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 wasn't Optimus Prime, or any other Autobot for that matter, surprised to see Megatron? Especially since none of them knew about his resurrection.

Answer: An aircraft carrier was sunk. A submarine was destroyed. Surely information was passed on regarding the reasons behind it. Megatron had enough time to travel to the Fallen ship. Plenty of time for information to be passed on.

XIII

Chosen answer: Her agent/manager negotiated a special billing as part of her contract. It distinguishes her from the rest of the cast, probably when she became a producer on the show.

JC Fernandez

Answer: She became a producer.

Incorrect. Her billing changed in season 4 but she didn't become a producer until season 5.

Bishop73

Chosen answer: The ghosts are real.

raywest

Answer: Both Kubrick and King stated there were ghosts in interviews so as they are essentially the creators I would say there are.

In all fairness, Kubrick, unlike King, leaves the existence of ghosts somewhat questionable. The whole thing can just as well be just Jack succumbing to cabin fever: he loathes his family, and the long isolation just pushes him over the brink. Wendy witnesses the ghosts, too, yes, but she could also be suffering from cabin fever, not to mention the stress of her husband finally going insane, and trying to murder her and her child. In short, the whole existence of ghosts is a lot more ambiguous in the movie.

Jukka Nurmi

Chosen answer: You are no doubt referring to the old "urban legend" that a Munchkin actor who, despondent over a failed love affair with a Munchkin actress, committed suicide on the movie set, and his lifeless body can be seen hanging in the background trees. This never happened, of course, but there have been countless rumors as to just what people think they are seeing. The most plausible explanation is that this is probably one of the many live birds that were used to add realism to the set, and it may have been one of the larger birds, such as an emu or a crane, that was standing in the background. It has also been pointed out (see Snopes.com) that this particular scene was filmed "before" any of the Munchkin actors were working on the sound stage, and it would be impossible for there to have been a dead body on a movie set without the many crew noticing it. Also, the idea that the filmmakers would use a scene in which a dead body appeared in their finished film or that a suspended body could go undetected while filming is underway is beyond belief.

raywest

Logopolis - S18-E7

Question: If The Master had closed the CVE it would have resulted in the total destruction of the universe. Would he have really closed the CVE if the peoples of the universe hadn't responded to him? Isn't that the complete opposite of what The Master wants, i.e. complete control of the universe? Also, if the universe had been destroyed, who and what would he have left to control?

Socks1000

Chosen answer: The Master is insane. If he can't control the universe, he'd rather see it destroyed.

Captain Defenestrator

Question: How could The Masters' trial and execution take place on Skaro when it was destroyed in "Remembrance of the Daleks"?

Socks1000

Chosen answer: They don't specify at what point in Skaro's history it took place. Only the passage of time on Gallifrey is absolute.

Captain Defenestrator

Chosen answer: The Master knows that deep down, he deserves death for the crimes that he's committed throughout his life, and since he regards The Doctor as his arch-foe, he expects it to be at his hands. The fact that The Doctor is still willing to forgive him for all of his crimes hurts him more deeply than death would.

Captain Defenestrator

Show generally

Question: If Davros created The Daleks from his own cells then why don't they fully trust him? He's been shown to manipulate The Daleks on the genetic level, so couldn't he use that to some way make them more obedient?

Socks1000

Chosen answer: When Davros created the Daleks, he conditioned them to hate everything that was not a Dalek. They decided that although he was their creator, he was not one of them.

Captain Defenestrator

Question: During the first film, there is a huge battle in the middle of downtown L.A. (Mission City), witnessed by thousands of people and causing millions of dollars in damage. In this movie, this is just an Internet rumor? How did they cover this up? Did the government pay off thousands of people and repair all the damage that quickly? And, most importantly, in the first movie didn't Jon Voight go on TV and tell the whole world they were dealing with a superior technological civilization?

wizard_of_gore

Chosen answer: Per IMDB Trivia: The novelization states that the government created a fake corporation called "Massive Dynamics" as a cover for the events of Transformers (2007). The cover story stated that Massive Dynamics had developed robotic search-and-rescue robots which malfunctioned during tests and caused the damage seen in that movie's finale.

shortdanzr

Chosen answer: A Drill Instructor is always mad at the recruits in order to forge discipline. Private Pyle was the biggest screwup in the unit, thus creating more work for him.

