# Movie inaccuracies. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 2, 2000, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-inaccuracies/35293 "2000-10-02T01:57:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Falcon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/49beb7/32.png) [@Falcon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Falcon)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2000, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-inaccuracies/35293/21 "2000-10-02T17:20:49Z")
Okay, in the grand scheme of things, it’s minor, but it annoyed me. Part of **Patriot Games** was filmed in Annapolis. (I got to see Harrison Ford in person…_drool_) Remeber that scene in the movie where his wife and kid get shot, and he drives out of Annapolis to meet them? Couple of issues: One, the highway his wife was on was CLEARLY not in Maryland. There are no skyscrapers on Route 50. There are also no _&^@#$_( PALM TREES in Maryland. Two, the route he “takes” to get out of Annapolis is impossible. In order to get from the Academy to the highway, you go down one road, then cut over. He goes into the heart of Annapolis, then back out. I admit it makes a better visual, but still…it annoyed the HELL out of me. ---
**Author:** ![Falcon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/49beb7/32.png) [@Falcon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Falcon)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2000, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-inaccuracies/35293/22 "2000-10-02T17:20:49Z")
Okay, in the grand scheme of things, it’s minor, but it annoyed me. Part of **Patriot Games** was filmed in Annapolis. (I got to see Harrison Ford in person…_drool_) Remeber that scene in the movie where his wife and kid get shot, and he drives out of Annapolis to meet them? Couple of issues: One, the highway his wife was on was CLEARLY not in Maryland. There are no skyscrapers on Route 50. There are also no _&^@#$_( PALM TREES in Maryland. Two, the route he “takes” to get out of Annapolis is impossible. In order to get from the Academy to the highway, you go down one road, then cut over. He goes into the heart of Annapolis, then back out. I admit it makes a better visual, but still…it annoyed the HELL out of me. ---
**Author:** ![FairyChatMom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fairychatmom/32/21906_2.png) [@FairyChatMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyChatMom)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2000, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-inaccuracies/35293/23 "2000-10-02T17:22:12Z")
I hate it when military uniforms are done wrong. This is SOOOO easy to get right, and there never seems to be a logical reason for things to be wrong… well, except when the women are showing cleavage. I also want to scream when women in uniform are shown with flowing locks tumbling over their shoulders. I don’t recall a change in the reg that the hair may touch but not fall below the collar. \ ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2000, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-inaccuracies/35293/24 "2000-10-02T17:42:31Z")
> [@](#): > > I’ve always enjoyed the NF-104 scene in The Right Stuff even though it was a misrepresentation of what actually happened to Chuck Yeager. It would have taken too long to explain what actually caused the spin but for the average audianc member hearing the engine stop is good enough. As if military bases are so lax that people can go flying any ol’ time they want! Yeager’s NF-104 flight was a _test flight_, not a joy-ride. (BTW: I used to work in Ridley Mission Control Center, and an NF-104 is on a pedastal at the Test Pilot School.) Speaking of _The Right Stuff_, I have a particular gripe about a piece of editing. While Yeager is flying, Glennis is leaning on a truck. She looks down as if in reaction to Chuck’s (assumed) crash. It was obvious that this was a reaction shot, but the editor flubbed it. > [@](#): > > I hate it when military uniforms are done wrong. _Memphis Belle_. Well, it was _fairly_ accurate. There was indeed a B-17 flying out of England in WWII that was called the “Memphis Belle”. But the rest of the movie? _Please_! But you mentioned uniforms. Did you notice the officers’ caps – accurate reproductions of which they could have _bought off the shelf_ at Avirex/The Cockpit – were of the _British_ pattern? And there’s one extra who drives me nuts. They’re waiting for the Belle to come in. Everyone is worried. There, on the tower, a couple of guys are waiting. (I don’t remember who. Could’ve been Lithgow, one of 'em.) There’s an extra standing in the near background. Dressed as an officer, with Ray Bans on. I don’t know where they dug this guy up, but he’s a rotten actor. He needed to react to the returning aircraft. He was so unbelievable, I laugh at the scene every time I see it. ---
