Question: Why did Peter decide to abandon the black suit? I mean, what was the reason for Peter to free himself from the symbiote suit?
Answered questions about specific movies, TV shows and more
These are questions relating to specific titles. General questions for movies and TV shows are here. Members get e-mailed when any of their questions are answered.
Question: Why did Linda Hamilton refuse to appear as Sarah Connor in this movie?
Answer: She read the script and wasn't impressed (which is generally the reason a lot of actors don't return to sequels). In the initial script, Sarah dies part way through, but Hamilton felt her character was more of a background character and the film focused too much on action rather than character development like the previous 2 films. Of course, her ex-husband, James Cameron, dropping out of the original production of the T3 film due to that whole mess also factored into her decision. Had Cameron remained on the project, Hamilton probably would have reprised her role (not to mention how different the film would have been).
Question: Was it ever revealed who put Harry Potter's name in the goblet?
Answer: Barty Crouch, Jr, masquerading as Mad-Eye Moody, put Harry's name in. He explicitly tells him so at the end before being captured by Dumbledore et al.
Question: What does Vince Vaughn mean when he says "Dear Barbara" when entering Christine Taylor's house and seeing all the unicorns?
Answer: I took it to mean the opening line someone uses when writing in to an advice column, like "Dear Abby." There was a 1998 book called "Dear Barbara: Answers to the Most-Asked Questions from Teenage Girls." Basically a joking way to say she hasn't quite grown up, or at least a kid at heart.
Question: How would Nick have been able to get Libby's life insurance policies if he faked his death?
Answer: Nick didn't get Libby's life insurance; he collected his own life insurance by faking his death. Libby never died, so how could he collect anything from her? I'm assuming you mean the woman he was having an affair with named Rachel. At that point, he had changed his name and identity to Simon Green.
Answer: Libby's best friend, Angie who was Nick's mistress, she most likely claimed it being the child's legal guardian. Which Libby gave parental control of him.
Question: In one of the episodes after Phil's death, it was revealed that Phil was actually a rich man. If Phil was very rich, why did he choose to live his life as a vagrant?
Answer: He was a chronic miser who obessively hoarded money, stashing whatever he could in various offshore bank accounts. Some people, no matter how much money they have, are terrified of losing it, therefore, never spend anything. Some suffer from severe neurosis or other mental issues. Others grew up in extreme poverty and fear being poor again. A family friend was just like this. She lived in a small, run-down house, never bought anything, was always terrified she would lose everything, and so on. When she died, her estate was worth over $2,000,000.
Question: Is it me, or does Medusa's head open her eyes as Perseus holds her head up after leaving the temple?
Answer: To me, it just looks like the way the prop catches the light as the actor lifts it up, and then higher up, the angle of the prop isn't catching the light in the same way.
Answer: I watched this scene several times on YouTube. When Perseus walks out with the severed head, the eyes are closed. Just as Perseus raises it, Medusa's eyes suddenly appear to open. Zeus is then heard telling Perseus to "fulfil his destiny" amid the thunder and lightning. Her eyes are wide open at this point. I interpreted this as showing that Medusa's power still resides within the head, even though she is dead.
Question: How was Batman able to get to Harvey Dent faster than police to Rachel? I mean, I can think Bat's technology being way faster of course. But for example: if all units were sent to Rachel's location, there might have been some units patrolling near her location so it would have been faster to have them go there first. Right? What other possibilities am I not considering?
Answer: I honestly think within the context of the movie, we are just meant to assume that most units are either at the police station (given a high-profile terrorist suspect - the Joker - and many of his goons were just captured) or still at the scene of the massive chase that just occurred earlier in the night, since there was a lot of destruction or chaos. Thus, there simply wouldn't be any available units closer to Rachel's location. It's a little far-fetched, sure... but it's basic "suspension of disbelief." It's required dramatically for the plot to progress. (Similar to the fact that in the sequel, many of the Gotham City PD got stuck underground by Bane... it's a little far-fetched, but it works for the plot.) Batman was simply able to get to Dent's location faster since he's using the batpod, which is a bit of a technological marvel and can get around much quicker and easier than a police car.
