Question: I don't quite understand how Harry beat that monster book?
lionhead
21st Feb 2019
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)
Answer: If you mean how he got it back under control, he lured it out from under his bed and then stepped on it. He was then able to put the binding back on. The book stops moving if the binding is around it.
No I meant how did he lure it out. I don't get how that works.
The book isn't a very smart creature. No reason for attacking is given so it probably attacks anything that is in front of it, too close maybe, or anything that moves. Like a shoe.
6th Feb 2019
Ant-Man (2015)
Question: When Ant-Man is traveling through the pipes, he reaches an intersection where ants hang down for him to grab and go up. How did those ants get ahead of him, and why didn't he just do what they did to get to that point?
Answer: The ants come from everywhere, they just came from the other side.
6th Feb 2019
Spider-Man 2 (2004)
Question: Aunt May subtly reveals, or at least implies, she knows Peter is Spider-Man when she's moving. Does she know in the comics? Because I remember in the comics she does not seem to like Spider-Man at all?
Answer: In the main Marvel continuity Aunt May does eventually find out that Peter is Spider-Man. Her memory is wiped of this knowledge later on.
Answer: In Amazing Spider-Man Vol 2. Number 35 Aunt May permanently finds out about Peter's secret identity and knows from then on.
That gets changed later on. Not sure which issue but it's after Civil War, she has her mind wiped after Peter gives her radioactive blood to save her life. I'm not entirely sure if that too is eventually changed but from what I remember Aunt May hasn't known his identity since Civil War.
Yeah it does switch around a lot. Dr. Strange made it so nobody will find out unless he wants them to. I suppose Aunt May doesn't know anymore then.
Keeping up with comic book continuity is an absolute nightmare.
I couldn't agree more. I've always wished for some kind of easy, interactive overview of what I was reading. I've actually given up on comics because of the hellish chronology. Well, except Judge Dredd which is pretty straight forward.
14th Jun 2007
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007)
Question: Did Davey Jones corrupt his purpose? Is that why he turned out the way he did? His purpose was to ferry souls to the next world, was he not properly doing that?
Answer: Pretty much, yes. He carried out his duties faithfully for the first ten years, then returned to shore, to find Calypso missing. After that, he refused to continue, leading to his current state.
Answer: Like all pirates, he double crossed her. He seduced and captured her in human form, by controlling her he could control the seas. She in turn double crossed him cursing him to the Flying Dutchman.
That's not what happened at all.
It was the Brethern Court that did that I believe.
1st Feb 2019
Back to the Future (1985)
Question: During one scene in 1955, Marty mentions John F. Kennedy, and nobody has any idea who he's talking about. Would Kennedy really have been a totally unfamiliar name to most Americans in 1955? True, he wasn't President yet, but he was a popular Democratic senator from a prominent family.
Answer: He was both a war hero and a senator, but unless Lorraine's father followed politics closely he might not have recognized the name, especially since Kennedy wasn't a senator for their state.
Plus it would be unheard of to name a street after a living politician from across the country.
Answer: Keep in mind, there was no TV news in that house (they just got a TV). And I don't see the dad being one to read any further than the sports page, or listen to anything but comedy on the radio.
23rd Jul 2018
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005)
Question: When Harry is packing his trunk at the end and Dumbledore is talking to him about setting the curtains on fire, does anyone know what is written on the inside of the lid of Harry's trunk?
Answer: It's hard to say what was written on the inside of the trunk. Sometimes they write the company that made the trunk so it might have had the manufacturer's name inside of it and maybe even the year that it was made as well. It seems like everyone at the school has very similar trunks so it may have his name written inside of it so as not to confuse it with anyone else's.
Answer: It looks like information for Harry's trunk in case it was ever found by someone. Probably had his phone number and address inside of it.
You wouldn't put that information on the inside.
You would if you didn't want to display your personal information everywhere but also expected that if your trunk was lost, the finder would open it to see whose it was. Yes it is more practical to have an ID tag or similar in modern luggage but the Harry Potter stories are deliberately written as quaint and old fashioned.
You don't open luggage you find. Name of the owner is always on the outside.
Sure you would. Presumably, it's very difficult to lose a trunk that big, given the modes of transport that Harry uses. Info on the inside would be a last resort.
28th Jan 2019
Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983)
Question: What did Obi-Wan mean when he said to Luke "then the Emperor has already won"?
Answer: Luke was the only chance to get Vader back to the light side. Only together they could defeat the Emperor and bring balance back to the force. If Luke couldn't confront his father, then the Emperor would kill him. Then he would have won.
28th Jan 2019
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005)
Question: Did Palpatine somehow use the dark side to create the visions Anakin had of Padme dying in Palpatine's own mind and then transfer them to Anakin's?
