Answered questions about specific movies, TV shows and more

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Question: When Bill and the Bride are outside by a campfire, Bill begins to tell her a story about Pai Mei that started in the year "One double ought three" (1003). Does the Chinese calendar differ from our Western one? If so, how? Or is Pai Mei over one thousand years old? (which I doubt, but you never know).

Answer: Yes, Pai Mei is supposedly that old. The character is a recurring one, who has made appearances in numerous films set in equally numerous time periods.

Phixius

Question: This isn't really about this movie, but I could have sworn there was a third Stuart Little movie that was all CG. Does this actually exist or am I making things up?

Answer: Nope, you're not making it up. There is indeed a third movie in the series, called Stuart Little 3: Call of the Wild, which is, unlike its predecessors, completely computer animated.

Tailkinker

Question: When Bruce speeds through the light in the Lamborghini to intercept the intentional crash into Reese's car, Reese got out of the car and glanced at Bruce for a few seconds. Does Reese really know that Bruce is Batman? Because there is almost a look of uncertainty or a lack of recognition on Reese's face when he looks at Bruce.

zmbabich

Chosen answer: It certainly seems that Reese is pretty confident about Bruce being Batman. I always interpreted the look of uncertainty that Reese gives him as being more a degree of shock and shame that, even though he tried to blackmail him and then went to the TV station to reveal Bruce's big secret to the whole world, Bruce would still put his life on the line to save him.

Tailkinker

Question: The movie seems to suggest that Link has an ulterior motive for being on the Nebuchadnezzar. Early in the movie, Morpheus says "Given your situation, I can't say I fully understand your reasons for being here", and later Link tells Zee that he made a promise. Is he talking about Tank? What is going on here?

Brad

Chosen answer: He has no ulterior motive, he's simply taken over as the ship's "operator" because of a promise that he made to his brother-in-law Dozer before his death in the first film. Given he's married, that his wife has already lost two brothers under Morpheus' command and that, at the beginning at least, he's clearly sceptical about Morpheus' beliefs, it's not unreasonable that his commander would question his presence. Link, however, takes the attitude that a promise is a promise; if others don't entirely understand that, that's their problem.

Tailkinker

Lines in the Sand - S3-E4

Question: In this episode, an autistic child is trying to communicate to House what he ate that might have made him sick. The entire episode he is drawing mysterious squiggle lines on a chalk-board that nobody could decipher what he meant. The entire episode, one of those "perpetual motion" rectangular, water novelties is swaying back and forth near the child. You'd think that the child is drawing squiggles to imply he drank some of the chemical from the novelty toy, but at the very last second BAM! Turns out he ate sand from the sandbox. End of episode. Did the writers do this intentionally? Why was the kid drawing squiggles the whole time? Why was the perpetual motion toy next to the child the whole time? Why didn't he draw a box to imply "sandbox" or dots to imply "sand". Was the squiggles to throw the viewer off, or was there some sort of symbolic correlation between the squiggles the child drew, the wave toy, or both?

dollors

Chosen answer: He's communicating what is wrong with his eyesight. He sees these lines and it makes his vision blurry.

littlestar

Question: When Marty and Doc are on the train at the end, and Clara shows up, Doc says that Clara will have to go with them to 1985. Why does Doc say that? Someone submitted a correction saying that Clara is better off in 1885 because she was supposed to die so staying in her own period is better than going to the future, so why would Doc suggest such a thing?

Answer: Simply because, believe it or not, it's hard for Doc to kill someone through inaction. He saved her life when she was supposed to die. But that doesn't mean it'd be easy for him to do nothing now and just let her die when he knows he can do something to save her. And by taking her to the future, he is likely thinking he can avoid any other complications that may arise from the fact that she is still alive when she's already supposed to have died.

Garlonuss

Answer: They literally had no choice but to take her with them! They had gone past the windmill so they didn't have enough track left to stop the train before it went over the ravine so that's not an option. Doc and Marty are not murderers, they are not just gonna leave her on the train so that she dies! Plus, let's say they didn't care what happens to Clara, you've still got a problem... Clara is in the cab, she has the controls! How long before she just starts pulling random levers, turning random valves etc whilst trying to work out how to stop the train? If the train slows down at all, they will not have enough time to get it back up to speed... Them, the train and the DeLorean would be at the bottom of the ravine.

