Question: In the movie, the ritual to bring Mammon into the world requires the spear of destiny and a powerful psychic. The psychic chosen is Angela, who can only be used after a ritual that she and Constantine perform. This can only happen if the two meet, so Gabriel chooses Angela's sister for Mammon to possess and kill, to get Angela involved in the occult world. My question is why didn't Gabriel and Mammon just use Angela's sister?
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Question: Why is Matt Hooper absent in this movie? Did Richard Dreyfuss refuse to reprise the role?
Answer: According to the Hollywood grapevine, yes, like all actors of his generation he had a disdain of doing sequels.
Question: Why does Michael waste time leaving "Samhain" on the blackboard and killing all those hospital people? He's able to slip all over the place so all this extra killing seems pointless.
Answer: Michael is insane. It's no different from him killing all the people in the first movie and setting up all the elaborate things he set up like the tombstone and the bodies. In the context of the movie, he's simply driven to kill and do evil things on his way to his goal.
Question: Why did Mitch tell his firm about being contacted by the FBI in D.C.? What purpose does it serve him? It probably only attracted more attention to him.
Answer: He's not sure if he believes the FBI, and if they're telling the truth he doesn't want the Mafia discovering he'd been talking to law enforcement behind their back. This way he can avoid taking sides just yet.
I think he did it because he wasn't sure if he was being watched.
Answer: He knew the Firm was watching him and would probably learn about the meeting. To head off suspicion that he may be cooperating with the FBI, he voluntarily tells his superiors about it, all while acting naive and showing he has nothing to hide. He may also be displaying a (false) willingness to be drawn into any nefarious Firm activities, allowing him to learn more about it.
Question: I never understand why the bully backs off from Jack suddenly once he thinks Jack has a steel plate in his head from Vietnam. What does a steel plate in the head mean and how did it fend off the bully?
Answer: Jack never said he had a steel plate in his head... Janet told that to the bartender who in turn questioned Jack about it.
Answer: Jack is saying that part of his skull has been replaced with a metal prosthetic, due to having been wounded in Vietnam. The bully now sees Jack as a wounded veteran who could suffer severe health problems if punched.
Question: What does the log mean that they carried Homer Stokes on out of the building?
Answer: Per Wikipedia: Riding the rail (also called being "run out of town on a rail") was a punishment most prevalent in the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries in which an offender was made to straddle a fence rail held on the shoulders of two or more bearers. The subject was then paraded around town or taken to the city limits and dumped by the roadside.
Question: After Harry discovers that Peter is really Spider-Man, he tells Peter that he murdered Norman Osborne. Why didn't Peter just say, "I didn't kill your dad. He was already dead when I brought him to you"?
Answer: As the other answer suggests, it'd be a dangerous waste of time. Additionally, Harry is literally driving himself insane believing that Spider-Man killed his father... so it's not like Harry would actually believe Peter anyway even if he tried to explain it in that moment.
But, surely before he left, he would have had just enough time to quickly say, "I didn't kill your dad. The Green Goblin did."
That's not the point. The point is, Harry wouldn't have believed him... he's too far lost in grief and revenge. This is further evidenced when Peter tells him in "Spider-Man 3," and Harry refuses to believe him.
Question: We saw how the first surgeon gave Archer Castor's voice (using the microphone and the "peach" comment recording). But my question here is after Castor died, a new surgeon comes in from Washington who assumingly never met Archer before. Even though Archer getting his own face back with similar surgery is understandable, how did he get his own natural voice back (considering he sounded like Castor when the surgeon met him and never heard his real voice before and couldn't with Castor dead)?
Answer: His voice was changed using an implanted chip - he's even warned it will be easy to dislodge. The chip changes the modulation of his voice, so removing it would mean his natural voice would return automatically.
Answer: Even so, it just takes a recording of the voice to match. That's how they calibrated Archer's voice to Troy's in the first place.
Answer: His chip was dislodged in the climax of the movie, if you remember he says to his daughter "hear my voice, I'm your father" and Castor says "use your eyes Jamie".
Question: If Darth Vader's hands are robotic then how can he use the Dark Side of the Force to choke anyone?
Answer: Hands aren't necessary for force usage - it's more a gesture to aid concentration (or for effect, or simply because it looks good on film). During Luke's fight with Vader in The Empire Strikes Back for example, Vader is flinging large objects at Luke without removing his hands from his lightsaber at all.
Question: In her death scene Evita sings a final solo and she cries out one line. What does she say? It sounds like "So soon" but I can't get the line. I've listened to the recording of both the film and the Broadway versions.
Answer: Within the movie version, when she is lying in bed singing her final song (titled "Lament"), I think you're referring to the words "how they shone, but how soon the lights were gone" near the end of this song. Also, the following may be helpful to you. This movie is available to watch free on Tubi. The full lyrics to the movie version of "Lament" are available here. For the "Lament" lyrics from the 1979 Broadway version, see here.
Answer: YouTube captions are often autogenerated and have no relation to what's actually being said.
I realise they are autogenerated, which is why I said that it "may" help to work out what the line was. While imperfect, they certainly are relevant to what is said. I've used it myself to figure out parts of movie dialogue. Also, streaming sites showing this movie might have closed captioned dialogue that is not auto-generated and is more accurate.
Question: At the beginning of the film we see Andy make the agents who killed his wife go blind with his mind. Why then didn't he do the same to John Rainbird at the end when they were in the barn?
