# Mistakes by movie characters **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 27, 2010, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-by-movie-characters/534007 "2010-03-27T08:14:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Cardinal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardinal/32/4000_2.png) [@Cardinal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardinal)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2010, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-by-movie-characters/534007/1 "2010-03-27T08:14:53Z")
Not sci-fi mistakes, like “No one can travel faster than light!” (which I wholeheartedly endorse). I’m talking about mistakes that betray the characters in the in-film/tv world. When Robert DeNiro’s crew hits the armored truck in “Heat”, Val Kilmer’s character wastes time reading the labels on the packages instead of grabbing everything and bugging out. Taking everything would guarantee that he got the right package, and not leave a clue for Al Pacino’s character that he was dealing with a crew of professional thieves. I don’t know how Michael Mann fell for this, unless he didn’t know how else to tip off Vincent Hanna (Pacino) that he’s dealing with a top notch crew. I can’t believe that an experienced crew would waste time to not take home worthless envelopes. Can you cite other examples of reality conforming to script for major pictures? ---
**Author:** ![Cardinal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardinal/32/4000_2.png) [@Cardinal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardinal)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2010, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-by-movie-characters/534007/2 "2010-03-27T08:17:47Z")
Revised Hanna dialog: “They stole two major vehicles in the planning of this heist, they took all the merchandise without slowing down, they apparently knew our response time, and they did it all under overpasses with entry points to four different directions. What about this operation says 'amateur” to you?" ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2010, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-by-movie-characters/534007/3 "2010-03-27T15:12:51Z")
I didn’t see the movie (or read the book) but apparently in _The Bonfire of the Vanities_ there was a major plot point that Sherman McCoy had evidence that would clear him of the hit-and-run charges but the evidence was inadmissible. But the law would only have made the evidence inadmissible for the prosecution. McCoy, as the defendant, would have a much broader range of evidence he could present in his defense. ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2010, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-by-movie-characters/534007/4 "2010-03-27T15:20:32Z")
_Phantom Menace_: They land on Tatooine to repair their ship. Qui-Gon has to go into Mos Eisley to get the parts. R2 goes with him for technical support or whatever; he has a function. The queen makes herself go because, well, she’s the queen. _Why the **fuck** did they take Jar-Jar Binks?!_ There was no reason to take him! Leave his worthless ass on the ship! He doesn’t end up being useful _in any way whatsoever_! ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2010, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-by-movie-characters/534007/5 "2010-03-27T16:20:22Z")
> [@](#): > > Why the fuck did they take Jar-Jar Binks?! There was no reason to take him! Leave his worthless ass on the ship! If they had left him alone of the ship he probably would have sold it for some magic beans. They needed to take him along to keep an eye on him. ---
**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:** [March 27, 2010, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-by-movie-characters/534007/6 "2010-03-27T16:25:28Z")
It has always bothered me tha in the first James Bond movie, **Dr. No** , Bond goes to the house of the agent who disappeared, Strangways, and starts looking around. He sees a piece of paper protruding from a book and pulls it out. And inside I always scream “You idiot!” After all, the page it’s marking might be important. It turned out that the paper marking the page was the important thing, but he couldn’t have known that in advance – the page he turned to might have been a vital clue, and he was supposed to be looking for those. But simply pulling the paper out 9instead of opening the book to the relevant page), Bond simply threw that information away. Nice going there, 007. He did other manifestly stupid things in that film, as well, but that’s the one that bothers me the most, for some reason. ---
**Author:** ![FordTaurusSHO94](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f07891/32.png) [@FordTaurusSHO94](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FordTaurusSHO94)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2010, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-by-movie-characters/534007/7 "2010-03-27T17:11:07Z")
Star Trek: First Contact is my favorite Trek movie, but Picard and Worf can’t agree on the size of the ship. In once scene, Worf says something like, “The Borg have taken decks 11-26.” Not long after, Picard is describing the ship to Lily and mentions how it has 24 decks. ---
**Author:** ![bouv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bc8723/32.png) [@bouv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bouv)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2010, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-by-movie-characters/534007/8 "2010-03-27T17:27:23Z")
> [@FordTaurusSHO94](#): > > Star Trek: First Contact is my favorite Trek movie, but Picard and Worf can’t agree on the size of the ship. In once scene, Worf says something like, “The Borg have taken decks 11-26.” Not long after, Picard is describing the ship to Lily and mentions how it has 24 decks. What they’re not telling you is that there are no decks 1 and 2. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2010, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-by-movie-characters/534007/9 "2010-03-27T18:20:24Z")
