Answered questions about specific movies, TV shows and more
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Question: How does the Oracle get her powers of foresight? How does she know the things she knows?
Socks1000Chosen answer: The oracle is a program, inside the matrix which is an even bigger program. The oracle is simply able to "read" the Matrix and make predictions based on the balance of probabilities.
SanguisQuestion: My friend swears the lead female actress changes at about 10-15 minutes into the film. He says Yancy Butler of Witchblade fame plays the lead at first, and then someone else (I assume it must be Kate Beckinsale) takes over the role. My research to date tells me my friend is nuts. Is he? Is there any explanation related to this? (I think maybe it's due to my friend's pain medication/s - a side effect of some sort.) Thank you for the help. He paid me to research this for him (only two bucks) and so far I've spent over two hours on it. But I did at least learn about these actresses.
Answer: This could be a confusion over characters. If I remember rightly, the film opens with a scene set somewhere around 1200AD, showing the three vampire elders, Markus, Viktor and Amelia, leading a war party. Possibly your friend has mistaken Amelia, played by Hungarian actress Zita Görög, for Selene, who doesn't appear in the film until after this lengthy flashback sequence has finished.
Tailkinker
Question: Throughout various episodes, the augments have shown themselves to be very strong, yet whenever they face each other they easily succumb to whatever physical violence is directed towards them. Why is this?
Socks1000Chosen answer: They're stronger than humans, but they're not invulnerable.
JC FernandezAnswer: Two augments fighting each other would most likely look to an outside observer as a fight between any other two people. The augments would be fairly evenly matched (allowing for an individual's weight etc) and so could take each other down the same as normal people fighting.
Question: If everyone has to throw in "a buck apiece" for the tip, how much would the bill have been?
willieboy78Chosen answer: Assuming a 15% tip, about $45-50. If 20%, $40.
Captain DefenestratorQuestion: During the first season, Lister is adamant and quite determined about getting back to Earth, so why after a few episodes does he give up?
Socks1000Chosen answer: He never strictly gives up, he just realises the practicalities of the situation, that it took Red Dwarf three million years to get to where it is, so it would take the same length of time to return. While he originally plans to go back into stasis for the long journey, the "future echoes" that he sees while travelling at light speed convince him that he should stay active on board the ship instead and look for alternative ways to get back, something that influences the plot of several subsequent episodes.
TailkinkerQuestion: Was there a specific reason Holly chose to bring back Rimmer as a hologram, someone whom Lister didn't at all get on with? Why not one of his friends?
Socks1000Chosen answer: He brought Rimmer back because he's the person that Lister had the most interaction with during his time on Red Dwarf and also because all Lister ever did with his friends was get very drunk. Lister may not like Rimmer, but bringing him back probably has the best chance of keeping him relatively sane.
TailkinkerAnswer: Rimmer hid all the other personality chips apparently, so he was the only one that could be a hologram.
Rimmer did not hide the other discs until after he was revived as a hologram. He would not have had the authority to do so before he was the most senior officer on board.
Question: If Red Dwarf can travel at speeds faster than light, why is this the only time it ever does?
Socks1000Chosen answer: It can, but that doesn't mean that it's supposed to. At the time of the episode, Red Dwarf's thrusters have been firing continuously for millions of years, accelerating the ship until, in this episode, it finally achieves light speed. This is not a speed that the Dwarf was ever intended to attain, hence the need to slow it down again before the stresses tear it apart. If they wanted to hit light speed again, it would take the same sort of length of time to accelerate back up to that speed. Technically possible, but not exactly practical.
TailkinkerQuestion: How did the accident originally occur aboard Red Dwarf? I know Rimmer was responsible, but what exactly happened? Also, how come the accident didn't completely destroy Red Dwarf and why was the inside of the ship completely clean and tidy with no signs of destruction?
Socks1000Chosen answer: The crew were wiped out in a radiation leak, something that killed the crewmembers, but had little effect on the structure of the ship other than rendering it radioactive for the next three million years. Any minor damage was presumably fixed by the scutters in the intervening time. The leak supposedly occured after a faulty part of the drive system wasn't repaired properly, something that Rimmer blames himself for. However, as Kryten argued successfully in the episode "Justice", somebody as incompetent as Rimmer would never have been given responsibility for any task that could potentially have such devastating consequences, suggesting that the true cause of the accident may be considerably more complex than one minor drive plate fault.
TailkinkerQuestion: What does the Architect mean when he says, "There are levels of survival we are prepared to accept"? What other levels does he mean?
Socks1000Chosen answer: The Machines have been sentient for a while, possibly a century or more, so a machine culture has started to emerge as evidenced by the existence of Sati; a program created with no purpose by two machines "in love". If the machines lost the humans then they would lose a significant amount of energy, meaning that a large number of machines and programs would need to be wiped out to ensure the machines survival, but it would be at a much lesser level, "stone age" by comparison.
