# Movie Flaws that no one should notice. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 25, 2006, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-flaws-that-no-one-should-notice/377895 "2006-10-25T20:49:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![DeadlyAccurate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ac91a4/32.png) [@DeadlyAccurate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DeadlyAccurate)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2006, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-flaws-that-no-one-should-notice/377895/41 "2006-10-26T02:56:59Z")
[QUOTE=Airman Doors, USAF] For example, there was a scene in _Daredevil_ where Elektra’s father is killed and she thinks that the Daredevil did it so she picks up one of her father’s bodyguard’s weapons, which happens to be a GLOCK. She then proceeds to shoot it dry. That is not the problem. The problem is that the weapon has what is known as “Safe Action”: it has no external hammer and while it behaves like a DAO pistol it isn’t, exactly. Anyway, not to bore you with the details, when you run out of ammunition the slide locks back. To dry-fire it you must rack the slide every time. Well, our movie GLOCK not only doesn’t lock back, but you hear and see numerous clicks as she continues to pull the trigger. This, of course, is patently ridiculous, and utterly impossible. [/QUOTE] A recent one in season one of Lost that actually made me laugh out loud was a scene where a character picked up a Glock, which was quite visibly a Glock, and you heard the sound of a hammer being drawn back. Twice. A hammer! You have to wonder what the Foley guys think the sound effect is actually supposed to represent. And don’t even get me started on characters who are supposed to know how to handle guns who walk around with their fingers on the trigger. ---
**Author:** ![brianjedi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3be4f8/32.png) [@brianjedi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brianjedi)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2006, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-flaws-that-no-one-should-notice/377895/42 "2006-10-26T03:18:16Z")
[QUOTE=Mapache] Speaking of nonsensical car chases, how about that well known classic “Drivel” with Rocky Balboa? First the rookie hero has some kind of fit, jumps into his ChampCar and roars off down the street, then Rocky follows. Only Champ cars don’t have starters. You stick a portable starter motor in a hole in the transmission case and fire it up, then during the race if a car stalls they either push start it or haul it off with a towtruck. [/QUOTE] You forgot the worst part: they stole showcars, which normally don’t even have drivetrains in them. Assuming for some reason they did, they wouldn’t have more than a few ounces of methanol in them, so those cars wouldn’t have gotten more than a couple of hundred feet before sputtering to a stop. ---
**Author:** ![OneCentStamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/13edae/32.png) [@OneCentStamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneCentStamp)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2006, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-flaws-that-no-one-should-notice/377895/43 "2006-10-26T03:28:27Z")
For those of us who aren’t experts on many things, but watch lots of movies…[a new thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=393691). 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2006, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-flaws-that-no-one-should-notice/377895/44 "2006-10-26T03:32:16Z")
[QUOTE=Miss Purl McKnittington] In the [_Prince & Me_](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0337697/), there’s a scene that takes place in a standard stanchion barn that is way too clean. Not a spot of manure in sight. You just don’t gather together 60+ cows and not expect one of them to poop while they’re in the barn. That’s ridiculous–they’re cows. They eat and poop and give milk and have babies. I imagine the person whose job it was to run around scooping up all the cow pies and washing down the area had a hell of a fun time with that. [/QUOTE] In Maria Riva’s biography of her mother Marlene Dietrich, Riva writes about watching her mother film a scene with animals: > [@](#): > > When horses were working, the crew boasted an extra member-the Sweeper. It was his job to scurry between stomping hooves, ever ready to swoop on whatever “plopped,” his shovel poised. The more horses, the more conscientious little men. Elephants were their recurrent nightmare! And goats drove them crazy–those little black balls had a way of bouncing about and getting lost. They preferred shit to lie there, peaceably, waiting for them. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2006, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-flaws-that-no-one-should-notice/377895/45 "2006-10-26T04:03:37Z")
The behavior of almost any therapist in almost any film should result in complaints to licensing boards, ethics complaints to professional organizations, and jail time. ---
