Answered questions about specific movies, TV shows and more

These are questions relating to specific titles. General questions for movies and TV shows are here. Members get e-mailed when any of their questions are answered.

Question: Why did the soldiers shoot the non-infected people in the cattle trucks? Is there something going on here that I missed? Does everybody have the virus?

Answer: Possibly because the Government didn't want word about the virus getting out to the general public so they ordered the solders to shoot the non infected people in order to silence them all, and then created a cover story about a chemical plant exploding in the town.

Trainman

Answer: At this point, the army had decided to simply kill everyone from the town, rather than risk the infection spreading and to save the time and trouble of checking whether people were infected or not.

Also, they probably wanted to contain knowledge of what they'd done. No witnesses.

Answer: Money.

Question: Since it was possible to create a clone army, why were cybernetic parts given to Anakin, instead of cloning the limbs he lost and attaching them to his body?

Answer: To add to the above it is not just that he is missing arms and legs but his internal organs like lungs are incapable of working properly. So one would have to do more then just replace the arms and legs. In addition Palpatine make the suit vulnerable to force lighting making it harder for Vader to overthrow him as is the way of the Sith.

Answer: It's debatable whether or not they could clone individual body parts. Also, since Anakin's limbs were severed with a lightsaber, his nerve endings would be cauterized, so simply reattaching organic limbs to them wouldn't be an option.

Phaneron

Answer: Adding to what Phaneron, also note how long it would take to grow said limbs for a full adult. The clones themselves have growth acceleration so that they take half the time a normal person to reach full maturity and growth. But this still takes 10-15 years for the to get to physical adulthood. And their growth acceleration doesn't stop at that point. The reason why none of the Storm Troopers are Clones in the original trilogy, by the time New Hope rolls around, is because they age twice as fast. Most died of old age or were very old by that point as in that 17 year time gap between Episode 3 and 4, they aged 34 years physically, without the growth acceleration being stopped as it's likely not able to be stopped. So it would take a very long time to grow cloned limbs for Anakin and be physically a match for him. And if they did accelerate the growth for said limbs, it would only take a few years before he'd be a younger guy walking around with very old man legs and arms. Not to mention, the arms and legs wouldn't have his muscle mass grown by default without being used.

Quantom X

Where or when is it said the accelerated growth doesn't stop or is removed when the clones reach adulthood?

lionhead

In many places in the canon. Just look at the new Rebels show even. There are still a few clones left, and they are very very old.

Quantom X

Show generally

Question: All through the show MaryAnn makes coconut cream pies for everyone. Where does she get the eggs, milk, wheat flour...every ingredient but the coconut?

Answer: It's never explained how she gets the ingredients. There may be substitute ingredients someone on a tropical island could possibly use, like eggs from island birds, wild sorghum as a substitute flour and sweetener, wild goats milk (such creatures are common enough thanks to sailors of previous centuries), citrus fruit for flavor, etc.

raywest

Question: How would Doug leave the clues if Claire is already dead? The incident with Carroll happened before he went to her house to wash the blood off, which means she would have already been killed before he could've gone to her house and set all the clues.

Answer: This is just one of many examples of using the causal loop aspect of time travel. The clues aid Doug in his quest to catch the bomber and rescue Claire, but he is the one that puts the clues there. It's similar to "Terminator," in which Kyle Reese is sent back in time to protect Sarah Connor, and by extension, her future son John. but Kyle is the one who fathers John when he goes back in time.

Phaneron

Question: When Daniel is calling home to apply for the job of housekeeper, why did he use different accents instead of just using the British accent instantly?

Answer: Daniel was pretending to be different people that were just all very horrible, so he used different accents. This way, when the "British nanny" calls, he was hoping Miranda would instantly consider him. If he called pretending to be Ms. Doubtfire right away, she might not have basically given him the job right away. And if he used the charming British accent for all his characters, it would have lost its charm when he decided to be Ms. Doubtfire.

Bishop73

Answer: He was just practising or trying it out, and took a while to think of it.

Harvest - S5-E3

Question: Why does Mrs Perez tell Catherine that they couldn't find a marrow donor for Daniel because he's mixed race? I thought it didn't matter what race you are when it came to donating organs or blood, as long as the blood types match or were compatible.

