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: When Aladdin is thrown into the water by the guards and the Genie turns into a sub to save him, the sub-Genie speaks something in what sounds like German. What does he say?

Answer: Nothing. He was babbling it. Even the closed captions say " (babbling the German language)," which means he wasn't saying anything real in German; he was just mimicking it and speaking gibberish.

Question: Maybe this is just an assumption of mine, but since Malcolm is dead why can't he see the other dead people, ie the three hanging in the school?

Answer: Cole explains this. During the hospital scene when he tells his secret, he describes the dead people he sees as "Walking around like regular people. The don't see each other. They only see what they wanna see. They don't know they're dead". This explains many things in the movie, including why Malcolm can't see the ghosts, why he can't see his blood-stained shirt (till the very end), why he doesn't see the table blocking the basement door, etc. I believe that Cole sees him just how he looked when he died - blue work shirt with the massive blood stain at the back, while we see Malcolm throughout the movie as he perceives himself - no blood, overcoat when he's outside, etc.

Question: Tim Curry is credited not only as Pennywise but as Robert "Bob" Gray. Who was he and when did he appear?

Answer: Pennywise often introduced himself as 'Robert "Bob" Gray aka Pennywise the Dancing Clown'. I don't know if he does it in the movie or not.

Grumpy Scot

Answer: He was the gas station attendant that Audra came up and asked how far till she gets to Derry.

The gas station attendant actor is Boyd Norman, who looks nothing like Tim Curry.

lionhead

Answer: When Bob Morton is told by a tech that one of Murphy's arm was saved, Bob stated that he wants total body prosthesis. Meaning Robocop's entire body was synthetic. None of his actual body was used. The only thing that was used was Murphy's actual face.

Also, his human brain, and possibly his spine, where OCP could wire him into the suit.

Movie Nut

Answer: Most of his head and brain, about 40% of his upper torso, none of his pelvic area or limbs.

Grumpy Scot

Question: What is this reference to "Fried Gold" mean? I'm sorta late on UK slang.

Answer: I took it to mean "Better than good" because say you have a candy bar, how do you make it better? Deep fry. So Gold is something precious and amazing. The only possible way to make it better would be to fry it.

Answer: According to IMDB : The phrase "fried gold" originated behind the scenes of Simon Pegg, Jessica Stevenson and Edgar Wright's sitcom "Spaced" (1999) and was mentioned several times on the DVD commentaries for that series. It makes several fan-pleasing appearances in the film.

Hamster

Question: In the final battle scene, the samurai army is shown as having several dozen footmen who were not casualties. Additionally, the archers did not appear to have taken more than light casualties. Yet the final charge was made by by a small group (30-50) samurai. Why would Watanabe have used only a small portion of his army with so many support troops left?

Answer: Because they were the only ones with horses. Foot soldiers running across the field would be easily picked off, but charging horses are more difficult.

David Mercier

Show generally

Question: I was told that all songs in the Monty Python series/movies were written and composed by either Eric Idle or Neil MacInnes. Is this true? If not, who else wrote or co-wrote songs?

Answer: "The Lumberjack Song" and "Spam" were written by Terry Jones and Michael Palin. "If I Were Not in the C.I.D." was written primarily by John Cleese. Other than those, and "Jerusalem," all songs for visual media were written by Eric Idle and Neil Innes (not MacInnes). Mind you, they all wrote more songs that appear on the albums.

Answer: I don't think so. I think it was just the clothes that the show's costume designer picked.

Question: Why would the impostor queen still be pretending while everyone was on the royal ship? Who is the queen hiding from when the only people around are her security force and two Jedi? What is gained by keeping the Jedi in the dark?

Answer: Nothing. But nothing was lost, either. Captain Panaka was probably in charge of the deception, and he makes it clear that he is not the most trusting of people, even of Jedi. They probably just thought, if no one knew, then no one could accidentally tell anyone else (it's harder to act that you don't know something than it is to actually not know something).

Gary O'Reilly

Show generally

Question: I know that Monty Python usually played female roles themselves, but they had actors such as Carol Cleveland to fill roles when necessary. My question is, aside from Ms. Cleveland, who else, if anyone, played a recurring role as "extra"? I hope that makes sense.

Answer: Ian Davidson, Connie Booth and Lyn "Mrs. Idle" Ashley appeared quite often, as did the Fred Tomlinson Singers (whenever a male chorus was required).

Xofer

Question: At Darrin's home from prison party, he tells one of his friends, "I can read, I ain't no criminal." How are the two related?

Answer: The majority of people who commit small crimes, or even some major ones, are people that drop out of schools, and are mostly or completely illiterate. This is especially true in larger cities and people from a poor neighborhood.

Answer: Prisons are built on third grade reading scores. They feel if you can't read by the time you reach the third grade you will commit crimes and go to jail. Most prisoners are illiterate.

Chosen answer: It only took me a couple of seconds to find a fan site with a credible answer. Apparently, in an early draft, Marty mentions in passing that Doc hired him to clean out his garage for fifty bucks and total access to his record collection. This scene was presumably never shot, thus the backstory was lost to time. See www.kristensheley.com/bttf/bttfuniverse.html for more extensive info.

