Best movie questions of 2009

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2012 picture

Question: How come a high tech ship would be unable to start its engine merely with the reason that the gate is unable to close?

gblontok

Chosen answer: Its a safety device so the ship doesn't put to sea and ends up flooding the ship. The passenger ferry Herald of Free Enterprise capsized in the port of Zebrugge in 1987, precisely because the doors were not shut properly.

GalahadFairlight

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Angels & Demons picture

Question: When Langdon and the Italian cop are trapped inside the sealed room of the Vatican archive and the air is shut off, how long could they actually survive in a space that size? In the movie, they start to suffocate almost immediately. (There is no long time lapse because the movie's plot depends on defusing the bomb within a few hours).

raywest

Chosen answer: In reality, they would have perished from CO2 poisoning long before the room ran out of breathable oxygen causing them to simply suffocate. Without knowing the exact dimensions of the room it is impossible to give any time more specific than "several hours" for this to happen in a room as big as that one appeared to be.

Phixius

I just re-watched the movie, and as Langdon and Vittoria enter the room, it's mentioned to them that the oxygen levels are always kept at a bare minimum to protect the ancient tomes and documents stored there. That helps to answer my own question about why Langdon and the cop were so quickly affected when the power was shut off.

raywest

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Up (2009)

Up picture

Question: When Carl and Ellie are married, why are there only a few wedding guests for the groom and why the long faces while the guests for the bride are so excited and celebrating the wedding?

Bunch Son

Chosen answer: Carl and Ellie have two dramatically different personalities. Carl is more conservative, more reserved, a tender heart covered by a tough exterior which Ellie is able to break through, but which seems to recalcify after she dies. Ellie, on the other hand, is the sweet free spirit, rambunctious and adventurous. Throughout the film, each one conforms to the other until they ultimately blend into one beautiful unit. I think the makers of the film were trying to show that their respective personalities were a product of their upbringing, and reflected in the reactions of their families - hers larger, more fun, and more "hick" (we hear gunshots, for Pete's sake), and his more reserved, formal and patrician.

Michael Albert

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The Twilight Saga: New Moon picture

Question: If Alice can see the future, why did she not protect Bella from Jasper's attack before it happened at Bella's birthday party?

sunfox35

Chosen answer: The way I understand it, Alice's power only works once someone makes a conscious decision to act. Since Bella's paper cut was unanticipated, Jasper's attack was impulsive, not premeditated.

Cubs Fan

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District 9 picture

Question: Something I couldn't figure out. The black fluid (in the glass cylinder) made Wikus start turning into an alien. If the aliens were mainly interested in going back to their planet, why had they been developing a substance that could turn humans into aliens? How would this help them go home?

Answer: That's more of a side effect of the fluid. See, only the Prawns could use their technology; it was "genetically activated", so to speak. So the fluid which powers their tech is like Prawn-gene concentrate. When Wikus was sprayed with the stuff it affected his genetic makeup.

Phixius

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The Final Destination picture

Question: When the girl is going into the car wash, the sign right before she enters on the left advises her to put the car into neutral, but to make sure her foot is on the brake. Neutral would allow the car to advance through the automatic wash. Having the brake engaged would prevent the car from moving forward. They cancel each other out so what is the point?

shortdanzr

Chosen answer: Actualy it says she should put it in neutral and keep her foot OFF the brake.

Answer: It tells her to keep it in neutral and keep her foot off the brake and the carwash stops then starts moving again when her head is stuck; out of the sunroof.

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The Lovely Bones picture

Question: If Susie's body had been in a bag in the safe, how did people who went into his house (Lindsey when she broke into his house through the basement window) not smell her dead body?

Answer: The only person who went into the basement while the safe was there was Lindsey. The safe was airtight, so the odor at that point would have been contained inside it.

raywest

Answer: The dog could smell her body even from outside, and he barked and hesitated as he passed near the killer's house. Dogs can smell people from a long distance.

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Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel picture

Question: How did Brittany even know Toby's phone number, and why would Ian sit his phone right next to them?

Answer: Alvin could have easily known Toby's number and told it to her. Ian just simply put down his phone not even thinking that the chipettes could get at it from inside of the carrier.

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Terminator Salvation picture

Question: What causes the explosion near the start which causes John Connor's helicopter to crash? I may be missing something, but they never seem to address it.

Jon Sandys

Chosen answer: It was a strike by Skynet on the attacked facility to try and deny the resistance information and anything useful.

GalahadFairlight

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A Christmas Carol picture

Question: Can someone please explains this? When Marley visits Scrooge, it's Christmas Eve. Marley tells Scrooge that he will be haunted by three ghosts. The first ghost would appear tomorrow when the bell tolls one. Meaning that the first ghost would appear on Christmas day. The second would appear the next night at the same hour. December 26th. And the final spirit would appear the following night at twelve o'clock. December 27th. When Scrooge is talking to the boy outside his window after the visitations, the boy tells him it's Christmas Day.

Answer: It's basically the magic of Christmas. While, to Scrooge, three full days have passed, in reality his whole experience took place in a single night, allowing the reformed Scrooge to enjoy Christmas Day.

Tailkinker

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The Princess and the Frog picture

Question: How did Tiana know that Naveen was going to marry Lottie? We don't find out until later that Lottie has to kiss Naveen in order for the spell to be broken and sure Lottie was attracted to Naveen but still, marriage wasn't mentioned so how did Tiana know? Did I miss something?

Answer: Naveen told Tiana about his plan to marry Lottie once they arrived in the swamp. After revealing that he's been cut off by his parents, he explains that he plans to regain his wealth by marrying her so that he'll inherit her father's prosperity.

