Corrected entry: When they discover that the Genesis device has been activated, Kirk volunteers to beam over to stop it. Even though he is told it can't be stopped, that would indicate the transporters are still working. Why does nobody suggest beaming the device itself off of the Reliant and out into space with the widest possible dispersion, like they did in "Wolf in the Fold" to Redjac?
Garlonuss
29th Apr 2004
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
Correction: If they can't even get a lousy phaser lock or a clear picture on the view screen inside the nebula I have an extremely hard time buying that the transporter would've worked out for them in any capacity. Seems likely to me that in his haste and desperation Kirk simply blurted out the first thing that came to mind. For all we know David's "You can't" was actually him reminding Kirk that they can't just beam aboard the Reliant in their situation.
Correction: The source would be "Star Trek." Anytime the crew needs something to get out of danger, it's inexplicably unavailable. ST: TNG Season 5 Episode 18, Cause and Effect, the Enterprise tries to back from the anomaly, the maneuvering thrusters are suddenly non responsive, with no explanation.
29th Apr 2004
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
Corrected entry: Doesn't it strain credulity that the Enterprise is (once again) "the only ship in the quadrant"? In Star Trek terminology (all series), a quadrant covers one fourth of the galaxy (smaller regions are "sectors" and the boundary runs just about right down the middle of the Federation, right by Earth to be exact. Are we to believe that there is no other starship in that entire half of the Federation?
Correction: Before ST:TNG, "quadrant" was a term used somewhat loosely. In the Wrath of Khan, quadrant does not refer to one quarter of the galaxy.
Look up the term "quadrant." In every single applicable variation it is some form of "one quarter of a circle."
According to memory alpha, the star trek wiki, a quadrant is a major region of space encompassing a portion of a galaxy. There are apparently major and minor quadrants. The major quadrants are the 4 quadrants dividing up the milky way. Minor quadrants of course encompass a smaller part of said major quadrants. How large is seemingly quite inconsistent though. I think it has been settled upon that a minor quadrant is a couple of sectors (4) large.
Sulu also mentions that Reliant (which is in visual range, approaching at half impulse power) is in the same quadrant, which going by the post-1987 definition would be like saying the car approaching down the street is on the same continent. It's pretty clear that when they mention a "quadrant" in this movie, they are not referring to a quarter of the entire galaxy.
19th Apr 2004
The Rundown (2003)
Corrected entry: The fruit that so easily conks Beck out is said to be "Konlabos, with a K. The letter "K" is not used in Portuguese except in borrowed words like "Kit" and "Kaiser. They would never have spelled the name of a fruit with a "K.
Correction: "Konlabos" IS a borrowed word - from Olmec, a South American dialect.
21st Mar 2011
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010)
Corrected entry: As Bella and Edward lie together in his bedroom, Edward's reflection is seen in the mirror. According to vampire lore, vampires cannot be seen in reflections. Also, what good is having a mirror in a house full of vampires?
Correction: That doesn't mean that these vampires don't have reflections. Traditional vampire lore has little bearing here. According to tradition, they also need an invitation to enter your house, but Riley shows up all unannounced and stuff. So far as these vampires go, you can't assume how they should behave until one of the movies tells you. They're not traditional vampires.
24th Feb 2004
Labyrinth (1986)
Question: Can anyone explain the riddle the two guards tell Sarah (before she falls down into the helping hands). I know there's a certain question you can ask and the answer helps you figure out which door it is. can anyone help?
Answer: It is the same as multiplying. Two positives or two negatives make a positive and a mixture of positive Lets say right door and negative left door will always return a negative answer. To simplify further lets call the one door -X and the other door +X. -X (X) = -X So when done this way the answer you get back is always the negative. Then to switch polarity you just multiply by -1. Or for the more vocal learners out there the friend (+) of my friend (+) is my friend (+). The friend (+) of my enemy (-) is my enemy (-) and lastly the enemy (-) of my enemy (-) is my friend (+) or to explain with the doors The Liar and The truth Teller Produce/tell a lie when you have one answer for the other (multiply thier values). So you know the answer is the polar opposite or inverse value.
Answer: One Guard always lies, and one always tells the truth. This is absolute. So when Sarah asks Guard A to tell her what Guard B would say, she knows it will be a lie, no matter what. If Guard A were the liar, he would have to lie about what Guard B would have said. Since Guard B would have told the truth, Guard A would then have to tell the lie to Sarah. However, if Guard B were the liar, he would obviously have lied. However, Guard A would then have to answer the question truthfully which would be the lie from Guard B. Hence, no matter which guard is the liar and which guard is the truth-teller, the answer that Sarah gets would have one and exactly one lie in the answer. Knowing this, Sarah takes the other road.
