Most common errors found in mainstream movies?

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ShawnD1

Lifer
May 24, 2003
15,987
2
81
It always bothers me how infrequently people watch the road while driving in movies. They shake the wheel side to side constantly but they also spend about 60% of the time looking at their passengers.
That's because they suck at driving. Pros like me spend 60% of the time looking down at our cell phones


As some one else mentioned, the artifical gravity is silly enough but when the ship is on backup power and being blown up it doesn't make any sense that it still functions. Stuff like the engines and life support are of course more important.
It would make sense that gravity in SOME areas has backup power. For example, try fixing a warp drive when your tools are floating around.

In our own world, we do that with our artificial sunlight. Every room in the apartment has electric lights, but only the ones in the hallways and stairwells have battery backups. Why? Because those lights are critically important for leading you out of the building. Gravity on the bridge of the ship is important because that controls a lot of what the ship does.
 
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zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
110,810
29,564
146
It would make sense that gravity in SOME areas has backup power. For example, try fixing a warp drive when your tools are floating around.

In our own world, we do that with our artificial sunlight. Every room in the apartment has electric lights, but only the ones in the hallways and stairwells have battery backups. Why? Because those lights are critically important for leading you out of the building. Gravity on the bridge of the ship is important because that controls a lot of what the ship does.

this is why any self-respecting galactic licensed warp engineer utilizes a velcro wall-mounted system for his tools.
 

Jeff7

Lifer
Jan 4, 2001
41,599
19
81
Another classic one: The Star Trek TNG episode where Geordi and Ensign Ro are shifted out of phase with the rest of the ship along with that Romulan guy. They could walk through walls, panels, other people... But they didn't sink through the floor and could even use the turbolifts.
Or the fact that they could breathe and see.
 

ShawnD1

Lifer
May 24, 2003
15,987
2
81
this is why any self-respecting galactic licensed warp engineer utilizes a velcro wall-mounted system for his tools.
Yeah but now I need to jump over to the wall every time I need a different size wrench. That's so inefficient.

The toilets should have backup gravity too, unless they use those adhesive ass gasket things.
 

CZroe

Lifer
Jun 24, 2001
24,195
856
126
Romans have British accents. And the overuse of British accents in general. Although I admit I'm so used to it in Roman movies, I think I may dislike any attempt to use a different accent.

Wait. They didn't speak English at all. In case you didn't realize, mid-western American isn't the base-level of the English language... it's still an American accent. So how is it any better to have an American accent than a British one? Also, it seems that a LARGE percentage of Hollywood actors aren't American and only sound American when they PLAY an American. When they play a roman, that goes out the window. I have a feeling that you think Russel Crowe is British and Aussie, Kiwi, Brit, etc all sound the same to you. H. Jackman, R. Crowe, C. Bale, H. Laurie... all are playing American's left and right and at least they know it's an accent.

Perhaps they should just use a stereotypical Italian accent like the Mario Bros?
 
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IronWing

No Lifer
Jul 20, 2001
69,525
27,829
136
Then they talk about going to a cabin "up in the mountains." In Minnesota. And even when they go there, they never have any shots of the outside of the cabin, so there is no reason they couldn't have just said "up north" or "in the woods" instead of "in the mountains."

Just Hollywood writers being idiots.

There is a movie set in Oshkosh, WI with huge, snow capped peaks in the background. Oshkosh, WI is built on a glacial lake bed. The highest point in town is the landfill followed by the overpass ramps. It is a good twenty miles to the nearest thing resembling a hill.
 

Andy22

Golden Member
Jun 8, 2001
1,425
0
71
Don't know if it was mentioned but...I can't stand to see sunny rain. If you are going to have a rainy scene find a way to put something that blocks direct sunlight on the area it is raining. Yes I know the sun can be out when it's raining but that is not what I am referring to. Seems to have occurred in several movies I have watched lately.
 

Homerboy

Lifer
Mar 1, 2000
30,856
4,974
126
Don't know if it was mentioned but...I can't stand to see sunny rain. If you are going to have a rainy scene find a way to put something that blocks direct sunlight on the area it is raining. Yes I know the sun can be out when it's raining but that is not what I am referring to. Seems to have occurred in several movies I have watched lately.

What are you referring to then?
I've certainly been in direct sunlight before and being rained on at the same time. Happens quite a bit around here in the summer months. (mighty cool too)
 

Andy22

Golden Member
Jun 8, 2001
1,425
0
71
What are you referring to then?
I've certainly been in direct sunlight before and being rained on at the same time. Happens quite a bit around here in the summer months. (mighty cool too)

No I am talking full on rain storms...thunderstorms. Yet you can see clear direct sunlight on the ground and shadows that would not be there or that clearly defined in a thunderstorm.
 

palswim

Golden Member
Nov 23, 2003
1,049
0
71
www.palswim.net
In the Bourne Supremacy,
they avoided the whole protagonist-never-suffers error, but then you had to watch the rest of the movie with him limping,
which distracted me worse than any lack of realism would have.
 

purbeast0

No Lifer
Sep 13, 2001
52,930
5,802
126
It might have been mentioned in that cracked article, but apparently a lot of med students were doing really stupid shit because they saw it on TV. The way TV shows putting a tube in a patient's nose is completely wrong because they obviously can't be jamming tubes in the actor's nose; the way it's done on TV is to make it at least look like it's going in there. They also do CPR wrong because the real way to do is is a bit dangerous and it will often break your ribs.


