Question: Maybe I'm foolish but if they're poor then how does Kate afford a nice looking car?
Questions about specific movies, TV shows and more
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Question: Since Trunchbull hates kids so much why is she an elementary school principal?
Answer: The answer is: "Power." Miss Trunchbull is a sadistic bully, as a school headteacher she can terrorise, frighten and dominate children and teachers. Also the job pays a good salary. She has probably arranged things so the other teachers do all the real work and the difficult jobs. She lives in a house attached to the school, so she gets free accommodation. She can run scams: for example the pupils must be fed, so she gives the catering contract to a company who pay her a "backhander." Thus she has a lucrative job where she does very little work. Plus, you cannot have a story without a villain to be defeated, so Miss Trunchbull is a brilliant opponent for Matilda.
Answer: It's a common enough trope to the point where it has become cliche. Stories set in a school will almost always have a teacher or principal (or both) openly dislike their students. Stories aimed at a younger audience will often exaggerate this to an extreme, where the teacher/administrator has a hatred of children in general that borders on insanity.
Question: I have several questions. In Random Harvest Ronald Colman is a First World War veteran. A war accident left him with amnesia and no memory of his previous life. He meets Greer Garson, they fall in love and marry. Several years later Ronald Colman crosses the road without looking, is hit by a car and knocked unconscious. Regaining consciousness he recalls that he is Charles Rainier, a wealthy landowner and industrialist, but he now has no memory of his life when he was an amnesiac and married to Greer Garson. Is such "double amnesia" possible? Ronald Colman meets Greer Garson again and employs her as his secretary, so he sees her and converses with her daily for several years, but his amnesia is such that he never recognises her as his wife. She could tell him about his missing years and their marriage, but she must never do this because the shock would be too great for him. Does this make any sense? Surely, if any woman met her long-lost husband, who said "I have amnesia and I can't remember who I am", wouldn't she instinctively reply "You're my husband"?
Answer: Amnesia the way it is often portrayed in movies, including this one, is impossible. People who do suffer from it, usually from some traumatic event, regain their memory relatively quickly. Double amnesia as portrayed in this movie could never, ever happen. This movie is total fiction, though people did, and still do, believe amnesia happens this way.
Answer: I have seen other films and read stories about people with amnesia. In 1965 and 1966 there was a "western" television series "A Man Called Shenandoah", wholly based on this premise. In the aftermath of the American Civil War Robert Horton is discovered unconscious on the prairie. When he revives he has no memory of who he is. He roams the west, unsuccessfully trying to discover his identity. I think he had some atrocious bad luck. Just as somebody was about to tell him who he really was they would get run over by a train, or shot in the back. The television company dropped the series after 34 episodes, so we never did find out who he really was.
Question: When Pinhead kills JP Monroe, what is the device that is affixed to Monroe's head that is also part of his Cenobite form?
Chosen answer: It's a piston. 2 piston rods are jammed through his head and they move powered by something unknown. You can see the crank shaft and part of some sort of cylinder. A piston is part of an internal combustion engine. It's part of his cenobite form since he liked cars.
Question: What happened with Lucius Hunt in the end?
Question: How come Roger won't let Kyra help with her Social Studies project?
Answer: He's simply enjoying doing it himself. Especially since he likely believes he can do it better than she can.
Question: Ben surrenders the Declaration of Independence, and the treasure's location, in exchange for not going prison. In real life, would surrendering the Declaration and the treasure's location be enough to convince the FBI to let him off the hook, or would he still go to prison?
Answer: It's doubtful anyone would be completely "off the hook" for stealing the Declaration of Independence and also receive a percentage of the treasure's worth, even if they revealed the location.
Question: Serious spoiler alert, but this has always puzzled me. At the end of Barbarella the Black Queen unleashes "Matmos", an evil energy which destroys nearly everybody and everything in the film. Pygar (the blind angel) escapes, only rescuing two people from the cataclysm: Barbarella and the Black Queen. Barbarella asks Pygar why he saved the Black Queen after all the evil things she did (she even blinded Pygar). Pygar replies "an angel has no memory." I never got the point of that. What did Pygar mean? (In his previous conversation he recalled things that happened before he was blinded, so obviously he did have a memory.) And I could not see the point of or meaning to this ending at all. Did any of this make sense to anybody else?
