Bishop73

31st Aug 2020

Halloween 4 (1988)

Question: Why transfer him at night in bad weather? That and given his past why not have him cuffed to the gurney and have armed guards there regardless of his comatose state?

Rob245

Answer: The best in-universe answer I could give you to your first question is that Michael just happened to be scheduled to be transferred at night and the weather ended up being crummy. I've been transferred between hospitals at night before. (Albeit, I'm not a homicidal maniac.) But honestly, the real answer is simply... "because movie." It's a horror movie - it's just more dramatic for the scene to be set at night during lousy weather. It wouldn't be nearly as effective a scene if it was during the day in nice weather. A dark, stormy night is sort-of a convention of the genre. As for the second question, he was severely burned in a fire and has been in a comatose state for years and years. Realistically, it was safe to assume he wouldn't wake up, and even if he did, a normal person's muscles would have likely softened into jelly in the meantime. They assumed they'd be safe... but they were wrong.

TedStixon

The question would be why did the characters transfer him at night in bad weather, not why did the film makers set it up like that. The viewer may thought he or she missed the in-film explanation or was looking for someone with expertise in transferring patients to provide an answer. And again, was there any in-film explanation given or persons with experience in transporting patients like Michael (albeit without supernatural powers). Pointing out the caveat of character's actions isn't realistic because it was scripted that way is fine, but pointing out that a movie is a movie isn't a valid answer (or correction).

Bishop73

I did amend my answer slightly before I saw your response. I really don't think my initial answer was that invalid though. That's honestly the truth - it was done that way for dramatic purposes, and any other answer would be pure speculation.

TedStixon

If no in-film explanation is given, speculation is OK as long as it aligns with something that would happen in real life (although I would suggest saying it's speculation). Sometimes people do ask question about why film makers would do something, and an answer like "to make it more dramatic" would be acceptable.

Bishop73

31st Aug 2020

Project Power (2020)

Question: What animal power did Newt have, bursting into flames, and what animal power did the girl that turned into ice have?

Answer: Their power is thermoregulation. I don't think it's stated which animal it came from, but any animal that thermal regulates (i.e. warm blooded animal).

Bishop73

31st Aug 2020

Jurassic World (2015)

Question: There's a theory that the kid who calls the raptor a "six foot turkey" is Owen. Is there any possibility that Blue (the raptor) is the same raptor that Hammond, Ian, Allan etc witnessed hatching in the Visitor Center? They were all stroking it and such which it seemed to enjoy, so it's had human interaction.

Answer: Blue was a 3 year old Raptor. The events of Jurassic World are meant to take 20+ years after Jurassic Park, so Blue wouldn't have been the one seen hatching.

Bishop73

Answer: No. As Bishop73 has said, Blue is a 3 year old raptor and thus not old enough to have been from the original park. The T-Rex on the other hand, is the same from the original. Note the scars on the side of her neck from the Raptor attack in the main hall at the end of the first film.

Ssiscool

Answer: In Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, there is video footage of when Owen was working with his three raptors when they were quite small. He had also mentioned that they had imprinted on him at birth.

raywest

24th Aug 2020

Outbreak (1995)

Question: When they are viewing the virus through the microscope, we see its shape is like a long strand, sort of coiled up at one end and uncoiled at the other end (think cobra rearing up). That structure seems too complex to be a virus. Are any viruses really shaped like that?

Answer: Yes, the fictional virus would be a filovirus similar to Ebola. These are filament shaped virus that can coil up.

Bishop73

24th Aug 2020

The Book of Eli (2010)

Question: At the end when the Bible is placed in the book shelf, you can read Holy Bible, New King James Version, Alcatraz. But next to Alcatraz there is something written that I can't pick up. Any ideas?

Answer: Press. Alcatraz Press would be the fictional publishing company of the Bible.

Bishop73

16th Sep 2011

Ghostbusters 2 (1989)

Question: When the Ghostbusters went on trial, did they CHOOSE to waive their right to trial by jury and be tried by the judge? Given the obvious bias of this judge against them, if I were them, I would certainly not have waived my right to a jury trial.

Answer: Violating a restraining order is regarded as Contempt of Court, and thus is not subject to trial by jury.

Captain Defenestrator

But what about the other charges, willful destruction of public property, fraud, and malicious mischief? (Also, it should be noted that no-one goes to trial a day or two after they're arrested, so it seemed it was written as a bench trial just so the judge could later reverse his decision).