**Author:** ![Lissla\_Lissar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8491ac/32.png) [@Lissla\_Lissar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissla_Lissar)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2006, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-flaws-that-no-one-should-notice/377895/46 "2006-10-26T04:21:37Z")
A good friend of mine is a silversmith and has done blacksmithing. Watching any movie with blacksmithing in it with him is a joy. Even _I_, who have no blacksmithing evperience at all, can tell that during the reforging of Narsil into Anduril in RotK they’re doing it all wrong. You don’t just jam the pieces back together and bang on them with a hammer! He’ll mutter things about no decent blacksmith ever hitting metal that hard, and the metal temp being off because it’s not glowing the right colour, and too many sparks. I’m sure lots of costume aficionados noticed this, but the line in _Pirates of the Carribean 1_ when Elizabeth talks about pain, and wearing a corset. They weren’t called corsets- they were stays. ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2006, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-flaws-that-no-one-should-notice/377895/47 "2006-10-26T04:23:40Z")
[QUOTE=pilot141] So they wait until one is being transported in a C-5 (not possible), [/QUOTE] While I agree with every thing else you said about this movie, but this statement is incorrect. F-117 were built by Lockheed in Burbank and flown inside a C-5 to either Groom Lake or Tonopah. The C-5 would arrive late at night usually on a Friday or Saturday at odd times to avoid observation by Russian satellites. In fact the LA Times did a story on people who would show up at a gas station just off the end of the Burbank Airport runway in the middle of the night just to watch a C-5 land and then take off again less than 90 minutes later. Nobody knew why for several years. [Cite](http://www.luminoxshop.com/f1tealsec.html) > [@](#): > > The first stealth fighters were flown by Lockheed C-5 Galaxy cargo plane to Groom Dry Lake, where they took to the air for the first time in June 1981. ---
**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2006, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-flaws-that-no-one-should-notice/377895/48 "2006-10-26T04:29:47Z")
[QUOTE=Lissla Lissar] I’m sure lots of costume aficionados noticed this, but the line in _Pirates of the Carribean 1_ when Elizabeth talks about pain, and wearing a corset. They weren’t called corsets- they were stays. [/QUOTE] Oh, no . . . now you’ve got me started. My Hubby is almost to the point of refusing to watch any movie which has a historical setting with me. I’m constantly griping, “They didn’t have those! They weren’t wearing that during that time period! Oh, Christ, that hairstyle is all\* kinds\* of wrong.” I’ve promised to keep my mouth shut if he takes me to see _Marie Antoinette._ I can just picture myself, hands clapped over my mouth, writhing in my seat, but I won’t say anything, even if the shoe styles are twenty years out of date. ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Purl\_McKnittington](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9a140/32.png) [@Miss\_Purl\_McKnittington](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Purl_McKnittington)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2006, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-flaws-that-no-one-should-notice/377895/49 "2006-10-26T04:38:53Z")
[QUOTE=Lissla Lissar] I’m sure lots of costume aficionados noticed this, but the line in _Pirates of the Carribean 1_ when Elizabeth talks about pain, and wearing a corset. They weren’t called corsets- they were stays. [/QUOTE] Not only that, it’s really hard to get the kind of compression necessary to make corsets painful to wear with 18th-century stays. The maximum waist reduction you can get is about 4", and that’s if you’re a very compressible person. Prior to the 1870s, most corsets were more along the lines of sports bras. Tightlacing was never as widespread as most people believe, especially among the middle and lower classes. **Lissa** , you’re going to cringe throughout _Marie Antoinette_. There are a pair of Converse sneakers in it. Though the ladies’ dresses are very good for a movie, especially the deshabille. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2006, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-flaws-that-no-one-should-notice/377895/50 "2006-10-26T04:40:13Z")
[QUOTE=OneCentStamp] My ex and I were watching _House_ on DVD last night. She’s a Med Tech by profession. As House’s crack team of doctors slaved away over microscopes and culture dishes, she quipped, “Nice that they do their own lab work. Nice that they even know how to.” 😛 [/QUOTE] No kidding - the doctors in the hospitals I worked at just chucked requisitions at lab techs and expected results in a timely fashion. We wouldn’t have _let_ the doctors run the tests - they would have botched them royally, probably breaking the machines in the process. Yeah, we’d let each doctor come in and run his one particular test, and to hell with the rest of the samples waiting to be put into the batch… She probably also enjoys how doctors are able to tell anything about someone’s blood chemistry by just looking at a drop of blood on a slide under a microscope. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Triskadecamus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2006, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-flaws-that-no-one-should-notice/377895/51 "2006-10-26T04:46:16Z")
