Best sci-fi movie questions of 2011

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The Thing picture

Question: In the last part of the movie, how are they supposed to drive the snow vehicles? There is a scene before where they cut the wires of all the vehicles to disable them for the quarantine. Am I missing something?

Michele SoIntense Anghileri

Chosen answer: By disabling the snow vehicles, they are making sure that the creature can't use them to escape from the quarantine zone. Since the creature can assimilate anybody, it would probably know how to use one.

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Transformers: Dark of the Moon picture

Question: Of all the Transformers who die in this film, how many of them have died before in the Transformers canon? I'm looking for specific examples and how many times they've died.

Brad

Chosen answer: I can tell you that every single one of them died in the old animated series, eventually. They had to make room for new characters to sell toys of.

Phixius

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The Adjustment Bureau picture

Question: Since David was a politician, couldn't Elise have just looked him up?

MikeH

Answer: I would think so.

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Paul picture

Question: Being unable to believe Paul's existence, Clive attacked Paul by gripping his throat in the RV. Then Paul said "That's my fucking jorph. Get your fucking fingers out of there! If I get a jorph infection, you're dead!" What exactly does jorph mean? Where does the word come from?

Answer: Since Paul is an alien, his race would probably give their body parts names that are in their own native language. To humans, we have throats. To Paul's race, jorph is their word for throat.

It cannot be a throat as it is an opening, it is more likely an opening that acts like a human ear.

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Contagion picture

Question: After Alan Krumweide starts spreading misinformation about Forsythia curing MEV-1, we see a scene in a pharmacy being flooded with desperate customers. But if Forsythia is a homeopathic drug, then why is it being sold in pharmacies in the first place? As the characters say later on, it takes months just to get a drug approved, let alone sold.

Answer: Many pharmacies in the US sell homeopathic supplements.

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Answer: It is shown in X-Men: Days of Future Past that Hank made a serum that can help him walk.

Chosen answer: The short answer is events in this film negate what happened in X-Men 3 as well as Origins: Wolverine or one could say this film essentially became a reboot. Since no real answer seems to be given, and since the X-Men 3 film makers didn't know Charles would later be shown to become paralyzed prior to visiting Jean, they had no need to explain why he's walking. One can only speculate on the possible ways Charles walks in these 2 previous movies (and this isn't taking into account the timeline shift from X-Men Days of Future Past). We do know from DOFP that Hank/Beast created a serum for Charles that allowed him to walk, albeit without his powers. Hank could have kept working on this serum which would allow Charles to walk and still maintain some of his powers. Then at some point Charles stopped taking the serum, confining him to the wheelchair once again. Either because they ran out of the serum or because Charles came to the realization he needs to accept what happened and not hide it, especially if he's teaching children to accept who they are. Charles also has the power of "astral projection" and the power to appear in the minds of others, so Charles could simply not be there at Jean's house, but is back home, in his wheelchair.

Bishop73

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Source Code picture

Question: Why does the train where the action takes place have the locomotive as the last car? When two trains pass each other at one moment, the others locomotive is at the beginning.

Billcow

Chosen answer: Trains that shuttle back and forth on shorter stretches don't usually turn around at the terminus. They simply go "backwards". So, in one direction the loco is in the front, on the way back it's at the end of the train.

Ioreth

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Green Lantern picture

Question: In a post-credit scene, it shows Sinestro taking off his green ring and replacing it with a yellow one. What was the reason for it?

Answer: In the comics Sinestro founded and led the Sinestro Corps, a group similar to the Green Lanterns, but they use the yellow part of the emotional spectrum: fear, rather the the green energy of willpower.

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Chosen answer: A couple of techniques were used. In most cases, Evans would film the scene normally, then the effects team would digitally shrink his character down to the smaller size. This would generally require some on-set adjustment to allow for eyelines - in some cases Evans would be physically lower than other actors, in others, they would look at his upper chest while he looked over their heads. In a few cases, actor Leander Deeny, who possessed the necessary scrawny physique, would film the scene, collaborating closely with Evans to ensure that the character's mannerisms remained the same. Deeny's features would then be digitally replaced with those of Chris Evans. Deeny appears briefly in the movie as the bartender in the pub Rogers visits to recruit his team.

Tailkinker

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Cowboys & Aliens picture

Question: Colonel Dolarhyde mentions about having participated in the Battle of Antietam and losing men in the Cornfield. Did he fight for the Union or the Confederacy?

Answer: I was unable to find any reference about which side Dollarhyde fought for in the Civil War. It may have been deliberately left ambiguous to make his political alliances more neutral, and instead, focus on his personal character and how it evolves during the film.

raywest

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In Time picture

Question: We see in the movie that the time is like money but where is the "time" generated?

Ddiods

Chosen answer: When they turn 25, their built-in clock starts counting down from 1 year. Since time is the currency, they must then work and contribute to the economy, in order to earn time and survive. The government gives that one year of time to each person, as both a population control measure (if they don't work and earn, they'll die) and an economic incentive.

David R Turner

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Super 8 picture

Question: Alice wants to see her father die for all he did to her. How come Joe doesn't want the same for his father for all he did to him?

Cody Fairless-Lee

Answer: I don't believe Alice said she "wants to see her father die", and I'm not sure what you mean by "for all he [Mr. Dainard] did to her." Alice told Joe that SOMETIMES she wishes her dad would have died instead of Joe's mother. When Joe replied that she shouldn't say that because he is her dad, Alice got his point and did not continue to say anything else, such as that she really meant what she said. What did Alice's dad "do to her"? He did say she wasn't going to Joe's party (which she made up). He told her to go in the house and wanted Joe to leave. After Alice went to Joe's and tried to sneak back into the house after dark, Mr. Dainard told Alice to "leave", just like her mother did. As soon as Alice was out the door, Mr. Dainard immediately followed to get her back and suffered injuries trying to do so (but the "monster" got her). Alice probably didn't know her dad told Joe's dad (deputy) that he did not want Joe seeing his daughter again - she was "off limits."

KeyZOid

What did Joe's dad (Mr. Lamb) "do to him"? He tried to get him to go to summer camp, but didn't make him. He said he wished Joe wouldn't hang around a certain friend (Cary) so much because he kept lighting things on fire - but didn't stop him. When Joe dropped a flashlight on the kitchen floor, his dad told him to pick it up. Mr. Lamb told Joe to make sure he fed their dog Lucy. Mr. Dainard made it clear inside the sheriff's station that Joe was not to be around Alice anymore, so when Mr. Lamb caught Joe with Alice on the street, he put Joe in the police car, took him home, and demanded that he stop seeing Alice and said they could not be friends. I don't see any behavior by Joe's dad that would make Joe want him dead.

KeyZOid

Answer: Because they're two different people who have different emotions, different experiences, and would not react exactly the same way about their fathers.

raywest

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Chosen answer: No they most certainly did not. That wouldn't remotely be considered a particularly respectful homage! They picked Alzheimers because it's specifically a brain condition, which can then be explored in the movie as a plausible way of explaining the intelligence raising properties of the drug used.

GalahadFairlight

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Spy Kids: All the Time in the World picture

Question: Why did Juni leave the OSS again? Also, why does Carmen seem to hate him again? They got over that in the first movie.

THE GAMER NEXT DOOR

Answer: He retired from the OSS. Carmen hates Juni because after he went out on his own he never called or did anything to let her know where he was or how he was doing.

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Battle: Los Angeles picture

Question: What were all the cities that were attacked during the invasion?

Answer: Most likely, coastal cities or cities near a large body of water.

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