Question: Carrie mentions that her longest or most serious relationship was eight-and-a-half days with an acid rock singer, that she came home and found in the shower with his mother. Wasn't she about to get married when Bandit found her? Would you not think that she actually had a relationship with him (and didn't she say she was pregnant, therefore, had to get married?).
BaconIsMyBFF
20th Sep 2019
Smokey and the Bandit (1977)
Answer: She is running away because she is being pressured into marriage with a man she doesn't love. That implies that there was no declining the proposal.
Answer: Where does she say she was pressured into marriage? - didn't have to really be snarky about it. They pick her up, she says there is a wedding in search of a bride... doesn't mean she was pressured... In fact, there is no definitive statement that she was forced to marry him or didn't love him. All she says is "I'm sorry Junior!" at the end. She just bolted from the wedding... people get cold feet all the time.
Answer: Then she could have said no to the proposal (just saying) when it was done (off camera).
So what's your point? The character agreed to the marriage under pressure, then changed her mind and decided to run. Where's the problem?
My point would be the use of the word "pressure/pressured." Those words aren't even in the script. She said she said yes because he was cute; why not, no reason. She was NEVER under any "pressure" to say yes.
10th Oct 2019
Matilda (1996)
Question: Since Trunchbull hates kids so much why is she an elementary school principal?
Answer: The answer is: "Power." Miss Trunchbull is a sadistic bully, as a school headteacher she can terrorise, frighten and dominate children and teachers. Also the job pays a good salary. She has probably arranged things so the other teachers do all the real work and the difficult jobs. She lives in a house attached to the school, so she gets free accommodation. She can run scams: for example the pupils must be fed, so she gives the catering contract to a company who pay her a "backhander." Thus she has a lucrative job where she does very little work. Plus, you cannot have a story without a villain to be defeated, so Miss Trunchbull is a brilliant opponent for Matilda.
Answer: It's a common enough trope to the point where it has become cliche. Stories set in a school will almost always have a teacher or principal (or both) openly dislike their students. Stories aimed at a younger audience will often exaggerate this to an extreme, where the teacher/administrator has a hatred of children in general that borders on insanity.
10th Oct 2019
Overboard (2018)
Question: Maybe I'm foolish but if they're poor then how does Kate afford a nice looking car?
Answer: Just because someone is low income doesn't mean they can't own a decent car. Kate could spend what little money she has to pay for her car and still consider herself poor because she has no money left over after paying bills. Plenty of low income people still own decent cars because they are more reliable and require less maintenance than an older car, and are thus a good investment. Kate has three children, works two jobs, and goes to school. She has to have a good car to get back and forth and there's no way she could afford a major repair on an older car, so buying a new car is actually a smart choice for her situation.
10th Oct 2019
Predator (1987)
Question: The helicopter with Dillon's agents - did the guerrillas shoot it down or did the Predator?
Answer: The guerrillas shot down the helicopter using a Soviet heat-seeking missile and captured the agents after they executed the pilots. The Predator came along later and ambushed Jim Hopper's rescue team.
1st Oct 2019
Apocalypto (2006)
Question: Why is the other tribe traveling through young Jaguar Paw's tribe's forest?
Answer: They are refugees, fleeing war in their homeland.
1st Oct 2019
Tombstone (1993)
Question: In the scenes when McMasters' body is dropped, the Cowboy says to meet Ringo at 7 o'clock. It was light out. Then they show Ringo and it is dark. Then when Wyatt talks to Doc at Hooker's ranch it appears the sun is rising. Then just before the showdown between Doc and Ringo it appears that the sun is up. It seems more than 12 hours passed. Did 7 o'clock mean 7am?
Answer: Yes, the showdown was meant to have taken place at 7am the next day.
5th Oct 2018
Cobra Kai (2018)
Question: How come Sam and Aisha stopped being friends just cause Sam was hanging out with Yasmine?
Answer: Yasime was being mean to her.
But Sam wasn't. It was even obvious that Sam didn't like it.
