Answered questions about specific movies, TV shows and more
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Question: Maybe someone with agricultural expertise can answer this. Ray's entire cornfield is large and obviously worth a lot of money. How much would the small section of corn that he plowed under for the baseball field have been worth in comparison to the rest of the crop once sold?
Chosen answer: In modern times (say, over the last 10 years) corn crops yield about $240 in profit per acre. In the mid-to-late 1980s (when this movie was made) the profit yield was far less, maybe only $150 or less profit per acre. Today, most farms produce about 1100 acres of corn per season; but, back then, most farms produced around 600 acres per season. Of course, these are all just average figures. So, let's say Ray had an average Iowa farm of 600 cultivated acres in 1989, expecting to profit $150 per acre. Optimistically, Ray would profit about $90,000 on his total crop. Meanwhile, the acreage of a large baseball field (with 90-foot baselines) is only about 5 acres. Which means Ray plowed under only about $750 worth of his crop profits to open up land area for the baseball field. It doesn't sound like much of a sacrifice at all, in terms of corn. Ray could still potentially profit $89,250 on his remaining crop (assuming he had the farm hands and heavy equipment to harvest it).
Thanks! The plot seemed a bit far-fetched by implying that he would go completely bankrupt because he sacrificed five acres to build a baseball field. And it appeared that not all of those five acres near the house were previously being used for growing corn. Factoring in the other incidental building costs would be a different consideration, however.
Yeah, the 5 acres of corn was not a bank-breaker. My impression was that Ray probably cut down the corn himself at no great loss; but he then mortgaged his farm to have that one small piece of the cornfield leveled and professionally developed with ballpark-quality turf, baselines, stadium lighting and fencing, et cetera, not to mention the bleachers and professional-grade field equipment...all of which would total, what, a half-million bucks (or more) in the 1980s? Ray's brother-in-law rightly thought it was an insane risk that would result in bank foreclosure.
I just watched it again. It's mentioned they paid for building the field using all their savings, so presumably nothing more is owed. Another year passes and there is another crop of corn to be harvested, but the bank is threatening to foreclose.
Maybe it's a plot hole or a deleted scene; because, if the bank was threatening foreclosure, then a mortgage of some kind existed somewhere.
He did spend a lot to build the field, and those profit margin numbers are best-case, no?
Yeah, all the figures I provided were just averages for the year 1989; but the figures do demonstrate that cutting down 5 acres of corn didn't significantly impact Ray's profit on the whole crop. It wasn't cutting down the corn that cost him money (as the original question inquired); rather, it was developing the cleared 5 acres into a level, professional-standard baseball field that cost him a ton of money.
Question: The seventh season opening shows a scene where Phoebe gets trapped in some sort of cage - anybody know what episode that's from?
Answer: It's from s06e23, "The One With The Ring." Chandler and Phoebe are at a jewelry store and Phoebe tried to run after a guy while still holding store property, which caused the door to lock and the metal gate to come down.
Question: Who was "Nimrod"?
Answer: Nimrod's actual identity was never revealed in the series. It was only known that he was a British intelligence agent. Nimrod was not Colonel Klink. Hogan had only implied it was him as a ruse to get Klink returned as camp commandant, not wanting him replaced by someone more competent who would impede the Heroes war activities. The term "nimrod" is also slang for a nerdy, doofus type of person, though it's unclear why that was his code name.
"Nimrod" is originally a king and hero mentioned in the Tanach and taken into the Bible and the Koran. His name is often used in the sense of "stalker," "hunter," and sometimes figuratively as "womanizer" as in "hunter of women." I've never seen it used to denote a nerdy person, and although I cannot disprove that connotation, I think given his role, the traditional meaning is more likely the intended one.
It's widespread enough that Wikipedia has an entire section on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nimrod#In_popular_culture
Question: It's revealed that the ooze came from TGRI but, what were they planning on originally doing with it before they decided to dispose of it?
Answer: If you pay attention to the professor's explanation (starting at 0:55:55) he says "An unknown mixture of discarded chemicals was accidentally exposed to a series of radiated waves and the resulting ooze was found to have remarkable but dangerous mutanagenic properties... on our way to bury them a near collision caused us to lose one of the canisters down a sewer 15 years ago." Basically, "we had an accident and the results were dangerous and unpredictable, so we immediately went to dispose of it all." So there actually were no plans for what to do with it at all.
