Answered questions about specific movies, TV shows and more

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Question: I'm having trouble working Ted and Mort's confrontation at the gas station into the narrative. Throughout the scene, Ted acts as if he knows all the events that have afflicted Mort vis-a-vis Shooter (he reacts to the dead dog, he says "I admit that most of what has been happening is my fault," etc.). But then it turns out that it was all Mort's doing, that John Shooter didn't exist, and that Ted had absolutely nothing to do with it. The scene, therefore, is decidedly strange. It is not in Mort's imagination, as in a later scene Ted still has an aching hand from punching the car. Anybody have an idea?

Answer: The director explains this scene in the commentary on the DVD. Ted is talking about Amy and the messy divorce and thinks Mort is talking about Amy as well. Mort is talking about Shooter. Ted doesn't understand why Mort mentions his dead dog. But other than looking away puzzled he doesn't address that issue. It's also why Ted gets angry when Mort says "your filthy friend" - Ted thought Mort was talking about Amy.

Nelleke Rietvink

Death Lives - S3-E6

Question: This may sound a bit stupid, but why do a all the animals start making noise when Death walks into the pet store?

Answer: This references the concept that animals are more tuned in to see supernatural things (ghosts, demons, and apparently Death). In many movies, you see animals acting strange when something supernatural is about to occur.

Andreas[DK]

Question: If Minnie Driver sang "Learn to be Lovely" and came out with an album this year, why don't they use her singing voice in the movie?

Answer: Because her voice is ill-equipped for the vocal demands of Carlotta's role.

K.C. Sierra

Answer: Bruce Campbell played Evil Ash, as well as playing both 'Ash' Williams and the mini-Ash.

Hamster

Question: In the "first timeline", Marty's father is a loser. He has never hit Biff. Marty goes to the past, and when he's going to 1985, he says that to Doc. He returns to the "new" 1985, where his father is successful, and he has hit Biff. He sees himself going to 1955, and that Marty is about to do everything that Marty did in the movie. But here's a question: that Marty lives in the "second timeline", where his father has hit Biff. Why then, in the past, he would say that his father has never hit Biff in his whole life?

Answer: I see two possible explanations. One is simply that the improved George McFly never told Marty the story about how he clocked Biff, perhaps to keep Marty from getting into fights himself. The other explanation is that the 1955 Marty went back to had not yet changed before he came back to the improved 1985. As the slowly-changing photograph illustrates, changes in timelines can be very gradual. Therefore, the only version of 1955 we are able see is the 1955 that the Marty of the original 1985 went back to.

Matty Blast

Answer: Another good example for a parallel timeline being created, which the writers/story denies. but while the "second Marty" has no reason to tell Doc that his father never stood up to Biff. His comment is of no significance to the outcome of events. The important change in the past was Marty being in George's spot and then having to fix things.

Question: When the Ring is destroyed and all the bad guys fall into the earth, but the good army does not, how do they get on to other land when all around them the ground has collapsed? I'm guessing that the eagles pick them up, one by one, but I'm not sure.

Answer: After Barad-dûr, Sauron's Dark Tower, crumbles, the Black Gate falls into ruin and the area around it quakes and opens up. The Men of the West are surrounded by Sauron's army on all sides, but it is only the ground between the Men and the Black Gate that collapses, taking with it many in Sauron's army, but not all. The ground behind the Men of the West is still intact.

Super Grover

Question: Does any one know the Japanese golfer joke Uncle Vernon was telling at the beginning of the movie?

Answer: The joke goes like this, "A California business man, while in Japan for some business meetings and a few rounds of golf, arrived in Tokyo a day earlier than expected. Feeling lonely that evening, he employed the services of a beautiful young Japanese girl to be his companion for the evening. Although the Japanese girl spoke very little English and the businessman spoke no Japanese, their passion roared and in the heat of the moment she began yelling "Machigatta ana. Machigatta ana" Hearing this, the Californian believed he had pleased his female Japanese friend and soon afterwards went to sleep. The next day while playing golf with his Japanese business colleague, his Japanese partner holed his shot from 170 yards away. Wanting to impress his friend, the Californian began yelling, "Machigatta ana!" The Japanese business man turned to the Californian and with a confused look on his face asked, "What do you mean wrong hole?"

Answer: The punchline is actually quite vulgar, but you can read a copy of the joke at http://www.sugarquill.net/forum/index.php?s=1a43217a81cc245555ad6ac82d3bcc5b&showtopic=6214&view=findpost&p=225388.

Cubs Fan

Question: In the scene at the ruined house, what is Ray doing in the closed room while his daughter is closing her eyes and singing?