SanguisQuestion: How exactly does the Merovingian protect the obsolete programs such as the twins from deletion?
Socks1000Chosen answer: Obsolte programs are given the choice of deletion or exile. The Merovingian takes them in and, with his abilities to code the Matrix, allows them to stay under his protection.
Captain DefenestratorQuestion: Bartleby says to Loki that as angels they have no free will. Yet, he also says that Lucifer, a former fallen angel, rebelled against God. Isn't this an example of an angel demonstrating free will?
Socks1000Chosen answer: What he means is that humans have the choice to accept or reject God's love, but that angels have no such choice. Lucifer questioned this logic and was prompted to start a war, just as they're questioning it and are prompted to find a loophole to return to Heaven.
Captain DefenestratorQuestion: I have a few questions: What was the ultimate fate of Mr. Alexander, the writer? The Minister of Interior mentioned something about incarceration? If so, why was he incarcerated? Was it because of what he did to Alex, or because he was a threat? Also, the Minister mentioned something about him writing subversive literature? What kind of literature? Finally, what exactly did Alex and his droogs do to confine Mr. Alexander to a wheelchair and how exactly did his wife die? Was it pneumonia or circumstances related to her rape?
Socks1000Chosen answer: Since this is a futuristic police state, it's likely that Mr. Alexander was dealt with the way dissenters are often dealt with in such situations (Execution or lifelong imprisonment.). In the book, he wrote literature protesting the police state. (The phrase "A Clockwork Orange" comes from a pamphlet he wrote.) Alex and his droogs kicked and beat him while they raped his wife. A while later, the doctors told him she'd died of pneumonia, but he thinks the trauma made her give up the will to live.
Captain DefenestratorQuestion: How exactly were the doctors able to reverse the effects and undo the Ludovico technique that Alex was subjected to?
Socks1000Chosen answer: We're never given details. Possibly electroshock therapy or somehow purging his system of the Ludovico formula.
Captain DefenestratorQuestion: Why did Alex's droogs turn against him? Did they plan to turn against him all along or was it a spur of the moment thing when the police came?
Socks1000Chosen answer: The droogs didn't like how Alex was leading them, so he attacked them. It's never explained whether the plan was to set him up all along, but given that Din was ready with the bottle to smash him over the head, it seems like an opportunity to be rid of him came up and they took it.
Captain DefenestratorChosen answer: It's an extreme form of aversion therapy. The pleasant stimulus (violence in this case) is associated with an unpleasant stimulus (a drug that makes him feel sick). Eventually, it is hard to think of the pleasant stimulus without thinking of the unpleasant stimulus thus making the whole experience unpleasant.
MyridonQuestion: What exactly is the Matrix for? Was it designed solely to keep the human mind sane? Or does it have other uses?
Socks1000Chosen answer: Without it, the human race would effectively be locked in sensory deprivation tanks, their minds active, but with no stimuli, which would have a derogatory effect on their well-being. The Matrix is designed to keep them busy and, yes, sane, ensuring a good survival rate and decent longevity to stop the machines having to deal with a high turnover in their power plants.
TailkinkerQuestion: If Skynet is so worried about its Terminators "doing too much thinking" then why not remove from them the 'read-and-write' learning capabilities and simply set them to 'read-only' at all times?
Socks1000Chosen answer: Because the gathering of new information is still a key part to what they do. There has to be a write setting, even a restricted one, in order for the Terminators to assimilate new information that can assist them in their missions - possible target locations, voiceprints, even new mission parameters could not be uploaded without the ability to write to their CPU. Skynet can (and does) set restrictions on the Terminators' learning abilities, but, without those abilities, their effectiveness would be compromised.
TailkinkerQuestion: John Connor knows about the future because of the experience he had with the Terminators sent to kill him and the tapes his mother left him. But what about Skynet? How does Skynet know who Kyle Reese and John Connor are and their importance on the future? How does Skynet knows that Kyle Reese will, or has, become John Connor's father? Because that isn't happening in the future, but in the past where Skynet didn't even exist.
Answer: Sarah Connor told her story to lots of people, the guerilla fighters and mercenaries she trained with, the psychiatric hospital she was locked up in, etc. Many of these could have left records (the hospital is even shown to have videotaped several of her sessions in T2). In addition, John himself could have told the entire story to resistance fighters, who were later captured and forced to reveal everything they knew.
TwotallChildren of the Gods (1) - S1-E1
Question: At the beginning of the episode, Apophis and his serpent guards invade the SGC. My question is: How could they dial out when there wasn't a DHD?
Socks1000Chosen answer: Apparently a ribbon device can activate the gate to the address it was dialed from. Like a sort of "*69" on the phone.
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Chosen answer: Nothing, it is simply the character's sense of humour. She knows Neo will become the One but also knows that Neo won't believe her so she puts on an act and tells Neo what he wants to hear.
Sanguis