Question: When Luke asked Leia if she remembers her real mother she said she does but she died when she was very young. Her mother died during child birth. How can Leia remember what her mother looked like?
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Answer: She is referring to Padme. I believe she actually replies 'not really' when asked what her mother looked like. Also, Leia was a senator at some point, like Padme. It is likely she would have seen a painting or senator entry.
She most likely didn't know Padme the senator was her mother, because that would mean Anakin/Darth Vader would therefore have the same knowledge. She most definitely knew she was adopted. The "not really, just feelings" (paraphrased) line was "ret-conned" to fit when the newborn twins were shown in Episode III. Luke's eyes were shut, while Leia's eyes were open-she "saw" her mother. Perhaps the Force gave her a more mature feeling/insight into her mother from the brief time between pregnancy and when she was spirited away to Alderaan and her adoptive family.
Chosen answer: The mother Leia refers to would be Queen Breha Organa of Alderaan. At this point, Leia has no idea that she was adopted.
Negative. Luke specifically says "your real mother." Nowhere is it said Leia didn't know she was adopted. It's also highly unlikely she didn't know, since her adoptive father was a high-profile governmental figure and no way would the press keep a tight lip on the Bail and his wife suddenly having a baby without any signs of pregnancy.
Bail Organa says "We've always wanted a daughter." It wouldn't make sense to tell the daughter they've adopted in order to hide her from Vader "Oh yeah, you're adopted but don't tell anybody because the Emperor would send Vader to hunt you down." Better to just let her think you're her real parents.
Just because Leia knows she's adopted doesn't mean she has any idea who exactly her birth mother was, aside from her apparent memories. The Organas may well have concocted a whole cover story about her birth parents for another layer of protection over her identity. In fact, the way both Luke and Leia casually use/accept the "real mother" term suggests that not only does Leia know she's adopted, it's actually fairly common knowledge.
Answer: The short answer is that we don't know and it's left a mystery for the viewer. But on the flip side the lack of concrete information does leave room for numerous possibilities: One is that Leia might simply be mistaken: she had dreams of an idealized mother figure that she mistook for memories. Another is that the Organas could've lied to Leia about who her birth mother was for her own protection, and she is recalling this decoy mother (I quite like the theory that they told Leia her birth mother was one of Padme's loyal bodyguards chosen for their resemblance to her). And of course there's always the possibility there's something supernatural going on: Leia is strong with the Force and doesn't know it, and Padme's fate was so inexplicable you could theorize she didn't even really "die" so much as her spirit simply left her body.
Question: I don't know if there is an answer to this, but what did Dooku think was going to happen on the ship above Coruscant? It seems like he was supposed to kill Anakin and Obi-wan, but if he had managed to do that, there wouldn't have been a way for Palpatine to be "rescued" from him and Grievous. Was Dooku planning to let them escape eventually?
Answer: Dooku believed that the intent was that he would slay Kenobi, with the aim of provoking Anakin into enough of a rage that he would tap into the dark side of the Force - we see him goading his opponent during the duel with this in mind. Palpatine would then reveal himself as Sidious, stop the fight and turn Anakin to the Sith. Dooku would be "arrested" by Anakin and would then, after an appropriate time had passed, claim to have come to see the Republic's point of view, allowing him to later emerge from captivity to assist Sidious and Anakin in setting up the new Empire.
Question: Is there any relevance to the way the main characters' lives interacted before they crashed? E.g., Ana Lucia hitting Sawyer with a car door, Hurley owning the box company Locke worked for, Shannon reporting Sayid at the airport, Charlie saving Nadia from a mugger or Desmond getting a boat from Libby? (There are numerous others.) Is there a grand plan or is it just to add a bit of mystery which means nothing?
Chosen answer: SPOILER ALERT. In a word YES. As seen in the finale of season 5, Jacob is seen visiting the main characters well before and after the events of the island. The whole show continues to show the connections between the characters. This seems to hint that the plane crash on the island was "meant to happen".
Question: How exactly does Arthur Petrelli's ability of Power absorption work? How does he take powers and integrate them? Is there any chance of returning the stolen power/s to the original recipient? Also, after he absorbs an ability, what affect does it have on the person who's had their ability absorbed? Does the original recipient have any chance of regaining his/her original power?
Chosen answer: No explanation is ever given as to precisely how the process works. The subject is rendered powerless. If Arthur had the ability to return the ability if he wished to, it's certainly not shown in the show and it seems unlikely that he would have been interested in doing so. Later events suggest that the stolen power is not actually completely gone, as Peter Petrelli was able to use the power-serum to partially restore his own absorption ability, and Hiro's power is eventually partly revived by the infant Matt Parkman, suggesting that, in both cases, some vestiges of their original ability was still present.
