Answered questions about specific movies, TV shows and more

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Question: If Captain America had to go back to return the infinity stones to balance the timeline, would he not have to go back to before Black Widow died to return the Soul Stone?

Answer: Well since he wouldn't know the exact moment she sacrificed herself, he might have shown up before then and then just had to wait for everything to play itself out before returning the stone.

Phaneron

Answer: No before Black Widow died the soul stone was still there, he had to get it back after it was taken, so after Black Widow died.

lionhead

I think the poster meant he would go back to the time he knew Black Widow and Hawkeye were aiming for, or a bit before for safety, then go there and wait until Black Widow died and Hawkeye got the stone, and then return it. It would be hard for him to watch, but then he would know when the right time was.

Right. But you also have to think that, having witnessed the events, and then seeing that the Red Skull is the guardian, that would have been a damn interesting scene to watch. Does Cap try bargaining with the Red Skull to return Black Widow to life after giving the stone back? On the other hand, the Ancient One's explanation was that the flow of time occurs simply because the stones are in the universe. I don't think it mattered where they are. She only wanted the time stone back because of how it was tied to the Sanctum. So really, Cap probably could have just thrown the stone in a ditch somewhere and been done with it. It also raises a question about the nature of Vormir as the home of the stone. We see the other stones were more or less fashioned into artifacts and out and about. This implies that they too were in some sort of temple in their raw stone form before being found, seized and manipulated into a real-world application. So does Vormir even have a mechanism for receiving the stone back once it's been claimed? And what is the soul stone's solo power, anyway? Reading people's fates like a crystal ball?

Vader47000

I don't think the red skull is really the red skull anymore, just some kind of ghost of whats left of him. However the stone gets returned is irrelevant, yes he could even just leave it in a ditch somewhere. He didn't return other stones in their original form either, except the time stone. These timelines don't continue on as the original one. According to the comics the soul stone is sentient and everyone sacrificed to obtain is has their soul trapped inside the gem. Cap and the others of course don't know that (although Hulk must theoretically know having used it) or in the MCU this does not apply. When possessing it you can control any life and read their souls (their feelings and desires). One can also revert living things back their original state (like Nebula for example).

lionhead

Answer: If you are referencing The Keg/Pool party, they never drank anything out of The Keg.

marsh2202

Question: When Obi-wan Kenobi goes to the planet to fight General Grievous alone, shortly after he arrives he is in two places at once. He is sitting back in his ship talking to his droid before leaving and yet seconds later he has never left the planet. Can this be explained?

Answer: He set his plane on auto-pilot and then snuck off it before it took off to give the impression that he had left the planet.

Phaneron

Thanks for your response. Auto pilot had occurred to me and it must have been that way, it's just that that it all happens quick, in the blink of an eye.

Answer: McComb paid Fielding to do whatever he wanted her to do for him. She provides protection, follows his orders, passes on useful information about TEC, etc.

raywest

Question: At the beginning of the film, why was Guy Fawkes attempting to burn down the Houses of Parliament and what led to his capture?

Answer: Guy Fawkes and his co-conspirators wanted to assassinate King James I by blowing up the House of Lords while the king was there. Their goal was to improve the position of Catholics in the predominantly Protestant England, because an anonymous letter was sent to one of the lords, detailing the plot. Fawkes was in charge of guarding the explosives that were already in place when he was caught on the site, hence why he is the most famous one.

Friso94

Question: When Lyle is at his desk, he has two newspapers in front of him and he is circling the same stock on both of them. One newspaper is for the year he's currently in, 1929. The second one is from 2004. How could stocks from the same newspaper 75 years apart possibly be helpful in getting McComb to the presidency?

Answer: Also, it was strongly implied that Lyle Atwood was in New York City shortly after the massive Wall Street crash that occurred in October of 1929, so all he would need to do is find stocks that still exist and are doing well in 2004 and buy those particular stocks when they're presumably at their lowest value in history; the payoff after 75 years would be astronomical for the stockholder.

zendaddy621

Answer: Any stock that massively increased in value between 1929 and 2004 would be a great investment for a time traveller, providing vast quantities of wealth to help fund a presidential campaign, for example.

Question: When Hulk has the Infinity Gauntlet, Tony tells Hulk to snap back everybody that Thanos killed. Why not just snap Thanos and his army first and then snap half the world's population back to life? If Thanos had been snapped first, then they wouldn't have to worry about him anymore.

Answer: Bruce snapped everybody back before they even knew 2014 Thanos had traveled into the future to attack them.