Answer: What is often called bone marrow transplants is the transplant of hematopoietic stem cell. Instead of blood type match, patients need to be an HLA match (human leukocyte antigen). There's a lower percentage of matching one's HLA type with a random person than blood type. When it comes to matching human HLA types, a person's ethnic background is important in finding a match because the HLA markers used in matching are inherited, and some ethnic groups have more complex tissue types than others. A person's best chance of finding a donor may be with someone of the same ethnic background, meaning someone on the registry would have to be of mixed race as well. At the time, the total number of multiple race donors in the registry was very low (I don't have the figures for 2004, but in 2014 there were less than 500,000 multiple race donors).

Bishop73

Question: Could Indy ever survive the nuclear blast in a fridge?

Answer: This universally reviled and ridiculed scene has been analysed many, many times, and the conclusion the world has come to is the obvious one: No, one cannot survive a nuclear explosion in a refrigerator. Do not attempt.

Answer: If you were far from the initial explosion, the lining of the fridge may protect you from some residual radiation, but it would not protect you from the force of the blast or the intense heat. Being thrown by the blast would kill you whether you were inside a metal box or not.

Answer: Inconceivable heat and bombardment by gamma radiation notwithstanding, the sheer G-forces of being blasted miles away in a matter of seconds (and the terrific impact of striking the earth) should have pulverized Indy to jelly inside the refrigerator. So, factually speaking, no normal human being was walking away from that one. However, of course, Indiana Jones is no normal human being, and he had already impossibly survived so many catastrophes in his life that we just accept that the guy is charmed or protected by the hand of God. That's the running gag of the entire Indiana Jones franchise.

Charles Austin Miller

Question: How did the bad guy have a gun on the flight? He pulls a gun in the airfield chase scene so he had to have it on the plane as he jumped off it.

Answer: Airport security in the late 1960's was not nearly as thorough as it is in present day. Metal detectors didn't become commonplace at airports until the early 1970's.

BaconIsMyBFF

It was the D.B. Cooper hijacking of a Boeing 727 commercial jet in 1971 that radically changed how airport security was handled. Before that, there was virtually little to no pre-boarding security checks.

raywest

Question: When did Mason have time to write the note of the location of the secret stuff? He surely didn't have it on himself all the time due to the risk of being frisked and that it had no water damage.

Answer: He didn't. He told Goodspeed if he happened to be honeymooning near a certain church and look through a certain confessional booth, he'd find some information.

Not true...he hands Goodspeed a piece of paper with the location written on it. In answer to the original question, I think this can be classified as a mistake...Mason had some downtime during the mission (notably, when they were captured and held in the cells), but I can't imagine where he would have gotten a piece of paper and pencil to write the note.

Question: Karl was hanging more than 5 yards off the ground for more than 6 seconds, and nothing indicated he was alive. So who removed him from the chain to the ground, and how did he not die?

Athletic Jason

Answer: Well the obvious answer to the first question is he simply unhooked himself from the chain. And the second, his neck simply didn't snap. So he was hanging in such a way that he was still able to breathe.

Quantom X

That I find hard to believe because with what was shown he was not moving and had the appearance that he's dead.

Athletic Jason

Because he was knocked unconscious by the jolting of his head.

Quantom X

Answer: Don't forget, Hans blew the roof up so the chain mechanism probably got blown up as well, meaning Karl would have plummeted back down to the floor.

Season 8 generally

Question: Why does everyone argue over the best way to remove Cersei from power with minimal civilian casualties when they could have just sent Arya to assassinate Cersei? Given her training with the Faceless Men, she could easily infiltrate the Red Keep and get the job done. On top of that, Arya wants to kill Cersei.

Phaneron

Answer: Daenerys and her allies don't just want to kill Cersei, they want to claim King's Landing and free her people from Cersei's grip. The problem is the people of Essos viewed Daenerys as a liberator but the people of Westeros view her as an outsider and usurper. They would never follow Daenerys if she had Cersei assassinated. That is Daenerys' dilemma, she certainly has the ability to wipe Cersei out and obliterate her armies but doing so would make her a tyrant. Which as it turns out is exactly what happens.