Answer: You say that Barbarella was beyond lame-it was totally atrociously bad and ludicrous. It was released in autumn 1968, when I was 12, and too young to see it at the cinema. I finally got to see Barbarella when I was 18 and it was shown late one night on television. I wholly concur: I thought it was totally, atrociously bad and ludicrous, and my opinion has not changed since.
Answer: I concede your point. Perhaps I was being a bit too literal. When Pygar says he has no memory, he may not mean that all past events clear from his mind (in the way that, for example, you could delete a computer file from your laptop). Instead, he might mean he does not dwell on the past, or he does not retain bitterness or anger for past wrongs, or he does not return evil on those who were bad to him. I think the film was based on a comic that ended in pretty much the same way. All the same, I always thought the ending was rather lame. It was as if somebody told Roger Vadim (the director) "hey, this film is supposed to be 90 minutes long, but we've done 89 minutes filming, and we still haven't got an ending." So Roger Vadim got the Black Queen to unleash Matmos and destroy everything. (To be pedantic, Barbarella is 98 minutes long, but I hope you understand what I mean.) Personally I thought the ending of "Monty Python And The Holy Grail", where a police force stops the film, was a similar disappointment.
Question: At Ethan's funeral at the end of the movie, his tombstone was seen. And there were names: "James W.", "Dorothy M." and "Ethan H." Who are James and Dorothy? These are definitely not Ethan's parents' names. I remember from the first movie "A Dog's Purpose" that Ethan's parents' names are Jim and Elizabeth. Then who? And what W, M and H next to the names refer to?
Answer: Jim is often a nickname for James. But I thought Ethan's parents got divorced, so perhaps Dorothy was his 2nd wife. Although there's no reference to that name in either film. I haven't throughly checked out of the books to see if they talk about if Ethan had a stepmom and what her name would be. The letter after the first names are their middle initials.
No Big Thing - S1-E8
Question: In this episode, in an aerial view of KITT travelling before meeting the semi, KITT is passing a parked car that seems to be one of the other cars used as the stand-in for the 'hero car'. Would that be any sort of error? (00:23:35)
Answer: I would say that unless there's visual evidence it was another K.I.T.T. car, as in you could see the bar scanner or cut steering wheel, people on here would correct the mistake by saying more than one 1982 Pontiac Firebird Trans-Am was sold and there's no reason it's meant to be a random car.
Question: Was Ray Brower from the same town as the boys? If so, how did he end up so far away to where he got killed? It takes the boys a long time to get to him and its only mentioned that he was berry picking. Finally, how would he have got hit by the train? I doubt he didn't hear or see it coming.
Answer: I think he was from a neighboring town because when Vern tells the group about what he heard Geordie says "could he have gotten all the way from Chamberlain to Harlow, that's really far" and we know the boys are from a town called Castle Rock, so I think Ray Browers was from a neighboring town called Chamberlain.
Answer: In Stephen King's novella, Ray was a boy from a neighboring town. It's unclear in the movie whether Ray is from the same town as the boys, but as it takes them a long time to get to where the body is, it seems that Ray is probably from somewhere else. It's also never explained exactly how Ray was hit by the train.
Question: 1. Why was Dyson holding the detonator in that way where dropping his hand would set off the bomb? Did he willingly set it off, or was he stuck in a position where he couldn't avoid it? 2. Was there any reason only one terminator was sent back to kill John? Wouldn't multiple terminators increase the chance of success, considering the last one failed to kill Sarah?
Answer: For your first question. Dyson was dying, no way to stop that. He was holding the detonator like that as a literal "dead man's switch". He needed the swat team to get close enough before he would die and drop his arm or warn them to get away, showing the urgency of the situation. One look at him and the lead guy knew they had to run, allowing the others more time to get away. He sacrificed himself to buy more time. For Question 2. It's been stated several times that the terminator was sent back in both T1 and T2 as the last resort as Skynet was being destroyed and taken over. The Humans were at the gate and the time machine was still experimental and new. Had Skynet had more time to do it, sure, they would likely have sent an army back. However only one could go in at a time and the Humans got there just in time to stop Skynet and send one of their own back in time after the single terminator.
Answer: 1) Dyson's plan was to blow up the Cyberdyne office, but didn't want to cause any casualties in the SWAT team. He held an object above the detonator as to allow them time to escape, so that when he died he would drop it onto the detonator, the office would get blown up but no innocent people got hurt. He likely knew he wasn't going to get out alive, but made sure none of the data in the office was going to stay behind. 2) One of the most important things for a Terminator to do is to blend in with the public to prevent any suspicion from being drawn to it and prevent people from finding out about Skynet's existence. Had Skynet sent back multiple Terminators all trying to kill John Connor at once, far more suspicion would be drawn to them. It'd be much easier for them to send back one Terminator because that would be a better way of blending in with its surroundings.
