Answered questions about specific movies, TV shows and more

These are questions relating to specific titles. General questions for movies and TV shows are here. Members get e-mailed when any of their questions are answered.

Question: Why does Elizabeth take the medallion with her after Will rescues her? Surely she must have known the pirates would come after her if she took it.

Answer: They're going to come after her anyway - she's really the only lead they have to finding Bootstrap Bill's real child (at least until Jack appears on the scene, but she doesn't know that). If she has the medallion, then she has leverage - the pirates need it, so it could potentially be used as a bargaining chip. If she leaves it behind, she loses that potential advantage.

Tailkinker

Question: At the end of the movie, why doesn't Carlisle drain Bella's body of the venom seeing as human blood doesn't affect him anymore in the way that it does other vampires?

Answer: Because he is controlling the bleeding and doing other medical treatments. Also it is Edward's choice, he won't make that decision for him.

shortdanzr

It's never said that Carlisle is no longer affected by desire for human blood - he was just able to restrain himself for the few people who became part of his family... Edward talks about how incredibly difficult that was for Carlisle to stop then, and (likely) still would be going forward. In the case of Bella, Carlisle asked Edward to do it because Bella's future was up to Edward's choice.

Show generally

Question: Christy and Billie Jenkins are very powerful witches, yet it's been established that their parents are ordinary mortals. So, where did they get their powers from?

Jane'sBitch

Chosen answer: In the episode Mr and Mrs. Witch, Billy's mom explains that their grandmother was a powerful witch and that it just skipped a generation.

Maria Santos

Season 4 generally

Question: Towards the end of the episode "Journey's End", Davros calls The Doctor "the Destroyer of Worlds". Isn't this just a little bit ironic considering Davros and the Daleks were about to wipe out the universe using a reality bomb?

Jane'sBitch

Chosen answer: It's a psychological tactic. The Doctor thinks of himself as a good person, but he's had to do horrible things during the Time War and on other occasions. Davros is playing on his guilt.

Captain Defenestrator

Question: Who's that weird little holographic alien Jonnie sees next to the learning machine?

Jane'sBitch

Chosen answer: It's a Chinko. A subject race of the Psychlos. They were scholars and historians until the Psychlos got tired of them and wiped them out.

Grumpy Scot

Show generally

Question: It's been stated through out the show that Earth was originally inhabited by an extraterrestrial species known as 'The Colonists', that they fled the Earth during the last ice age and that they intend to re-colonize the Earth in 2012. Now, they're obviously more technologically advanced than us, so why do they want to re-colonize the Earth? There's a whole universe of planets out there to choose from. Also, why wait until 2012? Why not just invade?

SocietyCynic

Chosen answer: They want to return because its their home planet. Secondly The Colonists didn't expect Humans to get quite so advanced whilst they were away, so invading doesn't make sense, and is likely to ruin the planet further.

GalahadFairlight

Chosen answer: Theoretically, they are nuclear powered proton colliders. The positively charged energy released by the proton collisions is channeled through the neutrona wands into a manageable beam. This positively charged beam bonds to the negatively charged ectoplasm which ghosts used to manifest. This allows the Ghostbusters to draw them into their traps.

Phixius

Question: Why did the Psychlos subject Jonnie to that learning machine? Surely a race as intelligent as the Psychlos must have known that there would be unforeseen risks of subjecting a human to so much knowledge? Also, why not simply programme the learning machine to download a limited amount of information into his mind?

Jane'sBitch

Chosen answer: To see if the man-animals could be trained to perform tasks more complex than simple mining. The machine wasn't programmed to restrict the information it gave him because, smart as the Psychlos are, they're also very arrogant. It simply didn't occur to them that a species as inferior as humans could possibly become that intelligent.

Phixius

Homecoming - S1-E9

Question: Why does Sylar choose the Homecoming event to kill Claire and take her power? Surely a person as clever as Sylar would realise that it would be full of people and that there would be a risk of capture (which is exactly what happens). Why not wait until Claire is asleep? Or follow her when she's on her own and corner her in an alley?

SocietyCynic

Chosen answer: Sylar's not bothered about the risk of capture - his confidence in his abilities is high enough that he probably thinks that he would be impossible to take down anyway. And you have to remember that he's driven by a hunger to take new abilities - he's not going to be happy with the idea of waiting for the perfect moment. She's relatively isolated, her only companion being another cheerleader, no reason to wait.

Tailkinker

Show generally

Question: Exactly why do The Company and their agents conduct bag and tag missions? Is it simply to study evolved humans and their powers? Or do they have something more sinister in mind? Also, why bag and tag at all? Why not just talk to the people they target?

Jane'sBitch

Chosen answer: It's partly study, partly containment, partly potential recruitment. Simply talking to the targets isn't going to get them what they need to know - they're looking for detailed genetic information, plus they want to install the tracking isotopes, neither of which could be done during a pleasant chat.