Answer: I still don't understand how Sarah's logic isn't incredibly flawed. Both guards can say yes or no depending where the right door is and I don't understand how she reached a decision with this in mind.
She figures out that the red guard is the truth teller because the blue guard saying the door behind Red leads to the castle truthfully is impossible since if that's true that would mean Red is lying but said the truth. So, Blue saying the door behind Red is to the castle has to be a lie, so that's the liar and the door behind Blue is to the castle. Basically she asks Red if Blue is the liar, and he said yes, which can only be the truth because a no would mean he is the liar but tells the truth about that. He can't answer no. In both cases (either the liar or the truth teller) the Yes means that the door behind Red is not to the castle.
In no way does Sarah figure out which guard is the truth teller. She just forced the guard she spoke with to give her an answer that contains a lie. She didn't ask the guard which way she should go. She asked the guard what the other guard's answer would be. The liar would lie about what the truth teller would say, hence it would be a lie. And the truth teller would accurately report that the liar would lie, hence the answer would be a lie. Try it out with two of your friends. Have the two of them decide on one to tell the truth and one to lie, unless you change her question or one of them gets confused and answers incorrectly, the answer to your question would have to be a lie no matter who you spoke with.
No it's more specific than that. She asked one guard if the other guard would say if this door would lead to the castle. That's different than asking one guard if the other guard would answer with a lie.
I never said she asked if the other guard would answer with a lie. She asked a question that by its very structure has to be answered with a lie. She guaranteed that the answer would be a lie and then took the other door.
No, again, it's more complicated than that. I was wrong about one thing though, she doesn't know who is the truth teller and who the liar is but she asked a question in such a way that it doesn't matter. The question she asks is indirect, she asks it in a way that both the truthteller and the liar would give the same answer. The Yes being the truth means the other door is to the castle, the yes being a lie would also mean the other door is to the castle. It is true she doesn't find out of who the liar and who the truth teller is, she only figures out which door to pick. In her logic she does conclude that the Red one is the truthteller but in reality she doesn't know that. But she is not wrong about which door to pick.
7th Jan 2010
Avatar (2009)
Corrected entry: Why don't the avatars have a GPS chip implanted in them while they are being "grown" on the trip from Earth? They lost Jake when he got separated from the group and the Marines couldn't locate him when they were fighting. You would think that the avatars cost millions if not billions to make -- and they couldn't put a $30 GPS chip in their neck?
Correction: First off, GPS requires a network of satellites around the planet in order to give the GPS a frame of reference to cue off of. But if you meant a simple locator in order to get a bearing and distance from a point of origin, remember that the location there are sections of the planet where the electromagnetic fields are strong enough to cause the naturally forming superconductor unobtanium to create giant floating islands. That amount of local magnetism would greatly hinder any kind of tracking device they may have decided to include. That's exactly why they ended up fighting where they did at the end.
Wrong, there are GPS devices that work in a mesh topology (using each other to transmit signals) plus you have the orbital space station as well. Again, a tracker could have been placed to track the body regardless of the location or altitude.
Yes, but either way it requires building enough of a network to make it usable. The humans are all centered in one or two areas and only the remote avatars are regularly sent out and there's only a few of those to begin with. There's no way they get enough locators out there to create an accurate mesh network. Besides, there's still the massive local magnetism.
How can they be using "each other" when all avatars are in the same location inside the building and just one gets lost?
21st Nov 2013
The Office (2005)
Question: Is there a specific reason that the two girls from the restaurant are played by different actors when they get to the office? I couldn't imagine it has anything to do with the idea of Asian people looking similar out-of-universe, so I know there must be something else.
Chosen answer: Why couldn't that be the reason? As you can see, throughout the rest of the episode, one of the running jokes is that Michael can't figure out which girl is which anyway. That's not the writers saying that all Asians look alike. They're saying that they simply look alike to Michael. Because for all his profession that he is open-minded and forward-thinking, it's clear throughout the run of the show that he's actually not quite as forward-thinking as he thinks he is.
Additionally, the fact is that, due to scheduling issues, they were unable to get the same actresses as they used for the earlier scene. If I remember correctly, they mention this in the commentary for that episode. It just also happened to become another level of the joke that they were already planning on making later on.
28th Dec 2018
Alien (1979)
Question: Why did the last three remaining crew members split up? Surely it would have made better sense to stay together as up until that time the alien had only attacked people when they were alone.
Answer: They felt like they didn't have enough time. Parker and Lambert stayed together to get coolant while Ripley was to prepare the shuttle and set the auto-destruct. They wanted to escape as soon as possible. Staying together would have, in their minds, lengthened the time they were on the ship with the alien.
Answer: Fair point but I don't think that the Alien would have attacked three people because when it moved in to kill Lambert it didn't know that Parker was behind it.