In the movie Contact, There is a scene showing reporters milling around the group of scientists just leaving a “comittee meeting” which was evidently held at the Lincoln Memorial! Also, in Hollywashington, one has only to “cross the bridge” and find oneself in the heart of Virginia’s rural horse farms. Lovely two lane roads, winding into the wide pasture lands, with their picturesque background of rocky hills, and perhaps the distand view of the desert. Tris ---
**Author:** ![Daffyd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/daffyd/32/8923_2.png) [@Daffyd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daffyd)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2006, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-flaws-that-no-one-should-notice/377895/52 "2006-10-26T04:52:16Z")
Drives me crazy to watch any movie involving Sign Language. Either the movie only shows part of what the person is signing (Children of a Lesser God), or has actors signing who are supposed to be fluent, but sign horribly (Mr. Holland’s Opus) When they’re good signers I want to see what they’re saying, but the shots invariably cut away from the Deaf person after about 4 signs. When they’re bad signers, the realism just isn’t there for me… “THEY’RE supposed to have Deaf parents? HA!”… It tends to ruin the movie for me AND everyone around me while I complain… 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Mayo\_Speaks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c57346/32.png) [@Mayo\_Speaks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mayo_Speaks)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2006, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-flaws-that-no-one-should-notice/377895/53 "2006-10-26T04:52:51Z")
In **Rounders** , no one ever cuts the deck. And Mike says something along the lines of “Sometimes you’ve got two overcards to an underpair, and then it’s 11-9 or even money. Then you’ve got to go with your gut.” This is in the middle of a speech on how there’s no luck in what he does, and he’s talking about how good he is at predicting the outcome of a coinflip! Any poker pro would know better. ---
**Author:** ![hawksgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ed655f/32.png) [@hawksgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hawksgirl)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2006, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-flaws-that-no-one-should-notice/377895/54 "2006-10-26T05:08:48Z")
[QUOTE=Daffyd] Drives me crazy to watch any movie involving Sign Language. Either the movie only shows part of what the person is signing (Children of a Lesser God), or has actors signing who are supposed to be fluent, but sign horribly (Mr. Holland’s Opus) When they’re good signers I want to see what they’re saying, but the shots invariably cut away from the Deaf person after about 4 signs. When they’re bad signers, the realism just isn’t there for me… “THEY’RE supposed to have Deaf parents? HA!”… It tends to ruin the movie for me AND everyone around me while I complain… 😃 [/QUOTE] I complained about this just now whil watching Law & Order:SVU. I yelled “He didn’t say all of that!” about 2 seconds ago. You’re not alone. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2006, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-flaws-that-no-one-should-notice/377895/55 "2006-10-26T05:22:58Z")
As a metro buff, I giggled all the way through the climactic chase scene in _The Jackal_, in which Richard Gere chases Bruce Willis from Capitol Heights to Metro Center in D.C. Of course, those are a couple miles and ten stations apart. But the best part is that they’re really Radisson and Lionel-Groulx stations in Montreal; they look completely different from the DC stations (aside from both being 70s modernist all-concrete structures) and the trains are blue and have rubber tires. Likewise, in the Quebec film _Maelström_, the main character is sitting in a metro station, disconsolately. She asks a nearby character what time it is, and he says it’s 12:15 a.m. Trouble is, she’s at Acadie metro on the blue line, and at the time the film was made, that line closed at 11:10 p.m. Similarly, in _Jésus de Montréal_, the climactic scene occurs at Place-Saint-Henri station. Supposedly Daniel has just gotten out of hospital, but there’s no hospital anywhere near there. Later on he collapses and his companion dashes up the (very long) escalator to get help - why didn’t she just use the red emergency phone? Then in the last scene, two women are singing a hymn near where Daniel collapsed, but there’s no busker station there. Linguistics: I couldn’t even watch _Enterprise_ because of Hoshi Sato and her constant meaningless pronouncements. Astrophysicists and space scientists anywhere received my retroactive condolences. The monarchy: _The Queen_ was quite well done in general, but there were two annoying things: at one point Prince Charles refers to his son as “the future King of England,” when he should know there hasn’t been a king of England since 1707; and (although it would be reasonable for the character to have made a mistake) Tony Blair refers to Charles as His Highness when it should be His Royal Highness. ( **kung fu lola** thought that the china they were using was wrong, as her mother apparently has the same pattern they use at Buckingham Palace; I pointed out that they’re at Balmoral, so naturally the china would be different.) ---
