Answered questions about specific movies, TV shows and more

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Question: How could Louis be the son of a king and Phillipe be the son of D'Artagnan if they're identical twins?

Answer: Both Louis and Philippe are actually D'Artagnan's children. This is why D'Artagnan continues to defend Louis for much of the early part of the film, despite the King's callousness, because he feels that he must defend his son, even against his oldest friends. It's only when he discovers Philippe and realises that he has another son, a humble and decent man, that he's finally able to feel pride as a father and can stand against Louis and his excesses.

Tailkinker

Question: At the beginning of the film, who were the two men in uniform and why did one pull a gun on the other?

Answer: They were erroneously alerted that an actual nuclear attack was underway, and they had been trained to respond by firing a nuclear warhead. However, one was unconvinced that the US was actually under attack, and he wanted further confirmation from his superiors. The other insisted that they follow protocol and fire the missiles. One man alone cannot launch the missiles, it takes two, and the one with the gun is attempting to force his partner to follow through on launching the weapon.

raywest

Answer: Actually it would take four men; two men in two separate LCCs (Launch Control Centers) to corroborate. In fact, there are five LCCs in a Squadron and the others can even "inhibit" an erroneous launch order coming from a single LCC.

Question: What was the significance of the letters Elizabeth took from Beckett that he signed and what happened to them?

Answer: They are letters of marque which state Elizabeth and Will are released from the charges originally placed against them at the beginning of the film. Norrington steals the letters from Jack's jacket pocket and signs his name, thus clearing his charges. This is mentioned in the final scene between Norrington and Beckett. This is why Norrington can serve the East India Trading Company in the third movie.

Brad

Question: In terms of her personality and attitude, what was Calhoun like before her first fiancee was eaten by a cy-bug? (01:41:00)

Answer: Calhoun's demeanor is depicted as having been significantly affected by the death of her fiance. The brief montage of their courtship and wedding - as well as her flashes of recognition during her later scenes with Felix - indicates she was likely once a very different person. That said, as her backstory was given to her, rather than her being actually going through that experience, she's only ever really had the personality shown in the film.

MovieFan612

Question: About an hour in, when he is opening the Fed Ex packages, we see him open a divorce decree and set it aside. I assumed this was in relation to the package picked up towards the beginning in Russia at the cheating husband's place, and we see at the end the artist girl is apparently now divorced. Yet he supposedly never opened her package. Wouldn't it have been the signed the divorce papers?

Answer: The divorce decree in the package that Chuck opens is not from the woman in Texas who was married to the cheating husband in Russia. I watched the YouTube clip, and the name on the divorce papers is someone named Michael Street, who lives in Jakarta, Indonesia, and is unrelated to the story. The couple from Texas are named Dick and Bettina Petersen.

raywest

Answer: The director joked on the DVD commentary about there being a solar-powered satellite phone in the last package. The joke being that if Hanks had just opened that last package, he would have been immediately rescued by calling for help. However, the comment was only in jest, and was never meant to be taken seriously. It was never shown what was in that last package.

raywest

Question: Sasha is blind, so why does she have a watch? It seems pointless.

Answer: There are watches expressly made for the blind. They have hinged crystals that open to allow the individual to feel the watch hands with their fingers.

Jean G

Question: Is there any particular reason why loopers must kill themselves to close their loop? Would it not make sense to send the future loopers back to some random looper in the past? Old Seth got away because he was singing a tune he knew his younger self would recognize, had he been sent to another looper instead, that wouldn't have worked. They can still collect a gold payday, just by closing other loopers' loops instead of their own, right?

Carl Missouri

Chosen answer: They are sent to themselves for symbolic reasons also. As you can see, once their loop is closed, they cease to be Loopers. It's the show their work is over, kinda like a forced quit to the job. Not only this, but Loopers killing other Loopers' future selves, even when unknown at the time of the shooting, can cause feuds between Loopers. Like one getting mad at another for the death of his future self.

Quantom X

Question: How come Vanellope isn't eliminated from the race once King Candy took her medal out? Once she crossed the finish line after Ralph broke her free she was re-entered but how is that when she technically now has no "pay-to-play"?

Answer: When she substituted the Hero Metal for a coin, it tricked the game into registering her during an in game experience. King Candy was inside the game's code when he removed the metal, which was not an in game experience. Essentially, he change the game's ROM, not the RAM, thus it would not have affected her registration until it was reset anyways.

Quantom X

Question: Why doesn't Stan Lee make a cameo in this movie, the second Punisher film, or in both Ghost Rider movies?

Answer: Simple - Stan Lee never created these characters. They were created by the people who worked on the comics. The only Marvel films that he appears in are ones he had a hand in creating.

Rydersriot87

Question: What is the symbolism behind the upside-down cathedral?

Answer: It's open to interpretation, but one theory might be that Chris' faith and his assumptions about the Afterlife have been completely "upended." And as Annie has lost her faith altogether, he must now struggle to bring her back into the fold and set things right so that they can be together.

