Answered questions about specific movies, TV shows and more

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Question: After the probe goes through the stargate General West discusses the possibility of a reconnaissance team but one officer says to get back they need to dial home. My query is, couldn't they just open the stargate again from their end? Instead of having to dial home to activate the stargate? Also, while on the alien planet, presumably they use satellite phones to communicate, how are they get the satellite signals for the phones to work without satellites?

Answer: The wormhole is a one way gate. So when the gate is opened from one side, you can't go through from the other side. You have to open the stargate from your own location in order to travel.

lionhead

Answer: Because the gang did not expect Anthony to hang himself. They told him that he couldn't move from where they left him. I presume that the drunken/drugged up gang will have been laughing and telling everyone what they had just done to Anthony. Then later they would hear the tragic turn of events and try to keep it quiet. But it would be too late then and people would talk about their involvement.

Question: When Fletcher gets pulled over, he admits to the various offences he committed while driving. When the cop asks if that was all, Fletcher says no, that he had unpaid parking tickets and suddenly his hand shoots to the glove apartment, opening it and numerous tickets fall out. How could Fletcher have got away with not paying all of those tickets, since cops keep copies of the tickets they write out and even give a person until a certain date to pay them?

Answer: Plenty of people don't pay, or forget to pay, their parking tickets, and depending on how fast Fletcher accumulated them, they can definitely pile up before he had his license suspended or otherwise faced consequences. It's not the police's responsibility to track down or receive the fines, so each successive cop leaving a ticket would have no reason to do anything (until it reached the point where Fletcher's license was revoked, which would show up in the system).

Question: In the first movie, Kevin's mom says there are 15 people in the house. In the 2nd movie, the two moms count 7 each which is 14. Who was removed in the 2nd movie?

Answer: Heather McCallister wasn't in Home Alone 2. She's the daughter of Rob McCallister whom everyone was visiting in Paris. Heather was in college in the US and tagged along with everyone. When everyone is going to Miami, Rob's family is still in Paris (Heather is either with them in Paris or still at school).

Bishop73

Question: In Cell Block Tango, why does the 3rd woman say 'squish' when that has nothing to do with her story?

Answer: It's the "squish" sound her knife made while stabbing her husband.

Bishop73

Answer: Because Dory asked for his help to get to Sydney. Although Marlin doesn't believe her, Dory can in fact speak Whale quite well which is proven in the sequel.

BaconIsMyBFF

Answer: Megatron is a cruel, violent, evil despot and there is absolutely no chance he would follow through on his word. There is no doubt he would betray Optimus (or anyone else, for that matter) the moment the opportunity arose. All of this is exasperated by the fact that Megatron is also extremely powerful and an immensely skilled fighter. He is, in short, much too dangerous to be kept alive.

BaconIsMyBFF

Grease - S9-E6

Question: When this episode first aired, Sam torments Rebecca about her incarcerated boyfriend by constantly playing Bobby Fuller's 'I Fought the Law.' When I watched the rerun on Hulu, however, the song was replaced with another song, and a lyric search shows it doesn't even seem to be an actual song ever recorded by anyone. Why is this?

Answer: Various films / shows have run into licensing issues in the streaming era for songs they used when first broadcast. I think it's even happened with DVDs, but less often. The license expires or didn't cover non-broadcast use, and it's easier / cheaper to use different music. The Charmed theme tune is a famous example - Netflix's version is completely different from the original.

Jon Sandys

Answer: How does anyone know how to read any language? He learned it, at some point in his millennia-long existence and long association with the Elves.

Answer: Why wouldn't Santa Claus visit the same house and the same children each Christmas season? Little Sarah obviously believed in Santa Claus and expects him every year, like many children do. Sarah believed in Santa so much she left him food for the reindeer, and cookies and milk for him, and later, soy milk because she remembered that Santa told her he was watching his fats. Santa will visit each Christmas as often as he can, provided people believe in him.

Scott215

Question: Surely 'curing' the villains and sending them back to their own universes will have severe implications on the timeline. For example if Norman Osborn never dies in Spider-Man, then Harry never finds out, never becomes the new goblin and wouldn't be able to save Peter in Spider-Man 3?

Answer: Potentially, but there are way too many variables. Changes to the original Spider-Man timeline might have such ramifications that the events of the third film never come to pass at all! Or indeed the Norman Osborn that we see might be a variant of the one in the Spider-Man film, with his own timeline, or indeed making changes to the original timeline might split off multiple alternate timelines. There's just no definitive answer.

Jon Sandys

Answer: While Disney did buy the rights to Star Wars before this episode aired, Kylo Ren was introduced after this episode, so it can't be intentional he looked like Ren. Siths often wore helmets and his helmet bears more resemblance to something a Sith Acolyte would wear, or even Darth Revan's helmet. Which were introduced before Kylo Ren.

