Answered 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: Has Marco Beltrami's score for this film ever been released as a CD? I have looked around quite a bit, but have never found it.

Answer: Yes. It's been released in the USA (Varese Sarabande 302 066 365 2) and in Germany (VSD 6365).

Madstunts

Question: Originally, the plan was to kill Richard himself rather than his wife in order to keep him quiet about Provasic causing liver damage. But wouldn't Devlin MacGregor eventually have had to deal with the side effects anyway, especially when the wrongful death lawsuits began pouring in? I know some suspension of disbelief is required, but this still seems like a stretch.

Answer: Not really. If anybody raises a wrongful death lawsuit against them, Devlin MacGregor's high-priced lawyers can just point to their battery of "successful" test results to show that no side-effects occurred during their comprehensive testing. If they then dig deeper into the case, then, lo and behold, it's revealed that the tests were all faked, with the fake results signed off on by Dr Alexander Lentz, who was, rather conveniently, tragically killed in a car accident. It would be easy to cast Lentz as the villain, faking the test results for his own reasons, which gets Devlin MacGregor off the hook. In all probability, the original idea was to frame Kimble for the fraudulent testing - with Kimble killed in a "burglary gone wrong", he could easily be used as a scapegoat. When things went awry and Kimble's wife was killed instead, this gave them the perfect angle to completely discredit Kimble, taking him out of the equation, and they switched to a replacement plan of using Lentz as their scapegoat, forging his signature on the test results and arranging the car accident that killed him.

Tailkinker

Question: At the end when the pick-up truck drives away, there is an angel on the back flap of it, similar to the angel in the garden of the house where Tom Hanks delivers the parcel. Are we to assume that the parcel belongs to the woman in the pick-up, and that this is significant in some way?

Answer: It's the same women. It's a little complicated. The angel wings are a recurring plot device to show that the parcel Tom Hanks just delivered to the ranch belongs to the woman (who is an artist) in the truck, which also has the wings painted on the tailgate. There are also metal wing wind sculptures in her yard. The wings are her artist's "logo." As Hanks stands in the crossroads deciding where to go, his looking back in the direction that she just drove off implies he will go back to her house, probably to let her know that her package gave him hope while he was on the island that he could someday deliver that package, and possibly to restart his life with her (she is pretty, after all). She was married to the guy in Russia who she was sending packages to, but he was cheating on her. If you notice the gateway over the entrance to her property where another package was delivered at the beginning of the movie, both her name and her husband's were on the overhead ironwork, as well as the angel wings. At the end, his name has since been removed, indicating she is now single.

raywest

Wow, you are extremely observant. Thank you, I was totally confused at the end.

You're welcome.

raywest

Also, the artist would have been on the island with him just like Kelly was in the watch.

Answer: The Angel wings are an important symbolic thread that run throughout the move. They appear in several scenes. They represent love/hope/salvation. We first see them in a seemingly unrelated scene at the pretty redhead artist's ranch when she is still married to the cheater dude. She sends him the wings on a package but the package is not important. Rather the Wings on the package are important. She intended the wings to go to her cheating husband but instead they went to Chuck. Chuck preserves the wings. He caresses the wings. Later we see that he has drawn dozens of the same wings on the inside of his cave wall. On the raft, he takes only Wilson and the Wings which he carefully wraps in leaves. When finally delivering them home, Chuck writes "this package saved my life" when he means hope/love/salvation have saved his life. The wings have make the exact same journey as Chuck. They have finally returned to the redhead and bought Chuck with them.

I agree with your assessment, though the wings also serve as a practical plot device. It helps the audience to recognize and track the package as it moves through the story and for Chuck to link it to the woman's truck at the end, which also had the wings painted on the tailgate.

raywest

Nailed it! My thoughts exactly I just needed confirmation that all of this was reasonable to assume. Thank you.

Answer: The package that Mrs. Peterson sends to her husband in Russia contains divorce papers. The winged package that Tom Hanks' character saves as an unfinished task represents his desire to eventually deliver. He opens all the other packages and finds a few useful items. And the package sent by Mrs. Peterson, he uses to motivate himself to make that delivery. He only took bare essentials on the raft when he leaves the island. This package is essential to him. For some reason, he does not deliver the package to the destination to which it was addressed, but instead takes it back to the original sender. It helps close the loop in a way that could not have been done if he just delivered to the original destination 5 years late.

But why would there need to be such a big box for divorce papers? On the island, he opens a document mailer.

Question: I read on a website that one difference in the ending from the book is that Kathy is arrested. Can someone tell me if the ending in the book is much different from the film and what exactly is Kathy arrested for?