Answer: No the idea is given Anakin had the premonitions himself, part of his strong connection to the force. Anakin entrusted Palpatine with this information and he took advantage of it to corrupt Anakin. If Palpatine created these vision he must have known Padme was not only pregnant but going to do die at childbirth, which isn't possible for him to know.
28th Jan 2019
Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002)
Question: If Count Dooku took over with ordering the clone army for Dyas, did he ask for the clones to have the biochip that would turn against the Jedi? If so, why wouldn't the Kaminoians inform Obi-Wan of this?
Answer: Order 66 was an extra implaced by Dooku later on to the clone army. It was a secret order and the Kaminoans are very loyal to the customers. The fact Obi-Wan came there to inspect the army doesn't mean they should reveal the secret order, they had no reason to do so as they thought Obi-Wan already knew.
25th Jan 2019
Captain America: Civil War (2016)
Question: What was the whole point of the conversation between Cap and Spidey saying where they're from?
Answer: It's just the irony that 2 people are fighting each other whilst feeling connected they are from the same city.
This is also Captain America's way of letting Peter know there are no hard feelings. He understands Peter doesn't have all the facts, so he doesn't blame him.
26th Oct 2018
Alien (1979)
Question: Why would the company need a biological weapon and how would they use the alien as such?
Answer: The company is huge and diverse. Presumably it has a weapons division. An alien creature might give their researchers something to investigate that was unknown to rival businesses.
Answer: The company is in the business of colonizing planets.Now if a rival company were doing the same thing the company could plant an alien on the planet to wreak havoc and make it inhospitable, therefore making their own planets more desirable and ultimately more profitable.A ruthless tactic but the company is ruthless.
I like this answer the best.
Thanks Lionhead.
Answer: The nefarious "militarization" of newly-discovered properties (both earthly and otherworldly) is a common and predictable sci-fi and space-fantasy subplot that is so overused that it has become cliché. Usually, the specific military application is never actually revealed. It's really recycled social commentary, implying that humanity is so materialistic and ruthless that WE are the real "monsters," with no regard for Life (human or otherwise) in the natural world. This creates a dual threat within the movie, with the hero and/or heroine providing the only moral compass between a sensational alien confrontation and an even more terrifying human menace.
21st Jan 2019
Shrek (2001)
Question: Who is married to the muffin man?
Answer: According to Lord Farquaad, she's the leader of the underground, who's helping the fairy tale creatures to safety.
Answer: Someone he wants to find, possibly a princess to marry himself or someone who can point him towards one. It's never specified. The whole muffin man thing is just a joke referring to the nursery rhyme of the Muffin man.
9th Jan 2019
Edge of Tomorrow (2014)
Question: I don't understand. If the aliens can remember what happened and then reset time to better react to it, how do they not win much sooner than the hundreds of resets Cage lives through?
Answer: Time only resets when the one with the ability is killed. The aliens use this ability to win battles fast, also resetting time until their attack is perfect, which they do time and time again, using the special blue type of aliens that have that ability (controlled by the Omega) including the invasion of France. The Blue alien Cage encounters never dies again after Cage killed it so the day isn't reset for them, only that one time. Cage gained the same ability as it died though, so now the day resets for him too every time he dies, just like Rita at Verdun, until he figures out how to beat them.
1st May 2007
General questions
Bear with me, it's been about 8 years since I've seen this movie. I remember something about cyborg teddy bear toys, like plushies, and there was some sort of plot where they were turning evil, not sure if they were lethal or not. But their eyes would turn red and stuff. (Sorry it's not more descriptive; can't think of anything else.) Do you know what the title of the movie is?
Answer: It is an episode from Honey I Shrunk the Kids The TV series. The episode is called Ho eat the Bear is Bad News. I remember this episode back when the show was on TV and one of the stuffed bears became infected with a computer virus and it passed it on to all of the other bears.
Answer: It's possible that it's Gremlins [1984]. Gremlins were little bear-looking creatures that would turn evil when fed after midnight. Water made them multiply.
It can't be gremlins because the Mogwai weren't cyborgs or even looked like a bear and it was only the gremlins that had red eyes.
Answer: Another possible answer is the 1995 horror film "Screamers." One of the titular robots is a red-eyed teddy bear.
No, the screamer is a little boy holding a teddy bear.
The teddy bear at the end revealed that it was a screamer as well, the missing model the humans never discovered.
No, Jessica is the screamer model they missed. The teddy bear and little boy are one screamer model together.
9th Jan 2019
The Terminator (1984)
Question: If the Terminator had succeeded in killing Sarah and effectively wiping out John Conner, then that would mean the machines would win and even kill off mankind. So after Skynet's mission was complete and all humans are dead, what would the machines do now that with no more humans left to kill?
