Question: If you read the book version of Contact you know that the stuff about transcendental numbers and the Artist's Signature was left out of the movie. This makes no sense to me, since it's not only the real ending, it's the whole POINT of the story. Without this information, the story's fundamental question (does God exist?) is not answered in the movie. Does anyone know why this was left out?
Answer: If anything, I think the film's producers deliberately left godly topics unaddressed (and questions dangling, unanswered) because they didn't want to alienate any particular audience. However, we know the producers of "Contact" certainly did vilify religion through the sinister scenes with Joseph, the evangelical extremist. At the same time, the film created empathy for the president's glib theological adviser, Palmer Joss. So, I don't think the film was shying away from religious topics, and I think it was pretty fair to the religious viewpoint, for the most part. But this movie wasn't about religion; it was about a primitive, materialistic, self-centered and aggressive species (humanity) reluctantly acknowledging the existence of vastly more intelligent and even godlike entities throughout the cosmos. Even the first-contact entities, advanced as they are, acknowledge other entities much more ancient and much more advanced (the virtual architects of the space/time conduit). The implication was that we live in a universe that may be populated with many intelligent entities that answer every human criteria of godhood. Ellie's narrow-minded atheism was surely shaken to its foundation by her experience; and, while she didn't "convert" to archaic earthly religions, she was spiritually a different person upon her return. The film, however, is open-ended and fence-straddling and doesn't presume to definitively answer the question of the existence of god, leaving it up to the audience to decide.
Answer: The film chooses to focus on Ellie's personal journey and how she deals with and comes to terms with what happens - it doesn't really involve God at all, other than the inclusion of Palmer Joss as a religious advocate, choosing to restrict itself to the much less theologically controversial theme of a straight first contact scenario, without the religious overtones. Given the depth of feeling on religious matters in the US, it's hardly surprising that the filmmakers preferred to leave this particular hot topic out. While Carl Sagan died during production of the film, he both co-produced and was involved in the story process, so he was clearly not concerned about this change.
Question: Why is Danny Glover as judge Tyrone Kipler not credited?
Answer: I don't know how prevalent this is (or how it actually works), but one possibility would be that he was under contract with a particular agency (or company/ business) and could only receive credit for work performed under this contract and/or no other agency could benefit from using him. His name cannot show up in something he did outside of that contract.
Chosen answer: I don't know why, but he asked not to be in the credits.
Question: The only way for the Djinn to rule the world is if the person who freed him had all three of his or her wishes granted. What were to happen if the person who freed the Djinn didn't make any wishes at all?
Answer: There's no known answer to this, but one thought is it would be very difficult for anyone, at some point and without thinking, not to wish for something, particularly something frivolous. Something like, "I wish it would stop raining." Theoretically, the Djinn could then use a "loophole" by granting the person's wish three times without them realizing it. If the person somehow never wished for anything, then presumably the Djinn would remain captive.
Question: Anastasia basically lost most of her memories from hitting her head, as well as the possible trauma of what happened to her the night her family was killed. Could someone really lose most of their memories that way?
Answer: Amnesia exists, but it is a temporary condition. It does not last for the long-term and people usually regain their memory in a day or two, sometimes up to a week. Extreme cases can last longer, but not in the way it is depicted in movies. Some people may lose memories due to severe brain damage from a traumatic injury, but that is permanent.
Question: Why did the Event Horizon choose to come back after seven years? In fact, why come back at all?
Chosen answer: The movie never explicitly says; but science is as yet unsure what happens to a given piece of matter once it crosses a black hole's event horizon, so who knows? The ship could have been thrown seven years forward in time, or far enough away that it took seven years for it to drift close to Neptune. Pick any explanation you like.
Question: In one of the flashbacks, after Kristy put the magnets on Michele's back, why did she eat Romy's hamburger? This just struck me as odd since the "popular girls" in movies are usually portrayed as dieting often, and they usually don't eat the junk food that the non-popular characters eat.
