Answered questions about specific movies, TV shows and more

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Question: Why does Charles insist on referring to Delia as Lydia's mother, not stepmother? Even when he and Lydia are alone. (For example, the moment when he thinks Lydia is wearing one of the bedsheets, pretending to be a ghost.)

Answer: Charles is trying to force Lydia into accepting Delia as her mother, making his own life easier if his second wife and daughter get along. Lydia resents Delia and does not consider her as family, and certainly not as her mother.

raywest

Answer: I think Delia actually is Lydia's mother, at least in this movie. They don't get along, so Lydia rebels by pretending that Delia is a stepmother.

Question: Given that they live down south in Mississippi and it's Summer, when the judge walks up to Atticus' porch, he's fanning himself and Atticus says, "It's rather warm, isn't it?" If so, why is Atticus wearing a suit (OK) and a sweater? I get the suit, it's his work clothes, but a sweater?

Family5

Answer: The film is set in Maycomb, Georgia. There's no explanation, so any answer is speculation. However, Atticus usually wore a three-piece suit, so it was a vest, not a sweater. The suit was likely a lightweight material and was a typical style of the era. Atticus probably considered it a more professional look for a lawyer. Most likely this was a movie wardrobe decision, giving Atticus a scholarly appearance and persona throughout the film, even if in reality, it wasn't practical.

raywest

Question: Why didn't Dr Grant hide the eggs somewhere where the raptors could've sniffed them out? It would've bought them some time as the raptors would then have spent their time looking for the eggs.

Answer: Grant does think about dropping the eggs out of a window but decides to keep them. Paul asks Grant: "What if they catch us with them?" to which Grant replies: "What if they catch us without them?" He's implying that the eggs will stop the Raptors attacking them as the Raptors wouldn't want to risk damaging the eggs. If they didn't have the eggs with them, the Raptors wouldn't think twice about attacking them.

Answer: That probably would have made more sense, but it would have been a less dramatic ending where the raptors confront everyone. The whole concept of the raptors hunting down a few missing eggs out of a large clutch is ridiculous. It's all about storytelling, not reality.

raywest

Also, I would like to point out that people don't always think of an obvious, practical solution when a situation is actually happening: "Hindsight is 20/20." This might be a sci-fi movie but it happens in reality. It's easy to analyze a situation as an outsider and say what should have been done.

Question: When they return to the plane, Alan and Billy start questioning Paul about when he climbed the mountain and then realized that he was lying about Kirby Enterprises. How did they figure out he was talking a complete load of rubbish?

Answer: Paul had claimed that he and his wife often did adventure tours like the Galapagos Islands, the Nile, climbing K-2, etc. When Alan and Billy observed him awkwardly struggling to don a backpack, they became suspicious and started quizzing him.

raywest

Question: Gaston tells Belle that she will end up as a beggar if she does not get married. I know this is a fantasy setting, but in similar settings, couldn't an unmarried woman still inherit property?

Answer: Gaston is trying to intimidate her into marrying him. If she did inherit father's home someday, it's likely that she could sell the property and go to Paris or another place with a larger population. Women could work a variety of low-paying jobs. Still not an ideal life, but better than growing old in the village and having very limited options.

Question: What was the point of changing "Twin Pines Mall" into "Lone Pine Mall"? This change doesn't affect the series' plot at all, so what was the reason behind it?

Answer: Just to show how actions in the past have had a knock on effect on the future, giving audiences a heads up that things have been changed. Alternatively just a fun thing for audiences to notice.

Answer: It's a small but noticeable change in the timeline as a result of Marty's time travel. The first we see when he returns to 1985, confirming that his actions have altered the present. It was originally called "Twin Pines Mall" because there were originally two pine trees; Doc reminisces about "Old Man Peabody" trying to breed pine trees on the land where the mall stood. When Marty travels back to the same place in 1955, it's Peabody's farm, and making his escape, he runs over one of the two pines (and we see the mailbox with the name "Peabody" on it). Therefore, when he returns to 1985 having destroyed one pine, the mall is now "Lone Pine Mall", because in the new, altered present, there was only one pine tree, not two.

Question: Charlie rings Lucinda's workplace and they put him through to her. But later he finds out she's just a temp called Jane, how does that work?

Answer: The operator put him through to "Lucinda" on the phone because there is a REAL Lucinda that works there and Jane (who posed as Lucinda) was her temp who filled in for her supposedly when Lucinda was away. So the operator simply patched Charles' call to Lucinda's office, and Jane answered. It was either lucky for Jane that Lucinda was away at the time, or maybe Lucinda was away on business for a given amount of time, and Jane took advantage of that.

Question: Spoilers. The end of the movie shows Meg at home, apparently surviving the ordeal. In the final frames, though, we see the eviscerated body of Meg wearing the same clothes she wore in the final fight. How did Meg get zombified? Every other zombie monster had to go through the breach machine to transform, but Meg was still human at the time the machine was destroyed.

Answer: I don't think this is a "zombie" movie - it follows different rules. The scientist and the machine were destroyed, but there were several altered human test subjects still alive at the end. The scientist's rambling explanation was that he wanted to instill the ability for humans to change their physical form. The best I can figure is that Meg survived the fight but one of the altered human test subjects bit her, transformed into an imitation Meg, and later followed her home to kill her. I suppose the "shocker" in the last scene was that the pregnant Meg was an imitation and would now start a new colony of altered humans.

Answer: Sorry, no answer here, but at the end I was left with the same questions. I gave this a watch because the music was supposed to be directed by a member of the Canadian band RUSH. I'm not a fan of zombie flicks, so I don't know the rules or conventions, but I do remember a long and tedious scene toward the end where the demented scientist was explaining to the sheriff how the breach device works and what he was trying to do.

