Questions about specific movies, TV shows and more

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Question: When the fat lady painting lets Harry and the others in after "breaking" the glass, she says something quite quietly to herself, possibly foregin. I can't make it out - does anyone know what she says? The subtitles don't say...

Hamster

Chosen answer: She calls them plebs - dates back to Roman times, relating to common people.

Super Grover

Show generally

Question: In the movie it's well established that symbols are different from one gate to another. How, then, do the SG teams know the code to Earth from any gate in the network?

Answer: The Gate addresses are made up of the constellations in the night sky above the planet the person is trying to Gate to with the exception of the first & last. The first is the planet of origin (eg. Earth - a pyramid with one moon above it) & the last is the planet you are trying to Gate to (eg. Abydos - a pyramid with three moons above it). As long as you remember the constellations & know the two planet symbols you should be able to Gate home again.

Answer: This is one of the differences from the movie to the series. In the movie, each gate had completely different sets of symbols corresponding to the constellations in that gate's planets sky. In the series, the gates were more standardized, with the same constellation symbols regardless of where the gate way in the galaxy. The only difference between gates being their own unique point of origin symbol. Therefore, whenever anyone dials Earth from any other planet, they would enter the exact same sequence of six symbols on the DHD followed by that gates unique origin symbol. The point of origin on any given gate/DHD would therefore be the one symbol the dialling person had never seen elsewhere and would be the only symbol they would consciously have to think about and find before dialling.

Question: Why was Greg surprised by the fact that Kevin and Bob went to lacrosse camp?

Answer: Greg was probably surprised at just how "richy" they really are. Because lacrosse camp seems like a really rich, preppy thing to do. But mainly, I think he was suprised because he did not know that his girlfriend's ex and his girlfriend's sister's fiance knew each other. He didn't realize how connected they all were.

Answer: It is an instrumental version of "Funkytown", by Lipps Inc.

Shay

Question: After the D-day battle and Capt. Miller is informing the Colonel about the types of mines, what was the purpose of Capt. Miller taking such a long pause during his discussion?

Answer: Their discussion was talking about a mission they recently completed and that it claimed a lot of troops lives. Throughout the film every death seems to affect Miller and was probably reflecting on the tragic situation.

Lummie

Question: In the UK there was a children's programme called 'SMTV Live', on this programme they had a competition where the winner could have a small part in Shrek 2. Does anyone know who won and what part they play?

Answer: A young girl named Victoria Glover won the part. She doesn't have a credit on IMDB but all I know is the line she recorded for the film was "Star maps, get your star maps".

Lummie

Question: What is that song by 311 called? I cant find the soundtrack anywhere. And I know it's only on the soundtrack so it's not on any of their CD's.

Answer: According to imdb.com the song is 'Anytime'.

Question: Why aren't Arwen's brothers - Elladan and Elrohir - ever mentioned? They were, at least, talked about in the LotR books.

Answer: They're very minor characters in the books - there'd be little point in having them in the film unless there was a good reason. The filmmakers have made something of an effort to remove minor characters - the decision to use Arwen to rescue Frodo after Weathertop, rather than Glorfindel from the books, would be an example of this. In storytelling terms, Elladan and Elrohir serve no purpose, hence their non-appearance.

Tailkinker

Question: How accurate is this film to portraying what actually happened? Such as the three sprinters tripping, Dorice tracking down an ex-bobsled cheat and then entering the Olympics with three months practice time, them chasing the sled on their first push start, them beating the Swiss's start time, etc.

Answer: Only part of this is accurate. The sprinters did in fact trip and almost fall in the Olympics. There was one member of the team who did join just a few months ahead of the games but not a former cheater. The basic idea of the bobsled is to get off a huge start, then get in smoothly. The only person who needs a tonne of experience is the driver or else the sled can flip over on the track, which incidentally it did both in the film and at the Olympics. Also, they did lose the sled on startup once and almost did several other times too. Finally they did beat the Swiss start time, however, Jamaicans tend to be strong sprinters, which is just one element of the race.

Question: When the teacher is pouring her Vodka, she freaks out all of a sudden when she looks inside her cup. Why does she do this?

Answer: The cup has the high school's crest on the side of it - she is freaked out because, as she explains in the previous scene, everything is reminding her of the school and thus of the crash in which she should have died.

Shay

Answer: The psychiatrist is scared of him and afraid that if the chair isn't secure, that Kryten will pick it up and beat him with it.

Captain Defenestrator

Question: I don't get this: When Nigel Powers is first taken to the submarine, at one point he looks down, sees Mini Me and says "I thought I smelt cabbage." What's that all about?

Answer: In the first Austin Powers when he is talking about his two fears, one of them was carnies. He then said they have small hands and smell like cabbage. Most likely then Mini-Me reminded him of a carny.

Lummie

Answer: I thought cabbage patch kid.

