Question: When the rings were being handed out, why didn't the hobbits receive any?
Tailkinker
13th Dec 2012
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
14th Dec 2012
Doctor Who (2005)
13th Dec 2012
The Dark Knight (2008)
Question: When Chechen meets the Joker in the warehouse, why did his men suddenly turn on him and start working for the Joker? The Joker was the only one in the warehouse, so it would have made sense for Chechen's men to simply say no or even beat him into submission.
Answer: Members of the mob typically respect strength and audacity. The Joker has repeatedly shown himself to have plenty of both in his confrontations with the police, rather more so than the Chechen has shown. Plus, and this is quite a key point, the Joker has all the mob's money. Plenty of reasons why the Chechen's men might find themselves interested in working for him instead.
13th Dec 2012
Alien 3 (1992)
Question: Why is the animal host switched out between the theatre release and the DVD release? Does this switch have any major differences between the two versions? I've only ever seen the theatre version.
Answer: There are two quite different versions of the film, due to problems behind the scenes while shooting. The director, David Fincher, was repeatedly subjected to studio interference, culminating with them effectively locking him out of the edit suite and creating the final cut of the movie themselves - this became the theatrical version, with the dog being used as the alien host. Some years later, a new version of the film was created using footage that Fincher shot that was rejected by the executives; known as the "Assembly Cut", the result was much closer to Fincher's original intent and contains a number of significant differences from the original - it's this version of the film that uses an ox as the alien host. Most box-sets of the film series will contain both the original theatrical cut and the assembly cut.
13th Dec 2012
Aliens (1986)
Question: What is the actual time frame from when Ripley is revived from the Nostromo's lifeboat to when she joins the mission to LV-426 to when the team actually arrives there? I know that the colonists were attacked after Burke sent the order for them to check out the alien spacecraft, but in alien, it was only a matter of hours before the facehugger dropped from Kane's face, and a few more after that when the newborn emerged. If this is accurate, then how could any of the infected colonists still be alive when the marines arrived and were checking the mass cocoon? In a previous question above, it was ascertained that the flight time was a minimum of 2 weeks, possibly more. Add to that the time it took to convince Ripley to agree to go and prep time for takeoff, I'd say it's anywhere from 2 1/2 to 3 weeks before they got there and any impregnated colonists should have dead.
Answer: You're assuming that all the colonists were captured by the aliens at the same time. There's no evidence to support that, particularly; logically the takeover would have happened over a period of time. Only one alien would have been brought back to the colony, from the facehugger that attacked Newt's father, so some considerable time must have passed while new eggs were acquired to infect other colonists and increase the number of alien warriors available. We don't know precisely when communications with the colony were cut off, but, from the lack of information available to the marines sent to investigate, it must have happened relatively early in the infestation, so it's entirely plausible that the colonists' final stand didn't take place until the marines were already well on their way. Newt's survival until the marines' arrival clearly opens up the possibility that other colonists were able to avoid capture for some time after the final stand. As such, it's not remotely unreasonable to suggest that the live colonist found in the cocoon chamber had been captured by the aliens no more than a day before the marines found her.
Regarding the colonist dying from a chestburster in front of the Marines as opposed to sometime before, maybe the colonist went into a coma of some kind (psychological if nothing else) and the chestburster of course did likewise, and then the Marines caused her, and accordingly the alien larva, to awaken (seems an enormous coincidence of timing otherwise) at that particular moment. It's also possible the adult aliens, having gone dormant with nothing to do, have somehow caused the chestburster and/or host to do likewise, again, with the Marines' arrival, the larva awoke and the adults followed suit. It's even possible the chestburster had some form of birth defect that caused its "late start."
With reference to the original question about taking 2 weeks to get to the planet from earth, in the first Alien film the flight time was 10 months. I know that a military ship would be faster than an old tug 57 years previously but to cut the journey down that much would be impossible.
Well, the colonists may have been infected at the same time but that woman was still alive when they found her, so this shows that not all the colonists were infected at the same time assuming she even is a colonist.