Lummie

Chosen answer: In the book, when Behrani learns that his son has died at the hospital, his grief turns into rage at Lester and Kathy. He returns to the house. He finds Kathy there and strangles her. Believing she is dead, he puts on his uniform, then suffocates his wife, who is sleeping in the bedroom. Then he suffocates himself. Kathy revives and finds their bodies. Both she and Lester are arrested. As they await trial, Kathy, who is in jail, has been pretending that she is unable to speak since Behrani attempted to strangle her. She mimes a request for a cigarette.

raywest

Question: In the hospital scene, where the Joker has the gun to his head and Harvey Dent flips the coin, apparently it was heads because the Joker didn't get killed. But what if it landed on tails? Would the Joker just let himself get killed?

Answer: Yep. He's betting everything, including his own life, on the flip of a coin. He's already won, he's already dragged Harvey down from being Gotham City's great white hope for justice to being a man who's willing to kill on the flip of a coin. The Joker puts the gun in Harvey's hand and places it against his own forehead where he couldn't possibly get away if Harvey chose to pull the trigger - he knows full well what he's risking. But he's already proved his point, that anybody can fall from grace - if it takes his own death to push Harvey deeper into madness, then that's fine with him, because he's already won. If he lives, so much the better, but he's prepared to put his fate in the hands of random probability, into the hands of the chaos that he worships. That said...he's also holding the hammer back on the revolver, so even if the trigger was pulled the gun wouldn't fire. So he's not risking that much...

Tailkinker

Question: Don gets a call from the French verifying that the blind samples Don sent confirming their virus and the AIDS virus were the same. Don goes around the CDC office and tells everybody that the French also had the AIDS virus. This causes everybody to cheer. Why would the French having the virus make everybody cheer?

SAZOO1975

Chosen answer: It represents a breakthrough in the case - a lead to the original source of the virus, as many of the patients being treated in France were either African or had spent time there. Up until that point, the origin of the virus was a mystery - with the knowledge that the French were treating the same virus, it gave them vital information in backtracking where the virus originated. It also proved that AIDS was a worldwide phenomenon of epidemic proportions, something that a number of agencies had been reluctant to accept up to that point.

Tailkinker

This is not an accurate answer. When they say the French had the virus, they don't mean patients with the virus. They mean the French successfully found the virus in blood, which is a necessary step in determining that aids is caused by an infectious agent and the first step in coming up with medication. The French had patients with the virus since about the same time as the us.

Question: When the little girl in the read coat goes inside to hide during the liquidation of the ghetto, she goes under a bed. Why isn't her coat red anymore?

Answer: It's open to interpretation because it was a directorial decision. But the technique was a way to direct the audience's eye towards what Schindler was observing during the chaotic outdoor scenes. Once the girl's inside, the shot is no longer from his perspective since Schindler can't see her anymore, so the red was no longer necessary.

JC Fernandez

Question: Why does the soldier who helped Perez "kill" the computer not receive a metal, yet Perez does? Jerry, Ethan, Tom, and Perez all get metals, but he is excluded though he played a big part in stopping ARIA.

Answer: Simply put: That's politics.

Phixius

Question: What's with the President when he meets Dr. Okun, he acts like the doctor smells a lot or something?

Answer: What President Whitmore is reacting to is Dr. Okun's rather eccentric look, to put it mildly - his long hair, out-of-style pants and eyeglasses, etc... Even Dr. Okun comments that they don't get out much.

Super Grover

Question: Is the outbreak supposed to be all over Britain or is it just in London?

Answer: The TV at the end of the film (showing clips from various channels) seem to suggest that it's a world wide outbreak (a japanese gameshow using zombies and the news story of an American kid who killed his zombie family are shown).

Gary O'Reilly

Question: Who is Scarlett? She appears to live with Charles, but not share a bed with him; IMDb refers to her as Charles' sister, but her, er, style of talking is so out of kilter with Charles and indeed all the others that it seems unlikely that she's related.

Answer: According to a deleted scene, she was found passed out drunk under the kitchen table after a party that Charles hosted and never got around to leaving. She's now his lodger, presumably paying rent and a share of the bills.

Tailkinker

Question: Who is her father? I know they all want a 1/3 but who is her real father?

