# Minor details in great movies you would like to change **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** movies\ **Created:** [December 7, 2020, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-details-in-great-movies-you-would-like-to-change/927430 "2020-12-07T04:43:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2020, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-details-in-great-movies-you-would-like-to-change/927430/41 "2020-12-26T23:21:10Z")
> [@erysichthon](#): > > I disagree. Having that throwaway reference to the deaths of Kane’s son and first wife emphasizes that Kane treated people as things to be used and discarded. The inference I took from that is that Kane had little or no contact with his ex-wife or son after the divorce, and didn’t particularly care what happened to them. I agree with this. Whether it accurately depicted Hearst (as is Jay\_Z’s complaint) is another matter. HIs second wife summed up Kane nicely, “I’m Charlie Kane. I’ll give you a million dollars if you just love me.” His slap to her face confirmed that her statement was true and hurt him. His high minded idealism was shown to be a farce and that beneath everything, it was all about him. He cared above his second wife’s singing career because he thought it gave him stature. His “declaration of principles” for his newspaper all came down to “people will think what I tell them to think.” He simply wanted to be loved but was incapable of giving love or giving anything of himself. To your point, the way his first wife and son are mentioned as an afterthought is consistent with Kane’s personality. He didn’t think of himself as so shallow, but his actions confirmed it. They left him and no longer offered him anything, so they were dead to him already. The Rosebud twist at the end confirms this. For all of the money and power he had, he just wanted a person to think he was special. Rosebud gave him some happiness that he elusively chased for the rest of his life. And when confronted with why he couldn’t get that happiness back, the horror for him was a simple look in the mirror. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2020, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-details-in-great-movies-you-would-like-to-change/927430/42 "2020-12-27T00:05:51Z")
**Seven** - Mills and Somerset are in the car heading on the raid to get John Doe (they’re going to find the junkie ‘sloth’ victim instead) Mills is talking about the one time he fired his gun in anger and shot and killed a kid. The scene is important, it shows impulsiveness and difficultly handling heated emotions which will become very important as the story develops and particularly in the climax. I have always hated Brad Pitts acting in the take they chose. He’s talking to someone behind himself in a car, so that’s awkward for the scene, but there is just something so amateurish to his acting. He’s almost being silly, teasing the director. It bothered me the first time I saw it, and it does now at the 20th time or so. ---
**Author:** ![erysichthon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d07c76/32.png) [@erysichthon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erysichthon)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2020, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-details-in-great-movies-you-would-like-to-change/927430/43 "2020-12-27T00:12:44Z")
Excellent post, **UltraVires**! I had forgotten that great Susan line you quoted; that is, indeed, Kane in a nutshell. ---
**Author:** ![Smid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/838e76/32.png) [@Smid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smid)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2020, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-details-in-great-movies-you-would-like-to-change/927430/44 "2020-12-27T15:14:13Z")
Any film where they are escaping from goons, and manage to knock one out, and… PICK UP THE GUN! PICK UP THE KNIFE! TAKE THEIR AMMO! It is now so common that someone not doing it is a shock. I think Bushwick, a recent film was the classic example of this. ---
**Author:** ![Stephe96](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Stephe96](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stephe96)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2020, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-details-in-great-movies-you-would-like-to-change/927430/45 "2020-12-27T15:40:18Z")
Replace or edit out the obvious Harrison Ford dummy jumping off the dam in The Fugitive. ---
**Author:** ![BlankSlate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blankslate/32/80_2.png) [@BlankSlate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlankSlate)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2020, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-details-in-great-movies-you-would-like-to-change/927430/46 "2020-12-27T16:14:41Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > You may not have A/C in 1981 - but I had A/C in NYC way before 1981. And my family was not rich - but window units were never _that_ expensive. I recently binged _The Godfather of Harlem_ starring Forest Whitaker on Epix. They did a good job of replicating street scenes, as it’s set in the 1960s. There was one shot, though, that showed the exterior of a Harlem housing project building and there were window-unit A/Cs in most of the apartments. In the 60s? I don’t really know. It didn’t ruin anything, just made me wonder. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2020, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-details-in-great-movies-you-would-like-to-change/927430/47 "2020-12-27T16:26:23Z")
Depends on when in the 60s and possibly whether it was supposed to be an actual government-subsidized housing project or simply an apartment buildings. In the late 60s , window ACs in a private apartment building wouldn’t have been odd at all - although back then, it was pretty common for only the bedrooms to have AC if that was feasible. ---