Answer: It's really impossible to answer definitively, considering the film-makers have never addressed this. The films never specify any purpose Skynet has outside of wanting to wipe out humanity. Skynet simply wants to "live", to exist as a sentient consciousness but views all of humanity as a threat to its existence. Since artificial intelligence is thus far only a fictional concept, we can't even really speculate based on information outside of the Terminator series. We can perhaps imagine a scenario wherein Skynet is successful and lives in peace as the only intelligence on Earth. The machines themselves do not have individuality and only exist for the purposes of killing humans so there doesn't seem to be a logical reason why they would exists if Skynet wins. However, there doesn't seem to be any reasonable way Skynet could ever be sure they have killed every single human on the planet so I can also imagine a scenario where the machines endlessly patrol the planet, making sure humanity never rises again. Also, and this is food for thought, the time travel scenario present in these films is a grandfather paradox. Skynet leads to it's own creation by sending back a Terminator to kill Sarah Connor. Similarly John Connor is conceived because a Terminator was sent back in time, which is the paradox. Skynet winning would create another paradox wherein Skynet could not exist because John Connor was never born so they had no enemy to fight, etc. This sort of stuff can make your head explode.
Just to be clear, the first movie doesn't say that Skynet created itself by sending a terminator back, that's the second movie. Also John Connor never being born doesn't remove their enemy, humanity is their enemy, it would stop the resistance and prevent the humans from winning, presumably. It does create a paradox though, like all time travel movies do.
The first movie deleted specific scenes which referenced the defeated Terminator being used to create Skynet. This of course was fully formed in the sequel. Technically since they are deleted scenes they may not belong in a discussion about the first movie but I was speaking generally with regards to the series as a whole. It's really only relevant to my point about the paradox which doesn't really have anything to do with the original question. Also, John Connor is specifically Skynet's enemy. Without him humanity would have been easily defeated. Technically, yes they want to wipe out all humanity but without John Connor they would have succeeded and there would be no need to send a terminator back in time, which of course is the entire point of the series. Both the humans and Skynet believe this to be true.
John Connor is the key to the paradox, true. Since John was created by Skynet's own attempt to stop him it's impossible for them to win the war. All movies tell us (except the horrible, terrible last one called Genisys) that skynet can not win the war by time travel. I had a whole essay written down but I decided not to post it, since talking about paradoxes is a paradox and they are highly interactive. Catch my drift?
Thinking about paradoxes in movies like these can drive you insane.
Yeah, but it's so much fun.
Agreed. I actually really love the paradox in the first Terminator. The idea that John gave Kyle a picture of his mother and Kyle fell in love with her because of that picture, and he always wondered what she was thinking about when the picture was taken, and it turns out she was thinking about how much she loved Kyle. Brilliant.
Yeah, you know now I think about it, the first movie doesn't have a grandfather paradox at all, it's the exact opposite. They actually created a loop, the time travel made the resistance exist and skynet always will try to use time travel to destroy the resistance. The paradox, is the sequel, where they make us believe the time travel also made skynet, which is impossible and an actual grandfather paradox because skynet invented time travel (since in the second movie the time travelling terminator from the first movie became the "grandfather" of skynet basically). Maybe we should move this to the Forum though.
9th Jan 2019
The Avengers (2012)
Question: How did Loki know that it was Natasha who brought Bruce onto the Helicarrier?
Answer: He doesn't mean her, he means them, the Avengers, they have brought the Hulk on board.
When Natasha calls Loki a monster, he responds, "No, love, you brought the monster."
And with the "you" he refers to the Avengers, not her specifically.
Actually, it was Natasha who brought Bruce. She had been informed by Coulson that she was specifically requested to bring Bruce with her so Loki's comment "You brought the monster" was accurate.
28th Feb 2005
Back to the Future Part II (1989)
Question: How does old Biff know how to operate the time machine?
Answer: Old-Biff first comments on the flying DeLorean "I have not seen one of those in 30 years", then he sees what he believes to be two McFly Jr.'s and gets even more suspicious, next he spies on Doc and Marty having an argument about the almanach and how Doc is opposed to time travelling for personal gain! What else does he need to know? And lastly: We're talking about a time machine here! Old-Biff could have stolen it, kept it for how ever long it took him to figure out how it works and returned it at leisure. We don't even have any proof for the days he picked to departed from 2015 or to arrive in 1955. The only verified date is his return from Nov 12 1955 06:38 pm.
Chosen answer: He doesn't, but it's hardly difficult to work out - the date setting readout is pretty obvious. Biff presumably set the date, then just accelerated the car until the time circuits kicked in.
Answer: It's a plot hole. Biff couldn't have known or suspected the DeLorean's time-travel procedure, which necessarily included Biff setting the precise 1955 destination with no previous instruction. Biff just suddenly "knew" how to operate a time machine. He also changed the timeline by going back to 1955, so there's no way he could have returned to the "normal" 2015. But he does.