You're basing that on what you know about the alien from watching the films. The characters at this point have no real idea how the alien would behave. For all they know, it could start reproducing asexually and there could be six more of them on the ship.
Don't understand what you mean, sorry.
You are saying that you believe the alien wouldn't attack three people together. That's because you've probably seen the films and have a pretty good understanding of the creature's biology and behavior. The characters in the film have no idea how it behaves or how it will behave the longer it stays alive. The biology of the alien is so different from anything they've seen and they want to get away from it as soon as they possibly can.
8th Dec 2018
Toy Story (1995)
Question: Why do the toys not want people to know they're alive?
Answer: Because they are supposed to play out the part of a toy, that's their purpose. They want to be there for a child as a toy.
Ok, but what are they afraid might happen if people knew they were alive?
I don't really know how you want to look at this but if you look at it realistically I think it's quite obvious what they are afraid of. If it became publicly know that every toy ever made, including all teddy bears, remotely controlled cars and even etch-a-sketches are sentient, then you could probably expect a reaction comparable to that of Sid. Fear and panic.
Also, wouldn't toys risk being experimented on, imprisoned, or destroyed if they revealed to humans that they were alive?
Exactly what happened to Sid. He found out and freaked out.
Answer: They're not necessarily afraid, it's just part of being a toy. Woody even mentions "breaking rules" when they move in front of Sid. They may just accept that it's something they're not supposed to do.
But they did reveal themselves to animals like Scud and Buster though.
How are dogs going to tell anyone? Besides, they don't care since they are animals.
Answer: I think it's safe to assume that, unless a toy makes a conscious decision to reveal their true nature, they automatically default to inanimate toy mode. Otherwise, Buzz would have easily revealed himself within the first hour after Andy got him. With that in mind, since it's apparently something they have to work to do, I would propose that it's not that they have a reason not to want anyone to know their true nature, but that they have to have a real reason to reveal it in order to do so, like Woody had to save Buzz.
But Buzz could just as easily make the conscious decision to move whilst Andy was there, he thought he was the real Buzz lightyear after all, and not a toy. Then again, in the plot it's kinda stupid Buzz doesn't think he's a toy even though Andy plays with him. But if Woody can move whilst a human is in the room, then any toy can do that. Therefore, it's a decision not to do so. Buzz most likely got asked by the other toys to play the part and he obliged since he needed them till his ship was fixed, but still.
I said it appears they have to make a conscious decision to reveal their nature. Buzz not knowing his true nature makes that kind of impossible for him so he reverts to toy mode when Andy's around. Probably without even being aware of it.
That's a possibility. But then the question arises how the other toys became self-aware and why they are self-aware in the first place. It appears this is the first time they meet a toy that doesn't know he's a toy. On one side you have toys that are aware they are a toy and want to play by its rules and on the other hand you havee toys that don't believe they are one but magically never reveal their sentience.
Who said this was the first time this has happened? For all we know, Woody could've thought he was a real cowboy before realizing he's a toy. We just don't see his or any of the other toys' backstories.
Yet Buzz could also believe he's on a secret mission from Star Command, hence why he freezes. He didn't even believe he was a real toy at this point. Not a plot hole and not confusing. Also, toys can somehow "sense" when people are nearby and only move if either A), there's no people around or B), nobody's looking. Notice how all the toys go back to "toy form" any time this happens? They're very careful, not stupid.
Also a possibility, sure. Just to be clear; I'm not against the idea and thought process behind the plot. It's just a animated movie for kids. I just like to argue.
Answer: I questioned this to myself; even at Pizza Planet, before Buzz learns he's a toy, he gets picked up by Sid in the claw machine and turns back into an inanimate object which means by some sort of unconscious decision he becomes a toy again.
29th Oct 2018
Ready Player One (2018)
Question: How did IOI figure out how to get the first key? I doubt Wade or his friends sent them an email telling them how to do it.
Answer: They all witnessed Percival and his friends do the race backwards, they just copied the act. Eventually everyone knew how to do it.
Answer: Actually, they never got the first key. They even talked about that they didn't need to since Parzival found it. If they did start getting the keys, they would appear on the leader boards also. So only the High Five found it.
Actually they did need to get the key. The second key can only be acquired by someone who has received the first, and the same thing with the third key. Also, the High Five is simply referring to the first five to actually make it onto the leader-board. The simple fact is that once the secret was discovered, it was only a matter of time before it was general knowledge for everyone to do.
22nd Nov 2018
A Quiet Place (2018)
Question: Where does all the power for monitors and lights come from? I assume power is down, a diesel aggregate would be too loud and hydropower too weak. Solar cells?
Answer: While it's never directly addressed, one can see solar panels on the roof of the farm buildings at several points in the film.
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Correction: The Genesis wave forming was interfering with transporter lock, making this solution impossible.
Grumpy Scot
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Garlonuss ★