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: General Veers was a badass and did not screw up at all on the assault on Hoth. Why promote Piett to Admiral and not Veers?

Answer: General Veers was part of the Imperial Army, hence his command of the ground troops. Piett and Ozzel were members of the Imperial Navy, hence their command of the ships.

Greg Dwyer

Question: If woody just wanted to go back to Andy's house to be with Andy again, and to prove his innocence why not just tell Buzz the truth about it instead of lying to him, and trying to trick him into going back to Andy? By telling lying to him about what he found and about his intentions, he only made things harder. So why not just tell Buzz that he wants to get back to Andy's house, and needs to take him Buzz with to prove to the other toys that he's innocent?

Answer: Because Woody knocked him flat out the window back at Andy's house earlier, and believing he's an actual space ranger, Buzz decided he would like to go separate ways, and let his guard down with Woody, ending the conflict between the two, and decides to continue the mission he believes he is on elsewhere. Going back with Woody is not an option for him. He says farewell to Woody, and Woody starts to see that Buzz is not interested, so tries to condone Buzz with a plan he knows Buzz would most likely fall for.

Question: If the tape was made when the teenagers tried recording a football game over the well (the main theory), then wouldn't that mean that the four teens are the first people to watch/die from it? If so, how does Becca know about the myth of this deadly tape virus and phone call before Katie dies?

Answer: The theory is wrong. The tape was already there.

MasterOfAll

Answer: It is strongly suggested that the four of them were the first ones to watch the tape. The well was directly beneath Cabin 12, so Samara's spirit took advantage of the blank tape they were using to record the game to burn images into it thus creating the curse. Becca said that somebody from Revere had told her about it, and the high school girls from the funeral told Rachel that Katie was dating somebody from Revere. Rumors fly especially among teenagers. Josh (Katie's boyfriend) told people from his High School about the creepy tape they had watched over the weekend and it quickly spread to the point that Becca and several other teens knew about it.

Answer: Cameos usually go uncredited.

MasterOfAll

Question: Why wouldn't Schmidt at some point retaliate against Captain Dickson for tasering him in the crotch?

Answer: The captain is quite intimidating. Why would Schmidt want to put himself into more trouble just for a prank?

MasterOfAll

Question: Would it be possible for Jim and Aurora to make it to Homestead II if one after another took for example five years of hibernation again and again? If the auto doc would allow such thing. One of them would always become older, then they would change and so on. If I imagine this right, after four periods, that would all take five years, they would became "only" ten years older.

ncaf

Answer: Jim almost went insane after only one year alone aboard the ship, at the beginning of the film. Asking Jim and Aurora to each take turns spending 5 years alone (REPEATEDLY, for the remaining 90 years) would be a psychological hell that they might not survive.

Charles Austin Miller

Chosen answer: Assuming this is something they would want to do, there's no way of knowing if it was medically possible. Continually putting someone into extended hibernation, waking them, then repeating the process may be more than the human body could physically withstand. The autodoc was not designed for long-term hibernation, only short-term for medical purposes. Also, the ship still had 90 years to go before reaching Homestead II, so they would have aged more than ten years.

raywest

Answer: A third person could have been woken up, and if they alternate; two people could stay out of stasis at a time in order to ensure all three have a chance to make it to the colony (each would age 60 years... so they would be old!). The issue with using the pod to suspend someone is that the pod can't be used to medically treat anyone (I would assume).

Answer: It's probably the photo they took at her house of them going to the prom.

lionhead

Question: Do we ever see the wraiths in their true forms?

Answer: Technically what you see is their true form after being corrupted by the rings and turned into wraiths. Before that they were simply men, you can see what is left of that when Frodo puts on the ring at Weather Top.

lionhead

I thought those white ugly faces you see, when Frodo puts the ring on at weather top, were their true forms.

Yes, that's exactly right. The rings turned them into wraiths, meaning their spirits moved on to the shadow realm and their real bodies pretty much destroyed. All that's left of them under the cloaks is invisible (in the books) and only seen in the shadow realm, where Frodo enters when he puts on the ring. The danger is too that Frodo would pass into the shadow realm too if he puts on the ring too often, becoming like them.

lionhead

Question: Is it just me or after Barney says to Abby in the tent that they'll find the egg she starts to sniff like an upset person? If so why was she upset?

THE GAMER NEXT DOOR

Answer: For starters, they lost the egg. And second, her feelings were hurt because Cody said that using your imagination is "kids' stuff."

Answer: So he doesn't get vomit on them. It's a joke on how people with long hair would have someone hold their hair.

MasterOfAll

Answer: It's just a humorous riff on women who are about to vomit asking their companions to hold their hair.

Michael Albert

Simpsons Spin-off Showcase - S8-E24

Question: Lisa refuses to appear in the variety comedy show. However, she does relatively "flashy" things in a few other episodes - i.e. participating in a beauty pageant. So I think it's odd that she disagrees with a comedy show. Is there a joke that I am missing?

Answer: Back in 1976, when "The Brady Bunch" cast reunited for "The Brady Bunch Variety Hour" spinoff, Jan (Eve Plumb) declined to join the cast. She stated as her reason that she didn't want to be perpetually known as Jan Brady. She was replaced with actress Geri Reischl. The third segment of this Simpson's episode, titled, "The Simpson Family Smile-Time Variety Hour," was a parody of that show - with its questionably bad jokes and cheesy musical numbers. It also parodied the replacement of one of the children with an alternate cast member.

