Answered questions about specific movies, TV shows and more

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Question: When Jack and Rose go to dinner, Rose is pointing out many first class people. Then she explains that the richest man on the ship's wife is Rose's age. Isn't she a little young to be married to him?

277872670

Answer: Some people may have the opinion that she is too young, and you may have that opinion yourself. However, the technical answer to your question is yes, she is much younger than her husband. If two people are consenting adults, they are legally allowed to be together if they wish. Madeleine Astor was eighteen years old and her husband was forty-seven. A large age gap is not what many people prefer, but this couple wanted to be together anyway.

Chosen answer: Well of course she is too young. Men, regardless of their age, typically prefer young attractive women. Wealthy and powerful men like John Jacob Astor (who Rose is pointing out) are able to attract beautiful young girls who want a rich husband, regardless of how old, unattractive, or physically infimed they might be.

raywest

Question: I know different vampire movies have different rules, but one that is always true about vampire folklore is that sunlight kills them. How is it that sunlight doesn't kill them in this movie, yet only makes them sparkle?

Carl Missouri

Chosen answer: Actually, you're wrong about the whole sunlight thing. While it is commonly believed to be a fundamental constant in the vampire mythos, in Bram Stoker's original Dracula book, which can be seen as a primary progenitor for much of the modern vampire stories, the character of Dracula is not harmed by sunlight, although it reduces his powers. Likewise the character of Carmilla in the 1872 novella of the same name (which influenced Stoker's work), who can be seen as the prototypical female vampire, is merely weakened by sunlight. So there is considerable precedent for vampires who are able to move about freely in sunlight. Meyer decided to make them sparkle because the idea for Twilight came to her in a dream, I believe the concept of vampires sparkling was part of said dream.

Tailkinker

Question: If The Fallen can only be killed by a prime, and Megatron killed Optimus prime in the forest, doesn't that make Megatron stronger than the Fallen?

Answer: No. We don't know exactly what limitation means that only a Prime can kill the Fallen, only that such a limitation exists. Given the demonstrated ability possessed by the Fallen, it certainly seems unlikely to be a question of raw power, so is more probably a question of the nature of that power, some aspect of being a Prime that's unique to them. It certainly doesn't follow that if somebody can defeat a Prime in combat, that automatically makes them stronger than the Fallen is.

Tailkinker

Question: In the scene where Tony takes strawberries to the office, there is a cool 'thing' on the desk that doesn't stop turning. It looks like it's a holder with a metal stick on top, balanced by a loose stick on each end. Does anyone know what that thing is called? I can't find it on Google (but I'm probably using the wrong search strings).

Answer: It's a Swinging Sticks Kinetic Energy Sculpture.

Garlonuss

Question: What does the mineral the RDA is after do? It's probably a superconductor, but it could also be a catalyst for hydrogen production (explains the floating mountains), or elements from the Island of Stability*, which are super-nuclear-fission fuel. Is it added to other materials to make them stronger and better, like platinum? Does this mineral make practical fusion possible, or even antimatter reactions? Is it an actual anti-gravity mineral? What is it? *http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_stability http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilithium_(Star_Trek)Fictional_elements_and_materials.

Answer: It's described as a room-temperature superconductor. That's all we get. Its primary purpose is to drive the plot.

Tailkinker

Question: Where are Dave and Linda McFly in the alternate 1985? They don't seem to live with Biff and Lorraine, and they are too old to be packed off to boarding school (like Marty), so where exactly are they? Biff mentions them when threatening Lorraine into staying so its not like they've been rubbed out like George was.

Answer: If you have the Blu-ray or DVD, watch the movie using either trivia track or watch the deleted scene where Marty meets his brother Dave and turn the commentary on. Dave is a homeless drunk and Bob Gale states that Linda ended up becoming a hooker. However, since Wendie Jo Sperber was pregnant at the time and couldn't appear in this film, it was decided to cut both of them out.

