Question: Why are the officers wearing dress blues in the beginning of the movie? The replacement commander of the 110th has a chest full of ribbons...The black military police officer at the command center. Everyday military officers would be wearing Class A's or fatigues.
Question: So was there a point to the dressing room scene between Amy Adams and Gal Gadot? She trying to seduce her to get info or was this merely an excuse to get these two half nude?
Answer: It was definitely meant to be a sexy scene, but it isn't pointless. The two were genuinely bonding during that scene and the gradual friendship built between the couples forms a major part of the plot. The sexiness between them also sets up the scene later in the film where the two kiss and Karen discretely passes a knife to Natalie. As an aside, Karen isn't played by Amy Adams, she is played by Isla Fisher. Amy Adams and Isla Fisher share a striking resemblance and are constantly mistaken for one another.
Question: Why would Valak tell Lorraine her name if that's her only weakness?
Answer: Valak was portrayed as a particularly powerful demon. In horror films demons are often portrayed as overconfident, and in this case it was thinking that Lorraine Warren would not be powerful enough to be able to defeat it. In addition, Valak revealed their name while Lorraine was in a dreamlike trance state, so it may have believed that she might not remember or make the connection at any point and be able to use it to her advantage.
Question: While there were various characters being held in a sort of "suspended animation" entwined in the "canker man's" roots/webs, only one was set free (the foster care agent), why? (01:20:35 - 01:24:25)
Answer: We only see her released, but the implication is that the others were, too.
Question: How did Howard and Madeline not recognise each other?
Answer: They did recognize each other (at one point he goes to her house without asking her address). After the divorce, Howard said that he wished they were strangers again. They literally behaved as if they never met each other before (even though Madeline is gently pushing to move past being strangers - for example, by guessing he's divorced).
Question: In Resident Evil Extinction, the White Queen says Alice's blood is the cure for the whole infection. So what the heck was everyone doing the whole time? Why act so surprised to find a cure, which by the way came out of nowhere, when you were the cure the entire time?
Answer: In all honestly... this film series isn't one to shy away from ret-conning elements of prior films. ("Ret-con" being short for "retroactive continuity" - a storytelling device in which rules and plot-points are either changed or ignored in later installments.) This just seems to be another example of a ret-con. The idea that Alice was the "cure" all along would have ended the series a lot sooner, and they wanted to make more movies, so they just sort-of "ignored" this idea in the sequels that followed "Extinction."
Question: Why is it that the aliens, who obviously possess technology and intellect far beyond humans, didn't think to use their pictographs to communicate right out the gate? We had to wait for Amy Adams and her dry erase board?
Answer: The Heptapods' "present" encompassed about 6000 years of our human past, present and future. So, they perceived 3000 years of our past and 3000 years of our future simultaneously. It's a confounding idea to humans, but the Heptapods already knew, 3000 years in advance, that Louise was the critical contact for the evolution of communication between our species. For the Heptapods, there was no coincidence or impatience or blind luck; they already knew exactly when and how to start communicating with her.
Answer: The aliens don't see time in a linear fashion but all of time at once, meaning they can see the future, which is why their writing is like it is. They therefore knew Louise (played by Adams) would be the one to figure out their language and had to wait for her, or simply chose to wait for her.
Question: How did the guy know Maddie couldn't access the neighbors' WiFi and call for help? Yes, it was password protected, but there was no way he could've known she didn't know the password. If I go round my friends, I have their WiFi password. If they come round mine, they have mine. It would make sense that at some point in time, the two neighbors would've shared their details with each other.
Answer: It was probably an assumption. I doubt most people know their neighbour's WiFi password. I don't know any of my neighbours' passwords, regardless of how well acquainted we are. That's different from friends who are visiting from some distance away from their home WiFi signal. Even if a neighbour is in your house with their own electronic device, they would still be close enough to their own Internet service to get a signal.
Question: I may have missed this, but early in the film, how did Mia and Sebastian get into the empty planetarium? It must have been locked up pretty tight. Did someone let them in? Did they break in? I'm guessing this was explained and I didn't catch it.
