Answered questions about specific movies, TV shows and more

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Answer: Most of the races and cultures in Middle Earth do not use what we would call in a modern setting a "full name", that is a given name followed by a family name. The Hobbits are the only race that does this regularly (i.e. Frodo Baggins, Samwise Gamgee, etc). Most of the other races use the more medieval "son of" when stating a formal full name (i.e. Aragorn son of Arathorn, Gimli son of Gloin, etc). To answer the question directly, most of the characters that don't have last names don't have them because last names are not used in their culture.

BaconIsMyBFF

Answer: It has to do with cultural differences. Some cultures in Middle Earth, like the Hobbits, use a family name (Frodo Baggins), others use a single name, followed by where they're from (Legolas of the Woodland Realm). Still others use the name of the father (Aragorn, son of Arathorn/Gimli, son of Gloin). Finally there are characters that use only a single name because they are of such standing that no other identification is necessary (Gandalf, Sauron, Sauruman), etc. These characters generally follow the name with a particular characteristic (Gandalf the Grey), and frequently have multiple names in different regions (Gandalf is known by many names).

Answer: The Hobbits use family groupings and thus last names. Frodo uses the surname Underhill in Bree and is instantly asked about Underhills in the Shire. Humans use a variety of names but not surnames - Aragorn is the son of Arathorn and Theoden is just called Theoden son of Thengel, and noble people like Denethor and Boromir are said to be "of the House of Voronwe or House of Hurin" Elves are immortal and thus do not need family names. Dwarves use the same naming convention as Men. Even Smaug uses one name.

Question: Is it understood or implied that the old woman at the beginning is Anton Ego's mother? It comes together when he flashes back to his boyhood; literally the way mother used to make?

dizzyd

Answer: It is his mother. It's not that Remy made it exactly like his mother did. It's along the lines that as a food critic in Paris, he's used to eating only very high quality haute cuisine. A dish as simple as ratatouille is something that he loves from childhood but probably hasn't had in decades.

LorgSkyegon

Question: How did the "once famous racing car" ended up in a scrap man's garage? Why didn't the owners simply take it back themselves? After all you wouldn't see Lewis Hamilton's crashed F1 car with kids playing in it.

Answer: It is possible the owner of the car had so much invested in the car that he lost everything when it crashed and burned. Needing money, the owner would have sold the destroyed vehicle to the person offering the most money for the wreckage. It is also possible this car was not the only car of the owner so maybe he somehow scraped together more money and continued with his racing career but with a different race car. The movie does not tell that story, though. Finally, many historical vehicles and artifacts have been abandoned and/or lost to history, never to be found or discovered in a barn, attic, garage, or a junkyard.

Scott215

Question: When Griswald knocks the helmet off Hawkins and it appears his head is knocked off, you can actually see a face in the helmet on the ground. But why? Hawkins is supposed to be hiding his head in the armor. So why did the filmmaker put a face in the helmet after it was knocked off?

Answer: I watched the clip on YouTube, stopping and rewinding it, but I cannot see what looks like a face inside the helmet. Maybe it's just the way light and shadows are reflecting on the metal.

raywest

Answer: There is an episode "MyPods and Broomsticks" (s20e07) where Bart befriends a Muslim kid, Bashir bin Laden, but Homer ends up thinking the bin Ladens are terrorists and offends them at dinner.

Bishop73

Question: How does K holding the galaxy and calling Zed to let the Arquillians know they have it prevent them from destroying Earth?

Cody Fairless-Lee

Answer: The Arquillians are prepared to destroy Earth so that the Bug doesn't escape with the galaxy. MiB having it isn't a concern.

LorgSkyegon

Answer: Presumably the Arquillians consider the galaxy to be in safe hands at this point and agree to hold off their attack provided the Men in Black deliver the galaxy to them.

Phaneron

Show generally

Question: How is it that Stevie is so old when Nancy gets out of prison? He was an infant when she went in and she did 3 years.

Answer: It's not uncommon for TV shows to suddenly "age up" baby/toddler characters in order for them to have more narrative purpose. Other examples of shows I can think of that did this are "Step by Step," "Last Man Standing," "Boy Meets World," and possibly "Dexter."

Phaneron

Question: *Spoiler* After Tony died, why didn't anyone just use the time stone to bring him back? We saw Thanos do this with Vision in Infinity War so not sure what was stopping anyone from doing the same.

