Question: Throughout the movie it's suggested that Quaid/Hauser isn't experiencing anything at all and what he's experiencing is in fact a memory implant. My questions is, did the events actually happen or were they simply the memory implant Quaid purchased at Rekall?
GalahadFairlight
28th Jun 2009
Total Recall (1990)
Answer: Although left deliberately ambiguous, it should be noted that the director's intention was for it to be all part of a dream / delusion. Indeed, despite the ambiguity, more evidence exists to indicate that the story was imagined as opposed to reality.
28th Jun 2009
The Terminator (1984)
Question: I've always wondered, what's the significance of the kid pointing a wooden gun and making 'pew pew' noises at Reese when he enters the human hideout? Is it meant to be purely a bit of comical play between the two, or a subtle inference that mankind will never be able to abolish its inherent desire to destroy itself, even in the face of total extinction?
Answer: Its simply a child being a child and playing, but more than anything, showing the innocence of the children that inspite of the near death of the human race all around them, there's still time to play and be... human.
Answer: I think it refers more to the irony fact the kids innocently playing soldiers, would soon become real soldiers in a fight for their lives.
Answer: I've always thought it was to show that these children didn't know anything else. They hadn't had a childhood due to the war against the machines and all they knew was to shoot guns because that's all they've seen people do.
Answer: I agree with the playing and innocence aspects, as well as some comic relief. Toddlers/children prepare for possible future roles in life by mimicking adults' behaviors. What the child lacks is a sense of danger, showing no fear (or guilt) "shooting" a much larger person who knows how to kill. The child also lacks an understanding of consequences of behavior and meaning/permanence of death.
27th Jun 2009
Independence Day (1996)
Question: It's been shown in the film the the aliens are technologically more advanced than us. Then, how come, with all their technology, they were unable to defend themselves from something as simple as a computer virus?
Answer: Remember that the aliens had to interface with our satellite computer code first...David simply "reverse engineered" the code to create the virus. When it was uploaded, they didn't have enough time to combat it.
Answer: It was also a bit of a tribute to "War of the Worlds", in which the alien invaders with much more advanced technology ultimately succumbed to ordinary terrestrial pathogens in the original novel by H. G. Wells as well as its many screen adaptations.
Chosen answer: Its supposed to be an exercise in demonstrating how the aliens underestimated their opponent, but in reality it's merely a convenient plot device.
Answer: I was wondering the same thing. Since the Harvesters had our satellites meant they could eavesdrop on every single conversation. David and other people in the facility probably put up a firewall on the computers and cameras, so that the aliens couldn't see or hear what they were planning on doing.
Answer: Maybe there were no viruses in the planet where these aliens came from so they didn't have any countermeasures against them.
Answer: They could defend against it, hence why they bring the nuke. The virus drops the shields, and the nuke destroys The Mother Ship. David even says that the shields will be down for a few minutes.
23rd Jun 2009
War of the Worlds (2005)
Question: What exactly is the lightning the aliens use to get inside the tripods? How does it work?
Answer: For this film, the Martian tripods were already buried deep in the Earth's surface, lying dormant for thousands of years (or more) and only waiting for the actual Martians to arrive. When they did arrive, the Martians did not "teleport" into the tripods, but they were carried down in high-velocity capsules. Fairly early in the movie, a television news crew captures video footage of lightning striking the earth; upon replaying the footage in slow-motion, the TV crew can actually see these high-velocity capsules (containing the Martians) riding down the lightning stroke and into the ground. Therefore, the lightning probably served a dual purpose: It physically bored shafts into the ground directly to the tripods; it then served to guide the high-velocity capsules to the tripods.
Chosen answer: Impossible to answer, there's no indication onscreen as to how.
Actually the movie does explain how the beam works but as for what it's made of? Who knows.
Answer: I'm sure that's their teleportation beam.
Except that, if the Martians possessed extremely advanced matter-energy teleportation technology, they could have destroyed the entire human population without the Martians ever setting foot on the earth.
18th Jun 2009
The Matrix (1999)
Question: Exactly how do humans provide energy for the machines?
Chosen answer: The human body generates heat and a small degree of electricity. EKG and EEG machines for instance measure the electric activity in the heart and brain. It is thought that the energy generated by the human body could be harnessed to create power, obviously The Matrix is an evolution of that idea.
15th Jun 2009
Terminator Salvation (2009)
Question: Why did the T800 near the end destroy the 600 that was experimenting on Reese? It just seemed to be a bit out of "character" for the Terminator to unnecessarily kill one of its own kind.
Answer: Because the T-600's targeting system was damaged by Kyle shoving that steel rebar into its neck, and the T-600 was out of control just shooting anywhere and everywhere, presenting a danger to the T-800.