Answer: You're assuming that they received transmissions at sub-light speed. It could have have been weeks or months before they received an S.O.S. Ripley said Newt survived for weeks on her own.
14th Dec 2012
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007)
Question: Is it ever stated in the movie what happened to the dementors after they attacked Harry and Dudley?
Chosen answer: No. Harry fought them off using the Patronus charm and they retreated. Where they went after that is unrevealed.
14th Dec 2012
Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)
Question: It is made very clear in Thor that the safest place for powerful, mythical objects is Odin's weapons vault. So why would the Asgardians leave the most powerful and mythical of them all, the Tesseract on earth, behind just the push of a button?
Chosen answer: As we have no idea of the circumstances behind the Tesseract ending up hidden in a Norwegian church, we can hardly say that the Asgardians have simply chosen to leave it there. Most likely the reason is that they simply don't know where it is; while they're powerful, they're certainly not omnipotent. If, though some unknown past event, the Tesseract was lost to them, then somebody took considerable care in concealing it, it seems entirely reasonable that the Asgardians would be completely unable to locate it and return it to their vault.
13th Dec 2012
The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Question: Does Bruce Wayne or Batcycle use EMP Burst or something similar to turn off all reporters cameras at the Charity Ball or Subway lights during the stock market chase and the aftermath?
Answer: Yes, it would seem that he carries some sort of device that produces that effect in a small area around him, plus the gun with the lights at the end of the "barrel" appears to have the same effect over a longer range, as he uses it to take out a motorcycle some distance ahead of him.
13th Dec 2012
General questions
I'm trying to find the name of a movie that I saw on HBO in either 1992 or 1993. These military type people were in a jungle try to capture a creature that was eventually killing the group off. I have no idea who was in it or what the creatures looked like. I think they might have been invisible?
Answer: The 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger film "Predator" would seem to be an obvious candidate.
13th Dec 2012
Red Dwarf (1988)
Question: I'm just dying to know why they refer to issues from a non existent "season 9" during the 3 part episode. If Red Dwarf ended at season 8, continued with season 9 with "back to earth", how is it they keep referencing a season that never happened?
Chosen answer: In the fictional version of the real world that the crew visit in "Back To Earth", apparently a season nine did happen.
13th Dec 2012
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010)
Question: At the end when Dobby is stabbed, Harry says he wants Hermione to get something from her bag and she doesn't do anything. Why would she not get anything from her bag. It's unlikely she wouldn't have her bag since she had it at the beginning of Part 2?
Chosen answer: Because she knows that she hasn't got anything in there that'll do any good. Harry's clutching at straws, begging her to pull out something that'll fix Dobby and save his life. She hasn't got anything that'll work, so she doesn't do it.
13th Dec 2012
Thor (2011)
Question: In the scene after the end credits, you see Professor Selvig and Nick Fury in a corridor and Nick fury shows him "the Cube". Then in a reflection, you see Loki. Are we to presume Loki made his way back to earth and took on Professor Selvig's appearance or he just appeared out of nowhere and found "the Cube".
Chosen answer: It seems reasonably clear that Loki made it to Earth and has been following Selvig in some manner, apparently giving him some degree of control over him, judging by Selvig repeating what Loki says.
13th Dec 2012
Iron Man (2008)
Question: Does the villa of Tony Stark actually exist?
Answer: No, it's digitally added to a rocky outcrop just outside Malibu in California.
13th Dec 2012
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)
Question: I don't understand something about the last part of the movie. Before they going back in time, they are leaving Hagrid's hut and watch somebody pretending to eliminate the hippogriff. Shouldn't they've seen Harry and Hermione rescuing the hippogiff before? Because they were observing until the bad people came outside Hagrid's hut. Or do we must assume that they were rescuing the hippogriff in the meantime they were running behind the rocks?
Chosen answer: Harry and friends leave Hagrid's hut, then watch as Fudge and company arrive, go into the hut for a short time, then exit and supposedly execute Buckbeak. However, as they can't actually see the area where Buckbeak is, they don't realise that what they think is an execution is actually the executioner slamming his axe onto the floor in frustration at Buckbeak being missing. Buckbeak was rescued by the future Harry and Hermione while Fudge was in the hut; as Buckbeak was out of sight, their younger selves didn't see it happen.
