Answered questions about specific movies, TV shows and more

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Answer: I did a little research on this. According to Wikipedia, the Old Man was based on MCA Inc. CEO Lew Wasserman, who was considered to be a powerful and intimidating individual. I suspect the character was left unnamed to generally represent the cold, ruthless, detached nature of corporate America.

raywest

Answer: Holloway could have continued voicing Winnie the Pooh, but by that time he was in his 80s and felt he could no longer effectively use his voice for the character as he once did. He chose to retire from the role.

raywest

Question: Why was Chico so brutally murdered?

Answer: Mort, while in his psychotic persona as Shooter, and with no memory of his actions, killed Chico. It then appeared as if "Shooter", who did not actually exist, was threatening Mort and sending him an extreme warning.

raywest

Florida's Homecoming: The Wedding - S6-E3

Question: At Thelma's wedding, Michael is singing "You And I" from O'Bryan. But this episode is from 1978 and the song came out in 1983 (5 years later). Did Ralph Carter (Michael) originate that song before O'Bryan made it famous?

Answer: "You and I (We Can Conquer the World) " is a song written and performed by Stevie Wonder in 1972. O'Bryan just did a cover of the song.

Bishop73

Question: There's something I was wondering about Galvatron. Joshua Joyce said he modelled Galvantron after Optimus Prime. If that's true then why did he end up looking like Megatron?

Answer: They were using the remains of Megatron as a template, and didn't realise that his programming had taken over the project and influencing the look of the final project.

Garlonuss

Chapter Nine: The Gate - S2-E9

Question: Why does Dustin make a weird noise when he talks about his teeth? One time is from season 1 and the second time from Season 2 chapter 9. He also refers his teeth as pearls.

Bunch Son

Chosen answer: The actor (Gaten Matarazzo) and the character (Dustin) have cleidocranial dysplasia, which delays or prevents growth of the front teeth. It appears Dustin got prosthodontics by season 2 (he seems to not have them again in season 3 and implies Suzie prefers kissing without them), and he's extremely proud of his new teeth, calling them irresistible 'pearls' and making a 'sexy' growling, purring sound (based on a Wookiee growl) when they're mentioned.

Sierra1

Arthur, Spooner - S5-E1

Question: The elderly man in Carrie's overnight team, George, says that the firm is trying to force him to retire. Why don't they fire him?

Answer: Because he didn't do anything wrong. If they fired him simply for being older, he'd have excellent grounds for a wrongful termination suit. Much easier to 'convince' him to retire.

Brian Katcher

I know he didn't do anything wrong, but I thought New York was an "at-will employment" state, meaning that a company can simply terminate someone's employment at will.

Answer: To fire someone you need a reason and simply being older is not a reason. They could be sued for wrongful dismissal. If he retires the company doesn't get sued.

Ssiscool

Yes, but New York is an "at-will employment" state, so a company can terminate employment at any time, without needing to give a good explanation. Unfair but it happens.

Even in at-will States, employers and employees can still enter into binding contracts that would protect an employee from being terminated without cause. These contracts may have retirement policies as well, should an employee want to retire with any benefits offered. And, what others were saying, barring any contract, terminating someone without reason is one thing, but for an illegal reasons (age discrimination) is another matter which could result in a lawsuit.

Bishop73

Question: At 12:07 is it the shower or the toilet that makes a weird draining noise? Almost what does he look at that makes him vomit? (00:12:07)

Answer: The "draining noises" are Big Momma taking a dump. Big Momma didn't flush either so I'm assuming he took a look at her stools and what he saw made him feel sick.

Question: How did Paul die? Was his body dissolved by lahar? And did this lahar contain any acidic substances from volcanic activity?

Answer: Paul got stuck on the bridge that was being washed away by the rampaging river after the dam broke. His van didn't have enough power to make the jump across the bridge like the Humvees did, as a result he got washed away and presumably drowned due to the force of the water.

Question: When riding through the village Bond remarks "this is the work of Muhjadeens." What actions does he refer to?

Answer: Bond is referring to an attack on the Soviet military. There are damaged military vehicles and the bodies of Soviet soldiers lying around, so the village appears to have been recently "liberated" from the Soviets by the mujahideen, although with significant collateral damage to the village itself.

Sierra1

Question: How did they get the 20mm cannon? Did they buy it legitimately, or obtain it by deception?

Answer: Since the crate was labelled machine parts, I'm guessing fraudulently.

My Best Fiend's Wedding - S6-E7

Question: How does Ella realise Amenadiel is an angel? Either I missed something or else there's just a few leaps of calculation missed, because it seems like she goes from "frog falls from the sky", to "Amenadiel says he'd feel if something was wrong, but backtracks", to her big whiteboard putting everything together, and then knowing she's at a "demon wedding." Just feels quite rushed.

Jon Sandys

Chosen answer: She has been keeping that whiteboard for probably the duration of the series. She has been piecing together clues the whole time. It was more obvious with "God" when she was fishing for info and mentioned the best hugs ever. I feel it was intentional to just spring the whole "I knew it!" in the last episode (s). I personally was hoping she would get a better sense of "closure" as she was really the only main character not in on the deal.

kayelbe

Question: Couldn't they move dinosaurs to Isla Sorna?

