Questions about specific movies, TV shows and more

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Question: How was Pamela Isley aka Poison Ivy able to fight Batgirl with martial arts-like skills towards the end of the movie? Pamela was a doctor and I highly doubt given her obsession with her research she had the time to take martial arts lessons in her spare time, if she had any during her stay in South America. Even after she transformed into Poison Ivy, her transformation could not have given her martial arts skills since her powers are based on plant abilities.

joshtrivia

Answer: There's no way of knowing whether or not she "had the time" to study martial arts. Regardless of her studies, she could have made time to pursue this as an extra-curricular activity. Universities can have classes, clubs, competitions, and student groups for martial arts on campus that anyone can participate in. She may also have been studying it since childhood. She was also a botanist, so even with a rigorous academic schedule, she would likely have more free time than a medical student.

raywest

Answer: That and they had to have the women fight in here. I mean they couldn't have the guys hit her now could they? So it was necessary for her to fight competently at least.

Rob245

Exactly, and that's a point I make again and again that things happen in movies because it's required to make the plot to work, not because it reflects real life.

raywest

Question: When towing the car across the desert, why did Marty keep checking the speedometer? Did he really expect a horse to gallop at 88MPH?

Answer: At that point in the film, Doc and Marty were looking for any possible means to move the DeLorean regardless of how fast it could actually go; while using horses may have been an unlikely option, Doc and Marty were just grasping at straws at that point and were willing to try anything.

zendaddy621

But then Doc says that even the fastest horse in the world could only run at 35 mph so why even try it.

Answer: They were using the horses to get the DeLorean from the cave to the town. Why not test the speedo at the same time?

Question: What was the reason behind Quint blowing up the engine? Hooper told him "Don't put that much pressure on it" and he revs it up some more. The shark isn't getting any closer at slower speeds so was there really any need to try and outrun him?

Answer: Quint had become so obsessed with killing the shark that he was completely irrational. He was stubborn, combative, single-minded, and determined that no-one knew more than him about catching sharks and was not going to listen to anything that Hooper or Brody said or did, to the point of sabotaging his own boat.

raywest

Question: Why did they release the baby Rex back to the parents? Wouldn't it have made more sense to keep the baby in the trailer with them? The parents won't attack the trailer in case it hurt their kid! They had a phone inside, they could have phoned Eddie who could have come and tranquilized them, then whilst they are asleep they could have left the baby behind and hightailed it out of there.

Answer: There was no reason. It's just to serve the movie's plot. Being as T-rexes are animals, it's a stretch to assume that they would not attack the trailer because their offspring was in it. The movie took extreme liberties about the animals' intelligence and was anthropomorphic, giving them unrealistic human parental feelings and actions.

raywest

Answer: Releasing the baby is the quickest way to hopefully get the parents away. But in doing so they gave the parents no reason not to attack them.

Ssiscool

Question: Towards the end of the movie when Kyle Reese dies, what will happen to him, considering he's from the future and there is no way he could be identified?

oobs

Answer: He would likely be considered as a "John Doe," with some identifying number, then buried in a modern-day equivalent of a "Potter's Field," where unknown persons are buried. Sarah Conner could have supplied Kyle's name, though this could not be verified and he'd still be considered as an unknown.

raywest

Answer: Also, in the sequel when the T-1000 looks up John Connor's info on the police car's computer, John's father is listed as "unknown', so any info Sarah had given the police was apparently disregarded.

zendaddy621

Answer: He'd be treated like any other John Doe corpse.

Question: I read somewhere that Mike Myers and Neil Mullarkey contributed a lot of stuff to the script for this movie (which ended up in the final movie), but were denied onscreen writing credit. Why?

Answer: The Writers Guild of America (WGA) determines who is credited and how, so they would have arbitrated this. In 1992, the LA Times reported that several writers had been involved in the script including Myers and Mullarkey, but also Howard Zieff, Barbara Benedek, Sally Robinson, Conan O'Brien and Carrie Fisher. In 1993, the LA Times reported that the WGA had awarded Robbie Fox sole story and screenwriting credit on the film.

Sierra1

Marathon - S6-E10

Question: Why do Cisco and everyone else think the multiverse is destroyed? At the end of Crisis we explicitly saw a "tour" of various recreated earths, like Earth-12 with the Green Lantern Corps, Titans, Doom Patrol, Swamp thing all getting their own, Brandon Routh's Superman being back on Earth-96 in his old suit, etc. Is it just that people assume all the earths were combined because the new Earth Prime is a bit of a mish-mash?