**Author:** ![Eclipse\_Chaser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@Eclipse\_Chaser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eclipse_Chaser)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2020, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-details-in-great-movies-you-would-like-to-change/927430/48 "2020-12-29T10:33:22Z")
Reminds me of another famous person at the moment who is about to be unemployed. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2020, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-details-in-great-movies-you-would-like-to-change/927430/49 "2020-12-29T20:18:20Z")
In the original 1978 **Dawn of the Dead** after clearing the mall of zombies the gang toss the bodies in freezers next to their food supply. 🤨 Couldn’t they have come up with a better way to dispose of them? Or at least moved the food around so they had some freezers all food and others all bodies? Also the fake wall should’ve been built with something stronger than cardboard. ---
**Author:** ![mtnmatt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a3d4f5/32.png) [@mtnmatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mtnmatt)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2020, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-details-in-great-movies-you-would-like-to-change/927430/50 "2020-12-29T21:42:30Z")
I remember thinking at the time that the entire plot of 1987’s Angel Heart, which turned when one of the characters suddenly pronouncing his client’s (Lou Cyphiere) name a bit differently and FINALLY making the satanic connection, was a bit lame. ---
**Author:** ![Anamorphic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/anamorphic/32/3057_2.png) [@Anamorphic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anamorphic)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2020, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-details-in-great-movies-you-would-like-to-change/927430/51 "2020-12-29T22:18:16Z")
> [@Stephe96](#): > > Replace or edit out the obvious Harrison Ford dummy jumping off the dam in The Fugitive. Along those lines, mine would be editing (or filming) the car explosion scene in _Casino_ better so that you don’t have several frames of obvious DeNiro dummy. ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2020, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-details-in-great-movies-you-would-like-to-change/927430/52 "2020-12-29T22:26:55Z")
In the book One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, McMurphy puts his hand through Nurse Ratched’s window, playing it off like he didn’t see it. He’d earlier had to clean the glass, and by golly, it was so clean he just didn’t see it. In the movie the act was angry and intentional. The book scene is way better. (The replacement window was marked with a masking tape X so that it was clearly visible. While training up his basketball team in the hallway, a basketball also finds its way through the window. God, I love that book.) ---
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2020, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-details-in-great-movies-you-would-like-to-change/927430/53 "2020-12-29T22:33:57Z")
Delete the last scene in Contact (with the recording of static). It pisses all over the point of the story. SMH ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2020, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-details-in-great-movies-you-would-like-to-change/927430/54 "2020-12-29T23:52:05Z")
> [@bobot](#): > > In the book One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, McMurphy puts his hand through Nurse Ratched’s window, playing it off like he didn’t see it. He’d earlier had to clean the glass, and by golly, it was so clean he just didn’t see it. In the movie the act was angry and intentional. The book scene is way better. (The replacement window was marked with a masking tape X so that it was clearly visible. While training up his basketball team in the hallway, a basketball also finds its way through the window. God, I love that book.) Agreed. Lots of subtly was lost in the movie. Didn’t you think Harding was far more interesting in the book, I felt like the movie didn’t do his character and his motives justice. The scene where Ratched convinces the doctors to keep McMurphy was more dynamic in the book. The ‘black boys’ were crueler as well and we’re more clearly an extension of Ratched’s evil will. ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2020, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-details-in-great-movies-you-would-like-to-change/927430/55 "2020-12-29T23:58:42Z")
Plus the whole thing was narrated by a guy with hallucination problems! Coming out of shock treatment when he thinks he’s the load in the dice. Jeez. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-details-in-great-movies-you-would-like-to-change/927430.md?page=2)