(Least) Favorite Movie Mistakes

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

We’ve all seen 'em…

“Hey, was that a microphone?”

“Since when do they have palm trees in CHICAGO?!?!”

“Wouldn’t a man be crushed if he exited a submarine that deep underwater?”

“Hey, he was holding that gun in his left hand a second ago…”

Simply describe your (least) favorite movie mistakes. One rule, though: Allow for artistic license. For example: It’s pitch black at the bottom of the ocean. But the makers of “The Hunt for Red October” would be foolish if they had accurately showed that. I think the same argument can be made for sound EFX in space scenes. It’s true that you can’t hear explosions or lasers in space. But neither can you hear the London Symphony Orchestra. Just because WE can hear it, doesn’t mean the characters can. Just because WE can see the “Red October” doesn’t mean the crew of the “Dallas” can.

It’s true that www.imdb.com has its own lists of movie mistakes, but maybe we can find some they missed.

Those who do not learn from the past are condemned to relive it. Georges Santayana

2

I always liked the mountains in the background in “Rumble in the Bronx.” Since when does NYC have mountains?

3

In “North by Northwest” in the Mt. Rushmore cafeteria, you can see a kid in the background hold his ears before the gun is fired.

4

In one scene in “Rambo,” two guys are walking along the bridge, firing their machine guns. One guy walks right in front of the other guy. Apparently he timed it well - the bullets didn’t even touch him! :slight_smile: I’m surprised that no one caught that error, especially the actor who was “shooting” his “comrade.”

5

In a Star Trek (TNG) episode there is a shot of some obviously Southern Califorian hills behind the cast, who are supposed to be on some distant planet. At one point a common turkey vulture wheels into view from behind a hill. Someone had the bright idea of adding an unearthly bird cry to the soundtrack, rather than reshooting the scene.

6

I recently saw the restored version of The Wizard of OZ on the big screen, and there is a scene I didn’t remember, and still can’t figure out. It’s when they are on their way to the Wicked Witch’s castle to get her broomstick, and they enter the creepy forest. All of a sudden, the Tin Man is carry an insect sprayer, the Scarecrow is brandishing a pistol, and the Lion has a butterfly net! They didn’t have them immediately before this shot, and these items disappear after they say a couple of lines. What did I miss? Is this just an editing error, or did these items originally have some significance that didn’t make it into the final cut of the film?

TT

“Believe those who seek the truth.
Doubt those who find it.” --Andre Gide

7

I’ve always hated those exterior scenes that depict a downpour of rain AND brilliant sunshine at the same time. You’d think they’d either just forego the “rain” or shoot the scene in a place where direct sunlight doesn’t hit.

Tim
“My hovercraft is full of eels.”

8

Good point, jab1. Sounds in space combat are important to creating the feel for the audience.

One thing I think would be cool, in space combat, would be to assume that there isn’t any atmosphere in space (a wild assumption, granted!) This would make spacecraft maneuver nothing like airplanes in atmospheres. While sound effects are important, I don’t think World War II-style dogfights are sine qua non for gripping space battles. It would be just as cool for ships to have to spin 180 degrees to slow down, for spaceships to continue moving when their engines are extinguished, etc. Apparently, Hollywood thinks audiences go to space flicks to see the familiar (i.e., airplane flight) rather than the exotic and novel but realistic (i.e. ballistic/free-fall flight).

Gunfights: I don’t mind when the shooter gets off 20-30 rounds without you seeing him reload. He shoots 15 times, the camera cuts away, he switches magazines, and fires again. Big deal. I do think it’s a shame that filmmakers are so uninterested in making reloading a part of the seen. Swordfights are always stopping to make room for dialogue - what movie swordfight would be complete without a few pauses to say “Avaste ye scurvey dog!” and stuff. We suspend our disbelief because we like the dialog.

Adding in a couple of tense reloads - complete with a couple of fumbled cartridges, not remembering which pocket you put your extra magazines in - would be a realistic excuse for some dialog. The hero is frantically reloading the cylinder on his .357, when he hears the villain’s echoing taunt somewhere. Oooh, suspense! Instead, we usually just see guys fire a couple dozen times until the script figures out something else to do.

Actually, L.A. Confidential had some pretty good reloading stuff. An angry cop tosses spare ammo to a rival a few scenes after he’s beaten the daylights out of him - what more macho way to make friends is there?