Tailkinker

Season 1 generally

Question: Why exactly do The Company want New York City destroyed? Is it so that they can manipulate Nathan into becoming president, ensuring he becomes their puppet?

SocietyCynic

Chosen answer: Not exactly. Their intent is that the destruction of New York will act as a focus for the entire nation, a rallying point of sorts. The plan is that Nathan will be in a position to show strong leadership after the explosion, giving him a high public profile and a strong support base as the outraged and shocked nation unites behind him. This support could then be used to put him into the White House where he can continue to further their agenda. Not so much a puppet, more a willing ally, but the effect is much the same.

Tailkinker

Godsend - S1-E12

Question: During Sylar's examination, Hank informs Mr. Bennet that they've been trying to find the codon switches that identify his powers, but they're unable to identify any of them except for telekinesis. How can this be?

SocietyCynic

Chosen answer: Sylar's powers are stolen and forcibly impressed into his DNA, unlike most of the empowered characters where the DNA is natural. It's entirely understandable that his powers might be more difficult to determine under those circumstances.

Tailkinker

Chosen answer: Peter doesn't have perfect control over any of his abilities - he has to be able to focus on certain mental keys to be able to use them with any degree of certainty. With his acquired radioactivity power beginning to run out of control, any possibility of focus is gone - he's scared, he's in considerable discomfort if not outright pain. He's simply not able to do it, so Nathan has to step in to help get him clear of the area.

Tailkinker

Chosen answer: Confirmed powers prior to that point were telekinesis, freezing, kinetic projection, eidetic memory, liquification, enhanced hearing, precognition and radioactivity. There may have been others as well, but those are the definites.

Tailkinker

Question: In the Trivia section for this movie, there is an entry that says that all of the characters are named after prisons around the world, and it gives some examples. Can someone identify all of the prisons and how they relate to the character?

Knever

Chosen answer: Quentin is named after San Quentin State Prison in California, notorious for a high-level of brutality. Holloway is a women's prison in London, leading to a female character. Alderson Prison is in West Virginia and uses isolation as a major punishment, thus Alderson never meets the other characters. Rennes Prison in France pioneered many modern prison policies, so the character Rennes appears as a knowledgeable mentor to the other characters. The Kazan prison in Russia is disorganised, tying in to the autistic Kazan character. Finally, Leaven and Worth are both named for Leavenworth prison in Kansas, which is corporately built and run, relating to Worth, the corporate architect, and runs on a very rigid set of rules, which ties in to Leaven's mathematical ability.

Tailkinker

Chosen answer: He's talking about the government proposals to register mutants "for public safety" and so forth. He's comparing them to the Nazi programmes to weed out "undesirables" that ultimately led to the Holocaust and the deaths of Erik's family in the concentration camps.

Tailkinker

Chosen answer: Hard to be exact, as his ability level has varied a fair bit in the comics over the years and it's impossible to know which particular level the moviemakers have chosen. Generally speaking, Logan can heal wounds in a matter of seconds and has been shown to regenerate large quantities of destroyed soft tissue in a few minutes, but certain writers have taken it further. At the very extreme end of the scale, Logan has been shown to swiftly recover fully from the effects of a nearby nuclear explosion and also return to life after having all his flesh stripped from his skeleton, leaving him with just his brain within his adamantium-laced skull. Probably the best way to look at it is that Logan's healing factor operates at whatever level the writer needs it to operate at for the story that they're trying to tell.

Tailkinker

Question: What's the name of the song at the final credits?

Answer: The name of the song is "Bible Belt" and it's sung by Travis Tritt.

Chanteuse66

Answer: It is Bible Belt by Travis Tritt; however, the lyrics were changed to fit the movie.

Kitty1019

Answer: A woman shoplifting from a jewelry store, a guy in a pickup truck smashing a beer bottle at a black person and shouting something racist, a guy about to rape a girl who is passed out drunk and the subway janitor who breaks into the house and murders the parents and holds the two teenager's hostage.

Chosen answer: When he touches someone who has or will commit an evil act, he sees the act. For example, he sees a racist man throw something at a black woman for no reason, he sees someone buying drugs, he sees a woman kill another woman.

Question: When Susan grew after being affected by the Quantonium meteorite, why do no other life forms, such as insects in the grass, not also grow?

The Yeti

Chosen answer: Well, it's a fiction movie; some suspension of disbelief is always needed. There could be a number of explanations: for instance, lifeforms such as insects on the grass, bacteria inside them or even grass itself, being unable to absorb quantonium. It might affect only sentient beings. Or Susan might even be the first being to get in contact with the substance - this would be possible depending on the shape of the meteorite container, the exact means by which quantonium touches her body - which isn't shown... but, first and foremost, this happens because its not happening would leave the filmmakers with a plot issue to be dealt with - so, other beings don't grow simply because they don't.

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