# Common movie plot/line misconceptions **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 19, 2005, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-movie-plot-line-misconceptions/317750 "2005-08-19T15:17:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2005, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-movie-plot-line-misconceptions/317750/61 "2005-08-21T01:29:13Z")
> [@Gangster Octopus](#): > > Of course some of the foreshadowing in _A.I._ is only apparent on a second viewing. For example, when David is first brought home he is silhouetted behind the door. The silhouette, however, really looks more like one of the advanced mechas from later, rather than one David would cast. [Similar foreshadowing](http://www.fantascienza.net/sfpeople/gian.filippo.pizzo/cinema/foto_file/ai.jpg). ---
**Author:** ![Stephe96](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Stephe96](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stephe96)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2005, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-movie-plot-line-misconceptions/317750/62 "2005-08-21T04:26:45Z")
Regarding _ **Aliens** _ and the question about whether or not these people had encountered any extraterrestrial life before, isn’t this sort of answered already in the original _ **Alien** _? I don’t think anyone has mentioned this yet (forgive me if you have), but wasn’t the original Company directive in the first to bring back a live alien specimen for their Bio-Weapons Division? (I’m going from memory here). If so, doesn’t that kinda imply that they _had_ encountered stuff like this before? After all, why would the Bio-Weapons Division be interested if they didn’t already have some kind of idea that the alien was dangerous? ---
**Author:** ![TJdude825](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dec6dc/32.png) [@TJdude825](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TJdude825)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2005, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-movie-plot-line-misconceptions/317750/63 "2005-08-21T06:32:20Z")
In Titanic, she tells Jack “I’ll never let go,” and then lets him go, so he drowns. But she wasn’t saying that she wouldn’t physically let go. She was saying that she wouldn’t let go of… his love, or something equally corny. I don’t remember what it is exactly, but I was channel surfing once and got to this exact moment, and Jack was telling her not to let go of some… _thing_, not Jack himself. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2005, 8:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-movie-plot-line-misconceptions/317750/64 "2005-08-21T08:36:56Z")
> [@TJdude825](#): > > In Titanic, she tells Jack “I’ll never let go,” and then lets him go, so he drowns. But she wasn’t saying that she wouldn’t physically let go. She was saying that she wouldn’t let go of… his love, or something equally corny. I don’t remember what it is exactly, but I was channel surfing once and got to this exact moment, and Jack was telling her not to let go of some… _thing_, not Jack himself. Besides, by that point Jack was already dead of hypothermia. He didn’t drown so much as be consigned to the depths. The think she wasn’t supposed to let go of was “her dreams.” Corny, sure, but the movie never claimed to be anything other than a big ol’ bowl of corn the size of Idaho. ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2005, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-movie-plot-line-misconceptions/317750/65 "2005-08-21T20:32:50Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > And the Corporation _didn’t_ believe Ripley – that’s the point. But the idea of extraterrestrial life didn’t throw them. Theregfore tyhey knew about it from elsewhere. So…the corporation didn’t believe Ripley…but they ordered their Droid-on-the-Scene to bring one back? -Joe ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2005, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-movie-plot-line-misconceptions/317750/66 "2005-08-22T05:01:46Z")
> [@Merijeek](#): > > So…the corporation didn’t believe Ripley…but they ordered their Droid-on-the-Scene to bring one back? > > -Joe Do you mean Ash or Bishop? ---
**Author:** ![WilhelmGefallen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/9f8e36/32.png) [@WilhelmGefallen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WilhelmGefallen)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2005, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-movie-plot-line-misconceptions/317750/67 "2005-08-22T08:21:33Z")
> [@Larry Mudd](#): > > It’s in the script and the novelization, at least. I can’t speak to the movie because I only watched it once and usually try to pretend it never happened. > > It makes sense, though, given Wal\*Mart’s hiring practices. Its in the directors cut in the 9 disc set as well. ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2005, 8:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-movie-plot-line-misconceptions/317750/68 "2005-08-22T08:40:10Z")
