Answered questions about specific movies, TV shows and more

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Question: Why would Dumbledore hire Lockhart to be a professor at Hogwarts? Dumbledore knows how incompetent Lockhart is and that the DADA is cursed.

Answer: This is better explained in the book. Dumbledore, and also the other Hogwarts' staff, always doubted the narcissistic Lockhart's credentials and abilities, but no-one else would accept the job, knowing it was cursed and no instructor lasted more than a year. At the time, Dumbledore was pressed to hire a new teacher before the school year started, and Lockhart was the only option and better than nothing.

raywest

Answer: On paper, Lockheart is far from incompetent. Look at all his books. It appears he has exceptional experience of the Dark Arts and creatures such as Hag's Banshee's etc. So as far as Dumbledore knows he's the best position of the job. With regards to the job being cursed, it's been cursed for 13 years with no teacher lasting more than a year. He still needs a teacher. And all the teachers get more and more qualified as time goes on. Consider the fact that he hires ex-auror, Moody.

Ssiscool

In the novels, Lockheart has admitted to Harry and Ron that he's a fraud. His backstory goes that all of his "accomplishments" were told to him by other wizards that actually achieved them and after he learned the whole story, he used Obliviate on them to make them forget what they did and claimed them as his own. Even the spell that he claims would work on pixies failed.

In the movie he tells them too. Nobody knew that though, not even Dumbledore when he hired him. Although some do start getting suspicious, like Snape.

lionhead

Dumbledore was aware of Lockhart being a fraud as two of the wizards that had their memories erased were friends of his and was able to correctly guess that Lockhart was responsible.

I wouldn't consider Dolores Umbridge, who succeeded (the fake) Mad Eye Moody, as an improvement. She was mediocre in addition to being corrupt. The real Mad Eye, never taught, so it's unknown how well he would have done. Barty Crouch, Jr. (the fake Moody) was a dark wizard, making him an effective instructor. Lupin was an excellent teacher, as was Snape, though he didn't last a full year.

raywest

Question: Why didn't one of the elders go get the medicine once they decided that someone could go get it? I get why they picked Ivy because she was unlikely to pick up on the lie due to her blindness, but why didn't her father just go? There'd be no risk to the secret being revealed if he did that.

Answer: Because they'd each sworn to never leave the village, no matter what.

Jukka Nurmi

Question: Given Tim had "The Right Missy"s phone number how could he have mistakenly texted the other one?

Rob245

Answer: Because he had both girls in his phone as "Missy" and he didn't check which Missy he was texting or forgot he had the "wrong" Missy in his phone.

Bishop73

Question: Why did Bull only lose once at the end? Wasn't it double elimination?

Answer: The announcer basically says during the final match that the winner here will win the tournament. Meaning it was double elimination up to the final match (or even the final four). I can't think of an example of a real life double elimination tournament with that structure. It feels made up for the movie to let Hawk lose once, but not have to do a 2nd finals match.

Bishop73

Question: What's the deal with the awful looking costumes in this movie? Were the costumes from the previous two no longer available?

Phaneron

Answer: Jim Henson's Creature Shop didn't work on the third entry, so they went with someone else.

Rob245

Why would Jim Henson's Creature Shop have to specifically work on the film? There were already existing suits. Shouldn't the studio have owned the suits, or did Jim Henson's Creature Shop only provide them on a rental basis?

Phaneron

All Effects was the company that provided the suits for the 3rd film. They had similar technology as Jim Henson's Creature Shop but underbid Jim Henson's Creature Shop to get the job.

Bishop73

Question: My idea was that the plot is a time loop and Cole was sent back to find a pure sample of the virus, so they can make a cure in the future and then tried to stop the pandemic but fails. That's what I thought it was about. But I've heard this crazy theory however that the scientists that send Cole and the others back are in fact responsible for releasing it and are preventing Cole from trying to prevent the pandemic in the past by keeping an eye on him and force him to follow his orders. Is that it?

lionhead

Answer: No, they really want to find a cure. Why else would that female scientist travel back to the hot zone at the very end? Why would they send people back if they wanted them to fail? It was the crazy 1990s lab assistant who released the virus.

Brian Katcher

Kill the Boy - S5-E5

Question: Ramsay talks with his father about Walda. Ramsay asks, "How did you manage it? Getting her pregnant." and Bolton responds, "I imagine you're familiar with the procedure." Then Ramsay says "Of course, but how did you find it?" to which Bolton didn't answer. So what did he mean by "find it"?

