Best action movie questions of all time

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Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace picture

Question: I'm confused. Palpatine wanted to use Queen Amidala to get himself voted as chancellor so he could have control over the republic. Why did he send Darth Maul after the Queen's ship when it escaped if he needed the Queen alive?

Answer: The entire time Palpatine is bitching to Viceroy Gunray that he needs the Queen to sign the treaty to make the blockade and invasion legal. He didn't send Darth Maul to kill Amidala, he sent him to capture her and to deal with her Jedi escort.

Quantom X

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Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker picture

Question: How did Palpatine come back? Cloned? Or somehow survived the Death Star explosion, which seems unlikely.

Jon Sandys

Chosen answer: According to the novelization, Palpatine sensed Vader's internal conflict and created a clone as a backup in the event that Vader betrayed him. When Vader threw him down the shaft, Palpatine transferred his consciousness into the clone's body.

Answer: It is not said exactly how he came back. He says that he had died before which presumably is him dying in ROTJ. The most we get is the reference to Sith ability that some consider unnatural.

It is not said how he came back, but I get the idea that he was using the Force to keep himself alive. At least that's the message I was getting when I saw that Palpatine's fingers were wilted away. And I thought that the power he was using was urging his life to go on, but his physical appearence was being dragged behind.

Answer: The line "The dark side is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural" is a direct reference to Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, in which Palpatine says the same line verbatim to Anakin. Recall that a major plot point to that prequel is that the Sith have long been rumored to have found a method to cheat death. This film strongly suggests that Palpatine had indeed discovered this method. The film doesn't go into specifics. My understanding is the novelization says his body is a clone. Going by his appearance in the film (blank eyes; body manipulated by machine), it suggests to me that he is a reanimated corpse.

TonyPH

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The Beastmaster picture

Question: Why did the huge bat-like creatures kill the man that was in their cage but let Dar live?

Answer: The creatures did not eat Dar because the eagle landed on him, showing him as a friend to the eagle. They apparently worship eagles, as also indicated by the talisman they give him.

Jazaray

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Resident Evil: Retribution picture

Question: How can they use the elevator to get to the surface if the Red Queen shut the power down?

Answer: She must have had trouble in keeping control of the elevator's power as the impact of the explosion blew out some of the windows and the sea came rushing in.

Bunch Son

Answer: The force of the water moved the elevator up the shaft, hence why it did not go all the way up.

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Willow picture

Question: Why did Queen Bavmorda need a ritual to get rid of the child? Why didn't she simply kill the baby on the spot?

Answer: Bavmorda's ritual was the Ritual of Obliteration - a spell that is used to destroy a living spirit's essence or soul. Presuambly if she'd just killed Elora, the soul would have been later reborn into another baby.

Sierra1

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Answer: Spoiler alert: this gives some important plot twists away. Sometimes a bit of unresolved mystery improves a story, and I think this is the case here. But the book partly answers your questions. At the end of the last chapter it is shown that Mrs MacReady thinks the wardrobe is just a piece of furniture. She knows nothing about Narnia. But Professor Kirke amazes Peter, Edmund, Susan and Lucy by expressing familiarity with Narnia and explaining that a wardrobe might well be a portal into Narnia. If C S Lewis had not written any more books after completing "The Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe" Professor Kirke's knowledge of Narnia would probably have been an unresolved mystery. But C S Lewis later wrote "The Magician's Nephew" which tells how Professor Kirke visited Narnia as a boy. The final chapter of this book says he took an apple back with him, which he planted in his garden. It grew into a tree, was cut down and made into the wardrobe. So Professor Kirke was not consciously aware of what the wardrobe could do, but with hindsight, he realised that he had set up a chain of events that caused the children to discover Narnia.

Answer: While Professor Kirke is aware of the existence of Narnia, as he was there when it was created, he doesn't appear to be aware that the wardrobe can act as a portal (although he may suspect that it has unusual properties, as the tree from which the wood came to create it grew from a Narnian apple). Mrs MacReady doesn't know.

Tailkinker

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Around the World in 80 Days picture

Question: How is it possible for everybody from other countries to know about the wager that Phileas made when the only ones who knew about were the members of the Academy of Science?

Answer: In order to stop Fogg from completing the journey, his rivals at the Academy wired (telegraphed) details to confederates in the countries he visited with instructions to waylay him.

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Night at the Museum picture

Question: What does Columbus say in another language throughout the film? I know when they're taking down the night guards he says "You are finished", but what else does he say?

Answer: Columbus is speaking Italian. The first night, when Larry asks him about the lions, he says "Go find the lion somewhere else" and then "tourist!" The second night, when they're chased by the animals, he says "Young man, do your job well, take care of the beasts" and when he sees that the window's open, "Kid, what do you say, shall we close the windows?" The last night, when Columbus is guiding the Neanderthals, he says "Fellow Neanderthals, with me!" and to the night guard "It's over!"

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Reservoir Dogs picture

Question: Why does Mr. White snap his fingers when trying to light his cigarette lighter?

Answer: It's a way of lighting a zippo lighter. If you snap your fingers close to it, your middle finger will strike the wheel and light it.

Nick N.