Answer: This could be a plot hole, but I would posit: Given how corrupt/easily corruptible the Gotham police are, it's likely the Joker may have bribed/threatened/otherwise coerced the beat cops to a) steer clear of the areas where he was holding Dent and Rachel, or b) ignore the call to go to that location. You're right that Batman's tech is what allows him to reach Dent faster than Gordon et al. Reach Rachel; the Joker set it up that way, so that whoever Batman saves means the other one dies.
Answer: Batman showed up only a few seconds before the GPD, they arrived as the building blew.
Question: If Hal is supposed to be this flawless computer that never makes a mistake or gives false information why then does it tell the astronauts Frank and Dave that a system will fail when that turns out to be wrong?
Answer: This is gleaned from the Internet: The novel explains that HAL is unable to resolve a conflict between his general mission to relay information accurately and the specific orders requiring him to withhold the mission's true purpose from Bowman and Poole. HAL reasons that if the crew is dead, he would then not need to lie to them. He fabricates the failure of the AE-35 unit so that their deaths would appear accidental. In other words, HAL is asked to lie, and he doesn't take to it very well, to say the least. The conflict between his mission objectives backs him into a corner where he has to make some pretty big (and cold) leaps in logic in order to reconcile the paradox in his programmed orders.
Answer: In the sequel, "2010" it was revealed HAL was programmed with all the information about the mission to the monolith, but Frank and Dave were not. HAL was programmed not to reveal anything until the scientists were taken out of hypersleep. When Frank and Dave tried to uncover the mystery surrounding the mission, HAL was forced to lie in the only way he knew how. He was not programmed to lie.
Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered - S1-E8
Question: Che says to Miranda that she has been f**king her for 3 weeks yet in previous episodes, they had sex in Carrie's kitchen, and then we watch seasons pass as Carrie wrote her book, so how has it only been 3 weeks?
Question: In the 1941 movie "The Wolfman", the poem about werewolves ends with "And the Autumn moon is bright." In this movie, why was it changed to "And the moon is full and bright"?
Answer: In The Wolfman, it is implied Talbot transformed every night. For Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman, the story required that it only happen occasionally (allowing him to travel to Europe without becoming a beast every night). Therefore, the lore was reconned to state that he only changed during the full moon.
Question: Does anyone know what the Kathleen Turner movie is that is playing when Annie Potts and Jeffrey Jones are together in her bedroom and John Candy is in the air shaft? Can't find it anywhere.
Answer: It's not a real movie and it's not Kathleen Turner. It was just done for the scene. The two people in the "movie" are Patrick McKenna and Daliah Novak who are credited as "TV Man" and "TV Woman."
Question: I heard that the marble ashtray that Bedelia uses to kill her father Nathan in the "Father's Day" segment appears in all the stories. Does anyone know the specific scenes it shows up in in the other ones?
Answer: Besides being in "Father's Day", it showed up in "The Lonesome Death Of Jordy Verrill" right next to the cash box at the Department of Meteors. In "Something To Tide You Over" on the nightstand next to Richard's bed. In "The Crate", it was on the writing desk when Henry writes the letter to Wilma. In "They're Creeping Up On You", Upson Pratt uses it as a soap dish. And in the epilogue, it appears on Billy's desk when he starts stabbing the voodoo doll.
Question: In the opening sequence, the younger silo guy is about to shoot his partner for not turning his key as ordered. What would be the point of this? If they have to turn the keys simultaneously then how would killing the other guy help? You'd just have a dead guy with nobody to turn the other key.
Answer: But if he doesn't turn the key, they can't launch anyway. So threatening his life results in either a) his death, and nothing's different from him refusing to turn the key, or b) him giving in and turning his key.
