# Moments that ruin suspension of disbelief \*spoilers!\* **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 28, 2011, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moments-that-ruin-suspension-of-disbelief-spoilers/572902 "2011-02-28T11:29:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Harvey\_The\_Heavy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Harvey\_The\_Heavy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harvey_The_Heavy)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2011, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moments-that-ruin-suspension-of-disbelief-spoilers/572902/61 "2011-03-01T14:09:57Z")
When something that’s supposed to be taking place in the midwest is obviously filmed in California. Like _Wayne’s World 2_ showing giant palm trees in Illinois. The original _Halloween_ did a pretty good job of passing off South Pasadena as rural Illinois, but the outdoor lockers at the high school gave it away. It was pretty obviously not autumn either. ---
**Author:** ![Pandoranoid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce73a5/32.png) [@Pandoranoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pandoranoid)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2011, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moments-that-ruin-suspension-of-disbelief-spoilers/572902/62 "2011-03-01T14:16:34Z")
> [@wonder\_lust](#): > > What drives me nuts is when a couple of characters are talking and one describes something technical or reaches a conclusion aloud for the audience’s edification… when clearly the characters would never have such an exchange otherwise. It happens all the time in forensic, crime, and legal dramas. While it’s true that I (as an audience member without said expertise) often benefit from the info, the unnatural-ness of it all totally distracts me. > > Kind of like this… > Me to husband: I see you bought yourself some new underwear. > Husband: Yeah. The waistbands in my old ones were getting streched out. > Me: Oh… I see. With wear an washing the elastic eroded and lost its tension. > Husband: Riiiiiiiight. Without tension in the waistband, the fit gets looser. The only thing for it is… > Together: …buying new underwear. > > UGH! Among medical soaps, ‘House’ is particularly guilty of this. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2011, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moments-that-ruin-suspension-of-disbelief-spoilers/572902/63 "2011-03-01T19:22:48Z")
> [@Hal\_Briston](#): > > Smartphone under the pillow. > > There’s an app for that. Okay, with that setup, I just have to post [this video](http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1946209). As for the OP: I can’t think of any at the moment. ---
**Author:** ![PSXer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/48db29/32.png) [@PSXer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PSXer)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2011, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moments-that-ruin-suspension-of-disbelief-spoilers/572902/64 "2011-03-01T20:05:56Z")
Every videogame is played by rapidly mashing every button ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2011, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moments-that-ruin-suspension-of-disbelief-spoilers/572902/65 "2011-03-01T20:34:19Z")
> [@Pandoranoid](#): > > Among medical soaps, ‘House’ is particularly guilty of this. This taken to the most ridiculous extreme is a regular feature of _Criminal Minds._ The FBI Behavioral Analysis unit works up a profile of the bad guy, then, because everyone’s contract demands that they get a certain number of lines, they assemble the local cops to tell them about it, and you’ve never seen a Broadway play this perfectly rehearsed: **FBI Person 1:** The unsub is probably a man in his 30’s without much education who is angry at women. \*\*FBI Person 2: \*\* It’s likely that he lives with his mother, hangs drawings of kitties on the wall and masturbates to reruns of “Small Wonder”. **FBI Person 3:** It’s highly probable that he works in a bakery or donut shop. **Fbi Person 4:** He probably turns into a werewolf during the full moon, and then comes home agitated with a craving for dog biscuits. **FBI Person 1:** He probably drives a van, which means he works for someplace with vans. **FBI Person 3:** He is escalating, so we need to catch him in the next 35 minutes. And so on until everyone has had their contractually guaranteed opportunity to say their lines. It is so ridiculous and I can never NOT notice it and how ludicrous it is. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2011, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moments-that-ruin-suspension-of-disbelief-spoilers/572902/66 "2011-03-01T20:52:21Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#): > > This. There’s also the five-hundred-foot waterfall in Illinois in _The Fugitive_, and Harry and Sally driving past downtown Chicago, supposedly on their way east from the U of Chicago campus. And a million other examples. > > Of course, each viewer’s life experience will determine which scenes are perceived as wrong. Not just where you’ve lived, but also your particular interests and profession. Ornithologists tend to feel uncomfortable when, say, they hear a downy woodpecker in the background where the scene is supposed to be in, say, France; and, a typesetting designer in the documentary “Helvetica” mentioned how he and his colleagues hate it when there’s a movie scene containing a font inappropriate to the time period the movie is set in. As a lifelong native of Los Angeles, if I let this drive me too crazy I’d be crazy all the time. Not just because of the LA errors, but because I can so often tell that something that’s supposed to be somewhere else was filmed here. OH… that reminds me: Are we supposed to believe that one particular police unit in Los Angeles has some special power to be assigned to crimes occurring everywhere from Malibu to Sylmar??? [Look at the map](http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?doflg=ptm&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=208321636092663550645.000485159bc6e6192b5c5&ll=34.320755,-118.473816&spn=1.517506,2.436218&z=9); does anyone think one cop unit could reasonably be expected to handles cases all over like that? (It’s the first six episode locations) Because the distance between the furthest points is almost a hundred miles. ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2011, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moments-that-ruin-suspension-of-disbelief-spoilers/572902/67 "2011-03-01T21:01:07Z")
> [@campp](#): > > Shadows from booms and even microphones hanging into the frame. > Should. Not. Happen. > > I saw one the other day in Hannah and Her Sisters. It may be in the very first episode of the original _Hawaii Five-0_–one of the first ones, anyway. We see a car passing through a shallow gorge, and the shadows of the film crew are seen on the far wall of the gorge as clearly as if they had been projected on a screen. ---
**Author:** ![Nawth\_Chucka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c57346/32.png) [@Nawth\_Chucka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nawth_Chucka)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2011, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moments-that-ruin-suspension-of-disbelief-spoilers/572902/68 "2011-03-01T21:19:25Z")
> [@brocks](#): > > I’ll never forget watching “Gandhi” for the first time, being totally immersed in the story, feeling like I was really watching history — and then here comes Candace Bergen, this great blond Valkyrie striding among the poor downtrodden Indians. > > It was like somebody threw a bucket of water on me and yelled, “This is just a movie!!” > > Worst casting decision ever. I’m sure she’s a very nice person and a very good actress, but you just can’t look at her and not think, “Hollywood,” no matter where the movie was actually shot. In the same vein, much as I adore Vincent D’Onofrio and his amazing chameleon-like transformations, I couldn’t buy him as Sherlock Holmes in an adaptation a few years ago. Look, it’s the guy from L&O, CI w/ muttonchop sideburns! Had to turn it off after I couldn’t stay ‘in’ it from the distraction. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Odds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/d_odds/32/2882_2.png) [@D\_Odds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Odds)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2011, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moments-that-ruin-suspension-of-disbelief-spoilers/572902/69 "2011-03-01T22:06:55Z")
> [@PSXer](#): > > Every videogame is played by rapidly mashing every button That is how I play every video game… ---
**Author:** ![Atomic\_Alex](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atomic_alex/32/175_2.png) [@Atomic\_Alex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atomic_Alex)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2011, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moments-that-ruin-suspension-of-disbelief-spoilers/572902/70 "2011-03-01T22:23:28Z")
Considered starting another thread but in the interests of conserving energy and thereby doing my modest bit to save the planet I decided to throw it in here. Personally something that destroys my suspension of disbelief everytime in a movie, unless its very subtly done, are references and homages to other works or to contemporay politics in a film \*(unless its a film about contemporay politics of course!). It ain’t big and it ain’t clever. But I realise I’m probably in the vast minority on this one! ---