Phaneron

Answer: It's important to remember Tony's motivation as well. He was reluctant to even try because he now had a daughter and didn't want to risk losing her or Pepper. When he reminds Banner, he tells him not to try anything other than bringing everyone back in the present because he doesn't want him to rewrite history, potentially removing his daughter.

Answer: No guarantees they'd get two goes at it. They likely figured it was more important to bring everyone back and hope they can take on Thanos conventionally. Although if I remember rightly, they have no idea Thanos is back before they snap anyway - last they heard they'd chopped his head off, end of story.

Question: Why would the Trade Federation need the queen to sign a treaty to make their invasion legal if they've already invaded the place and taken over anyway?

Answer: They want the rest of the Republic to believe the queen has legitimately sanctioned the trade treaty.

raywest

Not just the trade treaty, but the occupation too.

lionhead

Yes, that too.

raywest

Question: What did Rooney mean when he told Grace to "go soak your head"?

Answer: It's an old insult, somewhat equivalent to 'buzz off'.

Brian Katcher

Answer: The other answer (about buzzing off) is correct, but the phrase has multiple definitions. It can also mean that someone doesn't know what they're talking about, or a person who is extremely frustrated and unable to express themselves calmly or coherently need to cool off.

raywest

Show generally

Question: The Monsignor Martinez - in addition to being a priest, is he supposed to be a vigilante? Or a mercenary?

Answer: I get the impression he's some sort of master criminal, though the specific details are left up to the viewer's imagination.

Brian Katcher

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?

Taken250

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."

TedStixon

Question: Why didn't IMF just raid Ambrose's house when they realised he only had a cure and no virus?

Answer: As Ambrose says, Ethan Hunt "favours misdirection over confrontation" - Ambrose's house is heavily guarded and fortified, and an armed raid could result in the deaths of IMF personnel including Ethan and his team, or other innocent parties such as Nyah. Better to break into Biocyte covertly and destroy the virus, with a much lower risk of casualties.

Sierra1

Question: Why didn't Hulk use the Infinity Gauntlet to snap Thanos and his army? He was able to snap everybody that Thanos killed and survived, so he would have survived another snap.

Answer: The gauntlet fell off after his first snap, then Thanos arrived from the past and destroyed the building, separating them. Hulk never got near the gauntlet and the stones during the ensuing battle, so he didn't have an opportunity to try a second snap to destroy Thanos.

Sierra1

Really what they should have done was pulled the stones off the gauntlet and separated them again, and not run around with a fully assembled and powered up Gauntlet for Thanos to grab.

Vader47000

I agree.

That would mean they had to touch them, and nobody besides Hulk, Thor and Carol could touch one without dying.

lionhead

Ordinary humans can't just grab an infinity stone. Even when Thanos takes the power stone out of gauntlet you see it start to destroy them.

Only the Power Stone has been shown to kill normal people who try to hold it. Hawkeye literally held the Soul Stone in his hand in this movie.

Phaneron

Because he made the necessary sacrifice. Anyone else touching it, big problem. Could be an exception though. The power, reality and space gems have been proven to be untouchable and killing anyone who does (with exceptions though). Time gem is very carefully handled as well so I wouldn't touch that one either. Mind gem, who knows?

lionhead

I don't recall the Time Stone killing anyone who touched it. The only example I can think of was the Red Skull presumably being killed when he handled the Tesseract, but was in actuality teleported to Vormir. The Reality Stone has a will of its own, so someone could feasibly handle it without harm. You're wonder about the Mind Stone is correct, as no human character was shown in any movie to have handled it directly. Overall though, I would say that I disagree with someone trying to remove a stone from the gauntlet, as one stone could easily be lost, and Thanos could still kill every hero at the battle even with one or more stones missing.

Phaneron

The reality stone attaches itself to anyone touching it like a parasite and slowly kills them. I'd say it's a bad idea to touch it. As for the time stone only the ancient one and Hulk actually touched it and there is reason Strange handles it carefully and without touching it. As for the Red skull, don't really know if he is really alive on Vormir. Who knows what the tesseract did to him?

lionhead

Whether or not Red Skull is still alive is an interesting topic, but either way, I'd argue that while the Tesseract transported him, it itself is not what made him in his current state, but rather his curse to guard the Soul Stone and the planet of Vormir itself, as it is a dominion of death as Nebula stated.

Phaneron

Show generally

Question: Assuming that Moonbase Alpha is on the side facing the Earth (which is seen on the horizon over the base in the pilot episode "Breakaway"), making travel to it and back easier, and the nuclear waste on the far side, away from Earth, wouldn't the explosion propel the moon towards the Earth, thereby dooming Alpha to certain destruction?