Bunch Son

Chosen answer: Ramsay is mocking Walda's obesity. He is implying that his father, Roose, had difficulty performing intercourse because Walda's excess weight impeded him finding her vagina.

raywest

Question: When Peggy Sue looks at the children in the locket, what does this mean: "Your mother gave me those. It's you and me. You know that. So are they." Doesn't seem to make sense.

Answer: When Peggy receives the locket from Charlie in 1960, the pictures inside are baby pics of Peggy and Charlie however, in the future, Peggy had replaced the pictures in the locket to pics of her children Scott and Beth, so when she sees it she is slightly confused for a second until Charlie says, "that's you and me." When she says "so are they" she is realizing that her children are indeed her and Charlie (combined)... it's where she realises that she does want to be with Charlie otherwise her kids will never be born.

Answer: It's them to his kids and when they have kids she replaces it, and they just look alike. 9 months after he gives it to her the locket the boy will be born.

Question: Does anybody know the name of the music when Kenshin kisses Mitsu? I know it's in several of the movies, but I can't find it.

Paulie Larson

Answer: It might just be incidental music, but it sounds more like a variation of "Yoshi's theme" (an original score for the film), which was meant to sound like traditional Japanese music.

Bishop73

Chosen answer: Trent admitted to having sex with her, stating that he thought people had to have sex around 10 times for pregnancy to happen, to which Guy told him it only takes one time.

Phaneron

Answer: She and Trent had sex. It just wasn't shown but implied.

Bishop73

Question: How fast do the satellite readings say the temperature is dropping?

Answer: I think the question is asking how fast is the temperature dropping as reported by the satellites. I did not review the data from the computer screens shown in the various scenes, but the dialog indicates that the temperature was dropping unusually fast and at a rate without historical precedent.

Answer: Most weather satellites are in geosynchronous orbits, about 25,000 miles above the earth and use infrared cameras to detect temperature changes. The satellite detects these changes almost instantaneously, but then has to transmit this information to the ground. Taking into account receiver, processor, and transmission delays, the satellite would report that the temperature is dropping in about a quarter second.

Question: When Dr. Evil demands $100 billion in 1969, the President laughs it off and says that amount of money doesn't even exist. However, the U.S. budget in 1969 was $186 billion. Does the President just mean that much physical money doesn't exist? If so, how did the government pay for things back then? Did they just reallocate funds?

Phaneron

Answer: I think it was just exaggerated as a gag. But he was asking for a huge amount of money that probably couldn't get pooled together. He was asking for almost 10% of the U.S. GDP and more than 50% of the budget. So it would have been like asking for $1 trillion in 1999 (or over $2 trillion today).

Bishop73

Question: Sour Bill imprisons Felix in the dungeon to make up for not doing so with Ralph. Why did he want to lock Ralph in there in the first place? (01:00:00)

Answer: King Candy decreed that Ralph be imprisoned, so he couldn't help Vanellope win the race. Sour Bill was obeying orders. Plus he wanted to get back at him for that torture lick he gave him. When Ralph escaped, he settled for Felix and blamed him for letting Ralph get into "Candy Rush."

Question: Any idea what chemical substance is used in the fire extinguisher? I initially assumed it couldn't be straightforward liquid H2O as I couldn't see any spherical droplets floating around, but could it be an aerosol?

Louisa Radice

Answer: A quick internet search revealed that the International Space Station uses both carbon dioxide and water-based foam extinguishers. The Space Shuttle used Halon 1301 fire extinguishers, but these were fixed nozzles built into the shuttle compartments.

Answer: It's never explained but my best guess would be that to assassinate a president-elect, they would hire a solid professional used to taking out high-profile targets who could remain anonymous. After the failed attempt he would likely have changed his face again and remained in the shadows till new work came along.

The_Iceman

Question: At the end, General Ross' convoy is nearly to Natasha, intent on arresting her...then we cut to two weeks later, and she's about to embark on a prison breakout. Are we just meant to assume she escaped...somehow? Fought off everyone who was in those about 20 SUVs? Ran for it and somehow got away?

Jon Sandys

Chosen answer: It was done intentionally that way by the director to be left up to the viewer's imagination. Cate Shortland said "that was intentional, because we wanted to leave the question of how she would get away, rather than allow the audience to get exhausted by another fight." Of course, it's also possible that future films or TV shows will discuss/show her escape. Perhaps she negotiated her way out with information on the Red Dust.

