Answered questions about specific movies, TV shows and more

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Question: Just watched "Die Hard 2" for the ten-thousandth time. Finally occurred to me, WHY would a pilot use a burning plane crash as a landing light? "Oh, there's a burning plane crash down there! Must be a good place to land!" As far as I know, all air traffic is diverted to other airports when an aircraft crashes.

Charles Austin Miller

Chosen answer: The trail of fire from McClane lighting the jet fuel creates a visual marker that the pilots can aim for. Not the best situation, however, considering that they're low on fuel and that one other plane has crashed that evening already, the pilots decided to settle for the less-than-ideal method of guiding their planes in.

Captain Defenestrator

Question: How does Arturo Marquez end up on the boat in the custody of the Argentinians?

Answer: Marquez was the one that Keyser Soze let go after he killed his family so that he could tell the story. Presumably, he ran far from Hungary to flee Soze's wrath and ended up going to the Argentinians for protection.

Captain Defenestrator

Question: What object was in the gorilla mother's hand when she died?

Answer: It was a small, polished stone (probably a raw diamond) that Tarzan subsequently kept as a keepsake of his ape mother. You see him looking at it in a box at the beginning of the film, also.

Charles Austin Miller

Diamonds are not red, orange, and cream in color. To me, it looks like Carnelian.

Diamonds are found in a whole spectrum of colors from red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink, steel gray, brown, white and black.

Charles Austin Miller

Answer: It was some type of egg.

Question: When Peter is asleep on the subway, a man puts a glass of water on his head which causes a small drop of water to slide down. When the drop of water gets close to his forehead, his Spider-sense immediately alerts him and he wakes up before the water touches him. Peters' Spider-sense alerts him when he is near danger but, why would it activate when a harmless drop of water is about to touch him?

Answer: "Spidey sense" is more than anticipating danger; it's an overall heightened awareness of the environment around him. In the other "Spider-Man" movie, for example, when the bully is taking swings at Peter, the action slows down and he actually marvels at the ability to observe the action as if it were in slow motion.

Question: In the first movie, Kevin was seen being digitized and sent into the Grid. What caused Sam to be sent into the Grid?

Answer: Same exact thing. He used the same machine that digitized him in the 1st movie. You can see the same machine in his secret computer lab.

In the first movie, a laser shot out and digitized Kevin so why didn't it happen again when Sam got digitized?

Well, it's been 28 years since Flynn first visited the Grid, so he's either updated the machine so it's safer or it's a simple visual deviation from the filmmakers.

Answer: Sam and all the other familiar faces were just programs that looked like people we knew. Flynn was the only user actually in the computer world.

It is made very clear that Sam is also a user. He bleeds for one, which programs do not do. He doesn't have the same power as Kevin, but he is a user all the same.

Question: When Alan meets with Sam, he tells him of a pager number coming from the arcade Kevin had but, the number hasn't been used in twenty years. Who activated the number and why?

Answer: CLU activated the number to draw Alan, or Sam, into looking for Flynn, where they'd discover the computer and reopen the gate, so that CLU could escape into the real world.

Question: Why would Forrest be drafted into the military? Wouldn't his low I.Q. cause him to be rejected?

Answer: As we see earlier in the film, his mother "persuades" the school principal to increase Forrest's test results to the minimum required to attend school. At that point he was on record as having a normal I.Q.

Answer: He also wasn't drafted, he enlisted.

Answer: Marrying an American does not automatically make one a citizen as well. If a legal alien married a U.S. citizen, and they also wish to become an American, then they must go through the legal process of being a naturalized citizen. Not everyone wishes to change their citizenship, nor are they required to give that up when marrying someone of a different nationality.

raywest

Question: How did Professor Umbridge get enough power to fire teachers and punish students that she believed were misbehaving?

Answer: Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge is scared of Dumbledore and him being right about Voldemort being back. As such he passed Education Decree number 23 stating if Hogwarts can't find a suitable teacher, one will be appointed by the Ministry. As such, Umbridge is instated to help keep an eye on Dumbledore and the Order of the Phoenix. Other teachers are not happy with this spying and set out to make life as hard as possible for Umbridge. Due to this, Umbridge is given powers to inspect and remove sub standard teachers or teachers who have a close allegiance to Dumbledore and the Order.

Ssiscool

Chosen answer: The First 9 wore these, as can be seen on old pictures. They later switched to leather, but Piney just never did.

