# Inaccuracies that bother you most and least **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 28, 2022, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inaccuracies-that-bother-you-most-and-least/967050 "2022-06-28T16:04:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 16
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2022, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inaccuracies-that-bother-you-most-and-least/967050/301 "2022-07-05T20:21:56Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > From your 2nd cite: > _A walk through the historic districts of many older American cities will reveal a rustic and romantic street standard of the past: cobblestones._ There are some in older cities, but only short stretches of road way preserved for their quaintness. Often they are not cobblestones though, just paving blocks of some kind and people have the impression there is no difference. It’s not a difference people would care much about anyway, they’re both noisy bumpy road surfaces. There are more stone block roadways in existence because they last a long time with little maintenance require, usually suffering the loss of individual stones, occasionally broken, most pilfered. > [@](#): > > The first link doesn’t work for me. It’s just a picture of pavers. Here’s another one: [Old Street Pavers. Path Paving Surface Stock Image - Image of surface, brickwork: 137310329](https://www.dreamstime.com/old-street-pavers-path-paving-surface-image137310329) Pavers are square or rectangular blocks made of stone or other materials. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2022, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inaccuracies-that-bother-you-most-and-least/967050/302 "2022-07-05T20:35:06Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > > [@DrDeth](#): > > > > Mark Twain wishes to differ. > > So does Dante Alighieri. _They_ can get away with it. You can’t ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2022, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inaccuracies-that-bother-you-most-and-least/967050/303 "2022-07-07T11:25:05Z")
> [@Knowed\_Out](#): > > Was the translator not associated with the studio and just wanting to get the ordeal over with She was hired because someone knew someone who speaks a bit of English and it never occurred to them that they should actually hire a professional, despite paying a fortune to have a top name actor appear in the commercial. She agreed because the person who hired her said that they only needed someone who could translate greetings and a few simple directions. Once she was on set, it was waaaay over her head, but she couldn’t admit she was out of her league so she tried to fake it, and the results are as seen. Yes, I have seen something like that in real life, why did you ask? > [@Limmin](#): > > So many movies, which should know better, _especially_ if they claim that they had a NASA advisor participating in the show’s production, give the audience the impression that rockets labor so much in simply going up, like a toy rocket. I saw an interview with a WWII historian who was hired as an advisor for a famous movie, and he said that his advice was ignored if the director felt it didn’t make good drama. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2022, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inaccuracies-that-bother-you-most-and-least/967050/304 "2022-07-07T11:39:47Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > I saw an interview with a WWII historian who was hired as an advisor for a famous movie, and he said that his advice was ignored if the director felt it didn’t make good drama. For Korea rather than WWII, Michael Caine tells a similar story about _himself_, when he was fresh out of the military and (a) landed an acting job by doing double duty as the movie’s technical advisor, and (b) kept getting disregarded. [_“I advised the crew to spread the troops wide as the latter advanced, which was militarily correct, but they replied that they didn’t have a lens of sufficient width to take it all in! I also pointed out that the officer would have removed his signs of rank and worn a hat, the same as the other men, to disguise which one was in command, but George was allowed to go into battle with all badges and hat gleaming, every inch an officer. In a real fight, he would have lasted all of ten seconds.”_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Hill_in_Korea) ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2022, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inaccuracies-that-bother-you-most-and-least/967050/305 "2022-07-07T21:46:29Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > There are some in older cities, but only short stretches of road way preserved for their quaintness. [Charleston, South Carolina](https://c8.alamy.com/comp/JJRFRT/historic-district-downtown-cobblestone-street-charleston-south-carolina-JJRFRT.jpg) still has a few. The Lowcountry being somewhat lacking in native stone, the cobbles came from the ballasts of sailing ships in the 19th century. > [@TokyoBayer](#): > > I saw an interview with a WWII historian who was hired as an advisor for a famous movie, and he said that his advice was ignored if the director felt it didn’t make good drama. Which is exactly as it should be - the director is telling a story, and should use whatever tools she has to do so. ---
**Author:** ![Esprise\_Me](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/esprise_me/32/2947_2.png) [@Esprise\_Me](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esprise_Me)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2022, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inaccuracies-that-bother-you-most-and-least/967050/306 "2022-07-07T22:02:29Z")
> [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > Which is exactly as it should be - the director is telling a story, and should use whatever tools she has to do so. How far do you take that, though? Most people seem to feel that most of the inaccuracies they notice detract at least somewhat from their enjoyment of the story. So if you have a plot point that’s inaccurate but more dramatic than reality, it may be worth it if few people will recognize it as being inaccurate, or if few people who do recognize it are bothered by it. But if it’s obvious and irritating to a lot of the people who would otherwise be most interested in your movie, it might be better to fix it and create the drama some other way. That’s why I’m interested in hearing not just a takedown of movies etc that got stuff wrong, but opinions on which of those wrongs really got under people’s skin, and which ones they were able to brush off. Some have mentioned being bothered more by inaccuracies that would’ve been easy to fix (though I feel almost the opposite–if the plot depends on the inaccuracy, it ruins the whole story.) Others have mentioned being bothered by inaccuracies that lead to real-world misunderstandings, which makes perfect sense. Do you feel that inaccuracies are forgivable as long as they make the story more interesting? ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2022, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inaccuracies-that-bother-you-most-and-least/967050/307 "2022-07-07T23:17:38Z")