Question: Throughout season 8, Christy and Billie have been described as the "Ultimate Power" by various sources. Why are they, these two relatively young and inexperienced witches, described as the ultimate power when the battle ready and experienced Charmed Ones have come up against centuries old demons and beings with far more powers, such as The Source of All Evil, Barbas, Zankou, Cole etcetera?
Chosen answer: Because they are unique from the previous demons (like the Source, Zankou, et al) because they are witches and human (and the sisters have not vanquished mortals before), and because Billie is a friend of the Halliwell sisters, and they trained her personally (making her the last person the sisters would think of as a threat). This makes it a difficult moral quandry for the Charmed Ones, since they care about Billie and aren't enthusiastic about killing humans (unlike demons, whom they will hunt and kill without the moral problem). Also, Billie's thought projection power (a rare and formidable power) combined with Christy's telepathy and fire-starting ability make their combined powers incredibly strong, enough to challenge the Charmed Ones.
Question: Instead of Magneto using the bridge to get his army to the island, why doesn't Jean/Phoenix simply fly them across with her advanced telekinesis?
Chosen answer: There are an infinite number of different ways Magneto and the army could have gotten onto the island. Yes, Jean using her telekinetic powers is one of them. However Magneto, throughout the 3 movies, is shown that he likes to make a statement to invoke fear in everyone. He wanted to start a fight just like in the other movies. Moving an entire bridge (unnecessarily) makes a huge statement.
Question: Was Michelle Rodriquez always going to be written out at this point of the show or was it done because of her real life drunk driving conviction?
Chosen answer: In an interview/podcast the writers stated that they approached Michelle Rodriquez with clear intentions of having a "one season" part. They just never disclosed how/when her character was going out of the show.
Question: Not a very important detail, but how old is Virginia? At first I thought she is 20, because Tony mentions that he raised her for 20 years (when they are arguing after he drops the mirror off the roof of the building). However, at the beginning of the movie, she makes a comment about how it is pathetic that she still lives with her dad. It doesn't seem like such a big deal for a 20-year-old to still live at home.
Answer: Virginia says in the beginning to her grandmother that her mother has been away for 14 years. She also says later that her mother left her when she was 7. That would make her 21. And I believe Tony was just rounding when he said he raised her for 20 years.
Rounding up to 20, from 14 (the years that Virginia's mother has been gone), is a bit of a stretch, though. It's not like rounding up from 18 or 19. He is probably referring to all the years that he has been Virginia's father, with and without her mother around.
Question: Toward the beginning of the movie, on Phil's first day at the bed and breakfast, he turns on the shower and it is very cold. He asks the lady in the hallway why there is no hot water. The lady answers "Oh no, there wouldn't be any today." Why not?
Answer: Old fashioned hotels have a single boiler for all the hotel rooms. Once the hot water reservoir is used up there won't be any more to use until the reservoir is refilled. This only happens once every few days.
Answer: Likely because there are a lot of people staying there and using up the hot water.
Question: In one of the flashbacks, after Kristy put the magnets on Michele's back, why did she eat Romy's hamburger? This just struck me as odd since the "popular girls" in movies are usually portrayed as dieting often, and they usually don't eat the junk food that the non-popular characters eat.
Answer: She ate it because she's a bitch and wanted to hurt Romy. She didn't take it to eat for food.
Answer: It was a way of her showing Romy that being popular (in high school) comes with "power" over the less popular students and ability to do what she wants without fear of retribution. Conversely, in order to try to be liked by a popular student, a less popular student will yield to the popular student and/or give (let her have) anything she wants, including her lunch. [It doesn't always work this way.].
Chosen answer: I believe he may think that Combo is just joking with him in a way that he was earlier in the film when he talks about him being black.
In my opinion, I think that it is because Milky has started to understand the reason's for Combo's anger - that he is jealous of Milky's perfect family set - up. Milky laughs because he finds it absurd that jealousy is the reason behind Combo's increasing anger towards him in this scene and may have been behind his aggressive behaviours all along.It is almost child-like and perhaps Milky is aware that he looks like the better person in the situation. He knows Combo knows this too.
Question: Why does Vader go and stand near the Emperor for a moment before deciding to kill him and save Luke? Earlier, the Emperor told Luke to kill Vader and take his place. It seems strange that Vader would remain loyal after his master just encouraged someone to kill him.