Question: When they are getting on to Platform 9 3/4, why don't the Muggles notice them running through a brick wall? And if a Muggle did notice them, could he/she get on to Platform 9 3/4?

Answer: Most likely this is part of the magic of Platform 9 3/4 - provided that they're careful and don't do it blatantly in front of Muggles, the Muggles won't pick up on it. Muggles certainly can get onto the platform - after all, quite a number of students have at least one Muggle parent, who would want to see them off. Whether this would be possible for Muggles in other circumstances is unclear.

Tailkinker

Question: When talking to Ramius via Morse code, why does Jack tell Ramius to turn south to the Laurentian Abyssal?

Answer: The trench is too deep to recover anything from the bottom of the trench. They were going to fake destroying the Red October, so they need some way to explain the lack of evidence of its destruction (because the remains were on the bottom of this deep trench).

Bruce Minnick

Question: Violet's force field is a dome when she stops Dash. If Dash is running around in a circle, how can the force field stop him? The only thing I can think of is that as the force field expands, it slams into Dash.

Answer: Violet placed the force field specifically in Dash's way. She was not about to place it in the middle of the circle that Dash was running in.

Garlonuss

Question: What did John said to the spider Smith after he said, "Remember the Proteus," and what did he mean by that?

Answer: He meant (as he says shortly after) that the spiders on the Proteus (that infected Smith) eat their dead/wounded, so when spider Smith's egg-sack is ruptured, the babies eat him.

Xofer

Question: I don't understand why Spock insists that the magnetic boots must be on the Enterprise and not on the cloaked bird of prey. Spock points out that someone involved in the assassination conspiracy must be on the Enterprise, because this person must have altered the data banks. I agree with him. But why does that prove that the assassins who boarded the Klingon ship must have beamed from and returned to the Enterprise? How can he assume that the assassins and the computer hacker are the same person/people? Maybe there are assassins on the cloaked bird of prey and only a hacker on the Enterprise. Or, maybe the assassins might have beamed from the Enterprise but then carried on to the bird of prey, once their work was done, instead of returning to the Enterprise. And finally, if Spock does think the assassins beamed to and from the Enterprise, why is no one looking at transporter logs/records for evidence of unauthorized beaming to Kronos 1?

Answer: It's fairly simple - somebody good enough to hack the weaponry databanks on the ship would undoubtedly be able to alter the transporter logs, so, while they were undoubtedly checked (we do see Chekov investigating the transporters - he would certainly have looked at the logs), they'd be unlikely to glean anything from them. They'd also be good enough to cover their tracks, so they're not going to get very far investigating the computer breach. As such, the only specific thing that they can look for are the gravity boots - this does make the assumption that the assassins came from the Enterprise and returned to it, but, at that point, all they have to work with are theories. However, while the only specific items that they can look for are the gravity boots, the search might also turn up other items that could indicate complicity in the events on Kronos 1 - the hacker probably used some specific computer tools which could be found.

Tailkinker

Answer: Also, as mentioned in the movie, gravity had not yet been restored to Kronos 1 when the assassins beamed back over. If they had not been wearing the boots, they would've floated off the pad. Spock even says something to the effect of that if they were from enterprise, they couldn't dispose of the evidence. If not, whoever altered the data banks is on board. So what they are looking for is there. (I don't remember the exact wording).

Answer: They found the Klingon Blood on the Enterprise transporter pad. That alone proved that the attackers were from Enterprise.

Answer: It is heavily implied that one who becomes a Force-Ghost achieves an untold level of power upon entering the state. Given that they have become a pure entity of the Force, it seems to back up the statement. Obi-Wan also becomes free to assist Luke in any case.

Darius Angel

In addition to this answer, I think Obi-wan also became powerful because he "let go." He did not feel a need to defeat Vader on this occasion - he was willing to surrender the fight and "move on" to a new state. Something that Vader might not currently understand.

Answer: I agree with Darius Angel's comment. I also think Vader expected a certain sense of satisfaction after defeating his former master. In reality, though, he was still "owned" by the Emperor and was living with the consequences of his choices. Defeating Obi-wan did not change much for him. Obi-wan, however, gained the benefits that Darius Angel mentioned.

Question: Who is Legolas' mother? Is she still alive? They only ever mention his father - Thranduil, King of Mirkwood. Does he have siblings?

Answer: Tolkien never mentions Thranduil's wife, mother to Legolas - whether this is meant to imply that she has died, or gone into the West is an open question. He also never mentions any siblings.

Tailkinker

Question: I've seen some different Spiderman-magazines and on some of his costumes they have very large white eyes and some are significantly smaller, more like the costume in the movie. So is there anything that differs between the two costumes? Or is it just that the pictures are from different years or editions?

Answer: The artwork is always altering to some extent, generally based on the artist who's doing the drawing. Peter makes his own costumes, so it's not out of the question that he might make alterations from time to time, which can provide a 'story' reason, but the real answer is just that each artist will have his own interpretation of the character.

Tailkinker

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