Answer: Mama Odie tells Tiana and Naveen that Naveen must kiss a true princess in order to break the spell. Lottie is the princess of the Mardi gras parade so that would make her a princess and that would make it necessary for her to kiss Naveen and break the spell.

Tiana knew that Naveen was going to marry Lottie because Naveen tells her when they are running away from danger in the bayou. Naveen says 'when I marry Miss Charlotte LaBouff...' in an attempt to explain to Tiana how he intends to be rich again.

Naveen wasn't looking to marry a princess, just a "little honey whose daddy got dough", as said by the Shadow Man.

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Monsters vs Aliens picture

Question: When Susan grew after being affected by the Quantonium meteorite, why do no other life forms, such as insects in the grass, not also grow?

The Yeti

Chosen answer: Well, it's a fiction movie; some suspension of disbelief is always needed. There could be a number of explanations: for instance, lifeforms such as insects on the grass, bacteria inside them or even grass itself, being unable to absorb quantonium. It might affect only sentient beings. Or Susan might even be the first being to get in contact with the substance - this would be possible depending on the shape of the meteorite container, the exact means by which quantonium touches her body - which isn't shown... but, first and foremost, this happens because its not happening would leave the filmmakers with a plot issue to be dealt with - so, other beings don't grow simply because they don't.

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Up in the Air picture

Question: I'm fairly positive that one of the African-American female terminated employees, who has a very small but significant role in Up in the Air(trying to avoid spoiling the plot), is Elise Neal. Elise Neal was D.L. Hughley's wife in The Hughleys and also starred in Hustle and Flow. Any reason why she is not credited on the film? imdb.com and other sites do not list her as a cast member.

Answer: It's not Elise Neal, it is Tamala Jones.

jshy7979

Answer: It is not unusual for actors to appear in films in uncredited cameo roles. There's many reasons. Their appearance is not significant enough to warrant a film credit, it is a surprise for the audience, they do it for fun or as a favor to the director or producer, it avoids contract obligations, and so on.

raywest

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The Time Traveler's Wife picture

Question: Why can't Henry save his mother from being in the car crash? Couldn't he have warned her when they met on the subway?

Answer: He could have had Claire distract her long enough to delay her car ride and miss the accident.

Answer: Of course not. Why would she listen to him? He's a total stranger. And if he tells her he's her time-travelling son, she'll think he's a nutjob to boot. It's well-established in the book that he tried everything to save her but could never do so, which made him recognise a well-accepted convention of time-travelling lore: big past events can never be changed. Diana Gabaldon wrote an excellent and extensive essay on time-travelling laws, which is probably still available somewhere on the Internet.

Sereenie

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Ed, Edd n Eddy's Big Picture Show picture

Question: They take a bunch of fireflies and put them in a jar with a lid to use it as a lamp, is this really possible? How many of them would be needed?

tipar

Answer: First, you'd have to figure out how much light production you would qualify as being sufficient to consider the fireflies in a jar a "lamp." Lights are often rated in footcandle, lumens, or lux. Without getting into what all that means, you could probably hike a path in the dark with just 25 lumens, which is a little less than 2.5 footcandles. (By comparison, a bedroom may have 20-50 footcandles but an outdoor parking area may only have 1-5 footcandles and street lighting may be 1-3 footcandles). With that in mind, it also depends on the species. The most common firefly in the US produces 1/40 a candle. So 40 fireflies for 1 footcandle and 100 to have a "lamp" to hike with. It should also be noted males light every 5 seconds and females light ever 2 seconds, so you would need more if they're not all lighting up at once.

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Daybreakers picture

Question: Why didn't Chris want the cure to spread in the end?

Answer: Just like the humans, he had a fear of becoming extinct.

Answer: The vampires were now everywhere, with very few humans left in their blood farms. Their food supply was dwindling and it was getting to the point that they were facing extinction by starvation. The only way to keep life going was for the vampire disease to be cured and everybody to turn back human.

Quantom X

Then why didn't he want it to happen?

He successfully created a substitute.

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Zombieland picture

Question: If the character's nicknames (Columbus, Tallahassee, etc) come from their destinations, how come Witchita & Little Rock have different names, when they're sisters and are coming from - and heading to - the same place?

Answer: The names come from their hometowns, not their destinations. Witchita is much older than Little Rock; she could have spent the majority of her childhood in Witchita before her family moved to Little Rock where her sister was born. She still considers Witchita to be her "hometown".

Phixius

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The Proposal picture

Question: I was just wondering why, at the end of the movie, the name of the company changed from Colston to something like Ruiz and Hunt. I mean, Margaret's last name was "Tate" so her leaving shouldn't have caused a name change. (I apologize if the names are incorrect, I've only gotten to watch it once at a friend's house, so the movie isn't readily available for me to check).

Jazaray

Chosen answer: The building is named Ruik and Hunt, the publishing company is Colston, which is housed inside the building. The company never changed names.

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Friday the 13th picture

Question: It appears Jason has upsized his shack in this version. He now lives in an abandoned house instead of a rundown shack we see in Part 2. Plus the house has an extensive tunnel system. Finally, where does the electric bill get sent?

Answer: It's the former summer camp. I would believe they had a generator or two.

Answer: It's possible that he has a generator.

newtrekkilover

Where did he get the generator from? Home Depot?

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Bruno picture

Question: Like Borat, Bruno was mostly unscripted, and most of the people were real people secretly filmed without their knowledge. So does that mean the sex scenes at the swinger party were unsimulated? If they were, how was the movie not rated NC-17?

MikeH

Chosen answer: The MPAA's rating guidelines are all over the place, and tone and context matter. The scene in question appears to be real, but there's not really anything explicit shown, and since it's all played for laughs, the MPAA was probably more lenient on it.

Phaneron

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