lionhead

Question: What did Katniss mean by asking if Gale's bread was real? I understand they don't often get bread in the Seam but how could it not be real?

THE GAMER NEXT DOOR

Answer: She is wondering if she might be dreaming.

lionhead

6th May 2020

I Am Legend (2007)

Question: When Robert Neville's family is being airlifted at night, the darkseekers are awake and emerge from their hiding spots. If UV light has been known to kill them, why wasn't his family airlifted during the day?

Answer: This was still very early in the spread and outbreak of this virus. They didn't fully understand what they were dealing with yet, or would have figured out that UV had any effect like that. Also the darkseekers weren't fully out yet, as we see the people infected are still mostly human with just early symptoms. They didn't know what they would create or even knew what it was capable of yet. What you saw were panicked people acting stupid in fear trying to board the chopper.

Quantom X

Answer: They didn't have the time. They were trying to contain the spread but failed and the evacuation had to take place at that time or there was no evacuation at all.

lionhead

Question: Do we know the human casualties by the end of the war?

Answer: No such numbers are ever discussed in the novel or in the subsequent radio and movie treatments. What we may surmise, however, is that the human casualties were comparatively minor. Once the Martians were exposed to earthly microbes, they were wiped out pretty quickly.

Charles Austin Miller

Voiceover by Morgan Freeman at the end of the movie: by the toll of a billion lives.

Morgan Freeman says "By the toll of a billion deaths, man had earned his immunity, his right to survive among this planet's infinite organisms." He is saying that Mankind evolved with microorganisms for countless generations on Earth, making Mankind immune to most of those microorganisms. Perhaps a billion humans or more died of bacterial and viral plagues throughout human history; but, as a species, we gained immunity. Freeman's quote has nothing to do with the number of Martians that died because they had no immunity.

Charles Austin Miller

Answer: The ending dialog states a death of 1 billion.

The billion deaths spoken of don't refer to those that died in the alien attack but the billion deaths from the microorganisms that killed the aliens. "By a billion deaths man earned his immunity."

Bishop73

I feel that he meant that the organisms that killed the aliens killed a billion humans first before we got our immunity from them.

They are saying that.

lionhead

You are correct that he means humans, over tens of thousands of years, naturally gained immunity to many disease-causing organisms after billions of other people had died from them. The aliens had no immunity whatsoever and is why they died.

raywest

2nd May 2020

Shazam! (2019)

Chosen answer: Because she is not worthy to open the door (not champion material), or even to touch it. But Silvana is, since he already crossed it as a child.

lionhead

As you can recall Sivana reached for the eye of sin and the old wizard told him he would never be worthy.

He is a champion candidate. That's good enough to at least enter.

lionhead

Question: Voldemort asks Snape if the elder wand truly listens to him. Voldemort thinks that it listens to Snape because he killed its last owner, Dumbledore. Voldemort has his snake kill Snape. If Voldemort's theory was correct, that the wand listens to Snape and killing him would be the answer, wouldn't the wand belong to the snake? This is probably a stupid question but it would make sense to me. The snake is a living thing, Voldemort himself doesn't kill Snape so it would go to the snake, right?

Jennifer Smith

Chosen answer: Voldemort was not correct. He mistakenly believed that Snape was the wand's master, but it was actually Draco Malfoy who commanded it, though neither he nor anyone else knew that. When Draco disarmed Dumbledore when they were atop the Astronomy Tower, the wand, sensing Dumbledore was defeated, changed its allegiance to Draco. It was after that event occurred that Snape killed Dumbledore. Even though Draco never physically possessed it, the wand remained under his control until Harry disarmed him. It is not necessary to kill the Elder's wand's master in order to win control of it. Also, if an animal killed the Elder Wand's master, it is unlikely the wand would respond to it. It would have to be a human or a humanoid-being.

raywest

Your last sentence, of course, becomes far more complicated in light of the Fantastic Beasts series' revelation that Nagini WAS once a human being. Given that this is the case, if Snape really had been the master of the Elder Wand, could Nagini have become its next master upon killing him? Hopefully, J. K. Rowling will answer this question someday.

Well either way it won't worked for Snape because he wasn't the master of the Elder wand at that point. He didn't even know that the Elder wand belong to Draco and then to Harry. He wasn't interested in the Elder wand as a matter of fact.

DFirst1

I think it's more important that regardless whether Nagini was a human once or not, at that point Nagini was a Horcrux and a vessel of Voldemort's soul without having a soul herself (if she ever did), unlike Harry. So Nagini killing Snape is the same as Voldemort himself killing him.

lionhead

28th Apr 2020

Titanic (1997)

Answer: I think she wanted people to stop focusing on this valuable necklace. She wanted them to care more about love, and the Titanic passengers who died.