9

Godzilla is infested with logical error, mainly because it’s just a plain BAD movie. I’ll leave that one alone.

But, in What Dreams May Come I noticed a crew man duck into the tall grass/bushes in a long shot that later zoomed in on Robin Williams. (It’s toward the very end, where he’s in his mansion and walks out, grieving the apparent second loss of his wife.)

The crew man was was in the corner of the scene when he hunkered down, but was noticeable enough that I kept waiting for someone to come out from the grass and talk to Williams’ character. I’m still stunned that mistake got through.

I used to think the world was against me. Now I know better. Some of the smaller countries are neutral.
http://members.aol.com/lrconaway

10

One more: Character rewinds videotape on standard, consumer model VCR…except you HEAR the backwards, sped-up audio on the videotape as the tape is being rewound! What consumer model VCR does this??? Grrrr…

Tim
“My hovercraft is full of eels.”

11

My favorites (you may have seen this before):

Things computers can do in movies

Word processors never display a cursor.

You never have to use the space-bar when typing long sentences.

Movie characters never make typing mistakes.

All monitors display inch-high letters.

High-tech computers, such as those used by NASA, the CIA or some such governmental institution, will have easy to understand graphical interfaces.

Those that don’t have graphical interfaces will have incredibly powerful text-based command shells that can correctly understand and execute commands typed in plain English.

Note: Command line interfaces will give you access to any information you want by simply typing, “ACCESS THE SECRET FILES” on any near-by keyboard.

You can also infect a computer with a destructive virus by simply typing “UPLOAD VIRUS”. (See “Fortress”.)

All computers are connected. You can access the information on the villain’s desktop computer even if it’s turned off.

Powerful computers beep whenever you press a key or the screen changes. Some computers also slow down the output on the screen so that it doesn’t go faster than you can read. (Really advanced computers will also emulate the sound of a dot-matrix printer.)

All computer panels have operate on thousands of volts and have explosive devices underneath their surface. Malfunctions are indicated by a bright flash of light, a puff of smoke, a shower of sparks and an explosion that causes you to jump backwards.

People typing on a computer can safely turn it off without saving the data.

A hacker is always able to break into the most sensitive computer in the world by guessing the secret password in two tries.

You may bypass “PERMISSION DENIED” message by using the “OVERRIDE” function. (See “Demolition Man”.)

Computers only take 2 seconds to boot up instead of the average 2 minutes for desktop PCs and 30 minutes or more for larger systems that can run 24 hours, 365 days a year without a reset.

Complex calculations and loading of huge amounts of data will be accomplished in under three seconds. Movie modems usually appear to transmit data at the speed of two gigabytes per second.

When the power plant/missile site/main computer overheats, all control panels will explode shortly before the entire building will.

If you display a file on the screen and someone deletes the file, it also disappears from the screen (See “Clear and Present Danger”).

If a disk contains encrypted files, you are automatically asked for a password when you insert it.

Computers can interface with any other computer regardless of the manufacturer or galaxy where it originated. (See “Independence Day”.)

Computer disks will work on any computer has a floppy drive and all software is usable on any platforms.

The more high-tech the equipment, the more buttons it will have. (See “Aliens”.)

Note: You must be highly trained to operate high-tech computers because the buttons have no labels except for the “SELF-DESTRUCT” button.

Most computers, no matter how small, have reality-defying three-dimensional active animation, photo-realistic graphics capabilities.

Laptops always have amazing real-time video phone capabilities and performance similar to a CRAY Supercomputer.

Whenever a character looks at a monitor, the image is so bright that it projects itself onto their face. (See “Alien” or “2001”.)

Searches on the internet will always return what you are looking for no matter how vague your keywords are. (See “Mission Impossible”, Tom Cruise searches with keywords like “file” and “computer” and 3 results are returned.)

“Happiness is nonetheless true happiness because it must come to an end, nor do thought and love lose their value because they are not everlasting.”

  • Bertrand Russell
12

Man, yes, computer inaccuracies are pretty extreme in movies. I guess it can be given over to artistic license to some extent.

Still, my favorite quote from Jurassic Park is “Hey this is a UNIX system!”, while the screen showed some elaborate 3D model of the park. :slight_smile:

13

In the Shining, during the drive to the Overlook, you can see the shadow of the helicopter that’s taping the scene.