Answer: It's never stated in the film where they are. Biff makes a reference to having Dave's probation revoked if Lorraine leaves him, so Dave has apparently run into trouble with the law. He does appear in a deleted scene, where he has become an alcoholic and appears to be homeless with little contact with his family, likely because of his dislike of Biff, as he appears pleased to see Marty. No scenes with Linda were filmed, as Wendy Jo Sperber was pregnant at the time of filming, although scriptwriter and producer Bob Gale has stated that, had they included Linda in the alternate 1985 scenes, she would likely have become a prostitute, which would tie into Biff's threat to have her thrown in jail.

Tailkinker

Question: Can someone please explain how each and every totem works? We understand that Cobb's will not stop spinning if it is a dream, but how does Arthur's and Ariadne's work?

Answer: No details are given within the film. However, Arthur's totem is a loaded dice, so it seems logical to assume that it will always come down on a specific side, one that only he knows. As for Ariadne's chess-piece, we only see her working on it, never using it. Probably it has some specific and unusual weighting built into it, allowing her to determine, in some unspecified manner, maybe by tipping it to a certain angle, or simply by feel, that it's the genuine article.

Tailkinker

Question: For Silk Spectre 2's boots during the prison fight scene, being an alternate universe with very different technology, could she be able to remove her heels from her boots to do the fight scene, then reattach them afterwards?

curiouskid

Chosen answer: Technically possible, however, with absolutely nothing in the film to support such a supposition, something that speculative could not realistically be considered a credible correction for the current mistake covering the topic.

Tailkinker

Question: When Old Biff arrives back in 2015, after going to 1955 to give his younger self the almanac, he is in pain due to being shot by Lorraine in the alternate past he created, which causes him in turn to fade from existence in 2015. But once Doc and Marty have changed the timeline back to the original 1985 etc, would Old Biff still exist in 2015, or was his fading from existence permanent when it happened?

Answer: He'd have come back into existance. The only reason Marty's fading in the first movie was so critical was because Marty himself was the only one who could fix the timeline. So if he faded before he fixed it he'd have stayed faded because there was no one else who would have been "in the know" to bring him back.

Phixius

Question: At the end of the movie, Kim says that she wants Edward to remember her as she was. She obviously didn't turn into an elderly woman overnight, though. Couldn't she have secretly gone to his house if she wanted to?

Answer: I think that visiting Edward would be problematic. Kim could most likely visit the property once - however, she and Edward love each other, and both would be tempted to spend more time together. The longer that she continued to see him, the greater the risk of her being found out by someone. If the town knew that Edward was still alive, they would want to persecute him. Aside from that, I could imagine long-term complications if Kim ever wanted to attend college, pursue a certain career, etc. while hiding her association with Edward.

Answer: Maybe she didn't visit him to avoid the town realizing he was still alive after she told them Jim killed him.

Answer: Probably, but she apparently never has.

Phixius

Answer: Maybe she didn't visit him to avoid the town realising he was still alive after she told them Jim killed him. And she wanted Edward to remember her as she was in her youth.

Chosen answer: When landing on an aircraft carrier, a pilot "calls the ball" by confirming to the landing signal officer (LSO) that they have the carrier, and more specifically its landing guidance systems in sight. Carriers use a Fresnel lens system which is a light only visible at a certain angle, so if a pilot sees the "ball" they are at the correct altitude and glide slope for landing.

Sierra1

Question: One thing I don't understand about the movie is why kryptonite is so harmful (almost making him drown in a pool), yet he was born there and he didn't die. Kryptonite did come from his home planet, Krypton, right? How come he didn't die when he was born?

Answer: When Krypton exploded, the resulting debris was chemically altered through nuclear fusion, converting it into kryptonite. Bits traveled through space, some eventually ending up on Earth, where it is now lethal to anyone who was from that planet.

raywest

Pieces of Krypton that exploded in the Red Sun were made radioactive, and the Red Sun is one of the weaknesses of the Kryptonians.

