Sanguis

Show generally

Question: Is there any technology featured in Star Trek Voyager, or other Star Trek series for that part, that seemed futuristic in the late 20th century, but are now reality?

Answer: If you include the original Star Trek series (1966) then there are several. The communicators used in the original series were before (and said to inspire) mobile phones. We currently do have teleportation technology but it currently only works on things the size of a few molecules. A "Cloaking device" also exists; it's a fabric that bends light through it, though it currently only works in infra-red. The Hypospray is real and was patented in 1960 - six years before the original series aired - it's actually called the Jet Injector. Faster Than Light travel is still a few decades off, but there are several real-world theories that look promising, including one that is remarkably similar to the method used in the Star Trek Universe called the Alcubeierre Drive that involves manipulating spacetime ahead and behind the ship and the ship "riding" it. Medical techniques and technologies have also advanced considerably; prosthetics particularity and we routinely have robots performing surgeries where absolute precision is needed. The "Shield" used in the series have a few primitive versions around. The Phasers used in the series are used but are not very powerful (nor will they ever be as powerful as the Star Trek version the laws of physics gets in the way) but rail-guns (using magnets to spin then propel a projectile) and particle accelerators like the Large Hadron Collider have been around for a while. The Replicator would require a nuclear fusion reactor and a nuclear fission reactor in something the size of a large oven and the Holo-deck wouldn't work at all based on our current understanding of physics so those are both still science fiction at the moment, but who knows!

Sanguis

26th Aug 2010

Cube 2: Hypercube (2002)

Question: Can anyone please explain to me the end of this movie? Why did 'they' send an agent into the Cube? Was it just to get information from the hacker girl? Or to get her necklace? Why wouldn't they just kidnap her and shoot her with sodium pentathol? And who are the men at the end, and why do they shoot their own agent?

Answer: They sent the agent in to retrieve some sensitive information from the blind girl. The girl hid inside the hypercube as she knew they wouldn't come after her and by the time they figured out where she was it was too late to stop her and so they sent the agent in. They shot their own agent as the information she has is that sensitive that they can't let anyone know anything about it (even the fact that it exists).

Sanguis

20th May 2010

Lost (2004)

Show generally

Question: I know nothing about how actors are paid or the amounts but I've always wondered about this: if a character is featured in a "Previously on Lost" segment (but isn't in the following episode), does he/she get the same amount of money that an actor/actress who is in the entire episode earns?

Answer: An actor/actress typically signs a contract that gives the series usage rights for the entire season. This allows them to edit any of their performance into any of the episodes for the entire season (though it will typically state how many they intend to use it for). This includes the "Previously on..." as well as any flashbacks. Should the series wish to use any of that season's performance on another season then an additional fee will need to be paid. The actor/actress can refuse this fee (for any reason) and the series will be unable to use the recorded performance in any way. An actor that appears in a "previously on..." will not be credited, but if they appear in the episode proper (flashbacks, etc) then they will be credited.

Sanguis

28th Feb 2010

Ratatouille (2007)

Question: There are usually references to the next Pixar film in the film (Nemo in Monsters, Inc, Mr. Incredible in Nemo, Toy Story 3 bear in Up). Is there anything from Wall-e in Ratatouille?

Answer: When Remy is sneaking through a house, he gets barked at by a dog. You only see the dog's shadow, but it is Dug from Up. Have a look on YouTube, many people have posted it.

jshy7979

Answer: Not in the Ratatouille movie itself, however on the DVD/Blu-ray there is a short about how rats are our friends and there is a sequence about how rats will follow us into space, the driver of one of the shuttles is Wall-E himself.

Sanguis

19th Jan 2010

Donnie Darko (2001)

Question: Couldn't the events of the movie have been avoided if Frank just let Donnie get hit by the jet engine and die from the beginning instead of waking him up and taking him out of his room?

sccrkeepa00

Chosen answer: In short: no. Because of the films themes of wormholes, time travel, alternative dimensions/parallel universes and meta-physics the events of the film had to happen the way the did or else they wouldn't have happened at all! It's very difficult to wrap your head around but it's one of the many many paradoxes caused by time travel (cause and effect becoming effect and cause).

Sanguis

20th Jan 2010

Avatar (2009)

Question: Do the Avatar alien creatures on Pandora connect with horses, dragons, the soul tree or whatever with their tail or a pigtail in their hair or both?

Answer: The connect with the pink fibrous tentacles contained in their hair.

