Best sci-fi movie questions of all time

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Answer: Yep, and there is, but they're both elsewhere. Doc's been committed to an asylum somewhere. When Marty first meets the alternate Biff, Biff tells him that he's supposed to be in Switzerland at boarding school - that's where the alternate Marty is.

Tailkinker

Wouldn't someone probably see Doc and report that he escaped from the asylum?

Maybe, but no way to be sure, and they're not around long enough for that to be an issue anyway.

Jon Sandys

Answer: Doc would most likely not have been seen by anyone, as the time he spent in the alternate 1985 was primarily inside the DeLorean, at a boarded-up library, graveyard, and his lab (and all at night too) so most likely not spotted by the public.

Even if someone had seen Doc, it could've been dismissed as someone who looks like him. Even if they did report his escape, someone would either call or go to the asylum and verify Doc was still there.

I also don't think that Doc Brown ever achieved celebrity status prior to his being committed, so how would the average person even recognize him as some obscure scientist who was put away?

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The Prestige picture

Question: In Angier's final performance Borden watches Angier's duplicate drown in the tank. Does the other Angier still reappear for the audience, and take a bow? They never explain this in the film. If he does take the bow, Borden would never have been accused of murder. If he doesn't take the bow, how does the duplicate know not to do so? The duplicate would have no idea that Borden was below stage.

Answer: Angier always wants to take revenge on Borden as he is the reason behind the death of his wife. He knows that Borden is in the crowd the two times, first time, Olivia suggests Borden to watch the new "Transported Man" trick of Angier, where Borden finds out the trap door in the bottom of the machine, second time, Borden wants to know how Angier flies that distance with in seconds through the trap door. As expected by the Angier in the final play, Borden reaches the back stage where actual Angier is drowning (it is as always actual Angier drowns and the replica of Angier appears at some distance in every performance). So, as per the plan the replica hides to create an impression that Borden intentionally murders Angier. Note: the replica of Angier has the same ability and sense like actual Angier.

Rajesh v

It's never stated whether the "real" Angier drowns or takes the bow, but it's implied that it doesn't matter - as the clone is a perfect copy, they are both "Angier." Angier at one point says, referring to toll the trick has taken on him, that each time he did it, even he himself didn't know whether he would be the man in the box or the prestige. Similarly, when Angier asked Tesla which hat of all the duplicates was his, Tesla replied "They are all your hat."

Answer: No, he does not appear to take a bow. The set-up is as follows: Angier invites the audience on stage to observe the machine, but in reality it is so he can watch for Borden trying to work out the trick. When he sees Borden in the audience, he also knows Borden will not learn anything from the stage, and will go backstage. He then clones himself, and the clone is created with the exact knowledge he had at the time of the cloning, including Borden's presence and the trap the original Angier had set. So the "new" Angier hides away the best he can, letting Borden be framed for the murder of the "original" Angier. Had he appeared, not only would it ruin his plan of framing Borden, but it would also reveal how he had done his trick, and he would not allow any of those to happen, no matter what.

Twotall

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Question: This bugged me for years, when Billy said there is something in the trees to Dutch and in the next shot it shows the trees, is the Predator there, as in visible onscreen?

ezorro

Chosen answer: Yes. The predator can be seen not in the immediate shot after, but the one a few seconds later as they are seen walking away.

XIII

Before or after Ramirez gets hit in the face with the branch?

About 3 seconds before. If you look VERY closely (probably needing to pause the screen around 00:40:55 - about a minute after Billy said, "There's something in the trees"), there appears to be a transparent image of The Predator in the background above the major's (Arnold's) right shoulder. If this is meant to be The Predator, its body is curved around a tree trunk and its arms are extended toward the right of the screen (near Arnold's right ear), camouflaged as green leaves.

KeyZOid

The Predator - in a recognizable form - really wasn't visible until another minute later @ 00:41:55 when it was on the ground approaching Hawkins and the woman.

KeyZOid

That's a tree, not the predator. We see Billy and Dutch head on in "predator vision" as they're talking, which means the predator is directly in front and slightly above them (unknown distance). The thing you're referring to would be in the wrong position.

No, it can't. I've just been through this several times and the predator isn't shown on screen at any time during or just after after the conversation.

