Tailkinker

25th Apr 2009

Heroes (2006)

Chosen answer: Peter doesn't have perfect control over any of his abilities - he has to be able to focus on certain mental keys to be able to use them with any degree of certainty. With his acquired radioactivity power beginning to run out of control, any possibility of focus is gone - he's scared, he's in considerable discomfort if not outright pain. He's simply not able to do it, so Nathan has to step in to help get him clear of the area.

Tailkinker

25th Apr 2009

Heroes (2006)

Chosen answer: Confirmed powers prior to that point were telekinesis, freezing, kinetic projection, eidetic memory, liquification, enhanced hearing, precognition and radioactivity. There may have been others as well, but those are the definites.

Tailkinker

25th Apr 2009

Cube (1997)

Question: In the Trivia section for this movie, there is an entry that says that all of the characters are named after prisons around the world, and it gives some examples. Can someone identify all of the prisons and how they relate to the character?

Knever

Chosen answer: Quentin is named after San Quentin State Prison in California, notorious for a high-level of brutality. Holloway is a women's prison in London, leading to a female character. Alderson Prison is in West Virginia and uses isolation as a major punishment, thus Alderson never meets the other characters. Rennes Prison in France pioneered many modern prison policies, so the character Rennes appears as a knowledgeable mentor to the other characters. The Kazan prison in Russia is disorganised, tying in to the autistic Kazan character. Finally, Leaven and Worth are both named for Leavenworth prison in Kansas, which is corporately built and run, relating to Worth, the corporate architect, and runs on a very rigid set of rules, which ties in to Leaven's mathematical ability.

Tailkinker

25th Apr 2009

X-Men (2000)

Chosen answer: He's talking about the government proposals to register mutants "for public safety" and so forth. He's comparing them to the Nazi programmes to weed out "undesirables" that ultimately led to the Holocaust and the deaths of Erik's family in the concentration camps.

Tailkinker

25th Apr 2009

X-Men (2000)

Chosen answer: Hard to be exact, as his ability level has varied a fair bit in the comics over the years and it's impossible to know which particular level the moviemakers have chosen. Generally speaking, Logan can heal wounds in a matter of seconds and has been shown to regenerate large quantities of destroyed soft tissue in a few minutes, but certain writers have taken it further. At the very extreme end of the scale, Logan has been shown to swiftly recover fully from the effects of a nearby nuclear explosion and also return to life after having all his flesh stripped from his skeleton, leaving him with just his brain within his adamantium-laced skull. Probably the best way to look at it is that Logan's healing factor operates at whatever level the writer needs it to operate at for the story that they're trying to tell.

Tailkinker

24th Apr 2009

Heroes (2006)

One of Us, One of Them - S3-E3

Question: Why exactly did Angela Petrelli present Bridget Bailey to Sylar? What could Angela possibly gain from Sylar killing and absorbing her power of Clairsentience? Also, why did Bridget just stand there? Surely, working for The Company, she knows who Sylar is?

ModestFilmCollector

Chosen answer: Angela intends to turn Sylar into an asset to the company. By allowing him to take Bridget's power, Angela's hoping to create a bond of trust between them. If it doesn't work, then the Company's not lost an agent with an effective combat power, nor have they given Sylar a power that could make him any more dangerous. If it does work, they trade an agent with a minor ability for a new agent of extraordinary power who still has that same ability, so they've lost nothing. As for poor Bridget, yes, she probably does know who Sylar is, but she could hardly anticipate that Angela would bring her, a loyal agent, down to the holding cells to "feed" her to a serial killer. We never see her after Angela says that she's there to feed Sylar - for all we know, she did try to run, but didn't even make it out of the door before Sylar got her.

Tailkinker

18th Apr 2009

Heroes (2006)

Chosen answer: There's no indication that it applies to anything other than the visible light spectrum.

Tailkinker

18th Apr 2009

Firefly (2002)

Safe - S1-E7

Question: When Shepherd Book gets shot and they take him to an Alliance base at first they do not want to treat him but he tells them to look at his Ident card and suddenly they are rushing to help him. What is so special about his ident card or him?

grannycindy

Chosen answer: Very little of Book's past was revealed in either the series or the follow-up movie. He's been shown to know a surprisingly large amount about the criminal underworld, government covert operations, firearms and so forth, which, combined with his apparent priority status with the Alliance, suggests that he, at some point, held a high rank of some nature within that organisation - one theory is that he knows about the covert Operatives (as seen in Serenity) because he used to be one. Ron Glass, with Joss Whedon's blessing, revealed a few details in 2007, including that Derrial Book is not his real name, but was taken from "somebody he killed", that he has at least one artificial body-part, that he is known for "his greatest failure" and that he apparently found God in a bowl of soup. Further details of any of these remain unrevealed. A comic-book series entitled The Shepherd's Tale, which will deal with his back-story, was announced for release in late 2008 but has, as yet, failed to appear.