One I thought was wrong was how people in movies drive cars. They shake the wheel back and forth. Then I found out that wasn't wrong. My Ford Tempo really did drive like that.

yea and every person who drives in movies is a professional stunt driver who can do 180 turns, turn with the power brake, and can drive in oncoming traffic like its no problem.

i also hate in driving scenes when they switch gears, they switch way too often, and that the gear switching makes a noise. the worst was in fast and furious, when it makes a loud CLICK as switching gears .... oh and that a 1/4 mile race took about 2 minutes to complete, with about 10 gear changes.
 

zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
110,810
29,564
146
Yeah but now I need to jump over to the wall every time I need a different size wrench. That's so inefficient.

The toilets should have backup gravity too, unless they use those adhesive ass gasket things.

nah, dude. you mount your tools next to your engine, or whatever you plan to be working on. they have attached pillars for this.

redundancy is always good. keep the most needed tools next to the device as you would expect to use them most frequently.
 

Farang

Lifer
Jul 7, 2003
10,914
3
0
Wait. They didn't speak English at all. In case you didn't realize, mid-western American isn't the base-level of the English language... it's still an American accent. So how is it any better to have an American accent than a British one? Also, it seems that a LARGE percentage of Hollywood actors aren't American and only sound American when they PLAY an American. When they play a roman, that goes out the window. I have a feeling that you think Russel Crowe is British and Aussie, Kiwi, Brit, etc all sound the same to you. H. Jackman, R. Crowe, C. Bale, H. Laurie... all are playing American's left and right and at least they know it's an accent.

Perhaps they should just use a stereotypical Italian accent like the Mario Bros?

I didn't say anything about American accents.

I agree non-American actors do have to change their speaking style to play American characters. I too have noticed that when they play Romans, not Americans, these actors do not try to speak with an American accent.

That is interesting to know you have a feeling about my knowledge of accents.
 

lytalbayre

Senior member
Apr 28, 2005
842
2
81
One that always bothers me is swords making the cool metallic noise as they are pulled out of their scabbards or swung through the air. At best you would get awooshing sound, but the metal on metal sound...

What? It reminds me of the other posts about getting shot with a bullet. In reality the shot isn't that loud, the person hit would not go flying backwards with an exploding body part...
 

Ninjahedge

Diamond Member
Mar 2, 2005
4,149
1
91
There are so many it is hard to count.

But the things are always simple.

Most boils down to presentation. Physics is warped, and reality denied in order to make thnigs more emphatic.

The "piff" from a silencer to the "WHAP" from a bare fisted punch. The screeching of tires on asphalt with no smoke, or the fact that doors make the same sound opening and closing throughout the movie (sound "fonts").

Physics, where a car blows up as if the passenger compartment is where they kept the gas, or bending in a way that denies its actual structure. The whole Robert E Lee being able to jump over the same 'Yee-Haw" construction ramp and land, nose down, and still drive off.

Cartoons and sci-fi where one man is able to pick up something large and not fall over because they are not at the center of mass (ok for flyers, but not for strong men). Being able to stop cars by attaching to a bumper or the like (not having them rip off).

Drunks being able to speak better than many sober people I have known.

Gunshots causing people to fly around. Worst example was that linear accelator that supposedly took an aluminum pellet near the speed of light (Arnold flik). The gun was only 5' long, the battery was like a camera bag, and the bullet was aluminum. Instead of evaporating as soon as it hit the air, it flung people around and had no recoil. No straw-thru-the-oak cauterized hole in the target.....

The apartment in NYC ownd by unemployed or recently graduated people that actually has enough room for a couch (Friends, Seinfeld, and a few others that I forget the name).

Bars where you can see EVERY PERSON and hold a conversation w/o shouting.

As for the cloaking, it may be possible. If they can control gravity AND have a warp drive, bending light should not be that hard (gravity does it). You can also just shoot a coherent laser beam in another direction. Light is not like sound. So long as it does not hit somethnig, nobody should see it besides the one you are pointing it at.

There are things that are not realistic, but so long as they do not try to over-explain it is fine. The "Force" is one. When they tried relating it to a "Mitocondiral count" or whatever it was, that ruined it. What is this? DBZ? Blasters are blasters. So long as they do not explain how they work, erroneously, I have no problem.

But the thing to keep in mind is this. So long as you keep to the exceptions you state in the beginning, it is easier to ignore the main fictional parts. If the rest of the world is supposed to be normal, it is easier to accept a few things NOT being normal. The best sci-fi and fantasy have been things where everything else is forced to follow the rules, and something is able to ignore a few.