> [@WilhelmGefallen](#): > > Its in the directors cut in the 9 disc set as well. Thank you. I knew I hadn’t just imagined it. ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2005, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-movie-plot-line-misconceptions/317750/69 "2005-08-22T13:59:16Z")
> [@HPL](#): > > Do you mean Ash or Bishop? Ash. I’ve seen Aliens alot more than Alien so I couldn’t remember the name of magazine-down-the-throat droid. -Joe ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2005, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-movie-plot-line-misconceptions/317750/70 "2005-08-22T14:11:36Z")
One of the most famous lines from the movie **42nd Street** is badly misremembered, so that it’s meaning is completely changed. It’s usually quoted as “You’re going out a youngster, but you’re coming back a star.” The idea is that the person (substituting for the real star) is so talented that once the audience sees her, they’ll love her and she’ll return full of acclaim. The actual line is “You’re going out a youngster, but you’ve _got to_ come back a star.” (Italics mine). The point is that the actress (Ruby Keeler) _must_ be a success or the show fails and everyone is out of work. It’s putting the pressure on her, not showing confidence in her (and, in the film, she is only able to substitute for the star after some very intense last-minute coaching from the director). ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2005, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-movie-plot-line-misconceptions/317750/71 "2005-08-22T19:34:34Z")
There’s no such thing as “Midochlorians”. Qui-Gon Jinn basically made them up…like the Tooth Fairy or the Baby Stork to explain something too complex for an eight year old to handle. ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2005, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-movie-plot-line-misconceptions/317750/72 "2005-08-22T20:52:12Z")
In the movie **Spanish Prisoner** , there’s a scene near the end where a character who has been tailing Campbell Scott all along pulls out a rifle and shoots the bad guy. Campbell Scott asks her “What if you’d missed?” And she replies “Well, it’s be back to the range for me!” Ebert mentioned this line specifically in his review, as he liked the way it lampooned movie characters that can never hit anything they shoot at. Problem is, I always thought the character said “It’s be back to the ranch for me.” By evidence is that the Asian woman who says this uses a thick southern accent, and it’s her only line. The implication is clear - she’d be back on the ranch, yee haw, and it’s a salvo that you would assume she would have an Asian accent. Unfortunately my DVD screws up before this scene, so I can’t confirm using subtitles which word she says. Anyone? ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2005, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-movie-plot-line-misconceptions/317750/73 "2005-08-22T21:18:01Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > There’s no such thing as “Midochlorians”. Qui-Gon Jinn basically made them up…like the Tooth Fairy or the Baby Stork to explain something too complex for an eight year old to handle. Am I being whooshed? As much as I’d like to believe that, the grown-ups talk earnestly about midichlorians amongst themselves, and even have technology to objectively measure them. Believe me, if there was a consistent way to think about midichlorians that made them less embarrassingly stupid, I’d be clutching it tightly. ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2005, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-movie-plot-line-misconceptions/317750/74 "2005-08-23T05:31:02Z")
> [@Merijeek](#): > > So…the corporation didn’t believe Ripley…but they ordered their Droid-on-the-Scene to bring one back? > > -Joe A simple case of right-hand/left-hand corporate management. The company’s execs collectively don’t believe her, but someone important enough does, and saw fit to give the order without telling everyone else. I see it happen in all sorts of environments, not just interstellar corporations. ---
**Author:** ![Pashnish\_Ewing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8797f3/32.png) [@Pashnish\_Ewing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pashnish_Ewing)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2005, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-movie-plot-line-misconceptions/317750/75 "2005-08-23T05:53:44Z")
> [@sciurophobic](#): > > Especially sinced they didn’t know the job was dangerous when they took it. [Baw-KAH!](http://www.renegadechickens.com/chickens/Toons/superchicken.gif) ---