> [@bouv](#): > > What they’re not telling you is that there are no decks 1 and 2. No, there is no 13th deck, just like old hotels. There’s no first deck, either, just the ground deck. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2010, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-by-movie-characters/534007/10 "2010-03-27T19:06:45Z")
Nobody ever told Picard that the Enterprise had a basement. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2010, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-by-movie-characters/534007/11 "2010-03-27T19:19:55Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > He did other manifestly stupid things in that film, as well, but that’s the one that bothers me the most, for some reason. He also shoots and kills Professor Dent, even though he is aware that Dent has already used up all the bullets in his gun and Bond has the drop on him. So Bond is not only dickish enough to pointlessly kill a man he knows is unarmed, but stupid enough to eliminate one of Dr. No’s main henchmen who might be able to provide information if interrogated. (OK, he knows that Dr. No’s men are instructed to commit suicide if captured, but he can’t be sure that Dent will follow through.) ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2010, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-by-movie-characters/534007/12 "2010-03-27T19:26:30Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > If they had left him alone of the ship he probably would have sold it for some magic beans. They needed to take him along to keep an eye on him. That would have been the spectacular off-shoot failure, _Jar-Jar and the Bean Stalk_. ---
**Author:** ![FordTaurusSHO94](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f07891/32.png) [@FordTaurusSHO94](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FordTaurusSHO94)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2010, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-by-movie-characters/534007/13 "2010-03-27T19:26:57Z")
> [@bouv](#): > > What they’re not telling you is that there are no decks 1 and 2. If that’s true, a nearly perfect movie just became perfect. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Cardinal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardinal/32/4000_2.png) [@Cardinal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardinal)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2010, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-by-movie-characters/534007/14 "2010-03-27T19:29:30Z")
I have something that’s not really a character mistake as far as a decision goes… I can roll with the idea that in the Star Wars universe, messaged holograms get broken up over the long distances they’re traveling (we’ll ignore the fact that they’re talking normally to someone light years away). But when R2 records Leia on the original ship before she’s captured by Vader, he’s standing right there and he’s also the machine playing it back for Luke. There can’t be a compatibility problem, and it wasn’t transmitted, yet it has color problems and what looks like tracking problems from a VHS tape. R2 also managed somehow to image Leia from all sides to make a truly whole 3-D image. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2010, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-by-movie-characters/534007/15 "2010-03-27T19:38:42Z")
> [@Cardinal](#): > > There can’t be a compatibility problem, and it wasn’t transmitted, yet it has color problems and what looks like tracking problems from a VHS tape. R2’s recording heads are probably dirty. ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2010, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-by-movie-characters/534007/16 "2010-03-27T20:37:55Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > R2’s recording heads are probably dirty. There was a lot of carbon scoring there. Looks like he’d seen some action. ---
**Author:** ![Satchmo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/satchmo/32/4223_2.png) [@Satchmo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Satchmo)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2010, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-by-movie-characters/534007/17 "2010-03-27T23:50:36Z")
So, are we counting one of the classic blunders - The most famous of which is “never get involved in a land war in Asia” - but only slightly less well-known is this: “Never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line”! ---
**Author:** ![Sister\_Vigilante](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@Sister\_Vigilante](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sister_Vigilante)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-by-movie-characters/534007/18 "2010-03-28T02:50:03Z")
R2 was never wiped of memory. He’s got stuff in there that would … well, I just don’t wanna say. ---
**Author:** ![JoelUpchurch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f05b48/32.png) [@JoelUpchurch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoelUpchurch)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-by-movie-characters/534007/19 "2010-03-28T18:29:09Z")
What annoys me is when a character is pointing a a handgun at somebody, then at some point they chamber a round to show they are serious, which means that up to that point they were actually pointing an unloaded weapon, since a round isn’t ejected when they do that. ---
**Author:** ![Cardinal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardinal/32/4000_2.png) [@Cardinal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardinal)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-by-movie-characters/534007/20 "2010-03-28T18:35:17Z")
I would lurve it if a tv writer would work that in, so that the other person works out that the gun holder is inept and can be fooled or beaten somehow because of their lack of combat skills. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-by-movie-characters/534007.md?page=2)