Bishop73

Louis is a tax attorney and since he got his degree in night school, it's implied that he has very little experience even being a tax attorney, let alone a criminal defense lawyer. I took it as the underlying humor in this scene being that everything went wrong, yet they still managed to save the day.

The charge that the prosecution really wants to stick them on is Ghostbusting and therefore, violating a restraining order. So that's what they're pushing for.

Captain Defenestrator

11th Nov 2015

Little Women (1994)

Question: When Amy is told that she cannot go to the opera with Meg and Jo, Beth tells Amy, "Evangeline and I will make you some ginger tea." The cook/maid's name is listed as Hannah in the cast credits, and she is referred to by the name of Hannah a few times in the movie. Who is Evangeline?

Sandyjeanie

Chosen answer: Evangeline is their cat.

Answer: The cat is named Evangeline. She's holding her while she says that line.

So the cat named Evangeline is going to make tea for Amy?

Sandyjeanie

Not literally. She was just humanizing her cat. It's something people do, just like how you can buy greeting cards "from the cat" or "from the dog."

Bishop73

Beth was trying to be funny by saying the cat would help make the tea.

20th Aug 2020

Law & Order (1990)

Answer: A courtroom trial that has been terminated prior to its normal conclusion. A mistrial has no legal effect and is considered an invalid or nugatory trial. This often happens when there is a lack of Jurisdiction, an incorrect jury selection or, as seen in many of the episodes, a hung jury, i.e. some jury members finding the defendant guilty while the other members of the jury will find the defendant not guilty and all jury members won't change their decision.

Answer: I was once a juror on a trial where the defendant started crying and talking about how his son would suffer if he went to jail. The judge became furious, decided that he had prejudiced the state's case (we were now thinking of his family, rather than if he were actually guilty), and declared a mistrial.

Brian Katcher

Answer: In short, any time a trial ends and is declared void before the jury delivers a verdict or a judge issues a decision. Generally a mistrial is caused by a jury not being able to come to unanimous decision or the prosecution does something that would make the trial unfair to the defendant.

Bishop73

20th Aug 2020

Avengers: Endgame (2019)

Question: How is Rogers alive at the end? Shouldn't he have died of old age?

MikeH

Answer: It's safe to assume that due to the treatments he received that gave him his super-powers, he also ages a bit more slowly compared to other people. At least that's the way I took it.

TedStixon

Answer: While he may not really look like it in the film, based on information dates given in the film, Rogers would be 106 at then end. While not a common age to live to, it's certainly obtainable as non-super enhanced people have lived past that age (122 years old being the verified record). Also, it should be noted, people don't "die of old age." Being old doesn't kill you, disease, illness or injuries do.

Bishop73

Question: Was Robinson Crusoe On Mars scientifically plausible when it was made in 1964? Aged eight, I watched this movie on release. Even then I knew it was a movie, not a scientific documentary. Nevertheless, I understand that it was once seriously believed there were canals on the surface of Mars. (I even had a children's pictorial encyclopaedia which showed Mars criss-crossed by canals.) After crash-landing on Mars astronaut Kit Draper (Paul Mantee) discovers that the Martian canals were made by intelligent, technologically advanced beings millennia ago. Could anybody in the scientific community have believed this in 1964? Kit Draper discovers ways of creating oxygen, so he does not suffocate; he then finds water sources, vegetation he can eat and a coal like rock that burns to make fires. He witnesses extra-terrestrial aliens visiting Mars in space ships. Was this, by any stretch of the imagination, regarded as even remotely credible in 1964? Or was it pure Hollywood hokum?

Rob Halliday

Answer: This is pure Hollywood fiction, never meant to be science-based fact, and was typical of sci-fi films of that era such as: War of the Worlds, Invaders From Mars, The Martian Chronicles, and others. Many were based on early-to-mid-20th century science-fiction novels when little was scientifically known about any of the planets. Authors imagined what Mars was like purely to entertain readers. After the 1960s, as more was scientifically known about Mars, films became more realistic, although the 2012 Disney film, "John Carter," was a deliberate throwback to that earlier genre. Also, scientists never believed that there were canals on Mars. In the 1870s, Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli was mapping Mars through a telescope. He described the long, trench-like geographical features as "canali," (Italian for channels). American astronomer Percival Lowell misinterpreted this as "canals" and believed they were of intelligent origin, though other scientists debunked that. Sci-fi writers of the time (H.G. Wells, Edgar Rice Boroughs, et al) incorporated Lowell's published theories into their stories.

raywest

It should be noted "John Carter" is based on the 1912 novel "A Princess of Mars."

