Answered questions about specific movies, TV shows and more

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Question: Is the cutting of Zam's arm by Obi Wan in the nightclub supposed to be a nod to when Obi Wan cut off the alien's arm in ANH?

Answer: Yes. Severed limbs are a recurring motif of the Star Wars films.

Captain Defenestrator

Question: When in the movie did it mention that Viggo's henchman was "Kirill?" Because his name is given on Wikipedia but never mentioned.

Answer: His name is never mentioned on screen but it is listed in the credits.

BaconIsMyBFF

Question: What is the best order to use to defeat each boss?

Answer: Snake Man - Gemini Man - Needle Man - Magnet Man - Hard Man - Top Man - Shadow Man - Spark Man.

Question: How did Lex Luther find Superman's lair? I thought his lair was in the fortress of solitude in the Arctic Circle.

kh1616

Chosen answer: Lex Luthor didn't find Superman's lair. Rather, he entered a crashed Kryptonian vessel that still had a functional computer database. Luthor used Zod's amputated fingertips to activate the database, which told him how to make the hybrid-clone monster, Doomsday.

Charles Austin Miller

Question: Why is Tony Stark's attitude a complete 180 in this film? He's usually one to be against authority, but in this film he's for it.

Answer: He has witnessed the results of his previous actions, and has gone into a deep depression. Between creating Ultron and thus causing countless civilian deaths and causing great trauma for the Avengers, to having to go on a break with Pepper... he's in pain and is seeing his actions come back to bite him. He's become obsessed with trying to fix his mistakes, and thus is giving into authority and trying to keep the team in-check as much as possible to avoid future disaster.

Answer: A mother, played by Alfre Woodard, approaches Tony and tells him her college age son was one of the innocent victims that died from the events in Avengers: Age of Ultron. She made him feel guilty and ashamed.

Question: I don't understand the beginning; why does everyone suddenly hate Superman, and what is that alien-looking thing in the sky that is knocking the buildings down and killing the people inside, and do they think Superman is doing that?

kh1616

Chosen answer: The beginning is Bruce Wayne's perspective of the events that occurred in the movie "Man of Steel" when Superman and General Zod are fighting (if you haven't seen it, it would explain a lot of BvS events). It's General Zod's ship and the phantom drive. It cuts to 18 months later. Supermen is called to testify in front of a congressional hearing because of his vigilantism over the past 18 months and people are concerned about his actions (like the events in Africa) since he's an all-powerful alien with no way for the people to stop him, so they're very nervous. Bruce seems to blame Superman more than anyone though for the destruction and death of people he knew (and tried to save) because if Superman wasn't on Earth, Zod wouldn't have come to Earth, etc.

Bishop73

Question: If Blofeld wanted to eliminate Tiffany Case, then why didn't he kill her when he kidnaps her later on the film, instead keeping her alive and unharmed on his oil rig in Baha? In fact, he doesn't consider harming her in any way until he notices that she's helping Bond (with swapping the tapes round) on the rig.

Answer: It could be any number of reasons. For one, Tiffany's young and beautiful, and he may have been attracted to her. Some men, even evil ones, balk at killing a woman. She might also be more useful alive, at least for the short-term, to be used as a hostage or a bargaining chip or for information. He may also have intended to recruit her to his side.

raywest

Answer: He didn't kill her because she seduced him into believing she was sexually attracted to him, his power and wealth.

Question: I have some questions. 1) When exactly did Logan and Charles plan to rescue Caliban? 2) Why does Charles call Logan a disappointment at the start? 3) When does Charles mention Paris? 4) Why did Charles act so strange and treat Logan so coldly when we first see him? 5) What happened to Caliban? 6) What happened in Westchester? And 7) Why does Charles blame himself for whatever happened in Westchester?