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Answer: It is heavily implied that one who becomes a Force-Ghost achieves an untold level of power upon entering the state. Given that they have become a pure entity of the Force, it seems to back up the statement. Obi-Wan also becomes free to assist Luke in any case.

Darius Angel

In addition to this answer, I think Obi-wan also became powerful because he "let go." He did not feel a need to defeat Vader on this occasion - he was willing to surrender the fight and "move on" to a new state. Something that Vader might not currently understand.

Answer: I agree with Darius Angel's comment. I also think Vader expected a certain sense of satisfaction after defeating his former master. In reality, though, he was still "owned" by the Emperor and was living with the consequences of his choices. Defeating Obi-wan did not change much for him. Obi-wan, however, gained the benefits that Darius Angel mentioned.

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Back to the Future picture

Question: What does the saying "Why don't you make like a tree, and get out of here", mean?

Answer: It's a way of saying "scram" or "get lost." But Biff is so dim, he doesn't realize he's saying it wrong; the expression is "make like a tree and leaf", with the joke being that "leaf" is meant to sound like "leave."

Cubs Fan

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Question: How did Quentin find others in the last scene? he was left unconscious and he had no way to figure out where others went after that (considering his lack of knowledge in mathematics) so how could he possibly make his way to the bridge room?

Answer: It's established that sound travels throughout the structure reasonably well. Also, they didn't travel relatively far, even with the rooms shifting.

Actually, considering the distance that they travelled and the injuries he sustained, Quentin would have had extreme difficulty catching up. It looks like the 3 travelled upwards at least 12 cubes, meaning Quentin would have had to climb up each one with the chance that any of the rooms could be trapped fast enough to catch up to them with enough strength left over to kill Leaven.

Adrenaline is an extremely driving force, so I'd still consider it entirely possible it happened that way.

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Question: How did the alien egg get on board the Sulaco? I thought it was by the Queen but she did not have that organ that she was connected to when we first see her and so she couldn't reproduce eggs.

Answer: Agreed the Queen could have stowed the eggs away on her body as Alien bodies, especially one her size, could easily have a couple of eggs hidden upon her, and we would not know. They are masters of disguise these creatures and can merge in with their own environments or others...what's to say an egg can't look like part of the Queen's body? In addition, could Facehuggers not attach themselves to the Queen's body and merge with it somehow? Flatten themselves against her skin maybe?

Answer: As we don't know the precise details of the Alien reproductive cycle, we don't know for a fact that the Queen would be unable to produce eggs without the sac seen in the film. The only other possibility is that somebody got the egg up there somehow. The only possible candidate would seem to be Bishop, who would have had to somehow have got the egg from somewhere, and flown it up to the Sulaco while Ripley was off rescuing Newt. There doesn't seem to have been time for this, so the only remaining option seems to be that they did indeed arrive with the Queen in some fashion, either laid while up there or, possibly more plausibly, rescued intact from the destruction caused by Ripley and carried somewhere on the Queen's body.

Tailkinker

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Forever Young picture

Question: Would the labels on the Budweiser bottles be the same in the older era during the beginning of the movie, as it is in the latter part of the movie (1994)?

Answer: The color and design of the label hasn't changed in decades, although the script on it has changed some over time. They all look almost identical from a distance.

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Alien picture

Question: Question about the Director's Cut of the film. The scene where Brett is looking for Jones has been altered slightly - when he looks up at where the water is dripping from, you can actually see the Alien hanging motionlessly from one of the chains. Has Ridley Scott given an explanation as to why he added this new dynamic to the scene? It's easy enough to speculate why, but a link to an 'official' explanation would be appreciated.

Answer: According to the commentary on the DVD, Ridley didn't add this scene to the original cinematic release because he thought it revealed the true horror of the Alien too soon in the film. The scene is quite early in the film and he thought revealing the fully matured Alien at that time would reduce the viewer's fear.

I had watched Alien several times before I noticed the Alien hanging there.At this point the Audience have no idea what the Alien looks like, they're looking at pieces of science fiction equipment put in by the production crew that they can't relate to, so for all they know the Alien could just be a piece of kit hanging there.

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Dreamcatcher picture

Question: What kind of power did each of the four friends have? Pete can locate things, but what about the other besides reading people's minds?