Bishop73

11th Mar 2020

The Family Stone (2005)

Question: At the end of the movie, the family is around the Christmas tree. At the left side of the dad there is a guy standing as part of the movie scene, who is he?

Answer: I think you're talking about John Trousdale, Susannah Stone's husband, played by Jamie Kaler.

Bishop73

Question: Is the Canyon of the Crescent Moon a real place, or was the shot of the canyon as seen from Donovan's binoculars just a place created for the film?

Phaneron

Chosen answer: The Canyon of the Crescent Moon is fictional, but based on the real entrance to the Treasury (Al Khazna). The Bab as-SÄ«q is the wide valley leading to the SÄ«q, the narrow gorge entry.

Bishop73

9th Aug 2020

Double Jeopardy (1999)

Question: Why did the ex husband kill his former mistress turned wife?

Rob245

Answer: Nick used Angie to help fake his death, frame Libby, and collect the insurance money which would have gone to their son, Matty. It's unclear if Nick married Angie, who became Matty's legal guardian, but he needed her to gain access to the money. He certainly didn't love her, and once he fully controlled the money, he eliminated her, as she was a liability who could have exposed him. I agree with the other answer that it also simplifies the plot by killing off a secondary character. It also shows how devious, ruthless, and sociopathic Nick is.

raywest

Answer: I don't think they explained it, but most likely for her insurance money which is the same reason Nick faked his death in the first place. But it's also possible her death was faked as well. Looking at it from the prospective of the writer, it seemed it was easier to kill her off or get rid of her somehow instead of her showing up at the end with Nick and there wouldn't be a way for Libby to kill her without facing jail time for it and it wouldn't make sense for Libby to just forgive her and let her go.

Bishop73

Angie's death wasn't faked. It was established and verified by the next-door-neighbor lady that she was killed in the house explosion while Nick and Maddy were conveniently away. Libby also researched old newspaper articles about the accident and the ensuing investigation. The articles also showed photos of the now-dead Angie.

raywest

9th Aug 2020

Double Jeopardy (1999)

Question: Given that the crime is murder why is she paroled after only six years?

Answer: She apparently was convicted in a jurisdiction that used indeterminate (not determinate) sentencing, allowed a life sentence to be "with the possibility of parole" and sentencing philosophy of "let the punishment fit the criminal (not the crime). " When there is no mandatory minimum number of years to be served in prison, a convicted murderer (of various°) could actually serve relatively few years in prison with the remainder of the sentence served outside of prison (such as in a halfway house or residential treatment center, or in her own home under electronic monitoring) provided the offender does not violate the conditions of release. An offender receiving a sentence of "life imprisonment", for example, could serve the first several years in prison and then be released to a halfway house to continue "serving time" outside of prison (with supervision). The years served "in the community" are still "time served" under the sentence - only the location of serving it has changed.

KeyZOid

Answer: To start, this film gets a lot wrong about the judicial system and law (including the whole idea that Libby can freely kill Nick because she's already been convicted of his murder). In the film, they just say she's charged with murder, but never what degree. In Washington State, 2nd degree murder generally carries a sentence of 10-18 years (not including felony-murder). However, Washington State did not offer parole at the time of the film like other states did. To be released, she'd have a hearing in front of the Washington State Clemency and Pardons Board, not a Parole Board. And it's unlikely they'd grant her a release. But in Texas for example, she could possibly get parole after serving at least half her sentence.

Bishop73

8th Aug 2020

General questions

It's a bit of a trope in films for an explosive device of some kind to be placed in a microwave, often catching the victim unawares until the final few seconds before the beeper goes and it explodes. Grosse Point Blank and Under Siege come to mind, to name but two. But is there any real reason the countdown should match the explosion? Is there anything specific about the end of a microwave cycle that might cause a detonation in something capable of it, or is it just a Hollywood convention that the hero's skills are such that they manage to set the timer for the perfect length to cause an explosion?

Jon Sandys

Answer: To start, exploding microwaves in film are like gas tanks exploding when shot, what the movies show is nothing like real life. Most explosive simply do not explode in microwaves, even after 15 minutes. Flash powder (flashbang grenades) can go off in a microwave after about 5 minutes, but just from being heated up, nothing to do with the final seconds of the countdown. Although they certainly wouldn't explode an entire store or cause more damage then the flashbang would do normally. Explosives like C4, hand grenades, or modern TNT and dynamite-type explosives will not go off like seen in the films, at least not with low powered home microwaves.