14th Jun 2009
Star Wars (1977)
Question: This is a two part question. Question 1: during Obi-Wan and Darth Vader's duel aboard The Death Star, Obi wan spins around, briefly exposing himself and giving Vader an opening within which to strike. Why didn't he take it and stab him through the back? Question 2: towards the end of the duel, at 91 minutes 28 seconds, why does Obi-Wan's lightsaber dim to the point of where it looks like it's going out?
Chosen answer: In response to your first part, its simply a case that Vader missed the opening, he clearly has no issues with striking down someone unarmed as he demonstrates later. In response to your second question, its a fault with the effects used at the time that when the lightsabers were held at certain angles, the effects used to 'paint' on the shimmer of the lightsabers couldn't be applied because there wasn't enough of the required colouring.
14th Jun 2009
Doctor Who (2005)
Question: Why are the vast majority of stories set on modern day Earth as opposed to the 1963-1989 series where nearly every story was set on an alien planet?
Chosen answer: One of the 'quaint' aspects of Doctor Who of old was the utter cheapness of the BBC in spending as little money as possible on the original series. Visits to 'alien planets' were laughably poor looking, clearly were Earth like with a few 'alien' touches, and it was something that writer Russel T Davies didn't want to return to.
7th Jun 2009
Terminator Salvation (2009)
Question: What causes the explosion near the start which causes John Connor's helicopter to crash? I may be missing something, but they never seem to address it.
Chosen answer: It was a strike by Skynet on the attacked facility to try and deny the resistance information and anything useful.
20th Feb 2009
Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (2008)
Question: During the credits, in the voices category, there are two actors listed for the voice of Baby Alex. Why were two actors needed?
Chosen answer: There's two reasons. Firstly, infants are only allowed to work for short periods of time, hence why when you see babies onscreen that are heavily featured, invariably twins are used to alternate to not fall foul of the rules. Secondly, it may be that one of the voices didn't give the filmakers as much diverse dialogue as they needed so they brought in another actor to get the rest they needed.
Answer: It could be kind of like the thing from the "Wimpy Kid" movies, but with voice acting. The voice actors could be infants or toddlers, which don't behave well. So the filmmakers have two of them (It doesn't have to be twins since they're doing voice acting) that way they can swap out one with the other.
11th May 2009
Star Trek (2009)
Question: If Spock easily destroys the Romulan drill in his "Jellyfish" ship, and Kirk and Sulu nearly take it out using hand phasers, why couldn't the Starfleet garrison on Earth, or some other planetary defense weaponry destroy it? Surely there was a single ship with minimal armament that could have taken it down.
Answer: Spock's ship is from 200 years in the future, and is likely quite a bit more powerful than its size would imply. Kirk and Sulu were able to land on the drill because of their significantly smaller size to a ship, i.e. they were invisible to scanning. And finally, as was so amptly displayed by the Nerada, it destroyed seven Federation Starships in a matter of minutes, I think its fair to theorise that a much smaller ship would fare little better in sneaking a shot at the drill.
That's a stretch. Kirk and Sulu were able to shoot hand held rifles at the drill and disable it. There wasn't a single ship on earth that could compare to the firepower of two hand held rifles?
6th May 2009
Fast & Furious (2009)
Question: What is the exact timeline for this movie? Is it taking place at the same time that the Tokyo Drift is taking place? Or is it supposed to be before?
Chosen answer: It's a slightly tricky one to answer because the movie doesn't give very many clues. What we do know for a fact is the events at the start during and up to the conclusion of the Petroleum tanker heists was set before Tokyo Drift as evidenced by Dom speaking to Han with a view to returning back to Tokyo. After that it gets a little fuzzy. Some people claim the entire movie is before Tokyo Drift, but that simply cannot be the case as there are lots of 2008/2009 model cars around the movie, so the general consensus is the very start is before Tokyo Drift, and the time when Dom comes out of travelling/hiding and gets the phone call that Letty is dead is now after Tokyo Drift.
This is not right. The entire movie takes place before "Tokyo Drift", as that is where Han dies. He is still around for the next two films and then dies in the seventh where events catch up with "Tokyo Drift" and then continues where it left off.
Yeah, Han's not dead either, he's back in the 9th movie.
Answer: This film, as well as F5 and F6, are all prequels to Tokyo Drift and sequels to 2 Fast 2 Furious. We know this as Han supposedly died in Tokyo Drift (this is retconned in F9), but is alive and well in Fast and Furious, as if nothing ever happened, and the fact we never see Sean, Twinkie or anyone else from Tokyo Drift besides Han returning until Furious 7. The start of Furious 7 crosses over with the end of Tokyo Drift, and then it picks up where Tokyo Drift leaves off after Dom and Sean race each other.