Answer: Vader's alone; for twenty years, he's had only the Emperor, a man who he hates for what he's become, but also the only person truly remaining in his life, having killed or otherwise burned his bridges with everybody else. He has nowhere else to go but to the side of the Emperor. He may well be angry at the Emperor for telling Luke to kill him, but it's exactly the same deal that he tried to make - it's the way of the Sith that the strong replace the weak. The Emperor needs an apprentice; with Luke dead, the Emperor may well punish Vader, but won't kill him, because he doesn't have a replacement. So he initially returns to his master's side, resigning himself to going on as he is, a bitter twisted half-machine in the thrall of a more powerful master. It's only when Luke reaches out to him through the pain that he decides that his son's life is worth more than his own and finally acts directly against the Emperor.
I thought the reason Vader stood near the Emperor was that he wanted to save his son while the Emperor tortured Luke with lightning, but his loyalty to the Emperor got in the way.
Question: I don't understand why Adam Monroe wanted to release The Shanti Virus? doesn't he realise the just how dangerous it would have been?
Chosen answer: Yes, of course he does. That's the point. He wants to do something to stop humanity going through the same cycle of death and destruction that gets played out every so often. By releasing the Shanti virus, he'll wipe out the vast majority of the human race, dropping the demand for Earth's diminishing resources to a manageable level and allowing the survivors to start over with a relatively clean slate.
Question: What exactly is the machine entity known as 'Deus Ex Machina'? Is it a physical representation of the machines? Or a separate being all together?
Question: SPOILER ALERTS! Does anyone know why they changed the final symbol to the keys instead of the one in the book? Also why they left out that the Pope was Ewan McGregor's father?
Chosen answer: In the book, the location of the antimatter bomb is only revealed after the Camerlengo pretends to have a "vision from God" on the steps of the Vatican. By changing the symbol to one that actually provides a clue to the location, it allows Langdon to work out where the bomb is, to actually play some part in proceedings rather than passively stand by until the villain just takes everybody there as part of his plan. As for the Pope being the Camerlengo's biological father, this is a fairly late revelation in the book and requires a substantial amount of exposition, which would only serve to abruptly slow the film to a crawl during the climax. The Camerlengo's motives, his hatred for the church's indulgence of science, are strong enough to explain his actions without the additional detail of his parentage being necessary, thus it could be safely left out to keep the film's momentum going.
Question: The commanders said that the destruction of Skynet in LA would end the war but when John blew it up, he said the war is not over. Did the commanders mess up on that statement or what?
Answer: The same commanders also thought that they had the radio frequency that would disable all the Terminators. So when John said the war was not over, he was considering that A) they don't have the super weapon they thought they'd have, and B) a fair amount of the commanders were killed.
Question: At the beginning, during the war montage sequence when you see Wolverine and Sabretooth fighting in the various wars, you see them fighting in the American civil war. I was just curious and this may seem like an incidental question, but is there any indication as to which side they're fighting on?
Question: What is this connection that Guinan and Picard have that goes "deeper than friendship or family"? I just don't understand where it has come from. Am I missing something?
Chosen answer: If you recall the episode with the traveller, who takes the Enterprise out of their galaxy to one neighbouring Triangulum, we are introduced to the concept that time and space are not the "separate things they appear to be" (see season 1 episode "Where No One Has Gone Before"). This theme runs rampant throughout the series, and novels. In particular, we learn of the El Aurian's sensitivity to shifts in the space time continuum: remember the movie with the Nexus? Anywho, Picard and Guinan are intertwined lifeforms in multiple realities and timelines. In a later season, he goes back in earth time to rescue Data, and ends up saving Guinan's life: she is uniquely aware of this in her past, and knows who he is before he knows that would save her life in the future. Also, because Picard travelled back in time to be the hero, his younger self fresh out of the academy on his first captain's assignment on the starship Stargazer comes into contact with Guinans in a novel from the Stargazer series that ties up even more lose ends; after her world was destroyed, her depression so deep, created a Guinan we would be hard pressed to recognize: but she recognizes Picard as a young man in trouble with the planet's law enforcement and comes to his aid. There are other links as well, but rest assured that their connection is one that does not hold description in any language we understand: it's one that is part of the fabric of the universe, of which they share a kind of common thread. Picard is also uniquely linked to Q, but that is another thread!
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Answer: Leia most likely knew she was adopted as she had no reaction to Luke asking about her "real mother." I believe the correct answer here is George Lucas hadn't planned on Leia's mother dying during childbirth when this scene was written and at that time Leia genuinely had faint memories of her real mother. This was later shown to be impossible when the prequels were made.