13th Dec 2012
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007)
Question: At the start of the movie, does the sky change because Harry gets angry or because the dementors were coming?
Chosen answer: The latter - the Dementors are on their way and they have that sort of effect on the environment around them.
13th Dec 2012
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011)
Question: Why did Harry say Snape was the bravest man he ever knew?
Chosen answer: Snape spent years pretending to be working for the most powerful Dark Wizard who ever existed, reporting back to Voldemort's greatest enemy, every moment risking the possibility of being found out and executed, probably in a very horrible and painfully prolonged fashion, knowing that if he died, there was every possibility that his name might never be cleared. Pretty good definition of bravery, I think you'll agree.
13th Dec 2012
Doctor Who (1963)
Question: 1. How did Sarah-Jane Smith get introduced to the Doctor? 2.Does she have a 'title'? (eg. Amelia is the girl that waited) 3. How did she get written out?
Chosen answer: 1) She broke into a UNIT base during the story "The Time Warrior", masquerading as her aunt, a respected scientist, and met the Doctor there when she investigated the strange blue box that she found there. 2) No, she doesn't. 3) She left the series at the end of The Hand of Fear, after the Doctor was summoned home to Gallifrey and decided that it would be too dangerous to take her there with him. He dropped her off, ostensibly near her home in South London, but actually in Aberdeen, due to the navigational eccentricities of the TARDIS.
13th Dec 2012
The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Question: Wayne is supposed to lead the reactor back to the containment chamber so it can be flooded, as the waters will cause it to safely shut down. When Talia floods the chambers, Bruce is then forced to carry the bomb a safe distance away, over the ocean. If the flooding of the chamber could've stopped it, why couldn't Wayne just drop the reactor into the ocean to "kill it", rather than, say, going to all of the effort of carrying it a safe distance away? Or was it all just part of his ploy to appear dead?
Answer: You've misunderstood, I'm afraid. Bruce and Selina were battling to get the reactor core back to the containment chamber so that it could be reconnected to its support equipment, which would stabilise the core and prevent detonation, not so that it could be flooded there, which would do nothing to stop it blowing. Talia ordered the flooding of the chamber so that reconnection was no longer possible, forcing Bruce to fly the core out to sea, getting it out of range of Gotham before it blew.
22nd Nov 2012
Doctor Who (2005)
Question: What was the reason Doctor Who stopped airing from 1989 until 2005?
Chosen answer: The show, at the time, was suffering badly in the ratings, mainly from a poor time slot, which put it directly up against a highly popular soap opera. The series was also going through something of a bad patch anyway - Colin Baker had proved controversial as the sixth Doctor, leading to his eventual dismissal from the role, a prior eighteen month hiatus had lowered public interest, and a number of issues behind the scenes were deemed to have had a detrimental effect on script quality. While things arguably improved somewhat in the final couple of series with Sylvester McCoy's seventh Doctor, the damage was done and, although pre-production work had already started on the next series, the decision was taken to suspend production.
3rd Nov 2012
Seven (1995)
Question: I don't get why Mills gets arrested for killing John Doe. Yes, the killing was motivated by revenge, but Doe was a serial killer, so surely it was a justified death. Can anyone explain this to me?
Chosen answer: Doe was in police custody, being escorted by Mills and Somerset, to say nothing of the other units involved. He was not a physical threat to either, and thus his execution (no other word works to describe what happens) cannot be legally justified under any definition of the phrase. Mills killed a defenceless prisoner in his custody with multiple witnesses - there is simply no justification for what is essentially a murder. He would likely get off with a lesser charge, given the situation and his grief, a temporary insanity defence would likely work, but that doesn't lessen the fact that he did it. His arrest is absolutely warranted.
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Answer: Because Sauron doesn't consider them any sort of threat, unlike the races of Men, Elves and Dwarves. He only gave the rings to the races he was worried about.
Tailkinker ★