Question: Of all the times Neo saved Trinity, why couldn't he do so at the end? And what happened to Neo at the end? He's just gone. I heard it explained but I still don't understand.
Phixius
15th Oct 2014
The Matrix Revolutions (2003)
6th Oct 2014
Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014)
Question: How exactly did Optimus wind up in a beat down theater in Texas? Didn't they say the ambush that he escaped from was in Chicago? If he was hit by the missile there, or wherever it was that he was hit, how did he get to that theater in the middle of Texas and some how wind up inside. It seemed by how he reacted when he was revived that he was still in the heat of it when he went unconscious from the attack, and didn't get to the theater after the fact to just fade away. So how?
Chosen answer: The battle that lead the government to hunting all transformers was in Chicago, but the incident that took Optimus out of commission was not. He'd been on the run for however long, even changing his appearance to avoid detection, when he was ambushed. Wounded, he snuck into the theater to hide before transforming one last time into vehicle form at which point he basically passed out, lost consciousness, or whatever it is robots call it when they involuntarily shut down (stasis). His aggressive reaction upon waking is simply down to his instinctive warrior reflexes immediately kicking in. All humans are a potential threat to him now, so he reacted accordingly in an instant.
28th Sep 2014
Groundhog Day (1993)
Question: I read somewhere that for Phil to be as good as he is on the piano in the jazz club scene he would have had been trapped in that day for about 10 years. Is it known anywhere (DVD, directors, actors) that say about how long Phil actually repeated the same day?
Chosen answer: Harold Ramis, who wrote and directed the film, had said the in the original draft Phil spent a total of 10,000 years trapped in his timeloop. They ended up scaling that back quite a bit for the final version, but it's still in the ballpark of 100 to 1,000 years. Quite a broad window, I know, but the point is it's easily plenty of time for Phil to have become a master pianist along with all the other skills he appears to have mastered.
Answer: Harold Ramis flat out said it was about 10 years. I think the final numbers calculated by some groups said it needed to be just over 8 years, to learn and do all the things he did. I'm not sure how they actually calculated it, but I'll go with the writer and directer of the movie for 10 years.
16th Aug 2014
30 Days of Night (2007)
Question: 2 part question, 1. I know he only just turned but surely Eben would have attacked his friends, the man hiding under the building (who Eben kills near the swings) had only just turned yet did not hesitate and attacked Eben instantly, so why didn't Eben do the same? 2. The head vampire tells the others not to turn anyone, why not? Surely they would want as many vampires as possible to make killing the resisting humans easier and to make up the numbers should they lose any, why didn't he want anyone to turn?
Answer: The hiding man had no idea what had happened to him and so was just running on his new animalistic instinct. Eben became a vampire knowingly, willingly, and so he was able to move past that stage immediately. As you can see by the behavior of the lead vampire, a bit of restraint and humanity is not impossible to achieve. The lead vampire did not want anyone turned because that would mean more vampires to share the blood with. He didn't anticipate much in the way of resistance from the humans, they being weaker, slower, creatures.
Also, the man under the building was attacked ~7 days earlier.
8th Aug 2014
Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox (2013)
Question: When Hal Jordan goes on his kamikaze mission against Aquaman's sub, why does he have to use the alien ship that Abin Sur crashed in 8 years prior? Why not a stealth jet or something? Doesn't seem logical that the government would send a top secret, highly valuable alien space craft on a suicide bomber mission. And Hal was told from the start it was a suicide mission. So why send that ship to be destroyed?
7th Aug 2014
12 Years a Slave (2013)
Question: In one of the very first scenes set in one of the plantation slave huts, Solomon is struggling to sleep. He is sleeping on the floor squashed amongst many other slaves. During this scene, what looks like a white youngish woman encourages him to touch her. A little earlier we see her sitting on the porch of the slave hut eating alone whilst the slaves are eating. As far as I could tell, she doesn't appear again in the film. Who is she? Does she play a greater role in the book? Was there more of a story here that ended up on the cutting room floor?
16th Jul 2014
General questions
Has anyone seen or remembers this scene from a film about a boy and a girl passing or trespassing through a park, then another boy pops out in front of them or approaches them with a baseball bat or a belt, then starts hitting the girl with it? I don't remember the name of the film but I think it was released in 2001 - the boy the somehow saves the girl, and then runs out of the park with her to this house.
Answer: Hearts In Atlantis, starring Anthony Hopkins. The boy kept the bat in a sheathe strapped across his back, yes?
25th Jun 2014
Inception (2010)
Question: What is the point of so many dream layers to get to the "inception" of the idea? I guess the movie would lose all of its intricacy without it, and would be much less appealing. So what is the excuse to use that trick from the director?
20th Jun 2014
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)
22nd Jun 2014
Legion (2010)
Question: Did I miss something somewhere? What was so special about the baby that its birth would change everything?
8th Jun 2014
Lucky Number Slevin (2006)
Question: Is there any reason why Luke believes what Darth Vader says when he tells him that he is his father?
Answer: The vision Luke sees in the cave on Dagobah is a clue to this. Luke is realizing he has a lot more in common with Darth Vader than the idealized father he'd always imagined. When Vader tells him he's his father, Luke doesn't want to believe it, but he simply can't deny that it feels much more true that his father would be someone passionate and reckless like himself rather than someone who exemplifies a noble Jedi, which feels like an obvious myth in hindsight.
17th Apr 2014
Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)
Question: The laws of physics in ToonTown are completely different from the laws of physics in the real world, so when Eddie is recounting his brother's death to Roger, how could the piano have killed him?
