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.

Answer: According to Christine's tombstone, she was about 63-years-old when she died. The Phantom could still be alive, though he would probably be in his late 70s or early 80s.

raywest

Answer: According to Marvel it's made from Spandex.

Ssiscool

Answer: He [Richard] drives the car because Hyacinth has not learned to drive, but claims he only steers while Hyacinth drives by "word of mouth."

Ssiscool

Answer: "No. Don't use words. Don't forget. Thank you."

Ssiscool

Show generally

Question: Does it seem like this show took from LOST in the sense that a phenomenal event starting with a plane crash changed people's lives?

Rob245

Answer: Only superficially. Manifest doesn't even begin with a plane crash, but rather a plane disappearing for 5 years with the assumption that it crashed, which turns out not to be true.

BaconIsMyBFF

In the particulars it seems different, but the overall plot is the same. A seemingly random group on an airplane experience a weird event and spend years trying to figure out what happened. Let's hope the reveal in the final episode is not as disappointing as "LOST" - they're actually all dead.

Answer: Yes, I see the larger connection. There are a lot of movies and shows where people come back from somewhere like car, train, and bus crashes, or even space, war, or who knows where, then try to figure out why. We probably should consider a new genre for plots where the departed or missing return and try to figure out why. Needs a name though. Maybe "Come-back Conundrums" or "Put-back Puzzlers"?

Answer: "The major" is a major general, no major general would go by a title implying a lower rank. Her official DOD photo shows her (and a bunch of other women in uniform) with long loose hair below their collar. Women's hair has to be above the collar or put up, until VERY recently, and if this show is set in 2018 the hair is out of regulations. No major general would have an official photo with hair out of regs.

Answer: Your guess is correct. Lawrence stated she was done with the franchise after "X-Men: Apocalypse." She jokingly told Simon Kinberg she would return for this film if he directed it, and to her surprise, he was serious about it and held her to it. Fans weren't very keen on her appearances either, because she was definitely phoning it in for the third film, so that may have factored into killing her off early as well.

Phaneron

More than one actress had played Mystique. Just because Jennifer Lawrence did not want to continue playing that role is not a reason the character would be killed off. They could easily recast another notable actress in the part. I would not be surprised if Mystique is miraculously "resurrected" in a future X-Men film with a new actress.

raywest

Aside from Deadpool, any new X-Men film would be a complete overhaul of the franchise since the characters will be part of the MCU now. You're not wrong about an actor wanting out to not really be a reason to kill off a character, but it doesn't preclude them from doing so either. They might have decided it wouldn't be worth the hassle of recasting the role with all the negative baggage that would come with it.

Phaneron

Here are some candidates I think could do it: Amanda Seyfried, Shailene Woodley, Chloe Grace Moretz. Heck maybe even Milla Jovovich-Anderson should be given an audition, what say you guys?

Rob245

Question: Why does Stanley kill himself? I understand in the film it is because he considered himself too weak and wanted to give his friends the best chance. However, why didn't he just stay where he was was and not return? Pennywise can't reach that far so could not influence him. Stanley could have come up with any plan, even faking his death.

Answer: It's a bit involved, but the fact is that he was never that stable with the idea to begin with. He had forgotten all the horrors of his childhood (either due to the influence of Maturin the turtle [from the book] or Pennywise it makes little difference) and when it all started to come back to him, he panicked. And frankly, he had no way of knowing whether Pennywise could get him where he was or not. He didn't know enough to know one way or the other. But he knew that where Pennywise was concerned it would never be over simply. Pennywise would have tormented and tortured them like he did when they were kids, and when faced with that prospect he decided that ending it now, especially in his panicked state, was preferable to the idea of torture.

Garlonuss

Show generally

Question: So aside from trying, very badly, at playing football did they ever play other sports on the show? I'd think the best ones would be figure skating, roller derby, and track. Shelley Hack could've played basketball while there.

Rob245

Answer: In Season 2, Episode 16, Game, Set, Death, Kris Munroe (Cheryl Ladd) plays tennis.

raywest

Answer: We are never told as to how they got there.

Answer: People who built the digital world most likely had them sent there. Gennai tells the kids in the last episode that the streetcar was from San Francisco, and he asked them to take it back for him.

Question: Would Clubber Lang have been charged in Mickey's death since it was his shoving Mickey that caused his heart attack and eventual death?

Answer: Unlikely. Lang shoved him in the heat of the moment, and there's no indication he meant to kill or injure him.