Answer: The necklace is called "The heart of the Ocean." While in the middle of the ocean, Rose had her heart captured by Jack Dawson. Rose returned the diamond to the ocean in the exact place where her heart was taken by Jack. As she says at one point, "A woman's heart is a deep ocean of secrets"

Ssiscool

Answer: She basically gave it back to the ship. It was a symbolic gesture towards Jack as basically he died because of it.

lionhead

11th May 2006

Scream (1996)

Question: Why did Billy and Stu want to kill Tatum? I've read that she said Stu was bad in bed, but when does she say this in the movie?

Answer: They didn't have anything against Tatum specifically, her death was just necessary for their scary movie plan against Sidney. They also said that anyone who isn't a virgin dies in a scary movie, and we know Tatum wasn't a virgin.

Did they say "anyone who isn't a virgin"? I thought it was anyone who has sex *during* the horror movie events - not including people who were *already* not virgins.

Typically, the cliche is "sex or promiscuity = death." I don't think it necessarily has to be during the events of the movie. Debating the minutiae is probably just gonna make us run in circles.

TedStixon

Answer: I don't understand why people are getting hung up on the virgin thing. Sure, there are some movies where someone who isn't a virgin survives. But the common cliche in horror that everyone knows is that sex typically equals death. Doesn't matter if some movies don't follow the cliche... it's still the cliche, and Stu and Billy are operating by the cliches.

TedStixon

In addition to this, Stu and Billy were planning to be the two survivors and make "the sequel." They probably viewed themselves as the main characters. Tatum was one of the "side characters" who would typically be killed.

Except even in this movie, Sidney should be dead by that logic. While Randy is explaining that rule, Sid is upstairs breaking said rule with Billy.

Answer: But Amy Steel's Ginny in Friday the 13th Part 2 wasn't a virgin and she survived. Yet these guys claim to know horror movies.

Rob245

It's just a TV trope used in the movie.

lionhead

Question: Given there's only a few months between this movie and the previous one, that means it's set around 2014 vs. Infinity War being set in 2018, as best anyone can figure. Is there any official word on what the Guardians are up to in the intervening 4 years?

Jon Sandys

Chosen answer: Short answer: Probably nothing much good. In all that time Quinn still felt like a reaver, and Rocket doesn't deny he likes crime. Only Gamora keeps them at bay from doing anything really nasty. In the mean time they try to do good things, protect planets, hunt pirates, stuff like that. It's a crazy bunch of individuals.

lionhead

Answer: They're mercenaries, like we see with the Sovereign. They do good things for money. We see this with the Sovereign, and Quill's comments make this seem like this is normal. Later, Rocket makes a comment about raising their prices. In Infinity War, they only respond to the Asgardian distress call because they expect to be paid.

Question: Can Sauron sense when the ring is near him?

Answer: Frodo entered Mordor and came close to the tower whilst carrying the ring and Sauron didn't notice it, so this ability is either not there or highly limited. He can only sense it when someone puts it on. It's possible he can sense it when it's inside his tower though.

lionhead

8th Apr 2020

Beetlejuice (1988)

Answer: This is never revealed.

lionhead

Answer: It's been inferred that she died from a sickness.

8th Apr 2020

Titanic (1997)

Question: Would everyone have been saved if the lifeboats had been filled to capacity properly? Mr Andrews yells at one of the officers about the boats not being full and how they were tested with the weight of 70 men, so won't buckle under the weight of only 15 or 20 people. So since women and children don't weigh as much as men would, if they had filled the boats properly, would everyone have been saved in the actual tragedy?

Answer: Not everyone, no. Even with all the boats at full capacity they still couldn't hold all of them. It had 20 lifeboats in total that could carry a maximum of 1178 people, at full capacity. The ship was carrying 2208 people (passengers and crew). Even if you would cram as much people in them, you still couldn't fit them all in and there will be risk of sinking. The 2 major problems were that they measured lifeboat capacity in cubic meters rather than number of people, if the ship was in full lifeboat capacity (64 instead of only 20) it could take everybody twice over. Secondly it wasn't considered necessary according to the safety regulations to have more lifeboats because of the tonnage of the ship, regulations that maxed ships at 10,000 tons (whilst the Titanic was over 46,000 tons). Eventually only 710 people were saved, because of incompetent evacuation procedures and panic. Almost all first and second class women and children were saved, third class and crew were not so lucky.

lionhead

Answer: In a word, no. More lives would have been saved, but as an earlier scene points out (and accurately reflects what happened in real life), there was only enough lifeboat capacity for roughly half the people onboard, even if they were filled to capacity.

