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 are they transporting entire missiles instead of just detaching the warheads (which are air portable)?

Answer: Because detaching them and reattaching them would have taken time, which they didn't have.

But, after the crash, they remove the warheads and transport them by helicopter and leave the boosters behind, as they only need the warheads.

Question: Does the death of Bruce's parents and the arrival of Superman happen after the death of Barry's mom? If not, then how could Barry saving his mom change what happened in the past?

Answer: These events did happen before Barry Allen's mom died. Flash even asks Professor Zoom how events that happened before his mother's death could have changed when he saved her. Zoom says "Break the sound barrier and there's a sonic boom. You broke the time barrier, Flash. Time boom. Ripples of distortion radiated out through that point of impact...shifting everything just a tiny bit. But enough. Enough for events to happen slightly differently." So these ripples did affect the past (events that happened before Barry's mother's death).

Bishop73

Question: After Sidney and Billy have sex, is her questioning him implying that she still thinks he's done it? Because I thought he's already convinced her that he is not the killer. Why would she have sex with someone she believes to be the killer?

Answer: She simply thought of a detail/new question - who did Billy call while in jail? - after they already had sex.

Answer: Love makes people do stupid things maybe?

Rob245

Question: While recognizing that this film is entirely fictitious, how likely is it that an IT firm in 1999 would have allowed a former employee access to the premises after being laid off, never mind continue to send him a paycheck as with Milton Waddams? I myself was fired the following year and got the walk of shame treatment ("you have 5 minutes to clear your desk - the taxi's waiting outside") which at the time already seemed pretty standard.

Answer: They never told Milton he was fired, they just cruelly cut off his paycheck, figuring he'd eventually get fed up and leave (he'd actually been laid off years ago, but a payroll glitch kept him getting a paycheck). The management is hoping if they're cruel enough, he'll stop showing up.

Brian Katcher

This is actually the reverse of what happened. The glitch caused him to continue to receive a paycheck, even though he'd been laid off. The "Bobs" corrected the glitch, so he would no longer receive a paycheck. In an effort to avoid confrontation, they chose not to say anything to him, hoping he'd realise it and leave on his own.

Answer: Simply because he is basically invisible to them. Anyone can walk into that place, no guard outside, no key-card required. Nobody cared. At least you got a taxi.

lionhead

Exactly. These things can happen. It depends on the place and how they operate. As recently as January 2024, I read about one young woman who went into a Kroger grocery store and worked for six hours, as an experiment. She has also done this at Target and Walmart. She wears clothes that look like a real employee's.

Show generally

Question: What is the point of any supporting character, such as Sissy or Jim, learning anything about Lyoko or Xana if the 'return to the past' function erases their memories about it later?

Question: How does Ma spend seven years with 'old Nick' and never catch his real name? She must call him something to his face.

Answer: Old Nick keeps Joy completely isolated from the outside world. He never has any reason to mention his real name to her and she certainly is in no position to force him to do so. What she calls him to his face, if anything, is never addressed.

BaconIsMyBFF

Answer: He had it on under his clothes. When the regular clothes burned off his fireproof uniform was all that remained.

BaconIsMyBFF

Thirty Days - S5-E9

Question: Was Tom successful in his mission or did the torpedo that was launched by Tuvok from Voyager stop him from succeeding?

Answer: The torpedo stopped him from succeeding.

Bowling255

Answer: They checked whether her hymen had been broken.

BaconIsMyBFF

Such Sweet Sorrow: Part 2 - S2-E14

Question: Jumping to the future to preserve the sphere data was meant to be so that Control couldn't get hold of it. But Control is neutralised before the jump, drones all dead in the water, it's utterly destroyed. So what's the threat? Why jump at all?

Jon Sandys

Answer: Perhaps they didn't want to take the risk that Control - a tactical and strategic analysis program - would choose to place its entire core programming into a single fragile human body (Leland), despite previously demonstrating the ability to decentralise, duplicate and transfer itself to numerous computer, cybernetic and organic systems. If any trace of the Control program still existed, it could make another attempt to seize the sphere data.