Tailkinker

Answer: To answer the questions further, here's some details from the book "The Shepherd's Tale," which is the official, canonical comic-book. Shepherd Book was born "Henry Evans." As a youth, he ran away from home to escape his abusive father, and he eventually turned to a life of crime before being recruited by the Independence movement. He eventually agreed to become a spy for the Independents, and had one of his eyeballs removed and replaced with a camera that fed directly back to them. He kills a man named "Derrial Book" and assumed his identity, and over time becomes a mole within the Alliance. Years later, Book is dishonorably discharged after an operation he spearheads results in thousands dying, and he becomes a homeless drunk. He eventually "finds god" while eating a bowl of chicken soup in a shelter. He becomes a Shepherd and several years later, finds his way to Serenity.

TedStixon

10th Apr 2009

The Dark Knight (2008)

Question: This part bugs me every time I watch the film. After Batman has crashed the tanker and the Joker is walking down the street, Batman charges at him with the bike. The Joker refuses to move, and Batman then yells and crashes his bike in an almost comically stupid way. I understand that there's supposed to be some form of turmoil in Batman's mind over whether or not he should just mow the Joker down, and at the end he decides not to, but it just seems so blunt and amusingly done. Is there more to it? Was it even meant to be a spot of comic relief?

Gary O'Reilly

Chosen answer: Comic relief? Naah, it looks odd because it's staged. Batman's putting himself into a vulnerable position to let Gordon get the drop on the Joker. Bruce, as a wanted vigilante, obviously can't make a citizen's arrest and he's not going to risk leaving the Joker tied up somewhere until the police get there. So he crashes the bike intentionally, leaving himself vulnerable. He knows that he'll get the Joker's attention that way, which will give Gordon a chance to get close enough to grab him.

Tailkinker

8th Apr 2009

Commando (1985)

Question: When Matrix says to his captors "Why not have Bennett do it, looks like something he will get off on"; did he mean it was something Bennett wouldn't go to jail for (considering he was psychotic), or was it some kind of sexual implication?

Gavin Jackson

Chosen answer: A sexual implication, suggesting that it's something Bennett would find exciting.

Tailkinker

Answer: Not sexual but something that he (Bennet) would find immense joy in doing due to his unstable mental nature akin to a sociopathic tendency.

Question: I realise this has been brought up many times, but can it be considered a definite continuity error in the whole series that Obiwan Kenobi is trained by Qui Gon Jinn in this film, despite saying in Empire Strikes Back that it was Yoda who trained him? Some have argued that Qui was working under Yoda, but in Empire, Obiwan said to Yoda, "Was I any different when you taught me?" which to me pretty much says that Yoda was his direct teacher. I'm guessing that Lucas changed the background stories a bit, but I would like to know for sure.

Gavin Jackson

Chosen answer: No, it can't. As we see in Attack of the Clones, Yoda is in charge of training the younglings, the Jedi hopefuls, the ones too young to have been selected as a Padawan. Yoda trained Obi-Wan when he was a child, then Qui-Gon selected him as a Padawan as he reached the proper age. They both trained him, taking responsibility for different stages of his education. It is entirely possible, of course, that Lucas did originally intend Yoda to have been Obi-Wan's sole master when he made The Empire Strikes Back and thus your guess that he changed the background stories may well be accurate, however, if this is the case, then he made the alterations in such a fashion that no continuity error exists, because it all fits together.

Tailkinker

Also, most Jedi probably had friendships with older Jedi who were not their masters. They could think of any Knight/Master as a teacher, despite not being the official apprentice of that Jedi.

Question: If Sidious was trained by Plagueis, how/when was he able to get involved in a political career? Was he already an adult when Plagueis met him?

Answer: Very few details have been released regarding Palpatine's early life, how he apparently escaped the notice of the Jedi Order and came to the attention of Plagueis instead. His apprenticeship apparently took "many decades", suggesting that he was recruited as a child. However, under Naboo law, public service is mandatory between the ages of 12 and 20, so it is possible that Palpatine was already in service when recruited, and chose to continue his political career in order to further the goals of the Sith. Even if recruited at a younger age, Palpatine was reportedly of noble birth, making it relatively difficult for him to simply drop out of sight to train as a Sith full time, so he may simply have decided (or been instructed by his master) to continue with his life in an outwardly normal fashion, while being trained covertly in the Sith arts.

Tailkinker

5th Apr 2009

Star Wars (1977)

Question: There's a line in this movie - I think - in which Obi-Wan mentions that Yoda was his master. But wasn't Qui-Gon Jin actually Obi-Wan's master?

padfootrocksmysocks

Chosen answer: Yoda isn't mentioned in this film - you're actually thinking of The Empire Strikes Back, but I know the line that you mean - Obi-Wan refers to Yoda as "the Jedi Master who instructed me". While Yoda was not "his" master (as you say, that was Qui-Gon), his description is technically accurate - Yoda is a Jedi Master and, as we see in Attack of the Clones, appears to take responsibility for training the young Jedi hopefuls, the younglings, as they're referred to, so would undoubtedly have had a hand in Kenobi's training at some point.