THE GAMER NEXT DOOR

Chosen answer: I doubt they planned to rescue Caliban as they didn't know where he was or if he was even alive. Caliban is killed when he sets off two grenades in the van to try and stop Pierce. With all the questions regarding Charles Xavier, he is suffering from dementia, hence the rambling, mood swings and memory loss. Without his medication, the condition can also cause psychic storms like at the silo and the hotel - it is implied that the Westchester incident was such a storm which killed a large number of students at Xavier's school.

Sierra1

Question: At the beginning of the movie, was Jim purposely woken up to fix the Avalon's damage or was it because his pod malfunctioned?

Answer: Jim, who was a passenger and not a crew member, was not intentionally awakened to repair the damage to the Avalon. It was a malfunction, but because Jim happened to possess useful mechanical engineering skills (he "fixes" things), the ship's damaged computer system may have detected this information from his passenger profile and then mistakenly routed a signal to his pod, opening it.

raywest

Gus examined Jim's pod, and determined it had a malfunctioned clock circuit. The computer didn't wake him intentionally in any way.

tsahi

Answer: He wasn't woken up deliberately because he didn't have a crew wrist pass to give access to all areas, which you'd need to fix the ship.

Question: Why would Clarice take the blame for the botched drug raid instead of telling her superiors that another agent was actually responsible by disobeying her orders to stand down and wait to apprehend Drumgo another day?

Answer: She was the officer in charge and as such, fairly or unfairly, the responsibility for all agents and their actions rests with her so she felt it was still her fault even though she didn't want the action that took place.

The_Iceman

Question: Near the beginning, Holmes tells Watson not to shoot Lord Blackwood because there is a piece of glass between Holmes and Watson, and Lord Blackwood. But Holmes breaks the glass easily. So why did Holmes tell Watson not to shoot?

Answer: Sherlock Holmes does not tell Watson not to shoot (there is no such dialogue). Holmes and Watson incapacitate Blackwood's henchmen, and Watson is behind Blackwood, holding him at gunpoint with the revolver in his left hand. Blackwood then provokes Watson, who lunges forward, about to strike with the baton in his right hand. Holmes rushes forward and stops Watson just before he makes a fatal mistake. If Watson had taken one more step, the nearly invisible glass spike in Blackwood's hands would have impaled Watson through his eye and into his brain.

Charles Austin Miller

Margaritaville - S13-E3

Question: Can someone explain the subplot with the Margaritaville and Stan going to a bunch of places trying to return it? It's really confusing. And this sounds stupid, but in a recession, wouldn't spending money be bad?

Answer: Essentially Stan was trying to return the blender that his dad, Randy, had bought because he knew his parents couldn't afford the extra debt. The blender, which represented mortgage-backed securities, had been bought on payment plan, meaning Randy had to make monthly payments, with interest, on something that wasn't essential. The episode represented the recession that was occurring at the time, including the housing bubble and mortgage crisis going on, so there's a lot going on. However, the payment plan (which is to say the debt) had been sold to another company by the store that sold Randy the blender. (To explain why, because of the recession, the store needed cash on hand, and they would only be getting a little money each month, if Randy paid his bill. So the store sells the debt to a company who gives the store the money upfront. Think of the J.G. Wentworth commercials, "I have a structured settlement, but I need cash now".) Because the store sold the debt, in ridiculous fashion, Stan had to return the blender to the company that bought the debt, although they too sold the debt to another company. Finally he gets to the U.S. treasury who tells him his blender is worth $90 trillion (again a ridiculous exaggeration) meaning that the debt owed is greater than the product is worth and to deride the way government agencies set up their budgets (which requires much more complex economic lessons). Kyle's whole point was people shouldn't fear the economy or see it as a vengeful being, but continue to spend and live as they normally do. Economically speaking, not spending money during a recession creates a longer lasting recession, and to solve a recession, people should spend money, although people and businesses shouldn't acquire debt during a recession because interest rates are higher. But on a personal level, individuals are fearful of losing their jobs during a recession, so they save money in case that should happen. But again, this is complex economics lesson.

Bishop73

Question: When the staff become antiques after the last rose petal falls, do they die?