> [@Esprise\_Me](#): > > Do you feel that inaccuracies are forgivable as long as they make the story more interesting? Yes. So long as they don’t disrupt the willing suspension of disbelief, and thus the story. If Al Capone climbs out of a 1934 Packard and starts gunning down his enemies, the fact that he was in prison when that car came out isn’t going to pull me out of the narrative. If he jumps out of a Prius, it will. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2022, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inaccuracies-that-bother-you-most-and-least/967050/308 "2022-07-08T22:35:16Z")
I’m personally more than a little wary of this—if the inaccuracy/plot hole is in a story with A Message™, or is trying to be allegorical. 'Makes me suspicious of the rigor that was behind the thesis, or the motivations and professionalism\* of the auteur. Like, if you had an important technical report, but after you leaf past the abstract page, you notice some pages are scrawled in crayon on construction paper. And when you pick it up to read it, glitter sifts out. \*Criminey…what’s a good term for “un-flippancy”? ---
**Author:** ![Esprise\_Me](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/esprise_me/32/2947_2.png) [@Esprise\_Me](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esprise_Me)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2022, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inaccuracies-that-bother-you-most-and-least/967050/309 "2022-07-08T22:39:30Z")
> [@Ranchoth](#): > > Criminey…what’s a good term for “un-flippancy”? Seriousness? In any case, good point. It’s like the difference between a written joke that contains an irrelevant typo (maybe briefly distracting, but the joke could still be good) and a pun based on a misunderstanding of how the word is pronounced, that doesn’t work anymore once you say it properly. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2022, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inaccuracies-that-bother-you-most-and-least/967050/310 "2022-07-09T00:48:03Z")
> [@Horatius](#): > > For example, why does the Enterprise always start falling out of orbit as soon as they lose power? Well, it’s because they’re not actually in a stable ballistic orbit like the space shuttle used. They’re using their anti-grav engines to maintain a lower orbit at a lower-than-orbital-speed velocity, so that they can maintain a geosynchronous position, but much closer to the surface. As soon as they lose power, they don’t have the velocity needed to maintain that orbit, so they start to fall. That’s the best explanation I’ve seen for that insanity - except the pictures of the Enterprise in orbit seldom showed them stable relative to the planet. At least they figured out how to assume a stable orbit by the time of TNG. I don’t recall it ever being an issue there. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2022, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inaccuracies-that-bother-you-most-and-least/967050/311 "2022-07-09T07:37:16Z")
> [@Ranchoth](#): > > \*Criminey…what’s a good term for “un-flippancy”? Gravitas. ---
**Author:** ![ZonexandScout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zonexandscout/32/544_2.png) [@ZonexandScout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZonexandScout)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2022, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inaccuracies-that-bother-you-most-and-least/967050/312 "2022-07-09T12:43:36Z")
I’m telling you, it’s the “Sharknado principle” (see #224 above). Any creature or object being held aloft solely by external forces will immediately drop when it is killed or loses power. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2022, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inaccuracies-that-bother-you-most-and-least/967050/313 "2022-07-09T14:42:54Z")
So I just found another inaccuracy that doesn’t bother me, over in the “anachronism” thread: > [@What was the most anachronistic thing you've seen in a fictional work that wasn't intentional or an accident?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-anachronistic-thing-youve-seen-in-a-fictional-work-that-wasnt-intentional-or-an-accident/953956/454): > > The room is always way too brightly lit for just candles or oil lamps. The only movies I can think of that portrayed this realistically are Barry Lyndon and Heaven’s Gate. While I understand that real lighting in historical era will be much dimmer than we are used to, film is ultimately a **visual** medium, and so you need enough light for the viewers to see what’s going on. Unless the darkness is an important plot point, like in a horror movie or the like, I’ll largely overlook artificially bright scenes like this. ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2022, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inaccuracies-that-bother-you-most-and-least/967050/314 "2022-07-09T16:32:59Z")
> [@Horatius](#): > > While I understand that real lighting in historical era will be much dimmer than we are used to, film is ultimately a **visual** medium, and so you need enough light for the viewers to see what’s going on. Unless the darkness is an important plot point, like in a horror movie or the like, I’ll largely overlook artificially bright scenes like this. This is precisely what I was talking above above, in regard to anachronisms that serve the narrative. ---