Bishop73

17th Jan 2007

The A-Team (1983)

Answer: They never use an M14. The nearly always use a Ruger Mini 14, a totally different weapon.

stiiggy

Answer: The machine guns primarily used were M60's or M60D's. Although there were a lot of sub-machine guns used too, like the Mac-10. For some reason other answers are talking about rifles used in the show.

Bishop73

For the reason is because most people don't know the difference between an automatic rifle, a sub-machine gun, and a machine gun. I.e. Die Hard "Ho-ho-ho now we have a machine gun" - actually a HK MP5K. M60D's are for helicopter door gunners. I suspect you mean an M60E3, with the pistol foregrip.

stiiggy

You suspect wrong. I did mean M60D since they were seen being used as helicopter door guns.

Bishop73

Only in the stock footage in the intro though.

lionhead

Yes, because the question was asking what machine guns were used, but didn't cite a specific episode or anything, so I was being thorough.

Bishop73

The question is what machine guns were used by the A-team. Not that one.

lionhead

So you think the question was what machine gun was used by the A-Team but not by the A-Team?

Bishop73

No. The A-Team never used the M60D anywhere in the series, you only see it in the stock footage of the intro. And the question was what machine guns the A-team used.

lionhead

Which is stock footage of the A-Team.

Bishop73

That is most definitely not the A-team in the helicopter, they are just showing footage from the Vietnam war.

lionhead

Answer: Mostly M-14's. Occaisionally M-16's or Ingram Model 10's. http://world.guns.ru/smg/smg00-e.htm.

Grumpy Scot

They are not M-14s, that is a full automatic military rifle used during the early part of the Vietnam War as a replacement for the M1 Garand. It has much the same appearance as the M1 except with a magazine instead of a top-loading en-bloc 8 rd clip. The rifles used by the team are Ruger Mini-14s, chambered for .223. An M-14 is NATO 5.56.

3rd Aug 2020

Focus (2015)

Question: What was the red sports car Will Smith was driving - the one that was smashed? Perhaps a Ferrari California?

Answer: It was a 2013 Peugeot RCZ.

Bishop73

16th Nov 2018

The X-Files (1993)

Answer: He didn't place himself there voluntarily. He mysteriously vanished from the hospital and awoke to find himself inside the incinerator. It appears this was punishment for his exposing that the lottery was rigged.

raywest

But, as a detective, it was his job to expose the rigging.

Chao didn't expose the rigged lottery as part of his job as a detective. He was already involved in the game and working for those in charge. He was paid to keep the game a secret from foreigners and his blood was found in Lo's apartment, meaning he was the mysterious figure that tells Lo he must pay. But despite Chao's involvement, he wanted the game to end. To me, it seems he smashed the vase out of anger, not because he knew it was rigged and was trying expose that fact. But regardless, that's what he seems to be punished for.

Bishop73

Thanks. It was really confusing.

22nd Aug 2013

Family Guy (1999)

Screwed The Pooch - S3-E13

Question: At the trial, Carter's lawyer asks Brian the star of two films he rented - Brian replies "Pauly Shore" and everyone seems shocked. Is there supposed to be a joke behind this? If so, what does this joke mean?

Chosen answer: They were shocked that anyone would rent movies starring him - he is a bad actor.

Rydersriot87

And what's the connection of that making him a bad dad?

It's just a joke that someone who would make such a bad decision in renting movies couldn't be responsible for making good decisions in raising a kid.

Bishop73

29th Jul 2020

The Nun (2018)

Question: At the beginning, what was the old nun trying to do with the cross key in the dark room with the door that says "God ends here"?

Bunch Son

Answer: The nun was trying to find the relic. The deceased nuns had no actual idea where it was. That's the whole reason Irene was summoned by the Vatican because she had visions about "Mary pointing the way" also the "ghost nuns" more than likely have something to do with her clairvoyance as well.

Answer: Are you talking about before she opens the door? She's just making the sign of the cross, but using the same hand she's holding the key in.

Bishop73

I'm asking about what she was going to do in the dark room, what her plan was, what the cross key was for.

Bunch Son

It was to open the chamber that kept the vial of the blood of Christ so they could try to send Valak back to Hell.

Bishop73

The gateway to the relic was near the state of Mary, and it wasn't located inside the chamber seeing that Burke and Irene found the relic before crossing the passage leading to the chamber with the sign "God ends here." If there's someone who must have known where the relic was, it has to be the abbess. Then, why didn't she take it if she was going to?

Bunch Son

From everything I understood, the cross key opened the chamber that had the blood of Christ. The room with the sign "God ends here" was not the chamber I was speaking about. I was only addressing the question about what the key was for.

Bishop73

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