning it to the symbolised several things: one, that was where the constricts of her former life and of that era all died, thus freeing her - in other words, it belonged to the same world as the Titanic, and not to the modern world; two, it symbolised that she had found closure with regards to Jack's death, and that she didn't need trinkets anymore to hold onto him in her heart; and three, it was a physical symbolisation of her letting go of a huge emotional millstone that had been on her shoulders for years, as you can see from her face and demeanour immediately after having dropped it in. She couldn't have let that load go if she hadn't finally had a chance and an ear to tell her story. Probably nobody ever realised she'd been on the Titanic after the disaster, as her post-sinking name was never associated with it.
Question: What are the torches in the tunnels under Trinity church made out of that they light instantly after how many tens or hundreds of years?
Question: With all the talk about whether or not the book/movie is about the editor of Vogue, was the fact that Madonna's song "VOGUE" is heard in the film done on purpose or did the producers just pick the song because it sounded good?
Chosen answer: In the director's commentary they say that they picked Madonna because she is the "real sound of fashion" and "so inside of fashion. Vogue is obviously one of Madonna's greatest songs about fashion. The song's title was influenced by the magazine's name, but its use in the movie had more to do with Madonna than with the magazine.
Question: Here's something I've wanted to know. I know that Gotham is a fictional city, as is Metropolis, but both are within the same universe (DC). So how is it that The Statue of Liberty resides in both Metropolis and Gotham? The Statue is in Metropolis Harbor in the Superman movies, but Two-face's chopper crashes into it in Gotham in Batman Forever.
Chosen answer: Mainly because the filmmakers, who operated totally separately, weren't too worried about being consistent, either with each other or with the comic universe. In the comics, New York exists alongside Gotham and Metropolis, so the Statue of Liberty is found there. The filmmakers presumably decided that they wanted to have something recognisable appearing, so decided that the statue would be located in the city that they were dealing with.
Question: After Andy left Runway, she got a job at the New York newspaper. But then she seemed to have made up with Nate, who is moving to Boston. Did she leave her job (again) to live with Nate?
Question: In the scene where Goldie Hawn nearly gets her head run over by the car, how do they get that effect? It just looks far too dangerous to be an actual stunt, but it looks too real to be a bluescreen / split screen effect either.
Chosen answer: It is a composite shot, with the actor's head added to the scene. They just did a particularly good job on the scene.
The One With The Video Tape - S8-E4
Question: In episode 'The One With The Videotape' we get to know the story 'how Ross and Rachel got bonus night'. What I wonder is does anyone know the whole 'Western Europe' story or is it (unfortunately) one of those stories that doesn't have ending at all, because there's no need of one?
Answer: There is no ending. The DVD commentary includes the writers saying they never wrote the whole story, only the set up.
Answer: Joey tells as much of the story needs before its cliffhanger, so that when the other person responds they'll have been seduced, and the first person can make up the end whilst making a move.
Question: What is all this about "Muscrat" or something like that? Dina keeps saying "Muscrat" when Jack is a bit rude to Greg, but I don't understand the whole point of that.
Answer: It's a "safety signal", a word they have agreed she should say to remind Jack to keep his cool. Like most such words, they have chosen one that will not come up in a normal conversation, as it would then not have the impact needed to remind Jack to calm down. One can only guess as to where they picked up this technique, but it does not seem unlikely that Jack has had to have some anger management courses.
Question: Early in the film the hotel manager mentions that the Overlook was built on an old Indian burial ground and that builders had to repel several Indian attacks during construction. Indian attacks? During the 20th century? And why mention this detail, since it was never mentioned again or became part of the story.
Answer: "Indian attacks" just means attacked by Indians who owned the land. It does not necessarily mean Indians with warpaint/horses/etc., just that the attack came from the tribe who owned the land. As for him mentioning it to Jack, he is just giving him a brief history of the Overlook Hotel, as Jack will be the caretaker and might want to know about the history surrounding the Overlook.
Question: On Alcatraz, who was the mutant that teleported around like Nightcrawler?
Answer: That was Callisto, a morlock in the original comics. Rather than teleporting as such, she is just moving very fast. This is why she could only get to a flying storm from jumping off the roof (if she was teleporting she may as well have gone straight there).
Answer: I only saw 1 teleporting mutant during the Alcatraz fight, but it was very brief. His name is Vanisher, he was part of the Omegas, of which Castillo was their leader. Subsequently, Vanisher appears in Deadpool 2, but with the powers of invisibility and not teleportation.