Answer: At this point, Doc is already in love with Clara. He did not plan for her to be on the train, but once he saw her there, he definitely wasn't going to leave her to let her die a horrible death.

jshy7979

Question: In the scene where the Cullens are filling Jacob and his friends in about the newborn vampire army, this is all taking place during Bella's graduation party. Why would they discuss it there where other people could hear them or notice them? In the book they discussed it later that night after the party.

Answer: They combined the scenes to save time. Also, all the characters involved have super-sensitive hearing, so they could easily lower their voices enough not to be overheard while still being able to hear each other perfectly well.

Phixius

Question: In the vault scene, isn't forger Eames impersonating the Elder Fischer on his deathbed in the vault? If so, then how can he also be across the room at the door?

Answer: No, he isn't. Everything in that room is out of Fischer's subconscious - as the film explains, the team design the dreams to include a secure area, a vault, safe, whatever, which the target will then fill. In the higher levels of the dream, the team have been surreptitiously guiding Fischer towards the idea of splitting the company up; this is the level where it pays off, where Fischer's own subconscious fills the vault with the things he needs to see or hear to make the idea real, to complete the inception.

Tailkinker

Question: During the attack on Klendathu when the fleet is bombarded by the plasma bugs, you can see a plasma burst impact the bridge of the Roger Young and kill everyone in it, Carmen included. But later the fleet regroups to repair and the ship arrives with everyone safe and alive. What's with that?

Zvriith

Chosen answer: It doesn't kill everyone on the bridge, it just destroys a lot of it, and presumably the ship has the ability to seal hull breaches so everyone doesn't get sucked out.

GalahadFairlight

Question: If the real Henry Hill wrote a book and co-wrote the screenplay (with Martin Scorsese), how is it that the Mob never found him? Or did they, and we (the viewers/general public) were never told about that?

Answer: He went into the witness protection programme along with his family under assumed names, however was expelled from that programme after being arrested for drugs offences in Seattle in the late 1980s. Since then he apparently lived quite openly, including a number of media appearances, although he continued to have problems with the law, mostly due to a long battle with alcoholism. He lived in Malibu up until his death in 2012. As to why the Mob appeared to be disinterested in pursuing him, you'd have to ask them.

Tailkinker

By his own loud admission on Howard Stern, he had no idea why he was able to live such an incredibly long time for his circumstances.

dizzyd

Also, Henry Hill, in the last years of his life wasn't so worried anymore about getting whacked. All the people that were a threat to him were either in prison or dead by that time.

Question: I have three questions. First, on one of the holo-screens in the beginning, (the one saying: "Too much garbage in your space? There's plenty of space out in space"), there are two Axiom cruisers leaving. I thought it was just one. Question number two: What's the purpose of that robot that is clicking on a keyboard? (The one that lets GO-4, Wall-E and Eve pass to the bridge.) Last question: In the Axiom garbage disposal thing area, there are two gigantic Wall-A's. What does the A stand for?

Answer: (1) If you continue to listen to the announcement that you quote, the next line is "BnL Starliners leaving each day". Clearly there's a sizeable fleet of ships, as you'd expect, given the necessity to completely evacuate Earth's population, with the Axiom, described as "the jewel in the BnL fleet", presumably being the flagship. Whether any of the other ships were also still functioning remains unrevealed. (2) It's presumably some sort of administration robot, with specific duties regarding access to the captain's office. (3) It stands for "Axiom".

Tailkinker

Question: When Cobb finally gets home to see his children at the end why don't they look any different from his memories? The story implies that he's been gone for a long time yet they don't appear to have aged.

Answer: The answer above is solid and I agree, but there's another plausible way of looking at it. It is implied at the end that Cobb could still be dreaming (we never see if the top stops spinning). If that's the case, then he would likely dream his children to be exactly how he remembers them.

jshy7979

Answer: The story really doesn't imply too heavily exactly how long Cobb has been on the run. Very few clues are given, so it could quite plausibly be less than a year since his wife's death, in which case their children would not have aged dramatically. Their voices on the phone seem compatible with children of the ages shown at the end of the film and Cobb shows no concern when reunited with them that they should be older than they are. Two sets of children are listed in the credits, of different ages.

Tailkinker

Question: I'm not sure if it was just one song or not, but what was the song played that cued the "kick"?

nbafanscw

Chosen answer: Édith Piaf's "Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien".