Answer: There were not enough life boats for all passengers, and it was because it was never believed everyone needed to be in them at once during an emergency. While it's true that cruise lines didn't want too many boats blocking passengers' view, their intended use was to ferry passengers in turn from a stricken vessel to a rescue ship. After the disaster, new maritime regulations were enacted, including enough lifeboats for all passengers.

raywest

Answer: Also, even if there were enough boats, there was not enough time to get all the boats filled and lowered.

Yes there was. It took over 2 hours for Titanic to sink. Plenty of time to get everyone on the lifeboats, if they had known the urgency.

lionhead

In one of James Cameron's documentaries that he did after making the movie, they timed him lowering a lifeboat, and it took him twenty minutes to get it swung out and lowered while it was empty. Add additional time to actually fill them would bring launching one to at least 30 minutes. So no, even if they had enough lifeboats, there wouldn't have been time to launch them all. They didn't even launch all the ones that they did have.

They weren't launched one by one, you know.

lionhead

Question: When Déagol finds the ring, Sméagol asks to have it. When Déagol asks why, Sméagol says because it's his birthday and that he wanted it. Was it really Sméagol's birthday or was he already so quickly drawn by the ring's power that he only claimed it was in hopes that Déagol would hand it over?

Answer: In the book, it absolutely was his birthday.

Brian Katcher

What chapter in the book where smeagol kills deagol?

DFirst1

The Fellowship of the Ring, chapter two 'The Shadow of the Past.'.

Brian Katcher

Answer: It probably wasn't his birthday on that exact day, that would be too much of a coincidence. But close is definitely possible, or at least closer than Deagol's. Both were immediately drawn by the ring, heavily enough that they fought over it and Smeagol becoming the ultimate winner. Both did everything to keep it.

lionhead

Question: How does Sauron know Frodo has the ring? He doesn't even know who Frodo is.

Answer: He doesn't. He only knows that someone named "Baggins" from the Shire has the ring. He learns this from torturing Gollum. He sends the ringwraiths to the Shire to search for it, and they sense it enough to figure out who has it.

Why do the wraith have to find it if they can sense it?

The wraiths at this point aren't powerful enough to simply know where it is by sensing it. At this point they can only sense it when they are close and it is put on. Once Frodo put it on, they knew who he was and where the ring was.

lionhead

25th Jun 2010

The Book of Eli (2010)

Question: If he is blind how do you explain the accurate shots with the arrow?

Answer: A large study was done after the atomic blasts in Japan in WW2 after the surrender on the effects to victims' eyesight. Over 70% of the people that indirectly looked at the light were not completely blind. They suffered from cataracts, and out of those studied over 50% could see during the day - mostly shades of black and shadows / silhouettes of people and objects. Those that survived became very keen to see movement as long as they were in bright light, also heightened since of smell and feeling vibrations. This would explain why Eli never traveled at night and was not totally blinded by a nuclear flash, if he was completely blind - night would give him a much larger advantage. You notice he always travels when the sun comes up so he can see silhouettes of people and objects moving. Also when Solara interred his room at Carnegie's hall she said "it's bright in here" Eli had all the lights on so he could see anyone entering the room / cell. Also he wears sunglasses because obviously he does not want his cataracts to get worse. If you watch the movie again there are many tells to support that he is only partially blind and had mild to moderate cataracts. You can also see his eyes on the boat to Alcatraz, showing his cataracts.

He was born blind, at the start he smells the hijackers and moves into the dark to level the playing field.

How would he know where the dark is?

He was not born blind. He was blinded during armageddon, but after finding the Bible was given his sight back in order to complete the task given to him by God. Once his task was completed he once again lost his sight.

Nope! He was given his sight back by God in order to complete the task he was given, only to lose it once again after it was completed.

Answer: Believe he is partially blind. You don't need to be completely blind to need to learn braille.

He is not blind. He sees cars coming runs into the house and immediately checks the windows.

Answer: He was blind before the flash. That's how he could read braille, and had a braille bible. Remember, he asked Solaris' mother when she lost her sight - she said before the flash. That's why she also could read braille. He was totally blind. God gave him the ability to do what he did.

Answer: I think everyone missed something that is completely obvious. He is absolutely 100% blind. He always reacts. He never starts at first. During the gunfight he never once fired upon someone unless he was shot at first. During the bridge fight, he did not attack anyone until they screamed or were close enough to where he was feeling them. When he found the body hanging in the closet and he felt it with his hands from head to foot and felt the boots. Same thing with the car with the skeleton. He felt all the way down and realised it did not have boots. Every fight scene and everything he did in this movie was a reaction to somebody else doing something first.

