I’m pretty sure NOT targeting innocent bystanders because it may be convenient is a real thing. (Not that the scenarios in action movies have much to do with reality.)
I actually could see some strategic value in this.
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The horse aren’t armed; the riders are. The rider can still attack you if their horse is dead.
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It leaves the horses alive so you can keep them for yourself and integrate them into your own army.
True, but real life standoffs are rarely if ever, spare one life to save tens or hundreds of thousands like in the movies.
I know it’s a touchy subject, but that was part of the justification for dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We killed tens of thousands of non-military people to prevent the loss of the hundreds of thousands of military and non-military lives that would be lost in an invasion.
Well you can see horses go down very realistically in pre-1940 movies. 
Medievally, you take down the knight, the guy now on the ground is surrounded by guys waiting to put the book [and pointy thing] in. In general, any knight unmounted tended to end up dead unless it was in a period when they would be more inclined to be held for ransom.
And a well trained warhorse was dangerous and could be dangerous to handle by strangers.
Coming late to this thread: you might like to compare with this list of similar howlers and clichés on UK television:
Assuming, of course, that the rider survives falling off a horse 20–24 hands tall while traveling 25–30 mph and not getting trampled.
Seconded. More rare, but equally stupid: a space ship that takes a severe hit in battle then starts going down. In space. :smack:
A horse also probably wouldn’t just be felled instantly by an arrow or gunshot, surely? Even humans often aren’t, and horses are much larger. Yeah, odds are the horse would die before too long, but an arrow or gunshot that didn’t make much impact would still leave the rider in charge of the horse for possibly long enough to inflict damage, and if the injury to the horse was bad, there’d be a period of time where they were injured and scared and trampling over people on any side. It’d be like shooting at a car that was travelling towards you and making it crash into your guys.
I’m sure people did often aim for the horses, mostly because they’re a bigger target so easier to hit, but there are reasons not to as well.
I made the mistake of renting a car for a movie. It was deliberately abused. I’m still mad about that! :mad: (I still drive this car, a lot)
A corralary to this one – when a car being old and beat up is a plot point, they will often use a car that would have actually been fairly new at the time the show or movie is set. The Wonder Years was guilty of this in the episode where the family gets a new car. Their old station wagon that was supposedly on its last legs was a 1968 model, in an episode set in 1969. I admit this is one only car enthusiasts would actually notice, though.
Related to the car thing, as a former Volvo 240 owner I tend to notice them, and I’ve noticed that anytime a character needs to have a “humble family car,” for whatever reason it’s almost always a Volvo 240. I’ve seen it way too frequently for it to just be random.
I’ve even seen it in the Simpsons more than a couple of times (usually depicted as Principal Skinner’s car; he also owned a Camry at some point).
I’m guessing it’s a combination of 1) Volvo 240s have a very loyal following among a certain crowd, and therefore have a much higher survival rate than other sedans from that era, and are therefore probably easier for filmmakers to obtain. Nobody bothered to preserve a 1986 Buick Skylark or whatever, but lots of people kept their old Volvos. 2) Volvo didn’t really change the styling much from the mid-1970s to the early 1990s, so filmmakers don’t need to worry too much about getting the year right. A 1992 Volvo 240 wouldn’t really look out of place in a show set in the 1980s. Only the most pedantic Volvo enthusiast would be likely to notice.
The volume in a nightclub is muted enough for people to speak normally without raising their voices.
I remember that episode. While the actual car shown really is a 1968 model, on the show the voice-over narration refers to it as a 1963 model, during the time it’s being spruced up to be put up for sale.
Yeah, all that, and the fact that they are both very distinctive so it’s easy to pick out in a shot, yet they are fairly common so they never look like someone just drove in from the future. They were also sold on just about every continent so they look at home in almost any setting.
Not to mention that no one is ever, ever going to mistake it for a sports car; it’s a humble family sedan/wagon, and that’s all.
The excellent HBO miniseries John Adams has period accurate teeth, especially for the old people. It’s quite noticeable and I love it.
Honestly, even shows set today ought to have at least some people with terrible teeth. They’re out there, in all walks of life, though the wealthy can usually get cosmetic surgery or implants.
This one annoys me every time. Even the otherwise accurate Deadwood has a lot of historically inappropriate hats. Pretty much anyone in any western who isn’t wearing a Derby or Boss of the Plains (or the odd topper) is wrong.
Oh yes, this for sure! Doesn’t every self-defense class teach this? I think the only time I saw it used was in Jumpin’ Jack Flash when Whoopie took down one of the baddies - around the 1:30 mark.
I have to wonder, too - how many people, when being chased, will keep turning to look behind at their pursuer? Me, I’d be bookin’ it at full speed till I couldn’t - then maybe I’d look back.
For some reasons I keep thinking there was a similar scene in Running Scared with Billy Crystal. I’m not sure it was a long time ago.
Just being traumatized isn’t very realistic. I’ve never been in a shooting but I’m very familiar with several. The officers involved were out of work for months. And these were obvious good shoots involving armed suspects. The investigations were extremely thorough and long and then it was many months before they cleared the officer physically and mentally to come back to work.
Yes I realize that would make for a very boring TV show.
One that gets me is that there are always 3 messages on the answering machine when our hero comes home. The first two are personal messages, but the third is the one that drives the plot.
The first message is from VISA telling our hero that his credit card bill is overdue. The second is from his ex wife telling him that she heard he has been drinking too much and is worried about him.
The third is from the bad guy who is going to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge/kill the little girl/assassinate the President/capture the next hostage/etc.
There are always three. Our hero never had a slow message day where there was only the one important message.