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.

Chosen answer: The Master knows that deep down, he deserves death for the crimes that he's committed throughout his life, and since he regards The Doctor as his arch-foe, he expects it to be at his hands. The fact that The Doctor is still willing to forgive him for all of his crimes hurts him more deeply than death would.

Captain Defenestrator

Chosen answer: In the mockumentary "Whatever happened to Susan Foreman?" it is sugested that some Daleks may have survived the events of "The Daleks," rebuilt the race and gone back in time to take revenge on Ian and Barbra by invading 20th century Earth, but suffered a fuel shortage which left them stranded in the 22nd century. Presumably that would also leave them incapable of interstellar travel.

Josman

They wanted to remove the plants core - once removed, they can replace it with a power system that will enable them to pilot the planet anywhere in the universe. I don't know if anyone has mentioned why The Daleks would want to move the Earth anywhere else in the cosmos.

Dan23

Chosen answer: A Drill Instructor is always mad at the recruits in order to forge discipline. Private Pyle was the biggest screwup in the unit, thus creating more work for him.

Captain Defenestrator

Answer: It also promotes unity and brotherhood against a common enemy, the drill instructor.

Chosen answer: Seraph previously worked for the Merovingian, but left him to protect the Oracle, thus the Merovingian considers that Seraph has betrayed him.

Sierra1

Question: What is the film called that B-Rabbit's mum is watching on the telly when her son comes in?

danni181085

Chosen answer: Imitation of Life.

Question: Why exactly does Obi-wan go have a drink at the bar in the club, while Anakin is looking for the person that tried to kill Padmé? It seems strange that he would do that in a serious situation.

Answer: He's giving the impression that he's letting his guard down, relaxing while Anakin does all the work. He's hoping, correctly, as it turns out, that their quarry will take advantage of his apparent lack of caution to try to take him out, giving herself away.

Tailkinker

Question: It is stated that Optimus is a descendant of the last remaining Primes which sacrificed themselves to stop The Fallen from destroying the sun. If the Primes were all dead, how could he be 'descended' from them and how can he himself be a Prime?

wizard_of_gore

Chosen answer: We don't actually know how "descended" works in Transformer terms, but presumably the original Primes created descendants in some manner before their sacrifice. The original Primes all gave their lives to stop the Fallen, but that doesn't mean that there couldn't have been descendant Primes created prior to that point.

Tailkinker

Question: During the first film, there is a huge battle in the middle of downtown L.A. (Mission City), witnessed by thousands of people and causing millions of dollars in damage. In this movie, this is just an Internet rumor? How did they cover this up? Did the government pay off thousands of people and repair all the damage that quickly? And, most importantly, in the first movie didn't Jon Voight go on TV and tell the whole world they were dealing with a superior technological civilization?

wizard_of_gore

Chosen answer: Per IMDB Trivia: The novelization states that the government created a fake corporation called "Massive Dynamics" as a cover for the events of Transformers (2007). The cover story stated that Massive Dynamics had developed robotic search-and-rescue robots which malfunctioned during tests and caused the damage seen in that movie's finale.

shortdanzr

Chosen answer: It was never stated directly in the series, although Lister does mention at one point that it was Kryten's fault. The first book based on the series states that the ship crashed after Kryten carefully washed the navigation console using soapy water, but it's unclear whether this is intended as a canonical explanation.

Tailkinker

Chosen answer: Their bodies have simply decayed to dust over the intervening three million years.

Tailkinker

Chosen answer: They reconstructed Red Dwarf as it was supposed to be, hence going back to the original plans, rather than the cut-down versions that were actually used to build it. A ship without a crew isn't much use, so they brought the crew back as well, possibly using the physical and personality information stored by the ship's holographic recreation unit as a template. How they might have restored the prisoners is another matter, probably best explained by the venerable science-fiction standby of "don't ask, they just did".