Sanguis

13th Jan 2010

Avatar (2009)

Question: Are the Na'Vi aware or at least able to sense if one of their kind is an Avatar? They don't seem all that surprised when they encounter one of their own kind wearing army clothing and wielding a human weapon (they actually go so far as to dub Jake a 'dreamwalker,' which I took to be their term for a Na'vi body being remotely controlled by another being), yet later on when Jake and co.'s true status as impersonators is revealed, Tsu'Tey makes a huge uproar of disgust about it.

Answer: The Avatars have five fingers while the Na'vi only have four - the avatars' eyes are larger and they have eyebrows and avatar noses are more humanlike vs the na'vi's more catlike noses; the Na'vi simply tolerate the avatars (remember Neytiri tried to kill Jake). Tsu'Tey isn't angry that they are actually human, he's angry that their ulterior motive is trying to get them to leave their home.

Sanguis

Question: I hope I'm not missing anything, but why do the machines allow Zion to be rebuilt each time the Matrix is renewed, the code returns to the source, etc. etc. and everything basically starts over? If people can consciously free themselves from The Matrix, fair enough, but wouldn't it just be easier for the machines to detach them, de-tank them and dunk them like they did to Neo? Otherwise they are in effect, re-creating their own enemies over and over again.

diesel123

Chosen answer: The machines use the humans as power so it stands to reason that they would want to hold onto as many humans as possible (even defective/inefficient ones). The Architect, in his enormous speech in Reloaded, states that the Zion "solution" was an acceptable (from the machine point-of-view) way of dealing with people who rejected the Matrix (less than 1% of the total pod-people population). Those freed would then free others who also reject the matrix (this is desirable for the machines as the disbelief could spread and result in more rejecting the matrix resulting in "crashes"). Once the Zion population gets too big the machines eradicate it and start again. So, yes, the machines are creating their own enemies, but strictly on their terms as part of the plan to keep the matrix going.

Sanguis

Question: Why was only one Agent sent after all the Smiths when the woman saw them all in the burly brawl? Couldn't the Matrix itself have turned as many humans as it needed into Agents and outnumbered the rogue Smiths? Or did they interpret one Agent being beaten by a Smith as meaning they would never win against him?

diesel123

Chosen answer: The Matrix only became aware of Smith after the one woman saw the fight, the woman was converted into an Agent and Smith then infected them. Other people nearby would also have been converted into Agents, but this occurred off-camera, as did Smith then infecting these people, the large influx of Smiths that occurs towards the end of the fight are the people who turn into Agents who then get infected by Smith.

Sanguis

Question: This applies to both Revolutions and the first Matrix film really - why do the machines have no security around the Matrix itself? In the first film, Morpheus and co. are able to fly near enough to extract Neo once he's been de-tanked, and in Revolutions Neo and Trinity fly right by it - do the machines not think Zion might ever try and disable their main/only source of power, thus beating them once and for all?

diesel123

Chosen answer: The vast majority of the machines live in one central "Machine City" which we see in this movie and is located somewhere in the middle east (The Animatrix:The Second Renaissance), the huge towers we see Neo in when he is first freed are scattered around the earth built on the remnants of the human mega-cities (New York/London/Tokyo/etc). This means that a) they are very very big and b) they are very spread out. The tower/cities are protected by Sentinel patrols (and possibly other defences) and the amount of damage one lone Zion ship can cause is insignificant at best and it's implied that the machines have control over the creation of new humans, so any pod-people lost could quickly be "manufactured" and replaced.

Sanguis

25th Mar 2009

Heroes (2006)

Chosen answer: As of season three it has not been explained. The characters gained powers after the solar eclipse of the first episode and temporarily lost them during "The Eclipse". It could be some form of cosmological radiation, Hiro and Ando make Superman analogies (who only has special powers because of Earth's yellow sun), Suresh believes it may be coincidental, or it might possibly be related to the catalyst, or it could be influenced by an as yet unseen character.

Sanguis

Question: During Neo's final fight with Smith it looks as if Smith has turned every living person (including other "human" programmes) in The Matrix into versions of himself - have The Merovingian and Persephone also been captured and morphed? It's an odd thought that these two seemingly powerful figures would have given up without a fight, although The Oracle was turned too so it might not be implausible. Any mention of them again in any other media?

diesel123

Chosen answer: ##The Oracle deliberately choose to be assimilated so she could help Neo in the final fight. The Merovingian (and Persephone) had access to the Trainman and so, most likely, would have either hid in the machine world or in the Trainman's half-way Mobile Station. The both played a large role in the (now defunct) Matrix Online Massively Multi-player Online Role-Playing Game.

