Question: Can someone explain the scene where Patty tries to get a $5,000 loan, but she would need to deposit $5,800 to qualify? As she herself points out, she wouldn't even need a loan if she had $5,800. The employee might not be friendly, but the offer still doesn't make sense if the company wants to be in business.
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.
I'm Goin' to Praiseland - S12-E19
Question: What does Reverend Lovejoy mean when he gives Lisa the "Unitarian ice cream", but the bowl has nothing in it? What is the joke?
Question: When the Japanese baccarat player is brought back to the casino, he has a stack of different colored chips in front of him - what denomination are the dark red chips?
Question: Why wasn't Andromeda spread by the wind, killing birds, wildlife, and individuals in the area around Piedmont?
Answer: The satellite containing the Andromeda strain was recovered quickly, helping contain the contagion. Also, Piedmont was an isolated town, further limiting the spread. Dead birds and other animals were shown, but most would be happening off-camera. The scientists also learned later that Andromeda quickly mutated into a non-lethal form but one that caused certain synthetic materials to dissolve, creating further havoc. To eradicate the strain, clouds were seeded to produce rain, which swept Andromeda out to sea where the alkaline ocean water rendered it inert. Would add that movies at this time and before had stricter standard codes and did not show excessive blood and gore like they do today.
Question: Why did everyone at the baseball game decide to leave upon seeing the meteor descend from the sky?
Answer: It didn't look or act like a normal meteor streaking through the sky and burning up in the atmosphere. It was large, the fiery mass seemed suspended in air, and it was close enough to the ground that spectators, erring on the side of caution, sought shelter.
What does a "normal" flaming meteor look like? How many meteors do you think the people of a small town in upstate NY have seen? Don't know what you mean by "seemed suspended in air." It was passing over and would land miles away, posing zero threat to the people of the town.
Question: Why did Elizabeth Berkley and Gina Gershon dislike each other when working on this movie?
Answer: Paul Verhoeven subtly encouraged a rivalry between the two actresses in order to make the characters' dislike appear more real on screen.
Question: How did the kids in the flashback know it was Lonnie who stole their brother's candy?
Answer: The way that I look at it is: they didn't know. Not for certain anyway. They just guessed and as it turns out, they were right. Also, they were bullies. And there were three of them and one of Lonnie.
Question: What is the device that Ray uses to scan Vigo's painting?
Answer: In the context of the movie, it's simply a piece of Ghostbusting tech that's nature is never really revealed. In real life, it's a modified version of a camera called a "Globuscope." It was invented in the early 1980s and was used to take panoramic-style photographs. So far as I can tell, only a handful were ever produced, and somehow one of them ended up in the movie.
Question: Were all-male jury panels the norm in the 1950s?
Answer: Depends where, and the type of case. At the time the film was made, women were still barred from juries in three states (South Carolina, Mississippi, and Alabama); it wasn't until 1994 that the Supreme Court ruled that lawyers could not strike women from juries solely on the basis of gender. SCOTUS had ruled in 1942 that all-male juries were constitutionally acceptable. New York State (where the story is set) had granted women the right to serve on juries in 1927, so an all-male jury may not have been the norm across the board, but the nature of the crime (murder) would have, at the time, allowed lawyers to exclude women at the jury selection stage by citing the unsavoury aspects of the crime and arguing that the details of the case were not "suitable" for women to hear (being such delicate creatures, you understand /s).
Question: What did Mr. B leave Manly?
Answer: He left him the mansion and everything in it.
Question: When John Doe is at the shelter and is dreaming about walking up stairs, how is he able to walk on air in the real world? At this point in time, John isn't even in Springwood anymore so the whole altering-reality-through-dreams thing shouldn't work here. Also, how did John get from being in the air to being back on the ground when the security guard catches up to him? And why didn't the guard see John in the air?
Question: Why not take over this planet's cloning process instead of shutting it down and recruiting others to be Stormtroopers, when the clones were 100% obedient and loyal to the Emperor?