Question: Why did King Triton initially dislike humans?

Answer: He doesn't know, trust, or understand humans, who would be considered a potential threat to the oceans and its inhabitants.

raywest

Answer: He has an arrogant, power-hungry personality. As the situation with the medicine gets worse, he doesn't want to lose admiration from the humans and other dogs.

Question: Why was Sam upset over Carl's death?

Answer: They were close friends. I also think Sam is more upset over Carl's deception and greed that ultimately destroyed both of their lives. Carl's death was also pretty brutal, which disturbed Sam when it happened.

Phaneron

Question: Surely the rest of the Mafia would seek revenge on Corleone for the death of Don Fanucci, right?

Rob245

Answer: Not really. It's more fully explained in a scene from the novel that was filmed but ultimately cut: Vito witnesses Fanucci get attacked by two street youths, who slit his throat from ear to ear (he survives, but with a scar). No one comes to Fanucci's aid and the youths are not hunted down, and Vito deduces that Fanucci is not well-connected at all, as if he was really a Mafia Don, no-one would dare attack him so publicly. This, combined with Fanucci's threat to report Vito and his friends to the police (something no mafioso would ever do, if they had real power), convinces Vito that Fanucci can be dealt with without retribution, and he is correct.

Question: Why did the ROARs congratulate Sully and invite him to join them after seemingly losing the Scare Games to Oozma Kappa?

quinnnmallory

Answer: They said he could rejoin the fraternity as long as he proved he could be a great scarer, so his victory showed that he was good enough for them.

Answer: Paulie believed that he shouldn't have to ask Rocky for a job. In Paulie's mind, Rocky should have known that Paulie was struggling and offer him a job, and not wait for Paulie to ask for help, because that would be humiliating. Paulie believes Rocky and Adrian owe him because their success wouldn't have happened without Paulie helping them get together. Rocky believed that Paulie is a grown man, and his financial and emotional problems are his own making and if he needed help he should have been a man and asked for it. In Rocky's mind, offering a job to Paulie would have been like giving him a handout, because he doesn't have any real experience working with a fighter at Rocky's superstar level.

BaconIsMyBFF

Answer: It was an idiotic diet fad in the mid to late eighties.

Tutoring Reese - S2-E19

Question: This question could be for many American TV shows not just this one, but are American schools so strict about cheating on one single test? Because here in Europe if you are caught cheating you will most of the time get an "F" for that test, plus "official warning", and you need like 3 or 4 warnings like that to be Kicked Out of school. But, I saw on many American TV shows situations when a character cheated once and he was like "they are gonna kick me from school" (one example, Family Matters when Steve helped Edward during the test and he was almost expelled).

Feather

Chosen answer: I work in a student conduct office. Students are not expelled after one academic misconduct incident (there are rare exceptions in higher academia). A first time offense usually results in a "0" grade on the test or assignment in addition to a sanction of a warning or probation. Repeated offenses can lead to being suspended for a period of time and even permanently dismissed. Students often cheat or commit plagiarism because they are struggling in school. The goal is to help students get the help and resources they need. Students who are caught committing a misconduct often tend to panic and believe the worst will happen to them. TV shows tend to exaggerate the circumstances for dramatic or comedic effect.

raywest

Answer: They used to do this. Cheating was a violation of the honor code and you would get a mandatory suspension. American schools vary a ton from place to place. During the late 90s and early 2000s they were incredibly strict about a lot of things. The rules have changed because of a lot of scandals in the troubled teen industry. After the school shootings in the early 90s there was a huge moral panic about schools not being strict enough and millennials like the kids in this show paid for it.

Question: Is Goldeneye a reboot? From what I remember, there's no clear evidence that it is a reboot like Casino Royale, but there's also no evidence that it's in the same universe as the previous movies. Licence to Kill is, because Tracy's death is mentioned, and it's clear that Bond and Felix have been close friends for decades.

MikeH

Answer: It's definitely not meant as a reboot. While there may not be any explicit references to earlier Bond films, plenty of them lack those. It may feel like a reboot because, as the first Bond film made after the end of the USSR, it had to establish Bond's place in a post-Cold War world; hence his terse exchange with the new M (Judi Dench) early in the film about how he is a "relic", and the fact that this story has its origins in the Cold War and many of its villains are ex-Soviet officials and such. It's more a transitional film in the series than a reboot.

Answer: In season 5, episode 17 (Polly in the Middle), Malcolm complains to Stevie about Dewey believing he is having a 'lucky shirt', to which Stevie replies "you're asking me about luck?"

Question: A couple of times, Luke mentions Vader not being able to kill/destroy him "before." What is he talking about? At Cloud City, Vader wanted to freeze him in carbonite, not kill him. He even tested the process on Han Solo first.

Answer: The emperor wanted Vader to kill Luke outright, but Vader suggested instead to turn him and only kill him if necessary. He promises the Emperor that "He will join us, or die." Luke is saying that during their fight on Cloud City, especially near the end, he could sense Vader's hesitation to kill him. Vader even says to Luke at two points "Don't make me destroy you" and "Don't let yourself be destroyed as Obi-Wan did."

BaconIsMyBFF

Question: Are there any ways Clark could have saved his father from the tornado without the need for superspeed and thus risk his secret getting out before the time was right?

Answer: Here's how I've always visualised it. Jonathan lets Clark help. While both are running to the truck, Jonathan tells Clark that when they get there, Clark would pretend to struggle with opening the door. After "pulling" three or four times, Clark finally gets the door open, they grab the dog and run back to the shelter. By doing this, Jonathan would have survived.

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