Bishop73

I don't see why she didn't just leave with everyone else. There was no reason for her to stand there and wait. She could have flown off, as well. The convoy was cars, not planes.

Natasha activated her tracker which led Ross to her. The plan was to have Ross and his men arrest Dreykov, but basically things went sideways. Natasha stayed behind to hold Ross and his men off from pursuing the Widows. Presumably, had she left with them, Ross would still be able to track her and everyone would be in danger of being captured.

Bishop73

Until it is explained by one of those future shows, it really can be thought of as a plot hole. The interview, after the quoted bit, goes like this; "We wanted to leave you guys on a high with the question of how did she use her ingenuity? Because she did. And it was probably, I would say, she bargained her way out of that situation. But I don't know." So...the director says she does not know how the hell did she -really - escape that situation, just that she must have done something clever. Hilarious.

Sammo

Leaving the how unanswered isn't a plot hole, even if writers or directors don't know the how. At best, it's an unexplained Deus ex machina. A plot hole is something that contradicts what's been established for the sake of the plot, but here, nothing was established.

Bishop73

I wouldn't say it's a DEM. Wikipedia; "Deus ex machina is a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem in a story is suddenly and abruptly resolved by an unexpected and unlikely occurrence."There is no occurrence here. Nothing that we (nor the director.) know of intervened between the two scenes.On the other hand,"Plot hole is a gap or inconsistency in a storyline that goes against the flow of logic established by the story's plot." Natasha's situation is established and then ignored.

Sammo

Which is why I said it was "unknown." An unknown occurrence happened that resolved the situation that wasn't illogical. However, I wouldn't correct you if you submitted a plot hole mistake, but others might since something not being explained isn't a plot hole.

Bishop73

Yes, sorry, I was splitting hairs as usual; I don't think a DEM can be "unexplained" in the sense of "unknown" because its whole point is that it is the narrative device that gives the story its twist; as absurd as it is (like a literal God appearing out of nowhere fixing things), it must be "something." Here there's nothing; we only have a statement of the director, movie-wise it's not even particularly implied that the resolution was peaceful, since Nat simply says she'll hold them off.

Sammo

Answer: Mainly it was about egos (mostly McQueen's) and a professional rivalry, not only as top movie stars, but also as auto racers. McQueen considered himself a superior driver to Newman, even though they never competed against each other. When McQueen was considered to co-star with Newman in "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," McQueen wanted top billing, then dropped out when he wouldn't receive it, even though Newman was considered the bigger star. In "The Towering Inferno," McQueen supposedly obsessed over how many lines he had compared to Newman.

raywest

Expanding on this: McQueen's demand for top billing continued on this film (as did William Holden's, but he was never a serious candidate), which is why the end result was "staggered": McQueen's name was to the left but lower, while Newman's was higher but to the right, so both had top billing depending how one read it (left-to-right, or top-to-bottom). Studies have shown that the name audiences tend to see first is the one on the left, regardless of staggering, so McQueen may have "won" here.

Newman does get a small victory of sorts at the end of this film when the cast credits begin scrolling upward on the screen. Newman's and McQueen's names are again staggered like in the beginning intro, but Newman's name appears first as it scrolls up from the screen's bottom.

raywest

Question: Will and his father slide down poles to get to the secret sanctum. How do they get back out?

Answer: Elevator, stairs, secret entrance used when the leave, like the batcave, or he used his super strength to leap both of them out.

Episode #4.6 - S4-E6

Question: When Lady Edith gets the letter confirming her pregnancy - who is the letter addressed to? Because she would not have wanted to use her real name, or have the OBGYN doctor's return address on the envelope.

Answer: The letter was addressed to Edith, an adult woman. As such, the family respects her privacy and would not question her receiving something from her own doctor. If anyone asked, she would merely give some vague explanation for seeing a physician. If she was concerned about anyone becoming suspicious, then she could have instructed the doctor's office to send it in a plain envelope.

raywest

Question: Why can't Edward hear Victoria's thoughts when she is at prom? Why is Victoria able to leave without any of the vampires knowing she was there?

Answer: Edward doesn't hear everyone's thoughts at once. He focuses in on nearby individuals. He was preoccupied with Bella, and wasn't aware that Victoria was there while she kept her distance from everyone.

raywest

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