Sam and Aisha were long-time friends and Sam wasn't standing up for Aisha at all. She continued being friends with Yasmine even though she was being cruel to Aisha. Being uncomfortable at Yasmine's insults is not going far enough to stand up for Aisha.
But Sam also didn't come to her defense either. So that's a good reason for Aisha to not like her.
Answer: Sam picked her prettier and more popular friends over Aisha. They still got along until Yasmine publicly humiliated Aisha.
23rd Sep 2019
Silver Bullet (1985)
Question: Reverend Lowe says that he's been killing people because of the sins they committed but why did he kill Brady? He never committed a sin.
Answer: Firstly, Reverend Lowe is deluding himself by saying he only kills people because of their sins. He is in fact wracked with guilt over his actions and has at least one vivid nightmare about this. Secondly, in the Christian faith all humans are considered sinners so this gives Reverend Lowe a justification for his beliefs. Anyone he kills would be a sinner in his eyes, including Brady.
I think the first part is more accurate. It really has nothing to do with the idea of original sin or everyone being a sinner since he states he only punishes the evil, corrupt, and immoral. He tells Marty he'd never hurt an innocent child. He just really has no control of his Wolf side and is lying to himself about why he kills.
Remember when Brady and Marty pulled that prank on Jane with the snake, and she ended up with a scraped-up knee, ripped stockings, and covered in mud? Remember that Marty didn't want it to be humiliation but more like fun? But Brady didn't apologise and escalated what could have been a funny prank into humiliation, and I think that's what set the werewolf off. Brady was a bully, and bullies oftentimes grow up into very bad people.
23rd Sep 2019
Speed 2: Cruise Control (1997)
Question: I've never understood why Annie was such a terrible driver in this film (driving test scene). She says in Speed that she had her licence revoked for speeding, which doesn't make her a bad driver, just fast. She managed to drive the bus fairly well.
Answer: Annie is a reckless driver. The way she drives during her test certainly fits with the description she gives in the first film of why her license was revoked. She only says "speeding" when asked why her license was revoked but excessive speeding and reckless driving go hand in hand. It is doubtful that anyone who has had their license revoked for speeding tickets would be an otherwise safe and responsible driver.
Not everyone that speeds is reckless. The driving scene in Speed 2 is excessively bad.
20th Sep 2019
War of the Worlds (2005)
Question: I've been looking all over for this answer and can't find it. I know this has been asked, but it has not been properly answered to what I can find. At the end of "War of the Worlds", Tom Cruise saw the birds and realised the shields were down. How did the shields deactivate? I understand that the aliens got sick and died from bacteria, but there must have been something else. Even if there were designated aliens to control each tripod's forcefield, there is no way that every "Shield duty" alien died before the other members of their crew, leaving their tripod mobile and vulnerable... Were they getting low on resources because they had eradicated too many humans too quickly? Did they decide that since the majority of people died, that they could focus on using more of their "fuel" towards mobility and capturing instead of combat?
Answer: I believe its supposed to be the tripods work on the alien's biology, so its powered by the presence of a Martian inside. So if the martian is sick, the tripod is sick.
That's always what I believed. This is further evidenced by the fact the tripods themselves have actually been on earth for millions of years, but they get "sick" when the Martians do. It has to be tied to the Martian's own health for that to make any sense.
Answer: Bear in mind if memory serves we only see that one tripod with no shields - other than that we're just told another one "behaved erratically" then went down. So there's no evidence that all the shields on all the tripods went down by default. Could well just be that with the one we see the alien inside was seriously ill, flailing about and deactivated the shields by mistake not long before becoming completely incapacitated.
20th Sep 2019
Child's Play 3 (1991)
Question: At the beginning of the movie, the entire Good Guy factory is completely covered in dust and cobwebs because of not being used in eight years. What caused the factory to close for such a long time? Nobody believed Andy when he said that his Good Guy doll was possessed by Chucky. And even though Andy said Chucky was responsible for so many murders in his doll form, people most likely wrote it off as a child's overactive imagination and that wouldn't be enough to close down the factory.