In Goldeneye, Xenia tells Bond, “Once again, I am sure the pleasure was all yours.” and “This time the pleasure will be mine.” despite the fact that she couldn’t possibly have heard the line she references. It was made at her, but she had just left the room.

–John
“Don’t ask me, I’m just a hologram.”

14

And even for those who still don’t like sound EFX in space, Hollywood gets sound EFX from a distance wrong, too. I mean, the sound is synchronized with the explosion, even when the event is a mile away or more. I guess since “it never rains in Southern California,” they have no experience with thunder and lightning.

Those who do not learn from the past are condemned to relive it. Georges Santayana

15

The wheels of a car will ALWAYS squeel. Even if you’re cornering at 10 km/h, or even if you’re driving on wood/sand/dirt/etc.

In those head-on shots of two people sitting in a car chatting along, the road pasted in in the background will be straight for miles, while the driver will be turning his steering wheel as if he were driving the Indy 500.

ALL cars make the same V8 noise.

You can jump over any river/gap-in-bridge (speed !)/canyon/lake. There’s ALWAYS an incline, don’t worry, there’s no way your car’s gonna drop any lower than the river bank/bridge level/etc.

Oh, and the best Star Trek scenes are the ones when the Enterprise/Voyager/whatever encounters turbulence - the actors have to act like they’re being shaken all about. The hard part is doing this with a bridge crew of 20 people in a synchronous or logical manner :slight_smile:

Coldfire

“You know how complex women are”

  • Neil Peart, Rush (1993)
16

This is minor in a cheerfully hokey movie, but I obssess on it every time…
In the (great) bar scene in “Airplane”, when Julie Haggerty is supposedly being slung around in finest disco fashion by Robert Hayes, you can quite clearly see the centrifuge apparatus she’s standing in.
This is really nitpicky, because the movie doesn’t even try to fake Robert Hayes’ “Peter Pan” type rigging during his mock Cossack sequence.
Lowbrow and resigned to it,
Veb
(P.S. I’m not even mentioning the enormities in my beloved “Attack of the killer shrews”. Supposedly midnight, but the filters can’t disguise the ink-dark shadows. The “killer shrews” are quite unmistakably friendly dog in soft focus, complete w/ perky ears and wagging tails…okay, maybe I WILL mention a few things…so bad it’s sublime.)

17

Oh, yeah, forgot The Dream Team, a great little sleeper w/ Chistopher Lloyd, a young Michael Keaton, Peter Boyle and Stephen Furst of “Animal House” fame (aka Flounder.)
They’re 4 mental patients accidentally lost in left in Manhattan while on a field trip out of the “nuthouse”. (Their interactions in “group” are hilarious; New York on their own is just one, big extension of therapy–that works.)
Anyway, they are waiting in the van for their therapist to return (he’s been shot–it’s a plot thing) and they get more and more nervous. Finally poor Stephen Furst, who only speaks in “baseball” just has to pee.
He supposedly runs around the corner, but the camera shows him running almost out of view–and then he casually saunters along, not aware he’s still in camera range.

I’m being anal. It’s really a great little flick. I bought in on video, and in moments of high spirits drive along, belting out “HIT the road, Jack, doncha come back no more, no more, no MORE , no more…”

You’ll have to watch it to understand.
(Hey, NY Dopers, check it out! Bet you get a giggle or three…)

Veb

18

This really isn’t a mistake, but in the movie Gremlins the “don’t feed them after midnight” part bothered me. Is that EST? Mountain time? Do the gremlins recognize daylight savings? At what time the next morning could you feed them?

The old chinese guy was asking for a lawsuit.

19

in the list of things all movie computers do (as seen in both ID4 and Mission Impossible): they all have some sort of program that immediately lets you know how long it is until the end of the world/bomb goes off, etc. and shows you in a full screen countdown. “Unless something can be done quickly, we will all die in less than 30 minutes” (turns computer around to show everyone screen that reads in 2" numbers: 29:58:03…02…01, etc) My husband and I refer to this magical “program” as “Microsoft Clock” :slight_smile:

20

One mistake you see in nearly every “inspiring teacher” movie: Even if the teacher is in the worst, most overcrowded school in the world, she only teaches one class.

My favorite flub is in THE HUDSUCKER PROXY. A big point is made that it takes 30 seconds for someone to fall from the top floor of a building to the street. However, calculations show that it would only take about 12 seconds.

Which demonstrates how silly searching for flubs can be.