Captain Defenestrator

Answer: It also promotes unity and brotherhood against a common enemy, the drill instructor.

Chosen answer: It was never stated directly in the series, although Lister does mention at one point that it was Kryten's fault. The first book based on the series states that the ship crashed after Kryten carefully washed the navigation console using soapy water, but it's unclear whether this is intended as a canonical explanation.

Tailkinker

Chosen answer: They reconstructed Red Dwarf as it was supposed to be, hence going back to the original plans, rather than the cut-down versions that were actually used to build it. A ship without a crew isn't much use, so they brought the crew back as well, possibly using the physical and personality information stored by the ship's holographic recreation unit as a template. How they might have restored the prisoners is another matter, probably best explained by the venerable science-fiction standby of "don't ask, they just did".

Tailkinker

Chosen answer: In-universe, after leaving Red Dwarf after his first appearance, Kryten managed to crash Lister's space-bike into an asteroid. Lister found his remains and decided to rebuild him, however, due to the high level of damage and Lister's questionable repair skills, he was unable to recreate Kryten exactly, leading to changes in appearance, personality and accent. In reality, the original actor wasn't available, coupled with presumably practical concerns about one-off makeup as opposed to makeup for a regular cast member, so some visual changes were made.

Tailkinker

Question: Why are obsolete programs given the choice of deletion or exile? Why aren't they just instantly deleted?

Socks1000

Chosen answer: All programs are destined for deletion, however a quick witted program would realise their time is up and try and make an escape (exile). The programs aren't given a choice, the programs make a choice.

Sanguis

Question: Was there anything illegal about Windows' relationship and attempted rendezvous with Rogue Leader? Would he have gotten into any serious trouble had her parents decided to take any legal action?

JAGwire

Chosen answer: It would depend on what they'd discussed online and his intent. If they'd planned to meet for sex, then yes, that would be illegal and charges could be pressed. Since we didn't learn the details of their conversations, we can't be certain.

Captain Defenestrator

Question: It is stated that Optimus is a descendant of the last remaining Primes which sacrificed themselves to stop The Fallen from destroying the sun. If the Primes were all dead, how could he be 'descended' from them and how can he himself be a Prime?

wizard_of_gore

Chosen answer: We don't actually know how "descended" works in Transformer terms, but presumably the original Primes created descendants in some manner before their sacrifice. The original Primes all gave their lives to stop the Fallen, but that doesn't mean that there couldn't have been descendant Primes created prior to that point.

Tailkinker

Show generally

Question: When exactly was Harold born? Throughout the whole show, both Harold and Albert give conflicting answers about Harold's age. For example, Albert states that Harold was born in 1932, yet in earlier seasons, it's said that Harold fought in World War 2. Could someone please explain?

Socks1000

Chosen answer: There is no definitive answer. In the original run of the series in the early sixties, Harold was given a birth year of 1925, matching that of Harry H Corbett, who played him, making him old enough to have fought in the war. When the show was brought back in the early seventies, his birth year was, for no immediately obvious reason, revised to 1932.

Tailkinker

Chosen answer: Their bodies have simply decayed to dust over the intervening three million years.

Tailkinker

Chosen answer: The details are never made particularly clear, except that the ship was, at some unspecified point, stolen by Kryten's rogue nanobots while the crew were away from the ship on Starbug. A short online comic produced by the BBC suggests that this happened directly after the events of the fifth series' final episode "Back To Reality", that the crew returned from their encounter with the despair squid to find Red Dwarf missing, although events in the recent revival, "Back to Earth" appear to contradict that.

Tailkinker

Chosen answer: It measures a number of involuntary physical responses, like heart-rate, breathing, eye movement and pupil dilation in response to questions designed to provoke an emotional response. By examining the intensity of these responses over a series of different questions, the subject's empathy and emotional response levels can be measured, allowing those running the test to determine the true nature of the test subject.

Tailkinker

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