Knight Rider [Pilot; a.k.a. Knight of the Phoenix] (1) - S1-E1
Question: At one point, after promising help, Michael parks, and goes to a pay phone to call Devon. As he gets to the booth, over his left shoulder, there is a badly altered Pepsi sign. Black tape has been put over the word 'PEPSI' in the familiar logo, and also over the "si" in the phrase 'say Pepsi please'. What type of mistake would this be?
Chosen answer: Before "product placement" became common, name-brand products were rarely, if ever seen in TV shows, mostly due to avoid advertising conflicts with program sponsors. The Pepsi logo may have been taped out to prevent any commercial infringements.
Are you kidding? Product placement was so rampant in the 50s that sometimes you'd wonder if you were watching a TV show or a paid ad.
Knight Rider wasn't produced in the 1950s. TV shows of that era had advertising more similar to the old radio shows from the 30s and 40s. The early 50s series often had a sole sponsor, so their product (and related items) was likely seen in a program. An announcer also informed the audience at the beginning that, "This program is brought to you by (insert brand name). " From the 60s on, brand-name products weren't generally seen in TV programs. Networks sold air time to multiple advertisers, and their ads were shown during the long commercial breaks. So no, I'm not kidding.
Answer: It wouldn't be a mistake. Anyone could have taped the sign for a number of reasons.
Question: When Jimmy is giving Clark the cake, Mr. White says "where are the photos of that birthday clown massacre thing?" Is this suppose to be a nod to The Joker? I didn't think any of Joker's origin stories had him as an actual birthday clown that killed people until this recent Joker film.
Answer: I don't believe it is. This is a half reboot sequel to the classic Superman 2 movies and other than being a DC character, has no ties to other properties of the DC comic lore. This is more likely just meant to be something funny they could have Parry White say to get a laugh about him bringing up something random and ridiculous meant to be taken seriously.
Question: When Harry is brought into Malfoy Manor, Draco is told to confirm that it's really him. Even though Harry's face is jinxed, Draco knows that it's him, so why did he lie and say it wasn't?
Answer: Because at his core and despite being an unpleasant person, Draco was a decent and humane person who never could step over the line into being evil. He could not bring himself to betray Harry, knowing he and the others would be killed, and he could not have lived with that guilt. Dumbledore and Snape understood this about Draco, and worked to help him keep his humanity.
That is the moment when Draco is now a good person.
Question: Why did Zach keep calling Cassie down from the stage every time she was dancing with the others? Every time he does it, he criticizes her dancing to her face but she's a very good dancer.
Answer: The problem is she's "too good" of a dancer. The audition is for a chorus line where the dancers have to perform uniformly and as one unified group. She keeps doing the extra moves and gestures, making herself standout from the others, which is exactly what Zach does not want. He even tells her that she's too good of a dancer to be in a chorus line. She's talented as a lead or solo, but she needs this job. She has to continually restrain herself to blend in.
Question: When Matt Murdock becomes blind his other senses are enhanced. Is this possible in reality?
Answer: Not to the extent in the show, of course, but it can absolutely happen to an extent: https://www.livescience.com/58373-blindness-heightened-senses.html. In short the brain is quite "plastic" and good at redirecting its resources where needed. Not being able to see can "free up" brain power and improve other areas. Only up to a point, of course.
Question: The boys are playing baseball and young Carol shows up in a wheelchair. Shakes says she is his sister, so why later in the film does she ask him why he never asked her out.
Answer: I believe you are confusing two characters and what person's sister. The girl in the wheelchair (can't remember her name offhand) was Hector Maldonado's sister. Hector was on the opposing stickball team. Carol (who was not in a wheelchair) was Michael's girlfriend, so Shakes saw her as "taken" and "off limits." (Shakes wouldn't steal his friend's girlfriend).
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Answer: Just because someone is low income doesn't mean they can't own a decent car. Kate could spend what little money she has to pay for her car and still consider herself poor because she has no money left over after paying bills. Plenty of low income people still own decent cars because they are more reliable and require less maintenance than an older car, and are thus a good investment. Kate has three children, works two jobs, and goes to school. She has to have a good car to get back and forth and there's no way she could afford a major repair on an older car, so buying a new car is actually a smart choice for her situation.
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