Sierra1

Question: How does the time loop affect everyone else? Like does it create a new timeline each time, or does the whole world reset every morning?

MikeH

Answer: It only affects Phil, nobody else is affected as the world is indeed reset every time.

lionhead

Answer: She realised she was becoming someone she didn't want to be. She used Emily to get ahead, and was sacrificing her friendships and personal relationships for her career and fashion. She didn't want to be like Miranda and realised she needed to pursue her true profession as a journalist.

raywest

Question: After Shrek and Donkey meet Puss, Puss is on Shrek's shoulder whispering to him about Donkey. What are they saying to each other?

Answer: Shrek is telling stories about Donkey, and they're both making jokes about him, infuriating Donkey.

Brian Katcher

Janitor Dad - S4-E6

Question: When Chet and Verna are arguing about Chet getting a job, visible in the background is a painting of what I believe is an oak tree on a yellow background. Does anybody know the name and/or artist of this painting? My Grandparents used have a painting similar to it (if not the same one) and it also looks very similar to (and possibly the inspiration for) the cover art for the debut album of the band Days of the New.

Phaneron

Answer: I learned the answer to this one today. It is "Tree of Life" by Garé Barks.

Phaneron

Question: Why did Scabbers try to escape from Ron after Buckbeak's execution?

Answer: He probably sensed Sirius being close (smell, hearing) and decided to make a run for it.

lionhead

Answer: Scabbers (Pettigrew) had already been hiding from Sirius because he knew he intended to kill him in revenge. Hagrid had found Scabbers and gave him back to Ron. Pettigrew wanted to get away from Ron so he could go back into hiding.

raywest

Answer: He was implying she had flirted with him at some point.

TedStixon

Not just an implication. We see this explicitly in The Winter Soldier.

What was it?

Natasha is constantly flirting with Steve throughout the movie.

Answer: According to IMDb, a scene was scripted, but never filmed, explaining that she was away at college. The actual reason for her absence was because Dominique Dunne, the actress who played Dana in the first film, was murdered by her boyfriend shortly after the theatrical release of the first film.

zendaddy621

Ironically, the young actress who played the youngest daughter, Carol Anne, died just a few years later (from natural causes).

raywest

Question: Where did Big Boy go off to? When the "food court" drops out of the sky, the Chupacobre gather, the Velociraptors join in the feast, then a male and female Rex appear. The latter dinos then catch wind of Marshall's urine drenched body and begin to chase the trio. When the party splits up, Big Boy chases Marshall and rips off his back pack. At one point both dinos are on a course to corner him on a hill. He then runs to the clothing display and back out, narrowly escaping death via the female Rex, but only after Holly has a near heart attack fearing Marshall has been killed. He runs away into the stretch limo and at that time we see the two dinos trampling the vehicle while Marshall miraculously escapes over 200 yards away in 3 seconds or less. Marshall runs down hill toward Will and Holly and instructs them to set the catapult as Will yells, "Take her that way." We never see the male Rex again until much later in the movie. When we do see him know it's the same Rex because he has the laser pointer in his teeth from Marshall's back pack. Where did Big Boy disappear to when he was supposedly on the hunt for Marshall by scent, and suddenly vanished? Was it a tachyon blast that took him to another dimension?

Answer: The Sleestack had captured him.

Question: What did Walter mean by, "You're killing your father, Larry!"?

Answer: Generally, he means that the boy, Larry Sellers, is disgracing his family (Walter has huge respect for the boy's dad, but considers the kid a dunce). Specifically, Walter is blaming Larry for his father struggling to breathe; that's Larry's dad in an iron lung in the background. Walter and The Dude become louder, more insistent and more vulgar, but the kid still blankly refuses to answer, and all you can hear is the iron lung pumping in the background. Frustrated because the kid isn't intimidated, Walter lashes out: "You're killing your father, Larry!"

Charles Austin Miller

Question: Sir Hiss is secretly tasked with looking for Robin Hood, and hides in a balloon. Wouldn't he sufficate if the balloon was inflated?

Answer: Yes. He also wouldn't float. But it's a cartoon about a talking fox, so don't worry too much about realism.

Brian Katcher

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