**Author:** ![Hirka\_T\_Bawa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/db5fbb/32.png) [@Hirka\_T\_Bawa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hirka_T_Bawa)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2006, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-flaws-that-no-one-should-notice/377895/56 "2006-10-26T05:40:07Z")
I can attest to the jumping all around locations in movies. In the 1996 movie **Fled** the climax of the movie takes place in Stone Mountain Park, right outside of Atlanta. First the car chase shows going from one location in the park to another, which is really obvious if you’ve even been there. But the worst part is the end of the film, when the final fight takes place on the tram to the top of the mountain. They get off the tram on the top, and there is the train station, the one on the bottom :smack: PLUS there is a playground across the “street” from it… THERE IS NO PLAYGROUND THERE! ITS A PARKING LOT! (at least it was at the time, now its a village) As for guns in movies, the main thing that gets me is when people have shotguns, they cock those things all the time. Don’t they realize they are just wasting the rounds? ---
**Author:** ![Bearflag70](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Bearflag70](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bearflag70)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2006, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-flaws-that-no-one-should-notice/377895/57 "2006-10-26T05:50:45Z")
I used to date a hair stylist and she would get a kick out of noticing the sudden changes in length of the actors’ hair from shot to shot. ---
**Author:** ![SCSimmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e495f1/32.png) [@SCSimmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCSimmons)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2006, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-flaws-that-no-one-should-notice/377895/58 "2006-10-26T11:57:58Z")
[QUOTE=tanstaafl] That was _Commando_ and that entire movie was so over-the-top you know there was no way it was supposed to be taken seriously. [/QUOTE] But I believe it _was Eraser_ that had a bad guy tapping Arnie’s phone call to a pager–and tracing the pager’s location from the phone number. 😕 ---
**Author:** ![USCDiver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/uscdiver/32/354_2.png) [@USCDiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/USCDiver)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2006, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-flaws-that-no-one-should-notice/377895/59 "2006-10-26T12:28:35Z")
As a medical professional, it always bothers me when they show someone dying on screen. The person ‘flatlines’ _BEEEEEEEEEP_ and they get the defibrillator paddles out to shock the guy. Then he wakes up and talks to them. ---
**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:** [October 26, 2006, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-flaws-that-no-one-should-notice/377895/60 "2006-10-26T12:29:58Z")
Any movie with any technical thing is going to be riddled with errors that people in the field immediately pick up on. We’ve had countless threads about errors in science and science fiction, medicine, forensic science, police work, legal issues, the military, and so on. The movies don’t care anywhere near as much about accuracy as they do about pretty shots, easily grasped situations, and dramatic setups. But some errors are so outrageous you can’t help it. My all time favorite is still the armadillos in Count Dracula’s Transylvanian castle in the 1931 Tod Browning film. It’s not as if you have to be an expert in zooology. You don’t say things like “_that’s_ not a Transylvanian armadillo! ou can tell from the size!” Because they don’t have armadillo’s on the entire freakin’ continent. Who did Browning think would let this one slip? (The Spanish-language version, shot at the same time on the same sets, but with different cast and crew, notably does _not_ feature armadillos. even if they entertained the thought – unlikely, I know – I’m sure they realized that the Maxican audience that had to be part of their target group would have laughed it off the screen.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-flaws-that-no-one-should-notice/377895.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-flaws-that-no-one-should-notice/377895.md?page=4)