Question: I know that the studio chose James Cameron to direct due to the strength of his script, but why wasn't Ridley Scott offered the chance to direct? And was the studio considering a sequel before Cameron joined?
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.
Question: One of the early posters of this film shows a bearded guy (who is not in the film) coming through a wall crack and holding puppet strings with one hand. Who is this guy supposed to be and what does he represent?
Chosen answer: He does bear a striking resemblance to Stephen King. King was both the writer and director of this movie, and as such, was certainly the guy in charge of all the character's fates and pulling all the strings.
Answer: It is Stephen King.
Question: Near the end of the song "I am a dentist", is Orin saying "and a success" or "and I say sit"?
Answer: He says "and a success". He's singing about his mother telling him he'd become a successful dentist.
Question: Why is the secretary was so rude to Howard when he tried to find the job?
Answer: As she said to Howard, she believed that he was using his "outlandish" appearance to be unable to find work and collect money through unemployment. She's probably dealt with people who did the same thing and was eventually sick of it.
Question: Paul Ruebens does the voice of Max but why in the credits does it say that the voice of Max was done by Paul Mall?
Answer: According to IMDB, Paul Mall is just another one of his names people know him by.
Answer: It was Paul Reubens' idea to use a pseudonym, so as to keep the voice of Max a mystery and to surprise any fans of his.
Question: Would the interference from the plutonium keep the RC car from working?
Answer: Radiation wouldn't necessarily affect a remote control car. It would contaminate it, but beyond that the car would continue to work.
Question: What are those devices we see disappear from the wraith's arm and after the second and third race supposed to be?
Chosen answer: I believe they are markers to show how many people are left to take revenge on for his death.
The problem with that answer is that the Wraith had to kill five people (Oggie, Minty, Skank, Gutterboy and Packard) and he only had four of those metal braces. If he had one for each gang member he wanted revenge on, he would have had five. I think he was only given four chances to crash his car and reassemble, and once they were gone, that was it. That's why he killed Skank and Gutterboy at the same time.
Question: Why does the probe even wish to talk to humpback whales?
Answer: It's stated by Spock in the movie, even if he is just speculating. He mentions that humans are not the only intelligent special on Earth, and that it's human arrogance to assume that the probe's signal, "Must be meant for man." The point is, the aliens were communicating with the whales, and when that communication stopped, they sent the probe to find out why.
Answer: There is a hypothesis by Spock that the probe was perhaps sent to find out why they didn't hear the whale song any more.
Answer: Wouldn't you if you could?
Question: How is the "no fighting on holy ground" rule enforced? I really can't see a guy like the Kurgan, who seems to have no sense of honor to speak of, following the rule willfully, unless there was some severe punishment for breaking the rule.
Answer: What the punishment is isn't shown in this movie, but since even the Kurgan follows it, it must be high. In Highlander 3 we see that fighting on holy ground at least destroys the weapons they are fighting with (although only Macleod's for some reason), it's possible the ultimate penalty is given when an immortal kills another immortal on holy ground. A good guess is the penalty is death.
Answer: The "No Fighting on Holy Ground" is considered a sacred rule. Like being quiet in church, a funeral or any religious service. If any immortal would break this rule he was not be honorable and not subject to any of the other rules. Like fighting one on one and using hired thugs to capture an immortal holding him down to take his head.
Question: How much truth is there to the claim that if the G.I. Joe movie had been released first then Optimus Prime would not have died in this one?
Answer: The reason for this is the intent of both movies (G.I.Joe and this one) to kill off the old group and bring in a new group for younger kids. You noticed how most of the dead are from the old cartoon. The backlash was so bad that the G.I.Joe movie was changed to not kill off anyone (if you watch it you can see where characters were meant to die but the show was changed at the last sec to keep them alive. If G.I.Joe was release 1st then they would have died and if the same backlash happened you would have seen no-one die in this one.
Answer: In the UK we don't have G.I Joe, only action force so thats your first problem, and secondly the UK comics built up to the Transformer movie without no mention of G.I Joe story lines which may have appeared in the US.
Question: At the end, Stephanie, Newton and Johnny Five are all driving to Montana. What about Stephanie's animals and all her things at her house?
Answer: Driving from Central Oregon to Montana only takes about 12 hours. They could drop off Number 5 and be back to move Stephanie and Newton out of their houses within a day or two.
Answer: They were not driving to Montana, they were in the country driving back to the city, while they discussed Stephanie's animals and responsibilities.
Newton said that a relative left him several acres in Montana. Since they were already in a huge van, they could just stop by Stephanie's place and pick them up.
Question: How was Biggles able to land the helicopter on a moving train despite only just learning to fly it?
Question: If Lea Thompson wasn't strapped in during a launch, wouldn't she have suffered more than a couple of bruises from her body being wrapped around a steel column and being under 3G+ during the launch scene?
Answer: Not necessarily. The 3 G's pretty well kept her pinned, so she wasn't bouncing around. If someone can fall 18,000 ft out of an airplane with only a sprained leg (one of several examples) then yes it's theoretically possible. If the guy in this story could withstand 42 g's strapped in, the yes Katherine could've survived 3 g's.
Https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/gravity-forces/.
Question: Was Keenan Wynn actually ill when he made this film, or was that just good acting?
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