Question: Does anyone know why Marty takes a book of matches off of Biff's desk when Biff isn't looking? I know that the matches come in handy at the end of the film when he burns the sports almanac, but what was his original reason for swiping the matches? Unless he knew beforehand that he was going to have to burn the almanac.
Questions about specific movies, TV shows and more
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Question: Why didn't Arnold and the rest of the commandos take thermal goggles or sensitive listening devices with them on the mission; wasn't the technology available?
Chosen answer: It's the jungle: thermal goggles would have too much interference due to the high ambient temperature and sensitive listening devices would have picked up too much ambient noise from the wildlife. When filming the movie they had to hose the area down with ice water just to cool it off enough to get the footage for the Predator's heat vision. Presumably, his technology is more advanced than our own, so the high jungle temps didn't interfere. Plus of course, their original mission was meant to be very straightforward, with no need for high-tech equipment.
Answer: During the 1980's thermal googles worn on the face had not been produced. As far as the team wearing night vision goggles (infrared) that wouldn't have given them an advantage against the predators cloaking device. Infrared works off ambient light and they do not detect heat; there isn't much ambient light at night in triple canopy jungle and they are worthless during the day. The spectrum the predator used in the movie is thermal not infrared.
Infrared and ambient light are different. Night vision goggles use ambient light, amplifying whatever light there is, from the moon, stars, etc. Infrared and thermal are the same thing, working on heat rather than visible light.
Question: Instead of going under water and trying to poison Jaws in the shark cage, couldn't he have been harpooned with the poison from the boat just as easy?
Chosen answer: As mentioned in the movie, the posion was in the needle and the shark's hide was too tough for the needle to penetrate. Hooper had to go in the water so that he could get the needle into the shark's mouth, where the flesh was less tough.
Question: First, thank you to the individual that answered my question: "Why did they wear helmets in the first alien and not Aliens?" However, I am still puzzled though with my question: "How did the facehugger get through Kane's helmet?" The answer given was: "It secreted an acid that "burned" through the helmet." If this is true, wouldn't the acid still on the facehugger have burned Kane's face when it attached itself?
Answer: In the Alien novel it pushed its way into Kane's helmet using just brute force and not with acid.
The question was about the movie, not the novelization. And yes, in the movie the facehugger secretes acid: you can hear a sizzling sound as the creature latches onto Kane's helmet.
Sorry I was wrong about the Alien novel, it did indeed use acid to burn its way into Kane's helmet.
Question: If Charles was so smart, why didn't he think to make a bow with arrows to kill the bear instead of spears? They had the wood (the spears) and the rope (used in the trap).
Chosen answer: Bows have to be quite carefully constructed if they're going to be remotely effective - you can't just throw one together using a few bits of wood and some rope. Making spears may expose them to far more danger, but, given what they've got to work with, they represent the best chance of being effective against the bear.
Question: Even though there was a rope ladder in the bear pit where Alec Baldwin impaled his leg, how could he have climbed the ladder, he was in great agony on the table in the cabin?
Question: How does Eli exit the room in Carnegie's tavern? The guard said he was there all night and didn't see or hear anything.
Answer: It seems to imply a miracle escape like Paul and Silas from prison in the bible.
Answer: The Guard must have fallen asleep. You see he even looks tired when approved.
Answer: Did you miss the scene where the guard was lured away from the door, causing him to lie about being there all night?
What scene was that?
Tearjerker - S3-E10
Question: Who performs the cover of "Tears of a Clown" that's played?
Chosen answer: The Beat.
Question: I remember a couple of scenes that were not in the version I just watched. One was when the girl had to poop out of the car window. I remember her screaming at her dad instead of speaking calmly. I also kind of remember the highway girl showing her full front instead of just side-boob. I'm not positive about the second, but I distinctly remember the first. Was this deleted or am I just imagining it?
Chosen answer: You're imagining the frontal boobs. I have the DVD and none show this as a deleted scene or otherwise cut out of the movie.
Answer: There was no full-frontal shot from the highway girl at all. Kimberly wasn't speaking to Randy calmly. She was angrily telling him she hated him because he wanted her to defecate out the window.
Answer: You were probably watching the movie on television. It's been formatted/edited to fit the usual two-hour time slot for the network. Kids might be watching it too.
Answer: The girl screaming at her father was in the version I saw, however.
Question: I remember Cobb saying that he spent time in Limbo for about fifty years. Was he referring to the time that he spent with Mal, or something else that we weren't shown?