Jon Sandys

Chosen answer: Earth Prime is a combination of Earth-1, Earth-38, and Black Lighting's Earth. However, the Earths in the new multiverse are separated by something other than vibrational frequencies, so Cisco can't vibe them, nor can they travel to other Earths as before. So the Paragons think it's still destroyed and don't know (at this point) that Queen/Spectre recreated some of the other Earth's (and new ones).

Bishop73

Answer: Exactly, the new series, Stargirl, shows a universe where the JSA existed, but to soon to tell if it's situated on Earth Prime.

Show generally

Question: How do the "door transporters" outside Starfleet work? People just seem to walk straight into them and vanish, a) faster than normal transporters, and b) without any indication they're controlling where they're going. There's no sign saying where each door connects to, are people just hoping for the best?

Jon Sandys

Chosen answer: My guess is that they go to 1 place and they can't chose where to go. Like a highway without exits, you just end up where the highway stops.

lionhead

Answer: I assume they get sent directly from those 'Doors' to a Central Transporter hub, from there they can request to be beamed to their desired destination.

Question: When the gang explore the ruins of the city, you can hear a low pitch humming noise. What was making that noise?

Answer: It's just an added sound effect that foreshadows an ominous event (the giant reptile) that is about to happen. It's not meant to be anything naturally occurring.

raywest

Question: When Tuck is inside Jack he can't go through the heart - is this because Jack would have a heart attack or because Tuck would die?

Answer: Probably, but most likely it's because Jack's pod is fragile and wouldn't survive the shock wave heartbeats. The pod is experimental and built for scientific observation, not battle.

Answer: I would say both probably.

Question: Why is there a pink dress on the chair in the hotel scene when Ana comes out of the bathroom?

Answer: It's not a dress. It's either a throw blanket or a robe. As this is a higher-end hotel, it's typical for robes, slippers, etc. to be provided for guests to use.

raywest

Question: When Amy goes back in time to live with H.G. Wells, why did she choose to change her name to Susan B. Anthony?

Answer: She was joking, but it seems to imply that she intends to influence his political views regarding socialism, global war, women's rights, etc. which the real H.G. Wells wrote about.

raywest

Also, H.G. Wells' second wife was named Amy Robbins, the same name as the Amy in the film, which would further indicate she did not change her name to Susan B. Anthony.

raywest

Question: When they enter Midnight's bar, the bouncer shows them a card. What is that about? What is the objective there?

Answer: They only allow people in the club that have psychic abilities. The entrant has to correctly identify the character on the card to be allowed in.

Phaneron

Question: Wouldn't Watson have noticed that Blackthorn's neck wasn't broken after he was 'hanged'?

Brian Katcher

Answer: There are two types of hanging - the long drop which is intended to break the neck causing a quick death, and a short drop which doesn't break the neck and causes slower death by asphyxiation. There is no reason to check for a broken neck, just whether the person is dead.

Answer: He didn't check the neck, he only checked the pulse.

lionhead

Answer: I believe Rockne Tarkington (from season 7) was the only black person with a speaking line in the entire show, which is what I'd say qualifies someone to be an actor in the show. That being said, there were at least a handful of black and white episodes (season 1-5) where black extras were used and seen on screen. For example, "Barney Gets His Man" (season 1) and "Opie and the Carnival" (season 5). But none of them had any lines and weren't credited for their appearance.

Bishop73

Question: How did Carmen know that their dad put a tracking device in their mouths?

Answer: She probably heard her parents talking about it.

Question: Is it really possible to turn on dirt simply by turning right to go left?

Answer: The idea of drifting is that you are swinging the back end around and losing traction on the rear wheels while counter-steering with the front wheels to maintain control. Once you enter into the left drift, you turn your wheels right to point them forward.

LorgSkyegon

I know what the idea of drifting is. What I'm asking is whether or not it's possible to drift on dirt.

Yes, you can drift on dirt. The less friction a surface has, the easier it is to start to drift because you have less traction.

Bishop73

I imagine it would take practice to drift on dirt.

It takes practice to drift on any surface.

Bishop73

Answer: It's a rally move know as the "Scandanavian Flick" where you throw the car back end first into the corner and then counter the slide with opposite lock and flick the car around. I'm advanced driving instructor and it's one of the thing we teach pretty much straight away on a skidpan.

stiiggy

Answer: Shanks had creative differences with the show's producers and felt his character was underused. He also didn't like the general direction the show had taken.

raywest

Question: What was the factory supervisor screaming at his employee?

Answer: According to IMDb, the supervisor is basically chewing him out for being lazy and sleeping on the job, and then fires him.

TedStixon

Question: What character is MJ wearing on her shirt at the very end of the film, visible just before she and Spidey swing away from 41st Street and Grand Central Station in NYC?

Erik M.

Thank you so much for that prompt and great response - it's appreciated!

Erik M.

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