Question: Has anyone verified that Christopher Guest has six fingers on his right hand in every scene? There are a few shots (other than the one showing off all the fingers) where his right hand is visible, but the black gloves make a finger count difficult.
Answer: Not meaning to shoot down your idea, but since he is wearing gloves, even if the gloves only had five fingers, it would still not be a mistake as he could easily tuck his two smallest fingers into one of the glove's fingers. I would guess that this is why he wears gloves throughout the film, as the director would surely not have gone to the trouble of making 6-fingered gloves, and the actor does not really have 6 fingers.
They did make a six fingered glove. It's visible when Count Rugen knocks Westley out with his sword. Just before that Westley observes "You have 6 fingers on your right hand. Someone was looking for you."
Question: When Ruby is talking to the woman from Child Services, she says "You're writing everything down, now everything will be written down twice". But when was the first time that stuff was written down?
Answer: The first time the information was written down was more than likely when Alvin Begleter (the trust attorney) initially contacted the Child Services rep, as it was through him that she found out about Ruby and Rhett's situation in the first place. At the time, the social worker would have written down what Mr. Begleter was telling her so that she could a) have something to refer to when she later visited Ruby and b) so that she could compare the two versions to make sure there were no discrepancies between the story she got from the attorney and the version from Ruby.
Question: I collected comics for years and read every Mutant title related to the X-men that there was. As I understood Kitty Pryde's power was to phase through objects, her molecules as well as anything she touched/carried would pass through and around the molecules of the object. The molecules of the object weren't displaced or shifted out of time or anything like that. If she therefore left anything/anybody in an object their molecules would now be grafted into the object for lack of a better way of saying it. So a person/Juggernaut left from say stomach down in a floor would be killed by such a massive shock to the system. Have things changed that I've missed or did no-one catch this at all?
Answer: In the comics, yes, Juggernaut would probably have been in a world of hurt at that point, from the intermingling of the molecules, although given his invulnerability, the precise result cannot really be determined. However, the filmmakers aren't under any actual obligation to follow the comic rules. In their version, Juggernaut survived the experience unscathed; whether this is because of his abilities or differences in hers from the comic version is open to debate.
Question: When Crane tells Falcone that there is a lady in the D.A's office (Rachel) who is getting suspicious about what he (Crane) is doing with the convicted criminals, Falcone offers to get rid of her, to which Crane tells him that it is not necessary. Why does he turn down Falcone's offer?
Answer: No, first Falcone suggests to bribe her to which Crane replies that it won't be possible (as Rachel would never take a bribe). Then Falcone says "Well, there's an answer to that too" and Crane replies "I don't want to know", meaning that he knows Falcone will then get rid of her but he doesn't want to know how as he's meant to be an upstanding member of society so should keep his distance. Later in the movie, Falcone's thugs try to carry out his orders but are stopped by Batman.
Question: After leaving Larry for Dan, why did Anna break up with him and reunite with Larry?
Answer: I think it was because of the offer that Larry made to Anna. He promised that if they had sex one more time, he would leave her alone and never contact her again. The fact that he was willing to give her freedom, is what made her choose him. Dan was more "needy" and pushy, which is hypocritical, because he left Alice based on her being needy.
Question: If the crystal grows when it is dropped into water, whatever happens to all the chunks that fall off the new continent as Superman lifts it out of the ocean? Wouldn't they simply continue to grow and begin the crisis all over again?
Chosen answer: The chunks that fall off the "new" land are actually bits of the earth's crust. Superman had actually drilled himself way beneath the "new" land (under the bottom of the ocean floor) so that he was not in contact with the Kryptonite infected crystal land, so that he could lift it up and get rid of it. It is this earth crust that falls off slowly, revealing the kryptonite crystals beneath, and this is why his strength slowly gets taken away as he flies higher, until there is too much exposed and he loses all his strength.
Join the mailing list
Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.
Chosen answer: Bootstrap did not want his son to lose and have to become an undead. By joining the game, he made it possible to save Will if it looked like Will was losing, by placing a ridiculously high bet himself. And as we can see, this is what happened. When Will was losing, and Davy Jones was about to call him a liar, Bootstrap makes his absurdly high claim, thereby sacrificing himself, but getting Will out of the game debt-free.
Twotall