Chosen answer: The answer is, "It's a movie." They wouldn't have been able to drive up to the entrance either. The entire sequence is fantasy-driven.
Question: Why was this movie a box office flop?
Answer: This was the fifth movie in the series, and it was not critically well-received. Most reviews felt it was unoriginal and unfunny compared to its predecessors and should probably have been released straight to video. With tepid reviews, audiences probably were willing to wait until it was available on DVD or streaming. Although not as financially successful as its predecessors, it did make around $408.5 million against a $105 million budget, so it did not lose money.
Question: In the tavern, the dwarves emphatically tell the huntsman that dwarven females are so repulsive that dwarf reproduction only happens accidentally, in bad lighting and under the influence of drink. Which sounds quite repulsive. But, when the huntsman and male dwarves are later captured in the net trap, the female dwarves turn out to be perfectly lovely, even quite sexy. Then, even stranger, one of the male dwarves later apologizes for the appearance of a lovely female dwarf (who is standing right next to him in plain sight), claiming that she was hit in the face with a rock. So, what was the purpose of the male dwarves obsessively lying about the beauty of female dwarves? Or were the male dwarves blind to true beauty for some reason?
Question: I am confused as to what really happened. Was the entire series of movies a fantasy of Reggie's like Mike said it was? Was the planet taken over by the Tall Man like the other reality showed? Or are we left to our own imagination on which reality was real and which was not?
Chosen answer: This film is infamous for its confusing to follow narrative, owed to the fact it was originally intended as a series of shorts rather than a linear structure. As it stands it is up to the viewer to decide, however the post credits scene seems to suggest one world is real as Reggie plays no part in the scene.
Question: How much time has passed between the events of the first film and this film? Since pretty much half of the White House was destroyed in the first film, wouldn't it have taken some time to rebuild that section of the White House?
Answer: About a year has passed.
Question: Why did Shere Khan kill Akela?
Answer: It was a threat to Mowgli, hoping to lure him back in grief and to save the younger wolves from the same fate.
Answer: Shere Khan was angry that Akela would not turn over Mowgli to him. It was retaliation.
Question: In the very last scene, we see Michael Shannon in shackles (presumably in a federal prison) with electroencephalographic sensors attached to his forehead and scalp, oddly gazing at the sunrise as two prison guards flank him. In the very last shot of the film, a closeup of his face, we see his eyes faintly glow for a split-second as he smiles a very slight smile. Question: Is the film implying that Alton is in otherworldly contact with his father, or that his father absorbed some of Alton's otherworldly power; or is it implying that, being the boy's biological father, he was the source of Alton's power? In any event, this may never be revealed, because the film barely made back one-third of its $18 million production budget, making the probability of a sequel highly unlikely.
Answer: I wasn't sure what to make of it, but I got the impression that he was communicating with Alton like he had done when Alton ran from the truck. I also thought his smile was perhaps in reaction to what Alton told him and/or the two were making fun of (mocking) the use of electrodes because they knew the electrodes would not have any effect on him.
P.S. Plenty of lousy movies have had sequels, so it is possible there could be a "Midnight Special 2".
Not necessarily holding my breath.
A sequel doesn't seem likely. Hope you weren't holding your breath waiting for an answer to your question.
Question: People with a rank of 10 or higher are immune from the purge, this means the NFFA and Senator Roan are immune. Why put themselves at risk of getting killed by removing the restriction if they could've had her delivered as plan, killed, and then denied her murder at the conclusion of the purge?
Answer: Because they believed in what the purge represented. In their eyes it is a legal thing, so in order for them to legally get rid of the senator they had to remove the restriction legally, not break the law.
Answer: Although it's technically a mistake, it is common in films to show military officers in dress uniforms with medals and ribbons to show that particular soldiers are important. A layperson may not know military uniform protocols but they can certainly tell that dress uniforms with a lot of medals signifies high rank at a glance.