Answered questions about specific movies, TV shows and more

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Exposé - S3-E14

Question: What was the point of this episode? The two main characters were bit parts in the episode prior at the swan station (I think it was the swan under the plane) and were never mentioned again. It seems like this episode was merely to make up the numbers.

willieboy78

Chosen answer: In an interview/podcast the writers admitted that they originally had grand plans for the two characters but decided against moving forward with them. This episode was to allow them to be "written out" of the show instead of just being ignored.

XIII

Show generally

Question: Is there any relevance to the way the main characters' lives interacted before they crashed? E.g., Ana Lucia hitting Sawyer with a car door, Hurley owning the box company Locke worked for, Shannon reporting Sayid at the airport, Charlie saving Nadia from a mugger or Desmond getting a boat from Libby? (There are numerous others.) Is there a grand plan or is it just to add a bit of mystery which means nothing?

willieboy78

Chosen answer: SPOILER ALERT. In a word YES. As seen in the finale of season 5, Jacob is seen visiting the main characters well before and after the events of the island. The whole show continues to show the connections between the characters. This seems to hint that the plane crash on the island was "meant to happen".

XIII

Question: It's been stated in the movie (and in The Animatrix) that humans used nanomachines to intentionally blacken the sky in order to cut the machines off from their main energy source, the sun. Firstly, why did the humans resort to such a drastic and desperate plan? They must have known it would be risky? Secondly, once the plan was implemented, why couldn't they halt or shut down the nanomachines when it grew out of control? Thirdly, why were the machines dependent on the sun in the first place? Couldn't they use or invent an alternate energy source? And fourthly, why couldn't the machines use their combined artificial intelligence to somehow find a way of eradicating the nanomachines in the atmosphere?

SockWearer

Chosen answer: Blocking out the sun was an act of desperation, the humans weren't thinking about long-term consequences like unblocking it again. As for the machines, once they had adapted and created the Matrix, there was no need to unblock the sun because their problem had been solved.

Captain Defenestrator

Question: Toward the beginning of the movie, on Phil's first day at the bed and breakfast, he turns on the shower and it is very cold. He asks the lady in the hallway why there is no hot water. The lady answers "Oh no, there wouldn't be any today." Why not?

Answer: Old fashioned hotels have a single boiler for all the hotel rooms. Once the hot water reservoir is used up there won't be any more to use until the reservoir is refilled. This only happens once every few days.

lionhead

Answer: Likely because there are a lot of people staying there and using up the hot water.

Captain Defenestrator

Powerless - S2-E11

Question: I don't understand why Adam Monroe wanted to release The Shanti Virus? doesn't he realise the just how dangerous it would have been?

SockWearer

Chosen answer: Yes, of course he does. That's the point. He wants to do something to stop humanity going through the same cycle of death and destruction that gets played out every so often. By releasing the Shanti virus, he'll wipe out the vast majority of the human race, dropping the demand for Earth's diminishing resources to a manageable level and allowing the survivors to start over with a relatively clean slate.

Tailkinker

Question: SPOILER ALERTS! Does anyone know why they changed the final symbol to the keys instead of the one in the book? Also why they left out that the Pope was Ewan McGregor's father?

shortdanzr

Chosen answer: In the book, the location of the antimatter bomb is only revealed after the Camerlengo pretends to have a "vision from God" on the steps of the Vatican. By changing the symbol to one that actually provides a clue to the location, it allows Langdon to work out where the bomb is, to actually play some part in proceedings rather than passively stand by until the villain just takes everybody there as part of his plan. As for the Pope being the Camerlengo's biological father, this is a fairly late revelation in the book and requires a substantial amount of exposition, which would only serve to abruptly slow the film to a crawl during the climax. The Camerlengo's motives, his hatred for the church's indulgence of science, are strong enough to explain his actions without the additional detail of his parentage being necessary, thus it could be safely left out to keep the film's momentum going.

Tailkinker

Question: What does he give to Inez, the old woman?

Answer: She was not getting proper treatment. When he chewed out the boss because of this, the patients all started to get better care.

Knever

Question: How are Kirk, Sulu, and Olson able to parachute from space to Earth without burning up in the atmosphere?

raywest

Chosen answer: Vulcan has a thinner atmosphere than Earth. That, combined with the special dive suits they're wearing and the lower speed than space vehicle re-entry makes it possible.

Captain Defenestrator

Question: At the beginning, during the war montage sequence when you see Wolverine and Sabretooth fighting in the various wars, you see them fighting in the American civil war. I was just curious and this may seem like an incidental question, but is there any indication as to which side they're fighting on?

MusicalPurist

Chosen answer: Their uniforms are blue, which means they were fighting for the North.

MoonFaery

Question: One of the early posters of this film shows a bearded guy (who is not in the film) coming through a wall crack and holding puppet strings with one hand. Who is this guy supposed to be and what does he represent?

Gavin Jackson

Chosen answer: He does bear a striking resemblance to Stephen King. King was both the writer and director of this movie, and as such, was certainly the guy in charge of all the character's fates and pulling all the strings.

