Answered questions about specific movies, TV shows and more

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Question: What evidence is there for the plausibility of hypnosis as it's portrayed in the film?

Answer: Hypnosis as seen in movies where people are put into a mindless trance and can then be controlled is impossible in real life.

raywest

Question: Smith asks Exley if he'd be wiling to shoot a criminal in the back to prevent a lawyer getting him off. Were the police really allowed to play judge, jury and executioner in the 50s?

MikeH

Chosen answer: No they were not legally allowed to, but corrupt, rogue cops who brandished their own form of justice would do that type of thing.

raywest

Question: What happened at the crime scene at the start of the film when Somerset asks the other police officer if the victim had kids? (Before Somerset meets Mills).

TRENCH117

Chosen answer: A woman shot her husband. The other detective on the scene says to Somerset, "he's dead, his wife killed him."

jshy7979

Answer: It doesn't have anything to do with the main plot of the movie. It's intended to show two things. That Somerset is quitting the police force, and that he values humanity and the world around him no matter how much he may want others to think.

Question: How far down was Anakin's left arm cut off? His right arm was cut down to just the elbow.

Answer: Anakin's rage drives him to make a deadly blunder, and he tries to attack Obi-Wan uphill; whereupon, Obi-Wan handily amputates both of Anakin's legs above the knee and amputates his left arm above the elbow.

Charles Austin Miller

Question: Why did Ocean's team leave the drill behind at Van der Woude's house? Was it to tip Isabel off about the Night Fox's involvement in the stealing of the document?

Answer: Isabel was going to find out they had been there anyway. There was no reason to hide their tracks by taking the drill back with them. The drill was going to be left behind anyway, it didn't have any purpose anymore.

lionhead

Question: When Ranse confronts Liberty and reaches for the dropped gun, there appears to be something written at Ranse's feet in the dirt. What is it?

Answer: At first glance, it looks like the word "LEFT" in large, widely-spaced lettering. It's very unlikely that this would be a blocking cue, telling Jimmy Stewart to move left (which he does from that point). That's not the way blocking cues are done, for one thing, and a seasoned actor such as Jimmy Stewart wouldn't need such a cue. It's also very unlikely that it's a warning message from John Wayne who is hiding in an alley across the street, on Stewart's right. John Wayne didn't want anyone to know that he actually killed Valance, so he wouldn't alert Jimmy Stewart with any messages scrawled in the street. All hypothesis aside, it's probably just footprints in the dirt, an illusion of light and shadow.

Chosen answer: A simple question with a complex answer. When Ed Norton's narrator character mercilessly beats Jared Leto's Angel Face to a pulp in the film, Norton only explains that he "wanted to destroy something beautiful"; in the novel by Chuck Palahniuk, however, he gives a more psychotic reason: "What Tyler says about being the crap and slaves of history, that's how I felt. I wanted to destroy everything beautiful I'd never have. Burn the Amazon rain forests. Pump chlorofluorocarbons straight up to gobble the ozone. Open the dump valves on supertankers and uncap offshore oil wells. I wanted to kill all the fish I couldn't afford to eat, and smother the French beaches I'd never see. I wanted the whole world to hit bottom. Pounding that kid, I really wanted to put a bullet between the eyes of every endangered panda that wouldn't screw to save its species and every whale and dolphin that gave up and ran itself aground. Don't think of it as extinction. Think of it as downsizing. For thousands of years, human beings had screwed up and trashed and crapped on this planet, and now history expected me to clean up after everyone. I have to wash out and flatten my soup cans. And account for every drop of used motor oil. And I have to foot the bill for nuclear waste and buried gasoline tanks and landfilled toxic sludge dumped a generation before I was born. I held the face of Mister Angel like a baby or a football in the crook of my arm and bashed him with my knuckles, bashed him until his teeth broke through his lips. Bashed him with my elbow after that until he fell through my arms into a heap at my feet. Until the skin was pounded thin across his cheekbones and turned black. I wanted to breathe smoke. Birds and deer are a silly luxury, and all the fish should be floating. I wanted to burn the Louvre. I'd do the Elgin Marbles with a sledgehammer and wipe my ass with the Mona Lisa. This is my world, now. This is my world, my world, and those ancient people are dead." - Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk.

Charles Austin Miller

Answer: The simpler answer is: from the Narrator's point of view Tyler appeared to favoring Leto, since the Narrator hadn't come to terms with the split personality yet he obviously felt deep seated jealousy. It says right in the scene beforehand that "I am Jack's inflamed sense of rejection."

Question: Why did Freddy Fernandez stop being Daniel's friend after Johnny won the fight at the beach? It's not like Freddy Fernandez would have done any better, since he has no knowledge in karate.

Answer: Because any friend of Daniel's is likely to be an enemy of Johnny's. Simple matter of self-preservation.

Phixius

Answer: Freddy's friends made fun of Freddy for befriending a loser like Daniel. After the fight, Freddy's friend says, "You sure pick cool people to be friends with, Freddy. Where did you find this guy?"

Question: Given that Truman is being watched (by multiple cameras) 24/7, how does he manage to escape from his house and get out to "sea" on a boat without any of the crew seeing him?

