Medieval armor in movies often bothers the hell out of me. I can accept some anachronistic pieces, armor was expensive, it would even be realistic for some noble to wear a piece from an ancient family member or taken in battle perhaps a century ago.
But it is often way too much. Armor had styles and the people then as now cared about how they looked to their peers and yet in movies they walk around with a bizarre grab bag of armor from entirely different regions spanning perhaps 300 years or more.
To the people of the era it would be like seeing a Lady Gaga outfit for us.
Almost every scene of mediaeval combat ever filmed, where it’s clear the actors have no idea how their weapons were actually used. The most egregious example I can think of is Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone fencing with broadswords in 1938’s The Adventures of Robin Hood.
Corollaries: Actors in period pieces loading their muskets and cannons in ways that would get their hands blown off in real life. Flintlock-era firearms that use percussion caps, like Faye Dunaway’s pistol in The Four Musketeers. Masses of 18th and 19th century soldiers charging headlong across a battlefield instead of advancing slowly in ordered ranks and files. Napoleonic-era soldiers marching to brass bands instead of fifes and drums.
When the phone rings in a police station or a newsroom, you just know the authority figure who picks it up is going to identify themselves with their last name, pause, and say “What?!?”
(I had to do this once in a movie I was in. I knew what my line would be even before I was shown the script. It’s the kind of thing you can play one of those beer-sipping games with when you’re watching TCM.)
It seems as though they hate seatbelts for some reason. It takes me right out because it goes against deeply imprinted habit. Is there a legitimate practical reason for it?
Also, not because it is unrealistic but just because it’s so unhealthy of a habit, is when characters non chalantly carry backpacks on one shoulder.
Finally, just from over use, people walking into the street and getting hit by a bus. Especially in the later years, when they are in the street long enough to make a speech but somehow not long enough for the bus to stop.
That reminded me of the famous car chase in Bullitt, and how the bad guys’ car (a Dodge Charger) keeps losing hubcaps, and seems to keep regenerating them. IIRC, it loses like six hubcaps over the course of the scene.
Everybody in a fantasy world having the same general accent - usually British. Some variation - Cockney orcs, high-class Gondorians, country Hobbits - but all based on the British accent.
C’mon, people! Hobbits, Elves, Gondorians, and Rohirrim are not going to have the same accent! They’re separated by many leagues and entirely different societies! Switch it up some.
(I’ll give props to the animated version of The Hobbit. Though it’s strange to hear Thranduil speaking in a German accent, at least it makes sense that he’d have a different one than members of other races.)
Detective arrives on the scene to find that the FBI investigator is already there. FBI-guy is not looking at the detective because he is already looking at the crime scene. Detective approaches the FBI guy and FBI guy says(without looking), “Thank you, officer. We’ll take it from here. This is our case now.”
When people act like being in your underwear in front of someone is the exact same as being naked in front of someone.
For example any movie where a woman is caught in her underwear and she instinctively does the “cover breasts with forearm” thing or when a man is caught in his underwear and he covers his groin with his hands. You literally aren’t doing anything to hide your modesty that way because of the fact everything is still basically covered up. Now turning away from the person or quickly jumping behind something is understandable and realistic, but I’ve seen far too many shows where adult men who really shouldn’t care act like being seen in their boxers is the most scandalous thing ever and use their hands to cover themselves for no reason.
Since I’m a teacher, these kind of thing always stands out to me:
They show someone teaching a class. It’s supposed to be the middle of the school year, or semester, or whatever, yet the teacher is giving an introductory lecture on the subject - the lecture they would give on the first day of class. The Indiana Jones movies are guilty of this.
The first episode of Breaking Bad had a scene like this that totally took me out. The first time we see Walter White in the classroom, he’s giving a demonstration and describing what chemistry is all about. I actually thought “oh, it must be the first day of school.” It’s been a while since I’ve seen it, so maybe I’m not remembering it correctly, but later in the episode, something else established that it was the middle of the school year. So what was Walt teaching his chemistry class before that day, then?
Another one is when our hero is supposed to be a college professor who has been at their university for years, or even decades. We see them in the classroom, and they are teaching My Subject 101. It doesn’t work that way in real life. Adjuncts and graduate teaching assistants teach most lower-division classes; professors rarely do. Indiana Jones is guilty of this one as well, but I give those movies a pass because maybe back in the 1930s, that’s the way it was.
More important: Characters are served drinks (and food) and never touch them. This happens all the time in soaps, where a man and a woman sit down at the table, talk for two or three minutes, and then the woman gets up and puts the dishes in the sink without either actor taking a bite.
This happens a lot on TV dramas and in some movies. I guess it’s supposed to add to the tension or give you the feeling that you are right there with the actors.
For me, all it does is remind me that these people are actors and they are standing in front of a cameraman.