Chosen answer: He's referring to the time spent there with Mal - remember that we see, towards the end of the film, a scene with the pair of them in their Limbo-built cityscape, both of them old-aged.
Question: How did the Russian girl end up in the end, did she drown? And if so, why, if the compartments were sealed closed, how would water get into it and kill her, if it didn't kill the others on the other side of the compartment?
Chosen answer: The Russian girl drowned. The boarding gate was not closed properly as it was jammed, so water got in to some of the compartments and drowned the people in them.
How did the water pass through the first containment room into the second without drowning those in the first? Makes no sense.
Question: There is said to be a curse on the Defence Against The Dark Arts teaching job, something like the professor will die within one year of teaching that subject. In a previous question somebody stated that Professor Quirrell was only starting to teach that subject the year that Harry started Hogwarts. But during the feast after the first years have been housed, Harry asks Percy Weasley who "that man" (Snape) is. He tells him that it is Snape, Professor of potions and then goes on to say "Everyone knows Defence Against The Dark Arts is what he really wants. He's been after Quirrell's job for years" This implies that Professor Quirrell has been teaching that subject for years. How is Quirrell an exception to the curse?
Chosen answer: Firstly, yes, there is said to be a curse on the Defence Against the Dark Arts teaching position, but the teachers do not "die within one year of teaching that subject" as a result of it. You see, Voldemort applied for the DADA position twice, once after Tom Riddle's graduation from Hogwarts and was refused, then years later as Lord Voldemort, and was refused again by Dumbledore. After Voldemort's second refusal to the Defence Against the Dark Arts teaching post, no DADA teacher held the position for more than a year due to a curse that Voldemort placed on the position. Dumbledore stated "You see, we have not been able to keep a Defence Against the Dark Arts professor for more than a year since I refused the post to Lord Voldemort."When Snape first became a teacher at Hogwarts, he requested the Defence Against the Dark Arts position, but was denied it and made the Potions Master. Then every year, as each of the subsequent DADA teachers left the school, Snape reapplied for that position, but was denied year after year. By the time Harry came to Hogwarts, Professor Quirrell, who held the position of the Muggle Studies teacher for some years, had been made the new Defence Against the Dark Arts professor after his year off (traveling to Europe, where Voldemort got hold of him). So when Percy says, "He's been after Quirrell's job for years" it means that for many years Snape has been after the position of Defence Against the Dark Arts professor, which is Quirrell's new teaching position that term.
Question: I'm watching all of West Wing in order. I thought I remembered the scene of the drunk Ainsley meeting the president occurring before she's actually introduced to the audience in the TV program and subsequently hired. In which episode does the drunken dancing occur? Thanks for the help.
Chosen answer: We're first introduced to Ainsley in season 2, episode 4, 'In This White House', during Sam's appearance on the show Capital Beat, where as Josh puts it, "Sam's getting his ass kicked by a girl (Ainsley)." Then later, during the same episode Leo hires Ainsley. It's not until episode 13, 'Bartlet's Third State of the Union', that it comes to Sam's attention that Ainsley still hasn't met President Bartlet, even after she's been working there a few months. Later in this episode, when Sam goes to Ainsley's office he finds her wearing a White House gym robe (she had sat on the bench's wet paint just as CJ had earlier), drunk, dancing and singing. A moment later President Bartlet shows up at her basement office and that's when Ainsley first meets him. Priceless.
Question: How did the first facehugger get through Kane's helmet? In 'Alien' the people searching the alien craft wore helmets, in 'Aliens', Newt's parents didn't wear helmets. Can anyone explain the discrepancy?
Chosen answer: It burned its way through Kane's faceplate by excreting some acidic substance - that's why it appears melted. As for the helmets discrepancy between the two films, when the Nostromo landed on LV-426, the planet's atmosphere wasn't capable of supporting human life, forcing Dallas, Kane and Lambert to wear full suits. By the time Newt's family locate the derelict ship, fifty-seven years later, the human terraforming process has been running for twenty years, altering the atmosphere enough to make it breathable.
Question: Towards the end, before the confrontation with Kimble and Nicholls, the guy who was tracing Kimble's phone records tells the Marshalls that Kimble telephoned Sykes on the night of his wife's murder. But obviously it wasn't Kimble calling Sykes, it was Sykes using Kimble's phone. But why would Sykes be calling himself?