Answer: As the film depicts the control room during the overnight hours, while Truman typically sleeps, the crew is greatly reduced, and not paying very close attention. By that point in the film, Truman had moved into the basement of his home, having separated from his wife. He managed to sneak out of his house while the crew thought he was asleep. Truman had configured his sleeping area to look like he was in it, and had added a recording of himself snoring. We must suspend a bit of disbelief to imagine he could pull this off without anyone, crew nor devoted viewing audience, noticing. But presuming he was able to accomplish the deception, he was able to escape out to sea because nobody was paying attention to any of the thousands of other cameras in town, as all of the focus was on the allegedly sleeping Truman.

Michael Albert

Question: In the final fight between T-850 and the new T-X, there is a nuclear explosion. But this is not behind the shelter door, it explodes under the door. How could John and Kate survive such a massive nuclear explosion?

alko

Chosen answer: The explosion isn't massive, it is caused by the T-850's hydrogen fuel cell. The T-850 throws its damaged first cell out of the car window earlier, and it causes a mini mushroom cloud but not the same as a true hydrogen bomb, which would have destroyed their car.

Sierra1

The Builders - S1-E2

Question: After Manuel has been punched by the builder, there is a close-up of the telephone receiver, and we hear Basil say something that ends in "thank you very much." What does Basil say?

Answer: Basil says "Well done, Manuel, thank you very much."

Sierra1

Question: Victor got his powers when his suit fused with him. Ben got his when he got pelted with rocks. Johnny was blasted with fire which explains his ability. But, how did Sue and Reed get their abilities?

Answer: It is believed that the heat from the radiation caused Reed to start "melting", which is how he got his rubber powers. It is unknown why Sue got invisibility.

Question: What phone does Sue have? I've been look all over Google for even some type of hint of what kind of phone it is but I have had no such luck.

Answer: I believe it's the Sony Xperia Tipo.

Question: I remember a scene in the movie where a female crew member tell the captain that she always tried to get him to look at her, then she said something like, "look at me" and unzips her suit to reveal something like flesh eating bacteria. But I don't find it in the movie. Was that in a remake or in some other movie? There is a scene like that in a Star Trek episode, but that is not what I am referring to.

Answer: This is most likely the 2000 horror movie "Sideshow." A group of high school students go to a circus and one of the side show performers has the ability of opening her skin to reveal to the audience her internal organs. She uses this ability to seduce and kill one of the students.

Question: If predator and prey live in harmony, why do they still make fox repellent?

Answer: Same reason we humans have pepper spray. I think there's some sort of repellent for each animal just for safety reasons.

Question: When Manolo travels to see the Candle Maker, only his mother and grandfather accompany him. Why don't any of his other relatives accompany him?

John Ohman

Chosen answer: I think because no one has ever lived or stayed in one piece going there so just his mother that he didn't see for a long time and one other family member just in case.

Question: How does Batman (Thomas) kill Zoom? I know that in the comics he doesn't use a gun. But wasn't Zoom supposed to feel/hear the bullet (etc.) and move away at high speed?

Henrique Winnischofer

Chosen answer: He doesn't have super hearing so no he wouldn't have heard it. As to feeling it, yes he should have. But it could be explained away by him gloating and being totally focused on Barry, or the lower speed force level.

Question: After the raid on his farm and he has buried his wife and son, where did he get the ammunition (powder, caps and balls) to do all the practising with, as they would have burned up in the fire and the lead balls would have melted?

Answer: At first, the story advances very rapidly, essentially giving the audience a primer lesson on Josey's angry motivation; so, many minute details aren't explored, such as where he acquired his ammunition. We might conjecture that Josey had a separate out-building, called a "powder house" (which was common in that era) where gunpowder and shot was kept for safety reasons. If he did, that raises the question of why the raiders didn't ransack and burn his powder house as well.

Charles Austin Miller

Fun With Veal - S6-E4

Question: When Glen Dumont (as Mike) calls Stan's house to try and negotiate with the boys, he and Cartman exchange words, and at one point Cartman says "Don't have a Dad, Mike. Not going to work." My question is, why does Cartman say he doesn't have a Dad when he found out in Season 2 that his mum was his dad? Sure to him, Liane is only his mum, but she's also his Dad (at this point at least since it's not until Season 14 that he finds out Liane isn't his dad too, and that someone else is).

Answer: Cartman spent several years thinking that Liane was his mother, and apparently continues to view her that way. Just as someone who learns that a parent or sibling is not biological, often feels that the person is still their parent/sibling. Also, Cartman probably doesn't tell everyone he meets that Liane is actually his father. It's not their business, he doesn't feel comfortable sharing, it's not relevant to the situation at hand, etc.

Answer: In a rare moment of enlightenment for him, Cartman thinks of his mother just as his mother.

Captain Defenestrator

Question: Why didn't Jack and Wang run to Jack's truck instead of the basement in the alley after the gang fight?

Answer: Because the battle between the Chang Sing and Wing Kong was between them and the truck.

Grumpy Scot

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