Twotall

Answer: It is Stephen King.

Chosen answer: It's implied that Sabretooth killed him. When he and Wraith meet in the alley, while Wolverine is meeting Gambit, Wraith says "Your creepy black coat don't scare me. to which Sabretooth responds "Worked on Dukes."

Question: What is the video game young Josh plays at the beginning of the movie?

Answer: According to imdb: Though some believe it to be Colossal (Cave) Adventure or an early Sierra Game, no known game up to 1988 accepts the commands "melt ice wizard" or "throw thermal pod" (as used in the movie), therefore one can assume the game screen was simply created for the movie.

Carl Missouri

Question: After Puss spits out his hairball, Shrek asks what they should do with Puss. Donkey starts babbling about some guy named Bob. What's he saying, and what's the joke in this?

Answer: Donkey says, "we should take his sword and neuter him right here. Give him the Bob Barker treatment". This refers to a former game show host who is an animal rights activist who is dedicated to informing people to spay or neuter their pets so as to keep the pet population down.

I literally came here for that answer.

Run! - S1-E15

Question: Hope the showgirl locks Hiro in a small closet. He makes several unsuccessful attempts to escape by running and charging towards the door. Why doesn't he simply teleport out? Surely a lot simpler and a lot less painful?

PermanentTennantOfThePast

Chosen answer: Hiro's powers are still quite unreliable, and a locked closet door isn't a huge obstacle. Since Hiro knows he needs to rescue Ando, it's probably safer to try and bash the door down than risk teleporting to the wrong place or time.

Question: What ever happened to Bernard? He is non-existent in this movie and nobody seems to notice.

Answer: David Krumholtz (Benard) is busy on his show "Numb3rs" on CBS and is committed to that so he didn't return for The Santa Clause 3. I guess they could have explained his absence, but the filmakers decided not to. They simply promoted Curtis since he was in the 2nd movie.

Carl Missouri

Answer: He was on another show at the time, but was also 28 years old. And while he pushes the limits of being the childlike elf in the first two movies, he was most likely too old for the role in the third.

Question: So the adamatium bullets erased Wolverine's memory, Cyclops wore a blindfold (for lack of a better term) the entire time he was at 3-Mile Island and thus never saw Wolverine, and Xavier obviously withheld information he knew all about in the first two X-Men films because he's Xavier, but what about Sabertooth/Victor? How is it he lost his memory between this movie and X-Men 1? And with all the punishment he took in this movie, how can anyone seriously believe he died in the first movie?

Answer: No one quite knows how Sabretooth "forgot" his connection to Wolverine between the films. There's another movie in the works, it may be explained there. It was never confirmed that he died in the first X-Men movie; he simply didn't appear in the second. Magneto may have relieved him of duty.

Dooku Captured - S1-E11

Question: When Palpatine sees the hologram of the pirate leader with Dooku, he says that a hologram can be faked, but then he believes the pirate when he sees Dooku's lightsaber. If he thinks that the pirate could have faked the hologram of Dooku, wouldn't it also be reasonable to accuse him of faking the hologram of the lightsaber?

Answer: It is to note that Count Dooku's lightsabers have a very characteristic curve handle. If you wouldn't know what this particular item looked like, you would have a hard time faking it. The sight of Dooku's lightsaber, therefore, had to convince the Jedi about the veracity of the pirate's claims.

Five Years Gone - S1-E20

Question: Towards the end of the episode but before the climatic battle between Sylar and Peter, Sylar, disguised as Nathan through the power of illusion, walks calmly towards Peter and then reverts back to his own form/image. To my knowledge there are four people who are there to witness this: Peter, Matt Parkman and two unnamed SWAT officers with a battering ram. It is understandable if the two SWAT officers didn't see this transformation, but Matt? Surely he must have seen? He was a few feet from him, yet he didn't even bat an eyelid? Why is this? His superior transformed into a well-known killer.

TheContentAtHeart

Chosen answer: Simple, he changes the illusion for peter, but keeps the others thinking he is still Nathan, he can make different illusions at once.

shtevie

Yeah, but surely when the cameras were on him, and the whole world was watching, what happened? He cast the same illusion to 7 billion people?

Yes. He could drop the illusion for Peter alone whilst everybody else would still see him in his disguise.

lionhead

The Bully / Just One Bite - S2-E17

Question: In 'Just One Bite', I remember there used to be a scene after Squidwad's dream and before him blowing up. He used to walk into the Krusty Krab, only to have a bucket of gas fall on him and a robot arm coming out and lighting Squidward on fire. Nowadays, I can't find that scene anywhere. What happened to it?

Answer: Nick has never given an official reason, though fans speculate it was removed because 1) it may give kids the idea to set fire to gasoline with matches, and 2) it was considered reminiscent of the 11 September attacks on the World Trade Centre.

Chosen answer: Her power works by manipulating parts of the mind. Since Victor and Logan both regenerate her power can't affect them because they essentially "heal/regenerate" the part she is manipulating. Granted Prof. X threatens Logan with this in the original movies, but he is much more powerful, or could have been bluffing.

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