Answer: There are probably many reasons they didn't. There was extensive debate on whether dinosaurs should be allowed to exist as they had naturally gone extinct and artificially brought back to life, nor were they true dinosaurs. They are basically "invasive" species that affect the island's ecosystem. The costs and resources to move the animals would be enormous with no clear source on how to fund it. Also, Isla Sorna and Isla Nublar are not owned or governed by the United States, so the U.S. government's involvement would be restricted and controlled. Another factor, dumping a large amount of dinosaurs onto an island that is already populated by other dinosaurs would have further severe ecological consequences. As seen, private enterprises might finance the relocation, but they would do it for profit.

raywest

Question: When the character was at the cafe and the truck was there, but he didn't know who the driver was, why didn't he just go and wait by the truck, smash the windshield, fill the gas tank with sugar or water, slash the tyres?

Answer: At that point in the film, the protagonist David Mann is ready to confront the truck driver. When he sees the old Peterbilt truck outside, David mistakenly assumes the truck driver has already entered the diner, so he confronts a likely suspect that he sees at the counter (but he has misidentified the man). The misidentified man takes offense and punches David out. By the time he recovers his senses, David sees the old Peterbilt truck leaving the parking lot. Which means the actual homicidal truck driver never entered the diner in the first place and was waiting outside the whole time. If David had first gone outside to the Peterbilt, there was a good chance the waiting homicidal truck driver would have killed him right there, and the story would have abruptly ended. So, David's misidentification of the truck driver allowed the film to move ahead into its next act.

Charles Austin Miller

Yes, I get why the filmmakers did that, but I still think it is a plot hole. If the Dennis Weaver character was afraid of getting killed by the truck driver, I doubt he would have confronted him in the cafe.

Answer: What happened to the answer that was given. Koba hated humans, he wanted the others apes to believe it was the people who wanted to massacre them. Also, Koba thought Caesar was weak and foolish for wanting to make peace with the humans.

Question: Maybe someone with agricultural expertise can answer this. Ray's entire cornfield is large and obviously worth a lot of money. How much would the small section of corn that he plowed under for the baseball field have been worth in comparison to the rest of the crop once sold?

raywest

Chosen answer: In modern times (say, over the last 10 years) corn crops yield about $240 in profit per acre. In the mid-to-late 1980s (when this movie was made) the profit yield was far less, maybe only $150 or less profit per acre. Today, most farms produce about 1100 acres of corn per season; but, back then, most farms produced around 600 acres per season. Of course, these are all just average figures. So, let's say Ray had an average Iowa farm of 600 cultivated acres in 1989, expecting to profit $150 per acre. Optimistically, Ray would profit about $90,000 on his total crop. Meanwhile, the acreage of a large baseball field (with 90-foot baselines) is only about 5 acres. Which means Ray plowed under only about $750 worth of his crop profits to open up land area for the baseball field. It doesn't sound like much of a sacrifice at all, in terms of corn. Ray could still potentially profit $89,250 on his remaining crop (assuming he had the farm hands and heavy equipment to harvest it).

Charles Austin Miller

Thanks! The plot seemed a bit far-fetched by implying that he would go completely bankrupt because he sacrificed five acres to build a baseball field. And it appeared that not all of those five acres near the house were previously being used for growing corn. Factoring in the other incidental building costs would be a different consideration, however.

raywest

Yeah, the 5 acres of corn was not a bank-breaker. My impression was that Ray probably cut down the corn himself at no great loss; but he then mortgaged his farm to have that one small piece of the cornfield leveled and professionally developed with ballpark-quality turf, baselines, stadium lighting and fencing, et cetera, not to mention the bleachers and professional-grade field equipment...all of which would total, what, a half-million bucks (or more) in the 1980s? Ray's brother-in-law rightly thought it was an insane risk that would result in bank foreclosure.

Charles Austin Miller

I just watched it again. It's mentioned they paid for building the field using all their savings, so presumably nothing more is owed. Another year passes and there is another crop of corn to be harvested, but the bank is threatening to foreclose.

raywest

Maybe it's a plot hole or a deleted scene; because, if the bank was threatening foreclosure, then a mortgage of some kind existed somewhere.

Charles Austin Miller

He did spend a lot to build the field, and those profit margin numbers are best-case, no?

Yeah, all the figures I provided were just averages for the year 1989; but the figures do demonstrate that cutting down 5 acres of corn didn't significantly impact Ray's profit on the whole crop. It wasn't cutting down the corn that cost him money (as the original question inquired); rather, it was developing the cleared 5 acres into a level, professional-standard baseball field that cost him a ton of money.

Charles Austin Miller

Answer: It's from s06e23, "The One With The Ring." Chandler and Phoebe are at a jewelry store and Phoebe tried to run after a guy while still holding store property, which caused the door to lock and the metal gate to come down.

Bishop73

Question: Why was the tape of Christine's suicide handed over to a law firm instead of simply destroying it?

Answer: The late station owner's wife respected his wishes. She's admitted she doesn't understand why he didn't want to destroy the tape, either.

TonyPH

Question: Can someone please tell me the name of the red headed actor who was the captain or lieutenant on the ladder truck 46 that rolled on the side? He always had a coffee cup in his hand.

Answer: His name in Backdraft is Nightingale and his real life name is Kevin Casey.

Answer: Nimrod's actual identity was never revealed in the series. It was only known that he was a British intelligence agent. Nimrod was not Colonel Klink. Hogan had only implied it was him as a ruse to get Klink returned as camp commandant, not wanting him replaced by someone more competent who would impede the Heroes war activities. (As another contributor previously posted, the term "nimrod" is slang for a nerdy, doofus type of person, though it's unclear why that was his code name).

raywest

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