Questions about specific movies, TV shows and more

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Show generally

Question: I seem to remember in Season 1 when the show starts, Jack would say as he always does "The following takes place between 1:00 p.m. and 2:00 p.m." and then says "Events occur in real time." When season 2 started however, I haven't heard that last line since. Is there a reason known why this line is no longer said at the beginning of each episode?

Carl Missouri

Chosen answer: This is because by the second series people were now well aware that the whole uniqueness was that the show was shown in real time, and therefore the line was no longer required.

Scrappy

Question: This one applies to many gangster/action movies but, what is the idea of pulling the firing pin back manually when getting ready to fire your gun?

killin_kellit

Chosen answer: It depends what you mean. On a revolver, pulling the trigger will pullback the hammer and release it. But if you pull the hammer back manually, then only a small touch is needed on the trigger to fire that first shot. On an automatic, the first round must be chambered from the magazine (by manually pulling the slide back), each subsequent shot will do this automatically. On some weapons such as a Colt .45, the hammer MUST be pulled back (either manually, or from the previous shot). Generally speaking, they do it in films as a threat. For some reason film makers think this is more threatening then just having a loaded gun pointed in your face.

Soylent Purple

Chosen answer: It's just a screaming fan that knows everything about Drake.

BigOLB

Chosen answer: Gandalf told him - a scene seen in the Extended Edition of the Fellowship of the Ring.

Tailkinker

Chosen answer: The song with the female vocal is "24" by Jem. see http://www.jem-music.net.

Myridon

Question: Could Hawkins have become a commando (or even a marine) in real life, considering he wore glasses which would have limited him during any battle?

Gavin Jackson

Chosen answer: As long as your uncorrected vision is at least 20/400 (-6.0 diopters), you can qualify for most forms of military service except flying.

Myridon

Answer: Yes, you can have corrected vision using glasses or contacts to be in a special operations unit. Although you can't be color blind.

Question: When Marty comes back to a "new" 1985, his family has money, his siblings are now successful, they treat Marty like he never left (except to go to the lake). But before he supposedly went to the lake, didn't Marty act normal? Didn't Marty grow up with this new and improved family and have different experiences that didn't happen when they were poor? If so, why does he have no memory of this? If Marty grows up with money, has a successful father, a sister that's popular, what happens to "this" Marty? The one that grew up differently now that he was born into a richer family? (This can't be the same Marty that goes back in in time that we see at the end of the movie, because if that Marty will do everything we saw in the movie, he's the same Marty before anything changed. Like when he said his dad never stood to to Biff in his life).

Carl Missouri

Chosen answer: Yup, that's what happens in time travel movies. All sorts of paradoxes pop up. You could sit and ponder this for the rest of your life. Or you could just enjoy the goofiness of it all. If you get a chance, look up an old article called "Back to the Future with the Other Marty McFly." It theorizes that there are, in fact, two Marty McFlys whose lives intersect with the competing timelines. But if you're seriously trying to figure out the complexities of all this, take the advice given in Austin Powers II and just enjoy the movie.

K.C. Sierra

Question: When Marty came back to 1985 in the first movie, some things had changed. The name of the mall for example went from Twin Pines Mall to Lone Pine Mall. How come then when Biff comes back to 2015 after stealing the DeLorean, everything seems the same? Wouldn't they notice everything was different when they were flying over Hill Valley to go back, like Biff's casino perhaps?

Answer: When Marty returns to 1985, he leaves 1955 after those changes have been made, so he's now in a timeline where the effects of those changes exist. When old Biff went back, he simply gave his younger self the almanac, then returned to 2015 before the younger Biff did anything with it, i.e. before any changes had been made. Old Biff therefore returned to his original unchanged timeline - the timeline split caused by young Biff using the almanac came after his departure, so he didn't enter the altered timestream.

Tailkinker

Question: When Harry's boggart turns into a dementor, Lupin dives in front and says "ridiculous". He then later says he did this because he thought the boggart would turn into Lord Voldemort. But the boggart wasn't Lord Voldemort, but just a dementor. So that excuse doesn't hold up. Why wouldn't he let harry fend off the boggart like the rest of the class?

Carl Missouri

Chosen answer: He says that he instinctively thought the boggart would turn into Voldemort. He jumped in front of this as Harry had already had dealings with a dementor, and the boggart would be able to weald the same powers a dementor has. He knew once Harry had seen the dementor that he would not be able to deal with it due to his past experience.