Answer: If you checked the trivia section, you would have your answer, but here it goes...."While neither the stage show nor the film reveals who Sophie's real father is, there is an official answer. According to Catherine Johnson and Phyllida Lloyd, Sophie's real father is Bill. Bill's character was Australian in the original stage production, but in the film he became a Swede instead, and he's played by Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgård."

shortdanzr

Question: Is the Joker supposed to have a high tolerance for pain/injury or something? Some examples: 1)Batman slams his head down hard on a table, violently punches his fingers, slams his head/face into the glass, and then punches him in the face during the interrogation scene, and the Joker simply laughs it off, and doesn't seem to have any broken fingers nor a concussion. 2) When Batman causes the truck to flip over, the Joker walks away without any visible injuries and although he stumbles and falls once, he seems to be perfectly fine. 3) Batman slices him in the face with his zipline, throws him off the building and then yanks him up. Again, no injury (at least a broken ankle?). Does the Joker simply not care about feeling pain, or perhaps even enjoys it due to his insanity? Do the comics ever touch upon this? Because in "The Dark Knight" he's able to withstand some serious physical punishment, the extent of which not many people would be able to.

Answer: In the comics, the Joker has an almost supernatural ability to survive things that would kill anyone else. Whether it's because of his insanity, the best luck in the world, or both, yes he has a high tolerance for pain.

Captain Defenestrator

Question: Why does the Joker keep licking his lips? Is it just a tick he has?

Answer: According to interviews, Heath Ledger started doing that because of the makeup on his face, and director Chris Nolan liked it so much, he told him to keep doing it. He felt that it made the Joker even more bizarre. So yes, it's just a tic.

wizard_of_gore

Mr. Monk's 100th Case - S7-E7

Question: I haven't yet seen this episode, but why is it called 'Mr. Monk and his 100th case'? Natalie and Julie gave Monk a hundred trophies at one time for doing 100 cases. Doesn't that break continuity, then if THIS is his 100th case?

Blibbetyblip

Answer: In Monk's 100th case episode, they specifically say it's his 100th case as a consultant for the SFPD. When Natalie and Julie give him 100 trophies, Natalie says he's solved 104 murders since the beginning of his career.

Bishop73

Chosen answer: It's his 100th case for the San Francisco Police Department. When Natalie and Julie gave him the trophies, they were for cases overall. The total was actually a few short, but they gave him 100 because it's a nice, even number, which Monk likes.

Captain Defenestrator

Actually the total was a few more not less. They said it was 104 and they rounded down to make it an even 100. And Natalie and Julie explain they talked to captain stottlemyer and he let them look at monk's files, insinuating all of his 104 cases were for the San Francisco police dept so it is a continuity error they ignored for the 100th episode.

I'd meant the total number of trophies. Julie and Natalie tell him that it's only been 94 or so, but they got Monk 100 trophies because he'd appreciate the nice, orderly round number over having an accurate amount.

Captain Defenestrator

Orpheus - S4-E15

Question: It may be that Fred told her, but how does Willow know about Connor? In season one, Angel made it clear to Buffy that they lead separate lives now, and he doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who would call Willow just to tell her he has a son.

Cubs Fan

Chosen answer: Willow has always been the contact link between the two groups. Fred's call to Willow takes place in Buffy's world in the episode "Lies My Parents Told Me." Since Fred has the number and Willow knows who she is right away, she probably told her about Connor some time ago.

Captain Defenestrator

Chosen answer: It's the Kool-Aid Man from Kool-Aid's commercials from the 70s and 80s. Kids would be hot and thirsty and call "Hey, Kool-Aid!" and he'd burst through a wall and say "Oh, yeah!"

Captain Defenestrator

Question: Why does Maroni know where the Joker will be "this afternoon"? He tells Gordon in the hospital as Gordon visits Dent. And why comes the Chechen visit the Joker in the warehouse? From who does HE know where the Joker is? Did the Joker tell them where he keeps the money? And if he did so: why did he tell them where it was if he just wants to burn it?

Answer: He knows because the Joker invited him. The Chechen, as well. The Joker invites them over there to tell them that he's taking over, exactly as we see him do with the Chechen. The burning of the money is to make the point that he doesn't care about the same things that they obsess over.

Tailkinker

Question: Did Harvey Dent die? I've heard theories that he did die, but I've heard that he didn't die but they told everyone that he did because they didn't want people to know that he became a villain. I was just wondering which one is true.

Answer: According to Aaron Eckhart, he has been told specifically by director Christopher Nolan that Harvey was killed in the fall, so he would not be back in any potential follow-up film.

Tailkinker

Question: Why would NASA spend weight and expenses on making the cabin of the armadillo pressurised?

Jacob La Cour

Chosen answer: The cabin of the armadillo was always going to be pressurized. A person really can't perform the work needed in a space suit. Therefore, they presurize the cabin.

Zwn Annwn

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.