Macalou

Question: In the next few months, the Extended Edition version will be released. Why did Peter Jackson remove about fifty minutes of footage (which will appear in the Extended Edition) for the theatrical release?

Onesimos

Chosen answer: The movie was already 3 hours long and he removed footage not strictly necessary to make it that length. Movies are shown to test audiences for things like length, proper ending etc. His said that while good, it was just too long.

Grumpy Scot

Question: When Brad Pitt and the Prince fight outside Troy and Pitt is the victor, is there any reason why they began with spears and then when they went, they used their swords? How come they didn't just use their swords to begin with as you see in many movies of the same genre?

Craig Bryant

Chosen answer: Homer describes the fight as having taken place in The Iliad using spears, not swords - they threw spears at each other in turn, and with Athena's help Achilles (Pitt) struck Hector (Bana), killing him. The movie uses swords to make the fight visually more exciting, but features spears as a nod to the original.

Shay

Also in those days the spear was the primary weapon that was used to fight with. The sword was always a secondary or back up weapon. This is often misrepresented in movies.

Chosen answer: Frost is proud of her martial skills and Sun Tzu's Art of War is considered to be one of the classic texts on warfare, but that's about as far as it goes.

Tailkinker

Question: Were any of O.J. Simpson's scenes cut due to his then-impending murder trial?

Answer: According to the IMDB, the only scene cut out was an extended version of Norberg and Ed's visiting Dreben near the beginning of the film. So you can assume the rest of Simpson's scenes were left in.

Answer: O.J. Simpson's murder trial wasn't then pending. This movie came out on March 18, 1994. Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman were murdered on June 12, 1994. In fact, O.J., Nicole and their kids attended the premiere of Naked Gun 33 1/3 together.

Question: At the end of their date, Daniel and Ali run into some of her snobby friends who insult Daniel and drive off. Then Ali seems irritated at Daniel, but why? She's the one who is more laid back about their relationship and the fact that Daniel doesn't fit in with her friends. You'd think if anything she would try to reassure Daniel and say it's no big deal. So why is she mad at him, especially since he didn't say or do anything to make her so?

Krista

Chosen answer: She is irritated because he told her she could have gone with her friends if she wanted. I believe she got annoyed because Ali thought Daniel should have realized by now she wanted to be with him and didn't care what her friends thought.

weetie21

Also, you have to take a look at the snobby friends involved. Johnny and Dutch, two of Daniel's tormentors, were in the front seat and another one, Tommy, was in the backseat with two of Ali's friends who have always looked down on him. This came on the heels of another of Ali's snobby but nicer friends chatting with the two of them from a brand new sports car. Not to mention that at the start of the evening he met Ali's parents who made him uncomfortable. Although it is true that she would have been irritated with Daniel because he hadn't figured out that she didn't care what her friends or parents thought, he couldn't see past the fact that Johnny and his friends were part of her circle. He believed that she would look down on him and wouldn't be any different, which she picked up on, sparking her irritation when he told her she could have gone with them if she wanted to.

dewinela

Question: Is the healing technique that Mr. Miyagi uses where he rubs his hands together real, or just something made up for the movie?

Krista

Chosen answer: That's debatable. Some Chinese people believe that they can heal injuries with the power of their hands, but it has yet to be proved by science. They added it into the movie to make Mr Miyagi seem powerful and mysterious.

Answer: The rubbing of the hands is to get Miyagi's chi flowing - the Eastern cultures believe this to be inner energy of the spirit. A Western perspective would be to say Miyagi did this to warm his hands. The heat generated would help massage Daniel's injury (think of a hot stone massage). He then focuses on the pressure points and eases the knots in Daniel's body (or in the leg injury scene, his pain). He didn't 'heal' Daniel; he simply numbed the pain, which is why Daniel was still limping.

Question: Can anyone tell me why the Predators didn't scan the 'token' human survivor or the last dead predator to see if either were infected with an Alien? Especially when the Predator was not wearing his face mask which would serve as protection against this infection.

Ronald Cornish

Answer: When they emerged from the underground pyramid unscathed, the Predators assumed they were not infected. Any Predator, young or old, would have been taught to self destruct rather than be caught or killed. As seen in the previous movies. Lex was given the mark of a warrior, they assumed she was taught their code of honor.

Chosen answer: Given the speed with which the chestbursters emerged from the other humans, it seems likely that these have been engineered by the Predators to emerge as quickly as possible. As such, they probably assumed in Lex's case that, were she impregnated, it would have emerged before that point. As for their fallen comrade, it may well have simply not occurred to them that one of their number would be foolish enough to get himself impregnated. Even proud alien hunters can make mistakes.

Tailkinker

Question: I wasn't sure which Disney film to ask about this, as it occurs in many (Alice in Wonderland, Fox and the Hound, Lady and the Tramp etc.) - But in many of the Dinsey films, most of the time many of the characters don't cast a shadow. Is there a reason for this? Or maybe would it be considered a mistake..?

Hamster

Chosen answer: It is the style of the artwork. Similarly, it is not a mistake that each individual hair is not drawn, the eyes are not really proportional to the head, etc.

Myridon

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.