NOT all of them, but a few.

You can accept Superman so long as he leaves a sonic boom behind him. You can accept his invincible suit so long as regular clothes shred. You can give him laser-vision so long as it does not follow "heat" ot "laser" depending on what the author wants to do with it.

As soon as you start messing with everything, making a throat punch non-lethal, breaking a mans arm and having him able to lift something because he is "strong willed", your mind will already acknowledge this to be fake.


The worst scenes I have seen have not been the most gruesome. They have been the most POSSIBLE.

The hobbling in Misery is one, the ear in Reservoir dogs is the other.



Nuff said.
 

Ninjahedge

Diamond Member
Mar 2, 2005
4,149
1
91
Don't know if it was mentioned but...I can't stand to see sunny rain. If you are going to have a rainy scene find a way to put something that blocks direct sunlight on the area it is raining. Yes I know the sun can be out when it's raining but that is not what I am referring to. Seems to have occurred in several movies I have watched lately.

Or people walking around in short sleeves and no umbrellas when it supposed to be something like a November rainstorm........
 

OutHouse

Lifer
Jun 5, 2000
36,413
616
126
Space ships flying like they are in an atmosphere. BSG is prob the closest in showing how a fighter in space would maneuver in real life. but they still didnt get it 100% correct. if they did the battle scenes would have sucked on an entertainment/suspenseful level.
 

Ninjahedge

Diamond Member
Mar 2, 2005
4,149
1
91
Space ships flying like they are in an atmosphere. BSG is prob the closest in showing how a fighter in space would maneuver in real life. but they still didnt get it 100% correct. if they did the battle scenes would have sucked on an entertainment/suspenseful level.

No, I forgot what TV show got it right... The one with the giant rotating space station tube?

Babylon 5?

The ships would be floating in one direction, fire the jets, start spinning, then fire them again to stop.

The only downside was that the jets made noise....


Maybe that is what you heard INSIDE the ship!
 

AstroManLuca

Lifer
Jun 24, 2004
15,628
5
81
No, I forgot what TV show got it right... The one with the giant rotating space station tube?

Babylon 5?

The ships would be floating in one direction, fire the jets, start spinning, then fire them again to stop.

The only downside was that the jets made noise....


Maybe that is what you heard INSIDE the ship!

Yeah, the Starfuries in B5 had four engine pods, one on the end of each wing in an X shape... and each one had a rear-facing thruster, a forward-facing thruster, one facing vertically away from the ship, and one facing horizontally away from the ship. Meaning a Starfury can accelerate in any direction very quickly or perform insane maneuvers by firing thrusters in opposite directions. Unlike most sci-fi, B5 actually had inertia in space.
 

tk149

Diamond Member
Apr 3, 2002
7,256
1
0
Worst error: People never ever have trouble parking in front of their destination, even when it's a huge office building in the middle of a big city.
 

exdeath

Lifer
Jan 29, 2004
13,679
10
81
Everyone firing hundreds of rounds, including 12 ga in enclosed environments like stairwells, with no hearing protection while carrying on in normal conversation voices and apparently being impervious to hearing damage.
 
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Jeff7

Lifer
Jan 4, 2001
41,599
19
81
Space ships flying like they are in an atmosphere. BSG is prob the closest in showing how a fighter in space would maneuver in real life. but they still didnt get it 100% correct. if they did the battle scenes would have sucked on an entertainment/suspenseful level.
It would also suck if the ion engines on a TIE fighter worked like the ion engines we've got now, which can produce all the force of a small, sickly moth's wings.
Nothing like a year-long chase sequence as the aggressor accelerates to attack speed.
 

911paramedic

Diamond Member
Jan 7, 2002
9,450
1
76
It might have been mentioned in that cracked article, but apparently a lot of med students were doing really stupid shit because they saw it on TV. The way TV shows putting a tube in a patient's nose is completely wrong because they obviously can't be jamming tubes in the actor's nose; the way it's done on TV is to make it at least look like it's going in there. They also do CPR wrong because the real way to do is is a bit dangerous and it will often break your ribs.

It doesn't break the ribs but it really fucks the cartilage up.

I could post a laundry list of medical mistakes they make, but I'm sure that's true of any profession they portray. If you are an expert yourself you will spot the mistakes.

I hate when they give injections, sooooo wrong. You see somebody with a two inch needle trying to take blood and they make it look like the entire needle goes into the arm. Not good. The needle only goes in a quarter inch or so, if that. How deep do you think that vein is that you see through the skin? My phlebotomy students would even call BS on this one.

IV's, don't even get me started. The most flagrant violation is when they are backwards. The catheter goes towards the heart, ALWAYS. And then there are the people that rip them out and go running without any bleeding, lol. Try that some time, just for fun. (Seriously, prank your nurse some time.) It's called blood "pressure" for a reason, that stuff will shoot across the room if you let it.

On, and on, and on...
 
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