BaconIsMyBFF

But no-one has to know that Cersei was assassinated. Arya has the ability to impersonate anyone she kills, so she could pretend to be Cersei afterwards and profess to the citizens of King's Landing that she has yielded the throne to Danaerys and that she is going into exile.

Phaneron

That plan would be incredibly suspicious. Knowing what they know of Cersei it is highly unlikely the people of King's Landing would believe that she would accept defeat so easily and then voluntarily exile herself, never to be heard from again. In order for that to work, all of Cersei's advisers and closest allies would have to be similarly eliminated, or they would have to be on board with the exile plan. If they are all killed it sort of makes it obvious that something is amiss. There's no way they would be fooled by Cersei suddenly doing a 180 and completely changing her personality by accepting defeat without a fight. If any part of this plan goes wrong then Daenerys would look worse than just an assassin, she would also be deceitful to the people she hopes will willingly accept her rule.

BaconIsMyBFF

Question: How would Stone have known where she would land? Was it just pure luck that she landed in water and not on land?

Answer: She didn't. Thing is, the Tianggong station was deorbiting already, and the Shenzou was attached. She was re-entering the atmosphere whether she wanted to or not, and the fact that she landed on (or rather, near) land was just lucky.

Friso94

Question: I don't understand what Henry is hiding from Paulie when gets out of jail? And also, why is Henry cheating, and does Karen know? (01:00:00 - 02:00:00)

gabbott163

Answer: Henry is hiding because he's become addicted to cocaine, which he knows will cause Paulie to consider him to be too great of a liability to the mob. Henry cheated on his wife simply because he was afforded the opportunity, and Karen was indeed aware of Henry's infidelity throughout most of their marriage, but she mostly overlooked it because she'd become too accustomed to the cushy lifestyle of a mob wife to risk giving it up by divorcing Henry; it's possible she also didn't want their kids to suffer through their parents' breakup.

zendaddy621

Question: Why was the money wrapped up in aluminium foil?

Answer: When criminals transport large amounts of money, it is often wrapped in foil and plastic to protect it from accidental damage from liquids and fire. There is also an urban legend that wrapping it in foil will keep it from being detected by scanning equipment.

LorgSkyegon

Foil is also used to shield against RFID sensors which is a safety feature used to protect items.

Ssiscool

Question: Did Charlie ever work at the skate shop?

Answer: You can see Charlie working at the skate shop in the second movie, with Jan saying that he hired him because he was spending so much time there to avoid being around his stepfather.

LorgSkyegon

Question: Why did the mom's boyfriend Ben adopt Joe? Shouldn't the minister have adopted Joe seeing as he was the boy's father?

Answer: For the reverend to admit to being Joe's father, meaning he not only had a child out of wedlock but knowingly abandoned him, would destroy him. Ben knew him and cared about him and would be able to take care of him.

LorgSkyegon

Question: As we learned later that Lt Einhorn killed Roger Podactor, how did Einhorn get out of the big apartment after murdering him without being seen? The manager who is at the crime scene doesn't seem to recognize her.

adamjustus

Answer: The old lady said that she heard a scream and called the police. That could easily leave several minutes when she could escape through a back exit or merely hide in the building until after other police get there and said she just arrived. There is no reason to assume that the manager knows everyone who comes into the building, especially if she had only been there a few times.

LorgSkyegon

Question: Towards the ending, why was Sadness trying to run away from Joy?

Answer: Because Sadness thinks that she is the cause of all the problems that Riley is having and she doesn't want to go back to headquarters.

LorgSkyegon

Question: What was wrong with Rachel's sister Zelda? In the flashbacks it shows the older sister as having a twisted spine and being in bed. But what was wrong with her? Was she crippled?

Answer: In the original film, she has a condition called "spinal meningitis," which is an infection in the fluids and membranes around the spine and brain. The disease in real life can cause a range of effects including severe joint and back pain, weight loss, light sensitivity and even brain damage. The implication in both films seems to be that we're not really seeing the "real" Zelda, but more of a monstrous version of Zelda based on Rachel's memory as a child.

TedStixon

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