Tailkinker

And he was instructed to complete missions by Yoda.

2nd Apr 2009

General questions

Chosen answer: In the same way as you direct a normal film. The director is responsible for taking the script and turning into a visual depiction of the story being told - they determine the artistic and dramatic elements of the piece, giving the world depicted in the script a visual and audible form. In a live action film, they'll be working with lighting people, cameramen and so forth to ensure that the look of the scene matches their vision. With an animated film, they're doing the same thing, but are working with the animators instead. The basic principle is no different.

Tailkinker

30th Mar 2009

Smallville (2001)

Show generally

Question: Whats the deal with Michael Rosenbaum? Did he leave the show? I find it strange that he is nowhere to be seen in the show or in the opening credits. If that is the case, is it known why he left? Or is this just some plot device to build suspense?

Carl Missouri

Chosen answer: He simply chose to leave the show. He wanted to move on; seven years is a long time to devote to a single project, so he felt it was time to move his career onwards. As a result, the character of Lex, which they'd taken as far as they realistically could anyway, was written out of the show. It's certainly not out of the question that he could make a guest appearance in a future storyline, much as Kristin Kreuk, who also left the show at the end of season seven, did in the middle of season eight, but so far this has not occurred.

Tailkinker

29th Mar 2009

X-Men 2 (2003)

Question: Instead of waiting for someone to inject liquid iron into themselves, could Magneto manipulate the small amounts of iron that are already present inside a person?

MovieBuff09

Chosen answer: It's unlikely. Most of the naturally occurring iron atoms in the human body are tied up as part of the hemoglobin molecule - it's unclear whether Magneto could affect it under those circumstances. The amount of iron is also extremely small, at most a couple of grams, which really isn't much to work with. Mystique's escape plan gives him a lot more to work with, in a much purer form.

Tailkinker

Question: In the meeting at the beginning, after Padme is attacked, Mace says that their intelligence believes that angry spice-miners attacked her. Why do their intelligence people think that?

Answer: Presumably there's been some disquiet among the spice-miners for some reason - better working conditions, better pay, could be a lot of things. Apparently the intelligence services feel that things have got heated enough that the spice-miners might try open rebellion by attempting to assassinate their Senator.

Tailkinker

29th Mar 2009

Star Wars (1977)

Question: I never understood why the officer who is disrespectful to Vader in the meeting (on the Death Star) calls the Force an "ancient religion". If I remember correctly, at the moment, Vader only mentions the Force, not the Sith or Jedi. Since it has only been 19 or 20 years since the Jedi were defeated, wouldn't the Force still be something that a lot of people, around age 35 and older, could remember and have knowledge of?

Answer: Following the Force has been going on for millenia - "ancient" by any standards, so his description is hardly unreasonable. Yes, there will be plenty of people old enough to remember when the Jedi were around, but that doesn't mean that they're under any obligation to show respect for it, particularly as the public perception is that the Jedi died as traitors. Motti regards Vader with contempt, seeing him as a throwback, clinging to an ancient, outdated and reviled superstition. Hence his disrespectful and insulting attitude.

Tailkinker

I believe Palpatine also took steps to discredit the idea of the Jedi as superhero with Force powers (pretty sure I read that at some point). If Motti had never seen a Jedi in action before, he might have bought into those ideas and not considered the Force to be a real thing, or at least not what it is was said to be.

Question: Who are the two men that the Emperor talks to on the Death Star, after he tells Vader to send the fleet near the far side of Endor, and Vader leaves? I know that who they are is not said in the movie.

Answer: According to the Star Wars Databank, the pair are Sim Aloo and Janus Greejatus, two members of the Imperial Ruling Council, a large group numbering several hundred who act as advisors to Emperor Palpatine and are also sent on missions across the galaxy as his personal representatives. Both are Force-sensitive with some training in the Dark Side directly from Palpatine himself and, as their presence during the Emperor's discussion with Vader shows, are among his more trusted acolytes.

Tailkinker

26th Mar 2009

The Dark Knight (2008)

Question: Do either of The Joker's "You wanna know how I got these scars" stories have a hint of truth to them? Also, why does he recount the stories to people?

MovieBuff09

Chosen answer: There's no way to tell - the Joker gets no backstory at all in the film, other than the two stories that he tells, which contradict each other anyway. In all likelihood, they're both lies, made up on the spot. As to why he tells them, it distracts people, puts them on edge, plus, most importantly, it amuses him to do so.

Tailkinker

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