Answer: The younger one threatening to shoot knows that if he kills the other guy, he cannot launch the missiles alone. He is betting that by threatening to shoot his partner, he will force him into complying with the order in order to save his own life. It's a situation where the older guy may or may not comply, but at least there's a chance.
Answer: The reason the missile launch crew is armed is to stop one from going rogue and trying to launch without permission. The scene where he threatens to shoot the other one for refusing to launch is dramatic, but totally untrue.
Answer: The opening sequence was a test and I think only the older guy didn't know it was a test. The younger guy actually knew it was a test and was there to threaten him with death as part of the test. Later we find out that 22% of missile commanders failed to launch. So the fact that the younger guy calls the other one "sir", makes it seem (to me) that the older guy was the missile commander and was the only one actually being tested. So when they kept saying "these men", I think they're referring to the commanders being tested and not the pair of men we saw.
Question: Why was Lucy known as Tom Tom? I've been wondering for the last 17 years and now I really want to know. It seems like the type of nickname that would come from a surname (like Thompson) but it's not. Older Lucy says that no-one's called her Tom Tom since her nose job, so is it a nose-related nickname? I don't get it.
Answer: Young Matt Flamhaff listens to "Burning Down the House" by The Talking Heads at Jenna's 13th birthday party. The drummer for the Talking Heads, Chris Frantz, and his wife, Talking Heads bassist Tina Weymouth, were also members of the side project Tom Tom Club. "Tom Tom" was Lucy Wyman's nickname as a 13-year-old in the film.
But Lucy has no idea what the song is so that makes no sense why it would be her nickname. It makes no sense to the movie.
Question: What is Hannibal doing on the fifth floor and what is he's shooting at when 3 shots were heard after he kills two guards and escape?
Answer: Hannibal swapped clothes with one of the guards (Pembry), cut his face off, then threw him down the elevator shaft and fired several shots. He was trying to make the arriving police believe that Pembry had shot and hit Lecter as he tried to escape. He then put Pembry's face over his own, posing as him and was placed in an ambulance. As per his plan, the police believed it was Lecter on the roof of the elevator, until they opened the roof hatch and saw the removed face. By then it was too late, and Lecter had killed the ambulance crew and escaped.
Question: In the bloodbath scene, is it really possible for someone to lose that much blood and remain conscious, even if barely? Not to the mention the fact that the person was a young woman.
Answer: Probably not, but given the actual murder was only about 1 minute long, you could argue that with enough adrenaline, you might be able to stay awake just long enough for the scene to play out. Obviously, you should take the movie with a grain of salt since it's for entertainment, and they're exaggerating the volume of blood, the spray, etc. for the sake of cool visuals. In reality, your risk for passing out starts getting higher and higher as you hit 30%+ blood loss, and they say you experience organ failure and will probably fall into a coma when you hit 50% blood loss. But at the same time, I actually know a guy who recently had to get emergency surgery and an absolutely massive emergency blood transfusion after losing more than 50% of his blood internally... and he took himself to the friggin' hospital because he was feeling a bit weird and was worried he might have COVID. He didn't even know what was going on until he was examined. So stranger things have happened. The human body is weird.
Question: At the beginning, in the animation cut, Dolittle frees the gorilla from a cage, and he gives a blanket or cape-looking thing to the gorilla who seems to very much like it. What exactly is that and what does it suggest?
Answer: Like any rescue victim, he was giving him comfort and aid.
Question: Why did Frank's co-worker (whom he sent flowers to) file a sexual harassment complaint against Frank, when she appeared interested in him?
Answer: It's been a while since I've seen it, but I believe it's because he went behind her back and found out her address without asking her first, which probably came across as a little creepy or stalker-ish to her, even if he didn't intend it that way. It's weird when someone you don't know finds out your address or phone number and contacts you or sends you something.
Answer: After he struck Mary Jane in the jazz club, he finally came to the realization that the suit was having a negative influence on him and making him aggressive.
Phaneron ★