Answer: Vision was killed by Wanda, and Thanos just rewound that "bubble" of time so he was alive. Tony on the other hand was killed due to his internal injuries, caused by using the gauntlet. Rewind time to just before he died, and he'd still die again, because of the damage. Rewind it to before he even used the gauntlet...and he wouldn't have used the gauntlet, leaving Thanos and his army alive and kicking. That's of course assuming that the time stone can even alter events which have been caused by all 6 stones combined.

Jon Sandys

I have a further to this question however. The keeper of the Time Stone is Dr. Strange, and has been shown to have adept knowledge in it's usage since he first acquired it. They do have to return the stones back to the timelines where they originally got them to keep the time lines from really getting screwed up, meaning the stones in their time would still have been destroyed by Thanos 5 years prior. However, what exactly would keep Dr. Strange, someone that powerful and knowledgeable of the Time Stone, from using it to reverse Tony at that point? As demonstrated in his solo movie, he can manipulate time around a single object... i.e. the apple he makes rot/eaten/and whole again without affecting anything else around it. So why can he not do the same for Tony, unless undoing that would make it so he never snapped, but that would only be in that little bubble like you said. It could create a paradox possibly, but this question brings up this issue as well.

Quantom X

The snap caused his death. If he reverses time, he dies again. If he goes back further, he undoes the snap. There isn't a little bubble. The time stone can't be that powerful to undo the ramifications of the snap.

Question: In the magazine, Spellbound which Queenie brought to Newt's house in London, the headline reads "Newt Towed." What does towed mean?

Bunch Son

Chosen answer: It's a simple misread, since the letters are so close together. It reads "Newt to wed," announcing his "engagement" to Leta.

Cubs Fan

Question: I don't understand the timing in the third act. When the launch pad says "four minutes to launch" in the scene with Jarra, J comes to Laura's rescue in what feels like longer than four minutes. Also, even though J and K bring Laura to her ship so she can leave, how much time was there left before Earth and Zartha would've been destroyed?

Cody Fairless-Lee

Answer: The fight lasted for about 3 minutes, of course there are cuts towards the worms so the fighting isn't fully shown on camera, but since the countdown did say 4 minutes when the fight starts, that's how long it took. As for how much time was left for Laura to enter the pod; The pod came down and would lift up again with or without a cargo, so when the pod went up the time was up.

lionhead

Answer: As they show in the film, a small part of her survived, and was able to regenerate.

Answer: There's a lot of sight gags in the show, something ridiculous or impossible happening for a laugh. This is just one of them.

Bishop73

Question: How come Julia wasn't listed on the flight manifest?

Answer: It is never explained. Stephanie, the flight attendant who was in on the conspiracy, claimed that only Kyle's name was on the manifest and the seat next to her was unoccupied. Whether she somehow manipulated the manifest or someone else in on the plot was able to remove Julia's name, is unknown.

raywest

There is probably no way she could have manipulated the flight manifest since you can't access it from on board a plane.

Julia's name would have been deleted before Stephanie boarded the plane.

raywest

Wait a minute, I thought a passenger's name wasn't put on the flight manifest until he or she boards the plane.

It's possible someone off the plane hacked into the flight manifest sometime after Kyle, and Julia boarded.

Question: When Ben starts flipping through the book about the history of Derry, he begins seeing the same page being repeated several times. While this is happening, some children's voices can be heard singing. What exactly were they saying?

Answer: They are singing a little rhyme called Oranges and Lemons.

Question: Why was Vince Dicola chosen to score this film instead of the usual Bill Conti?

Answer: According to Wikipedia: "Rocky IV is the only film in the series not to feature original music by Bill Conti, who was replaced by DiCola; however, it does feature arrangements of themes composed by Conti from previous films in the series, such as "The Final Bell." Conti, who was too busy with the first two Karate Kid films at the time, would return for Rocky V and Rocky Balboa. Conti's famous piece of music from the Rocky series, "Gonna Fly Now", does not appear at all in Rocky IV (the first time in the series this happened), though a few bars of it are incorporated into DiCola's training montage instrumental."

raywest

Question: Whose picture did Dodge salute in his cabin when he said "live to fight another day"?

Answer: Dodge says "We live to fight another day, Captain." suggesting that the photo is of the previous captain of the Stingray.

Question: How did Landa know that Shoshanna's family were hiding under the floor in the beginning?

Answer: Several thing need to be taken into account. He explains he can think like people who are desperate and would do anything to avoid capture, it is logical for him they would resort to hiding under the floor. He is looking for this family specifically, meaning he knows they are hiding, probably the last Jewish family in the region. Thirdly, this is probably the last farm he checks, having looked underneath the floors of any other farm in the region, he knew this was the only place they could be. It's also possible he noticed small things that told him that this farmer was hiding people, having experience with this sort of situation.

lionhead

Question: Did J and K really save the Earth in under 8 minutes after Zed sees the eight-minute warning?