Tailkinker

Question: What happened to the original timeline to cause such a dramatic change in Marty's mom? In the original timeline, Marty's mom was 'born a nun' as Marty described her to Jennifer. But when Marty goes back to 1955, Lorraine is a drinking, smoking, parking with boys kind of girl. In the original timeline, what would have made it to where Lorraine thinks it's inappropriate for a girl to make advances on a boy? She seems to already be a boy chaser before Marty even gets there.

unicorngoddess

Chosen answer: Actually, nothing happened to the original timeline to change Marty's mom. It's Marty, like many children, who had a rather unrealistic view about what Lorraine was actually like when she was a teenager. He always believed (and was deliberately given the impression) that she was extremely shy and proper, when in fact, she was a boy-crazy flirt, though she apparently changed after falling in love with George. Parents are often evasive regarding their own youthful behavior.

raywest

Question: Where did the Mask get the limo before the scene in Cocoa Bongo?

Answer: Either A: he rented the limo with the stolen money, or B: the limo itself is just another one of The Mask's absurd creations, given it is just so dang long.

Brad

Question: Does Hanzo have the katana with him from the beginning? My brother thinks he picked it up in Nolan's hideout, but I'm pretty sure a Yakuza would know how to conceal a katana, and in any case, it just makes more sense that way. Which of us is right?

Answer: Your brother is correct, he picked it up at Noland's hideout.

GalahadFairlight

Answer: When he found it in Nolen's hideout, he noticed how old the sword was and therefore made the comment about the Predators doing this for a very long time.

lartaker1975

Question: What was the eventual fate of the Earth President? His 'A113' message ends with him muttering about "getting the hell out of here" which would suggest he went on the space liners with the other humans but no further mention is ever made of him.

Answer: He almost certainly boarded the Axiom, and lived out the remainder of his days in luxury.

Phixius

Actually, I think he stayed on earth. In the message, he says Earth is beyond saving, and that everyone should remain in space and not return to earth. He then puts on a gas mask, accepting that Earth is a lost cause. There'd be no need for a gas mask if he was aboard the Axiom. Also, we see the message was sent to the Axiom in 2110. If you look at the date of the 1st captain, it is 2105. So, he stayed on earth to clean up the planet, and after 5 years they deemed it a lost cause and sent that message.

jshy7979

Question: I am confused about a scene near the beginning of the film, when all the SPECTRE agents, among them Largo (Adolfo Celi), are in a secret room being quizzed by the unseen Blofeld (number 1). At one point, an agent named Number 11 is talking about money he and Number 9 (seated to his left) collected. Blofeld says "One of you is guilty of embezzlement." Number 11 has a guilty look on his face, and Number 9 gives him a smug look. It's as if Number 11 is about to be "punished" and he expects it, but suddenly, Number 9 is electrocuted in his chair and dumped beneath the floor. Afterwards, Number 11 is seen wiping his sweaty face. What exactly happened? Were Numbers 11 and 9 in cahoots and Number 9 was the only one that was caught? Did Number 9 set up Number 11 to look guilty and was found out by SPECTRE and punished accordingly? Or did SPECTRE simply make a mistake and kill the wrong guy?

Answer: They're both embezzling. Number 11 expects that he's about to be caught and Number 9 might have tried to pin his own embezzlement on 11, but Number 1 saw through it.

Captain Defenestrator

Question: Why does Doc suddenly change his ideas (about time travel and not learning too much of your own future) in Part 2? In Part 1, he was determined not to learn too much about his own future, despite Marty trying to warn him that his life depended on it. But in Part 2, suddenly it's okay to bring Marty to the future and give him enough information to try to change the course of destiny for his son. Also, wouldn't it have just been easier to warn Marty about the accident he was going to have that caused his life to go so wrong to begin with? One would have to think that if Marty becomes successful and lives out an entirely different life, then maybe his son doesn't turn into such a wimp.

unicorngoddess

Chosen answer: Marty's saving his life with the note made him realize that some events are worth tampering with. He wasn't aware that Marty's entire life had taken a wrong turn, he'd just read that his son goes to prison after the robbery and takes action on that one thing.

Captain Defenestrator

Question: When Captain Marshfield goes to arrest Captain Cummins, he says, "You gave intel to a foreign government" (or something like that). What is Marshfield referring to?

Answer: He gave the Russians EDI's energy signature so they could shoot him down, which is pretty classified information.

Brad

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