**Author:** ![Patch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a183cd/32.png) [@Patch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patch)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2011, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moments-that-ruin-suspension-of-disbelief-spoilers/572902/71 "2011-03-02T02:27:37Z")
There’s a multitude of things that pop me out of the movie, but the biggest one is terrain that doesn’t fit. Where the hell did that giant cliff come from in _Raiders of the Lost Ark_ during the truck chase? Overall I can put up with a lot though. I just saw _Drive Angry_, and I liked it as it wasn’t trying to be more than the goofy grindhouse flik that it was. Same with _Machete_. You let a lot pass by; it’s their sandbox, just watch them play. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2011, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moments-that-ruin-suspension-of-disbelief-spoilers/572902/72 "2011-03-02T02:33:33Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > How about the entire move **Red**? Bruce Willis singlehandedly disposes of the hit squad sent to his house, and about nine million rounds are shot through the house in a residential area. Somehow if there are government hit teams, I should think they are more competent and are able to pull off the hit without waking up the whole neighborhood. And to add to the stupidity, they don’t wake up the whole neighborhood. When Bruce Willis walks away from the house, not a single person has come out to find out what all the commotion was. ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2011, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moments-that-ruin-suspension-of-disbelief-spoilers/572902/73 "2011-03-02T03:00:13Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > It used to be that people who got shot on TV somehow died without having any bulletholes in them or spilling any blood. Okay, I can accept it was a censorship issue and live with it. > > But I was once watching an episode of _Wiseguy_ where the bad guy had captured one of the good guys. And he told another good guy, who’s undercover as one of the bad guy’s henchmen, to kill the captive. So he drags the captured guy over to a wall about fifty feet away, in full sight of the bad guy, and shoots him with a sub-machine gun. The captive falls over “dead” and the bad guy is impressed by the undercover guy’s ruthlessness. > > Of course, it was all a trick. The undercover guy had loaded his gun with blanks and the captured guy just dropped down and pretended to be shot. > > Now like I said, I could accept that there were censorship issues and the networks couldn’t show a bloody body. We, the viewers, were supposed to just pretend the body was covered in blood and looked real. But this instance violated the agreement - it was based on a dead body actually looking like an intact body. [“Everything you see in a movie is fake and it all requires you to suspend your disbelief. Why nitpick over one trivial detail? It’s like complaining about where is that music coming from or how come all those foreigners are speaking English or why can’t I feel the heat from that burning building I’m seeing. Watching a movie is not the same as watching reality.”](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=13521054&postcount=40) ---
**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 2, 2011, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moments-that-ruin-suspension-of-disbelief-spoilers/572902/74 "2011-03-02T03:26:04Z")
Still missing the point aren’t you? Have you ever seen a movie where a 555 phone exchange was a major plot point? I haven’t. So as I wrote in that other thread, it’s a trivial issue unrelated to the story. What I described in this thread illustrates that. As I wrote here, I can accept it when somebody gets shot and no blood is shown because that’s just a convention of television. It’s not how real life works, but you just let it slide to stay in the story (like a 555 telephone number). But the show I mentioned here violated that convention. It had somebody getting shot by fake bullets and then tried to pretend that nobody would notice the guy hadn’t really been shot. That’s when I call foul - a body shot by fake bullets doesn’t look like a body shot by real bullets so don’t make that a plot point. ---
**Author:** ![BomTek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bomtek/32/21364_2.png) [@BomTek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BomTek)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2011, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moments-that-ruin-suspension-of-disbelief-spoilers/572902/75 "2011-03-02T15:36:51Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > Any moment when a character assumes a monster or villain is dead and casually turns their back or stupidly approaches the corpse and prods it with the tip of a weapon. Instances of this are too numerous to list. I watched the \*Last House On The Left \*remake last night (thoroughly unpleasant movie, BTW), and the dad is a doctor. I was so proud of the writers that after he bashed the big bad guy over the head, he reached down and checked his pulse to make sure he was dead. But then they fucked the whole thing up with a scene after the whole family has taken their boat to safety… for no reason whatsoever, and contrary to both the feeling of the pulse and the driving away in a boat, there’s a scene right at the end in which the dad has paralyzed the big bad guy somehow and microwaves his head till it explodes. It may have been a dream/fantasy sequence of some kind, but it didn’t give itself away as such, and was just odd and out of place. > [@Pandoranoid](#): > > Among medical soaps, ‘House’ is particularly guilty of this. There was a funny counter-example in an episode where PPTH has a documentary film crew around. Chase points out something extremely obvious for the benefit of the filmmakers, and House simply says, “Yeah, we know…” It was funny on another level because the show is constantly guilty of the same thing, but the way Hugh Laurie delivered the line was perfect. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2011, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moments-that-ruin-suspension-of-disbelief-spoilers/572902/76 "2011-03-02T15:56:56Z")
I always hope that threads like this will be read by someone in the industry, and they will take it on board and we will be spared such glaring errors in future productions. I think that some of the complaints upthread are “nitpicky” and are not really about being taken out of the movie. But here are mine. Though a Brit whenever an American gives a 555 telephone number that does it. Its not a rational reaction but you know that its all smoke and mirrors. Poor accents, the worst that I have encountered (due to my local knowledge) in Hollywood movies are, English, Scottish, Australian, Jamaican, South African, American deep South, and most particulary … American attempts at Irish. Many British attempts at American are also particulery awful. The other major mood killers are … Fucking PLUCKED EYEBROWS ! Whether its a thirteen year old girl, a medievil peasant or a Victorian London beggar, they DON’T FUCKING HAVE THEM . Or bleached teeth … Or nose jobs. Sorry the medications wearing off. Also historical anachronisms. But those are the things that take me out of an enjoyable suspension of disbelief back to, “this is all made up.” ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2011, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moments-that-ruin-suspension-of-disbelief-spoilers/572902/77 "2011-03-02T16:01:22Z")
Sorry to double post , but have just remembered, uncannily clean and ironed clothes in historical dramas,eg. Sharpe and Dr. Quinn medecine woman. And one of the worst, people in the Wild West with incredibly clean, conditioned hair.(Also Dr Quinn.) ---
**Author:** ![a35362](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3da27b/32.png) [@a35362](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/a35362)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2011, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moments-that-ruin-suspension-of-disbelief-spoilers/572902/78 "2011-03-02T16:32:11Z")
How about women with hairy legs and underarms (ewww!)? Yeah, I don’t actually need _that_ much realism. Thinking of the blue eyeshadow in _Dr. Zhivago_ also. Also women with false eyelashes in lots of '60s science fiction stuff. ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2011, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moments-that-ruin-suspension-of-disbelief-spoilers/572902/79 "2011-03-02T17:33:49Z")
> [@Pandoranoid](#): > > As someone who has seen the inside of a few mental wards (make whatever jokes you like), ‘Girl, Interrupted’ was downright unwatchable for me. Except for the burn-victim character, all the major patient roles are Hollywood hotties: Winona Ryder, Angelina Jolie, Brittany Murphy. Clea Duvall is rather conspicuously absent from your list. IIRC she originally got second billing on the film; it was only after the movie launched Jolie’s career that the promotional material was revamped to feature her instead. Are you omitting her because you don’t consider her to be Hollywood attractive, or because the revamped publicity was so utterly successful in the promotion of Jolie over Duvall that you and everyone else has completely forgotten about her? ---
**Author:** ![Alka\_Seltzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c89c15/32.png) [@Alka\_Seltzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alka_Seltzer)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2011, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moments-that-ruin-suspension-of-disbelief-spoilers/572902/80 "2011-03-02T17:55:06Z")
Couple scenes in the latest Indiana Jones film. Of course, the infamous fridge - when the door opened Indy should have poured out. But for me, the flesh eating ants were nearly as bad. The mass of a body has to go somewhere. Maybe the ants’ stomachs were in another dimension. Independence Day - Hijacking our satellites to co-ordinate a global countdown. If it’s just a countdown, don’t they have clocks? Obviously the result of some alien kid’s history of computing project and nespotism. Return of the King - CGI Legolas does gymnastics on a mammoth. And then to kill it he does the stupid double arrow thing, halving the force imparted on each of them. Not ideal when trying to fire through an inch-thick skull. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moments-that-ruin-suspension-of-disbelief-spoilers/572902.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moments-that-ruin-suspension-of-disbelief-spoilers/572902.md?page=5)