Questions about specific movies, TV shows and more

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Question: How can their house still be standing in 2004 when it was destroyed in 1994? Even if they rebuilt it it wouldn't look s old, it would only be a few years old.

Answer: In one of the flashbacks, it is shown that the wife designed the house and had been thinking about it for a long time. I think the easiest answer to this is: the house was simply rebuilt the same as it was.

oldbaldyone

Answer: My understanding was the timeline had been reset in such a way that the explosion had never happened.

raywest

Except that the explosion did happen. When Max carries Melissa out of the house to prevent her death again, their house is exploding in the background. This is because McComb had placed a bomb in the house to ensure that the explosion would kill Max which of course had ultimately failed.

The explosion happened, but it was before Max returned to his own time in the future. Once he went back through the time portal, everything somehow reset itself to before the bomb being detonated. The previous events in the past were erased in favor of an alternate timeline. The movie does not attempt to give a logical explanation, and it makes no sense, as most time-travel stories never do, but a "suspension of disbelief" is employed here. We're supposed to accept that it happened. Max is the only character who knows what the previous timeline was like, but he now has no idea of current events (like his wife and son being alive) in his alternate life during the intervening time from when he was in the past and returns to the "new" present.

raywest

Question: During training, Maverick says "The faster you navigate this canyon, the harder it will be to stay under the radar of these enemy SAMs." This doesn't make sense, shouldn't it be the other way around? (00:49:42)

Answer: I see your point, but he likely means that higher speeds mean they're more likely to gain height accidentally and be seen on radar. Basically flying faster makes precision harder.

Question: Why did Zeus and John steal a Yugo to chase the dump trucks? Zeus abandoned the taxi outside the Federal Reserve (in fact you actually see the Yugo about 100 yards back from the taxi when the bomb explodes) wouldn't it have made sense to use that again considering it'd be faster?

Answer: The cab was probably out of gas. Or it had a flat tire or broken suspension, not unlikely. Could be a lot of things really seeing how John drove it.

lionhead

Answer: If you look as they drive off in the Yugo, the cab had actually gone. It could've been moved as part of the cleanup operation or given that Zeus probably left it running in his hurry to get to the phone, stolen by someone.

Question: When Steve Zahn is in prison, wouldn't his 6-month sentence be extended after assaulting an officer, not once, but twice?

Answer: He was thrown in the solitary confinement for another 3 months, which makes it 9 months in prison.

Question: Regarding the Tokyo Rose broadcasts: is there one that ends with a brief snippet of "I'll Remember April?"

Question: Would Castle's life have really been saved by jumping into the bathtub before the grenade went off?

Answer: In Season 9, Episode 20 of "Mythbusters," Adam and Jamie tested whether a person could survive a "toilet bomb" (recreating a Lethal Weapon 2 scene) by jumping into a cast iron bathtub and being covered with a bomb blanket. They used 1 kg of C-4 explosives that created a blast with a peak lethal pressure of 180 psi outside the tub. The pressure inside the tub was recorded as a survivable 8 psi, though with probable hearing damage. From what I read, a grenade has a much lesser psi force than what the C-4 explosion produced. Depending on the circumstances, it seems plausible that a person could survive the force and shrapnel while inside the tub.

raywest

Answer: It's plausible but highly unlikely. Assuming it's an old metal bathtub (which seems to be the case), it's possible it might have deflected enough of the percussive shock and shrapnel to save him, but unlikely that it'd stop everything. It's one of those things where it probably wouldn't work 90% of the time... but there's that 1 out of 10 chance it could possibly work if he got really lucky and no big pieces of shrapnel came his way. (Plus, stranger things have happened in real life).

TedStixon

Question: Did Jim ever get an answer from homestead support?

Answer: No, at least not during the movie's run-time. Homestead stated that it would take fifty-five years for a response to reach Jim. If a return message ever was received, it was never mentioned in Aurora's epilogue. Most likely, both Jim and Aurora would be dead by the time it ever reached the ship.

raywest

Answer: He definitely says "Belgian", but the subtitles get it wrong and show him saying "American."

Wblank71

Answer: It sounds a bit like "American", but listen very closely and you will hear "Belgian".

Answer: She was born in 1984 so would have been 24 when the 1st episode was recorded/aired.

Ssiscool

Question: How did they pay for the booze and the snacks at the second hotel? Del doesn't have a lot of money and Neil spends most of his on the room.

manthabeat

Answer: It all came from the minibar in the room, which in those days (and, often, even today) didn't require payment in advance; it would be added to your bill when you check out. Since the hotel didn't have Neil's credit card or anything else to take payment, they could have just skipped out the next morning without paying for the snacks and drinks. (Another possibility, though remote, is that the snacks and drinks were complimentary...I have stayed in one or two hotels like that in the past, rare as they may have been).

Answer: Another possibility is that off-screen while travelling on the road (before the fire), drinks were bought at a store somewhere for the purpose of an overnight stay somewhere.

Question: After Otho and the Deetz family are attacked by the Beetlejuice snake why do they stay in the house instead of fleeing immediately?