25th Apr 2009
The X-Files (1993)
Question: It's been stated through out the show that Earth was originally inhabited by an extraterrestrial species known as 'The Colonists', that they fled the Earth during the last ice age and that they intend to re-colonize the Earth in 2012. Now, they're obviously more technologically advanced than us, so why do they want to re-colonize the Earth? There's a whole universe of planets out there to choose from. Also, why wait until 2012? Why not just invade?
Chosen answer: They want to return because its their home planet. Secondly The Colonists didn't expect Humans to get quite so advanced whilst they were away, so invading doesn't make sense, and is likely to ruin the planet further.
14th Apr 2009
Fast & Furious (2009)
Question: Are they completely ignoring the events of the second movie? I was given the impression that Brian and Roman were going to open a garage together with the money they took from Carter. Plus Brian was on the outs with the FBI. Yet in this movie, he's suddenly an FBI agent.
Answer: No it doesn't ignore 2 Fast 2 Furious, Brian even references it a couple of times. In that movie, Brian was promised a 'clean slate' if he helped them out which presumably gives him the option to rejoin a law enforcement agency. That he chose not to open a garage with Roman is pretty much redundant, Brian simply got a better offer, and as he stated in Fast & Furious with his conversation with Mia, "I'm a good liar".
16th Apr 2009
iCarly (2007)
Question: I need someone from across the pond to help settle an argument between me and my wife. In the episode "i Rock the Vote", Wade Collins repeatedly uses the term "hob knocker." My kids asked, "What's a 'hob knocker'?" I said that it was something they made up that sounds somewhat British, probably insulting, and possibly vulgar. My wife insists that she has heard it somewhere else. So, for the record, what, if anything, does "hob knocker" mean?
Answer: In direction translation it means 'Mischievous Spirit'. 'Hob' as in HobGoblin means clown or prankster, and 'Knocker' was an old age term for Poltergeists in mines. Miners would often complain of hearing knocking sounds down mines when there was no-one else down there, hence 'Knocker'. It's not a regular English expression though.
15th Apr 2009
SpongeBob SquarePants (1999)
Question: Where can I download the mp3 file of "Back In Encino"?
Chosen answer: It's not available officially on any of the released albums. Google is your friend in this instance.
7th Apr 2009
The Lost World (1925)
Question: Is this film in the public domain? Thanks.
Answer: No, it's owned by Film Preservation Associates.
5th Apr 2009
Earthquake (1974)
Question: What was the point of the crazy soldier who shoots the black thieves and later gets shot dead by George Kennedy? Why was he so nutty, and quite frankly what purpose did he even serve in the film?
Chosen answer: Before he put the uniform on, he was a complete nobody, having the respect of no-one. Now that he's in uniform, he demands that people should respect him, and coupled with the powers of Martial Law (where looters can be shot on sight), takes the lack of respect too far and shoots them.
25th Mar 2009
The Incredibles (2004)
Question: How is Dash Parr able to run across water?
Chosen answer: If any object can move across the water quickly enough, the weight isn't transferred completely. In some Scandinavian countries, they actually DRIVE very quickly across water in adapted vehicles. If the character of Dash could actually run that fast, it is feasible and possible for him to run on the water's surface.
21st Mar 2009
War of the Worlds (2005)
Question: Can anybody shed some light on how the Tripod's laser works?
Answer: In the original War of the Worlds book and movie, they were called heat rays. They (the tripods) generated incomprehensible amounts of heat, hence the laser's white color. They forward the heat in coordinated blasts of energy, that energy contains the heat. That's why the victim disintegrates so fast. The heat quickly evaporates all the liquids in the body and turns everything else (except the clothes) into ash. The ray blow burst of the air around it down at the ash remains of the victim, blowing the rest of the victim away.
Chosen answer: This question is beyond answering here. There is nothing to go on other that what we can see onscreen. Anyone's attempt to actually answer this question would be purely speculative.
Or from clues we have from the book. I would have to agree that it is most likely a heat laser. It makes sense with the color of the beam and the destruction it causes.
Answer: In the book the heat ray is described as being generated in a vacuum and the heat ray is invisible. Also in the book the heat ray is just that: a heat ray, it simply burns things leaving its victims as charred corpses. The 2005 version of the heat ray vaporizes flesh but not clothes (from what's seen), caught a tree on fire and sent stuff flying (cars, buildings, elevated road-ways, you name it) and is visible. Don't exactly know what it is other than an energy weapon of sorts.
Answer: If it is a heat ray, then why are the victims' clothes left behind? In the original movie, that might be right but I think the new version has something we can only speculate.
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Chosen answer: Its left deliberately ambiguous for the viewer to make up their own mind about what's real and what's fake.
GalahadFairlight