Answer: Everything happened too fast for him to react, his powers were barely working, controlling only Captain Hollister. If he was at full power he could have controlled everyone.
Question: How can Jack carry around a case of drawings without them rubbing together, and smudging the graphite or charcoal? Many modern artists will spray those mediums with hairspray or art fixative, but I don't think those were available in 1912.
Answer: Artists at that time could use fixatives to protect graphite or charcoal drawings. I had a small foldable metal sprayer for my drawings. The small metal tube is inserted into a bottle of fixative. The hinged top of the sprayer is bent at a 45-degree angle. As the liquid is wicked up through the tube, you blow through the bent part and it sprays the fixative onto the paper. It's a little hard to explain, but it works. There were also hand-pumped misting sprayers and atomizers (like the old-fashioned perfume bottles). Artists made their own fixative with shellac and isopropyl alcohol and also used clear casein (made from diluted egg whites) to paint over drawings.
Question: Why did Owen and Beru ever tell Luke that they are his aunt and uncle? They apparently want him to live a simple farmer's life, stay away from Ben Kenobi, and not learn about Jedi or get involved in the Rebellion. Would it not be easier to pretend that they are his parents?
Answer: Any answer would be speculation and it's hard to know exactly how much George Lucas had planned ahead for these characters. Not to mention things like Obi-Wan never knew Anakin was alive when they were separating Luke and Leia, Darth Vader hadn't been created yet, and he doesn't find out Anakin is Darth Vader until years later. An in-universe answer would basically be there's no way for the Lars to explain they now have a baby when Beru was never pregnant, so everyone would know Luke isn't their son (which could eventually be told to Luke as he got older). So really the only options would be to raise him as an adopted child or as their nephew. The Organas on the other hand always wanted a daughter and so Bail agreed to secretly adopt Leia.
Answer: Considering Kenobi lived on Tatooine and it was known that Anakin became Vader, there was always a chance that Luke would learn the truth and finding out he was lied to about his past could have been devastating to him and the family dynamic.
Question: So does magic exist in this universe or not? We know Blackwood isn't using magic and is just a fraud, but other characters such as Standish act like magic exists; and then there's Holmes having those visions when he performs the ritual. Does magic exist in this world?
Answer: No, there's nothing to indicate that magic actually exists. Characters may be superstitious and believe it exists... but as Holmes displays, it was all cheap parlor tricks. As for his "visions," it's shown throughout the movie that Sherlock is amazing at deduction and prediction, so I assume the visions are a result of that. To me, it seemed like he was doing the ritual more to put himself into the right "mindset" than to actually perform magic.
Answer: Those were not visions, he was calculating the best scenario to use to defeat his opponent. All the other times after examining clues he was recreating the events that best fit the situation.
Question: Did they have signs for smoking cars on the train windows in that era?
Answer: Yes they did. In 1868 the Railway Regulation Bill was passed in the UK which forced railway companies to designate certain cars as smoking cars. This bill was passed in response to companies banning smoking altogether on their trains.
Question: When the Kraken is attacking the Pearl, what was the point of hoisting all the gunpowder as high as possible? The Kraken is below the water and it's just the tentacles that are above the water. Did Will really expect it to kill the Kraken?
Answer: If they set it off too close to the deck, it could kill members of the crew or severely damage the ship. Hoisting it high and hoping that it would cripple the Kraken by maiming its tentacles was their best bet.
Question: In a deleted scene at the beginning before the meeting, leader Cleon tells the gang that the Warriors are a street gang of over 100 members, counting affiliates. Why at the end of the movie when they were running from Luther and the Rogues, they're on their turf, why wouldn't they have used a pay phone to call back up or at least lure the Rogues to their gang house where other members would be able to run them off or hold them in custody until the Riffs could get them?
Answer: Because it would have lessened the impact of the large number of Riffs showing up at the end.
Answer: Based on this exchange, one can also question why the Warriors didn't call for help at any point that night. One phone call saying, "meet us at..." would have brought members running and ended their ordeal. Thoughts?
Yes you're right but you gotta remember they were stuck in the Bronx far away from their turf in Coney Island, so the likelihood of them calling back home for backup when they could have been anywhere at anytime in the Bronx fleeing from rival gangs would not have been possible.
Answer: You answered your own question when you said "deleted scene." With that information cut out of the movie, it wouldn't have made sense to the viewer that the Warriors suddenly have a large number of members at the end.
Question: The miscast spell made everyone who knew that Peter Parker was Spider-Man to appear in Tom's universe. Why didn't Mary-Jane, Harry Osborne and Eddie Brock from Toby's universe and Captain George Stacy and Gwen Stacy from Andrew's universe also appear as they knew Peter Parker was really Spider-Man?
Answer: Perhaps they did cross over, but they were not part of the plot, so we just didn't see them. They were all returned at the end anyway.
Answer: It could be there were too many characters and too many subplots already, they only needed the characters that would cause the most damage to Peter's universe. There are confirmed sequels in the SCU and The MCU, who knows who could show up there.
Answer: According to the plot on Wikipedia, Isabel killed herself to prevent Mammon from using her, so she was chosen first. Angela and Constantine meet because Isabel brought them together to stop Mammon, should he find another psychic. But with Angela reawakening her powers, she is chosen. It's not a quite clear plot as it is mentioned Mammon needed not just a psychic, but twin psychics.
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