Answer: I think recruiting people is one of the sneaky ways of controlling the galaxy. Many Stormtroopers might have spouses and children back home. They could be receiving a tiny salary. Maybe some younger adults are eager to get away from their home planets, as Luke and Anakin both were. Still, others could be criminals who agreed to serve as Stormtroopers instead of another sentence (in "Game of Thrones", some convicted criminals can choose to join the Night's Watch order). These would all be ways to convince more citizens to support the Empire, instead of just training clones.
I'd like to add besides these points that it's possible the cloning process is just too slow and cumbersome for the Emperor. They were useful as shock troops, to fight droid armies. But their numbers were not great enough to cover the entire galaxy as a security force. This especially once the Rebel Alliance shows up. I'd say recruiting people gives him a much-needed manpower boost in a shorter time.
Answer: There would be serious moral and ethical issues about cloning sentient beings just to become mindless, obedient servants/slaves/killers to achieve your cause, regardless of its good intent.
But the Empire clearly doesn't really have moral/ethical issues about most stuff, so that's not really an argument.
Ray West mentions "mindless, obedient" servants, which is a good point. I think an army of "mindless" clones would actually be less effective. Instead, the Emperor claims that the Jedi wanted to overthrow the Senate. If he can persuade a decent number of people to support him, and spread his way of thinking, he can slowly gain more influence around the galaxy.
Question: Why did the Emperor wait 20 years or so to dissolve the Senate?
Answer: Likely because it takes time. Fascist/autocratic takeovers usually happen with supporters gradually and strategically being inserted into key government roles at all levels. They then systematically begin dismantling democratic norms, enact new laws and regulations, eventually weakening the entire system for a complete takeover.
Question: If the aliens were there to attack and kill people and spent some time getting ready, how did they not know about how to set a fire or smoke out families that barricaded themselves?
Question: If Beetlejuice is "killed" by a sandworm, shouldn't he have gone to the Lost Souls Room? The room is supposedly "death for the dead."
Answer: The janitor tells Adam and Barbara that the Lost Souls room is for ghosts that have been exorcised. Beetlejuice wasn't exorcized, he was simply devoured.
Question: Whenever Beetlejuice is shown in the model cemetery that Adam made, does it mean that a "real" Beetlejuice is the real cemetery in the town?
Answer: No. It's not meant to be an exact replica of the town cemetery. Beetlejuice just inserted himself into it.
Question: I hope this question is not too speculative, but why would it be bad for living people to learn about the afterlife? Juno tells Adam and Barbara that they can't let people find out.
Answer: Probably because people would go to extreme lengths to try and contact the dead. There would be a media frenzy. It would create a massive opportunity for shyster mediums to victimize living people who want to communicate with lost loved ones. Science would be turned upside down investigating it. There would be all kinds of religious issues and conflicts. People would want to commit suicide to leave unhappy lives. The dead would be hounded relentlessly and never able to "rest in peace" again.
Question: What would have realistically happened to Mike at the very end, when his jacket got caught in the airplane door?
Answer: Chris Farley weighed over 300 pounds. His jacket would have torn long before the plane took off.
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Answer: A reputable bank requires borrowers to have an adequate income, a good credit rating, and some type of collateral (property, investments, other assets, etc,) above the amount of the loan in the event the customer defaults. It's been years since I've seen the movie, so I don't remember the timeline of events or what the loan was for, but if Patty and Drake had already bought the house, that could be used as collateral, though they might not want to risk it for such a low amount. If they hadn't bought the house, and had no other assets, it's highly unlikely they'd qualify for a loan.
raywest ★
And plenty of people might not "need" a loan because they've got the money saved, but they'd rather take out a loan and make predictable monthly payments they know are well within their means, rather than eat into their savings, leaving them with no safety net if some financial emergency hits.
This is still unrealistic and made up only for the film. No loan company would ever ask a client to put down a payment of that extravagant amount in order to get back the same amount of what they're asking for a loan for. Why on earth would a person take out a loan in the first place if they didn't actually need the money?