Best thriller movie questions of 2002

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Darkness picture

Question: Why does the girl cut her dad's throat, if she knew that it would fulfill the curse?

Answer: She was trying to help him breathe.

Melissa Swanger

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John Q picture

Question: After John releases the hostages, we see the woman Rosa go to a police car. When she is asked to comment on John, she calls him a good man and then starts talking in Spanish. I can catch that she calls someone crazy, but I can't understand any of the rest. What is it that she's saying?

Answer: She says, "John Q is a good man. He is unlike the other jerk that hits his wife in the face."

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Chosen answer: Since Del knew that the tuxedo actually belonged to Clark, she most likely thought that the watch and shoes did too.

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Signs picture

Question: I don't get it. What was the purpose of the aliens coming to Earth? And what exactly happened to them? Where did they go?

MovieBuff09

Answer: It's left unclear, though the film proposes several possible theories, and there are other possible explanations as well. One major theory brought up in the film is that the aliens were there to acquire Earth's resources after using up their own. Another theory proposed at the end of the movie is that the aliens wanted humans for whatever reason, as a radio DJ mentions seeing his friend's family being dragged away. There is also a very popular fan theory that the aliens are supposed to represent demons that are merely there to create chaos and test the moral strength of humanity, as the film is ultimately about Graham losing and then regaining his faith, although this is more subtext than anything and may not be literally true.

Answer: Near the end of the movie... The morning after in the basement... The guy on the radio says the aliens were there not for the planet, but to harvest humans. For what purpose is unknown, maybe as an energy source, Matrix-style.

Chosen answer: According to the theory in the movie they were there to take the planet for their own because they used up all the resources their own planet. They left the planet when it became apparent to them that the water on Earth was too dangerous.

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Answer: Harrison Ford does attempt a Russian accent in this film. It's a very slight, very bad attempt but he's definitely trying. Audiences come to expect accents in films such as these for a heightened sense of immersion. Hearing American accents from supposedly Russian characters can sometimes be jarring to an audience, even if the characters are speaking English. This of course isn't always the case and plenty of films have actors speaking in their natural accents while they are playing foreign characters. The director of this film chose to have his actors speak with Russian accents, with extremely poor results pretty much all around.

BaconIsMyBFF

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Die Another Day picture

Question: In "The World Is Not Enough" Bond, using his intuition, correctly assessed that Elektra King had sided with the villain. So why did he never suspect for a second that Miranda Frost had done the same in this film?

Answer: Bond's suspicions about Elektra King were triggered by his discovery that her head of security, Davidov, was working with Renard. With Miranda Frost, there was nothing that would have led Bond to believe she was a double agent working for Graves/Moon in any capacity other than her undercover MI6 assignment.

Sierra1

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The Sum of All Fears picture

Question: As President Fowler is being escorted from the football stadium, he tells Cabot to "get the people out of here." How did the President know that the bomb was in the building? No one in the scene knew its exact location, so why does he think that if the fans leave the stadium they will be safe?

Answer: The President telling Cabot to "get the people out of here" is just a political life boat. If asked what he did when he found out about the bomb he can "honestly" say he asked for an evacuation.

It's unlikely at such a time of panic that one would consider a 'political life boat'. There's also nothing in the character as presented to suggest that would be his thought process. The president's just been told that there's a bomb in Baltimore (not the building) and says "get those people out of the stadium." He's being evacuated from a location that contains thousands of other people. It's fair to assume he knows all those people are also in danger so wants them evacuated too.

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Irreversible picture

Question: What is the meaning of the flashing lights at the end of the movie (after the camera pans from Alex reading the book at the park)?

Dra9onBorn117

Chosen answer: The flashing lights are to create a sense of uneasiness again. Gaspar Noe uses low frequency sound to create nausea, headaches, and disorientation in the beginning and uses it again here to make the viewer feel sick after the mood changes dramatically. Also it symbolizes the chaos that occurs in the universe & how life can easily spiral out of control as it does in the movie.

Dra9onBorn117

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Insomnia picture

Question: Why does Dormer switch to a backup gun while chasing the killer in the fog? It is never explained.

aftucci

Answer: Plot device to make Ellie look like a super sleuth remembering Dormer even carries a backup. When Hap and Dugger were comparing guns Hap says he and Dormer both carry S&W .45s. This makes the 9mm casing Ellie found a complete mystery to everyone else. So why the switch? Dormer's primary might be empty, but this is the first time Dormer shoots and all the characters act like there are only two shots fired in the fog, so for it to be empty he would have to be terribly sloppy. If he's so bad he forgot to load his gun it's equally likely he left the safety on. Maybe Dormer is just so used to being a dirty cop he instinctively uses the backup whenever possible to create an alibi. Ultimately, there is no explanation for this in the film, and if blink you don't even see the switch and are very confused when the 9mm casing shows up in the first place, if Nightmute carries.40, and Dormer .45, then 9mm has no place at all.