Sanguis

Question: I kinda understood the scramble suits that they would wear in the movie to keep their identity secret but I do not understand exactly how they would help. If you had to walk into the office every morning (it would have to be a high security area they worked in) where you would have guards/security and id cards and such to get in, people would know that you worked there simply by watching you entering and leaving the building. The only thing the suits would help with is at public speakings but all they really seem to do is keep your coworkers guessing who you are. You see "Code name guy" walk into room then "regular guy" walk out. Not very hard to figure out. Anybody with a little insight please explain.

Spaceboy_007

Chosen answer: You are working on the assumption that it would be a standard 9-to-5 job and that the same people would be walking in at the same time. Bob Arctor is seen to go in irregularly and "Hank" would also keep irregular hours, much like officers in real-life. James was also seen to enter and exit the building and he was a witness; other witnesses, lawyers, public officials, the medical staff and janitors would also irregularly enter and exit the building. There are simply too many people entering and exiting the building randomly for anyone to definitively figure out who is who, particularly as their real and "suit" identities would be kept as separate as possible, "Hank" only figured out it was Bob because she was Donna. The identities of real-life police officers (particularly officers working undercover, especially on drug-deals) are routinely kept secret and the design of the building that Bob and "Hank" work in would be designed to protect their identities and the scramble-suits would be another layer of protection on top.

Sanguis

19th Mar 2009

V for Vendetta (2005)

Question: At the TV station, how does the gun type apparatus V uses to seal the doors work? I've watched it several times and all I can garner is it pierces the door in some manner, then floods it with a type of liquid that I guess locks them in place.

Answer: Correct. It pierces the door and fills it with some type of fast setting/expanding substance, possibly foam, plastic or even a concrete-like substance, this then solidifies and jams the lock in place requiring the blow-torches we see later to open the doors.

Sanguis

8th Mar 2009

The Dark Knight (2008)

Question: In the trivia, it states that Heath Ledger based his performance on Sid Vicious and Alex from 'A Clockwork Orange'. Can someone tell me in what way his performance was influenced by these people? Did he use their mannerisms, and if so, which ones?

Answer: To get a proper answer we would have to ask Heath Ledger, who is unfortunately dead. Both Sid and Alex were Anarchists as is The Joker so I would say that their attitudes and views were integrated into Heath Ledger's performance, rather than any specific mannerisms or attributes. He did say in an interview that his performance was in part based on Tom Waits, and that seems spot on: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsRbhBXPgKk.

Sanguis

6th Aug 2009

Watchmen (2009)

Question: Some of the costumed heroes in the film (Comedian, Ozymandias, both Silk Spectres) appear with very minimal masks or even no masks at all while in costume. How are they supposed to be able to keep their identities secret?

Answer: The short answer is that they weren't really trying to. Ozymandias later revealed, and monopolised on, his costumed identity, Comedian was officially endorsed by the U.S.A. Government at the time so his real identity would have been public record, the first Silk Spectre publicly revealed her identity after retiring, though there is no evidence that the current Silk Spectre has. There is no evidence (even in the graphic novel) that anyone tried to hide their identity to the extent that other comic-book heroes like Batman/Superman do. The only exception being Rorschach where even his follow costumes don't know his real identity until they bust him out of prison.

Sanguis

Question: Why are obsolete programs given the choice of deletion or exile? Why aren't they just instantly deleted?

Socks1000

Chosen answer: All programs are destined for deletion, however a quick witted program would realise their time is up and try and make an escape (exile). The programs aren't given a choice, the programs make a choice.

Sanguis

Question: What exactly is the machine entity known as 'Deus Ex Machina'? Is it a physical representation of the machines? Or a separate being all together?

LazyBoy09

Chosen answer: The physical machine itself would serve a purpose around the machine city and it may be coincidental that that specific machine was used to communicate with Neo, but whilst talking to Neo it is a representative of the Machine Collective, an ambassador or diplomat of sorts.

Sanguis

Question: It's been stated that Seraph is a former angel programme left over from a previous Matrix. Then why does one of The Merovingian henchmen refer to him as wingless?

Socks1000

Chosen answer: A Seraph is the highest level of God's angels, typically depicted with six wings (three pairs), the joke refers to the fact that Seraph physically has no wings in the matrix and that he now no longer works for the machines and so is also meant as a "fall from grace" jibe.

Sanguis

Question: What exactly did the Architect mean when he said to the Oracle, "You played a very dangerous game"?

Socks1000

Chosen answer: By encouraging Neo to go to the machine city and negotiate a peace contract she has upset the Architect's "perfect" world. The Architect, ruled by brutal logic, has a method that is tried and true; the death and rebirth of Neo and Zion, the Oracle has created a new order of things and has allowed Zion to survive, throwing a rather large spanner in the Architect's plans.

Sanguis

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.