**Author:** ![Askance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askance/32/8281_2.png) [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2005, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-movie-plot-line-misconceptions/317750/76 "2005-08-23T06:06:08Z")
> [@jrfranchi](#): > > BtW, do you know the story of the origin of the Computer Bugs? > It has to do with Grace Hopper, the USA’s first female Flag officer (Admiral) > She help write COBOL and before that was working on the old hardwired analog ballistic computers of the Navy. > Program was consistantly running incorrectly. She went into the switch room and finally found a Moth preventing the switch from closing. > > More detailed link: [http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/pers-us/uspers-h/g-hoppr.htm](http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/pers-us/uspers-h/g-hoppr.htm) Perhaps the first use of _bug_ in relation to computers, but the term was use during Thomas Edison’s life to mean an industrial defect. And in any case, it was not she who either found the moth or preserved it; she just loved to tell the story and was always careful to emphasise that she herself had not been present. The whole reason the actual moth in question was kept and noted was that here was a routinely used term happening literally for once. However the incident did coin the term _debugging_. [Cite](http://www.jamesshuggins.com/h/tek1/first_computer_bug.htm). ---
**Author:** ![Rebo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rebo/32/13005_2.png) [@Rebo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rebo)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2005, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-movie-plot-line-misconceptions/317750/77 "2005-08-23T14:06:06Z")
> [@marque elf](#): > > In _The Maltese Falcon_, both the movie and the book, Caspar Guttman’s gunmam, played by Elisha Cook, Jr. in the movie, is referred to as a “gunsel”. From the context, one gets the impression that “gunsel” means a gunman. Actually it was prison slang for a homosexual. Spade was insulting Guttman as well as Wilmer but if you don’t know the slang, the insult is lost. Main Entry: gun·sel Pronunciation: 'g&n(t)-s&l Function: noun Etymology: slang gunsel catamite, perhaps modification of Yiddish gendzl gosling slang : GUNMAN ---
**Author:** ![Tracy\_Lord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@Tracy\_Lord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tracy_Lord)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2005, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-movie-plot-line-misconceptions/317750/78 "2005-08-24T05:54:23Z")
> [@Dolores Reborn](#): > > Main Entry: gun·sel > Pronunciation: 'g&n(t)-s&l > Function: noun > Etymology: slang gunsel catamite, perhaps modification of Yiddish gendzl gosling > slang : GUNMAN My OED gives 1950 as the earliest recorded use of the “gunman” meaning. ---
**Author:** ![wevets](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9a140/32.png) [@wevets](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wevets)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2005, 9:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-movie-plot-line-misconceptions/317750/79 "2005-08-24T09:20:35Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > If the Company doesn’t believe there are aliens, why pack Ripley along as an “expert”? If there aren’t any aliens, what’s she an expert in? If they never encountered aliens at all, why not ship a xenobiologist? What use is a xenobiologist from a culture that has never encountered aliens? That’s like bringing an oceanographer from a planet that has no large bodies of water. Much better to have someone with firsthand experience. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2005, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-movie-plot-line-misconceptions/317750/80 "2005-08-24T12:38:31Z")
> [@](#): > > Sure there is. In addition to the foreshadowing already mentioned, the more advanced robots are seen “linking up” like computers so that they can all process David’s experiences. One robot puts his “hand” on David, the next robot puts his “hand” on the first robot, etc. etc. Lights twinkle as the data passes from one to the other and so on down the line. > > I suppose you could argue that they come off as telepathic aliens or something, but there’s absolutely nothing in the film (other than Spielberg’s name in the credits) that would suggest aliens are going to make an appearence. I think the shape of the robots must have thrown a lot of people. I can and do argue that. And the foreshadoweing, as noted earlier, doesn’t mean much if you’ve only seen the film once. There’s nothing in the film to suggest aliens, but filmmakers pull this sort of “out of thin air” thing all the time – look at the out-of-the-blue introduction of the robot Ash in **Alien** , without a smidgen of suggestion that robotys even exist in that future. And the presence of Spielberg’s name isn’t what suggested aliens (at least in my case) – encountering aliens rooting through the remains of human history is a lot more common an image that robots doing so (except on F&SF covers and a very few stories). That, coupled with how exteremely different the robots were, not only from the robots we’d seen, but from any human artifacts (or artifacts that tracve themselves back to humans) tended to make me think “aliens” rather than “super-developed robots”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-movie-plot-line-misconceptions/317750.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-movie-plot-line-misconceptions/317750.md?page=5)