Question: How come Ransom did not realise that Marta had not given Harlan the morphine when he went back to the study room to switch the evidence?
Answer: She didn't drain either of the vials so unless he actually measured how much of each liquid there was to start with, he was unlikely to notice that the amounts weren't quite what would have expected. He knew enough to know that the switch could lead to a death, but he's not anal enough to note every tiny aspect of the situation to verify that nothing's gone wrong.
Question: Why is it Doc Brown and Principal Strickland both look the exact same age in 1955 and 1985?
Answer: Doc doesn't really look the same age; his hair is shorter/blonder, and he doesn't have as many wrinkles. Christopher Lloyd was only in his mid-40s when the movie was made, so they actually used makeup to age him for the 1985 sequences. As far as Strickland goes, it's a joke in the film... Marty even asks, "Geez, didn't that guy ever have hair?" when he first sees him in 1955.
Answer: Technically you CAN see an age different in Strickland. First seen in 1985, he is FULLY BALD, and has some wrinkles and looks of retirement age. Then seen in 1955, he is mostly bald but still has some hair on the sides and does look younger (like 35 or 40) - no wrinkles.
Question: In the fight with Ryu and Ken in the courtyard, Vega uses a claw similar to his conventional one. How did he come into possession of that? He couldn't have smuggled it in because it would've been confiscated. I don't think that he had the materials necessary to make a new one either. So, where did it come from?
Answer: To this day books, magazines, phones, food and drugs have been smuggled into prisons, getting a hook smuggled into or made in a third world prison would be easy.
Question: When Ben and Fred are trying to call people with the calculator, why does the calculator randomly start playing "Help me Rhonda"?
Answer: They could only communicate via musical tones. They were trying to give Sandy clues as to where they were being held (playing 'Downtown' to let her know they were downtown). 'Help Me Rhonda' was a clue that they were in trouble.
Question: Are we to assume Gabriel lives on as a human on Earth after Father takes his wings? Can there be another reason Gabriel submerged into the water after his wings are burned off? Suicide maybe?
Answer: Gabriel would never commit suicide. That is a mortal sin and would put him in Hell. Yes, he lives his life as a mortal from now on, and like Constantine did, he has to prove himself to God again to be brought back into His good graces. Or wind up in Hell otherwise.
Question: Why does the probe even wish to talk to humpback whales?
Answer: It's stated by Spock in the movie, even if he is just speculating. He mentions that humans are not the only intelligent special on Earth, and that it's human arrogance to assume that the probe's signal, "Must be meant for man." The point is, the aliens were communicating with the whales, and when that communication stopped, they sent the probe to find out why.
Answer: There is a hypothesis by Spock that the probe was perhaps sent to find out why they didn't hear the whale song any more.
Answer: Wouldn't you if you could?
Question: At the end when Gamora and the Good Nebula are speaking, Gamora asks Nebula what happens in the future and Nebula responds that she tried to kill her many times, but they eventually became friends. Why didn't Nebula bother to tell Gamora that Thanos killed her to get the Soul Stone. Seems odd that she left that out.
Chosen answer: Nebula already alluded to Gamora being killed by Thanos earlier when she said something along the lines "You know what he does to you?" In this scene in question, Gamora is already disillusioned with Thanos and frees Nebula from captivity to battle him, thus it's not necessary to show the audience Nebula telling Gamora what Thanos did to her. She may have told her offscreen while they were on their way to find the evil Nebula.
Question: What game are Amy and Sheldon playing in the opening scene? It's an app on a phone.
Answer: Heads Up, developed by Ellen DeGeneres. I believe it originally began on her talk show with the use of index cards.
Question: How is Lydia able to see Adam and Barbara along with Beetlejuice? Did she have some sort of near death experience or maybe inherited something from her family?
Question: Assuming that Ripley wasn't infected with the queen before ending upon fury 161, would the facehugger implanted the queen embryo into the dog/ox or use one of the prisoners assuming it can choose which embryo to deposit first.
Answer: It could be the Facehugger either has a short life span or a short period of time to lay her egg.
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Answer: What happened to the answer that was given. Koba hated humans, he wanted the others apes to believe it was the people who wanted to massacre them. Also, Koba thought Caesar was weak and foolish for wanting to make peace with the humans.