**Author:** ![ParallelLines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/parallellines/32/3575_2.png) [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2022, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inaccuracies-that-bother-you-most-and-least/967050/315 "2022-07-09T17:04:58Z")
One that bugs me a lot, and is endemic to older movies is ‘day-for-night’. [Cinematography Tip: Why 'Day for Night' Is a Horrible Idea](https://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/cinematography-tip-why-day-for-night-is-a-horrible-idea/#:~:text='Day%20for%20night'%20is%20the,that%20isn't%20very%20cinematic). If the link doesn’t load for you, it’s the whole trope of filming ‘night’ scenes during the day and applying a filter or other techniques to make it look ‘dark’ and then trying to sell the audience that it’s nighttime. And it always yanks me clean out of the movie. Because while the cast sure tries to act like they can’t see / have a hard time seeing, but it’s bloody obvious they can. I get up in the night, in a room I know well, lit with parasitic light from clocks, electronics, street, and I will still trip over a sock I left out or stumble into the bedframe. But you get people running around in forests, unfamiliar buildings and the like at full speed with every evidence of sight until the director wants them to trip or miss something coming because “it’s dark”. I fully acknowledge that filming, as a visual medium, is dependent on us being able to see what’s going on, but this technique is always insanely jarring for me - people who can’t see / can barely see DON’T act like that, so it’s a two-fer of cognitive dissonance for one effect. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2022, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inaccuracies-that-bother-you-most-and-least/967050/316 "2022-07-09T17:23:23Z")
> [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > This is precisely what I was talking above above, in regard to anachronisms that serve the narrative. I’d guess we’d have to make a distinction between “serving the narrative” and “pandering to the narrative”, as with this: > [@ParallelLines](#): > > people who can’t see / can barely see DON’T act like that We as an audience can accept a decently lit room as “dark”, because we need enough light to see what’s going on. But at the same time, if the movie uses this light to propel the story in a way that just _could not happen_ without _actual_ light, then the suspension of disbelief becomes much harder. Probably the best example I’ve ever seen of how to balance this is this scene from Silence of the Lambs: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/ovQk7fd4_Co/maxresdefault.jpg "The Silence of the Lambs (11/12) Movie CLIP - Pitch Black (1991) HD") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovQk7fd4_Co) We accept the “killer’s night vision” shots, because that lets us seen what Agent Starling is doing, but Agent Starling is clearly not able to see anything. The shots looking at the killer, while dark, are lit well enough for us to see at least some details of his face, but if it were really that well-lit, Agent Starling would have seen him. But since this is just a visual convention of story telling, it has no reality in the scene. The scene plays out as if it were were pitch black in that room. We see this again as she shoots him - the shots light up the whole room in a manner that would never happen in real life, but it lets us see what’s going on. Since this has no effect on the story itself, just our ability to _see_ it, it’s worth doing. ---
**Author:** ![Esprise\_Me](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/esprise_me/32/2947_2.png) [@Esprise\_Me](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esprise_Me)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2022, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inaccuracies-that-bother-you-most-and-least/967050/317 "2022-07-09T20:49:41Z")
When I was a kid, my dad pointed out and explained the use of day-for-night filming in a movie we were watching, and it snapped my perspective in such a jarring way. I went from being unable to see the scene as anything other than night, to being unable to see it as night anymore. I generally agree that using too much light is at worst a forgivable inaccuracy, though. It actually annoys me when a scene is too dim and I can’t tell what’s going on if there’s any ambient light in the room where I’m watching. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2022, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inaccuracies-that-bother-you-most-and-least/967050/318 "2022-07-09T20:53:11Z")
> [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > So long as they don’t disrupt the willing suspension of disbelief, and thus the story. If Al Capone climbs out of a 1934 Packard and starts gunning down his enemies, the fact that he was in prison when that car came out isn’t going to pull me out of the narrative. If he jumps out of a Prius, it will. Right. > [@Horatius](#): > > While I understand that real lighting in historical era will be much dimmer than we are used to, film is ultimately a **visual** medium, and so you need enough light for the viewers to see what’s going on. Tell that to _The Batman._ Might as well have been a radio show. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2022, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inaccuracies-that-bother-you-most-and-least/967050/319 "2022-07-09T21:36:11Z")
> [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > If Al Capone climbs out of a 1934 Packard and starts gunning down his enemies, the fact that he was in prison when that car came out isn’t going to pull me out of the narrative. But Frank Nitti being pushed off a roof in a scene of retribution for the murder of someone that never existed and therefor not murdered in real life, instead of him drunkenly taking three tried to shoot himself in the head, does. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2022, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inaccuracies-that-bother-you-most-and-least/967050/320 "2022-07-09T22:43:14Z")
> [@Esprise\_Me](#): > > When I was a kid, my dad pointed out and explained the use of day-for-night filming in a movie we were watching, and it snapped my perspective in such a jarring way. I went from being unable to see the scene as anything other than night, to being unable to see it as night anymore. When _ **Spartacus** _ was being restored (in the '80s, I think), some of the daytime scenes became night scenes for technical reasons. (Deteriorated negatives, maybe?) What always gets me about such filtered scenes is that campfires are never bright—they’re almost as dark as everything else we see. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inaccuracies-that-bother-you-most-and-least/967050.md?page=15) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inaccuracies-that-bother-you-most-and-least/967050.md?page=17)