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Deadpool 2 picture

Question: Why is the man's groin blurred out in the fight-scene at the Japanese sauna? It's an R-rated movie (or unrated, depending on the cut of the film you watch), so it's not like they couldn't have shown it. The best I can figure is that it's a reference to the fact that genitals are blurred out in Japanese media due to "decency" laws. Is that what the joke was?

TedStixon

Answer: It is a possibility. In Japan, the showing of a person's genital area and/or pubic hair is considered obscene.

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Inglourious Basterds picture

Question: Why does Hugo Stiglitz kill the German officers in the first place? The film mentions his enlistment, but how is this related to his killings?

Answer: Based on his willingness to join the Basterds, we can assume he killed them because he didn't believe in what the Nazis were doing.

There is a cut of him being whipped during the bar scene. I think he was taking revenge for harsh and perhaps undeserved punishment.

No, the whipping is how it feels in his mind sitting next to that SS officer and having to pretend to like him and be a Nazi. He's ready to snap.

lionhead

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Red Planet picture

Question: The ship is hit by a solar flare. But in that case shouldn't Earth advise them about the solar flare incoming? It is supposed that the Sun is constantly watched for solar flares, in case a human mission is en route. Shouldn't mission control on Earth be watching for any unusual solar activity to advise the crew? And they could warn them with time because radio waves go faster than solar flares.

Answer: The ship is not hit by a solar flare, it is hit by a gamma ray burst. It is a completely different, much more violent phenomena.

BaconIsMyBFF

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X-Men picture

Question: Are Scott and Jean engaged? In the scene where Jean's reading Logan's mind, she appears to be wearing an engagement ring.

Answer: The ring she is wearing is not an engagement ring because they are not officially engaged until X2.

LizzieWD

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Chosen answer: He gave them body cavity searches.

tomthemill

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The Monster Squad picture

Question: At the beginning of the movie, it was stated that Van Helsing planned to use the amulet to send every monster to limbo but that him and his team blew it. How exactly did they blow it?

Answer: It is shown that Dracula's servants were successful in protecting their master. Dracula escapes while Van Helsing himself is sucked into limbo.

BaconIsMyBFF

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Answer: Lacy had gotten tired of her dad's newspaper, big-city life and decided to move to Smallville because she wanted to experience life at a much slower pace and even decided to live on a farm.

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Superman II picture

Question: How does Superman know who Zod is when he is in the bar with Lois and the President makes the emergency broadcast?

Answer: Superman was well educated regarding his home planet's history. All this information was left for him by his parents at the secret installation at the North Pole.

raywest

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Jurassic World picture

Question: If all of the base DNA for the dinosaurs in the park was obtained from dino-blood inside mosquitoes, where did they get the DNA for the Mosasaurus from? A flying blood-sucking insect would not come into contact with a sea dwelling dinosaur, and there are no amber-equivalents in the ocean to trap any sea based blood suckers.

iRoN-RoK

Answer: And what about just digging for bones for the Mosasaurus? I think this was said somewhere-although I can't remember where so apologies if I'm wrong-but I think Dr. Wu mentioned something about it, so I'm sure they could've gotten DNA WITHOUT getting the blood from a mosquito. It sounds possible in my opinion.

Chosen answer: The scientific inaccuracy of the mosquitoes/DNA notwithstanding, at the end of the film the Mosasaurus surfaces at the edge of its pool in order to drag in the Indominus Rex. Assuming the Mosasaurus did the same thing to catch prey in its own time period, it's feasible a mosquito could have landed on its body and extracted some blood in that short amount of time, especially if the prey was putting up resistance.

Phaneron

And a mosquito would always be in that area and be keen on getting blood from that particular dinosaur? Plus, it didn't take much for the Indominus to be taken down since the Mosasaurus is kind of a big creature, so how hard would it be for other animals to be taken down as well? Added, the Mosasaurus was being fed a shark when we first meet it; it's not like it was hunting on its own in an enclosed area.

Mosquitoes are everywhere, so it's not a matter of convenience that one would be in the same area and being keen on going after that particular animal. Plus, I just pulled up the scene on YouTube and it takes close to 10 seconds for the Mosasaurus to drag the Indominous Rex to its doom, which is plenty of time for a mosquito to land on it and extract blood. And as I stated in the answer, the explanation of DNA being harvested from preserved mosquitoes is scientifically inaccurate anyway, so even a tenuous explanation of how a mosquito would get that animal's blood is no more tenuous than dinosaurs being brought back to life in the first place.

Phaneron

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The Dirty Dozen picture

Question: What are the small tubes that are collected in Colonel Breed's H.Q.? General Warden seems to figure out who they are.

Answer: Detonators for explosives.

stiiggy

Answer: Rifle firing pins?

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Saw V picture

Question: I was wondering why the man and woman in the last trap didn't use the woman from the bathtub to give the pints of blood? They could have carried her into the room because the door stayed open for about forty seconds.

Michelle Ferris

Chosen answer: Assuming the woman in the bathtub was able to be moved safely the amount of blood gained from her, while still being helpful, would probably not be enough to save the final two survivors from self harm. Without the heart pumping blood you would only get the blood that was in her arm at the moment. You would have to lift her or raise her so gravity would get other blood moving to get enough. Which the final two possibly could have done, but stress of the situation clouded their judgement.

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