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: When Silver detonates the explosives and causes the subway train to crash through to the lower level shouldn't the lights in the train cars have gone out, as the train was no longer connected to the electric system?

Answer: They probably have emergency battery backup.

Question: Why did the grandmother get the codes if only kids will go to the new earth and not her?

Answer: She was never intended to go; she was only the messenger that the alien beings chose as a means to save the children who would one day rebuild humanity.

raywest

Question: Greg helps the Renegades. How does he learn their routine so fast? It was after midnight. The competition is the next day.

Answer: Some people have a photographic memory and can memorize instantly. Realistically, unless he had this type of ability, or had some previous knowledge of the routine, it's unlikely he could learn it so quickly.

raywest

Question: If Skynet was prevented from coming online, how did Legion develop the idea for creating terminators?

Darth Crucible

Answer: Skynet and Legion were both developed for identical purposes: defense network artificial intelligence. It stands to reason they would both evolve in similar ways. Since both Skynet and Legion were fighting a similar human resistance, they both developed similar infiltration units.

BaconIsMyBFF

Question: When marshal Ney and his troops encounter Napoleon, he tells them if they want to kill their emperor, there he is, but instead of killing him, they defect to him despite being ordered to fire. Is this a work of fiction, or did it happen in real life?

Answer: This is decidedly fiction. The historical Ney already published a boastful proclamation (that Napoleon later said disgusted him), declaring the rule of the Bourbons to be over, before he met with Napoleon (March 15). The scene where Napoleon offered himself to be shot had happened several days earlier, with the 5th regiment of the line, before Napoleon even reached Grenoble. It's an entirely different event from Ney's defection.

Answer: I think the film's dramatisation of this particular incident, when the French army defected from the restored Bourbon royal family back to the Emperor Napoleon might owe something to the painting NAPOLEON RETURNED painted in 1818 by Charles Steuben (also called Charles De Steuben and Karl Steuben) a German who became a nationalised (and patriotic) Frenchman https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Napoleon_returned.jpg.

Rob Halliday

Answer: Yes, that is pretty much what happened, so long as we allow for translation convention. (Napoleon and his armies spoke 19 century French, while the actors in the 1970 film speak 20 century English). After Napoleon's first abdication Marshall Ney submitted to the returning Bourbon monarch, Louis XVIII. When Napoleon returned to France, Marshall Ney was given command of an army to apprehend Napoleon The Emperor Napoleon with a small group of imperial guardsmen confronted Marshall Ney with a massively larger and better-equipped army. Many people expected a bloodbath. Instead, Napoleon waked out in front of his guard, confronted the French army and called out that if any soldier wished to shoot him, this would be the best chance they would ever have! The army simultaneously rushed to greet their emperor, Marshall Ney followed and submitted to Napoleon. This bit of the film is as historically accurate as can reasonably be expected and shows how Napoleon could electrify an army.

Rob Halliday

Question: If Parker was possessing Josh throughout the whole movie, why didn't he just kill Josh's family right off the bat instead of waiting until close towards the end of the movie?

Brandon York

Answer: He answered that while chasing Renai, it was because at first he didn't really want to but his mom kept planting seeds in his head and telling him that if he doesn't he's going to die and towards the end you can tell he was very close to dying so he gave in and try to kill the family. Also throughout the whole movie it talked about the fact that his mother basically forced him to kill people.

Answer: It looked like something from a lingerie store.

Question: What does the ending mean? Does Brooks kill his daughter before she kills again?

Answer: There is no clear meaning about the ending but he does not kill his daughter, Jane. When Brooks dreams that Jane murders him, it seems to indicate he fears she is destined to become a serial killer like him.

raywest

Answer: There is no logical reason. Any normal person would notice these type of absences. The show employs a "suspension of disbelief," which is a literary device where the movie audience or a book reader accepts that certain things are unreal for the sake of the story to be told. It is similar to no-one noticing that Clark Kent looks exactly like Superman because he wears glasses.

raywest

Answer: Thank you.

Rob245

Question: When Kirk and Scotty first enters the Enterprise, the hatch is numbered 5. But the computer announces that a travel pod is available at Cargo 6. Would that be considered an error?

Movie Nut

Answer: Possibly, or there could also be another travel pod that is available at Cargo 6, and that is what is being announced.

raywest

Question: After Jack hits his shoulder Nate starts crying, and says they left it in his hands. What is he talking about?