I thought the Red Sun was poisonous to Kryptonians and caused the remnants of the planet Krypton to become radioactive and also absorb some of the solar energy from the Red Sun. I was under that impression, maybe I'm mistaken.

Question: As far as I know, there were no plans for another trilogy after the first one released over 30 years ago. My question is, did Episode V always appear during the opening credits or was that added later in the special addition? If it was always apart of the credits, didn't people wonder why it was called episode V when it was the second movie? Would seem confusing.

Carl Missouri

Chosen answer: "Episode V" was in place right from the beginning, and the "Episode IV" tag was added to Star Wars in a re-release the following year. By this point, Lucas was already talking about doing a prequel trilogy covering the rise of the Empire at some future point, with allusions to a possible sequel trilogy consisting of Episodes VII though IX to follow.

Tailkinker

Question: In the scene where Quint and Hooper were drunk and comparing scars, at the end of the scene Chief Brody lifts his shirt to reveal a scar. The significance of the scar was not revealed in the movie. What was the scar from?

Bailey

Chosen answer: It's an appendix scar, from when he had it removed. It's of no great significance other than a jokey moment where Brody realises that he doesn't have any stories to tell the others about any scars he has, other than one he received through a fairly common operation.

Manky

Answer: It is a scar from a gun shot wound he received whilst on service for NYPD. He doesn't want to talk about it. It could explain the whole reason he moved to Amity from NY.

Answer: The chief was going to show the scar from his gunshot wound that he got as a police officer while working in New York.

Question: When Harry finds the Sword of Godric Gryffindor in the frozen lake, why doesn't he just use the Wingardium Leviosa spell to levitate it out of the lake instead of diving in to get it himself? I assume that this is how J.K. Rowling wrote it in the book, but does this still count as a mistake?

THGhost

Chosen answer: It is not a mistake. Harry does attempt to summon the sword with a spell, but like the locket horcrux in the sea cave in (in HP and the Half-blood Prince), all the horcruxes, as well as other particularly strong magical objects (like the three Deathly Hallows), are impervious to all types of summoning charms. They therefore must be retrieved by other means.

raywest

Chosen answer: There's no particular reason to suggest that there was any plagiarism or idea-sharing going on. Both films simply take the idea of an underdog coming to the fore in a particular field, doing well and learning some truths about themselves in the process. Very much an archetypal story and one that many, many films share. While a few factors can be considered similar, none of them are unique to these two films and thus the suggestion that ideas were either shared or "stolen" cannot be realistically accepted.

Tailkinker

Show generally

Question: Buffy supposedly killing Angel in Season 2, in the episode "Becoming part 2", when she impales him with a sword shortly after he gets his soul back. However, in BtVS you can only kill a vampire via wooden stakes, direct sunlight, holy water, and decapitation. Is this ever fully explained?

Answer: She's not "dusting" killing him. She's killing him in the sense that since it was his blood that opened Acathela's portal, it needs to be his blood that closes it, as well.

Cubs Fan

Question: Cindy told Cody that she's taken care of him since his birth. Have ten years passed between the second and third movies (considering Cody's age)? Because she didn't take care of anyone in Scary Movie 2.

Feather

Chosen answer: It's unlikely 10 years have passed, but very little is consistent across this franchise. For example, Brenda dies in this film, and yet is alive and well in the next one. It's just a throwaway line of dialogue that explains why Cindy has a kid so that the film can spoof "The Ring".

Manky

Question: When Tommy and Carrie are at the prom, does he start to like her for real, or is he just pretending to make Carrie feel better about herself?

Answer: He starts to genuinely like her, hence his disgusted reaction at the sick practical joke played on her.

Manky

Question: The hair is spread around the crime scene to provide contradictory DNA evidence. I think there was a shot of the bag being emptied. Anyone else remember this?

Answer: Yes, that is indeed in the movie.

Brad

Answer: Yes, when they get out of the car and switch to the other.

Answer: When they ditch the jeep Cherokee and take the station wagon, they empty the bag of hair.

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