In the Netflix version with subtitles, when Dormer fires his primary weapon, the subtitle says "gun clicks." Dormer briefly looks at his gun and then pulls his secondary weapon. Nolan may have intended this to be ambiguous so the viewer doesn't know whether it was an accident or intentional (Nolan would never leave a "mistake" in the final edit - in fact, in interviews, he said he watched the movie at least a hundred times while editing), but the subtitles seem to put this debate to rest.

Chosen answer: Because he ran out of bullets in his first gun.

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Ghost Ship picture

Question: Why was Epps's dead crew involved in taking the gold onto the new ship? Wouldn't their souls have gone to Heaven when the ship sank?

Answer: No, they succumbed to their sins so their souls are eternally damned.

Phixius

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Star Trek: Nemesis picture

Question: Wouldn't Shinzon have had to know where the enterprise is being assigned in order lure them to pick up B-4? Data's brain has a safeguard so his positronic energy signature cannot be tracked. And how did he know a different ship instead of the enterprise wouldn't come to Remus to pick up B-4?

Answer: Long range sensors can show the general location of specific ships (this is part of the reason Romulans and Klingons use cloaking devices). All Shinzon has to do is find a remote planet close enough to the Enterprise that would cause them to be the most prudent choice to investigate. It's definitely a gamble but not one that is made without calculation.

BaconIsMyBFF

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The Transporter picture

Question: After the Transporters BMW gets blown up he goes back to the house and starts beating everyone up. Whats the song that plays during the the whole scene? I don't think it's on the soundtrack.

Answer: It's not in the soundtrack. The song is "Fighting Man" by "DJ Pone & Drixxxe".

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Eight Legged Freaks picture

Question: Do the spiders grow big because of the food that they are fed, or because of the chemicals spilled in the water?

Answer: Both! The owner of the spider farm was feeding the spiders bugs from the water that had the chemical spill in it. The bugs were contaminated with the chemical, thus contaminating the spiders. Note: The man who owned the spider farm had no idea about the contaminated water.

SAZOO1975

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FearDotCom picture

Question: How did that German male die? I would also like to know who made the website.

Answer: The german male died from the hemoraging ebola-like disease that everyone who views the site gets. DOn't know any other way to describe it. As for the who made the website part, I have no idea.

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Clockstoppers picture

Question: In the scene where the hypertime QT agents are in Zak's house, one of them gets sprayed with liquid nitrogen, bringing him down to normal time. But, if he is in normal time, wouldn't Zak's mom and sister see him? Don't you think they would call the police after seeing a stranger in their house?

Brad

Chosen answer: Probably, but it's not essential to the plot so there's no reason to show it.

Knever

Answer: These are top agent like figures who likely don't want many people knowing what's going on. Those still in hypertime probably carried the normal-time agent out of the building before Zak's mom found him.

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Murder by Numbers picture

Question: Could someone please explain what the title means and what numbers have to do with anything? I'm not a native English speaker and I don't get it.

Answer: It's like a paint-by-numbers, where a picture is outlined on a board, and each little piece of it has a number corresponding to a different color of paint. You paint in the spaces based on what the numbers tell you. Murder by numbers refers to the boys following all the "rules" about how to create the perfect murder: choosing a victim at random, etc. They're murdering based on what they've been told is the right way to do it.

Krista

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The Scorpion King picture

Question: In Roger Ebert's review, he says "...Mathayus intones, 'As long as one of us still breathes, the sorcerer will die.' See if you can spot the logical loophole." I can't - what's the problem with that line?

Jon Sandys

Chosen answer: By the way Mathayus is saying it, it sounds like he is saying as long as him or the sorcerer still breathes, either he or the sorcerer will die, but he is trying to say as long as one of the Akkadians are breathing, they will not stop trying to kill the sorcerer until he is dead.

T Poston

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Rose Red picture

Question: After Emery has his fingers cut off and everyone is trapped in the room, Nick informs everyone that Kevin Bollinger hung himself in the Mirror Library after letting Emery's mother into the house. This would make him a ghost obviously, but this creates a problem. How has he been able to appear as a ghost for so long if he must have been alive to let Emery's mother into the house? Did I miss something?

Rosie John

Chosen answer: It was actually the bloated corpse of Kevin that let Emery's mother in, so he wasn't alive when letting her in.

Bishop73

Answer: Then Nick should have said he hung himself before letting Emery's mother in. Also, he turned into a bloated corpse pretty fast but the house has a way of playing tricks.

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Ted Bundy picture

Question: How did Ted Bundy manage to fool law enforcement, and evade them for years before finally being arrested?

Answer: I don't think he fooled police. He was clever and able to commit murders without leaving enough evidence to directly tie him to the crime. Eventually there was enough physical as well as circumstantial and eye witness accounts to convict him. He evaded police for stretches of time by flying under the radar and carefully calculating his moves. Weird writing about this as he terrorized my city.

raywest

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