Answer: He is 100% blind and if you pay close attention to the movie, it is proven and shown. He only reacts to his senses, the scene where the man is hanging, Eli smells him; he does not see him. The scene with the hijackers, he goes under the bridge, soo he can hear their movement using echolocation. The shootout scene if you listen very closely when Carnegie is speaking to him, Eli clicks his tongue using echolocation again. The scene with the couple as he is walking up to their home, he makes the clicking noises again and bangs of the door with the gun to listen to the sound. In the shootout scene, Eli only shoots at those who were firing at him; which was in the direction of the gunshot sounds. The scene where he gives up the book and is shot, he stands up and looks around with confusion because he does not know who else is there, and he blindly swings his knife around to try to fight back. He was able to do what he did due to God's protection and guidance.Hence "Walk by Faith not by Sight".

Answer: It's clear from examining his eyes in various shots throughout the film that he is not blind for most of it. He was almost certainly blind before his journey began, then is sight was restored so he could complete the task. There are several scenes where his eyes can be seen. They are brown and when he talks to people, he looks them in the eye. At the end of the film, his eyes go gray, showing he is blind again.

Um...no...sorry good theory, but he just has heightened senses, and I believe isn't 100% blind but is mostly like 80-90%.

If you disagree, then please present evidence to refute my theory, rather than simply stating an opinion. Do you disagree that his eyes are brown throughout the film, then go gray at the end? Do you disagree that he looks people directly in the eye? Do you disagree that he is able to aim and shoot at distances a blind person wouldn't be able to?

The idea is that he was blind to begin with. The fact they didn't show his eyes grey is that it would reveal that fact and make the movie look stupid. The way they approach it is the surprise at the end that it turns out he is blind, not that he had gone blind again. If wasn't blind during the movie there would have been no point in showing him blind at the end, nor would it be logical he has a braille bible that he knows by heart.

lionhead

We'll just have to disagree. My take was that he was blind previously (hence his ability to read braille and his use of his other senses) but was given sight to complete his task, then lost his sight just before death.

Answer: He can hear their wings flapping, and he is guided from above. His other senses are extraordinarily sensitive and honed.

17th Feb 2004

Minority Report (2002)

Question: OK, let's see: Lamar Burgess set Anderton up; he Hired Leo Crow and sent him to be killed in a hotel. But How did exactly Burgess plan the meeting of Anderton with Crow? Anderton arrived at the crime scene by a chain of events that began with the pre-vision of his destiny. It was clear that Lamar did not fake the pre-vision, because this became true just like it was predicted; besides, when Anderton was being chased, he arrived to crime scene by a coincidence; so what did Burguess have to do to make sure the existence of the pre-vision and this possible future? I don't see a simple solution.

Answer: Well, there isn't really a simple solution, but here goes. For a pre-vision to form, there have be two things present within the range of the precog ability (which appears to be limited to the Washington area - regardless of the stated plan to take the programme countrywide, there's never any indication that the precogs can sense beyond that range). Firstly, someone with the intent to kill. Secondly, there has to be a target for that intent within the range of the precogs. Anderton is present, and has the intent within him to kill the man who took his son, but has no target - the real kidnapper is presumably either dead or beyond the precog ability. Burgess, by bribing Crow to pretend to be that man, has provided a viable target for Anderton's intent within the range of the precog ability, thus triggering the prevision, and beginning the chain of events.

Tailkinker

The above answers the question, but there do appear to be some time travel issues with this plot point in the movie. Burgess set things up for Crow to fake being the kidnapper and thus triggering Jon's desire to kill that person, everything starts by the pre-cogs seeing the future. If the pre-cogs did not exist or did not have the vision, Jon would have never known that Leo Crow existed and would have continued on without having killed anyone. This is unique within the movie, as the other murders would have been commited regardless of whether or not the pre-cogs saw it. In this case, the ONLY reason this murder occurred is because the pre-cogs saw it.

oldbaldyone

Thinking about this a little more, it could be conceivable that Burgess had planned a different option for Jon finding Crow. We just never saw that on screen, because the precogs changed everything to an alternative future timeline once they saw the original murder. Originally, Jon could have been triggered by Burgess himself, stating that they got a lead on his son's murder and pointing him to Crow.

oldbaldyone

No I think Burgess set it up so that Anderton would find Crow because of the precogs, not have a different plan set up before or else it could be possible Burgess himself would be visible in the prevision. He manipulated the system perfectly, he has done it before after all. He knows exactly how the precogs work so he is able to set it up so that it's untraceable. Except, except for the fact there is always a choice. Only then did it go wrong for him. This proves both true for Anderton and Burgess in the end.

lionhead

6th Mar 2020

The Truman Show (1998)

Question: How did Truman make a fake body sleeping and a hole in the closet while all cameras were watching?