Bishop73

Roast Chicken - S3-E2

Question: When Doug is telling jokes at the dinner, he asks the audience if they all received a number-two pencil. Then he tells a red-haired woman that he is just kidding. Would someone explain this joke?

Answer: A number-two pencil has long been standard for filling in the little boxes or circles on various paper evaluation forms, tests, and ballots. Doug didn't think he was funny enough to tell jokes at the roast and seems to be implying that his performance will be rated on a scale. For example, the audience would fill in a box somewhere between five for "excellent" to a one for "poor." He quickly clarifies he is kidding.

raywest

Also, as for the "Red" part: it's somewhat common for a red-haired person to jokingly be called that, just as a blonde person might be called "Blondie." I don't think her hair color was part of the joke; he just wanted to stop her from seriously looking for a pencil.

Answer: It's nothing more than him saying her red hair looks like the red eraser on top of a pencil. He's asking did every table get a redhead.

Bishop73

Pencil erasers are more pink. Is it a common joke for people to think that redheads look like pencil erasers?

There are some pinkish erasers, but a lot also have very red erasers. I don't know if it was common per se, but certainly something someone would come up with off the top of their head in that situation. Plus, he puts his hand on her shoulder to indicate he's talking about her and not just talking to the room.

Bishop73

Answer: He's a chemist who develops food additives for a food company.

Brian Katcher

Question: When the survivors are in the cabin, it shows the smoke die down and a chilling noise can be heard. What is the purpose of this?

Answer: I'm just speculating here, but I think it was to try to show us that the inhabitants didn't plan on being away from their cabin for long. They used "just enough" fuel on their stove, so the smoke dissipating was a way of telling the viewers "This is around the time they were planning to be back". A bit like when using a slow cooker, you set it to go off around the time you'll be home from work.

Question: When all the junior girls go to the gym after the fire alarm is pulled, why doesn't Cady sit with Gretchen and Karen?

Answer: I think she feels alone. Janice and Damien are angry, so they don't want her to sit with them. But she doesn't want to be a Plastic any more, so she avoids sitting with Gretchen and Karen.

Question: When Miss Shields is discussing the incident with Flick with the whole class, she looks accusingly at Ralphie as it's clear she's blaming him. Why would Miss Shields blame Ralphie considering he never made Flick stick his tongue to the pole, none of the other students said anything and even Flick refused to talk about who really made him do it?

Answer: Miss Shields is not blaming Ralphie. She has probably seen him and Flick together around the school grounds, so she knows that they are friends. Therefore, she suspects that he knows what happened.

When Miss Shields looks at Ralphie, she says, "Those who did it know they're blame." She then says" Now don't you feel terrible? Don't you feel remorse for what you have done?"

Exactly. She suspects Ralphie because she knows he and Flick are friends and that they are mischievous. It would not surprise her if Ralphie had something to do with it. She just can't prove it.

wizard_of_gore

I agree. From the way she looks at Ralphie and what she says when looking at him, she's blaming him.

Question: When Palmer was revealed to be a Thing, MacReady tries to blast him, but the flamethrower only shoots out at most a foot. What caused the weapon to act the way it did?

Answer: It appears that the fuel line is clogged. Macready keeps banging the tank to try to get more fuel to come out, and it eventually does so - the unit wasn't empty.

BaconIsMyBFF

Question: Which spider attacked the doctor in the barn, killing him? Was it the general, the queen, or just one of the offspring?

Answer: It definitely wasn't one of the offspring, as you can see when it jumped out at him that it was a very large spider, likely the general since they mentioned the queen would be guarding the egg sac in the wine cellar to defend it from other spiders.

Phaneron

Answer: I think he's referring to the Brazilian doctor they brought in to help. If that's the case, it was the main spider that hitched a ride with the body.

lartaker1975

Answer: One of the offspring. There was a brief shot of the little one crawling into the doctor's slipper.

Wrong doctor.

lionhead

The question is actually referring to the entomologist played by Julian Sands, not the town medical doctor that Jeff Daniels moves in to replace.

Phaneron

Question: When the group first meet up at the dock, just as they are about to set off in the helicopter, when Roger closes the door, he then looks out of the window - eventually he gives a smiling nod. This could simply be a nod to the other group but it seems as if it may have been unintentional possibly as if he thought that the camera had stopped rolling. Curious to see if anyone could clarify it. Maybe I'm just looking too much into the film.

Mikebbisgreat

Answer: One of the cops that was with Joe Plato (how much you have seen of them will depend on which version of the movie you, but I HIGHLY recommend the fan made/edited 'Extended Mall Hours' cut on YouTube) asked them for cigarettes. You'll notice that Roger and Fran lit up cigarettes as they were taking off, that's what Roger was laughing at.

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