Scrappy

The Battle - S1-E9

Question: When Picard is preparing to use the Stargazer to attack the Enterprise, Data states that all its main systems are intact, and that only some minor damage was caused by fires during the earlier battle. If the Stargazer's in such good shape, why did Picard have to abandon it?

DaveJB

Chosen answer: The Stargazer was seriously damaged in the previous battle, which is why she had to be abandoned. When the Ferengi salvaged her, they repaired the damage to the major systems in order to get her functional, but didn't bother with the minor fire damage.

Tailkinker

Question: When Edward is at his party at the Ritz Gotham and is talking to Bruce Wayne, he gets out a pair of glasses and puts them on. They're not the same pair as the ones he had at the beginning; where did he get them from? He is too busy working on his invention (shrinking it down and selling it), building his lair on an island and making riddles to have had the time to change them.

Answer: He is trying to look like Bruce Wayne, so he has the same haircut and a fake mole, just like Val Kilmer's. All he had to do was tell one of his assistants to go and buy a pair of glasses the same as Bruce Wayne's.

Soylent Purple

Chosen answer: Since Andy helped Hadley with the tax-free gift, Hadley realized that Andy could be of future financial use, which he can take advantage of considering he's in prison for two life-terms. The sisters beating up Andy would interfere with that-consider that Andy was in the infirmary for a very long time after the last attack. Beating up on Boggs sent a message to the sisters to leave Andy alone...or else.

randomguy

Answer: Norton had Hadley beat up Boggs because he and the Sisters would have eventually killed Andy and Norton needed him and his banking skills to cover up his scams.

Question: Near the beginning of the film, Capote is talking about a story involving a gay black man being in love with a Jew. Since all the rest of his anecdotes involve real people and/or works, does anyone know which book he's talking about?

Xofer

Chosen answer: He is talking about 'Giovanni's Room' a novel by James Baldwin.

Question: When Clemenza is explaining to Michael how to shoot Sollozzo and McCluskey, he says to take no chances and shoot them both twice in the head. I know he shoots McCluskey twice, but am I correct that he only shot Sollozzo once in the head? (I realize this was Michael's first murder and he was extremely antsy and nervous and may have forgotten and it doesn't really matter since Sollozzo died anyway.) I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't missing a shot.

Answer: He did shoot Sollozzo only once. This is explained in the book. After shooting Sollozzo, Michael instinctively knew the first shot was fatal, and he purposely ignored Clemenza's instructions and immediately turned his attention on McCluskey.

raywest

Question: How did those newspaper articles from the future get onto the stamp? Wasn't it possible only to see the future rather than actually travel through time?

Answer: No time travel is necessary. The machine is apparently able to show what ever the viewer wants to see, so Michael Jennings could simply have zoomed in on some newspapers in a newsstand or something and snapped a picture of them.

Andreas[DK]

Question: What was so important about the song lyrics in the letter Lindsay gave to Helen? What didn't Jenny get when she said that Helen's letter wasn't a letter and that it was just a bunch of nonsensical lyrics?

Answer: Helen's letter was actually the lyrics to the song "Whip It" by Devo. This is the same song that Helen gives to Lindsay for her birthday, along with the funny red hats from the music video. The song is obviously a shared memory between the two sisters, and one that Jenny never was a part of. The fact that Helen's letter was just song lyrics just shows how close the sisters really were.

Ral0618

Answer: It's the Billy Stewart version of "Summertime" from George Gershwin's opera "Porgy and Bess".

nightline

Question: What's the name of the music being played in the bar during Bruce Willis' story when Jessica Alba runs over and kisses him? I've heard it before in trailers and whatnot.

Answer: Absurd by Fluke. Its on the Sin City soundtrack.

Andreas[DK]

Question: Anyone who's read 'Life, The Universe & Everything' will now why the bowl of petunias thought 'Oh no, not again' just before it plummeted towards Magrathea, but had Douglas Adams already conceived that backstory and just couldn't fit it in to the narrative at the time or was it something he only came up with when writing part 3?

Chimera

Chosen answer: Because it was a radio show originally, Douglas Adams would write broadcasts from show to show. He did not know where something would lead, which let the plot become random and funny. So ultimately it was originally created to be funny, then he found a way to link it back in later.

Question: When Blake is pointing his shotgun at the couple in bed, why are there sounds of splashing water?

Answer: The only logical explanation that I can think of is that the couple is on a waterbed.

Cubs Fan

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