Friso94

Question: What does the potion that Snape made for Lupin actually do? I know it doesn't stop him from being a werewolf forever or stop him from being a werewolf the night of the full moon.

THE GAMER NEXT DOOR

Chosen answer: The potion allows a werewolf to retain their own mind during the transformation period, rendering them harmless. Professor Lupin usually spent the night peacefully sleeping in his office. In the book, before the potion was invented, while Lupin was a Hogwarts student, each full moon he was confined inside the Shrieking Shack. It had been specially used for that purpose.

raywest

Answer: The same unknown acid/chemical combination that created the Joker in the first place.

MasterOfAll

Question: I want to know the name of the drama (or movie) Weebo was watching when Weber started clearing the room.

Bunch

Chosen answer: The movie is called Some Came Running.

Intermission - S1-E13

Question: At a certain point there is a cut to a studio scene of a supposed current affairs programme called, (title super on screen), "PROBE AROUND" on crime. There is a stirring piece of classical music used as an intro to the supposed programme, what is it? I know it, but I simply cannot remember the composer or the work. Could you possibly tell me what it is?

Answer: It is the second short-lived theme to the BBC's Panorama programme, itself taken from Rachmaninoff's Symphony No. 1.

Neil Jones

Question: I have two questions. Firstly after beating up the guy in the hotel kitchen, Frank returns to the room and tells Delaney that he is quitting. Why was he so ticked off? And secondly, if Nicki was the one who hired Portman to kill Rachel, why did Portman kill Nicki and why did he try to molest Rachel in the bedroom?

Gavin Jackson

Chosen answer: I think he was ticked off because he was being so personally affected by Rachel. He talks about being disciplined. He tries to keep emotions away from his job, but he liked Rachel. Also, Rachel at the time was angry with him, but also showed a lot of disregard for her own safety (as you remember, when he got back it was just after she and Tony went shopping without telling Frank). So yeah, I think it was frustration for the overall situation. To answer your second question, from the conversation with Frank at the lakeside house, Nikki had asked around at a club she went to, but she herself didn't hire Portman. Someone named Armando did the hiring.

Meg Charnley

Question: In the beginning when John and Charlie crack the safe and make away with the gold, there is a third diver present to get away with the gold. Who is the third person? Every other crew member was accounted for during the robbery.

John Weber

Chosen answer: It was Left Ear.

Question: Why did Wilson drop some white bead things to the floor at Sara's wedding? In order to let Phillip slide on them? But Wilson knew Phillip wouldn't show up at the wedding.

Bunch

Chosen answer: It was rice and he just simply dumped them on the floor because he knew he wouldn't be needing it after the wedding to throw at the bride and groom because the Professor didn't show up.

Question: Why does Mr. Big's daughter have whites in her eyes when everyone else in her species seems to have little beady black eyes?

Answer: It's just to show how different and special she is from all of the others.

Question: When The Queen sends a fake letter to Wendell's council, one person mentions Relish's challenge for Wendell to come and fight him. Why would Relish make this challenge if he knows that the Queen switched Wendell's body with her dog's?

Answer: He does this intentionally, he knows that Wendell will never rise to the occasion, due to his unfortunate circumstances.

Question: Dikembe Umbutu stated that his country had been fighting the aliens from the only City Destroyer that landed for nearly 10 years. However, it's stated later in the movie that the surviving aliens were in a catatonic state after the destruction of the mothership, and woke up when their queen arrived 20 years later. So were some aliens not psychically affected by the loss of the mothership's queen and continued a ground war?

Answer: General Adams was only referring to the aliens in the Area 51 prison as having been in a catatonic state for 20 years, not all of the aliens that survived after the mothership was destroyed. Presumably, the aliens in the prison came from the City Destroyer that crashed near Area 51, but the aliens Dikembe fought came from the landed Destroyer, and with their ship intact (and given the fact that it was trying to drill to the core) those aliens retained more of a will to fight.

I don't buy that. After man kind fought the aliens the fiercest war it had known, it let an alien unit go on fighting an African militia for 10 years without providing help? I would imagine if at the end of the war there were still aliens with fighting spirit, world armies would be all over them.

There is a novel authorized by the filmmakers called "Independence Day: Crucible" that takes place between both movies. It explains that Dikembe's father fought a ground war against the aliens from the landed destroyer, all the while stubbornly refusing help from the outside world.

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