Michael Albert

Question: The paper bag full of cash from the failed doughnut shop heist - Buck takes it and it's implied he funds his stereo business with it, but would that bag really hold enough cash for what he had planned, even considering money went further back then?

Answer: No - it is implied he put the money into his bank account, qualifying him for a loan. In the time the film is set, that is certainly possible.

Yeah but wasn't he denied a business loan earlier in the film?

Perhaps with the donut money, he was able to qualify for a loan in a lesser amount, or the added money in his bank account raised his creditworthiness.

Show generally

Question: Where does Rusty go to be repaired, as he is the only narrow gauge diesel? Does the diesel works have narrow gauge tracks?

Answer: The diesel works don't have narrow gauge tracks.

Answer: He probably gets repaired at Crovan's Gate Works.

Answer: Breakdown trains help the engines back on track.

Question: Why did Alex have to wait until Valentine's Day 2008 to meet Kate? Even assuming for the sake of argument that the "time-traveling" letters stopped after Alex avoided the bus accident on "his" Valentine's Day 2006, Alex certainly knew how to find Kate at that time - and vice versa. The two-year gap where Kate had not known about Alex had closed by that time, and each knew about the other.

Answer: The movie is not about them trying to find ways to meet. They are not trying that hard to meet and the time distance is a metaphor. I think the movie misses the tension that she is trepidatious about meeting and he is trying to respect that. He gets killed the first time for trying to force it! This shows when the stack of letters is piling away. She is worried he is a coward who will not be able to handle real romance. This is shown in his retreat to build mass produced houses and has something to do with his mom/dad. She's the doctor, he's the architect: she saves people for a living and is hung up about her own father's death. It's only when it's life or death that she gets over it and he also figures himself out and stops trying to fix everything.

Answer: Kate asked him to wait, and come in 2008, so that's what he did. Likely they could have found each other before then, but it might not have even occurred to either of them.

They started communicating after he died in 2006 (her time) on his way to see her, but 2004 his time, neither of them knew he had died by this time so there was no way they could have met, my question is how did he know to go and meet her the first time if they hadn't started communicating yet?

They had been communicating for 2 years at that point - his time. Hence why he was going to meet her and got killed in the process.

The Sins of the Father - S2-E4

Question: It shows the birth of Queen Victoria's 1st son, then the death of Prince Albert's father, but his father died 29th January 1844 and Prince Albert wasn't born until 6th August 1844, how is that possible?

Answer: There seems to be some confusion here. The first son born to Queen Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert, was also named Albert (later known as King Edward VII), and was born in August 1844. Prince Albert, Sr.'s father, Ernest I of Germany, died the same year his grandson was born, but the timing of his death would have no bearing on when Albert Jr. was conceived and born. Prince Albert, Sr., Victoria's husband and Albert Jr.'s father, died in 1862. (Victoria's husband was always known as Prince Albert, never as "King Albert" which may explain the confusion.)

raywest

Answer: Actually, I have read that Prince Albert Edward was born in November 1841 and that Prince Albert's father died in January 1844. The timeline is grossly off.

Answer: Pregnancy takes 9 months. Late January to early August is only a little over 6. Albert was conceived before his father died.

Question: When the raptors were in the kitchen and one of them chased Tim into the freezer, how did its feet slip on the ground?

wolfpackalpha

Answer: Because there was ice on the ground.

Greg Dwyer

Answer: The island's power had been knocked out by the tropical storm causing the walk-in freezer's contents to melt and cover the floor with slushy water and ice chunks. Earlier, Ellie and Hammond were seen eating the melting ice cream.

raywest

Answer: The ground was visibly covered in ice. One possible scenario is that the people in the kitchens were in a hurry to get to the boat, so they dropped the ice by accident and just left it there.

Question: What symptoms would Victor experience whilst being tied to his bed?

EK8829

Answer: Symptoms from being tied to a bed for a year are most notably bedsores (decubitus) and muscle athropy. As a result someone's body will become weaker and less resistant to infection.

lionhead

And the Wiener is... - S3-E5

Question: When Meg came back home to announce that she's a flag girl Stewie replies by saying "now you can be somewhere else when the boys don't call." I don't get it - can someone please explain it to me?

HEK_98

Answer: It's long been a running joke that Meg is unpopular; Stewie meant that now Meg will be busy with her flag girl duties rather than at home where presumably no boys will be calling for her.

zendaddy621

Answer: There is an old stereotype that people on the flag team, or (at some schools) the "color guard", were not good enough for the cheerleading team. "Losers", "dorks", etc. Meg thinks that joining the flag team has finally made her popular, but Brian and Stewie are aware of the stereotype. Stewie is saying that nothing much has changed; she simply has a new activity, where she will be the same "loser" type.

Answer: Judging by what we see on screen, Doe did not torture Victor, apart from cutting off his hand. It's torture enough to spend an entire year by yourself in an empty apartment, without any stimulation whatsoever, unable to move, and at the mercy of a religious lunatic.

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