Answer: She ate it because she's a bitch and wanted to hurt Romy. She didn't take it to eat for food.
Answer: It was a way of her showing Romy that being popular (in high school) comes with "power" over the less popular students and ability to do what she wants without fear of retribution. Conversely, in order to try to be liked by a popular student, a less popular student will yield to the popular student and/or give (let her have) anything she wants, including her lunch. [It doesn't always work this way.].
Question: What's going on with Rico and Carl in the card guessing scene? I originally thought Rico was trying to guess the value of the unturned card was but then he says it's the ace of spades and it turns out to be exactly that yet he still gets it wrong. Could someone please explain what's happening there?
Answer: The card face up is the one he's trying to guess. The card that flips over is his guess (you can see him hit a pad when he says "ace of spades".) So he is trying to use mental powers to guess the card that is face up (which he can't see as he has his back to it), and (presumably so the computer can track his results better) he makes his choice on a keypad, which then turns over the card on the screen (which is why the card is what he said, yet still wrong).
Question: When Morrow bites off Eboshi's arm, the wolf's head has been somehow cut off her body. When the Forest Spirit took her life away, the head was attached. How did the head become detached?
Answer: You can see part of the ooze flowing across Moro's neck, thus it gets severed.
Question: When the police show up to arrest Gustav, why did he say that he doesn't recognize their authority? He knows who they are and what they're going to do so why does he say he doesn't?
Answer: He's a rich man who believes he is above the law. They have no authority to arrest him.
Question: When K and J are about to leave the police station, J says that he has a report to do. At that moment, his boss arrives and tells him he did a good report. Who did his report? It couldn't have been the MIB, because J was the only person who saw the entire chase.
Question: Who is the man in the picture in the office of the hospital? Is it supposed to be Nick Nolte when he was young, working as the night watchman?
Chosen answer: It is intended as a nod to the original 1994 version of the film, which supposedly featured the same picture in the watchman's booth.
Question: Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but the credits show that Panchito Gomez played young Abraham. I've seen Panchito Gomez in 80's movies such as Tuff Turf and he doesn't resemble at all the actor playing young Abraham. However, he DOES resemble the gentleman in the cowboy hat who stiffs Abraham money for Selena's performance and says "She's just a woman." I always wondered if the credits made a mistake. Anyone know?
Answer: Looking at the credits on IMDB it does show that Panchito Gomez played young Abraham in Selena as well as the role in Tuff Turf. Given that 12 years had passed between the two movies, it's possible that Panchito had gotten older and didn't look like he was when he was 22 compared to mid 30s.
Question: When Lolita enters Humbert's room for the very first time, she asks him if she's getting a zit. According to Google, zit was used to define a pimple circa 1966. The movie takes place in 1947. Was the slang used back then?
Answer: It could have been. Lolita might have used a relatively new term, and also how can one really pinpoint the first time a term was used? Maybe it was more mainstream in 1966, but kids could have been using the expression for several years.
Question: What happened to the terrorist Harrison Ford apprehended? Did he parachute with everyone else?
Chosen answer: He fell out the back without a parachute when the door blew open. We see him both tumble off the ramp, and another shot of him falling from below.
Question: What's the name of the song that the inmates at the asylum are dancing to?
Answer: "(Not Just) Knee Deep" by George Clinton And The Funkadelics.
Question: At the end of the movie, George Clooney and Nicole Kidman are trying to remove one of the small explosive plates that surround the plutonium sphere in a nuclear weapon. Couldn't they have just disconnected the wire connected to the explosive plate to prevent that trigger charge detonating properly? Or would it have detonated because it was touching the other plates?
Answer: Presumably they couldn't take the risk that removing the wire would stop that plate detonating, and/or were worried that there might be a failsafe to detect a wire being cut. Physically removing the charge seemed like the safer bet.
Answer: Benjamin "Lefty" Ruggiero suffered from testicular cancer, as well as lung cancer.
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