Answer: It was never mentioned if it was a toon piano or a real life one. A toony ACME piano would have just non-legally flattened Teddy Valiant and/or just for laughs, have piano keys for teeth. A real life piano would definitely lethally crush someone instantly. So Judge Doom must have gotten a non-toony piano from the human world and brought it back to ToonTown.
Answer: The laws of physics are different for 'toons wherever they are, not different for any and all beings within ToonTown. Eddie's brother was not a 'toon, so the piano killed him like it would any flesh-and-blood man.
Except Teddy was in Toon Town when the murder occurred. Later in the movie, Eddie is in Toon Town and when he gets on an elevator, it moves so fast that he gets flattened on the floor yet, he manages to survive even though the force alone should have killed him. Since Teddy's was in Toon Town when the piano was dropped on him, it makes no sense how he died but Eddie was able to survive a very fast elevator ride.
Answer: It seems that intent is necessary for an actual death to occur in Toontown. When Judge Doom arranged for the piano to fall on Teddy it was done for the sole purpose of killing him. However, when Droopy Dog takes Eddie on the elevator ride he's not trying to kill him, merely cartoonishly flatten him for comedic effect.
13th Apr 2014
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Question: Do magical folk generally live longer than Muggles? Considering that Minerva is described as having black hair, even though she is old enough to have taught Harry's parents, and Dumbledore is more than one hundred years old (according to the Harry Potter Wiki).
28th Mar 2014
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001)
Question: I don't quite understand the moving portraits. Are they alive, are they Horcruxes or pieces of the subject's souls, or do they just say previously-recorded things?
Answer: They are not alive, nor are do they carry any piece of the subject's soul (or anyone else's for that matter) Neither are they just playing out some manner of magical-programming. They are normal paint-and-canvas paintings that have been charmed with sentience and to behave exactly as the subject of the portrait would have behaved.
16th Mar 2014
Gravity (2013)
Question: During the scene in which Matt detaches himself from Ryan so that he does not pull her away with him, why didn't he bounce back towards her when the rope snapped taut? Was there something that kept pushing/pulling him away that I missed?
Answer: If they had been tightly tethered to the space station, he would have bounced back toward her. But her foot was only tangled in parachute cords, so that when the tether snapped taught all it did was begin to pull her away from the station as the parachute cords gave more and more slack, slipping more and more loose as they drifted further away.
2nd Mar 2014
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001)
Question: If Voldemort is attached to Quirrell in this movie, then he heard Snape arguing with Quirrell and threatening him. Wouldn't he then become aware that Snape is actually loyal to Dumbledore? And wouldn't he be angry that Snape tried to protect Harry during the Quidditch game?
Answer: Voldemort believes that Snape is playing a role, not that he is actually loyal to Dumbledore.
24th Feb 2014
Inception (2010)
Question: I mostly understand the nature of the "kicks", but one thing I don't understand is what the kick was that woke the characters up from the 1st dream layer, the one with the van falling off the bridge. Falling off the skyscraper woke Ariadne up in the snow fortress layer, the fortress collapsing woke them up in the hotel layer, and the elevator crashing woke them up in the van layer. What woke the characters up, all at the same time, in the van layer?
Answer: You've got it a bit backward. Falling off the skyscraper (dying) got her out of limbo and back to the snow fortress so that when the elevator crashed at the hotel, THAT kick would be able to wake her out of the snow fortress. Then the van crashing woke her from the hotel, and finally the time entered into the dream machine itself expired and woke them all simultaneously for the final time. The only ways to wake up are to die within the dream or receive a kick from the level above the dream you're in, whether that's in another dream or the waking world.
23rd Feb 2014
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991)
Question: Mortianna is seen practicing some sort of magic, and in the extended addition we see the Sheriff "praying" (I think) in front of an upside-down crucifix. And he assures Mortianna that his true faith lies in the "old ways." I'm trying to figure out: Is this art Mortianna and the Sheriff practice supposed to be Devil worship? Black magic with no real base, that they just invented for the movie? A form of pre-Christian religion, e.g. something like the Druidic religions of pre-Roman Britain? For the life of me, I can't put my finger on it.
Answer: The white robes, reference to "the old ways", and pentagram across the map when the Sheriff meets the Barons suggests per-Christian Druidism; the upside down crucifix certainly implies Devil-worship. These two spiritual paths are, by nature, mutually exclusive. In short, a fictional pseudo-witchcraft invented for the film, yes.
17th Feb 2014
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Question: Why didn't Dumbledore let Harry, and the others on their side, know ahead of time that he had asked Snape to kill him? Then they would have known all along that they could trust Snape.
Answer: Because if they knew to trust Snape they would have behaved differently around him and that would have looked mighty suspicious to all the Death Eaters and Death Eaters' kids that know how much Harry and his allies hate Snape. It was imperative that Voldemort believe Snape was on his side. Besides, do you really think Harry would have been okay with that plan anyway?
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Answer: Neo couldn't save Trinity that last time because he wasn't in the Matrix when she was injured, so his power was very limited. Neo's body did not disappear and the end, so I don't know what you mean by "gone". Within the Matrix he was taken over by Smith, a program that had gone rogue and disconnected itself from the machines' source. By jacking into the Matrix through the machines' source and allowing Smith to take over his avatar, Neo tricked Smith into reconnecting himself to the machines' source, at which point the machines were able to delete Smith's program and restore the Matrix. This sacrifice from Neo to save the Matrix brought peace between the machines and the humans.
Phixius ★