Answered questions about specific movies, TV shows and more

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Chosen answer: Because he wouldn't be satisfied simply killing The Doctor when he's weak and infirm. The Master needs to outsmart him.

Captain Defenestrator

Chosen answer: Did you not see the beginning of the film? Daniel stood up to Johnny and the other Cobra Kai's on the beach. This makes him their enemy. As Kreese teaches them, "an enemy deserves no mercy", which is why they continue to pick on him.

Answer: There's also the fact that Daniel is with Johnny's ex, Ali.

Question: What exactly is the machine entity known as 'Deus Ex Machina'? Is it a physical representation of the machines? Or a separate being all together?

LazyBoy09

Chosen answer: The physical machine itself would serve a purpose around the machine city and it may be coincidental that that specific machine was used to communicate with Neo, but whilst talking to Neo it is a representative of the Machine Collective, an ambassador or diplomat of sorts.

Sanguis

Question: It's been stated that Seraph is a former angel programme left over from a previous Matrix. Then why does one of The Merovingian henchmen refer to him as wingless?

Socks1000

Chosen answer: A Seraph is the highest level of God's angels, typically depicted with six wings (three pairs), the joke refers to the fact that Seraph physically has no wings in the matrix and that he now no longer works for the machines and so is also meant as a "fall from grace" jibe.

Sanguis

Question: What exactly did the Architect mean when he said to the Oracle, "You played a very dangerous game"?

Socks1000

Chosen answer: By encouraging Neo to go to the machine city and negotiate a peace contract she has upset the Architect's "perfect" world. The Architect, ruled by brutal logic, has a method that is tried and true; the death and rebirth of Neo and Zion, the Oracle has created a new order of things and has allowed Zion to survive, throwing a rather large spanner in the Architect's plans.

Sanguis

Question: Is there a reason the machines use humans for energy? Why not nuclear power or maybe even animals?

Socks1000

Chosen answer: Nuclear power would eventually run out, the impression is that the Machines occupy almost all of the planet's surface, so a LOT of power is needed. Animals are probably not used as their minds are a lot more instinctual and so it would be a lot harder to create a Matrix that their minds could accept, plus most animal and plant life probably died off when the sun was blocked off.

Sanguis

Question: Why does the Oracle ask Neo to open his mouth and say ahh? What was she hoping to gain from this?

Socks1000

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

Question: How does the Oracle get her powers of foresight? How does she know the things she knows?

Socks1000

Chosen 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.

Sanguis

Question: 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

Borderland (1) - S4-E4

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?

Socks1000

Chosen answer: They're stronger than humans, but they're not invulnerable.

JC Fernandez

Answer: 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?

willieboy78

Chosen answer: Assuming a 15% tip, about $45-50. If 20%, $40.

Captain Defenestrator

Chosen 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.

Tailkinker

Chosen 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.

Tailkinker

Answer: 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.

Chosen 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.

Tailkinker

Show generally

Question: 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?

Socks1000

Chosen 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.

Tailkinker

Question: What does the Architect mean when he says, "There are levels of survival we are prepared to accept"? What other levels does he mean?

Socks1000

Chosen 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.

Sanguis

Chosen answer: Obsolete 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 Defenestrator

Question: 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?

Socks1000

Chosen 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 Defenestrator

Question: 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?

Socks1000

Chosen 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 Defenestrator

Question: How exactly were the doctors able to reverse the effects and undo the Ludovico technique that Alex was subjected to?

Socks1000

Chosen answer: We're never given details. Possibly electroshock therapy or somehow purging his system of the Ludovico formula.

Captain Defenestrator

Answer: When Alex jumped out of the window, the shock of the fall snapped him out of the Ludovico technique.

michael g

He mentions later that he's been having dreams of someone picking through his brain. This is the government undoing the treatment.

Captain Defenestrator

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