Answer: They're still convinced that they can make money off the house and ghosts that inhabit it. The promise of wealth can make people do strange things, including ignoring signs of clear danger. So they're remaining in the house in hopes that it can eventually make them a lot of dough.

TedStixon

Question: Why is Gopher absent in this movie?

Answer: Gopher was not a character in the original A.A. Milne stories, and was a Disney creation for the earlier movie. The 2011 film was faithful to Milne's version.

raywest

Question: Except for Two-Face, Killer Croc, Scarecrow and Jervis Tetch, why were the rest of the villains redesigned?

Answer: Probably because different people were working on the game. Scarecrow and Croc also have different looks if you've played Asylum, City, and Origins, they look different here too.

Rob245

Question: How was Umbridge able to cast a patronus?

Answer: She casts it like any other witch or wizard by using her wand and saying "Expecto Patronum". It is considered advanced magic, but most magical people can learn how to do this. When Harry (disguised as Runcorn) entered her courtroom, she had already cast her cat patronus to keep the Dementors at a distance.

raywest

Casting a patronus requires a very happy memory, though. And considering that she seems to be very angry and never felt that she was given enough power, she must have never had a happy memory.

If I recall, At this point she's head of the Muggle-born Registration Committee. A powerful position in her mind and as Umbridge is all about power she would have been very happy indeed.

Ssiscool

"Must" is total conjecture. Perfectly possible for an angry resentful person to have one happy memory to call on.

Villains still have personalities. Depending on what specifically makes Umbridge happy, she could easily have a lot of happy memories.

Umbridge seemed quite happy while torturing Harry with the punishment pen, when she was ejecting Trelawney from Hogwarts, when she ousted Dumbledore as Headmaster, happy in her devotion to Voldemort, and so on. Happiness is an individual thing. Her sense of happiness was quite perverse.

raywest

Only those who are pure of heart are capable of producing a Patronus. Those who aren't would be devoured by maggots that shoot out of the caster's wand. Umbridge wasn't pure of heart because of all of the horrible things she did, so shouldn't she have been eaten by maggots?

Ladies Night - S5-E4

Question: Christine asks Roz if she ever hangs out at a tavern or café or a 'bwot' (I am absolutely misspelling that). Then Roz starts calling the strip club she frequents 'a bwot' as a running joke. I've heard the term on Frasier as well, but I can't google it because I have no idea how to spell it. What is it?

Brian Katcher

Answer: The word is "boîte." It's a French word and just means a small restaurant or cafe. "Boîte de nuit" would be a nightclub.

Bishop73

Question: Why didn't Edmund or Heather (Edmund's niece) recognize that the girl posing as Matty wasn't actually Matty? More specifically, with regard to the restaurant scene (where Ned runs into fake Matty and Edmund), wouldn't Edmund obviously realise that the girl he's with is NOT actually his wife? Also, during the scene where they meet with Edmund's lawyer and discuss the invalid will - wouldn't Heather (Edmund's niece) have recognized that the person masquerading as Maddy wasn't actually Maddy?

Answer: Neither Edmund or young Heather had ever met the real Maddy. The fake Maddy, who is Mary Ann Simpson (played by Kathleen Turner), had stolen the real Maddy's identity before meeting Edmund. She was specifically looking for a rich man to victimize (and murder) and also for an incompetent lawyer (Ned Racine) to drag into her plot. The real Maddy discovered Mary Ann's scheme and showed up to blackmail her imposter, for which Mary Ann later murdered her. Mary Ann and Maddy attended high school together and had a similar appearance, which is why Mary Ann stole her identity.

raywest

Question: When Prince Henry almost marries the Spanish woman, why are the Baroness and her daughters there? At the ball, he told Danielle "You are just like them", referring to his dislike of them.

Answer: It would be expected that people of a certain social rank are invited to important ceremonies and events, regardless of one young prince's personal feelings about anyone in particular. It's about the monarchy maintaining strong social and political ties to aristocratic families and retaining their loyalty and influence for their own power. Not inviting them or others over petty squabbles would be insulting and potentially weaken alliances.

raywest

Season 7 generally

Question: This might be a stupid question, but why don't Negan's followers just kill him? Why do they choose to live fearfully under his reign? As a large group, they could easily turn on him and be free.

Answer: Being part of a group, with a leader, has advantages. It offers more security, instead of wandering through abandoned towns/cities and wilderness, hoping to find food and supplies, and needing to fight Walkers and various gangs. Negan has some idea of fairness. If his followers obey him, they have a place to live, and can share in the food and resources.

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd - S7-E1

Question: The doctor (James) put on a Dictaphone to make the suggestion that Roger Ackroyd was alive at 21:30 hrs. But how could he know that someone (Paton) would pass the door of Ackroyd's study at precisely that moment?

Question: Why were the geraniums bouncing in the last part of the movie in the pullback from their kiss on the roof? Nothing else was moving, but the red geraniums in the clay pot against the far wall were bouncing up and down, up and down.

Jon408

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