Question: If the Emperor had ordered Ochi, the Jedi Hunter, to recover Rey as a child then he would have known how to go back to Exegol - why then would he need to find another Sith Way Finder and end up on Pasaana?

Answer: That assumes that Ochi received the order to find Rey from Palpatine in person on Exegol. Evidently Palpatine gave his orders to Ochi remotely and Ochi had to find his way to Exegol just like everyone else.

BaconIsMyBFF

Question: What did Clyde use to stab his cellmate in the neck in order to be sent to solitary confinement?

Answer: The bone from his T-bone steak.

Phaneron

Question: Throughout the film, Coach Bolton says that the championship game is in two weeks but the decathlon is in a week. How do they happen on the same day?

Answer: It is because in the movie Sharpay got the decathlon rescheduled and the callbacks to be on the same day as the championship game so that Troy and Gabriella can't make the callbacks.

Answer: The decathlon was most likely rescheduled.

Question: How does Rey get Luke's original (Anakin's) lightsaber? Twice, no less. The first time when Maz Kanada says "a story for another time", a time which never came, apparently. Then it's destroyed in TLJ in the fight with Kylo Ren, then she gets it back again...somehow, in this movie.

Jon Sandys

Answer: In TLJ you see her pick up both halves. It was then repaired between movies, with the prop showing modifications where it was fixed.

Chosen answer: According to StarWars.com: Rey took the broken pieces with her to Crait. The lightsaber's shattered pieces reunited themselves as she continued down the Jedi path.

raywest

If you look closely, the lightsaber has been repaired after being broken in Last Jedi. There is a new middle piece joining the two broken pieces together.

BaconIsMyBFF

At the end of "The Last Jedi", when the remaining Resistance fighters leave Crait, there is a close-up of Rey's hands holding the broken pieces of the saber, meaning that she took them with her.

Answer: The gargoyle had been watching Preston through his window for a long while and, falling in love with him, assumed a human form so she could be with him.

raywest

Awkward. I mean eww, should've just left him alone as it was a murderous creature who killed for no reason. She could've done the human form without killing anyone you know.

Rob245

Well, love makes people (and gargoyles) do weird and stupid things.

raywest

Answer: She most likely wanted to keep an eye on him, to make sure he would never break the vow.

The Jerk - S3-E23

Question: Why did Nate beat his chess opponent after winning? I know it's revealed that he's simply a jerk, but that's not the behaviour of a jerk, it's the behaviour of a psycho, and it seems like it wasn't addressed.

MikeH

Answer: The hemachromatosis the patient suffered from can cause rage attacks due to hormone imbalances.

LorgSkyegon

Question: What did Alan Grant pick up and smell when they were in the cage right before he says "This is a bird cage"? And would it be possible for them when they got hunted by the raptors to hide in the mud to not get smelled by them?

Answer: He picked up a chunk of "bird" guano, and was smelling it to see if it was something biological as opposed to chemical. He realised it was left by a pterosaur. There's no way of knowing if hiding in the mud would fool the raptors.

raywest

Answer: It was Pteranodon poop.

Question: When the birds attack the town a gas station attendant is hit by a bird and drops the gas hose he is using to fill a car. The gasoline flows down the street and under a car; a man drops a match and lights the gas causing an explosion. Why didn't the gas pump shut off when the man dropped it?

michael g

Answer: The movie takes place in the 1960s, so presumably gas pumps worked a bit differently back then. This is also a small town and probably the gas station had not modernized. There may not have been automatic shut-offs, or if there was, it was faulty.

raywest

The automatic shut off is in the handle of the hose. When a person grips the handle they have to lift a levered switch to allow gas flow; the lever is spring loaded so that if it is released the gas will stop flowing. I have looked at older antique gas pumps and they are all the same; even the visible glass gravity flow ones. If that hose was dropped the the gas should have stopped flowing.

michael g

Question: Was that a real baby in the opening scene? The kid looked real to me and if it was how'd they make it look newborn, covered in stuff?

Rob245

Answer: Infants in movies that are supposed to be "newborn" are covered in food substances like strawberry jelly or jam. I remember reading that it is the only thing legally allowed to be used on a baby in a movie.

raywest

Answer: I don't think anyone disliked Jim or was mean to him. Basically, he's a somewhat annoying, overly-active kid that the adults, who are in a very dire situation, simply didn't have much patience or the inclination to deal with. Also, the adults are mostly upper-class British, and in that era and before, they tended to be stricter with and more dismissive of children.

raywest

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