Tailkinker

Chosen answer: In-universe, after leaving Red Dwarf after his first appearance, Kryten managed to crash Lister's space-bike into an asteroid. Lister found his remains and decided to rebuild him, however, due to the high level of damage and Lister's questionable repair skills, he was unable to recreate Kryten exactly, leading to changes in appearance, personality and accent. In reality, the original actor wasn't available, coupled with presumably practical concerns about one-off makeup as opposed to makeup for a regular cast member, so some visual changes were made.

Tailkinker

Question: Who made the handprints on the inside of that old house at the end?

Socks1000

Chosen answer: Presumably it was the children being held there.

JC Fernandez

Show generally

Question: When exactly was Harold born? Throughout the whole show, both Harold and Albert give conflicting answers about Harold's age. For example, Albert states that Harold was born in 1932, yet in earlier seasons, it's said that Harold fought in World War 2. Could someone please explain?

Socks1000

Chosen answer: There is no definitive answer. In the original run of the series in the early sixties, Harold was given a birth year of 1925, matching that of Harry H Corbett, who played him, making him old enough to have fought in the war. When the show was brought back in the early seventies, his birth year was, for no immediately obvious reason, revised to 1932.

Tailkinker

Question: Was there anything illegal about Windows' relationship and attempted rendezvous with Rogue Leader? Would he have gotten into any serious trouble had her parents decided to take any legal action?

JAGwire

Chosen answer: It would depend on what they'd discussed online and his intent. If they'd planned to meet for sex, then yes, that would be illegal and charges could be pressed. Since we didn't learn the details of their conversations, we can't be certain.

Captain Defenestrator

Chosen answer: The details are never made particularly clear, except that the ship was, at some unspecified point, stolen by Kryten's rogue nanobots while the crew were away from the ship on Starbug. A short online comic produced by the BBC suggests that this happened directly after the events of the fifth series' final episode "Back To Reality", that the crew returned from their encounter with the despair squid to find Red Dwarf missing, although events in the recent revival, "Back to Earth" appear to contradict that.

Tailkinker

Chosen answer: It measures a number of involuntary physical responses, like heart-rate, breathing, eye movement and pupil dilation in response to questions designed to provoke an emotional response. By examining the intensity of these responses over a series of different questions, the subject's empathy and emotional response levels can be measured, allowing those running the test to determine the true nature of the test subject.

Tailkinker

Question: Why are obsolete programs given the choice of deletion or exile? Why aren't they just instantly deleted?

Socks1000

Chosen answer: All programs are destined for deletion, however a quick witted program would realise their time is up and try and make an escape (exile). The programs aren't given a choice, the programs make a choice.

Sanguis

Chosen answer: Report 30185 is a joke report referring to the time when SG-1 go back in time to 1969 in the episode '1969'. The joke is that Colonel O'Neil knocked up a hippie and made sure Mitchel was taken care of throughout his life, like how he got into the 302 program while his buddy, a better pilot, did not.

Answer: This answer is incorrect, because after Mitchell said, I'm being parked on a Samantha, in a very serious tone, said seriously we can't tell you about 30185.

To clarify this entry, what Mitchell asked is "Oh, I'm being punk'd, aren't I?" The joke in the scene was 30185 was too classified for Mitchell to know, but then they turn around and tell Vala. O'Neill isn't really Mitchell's father, they were joking around. But then Samantha does honestly say they can't tell them about 30185. From there we never learn what it is.

Bishop73

Question: What did Mrs.Loomis mean when she said she had a make over? Did she mean plastic surgery?

Socks1000

Answer: Sidney did eventually recognise Mrs Loomis. So it's also likely that she changed her hair. Style and or colour. She also could have put on weight or lost it accordingly. Plastic surgery is expensive so it's possible that she could not afford it. That being typed, a nose job is not entirely out of the question. Or any number of facial adjustments.

Alan Keddie

She is implied to have some kind of money, as Mickey says she paid for his college tuition.

Chosen answer: Yes, she had plastic surgery to disguise herself so she could get close to Sidney.

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