Answer: Each of the 4 main characters; Jonsie, Pete, Beaver and Henry could communicate with one another telepathically. In addition to this power, Jonie also possessed a photographic memory. Pete could find or locate things. Henry could read other people's minds. Beaver had premonitions or some sort of sixth sense. He made a phonecall to Jonsie, knowing something was wrong and wrote ssdd on the phone booth.

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Question: Throughout Transformer history, has it ever been known who or what was responsible for the creation of the Autobots and Decepticons and for what purpose?

Answer: Primus created the original Thirteen Transformers, later known as the Thirteen Primes, to help him defeat his nemesis, Unicron. The Thirteen Primes were the start of the Cybertronian race, which eventually turned on itself when Megatron, formerly Megatronus, started the War and his Decepticon faction.

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Answer: It really was all down to James Cameron having already written the script and proving himself capable of directing with 'The Terminator.' It was just a quicker, easier, and almost certainly cheaper decision to let him direct his own script rather than get someone else, even Ridley Scott. While the producers had wanted to make an 'Alien' sequel almost immediately, at the time the head of 20th Century Fox didn't want to pursue it fearing it would be seen as an obvious cash-in and flop. When a new executive at the studio came in a couple years later, the project was put back on track, and I believe Cameron was the first to be approached to write the script.

TonyPH

Chosen answer: The studio was considering a sequel before Cameron was involved, but regarding directing it, Ridley Scott told "The Hollywood" in a 2008 interview, "They didn't ask me! To this day I have no idea why. It hurt my feelings, really, because I thought we did quite a good job on the first one." The studio liked Cameron's script and at that time he had enough clout to be able to insist on directing it.

raywest

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Question: There are two scenes in the movie when the Hulk talks. Who did the voice for this?

Answer: That is an altered version of Eric Bana's voice.

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Question: If the MAV could be blown over by a storm of sufficient force, wasn't it very risky dropping the Ares IV Mav five years in advance of the mission?

Answer: The crew (and mission control) are in constant contact with the previously dropped MAV and would have aborted the mission and continued back to Earth had the MAV become inoperable before their arrival. Weir states this explicitly early in the book.

Answer: Yes, it is very risky unless the new Ares MAV is in an area with much calmer weather patterns.

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Alien Vs. Predator picture

Question: What happened with the plot used in Predator I and II about they hunt only in places with a hot weather?

Answer: The pyramid was in a tropical climate at the time of its construction, but Yautja are sticklers for tradition so continued to use it as the climate changed.

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Answer: At one point in time, Sony was set to make "Spider-Man 4" with director Sam Raimi and stars Tobey MacGuire and Kirsten Dunst. However, Raimi was unable to find a script he was satisfied with after many months of working with different writers, and he was having issues with the studio attempting to force the film into a 2011 release date, which he felt wouldn't give him the time he needed to make a quality film. Thus, he and the actors dropped out and the studio instead opted to go ahead with a reboot, in the form of The Amazing Spider-Man.

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Chosen answer: If any object can move across the water quickly enough, the weight isn't transferred completely. In some Scandinavian countries, they actually DRIVE very quickly across water in adapted vehicles. If the character of Dash could actually run that fast, it is feasible and possible for him to run on the water's surface.

GalahadFairlight

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Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen picture

Question: Sam says that the Energon source is before the Autobots. So to find it they need to talk to a Decepticon. Wheelie is the first one at hand, but how does he know about the source, let alone the Seekers, what they look like and where they are? He doesn't look like he is as old as Jetfire, and as he puts it, "Nobody tell me nothin".

Friso94

Chosen answer: He knows from stories passed down to him from older generations of bots, not much unlike stories about the past passed down to us from our ancestors. His line about no one telling him anything is just a way to avoid being put back in the box or being tortured by Mikayla.

dablues7

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9 (2009)

9 picture

Question: Why were the dolls sent out after the scientist made them? Why didn't they stay with the scientist so he could explain everything?

YellowBird

Answer: They were sent out into the world to create a new world for themselves. Every time the scientist created a doll, he transferred part of his soul into the doll bringing it to life but leaving him weaker. After creating 9 and transferring the piece of his soul into 9, he died so they would never have found out what they were created for.

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Timecop picture

Question: What type of guns did the time traveler use to kill the Confederate soldiers?

Answer: I'm pretty sure it was mp5 with muzzle brake.

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