Jean G

Question: If Gene is the only Nicelander who is not afraid of Ralph then why does he scream with fear as he sees Ralph at the door during the party? Shouldn't he have given Ralph a stern look and told him to leave? (01:41:00)

Answer: It wasn't that he was screaming out of fear of Ralph exactly, but more surprise to see Ralph of all people, as well as sudden fear of Ralph wrecking the party.

Quantom X

Question: Maybe this was explained in the film and I missed it, but it has been bugging me for a while. What happened to all the rest of the clones of Jack and Victoria after the Tet was destroyed? Presumably their daily instructions in the form of Sally would cease. Wouldn't they get suspicious? Some reasonable explanation would be nice.

Answer: They would obviously notice that the Tet was gone and would no doubt have questions, but, without outside intervention, would be unlikely to be able to do anything about it, as they would have no reason not to believe that the "radiation zones" confining them to their particular area weren't real. Some would likely die fighting Scavenger groups in their areas (without the drones, they'd be increasingly vulnerable), others might be successfully contacted by those groups and thus could join with them, some may have ultimately starved without resupply from the Tet. The film only covers what happens to Jacks 49 and 52; the others likely met with a variety of different fates.

Tailkinker

Question: What doesn't Vanellope like about being princess? Why would she rather be president instead? (01:41:00)

Answer: She's been on her own since King Candy took over. She probably doesn't like the idea of a monarchy anymore.

Captain Defenestrator

Question: When Jarvis comes back on, he says to Tony "I do quite well for a _____, but at the end of a sentence I say the wrong cranberry." What was he saying?

Chosen answer: He says "I seem to do quite well for a stretch, but at the end of a sentence I say the wrong cranberry".

Answer: He probably didn't know. He just searched the dungeon until he found them. We're just not shown how long he searched.

MasterOfAll

Question: Can someone please identify the names of these villains: the purple rhino and the female creature with the dark hair and red dress? (01:41:00)

Answer: The purple Rhino is the final form of Neff from Altered Beast. The woman is believed to be Mishaela from Shining Force.

MasterOfAll

Question: At the beginning, it is shown that some of the video games in the arcade, such as Tapper's, have been moved to different locations throughout the years. Is it possible that any of the characters whose video games have been moved could still return to their games after evacuating once their games plugged in again, even in spite of which extension cords their games get replugged in? (01:41:00)

Answer: Theoretically, yes. as it is shown that the surge protectors serve as a sort of train station. So they could possibly make the transition from one to the other.

MasterOfAll

Question: When Superman went back in time to save Lois, doesn't that mean that the people that he had originally saved are now doomed to die?

Teru_Kage

Chosen answer: No. Because the version of him *before* he time-traveled is still out doing those things. The REAL question is, what happens to that Superman, seeing as Lois no longer dies and he has no reason to travel back in time.

JC Fernandez

Answer: There are generally two methods of time travel. Skip vs Slide. When you slide through time, you are in essence rewinding or fast forwarding a tape. Time will accelerate to the desired moment. This method, the traveler will witness the rewind and will only allow one of them to exist. When skipping, you are plucking yourself from the time stream and placing yourself in the desired moment. This method, travel is instantaneous and can allow for multiples of the traveler to exist at once. Superman rewound time. He used the slide method and went directly to Lois after doing so. This means those he previously saved...died after his reversal.

Or he could have used the skip method. Like you said, it enables a traveler to pluck themself from the time stream and placing them at the desired moment allowing for two Supermen to be able to prevent both missiles from reaching their destinations.

He couldn't have used the skip method if he rewound time.

Bishop73

Question: Spock, in the Jellyfish, warps and leads the Narada away from Earth. Then both the Jellyfish and Narada jump out of warp. Where are both ships located in the universe? There is a debate with a friend where I believe that they warp somewhere outside of Earth's Solar System, not near any other planets, but there is not enough data to determine the exact location. The person that I am debating with believes that they are somewhere near Saturn because the Enterprise appears. I dispute this with my friend because all the Red Matter got destroyed, creating a huge black hole. Wouldn't a black hole near Saturn also endanger the planet and anything near it? (01:45:55 - 01:47:40)

Answer: There's certainly no evidence that they're still within the solar system; the Enterprise arrives dropping out of warp, which would seem to be good evidence that they're not anywhere near Saturn any more. While no specifics are given, Spock jumps into warp to get the red matter on board well away from anything it could endanger; as a handy side-effect, this also serves to draw the Narada away to a location where it can be taken out safely. Given that, Spock would most certainly have ensured that he came out of warp well away from any major celestial bodies; the most logical place would be to emerge somewhere outside the solar system.

Tailkinker

Question: There is a scene where Parker is telling Grace that the piece of ore he is holding, called "unobtainium", is why they are on Pandora. This same ore was used in the 2003 movie, "The Core", to build the manned drilling machine to bore through Earth, to the core. Was the use of the same ore name in Avatar, done with permission from the earlier movie? Or was it a mistake?

Big John

Chosen answer: The Core didn't originate the name - it's been used since the 50's and even has its own Wikipedia article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unobtainium. There it's described as "any fictional, extremely rare, costly, or impossible material, or (less commonly) device needed to fulfill a given design for a given application."

Jon Sandys

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