Chosen answer: He didn't. A key plot point is that Nichols borrowed Kimble's car on the night of the murder. The call to Sykes, which is expressly stated by the marshals as being on Kimble's car phone, was from Nichols, presumably arranging to meet so that he could give Sykes Kimble's keys to get into his house to lie in wait for him.
Thank you for explaining it. I've seen it several times and never realised how it went down.
And Tommy Lee Jones tells Kimble that they knew Nichols called Skyes from his car, but how? Wouldn't the more logical answer have been that the US Marshals thought that Kimble called Sykes from his car to tell the killer his wife was home alone? There is no way the US Marshalls would have known that the Kimble let Nichols borrow his call - that's the mistake in the movie! It actually should have made the Marshalls suspicious of Kimble, not exonerate him.
The Marshals know Kimble let Nichols borrow his car because Kimble told the police when he was initially interviewed following the murder. He gave a detailed account of his actions and whereabouts that night and mentioned that Nichols had borrowed his car. It didn't seem suspicious to the police at the time because Richard claimed he fought with a one armed man he didn't recognize; a story the police did not believe because there was no evidence of this and Kimble's wife "identified" her attacker as Richard. Gerard puts everything together when he realises that Nichols lied about knowing Lentz.
How did Sam figure out that Nichols borrowed the vehicle and made the call to Sykes and gave him keys, etc? I know in the laundry he reveals that he knew this but when/how did he figure it out?
Answer: This is more of a question really. What kind of defense attorney did this high dollar, Dr. Kimble hire who do not show their defendant pictures of the one-armed men the police question? How do his attorneys not ask him "OK, which of these one-armed men did you fight with in your house?"
The prosecution is not required to inform the defense of every person the police interview or question. They are only required to give the defense whatever evidence they have against the accused. Simply questioning someone in a perceived dead only counts as evidence against the accused if the prosecutor mentions it in court. If the prosecutor were to say "We interviewed a one-armed man named Sykes and he says he doesn't know you", then Kimble's defense would be required to be given access to Sykes. We can assume this never happened.
The Chicago police DID question Sykes after the Kimble murder. Review the scene where Sykes returns to his apartment after Kimble has been there. Girard starts asking Sykes questions, at first Sykes says he doesn't know anything about Kimble but then "remembers" that he had been interviewed by the police right after the Kimble murder. However, Sykes says that he gave the police an alibi, with 15 people supposedly confirming that Sykes was on a business trip and not in Chicago. The movie then implies that Sykes had been a Chicago cop and lost his arm "in the line of duty." Remember that the Chicago police focused on Kimble pretty quickly. Their investigators may have interviewed Sykes, but they likely didn't even come close to considering him as a potential murderer. Even with Sykes likely matching Kimble's description of the one-armed man, the police likely saw Sykes as a former cop... A former cop who had an alibi confirmed by 15 people. As I understand it, prosecutors don't have to tell defense attorneys about everyone that the cops question. They only have to tell the defense about potential witnesses that might be called in connection to the criminal trial. In this scenario, Sykes wouldn't have been part of the criminal trial (Again, supposedly on a business trip confirmed by 15 people on the night of the murder) and thus Kimble and his lawyers would never have known about his existence.
Question: Is there any particular reason Queen Latifah appeared on the show in two different episodes as two different characters?
Chosen answer: No reason really, its not uncommon for shows to use the same actor to play different characters.
Question: How is the predalien able to kill the predators that are on the spaceship where it births, when it shows in the first AVP that there are at least 15 predators on it, not a single one is able to kill it?
Chosen answer: The predator that was sent to kill the predalien, knowing full well what it was going after, was still only able to do so by pinning the predalien down and blowing itself up. Add to that the element of surprise, where the predators 1)did not know there was a predalien on their ship and 2)how powerful the predalien was, and it becomes all too easy for the predalien to pick the predators off.
Question: How did Ethan figure out that Krieger is Phelps' accomplice? The knife couldn't have been it, because there's probably thousands of knives of that model.
Chosen answer: It was the knife, combined with the fact that it was Clare who introduced Krieger to Ethan.
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Answer: It seemed more like a reflex action than a deliberate decision. Marty saw Biff's name on the matchbook cover, causing him to pick it up for a closer look, then just stuffed it into his pocket. As you pointed out, they came in handy later. That and when they changed the timeline in 1955 after burning the alamanac, it would also change back to "Biffs Auto Detailing." Gotta make sure you cover your bases when dealing with the future, make sure that everything changes back to normal.
raywest ★