Answer: As I understood it, Nate is feeling the burden of making sure the team won and feels his injury prevented that. "They" are the coaches and players that died in the plane crash. Nate is saying when they died, they left the responsibility of the program in his hands. Jack (his new head coach) replies that they "just left", meaning even though the died, they didn't leave the responsibilities on Nate.

Bishop73

Question: Is there a connection or special meaning when Dan asks 'Alice' during their last fight who she really is, and 'Alice' answers him "I'm nobody," and the fact that she is hiding her true identity as Jane Jones?

Answer: Anna says that Alice has "had quite a life" (after she read Dan's book that was based on Alice). Presumably Alice has been through difficult situations: abuse, neglect, etc. She considers herself a "nobody" and enjoys lying as a form of control. Which is why she never told Dan her real name, or everything about herself. She could never trust anybody completely. She also says "I'm the one who leaves." She prefers to leave men before they can leave her.

Answer: Yes there is a connection, but the exact meaning of it is deliberately left ambiguous as to why Alice/Jane kept her true identity hidden. It is up to the audience to interpret why she did this.

raywest

Question: Why didn't they stay in the store with all the food? The one guy suggests it and they bring up the fact that some others are still at the house and will starve... But couldn't they have just used the car to go back and collect them and bring them to the store? Alternatively, why didn't they make multiple trips to the store to bring back as much food as they could? They could have come back, unloaded and then gone straight back out again (meaning the car couldn't have been stolen). By this point they knew it was safe, they could have even have just sent 2 people giving them more space in the car to load it with supplies.

Answer: After what happened to Charlie, they were discouraged from staying or returning to the store.

Rassdyt

Question: After Jason kills Jim and Suzi on Crystal Lake, how does Jim's boat end up being at the harbor next morning? Crystal Lake is not connected to the sea. It's just surrounded by land, right?

Bunch Son

Chosen answer: To the best of my knowledge, this is just a bit of a continuity mistake. While previous films have not indicated Crystal Lake is connected to the ocean, this film portrays it as being connected. You just kinda gotta go with it for the movie to work.

TedStixon

Chosen answer: Considering the film shows Jason emerging from under the water, yes, it's clear that Jason swam the rest of the way after leaving the ship. (He was presumably following the lifeboat).

TedStixon

Show generally

Question: In the first season, Hastings tells Arnott he's Catholic - but then in subsequent seasons he's supposed to be a Mason. Except the Catholic church considers joining the Masons to be a sin - is that a clue to Hastings' real status?

Answer: Many Catholics do not adhere to all church beliefs, such as divorce, birth control, gay rights, etc.

raywest

Question: The Leaderboard shows the top 5 gunters. 1) Why would zeroing out cause the board to go blank? They were still the first 5 to get the keys. If zeroing out does it, Aech and Saito (?) should have left the board earlier (dying earlier on Planet Doom). 2) Others had to be collecting keys too, including dozens/hundreds of IOI players, and hundreds of other players. Surely someone on the planet was a gunter and was sleeping during this excitement? Unaffected by the Cataclyst, they should have moved to the top of the board.

chuckie001

Answer: The idea was that anyone who had anything to do with the game was there, in sector 10, certainly all IOI and Gunters. The Cataclyst is specifically meant to zero out anything it reaches, unlike a death on planet doom, which only lets you lose what you currently have on you and not your entire avatar.

lionhead

Answer: Yes. Reese explains that the terminators used to have rubber skin and were easy to spot. The T-800 has living human skin so it's impossible to tell by simply looking at them. That is why the resistance starts using dogs to spot terminators. The terminator that attacks the base looks entirely human and only the dogs know anything is out of the ordinary.

BaconIsMyBFF

Question: Why did the SWAT team start shooting when they enter the room? Shouldn't they just hold for a second to see if everyone is unarmed before they start firing?

Trainman

Answer: At this point they believe they are dealing with a team of mass murderers, possibly terrorists. It is perfectly reasonable they would shoot on sight to stop the threat. This particular group (at least based on what they know) has no problem gunning down an entire police station.

BaconIsMyBFF

Question: Why didn't those purge people just go find someone else? Why waste all their time on one house and why did the girls go around in flimsy dresses and barefoot on a cold night?

Rob245

Answer: These purgers are pretty crazy. They were hunting this person, a homeless man, and they wanted to kill him specifically. They wanted their prize, the trophy of their hunt. And they won't let anyone stop them as it's their right. So being blocked from their target only increases their desire.

lionhead

Answer: Shortly after letting the black guy into their house, the gang leader tells James that he (the black man) killed one of their members, and they wanted revenge.

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