Answer: Yes, of course. That's what they do. As soon as K phoned in they had the galaxy the attack was cancelled. This was before the 8 minutes were over.

lionhead

Chosen answer: The films never address this but in the games Scorpion is an undead revenant and can't really be killed in a conventional sense.

BaconIsMyBFF

Question: Why did time not end when Thanos destroyed the stones, and what happens in now there aren't any? The Ancient One stated that the stones control the flow of time, and removing even one of these opens up the world to unimaginable horror. Well why did nothing happen after Thanos destroyed them all? And now that our timeline has no stones, how would Dr. Strange be able to stop Dormammu from coming back?

Answer: The way I understood it, removing the stones from one timeline into another timeline is what The Ancient One was talking about. The "new branched reality" is what would be overrun by the forces of darkness. But, even if she meant this reality, the reality where Thanos destroyed the stones, The Ancient One said it was their chief weapon, not their only weapon. Bruce then tells her Doctor Strange gave the time stone to Thanos and The Ancient One says maybe she made a mistake. However, since Thanos eliminates half the population of the universe, including the forces of darkness, whatever forces she was talking about may not have been around to try and attack Earth. Or in the 5 years that we don't see, there was an attempt and other weapons were sufficient.

Bishop73

Answer: In the comics the stones will be replaced by something else equally powerful to compensate for their loss. I suppose the same applies to the MCU. These powers need to have a physical presence in the universe, in one way or another.

lionhead

The only problem is the films never insinuate this at all. The Ancient One flat out states that not having the stones would be bad for the universe, and yet Thanos destroys the stones with absolutely no adverse affects to the universe whatsoever. This movie played very fast and loose with the rules they established regarding the stones and time travel and I feel like things like this were massive flaws.

BaconIsMyBFF

The universe is a pretty big place, though. There could very well be bad things in another part of the universe that have yet to affect our galaxy. Additionally, the forces of darkness that could potentially threaten the universe may be curbed by a cosmic entity such as the Living Tribunal, whose existence in the MCU was acknowledged in "Doctor Strange" and could very well appear in "The Eternals" or "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3."

Phaneron

I just believe the ancient one didn't even know. The ancient one isn't always correct, as Bruce proved. And the bad thing was taking the stones away from their timeline, creating timelines where they are not supposed to be, it says nothing about destroying them.

lionhead

That to me is still bad writing. You have a character whose entire purpose in the movie is to give exposition, and the exposition she gives is apparently incorrect. That's all well and good but that still needs to be addressed at some point. Some character should have brought up the fact that the stones were destroyed (and incidentally, remain destroyed in the main timeline) and the Ancient One should have addressed that fact. Otherwise, like the original question points out, it leaves a bit of a gap in the film's logic.

BaconIsMyBFF

Answer: I believe the filmmakers have said that the energy of the stones was dissipated into the universe when their crystal vessels were destroyed. So that while they didn't have a physical form anymore, their essence remained and continued to regulate the flow of existence of the Universe. Presumably the energy can't then be reconstituted into the stones without some sort of profoundly intricate magic/science, the kind of power only possessed by gods and/or ancient elemental beings. Also, the Ancient One says that Hulk taking the time stone would be good for his timeline, but would leave hers without their weapon, which I presume means they wouldn't have the time stone to help the Sanctum's usual efforts in holding dark magic at bay. The actual effect of removing the essence of a stone from its timeline is still open to speculation.

Vader47000

If the ancient one was only talking about the time stone then Cap wouldn't have to bother bringing all stones back. No, she was talking about all infinity gems. Remove a stone and that universe is doomed.

lionhead

Answer: The sorcerers may have other ways to stop Dormmamu from returning (even if those ways are currently unbeknownst to them). This could be addressed in the sequel. Additionally, since Dormmamu would have to know that the Time Stone was destroyed in the first place, he may well just stay away rather than falsely believing that he can be trapped in a time loop again.

Phaneron

Answer: She said the world not the universe. She said "without our chief weapon against the forces of darkness our world will be overrun." Theory: since Thanos used the stones to destroy the stones and Hulk heard what the Ancient One said, he could have used the stones to bring back their stones along with everyone else. He couldn't have know who all died in the universe, he could have just undid everything from 5 years ago.

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