Answer: They will permanently turn into inanimate objects, so yes, their lives would effectively be ended.

raywest

Question: Early in the film, the Mangalore warrior Aknot mutters "Showtime" as he leads the attack on the Mondoshawan transport ship, destroying it. Shortly thereafter, at Zorg's factory, we see Aknot shape-shift between his human disguise and his natural Mangalore appearance. Much later in the film, we see Aknot in his same human disguise again aboard the Fhloston cruise ship, where Aknot again mutters "Showtime" before leading a murderous assault. So we recognize Aknot by his appearance and his mannerisms throughout the film. But wait: Presumably, Zorg killed the Mangalores who failed him (including Aknot) with a powerful explosive booby-trap at his factory, early in the film. So, how did Aknot appear much later aboard the Fhloston cruise ship? (There is no reason to assume that the Mangalores were capable of surviving the powerful blast at Zorg's factory, because we see Mangalores killed by smaller explosions and small firearms throughout the film).

Charles Austin Miller

Chosen answer: Aknot wasn't killed, just injured in the explosion - he didn't seem to to be too close to the Mangalore whose weapon exploded. You see him later with several wounds, when he resolves to get the stones from Fhloston to get revenge on Zorg.

Sierra1

Answer: We are not shown how they got out of the tar.

Question: Why did Rigg discard his handgun after killing Art? I get that he was wounded, but it doesn't make much sense to just drop your gun.

Answer: He's just been shot, witnessed his friend Matthews die and is borderline delirious after all he's been through. Not to mention, he thinks everyone in the room is dead and the tape-player is playing a message addressed directly to him. He's just mentally and physically exhausted and starting to bleed out, so he drops it in favor of grabbing the much-lighter tape player and trying to crawl away.

Answer: It's most likely because he had just been shot about 2 minutes before, so he started losing blood, which is why you can see him clenching his wound.

Question: How did the police not locate the nerve gas house? Surely the police van Eric drives to the house is tracked by GPS. Even if Jigsaw and/or Amanda moved or destroyed the van, the police should still be able to find the vehicle and subsequently the nerve gas house via the GPS signal.

Answer: To add to the other answer, not every police vehicle is necessarily traceable even to this day. While many departments do have tracking beacons on their cars (such as GPS), there are some that don't. And given this film was released nearly 15 years ago before it became more commonplace, it's reasonable to assume that this is the case here. Also, even if the car was equipped with a lojack system (which would have been more likely at the time), those are pretty easy to block, since any radio-jammer (a device Jigsaw would almost certainly have around) will essentially make them "invisible" to trackers.

TedStixon

Answer: They probably should be able to track the van, but this is just a case of a film requiring "suspension of disbelief, " where we have to accept something that isn't necessarily realistic for the sake of enjoying the movie... Happens all the time in numerous films. We must assume that either the van didn't have a GPS tracker or that it somehow was disabled.

Question: When the team is twice under, I think, the bus, with all of them on it - the reality - is heading for water, it has been hit. But what I don't understand is how Cobb says, "When the van hits the water," how would he know this? He's dreaming, as they all are.

kh1616

Chosen answer: When the van hits the water it will suddenly stop, giving a kick to the passengers. Cobb knew because driving the van off the bridge was always the plan.

BaconIsMyBFF

Question: How could the auctioneers verify that Kimmy was a "certified pure?"

Answer: By examining if her hymen had been broken. Although it is a misconception that the hymen is always broken once a female has intercourse for the first time it is still generally accepted that if the hymen is intact, the woman must be a virgin.

BaconIsMyBFF

Question: Even though not said outright, why would Inspector Aberline accuse Lawrence of the murder of his brother and the gypsies? He was with his theater troupe when his brother was killed and the gypsies were killed by Sir John as a werewolf. Not shot to death.

Answer: Aberline suspected Lawrence of murdering his brother and the gypsies because of his mental history and, as a Shakespearean actor, he often played mentally-disturbed characters. Aberline jumped to a conclusion that it might be a case of life imitating art.

raywest

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