Movie Nut

Answer: Not necessarily - The gravitational fields of Earth and the Sun could have deflected the moon away from the solar system.

Seniram

Question: Elinor at first didn't seem to care about burning Merida's bow, especially since she didn't approve of Fergus giving her the bow, and became furious after Merida shot for her own hand. What made Elinor rescue the bow from the fire?

Answer: Elinor tossed the bow into the fire in a fit of anger, then regretted what she did and rescued it.

raywest

To add to raywest's answer, she threw it in a fit of rage, yes. As a parent, you sometimes disagree with your children's passions, while you try to steer and guide them, they love what they love. She may have disagreed with Merida having the bow, but she also knew how important it was to her. Its hard to explain, but basically while she objected to Merida having it, she knew it was the one thing that made her happy... she loves her daughter and wants her to be happy. She destroyed it in a fit of rage, and then realised she destroyed, for lack of better words, her daughter's "happiness." Marrying her off was one thing, burning her only joy is another.

Answer: She's seen a picture? Been given his description? There are any number of possibilities.

Answer: I'd say this is a deliberate movie mistake to provide plot exposition. Bellatrix was one of the Death Eaters who tortured Neville's parents into permanent insanity when Neville was a young boy. It's unlikely Bellatrix would recognize Neville on sight, but this reveals her involvement in the Longbottom family tragedy, and shows that Neville fighting Voldemort and the Death Eaters is personally motivated.

raywest

Answer: He looks like his father, wears similar clothes.etc.

Patrick Smith

Question: Spider-Man: Far From Home shows that people snapped back after the "blip" come back in exactly the same place they disappeared from - mid-band performance, for example, and getting a basketball to the head as a result. Have the makers of either movie expanded on the ramifications of this? Because people snapped off a flight for example, might reappear mid-air...but with no plane, so plummet to their deaths.

Jon Sandys

Answer: Kevin Feige said in a Reddit thread that Hulk specifically brought everyone back in a safe place.

Chosen answer: The makers haven't said anything that I have heard, but we can see and deduce a couple things. First, if you watch the band members disappear, then the reappearance, those that reappear are not at the locations of those that disappeared (note the two videos are 90° off from each other), meaning either some compensation happened in Stark's invocation, or the filmmakers made a mistake in their portrayal. Second, we don't hear anyone in the movie make any comment about such problems so that implies the blip-ending had a compensation for such events so they didn't happen, though to prevent calamity, not simple harm. If you take this issue to the extreme, the planet is no longer where it was, plus has spun on its axis, so if no compensation occurred, everyone would have reappeared in space millions of miles away from the planet's new location, which they didn't.

Question: How was Billy considered "worthy" to begin with? When we first meet him, he is petulant, selfish, and cruel to anyone that wants to help him. Once he does get the power of Shazam, he becomes even more selfish, petty, and reckless.

BaconIsMyBFF

Answer: He went out of his way to protect his new foster brother, who's disabled mind you, when he was being picked on by the Steven King novel bullies. He showed he had some virtue. And, on top of that, his other behavior, like stealing the police car, while bad, did have a noble reason behind it of him trying to find his mother. So he wasn't perfect, but he had some virtue. And, as the old wizard said, he was out of time and Billy was his last choice.

Quantom X

Answer: In addition to the other answer, it's also a pretty common trope in films, stories, etc. for a character who is imperfect to be considered "worthy" or "pure of heart" not because of their actions but because of their potential to learn from their mistakes and do great things when given power. Billy is actually a pretty good example of this - he's brash and a bit selfish, but ultimately proves to be a capable hero by learning from his mistakes and growing as a person, thus ultimately becoming worthy of the power.

TedStixon

Question: Whenever Bruce transforms into the Hulk, why is he always in his underwear? Other versions of the Hulk depict him in full pants so why would Bruce's pants also rip along with his clothes when transforming into the Hulk, leaving him only in his underwear? Maybe this was due to the fact that the crew wanted to make the Hulk more stronger and more bigger in this film.

John Carlos

Answer: First, he isn't always in his underwear. In one transformation he's in purple pants, and in another he's completely nude. As to why, it's likely because the filmmakers realised it's unrealistic that Bruce would always be wearing pants that could withstand the radical change in size. Also, as we see the hulk grows larger physically when he becomes more angry, and at some point no fabric will stay in place.

Answer: Maritime.

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