Answer: Tim Robbins was shouting quite loud (and losing his mind) and Ray did not want the aliens to discover their hiding place. He therefor had no choice but to kill (or possibly beat unconscious) Robbins in order to keep his daughter safe. Rachel was told to sing so she would not hear what her father was doing.

dgemba dgemba

Question: As in all Pixar films, in this one they have the main cast listed, then very far down in the credits they have additional character voices. I was very surprised to see the name Chris Rock under additional voices. Who does he play?

Answer: I think you've got things a bit confused. Chris Rock isn't listed under "Additional Voices" but under "Lighting Artists". I'm pretty sure that he is not THE Chris Rock.

Andreas[DK]

Question: I think this might be a mistake, but before I list it as that, I should ask first. In the extended edition Aragorn and Gimli save the day by hacking Gothmog to death, then he yells "Legolas." and Legolas jumps up on the oliphaunt and after over a minute of the oliphaunt riding, he then kills it. Gimli is now somehow in front of Legolas when he says "That still only counts as one." How did he get from the Gothmog battle, to when Legolas finishes with the oliphaunt? It's probably well over a mile that the oliphaunt marched, so Gimli couldn't have caught up, and it couldn't be that he said that later on when they were together, because Legolas turns his head as in "Look what I just did" right after he rides off the trunk.

Answer: When Legolas is riding the Oliphaunt, it changes direction (turns around) and heads back the way it came. You can tell by the "direction" the the ghost army is moving.

XIII

Answer: Sara is watching "Jerry Maguire" released in 1996. Check out http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116695/ for more information.

moviemogul

Question: Is Senator Palpatine aware of Queen Amidala's use of decoys to protect herself?

Cubs Fan

Chosen answer: There's no indication one way or another. It's not particularly likely that he's ever been briefed on her security arrangements, but he's familiar enough with Amidala that his force abilities would be able to tell him that it wasn't her if he encountered her decoy at some point.

Tailkinker

Question: If I wanted to read about the events that took place between III and IV, what would be the most accurate and authorized book or series of books to read?

Matty Blast

Chosen answer: There aren't any at the moment, as the books have been under orders to stay away from that time period. There will, however, be books coming out in the near future that deal with that timeframe.

Tailkinker

Call of the Primitives - S3-E26

Question: When all the animal transformers start to follow the call, Soundwave states that his ejection has activated by itself. After Ravage and Ratbat, who are those other two tapes?

Answer: These two were 'dinosaur' cassettes Overkill and Slugfest, then-new toys. They turn up this once and that's it, though.

Daria Sigma

Chosen answer: Mia tells her grandmother that she has a 1966 Ford Mustang.

raywest

Question: Does anyone know what the piece of music from the trailer is from and where it can be purchased or downloaded? Not the rock song in the beginning, but the orchestrated piece after the black-woman says "Something he can't. A man."

Answer: It's taken from the score of 'Alive', written by James Newton Howard.

Tailkinker

Question: There is a scene where there is a play fight between 'Maximus' and 'Commodus', but how would the people be able to get away with making fun of their Emperor? Wouldn't guards or someone else like that punish them or tell the Emperor?

Answer: The art of parody dates back to those times - examples exist in both Greek and Roman literature. While it was potentially unwise to make fun of somebody quite as unstable as Commodus, they're not really risking much. It would hardly look good for an Emperor who's trying to win the hearts of his people if he executed a bunch of actors simply because they poked fun at him.

Tailkinker

Question: One of the mistakes says there's a newspaper that Tom Cruise reads that has the same sentence written over and over. Is this a reference to the Shining by the production?

Answer: No. They needed to have an article for Cruise to read and, on the assumption that it wouldn't be readable by the viewers, they simply filled up the space required by repeating the same sentence over and over again. Another commonly used tactic is to steal text from a real article, leading to situations where the text of a newspaper article can be seen to have nothing to do with the actual headline.

Tailkinker

Question: Why is Darian changed to Adrian in the TV version?

Answer: The scriptwriter based the film on events that actually happened to him and rather unwisely didn't change the name of the girl. She sued him, hence the change of the name for the TV version.

Tailkinker

Chosen answer: There appears to be no music in common between the trailers - there are, however, tracks by the same group, Immediate Music, which may well have sounded very similar due to their common source. The track used in the Fantastic Four trailer is called "Spiritus Elektros", with "Ultimatum" used for King Kong. Other music used in the FF trailer includes a track from The Matrix: Revolutions" and one with the rather unwieldy name of "Counting Bodies Like Sheep To The Rhythm of The War Drums" by A Perfect Circle.

Tailkinker

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