Answer: The public believes that the Good Guy doll that committed the murders had simply malfunctioned, which caused great negative publicity for the company. The public does not believe Andy or his mother's claims that the doll was possessed by a serial killer and was actually alive. In Child's Play 2 the company finds and reassembles the doll to prove to shareholders that the Good Guy doll is safe. This backfires and the doll is re-possessed, which leads to additional murders in that film crippling the company for 8 years.
12th Sep 2019
The Faculty (1998)
Question: Why are the aliens in that town? If they come from a oceanic planet then why not go directly into one of our five or so oceans?
Answer: The aliens needed fresh water. All the infected were drinking bottled water. When the gang were examining the slug in the garage, it dried up and died from salt, like a snail.
Answer: Whales and dolphins also lack manipulating appendages and the ability to survive on land.
Answer: The aliens need to infect intelligent life to thrive. There is no intelligent life in our oceans.
Answer: Well if they need to stay hydrated whales and dolphins make more sense than inhabiting people.
Dolphins and whales are also far less numerous. With populations numbering fewer than 10 million total across all species versus nearly 6 billion at the time for humanity.
Answer: It could be the salt or pollution. The aliens were drinking nothing but pure bottled water.
Good answer. Dang all you guys on this site are pretty good at this. I enjoy these answers you give since hardly anybody ever listens to me.
5th Sep 2019
The Predator (2018)
Question: Why would the main character send the obviously dangerous and unstable alien tech to his house? I could see no other reason then to just simply get the plot to move along but it's obvious he doesn't have a consistent stable relationship with his son and wife - why send the tech there? And on top of that with no explanation to them as to what it is? On top of that he seemed like he was a respected member of the military - there was no reason for him to go against that and hide this information.
Answer: McKenna states that he assumed his estranged wife would just put the box with the rest of his stuff and leave it alone. He doesn't trust sending it to anyone else because they might open the box and have questions. As you suggest, it is indeed quite an egregious plot contrivance because why would his wife be any less prone to open his mail than anyone else? And in fact, Rory does open the box so the plan didn't even work. McKenna hides the tech from the military because he wants the credit for discovering alien life, and he also fears the government will try to cover up the discovery, which of course they do.
16th Jul 2019
Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981)
Question: This movie shows Jason Voorhees didn't drown in Crystal Lake in the first movie because he's shown to be alive in this movie. It's a known fact that the kid Jason Voorhees can't swim, so how exactly did he avoid drowning in Crystal Lake?
Answer: This particular film does not address this, and seems to imply that Jason didn't drown and grew up living in the woods as a psychopath. Later sequels heavily imply (or outright state) that Jason was brought back as an un-dead creature by unknown supernatural means and cannot be killed in a conventional sense. As it stands it is best to view Jason in this film as un-dead, as the number of films that show him as supernatural far outweigh those that show him as a normal man. The character is generally remembered in popular culture as un-dead.
I think that the whole franchise didn't take much care of continuity (for example, in part 2 Jason is a woods-boy full of beard and hair, in the third he is taller and bald), but it's explainable to the fact that Jason managed to survive somehow, never told his mother he was alive (even because the camp was closed many times and Pamela never showed up frequently), watched her die and took her place for revenge. We always have the feeling that there's something supernatural in Jason, since he never dies he can be hit with axe, machete, fire and even hanged up, and he is still alive, but he definitely becomes something supernatural only from part 6 further. Yes, seeing as the story starts, it could be simpler to think Jason somehow returned as a ghost, as an Un-dead man, but in the first half of the franchise they gave a bit of reality to the thing.
What information in this sequel gives any indication that the kid Jason didn't drown in Crystal Lake?
The fact that he's a full-grown man instead of a young boy. The fan consensus, and the original intent of the filmmakers, is that Jason is a human being, albeit extremely tough and completely insane, in parts 2-4, and comes back as an undead being in part 6.
That's valid along with the small house in the woods, except that doesn't explain how a kid that can't swim didn't drown in Crystal Lake.
Luck, misinformation, etc. Yes it's vague, but a lack of explanation doesn't entirely constitute a mistake.