It's not totally impossible that Biff knew how to the time dial worked. He wasn't suspecting what it was, he knew it was a time travel machine and thus knew what the dial was for and possibly being technically educated knew how to use the time dial.
We know from the first movie that Biff, by age 48, was waxing cars for a living in 1985. He hardly had a "technical education" and it's doubtful he acquired a technical education by age 78 in the year 2015. It was established in the first movie that he had become a timid underachiever.
Alright I agree, he's not the sharpest tool in the shed. But he has lived for 78 years by then, till 2015. Even though he has no clue on how the flux capacitor works, he doesn't need to, all he needs to do is work the time circuits, a simple keypad system which even shows which display shows which time. For someone from 2015, it's not so hard to figure out.
Answer: He could have taken however long he wanted to figure it out, as long as he returned it to the exact time he took it from. We don't actually see him time travel with it when he takes it, so, for all we know, he could have taken it to his house and taken the few hours/days he needed to figure out how to use it.
4th Jan 2019
The Mummy (1999)
Question: In the scenes where Rick lights a match to use on a stick of dynamite, he does so by striking the match against either his own ear or the ear of Ardeth Bay. Is there an explanation to how he does this?
Answer: He's lighting the match on his beard-stubble by raking it down his face. He's not striking the matches on his ear. It's not practical at all (and in fact, it's basically impossible unless you have beard-stubble like sandpaper), but it's just a cute way for the movie to show how much of a bad-a** he is. In reality behind the scenes, they actually had a strip of matchbox taped to the actor's faces that they were striking the matches on to light them. But with the right camera placement, it looks like they're lighting them on their faces.
Answer: Matches in those days were friction matches, with added red phosphorous so you could light them on basically any surface, as long as you generated enough heat. Some prefer the bottom of their boots, or a wall, but others light them on their own body, or someone else's.
Bare skin does not provide the necessary friction to light a match. It's possible to light one using one's fingernail by flicking it hard against the match head, but not with skin. There has to be a hard textured surface to create a spark.
Rough stubble?
Those matches are known as 'strike anywhere matches', because of the phosphorous coating on the matchhead they can be used on any suitably frictional surface. That's why Rick used Ardeth's stubble beard to strike the matchhead against.
Answer: I don't think he was rubbing the match on bare skin, more likely the edge of where the beard grows. The rough hairs would make the area of skin able to produce enough friction to light the match as long as it was rubbed fast enough.
26th Feb 2004
X-Men (2000)
Question: Why does Rogue get that blonde-white streak in her hair at the end? I've never read the comic books, so if the answer's there, I wouldn't know.
Answer: In the comic books, Rogue could fly and was impervious to bullets. She got those abilities from another mutant, but she accidentally drained too much and received a permanent fix. That is what gave her the grey streak in her hair and put the other mutant in a coma.
29th Dec 2018
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005)
Question: Is Anakin a hypocrite considering that he saved Palpatine from Mace Windu, but he killed Darth Tyranus in cold blood?
Answer: I wouldn't say so - he's loyal to Palpatine regardless. He saves him from Mace Windu, then kills Dooku/Tyranus on Palpatine's orders. I don't see the hypocrisy.
You're missing the point, Anakin saves Palpatine because he viewed him as a Father. The point of saying Anakin a hypocrite is fairly clear. Because when he was asked to kill Tyranus he did it without mercy. But he even mentioned that "It's not the Jedi way" to Palpatine. But later in the film, he saved Sidious from Mace Windu. What a hypocrite.
Answer: This is an interesting question. Early on in Episode II and III he always talks about wanting to be a better Jedi, but breaking the rules by killing Tyrannus in cold blood, killing the sand people, distrusting his mentor and friend. Being a hypocrite though, that means he judges people for breaking the rules whilst doing it himself, he doesn't do that. Nor does he pretend to say he is the most powerful or knows more than others, not while he was still an apprentice. But Anakin is so lost and confused, the fear inside him clouded his mind tremendously, being corrupted by Palpatine without seeing it, up to the point he aids Palpatine in killing Mace Windu and thus completely and permanently turning his back from the light side. He does realise this right then and there though, doesn't go on pretending he is more than just a Sith or still a Jedi, he fully gives in to the Sith ways. Although some parts of his old self creep back when he talks to Obi-Wan later on, about how he will overthrow the Chancellor and rule the galaxy as Emperor himself. At that point he becomes a hypocrite, talking to Obi-Wan like he's the one confused, talking about his powers like he is the strongest. After being beaten by Obi-Wan and thinking he killed Padme though, that all disappears and he is the silent and deadly servant of Sidious we know in IV and on.
Answer: Harry, while on the bed, dangled his shoe over the edge, luring the book out from underneath. The book, attracted by the movement, lunged for the shoe, and that's when Harry jumped on top of it. It's similar to a cat chasing a small object tied to a string.
raywest ★