Answer: There's a scene between Christof and Simeon where they discuss the fact that Truman has been moving things in the basement, but he "gave up and fell asleep." Truman tricked them into thinking he was upset about Meryl leaving and used the activity to mask what he was actually doing.

Answer: Basically he got lucky that the camera angles weren't perfect. He knew he was being watches so he slowely and silently snuck out of bed and placed the doll. It's just luck that they didn't use the clearer angle of him sleeping until after he switched. The audio was focussed on that so they couldn't hear anything else going on in the room.

lionhead

21st Mar 2020

I Am Legend (2007)

Question: If the monsters are smart enough to move "Fred" from the store and set up a trap, then how have they been unable to find Neville's SUV which is parked outside his house? They saw that SUV when he first captured a monster and also he got in it after escaping the trap. They can communicate to one another and in their numbers it wouldn't have taken long for them to find the SUV and thus where he lives. Plus, it seems to be the only vehicle (short of the Mustang which we never see again) that has clean windows and no plants growing around it, it should stick out like a sore thumb.

Answer: It's possible only 1 of them was able to set up the trap, doing this after its mate was taken by Neville. Before that they weren't tracking him in the shadows during the day. It became very personal for that one and thus was focused on getting revenge. This focus gave it back some of its intelligence so it followed him in the shadows during the day and discover ways to lay a trap. He also appears to be some kind of leader figure.

lionhead

Question: Tom Riddle tells Harry that Ginny wrote the messages on the wall. But how did she write them? They appear to be up way too high for her to reach.

Answer: She got some stairs. The corridors are empty for long times, she had plenty of time to write it. Either that or levitation.

lionhead

Why did Tom Riddle tell Ginny to write the messages on the wall?

Because it was obvious that neither he or the snake could write the message themselves. He's creating fear at Hogwarts.

lartaker1975

17th Mar 2020

Watchmen (2009)

Question: Did this movie have some sort of point? That genocide of several million to prevent war was a good idea? That and how did they avoid being sued considering Batman's got an Owl Man, a Spider Woman was in existence before this spider super heroine and the white masked guy seems to be a take on The Question.

Rob245

Answer: Why would they be sued? DC own both the DC comics properties and the Watchmen characters.

Answer: You forgot where DC ended up owning Captain Marvel claiming he was a Super Man ripoff and how Marvel sued the name away from the character.

Rob245

Answer: There is no "spider super heroine" in this movie. Silk Spectre has no superpowers, so I'm not sure where you're getting the connection to Spider-Woman from. Watchmen is a DC property, as are Batman and The Question, who was acquired by DC several years before the Watchmen graphic novel was published, so there would be no plagiarism lawsuits in response. The point of the movie, much like the graphic novel it is based on, is to illustrate the dangers of nuclear tension and war, and how regular people pay the price of the actions of contentious governments.

Phaneron

And to show that someone who is supposedly super-smart is also usually super-insane.

lionhead

Answer: I mean as in Bob Kane suing since Owl Man's sort of like Batman.

Rob245

Bob Kane undoubtedly received royalties for creating Batman, but the character is owned by DC. It's not as if he had the right to start his own comic book company and take Batman away from DC, so even if he felt slighted by Nite Owl II having some similarities to Batman, he would have no legal grounds to sue for it. Furthermore, characters would have to be blatant ripoffs in many ways in order for comic book companies to be able to sue over. Marvel and DC have many characters that are similar in powers, appearance, etc, but those similarities are usually so superficial that they can be dismissed as homages or parodies and it would prove difficult for one company to sue the other over it. A really good example would be Deadpool who was practically created as a parody of Deathstroke. The only case I can think of where a lawsuit had enough merit to go to court was Marvel suing Awesome Entertainment for redesigning Fighting American into a shameless ripoff Captain America.

Phaneron

17th Mar 2020

Taken (2008)

Question: Women are getting kidnapped in the area where persons get dropped in front of an France Airport which bystanders would be able to see them. So how have persons of this Syndicate not been caught?

Answer: The people at the airport are just spotters, they contact the eventual kidnappers once they have an address to send them to. They aren't doing anything illegal or suspicious so they can't get caught with anything.

lionhead

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