Answer: That is indeed a plot hole, and up to speculation. The best guess is that Jason somehow made his way ashore, and chose to hide in the woods rather than face further bullying from the rest of the kids.
26th Jul 2019
Furious 7 (2015)
23rd Aug 2019
3rd Rock from the Sun (1996)
Question: At the end of their audit, the Solomons are ordered by the IRS to pay back-taxes, some of which for years they weren't even on the planet. Can the IRS actually make people pay taxes for years in which they had no income?
Answer: No, the IRS cannot make you pay taxes during years in which you had no income but this family hasn't reported any income for years. You are still required to report your income every year, and if you fall below a certain threshold you don't pay federal income taxes. The IRS is assuming they are humans who have a house and careers but they have only filed taxes for a couple years (if at all). To the IRS it looks like simple tax evasion.
19th Aug 2019
Casino Royale (2006)
Question: If Vesper was a traitor from the start, why did she save Bond in the car? Wouldn't it be easier to let him die and let Le Chiffre win the game to save her husband?
Answer: Vesper had fallen for Bond and didn't want him to die. Later on she makes a deal with Mr. White to spare Bond's life when he comes for Le Chifre.
So she worked for Le Chiffre giving the location of the chip and the tic and then to Mr. White to save Bond's life?
She never actually worked for Le Chifre, per se. She worked for Quantum (the organization Mr. White worked for). It's just that Quantum wanted Vesper to help Le Chifre get the money because he was also working for them.
3rd Aug 2019
Diary of a Wimpy Kid (2010)
Question: When Gregory was singing beautifully for his audition, did he really sing that well, or did he lip-sync from someone else singing?
Answer: That was not him singing, that was another kid singing.
Answer: According to wiki.celebrity.fm and diaryofawimpykid.fandom.com, L.J. Benet provided the singing voice for Greg in the movie.
Answer: Where did you hear that? Because on IMDb, it says that everyone EXCEPT Greg did their own singing.
Answer: That was Zachary Gordon's actual singing voice.
2nd Aug 2019
Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987)
Yesterday's Enterprise - S3-E15
Question: The ever-popular gag in this episode is that Worf consumes prune juice for the first time and declares that it is a "warrior's drink," to Guinan's amusement. However, Worf was adopted as a child by human parents, he grew up on Earth, he was highly educated and graduated Star Fleet Academy on Earth. Given the reputation of prune juice as a natural laxative throughout human history, how could Worf not know what prune juice is, having lived most of his life on Earth?
Answer: There's nothing to indicate that Worf had never heard of prune juice before, just that he had never tried it before. He doesn't recognize the smell or taste of the drink as prune juice because he's never had it before. But that doesn't mean he has no idea what prune juice is, or that it is used as a natural laxative. In a later episode Guinan directly asks Worf's parents why he never had prune juice prior to her serving him the drink. They answer that as a child Worf refused to eat human food of any kind, everything he consumed had to be Klingon. Other episodes show that Klingons tend to despise human food in general for being bland. It stands to reason that someone who shows no outward interest in human food might not know what prune juice is usually used for. But then again, maybe he does know and he doesn't care because prune juice is delicious to him.
Thanks for reminding me about that later episode, although I think the later prune juice explanation from Worf's adoptive parents was scripted to address many fan questions along the same lines as my own.
30th Jul 2019
Bullitt (1968)
Question: How did the bad guy have a gun on the flight? He pulls a gun in the airfield chase scene so he had to have it on the plane as he jumped off it.
Answer: Airport security in the late 1960's was not nearly as thorough as it is in present day. Metal detectors didn't become commonplace at airports until the early 1970's.
In the 60s, my dad would take my brother and me to the new Oakland Airport to watch planes. There was nothing to stop us from walking through the entire terminal. The original terminal was a small building with a 3-foot tall chain-link fence separating spectators from the boarding Constellations, Electras and DC-6 planes 80 ft. away.
Answer: She had a relationship with her fiance but in her mind it wasn't serious. She is running away because she is being pressured into marriage with a man she doesn't love. So the statement is accurate, her longest serious relationship was only 8 days.
BaconIsMyBFF