**Author:** ![DavisMcDavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dfb087/32.png) [@DavisMcDavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavisMcDavis)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2000, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-inaccuracies/35293/25 "2000-10-02T18:05:15Z")
It still irritates me when Batman records the Joker (or the Penquin, maybe) on a CD and then when playing it back, “scratches” the CD as if it was a record. I mean scratchin’ in terms of rapping, not physically creating a scratch mark on it. A CD would just plain skip and not play anything, it wouldn’t like repeat and distort and shit like that. I mentioned this in another thread, and the movie that springs to mind is “Cloak and Dagger”, but whenever anyone had a floppy disk in the 80’s, it would always work in any machine,and you could put it in a blender and with magnetic filings and it would still never crash, and the best way to carry it was by grabbing that little exposed hole with your grubby fingers. And this isn’t a movie, but in the musical “Rent” there were two discepancies that irritated me so much I couldn’t stand it: 1. The heroin addict was bouncy, energetic, and never vomited. She did a bang-up number right after shooting up. Only heroin addicts I’ve ever seen can’t stand or say their name after doin’ the dope, much less do gymnastics in latex pants. 2. The lead guy was a filmmaker who carried what appeared to be a windup film (not video) camera, but then at one point it “ran out of juice” so he had to “stop taping”. Oh, so it’s supposed to be a video camera? But at the end of the play, they show the film he made, which is on a projector and is actually FILM film. Which is all the more interesting since they’re broke though the whole thing but he somehow manages to shoot color film constantly, which if my film school memory permits costs several dollars per second of shooting time, even if you don’t develop it. ---
**Author:** ![Crunchy\_Frog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ebca7d/32.png) [@Crunchy\_Frog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crunchy_Frog)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2000, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-inaccuracies/35293/26 "2000-10-02T18:11:09Z")
The entire premise of _Double Jeopardy_ starring Ashley Judd and Tommy Lee Jones. Ashley most certainly **can** be tried for killing her husband for real even if she’s been falsely imprisoned once. It would be a separate crime. If I broke into your house on Aud 15th and was tried for it, I cannot then break into your house again 5 years later and say, “You can’t try me, I was already tried for breaking into the house once before!” That’s why they say you are on trial for the crime and on which date the crime was committed. You do the same crime to the same person on a different date, it’s a diffeent crime and you _will_ be prosecuted for it. ---
**Author:** ![lurkernomore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d6d6ee/32.png) [@lurkernomore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lurkernomore)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2000, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-inaccuracies/35293/27 "2000-10-02T18:17:39Z")
Jackie Chan film “Rumble in the Bronx”? set in NY - see mountains in the background (hello, Vancouver) One of the Die-Hards, Willis calls, supposedly in one of the DC area airports - phone says Pac Bell. and since Exorcist recently came up, they walked in about 8 different directions on one walk… ---
**Author:** ![Chance\_the\_Gardener](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@Chance\_the\_Gardener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chance_the_Gardener)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2000, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-inaccuracies/35293/28 "2000-10-02T18:39:02Z")
Y’ever see _Die Hard II_? Notice how Bruce Willis rides his snowmobile across the fields outside of Dulles Airport in Washington, DC? If you ever fly into Dulles, have a look around and tell me how much open space there is near that airport. To give me your report, call me on one of the Pacific Bell pay phones that Willis used there. Also, check out _Real Genius_ some time. Notice toward the end when a high-ranking U.S. Air Force officer enters the room and an underling bellows, “Attention! Superior officer in the room!” This is _not_ part of Air Force protocol. ---
**Author:** ![Fiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e274bd/32.png) [@Fiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiver)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2000, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-inaccuracies/35293/29 "2000-10-02T18:39:19Z")
**Smitty** : > [@](#): > > 1. The rear-most smokestack on the real Titanic didn’t actually work, it was only there for cosmetic purposes. There’ve been several movies about _Titanic_. Which one are you referring to? Anyway, of _course_ the rear-most smokestack worked. It wasn’t part of the power plant like the other three stacks, but all the galley ovens and the ventilation systems exhausted through the last stack. You wouldn’t see smoke coming out of it, but in which movie was that error committed? > [@](#): > > 1. Shouldn’t Tarzan have a beard? Again, it would be helpful if you referred to a specific movie. In the Tarzan novels it was established that Tarzan shaved with a big hunting knife he found among his parents’ effects. I’d be surprised if this wasn’t explicitly explained in any of the movies. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2000, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-inaccuracies/35293/30 "2000-10-02T19:14:17Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Crunchy Frog \* > \*\*The entire premise of _Double Jeopardy_ starring Ashley Judd and Tommy Lee Jones. Ashley most certainly **can** be tried for killing her husband for real even if she’s been falsely imprisoned once. It would be a separate crime. > > If I broke into your house on Aud 15th and was tried for it, I cannot then break into your house again 5 years later and say, “You can’t try me, I was already tried for breaking into the house once before!” > > That’s why they say you are on trial for the crime and on which date the crime was committed. You do the same crime to the same person on a different date, it’s a diffeent crime and you _will_ be prosecuted for it. \*\* Crunchy, are you sure about this? Your analogy doesn’t hold, as I’m fairly sure I can murder someone once and only once, but I can break into a house multiple times. However, I’m no legal eagle, and not up on this. ---
**Author:** ![Padeye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@Padeye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Padeye)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2000, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-inaccuracies/35293/31 "2000-10-02T19:32:15Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Johnny L.A. \* > **Yeager’s NF-104 flight was a _test flight_, not a joy-ride.** Most of the stuff dealing with Gen. Yeager was badly “hollywooded.” They didn’t pick him the day before the supersonic X-1 flight in a damn bar. Cripes, why didn’t they just recruit a test pilot at Schwab’s drugstore soda fountain, sitting next to Lana Turner? 😃 I did get a kick out of Yeager’s cameo in the bar as Fred. > [@](#): > > **…this was a reaction shot, but the editor flubbed it.** Bad editing there. It was leftover from the scene where Chuck and Glennis earlier visit the burned out remains of Pancho’s. I almost had to unprogram TNT from my television so I wouldn’t accidentally tune into friggin’ _Top Gun_. No shortage of things to piss me off about that movie. A bimbo astrophysicist teaching ACM? Were they worried about planes getting sucked into black holes or flying too close to a supernova? A classroom setup in the middle of of the ^%$# floor in hangar 2 at Miramar? The small satisfaction I got was knowing that Maverick would have been busted for riding his motorcycle on the road parallel to the runway. The only motor vehicles allowed were base security but I rode my bicycle there frequently. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2000, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-inaccuracies/35293/32 "2000-10-02T19:32:47Z")
The all-time recent champ for movie screwups has got to be “Die Hard 2”. Oh, where to begin… [ul] [li]The Airport was supposed to be Washington Dulles, but the phones all had “Pacific Bell” logos.[/li][li]Hercules aircraft don’t have ejection seats[/li][li]The whole premise is based on the notion that the terrorists will control the ILS to the airport. This mission was planned weeks in advance, when they had no idea what the weather would be like that day.[/li][li]Jumping off the wing of a 747 about to rotate for takeoff will kill you.[/li][li]There are no manhole covers in the middle of a runway[/li][li]An important plot point was that no one could communicate with the circling aircraft because the terrorists control the tower. What about all the airplanes parked on the ground with perfectly good radios in them?[/li][li]You can’t ‘lower’ an ILS and make an airplane fly into the ground.[/li][li]The security procedures around the airport were a joke.[/li][li]Another important plot point was that the airplanes were trapped because the weather was bad and the terrorists wouldn’t let them land. Guess what? There are at least a dozen airports within IFR reserve range of Washington Dulles. Hell, most big jets have enough reserve to fly to Florida from Washington.[/li][li]In one scene a reporter looks up and says, “I can see the airplanes circling overhead”. These are the same airplanes that can’t land because of a heavy snowstorm that has the visibility down to zero. Hello?[/li][/ul] I’m sure I’m forgetting a bunch of things. The movie was just an unending sceries of ridiculous set-ups, continuity errors, and bad fact-checking. Coupled with a total disdain for the intelligence of the audience. ---
**Author:** ![Sofa\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Sofa\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofa_King)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2000, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-inaccuracies/35293/33 "2000-10-02T19:42:37Z")
Crunchy is dead-on about the fallacious premise of _Double Jeopardy_. It has been smacked down in the GQ section: [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=6638](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=6638) I was always tickled with one of the chase scenes in _No Way Out_, where Kevin Costner dives into a nonexistent Metro stop in Georgetown, hops a Boston train, and emerges in the Old Post Office. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2000, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-inaccuracies/35293/34 "2000-10-02T21:19:30Z")
The subtitle commentary on the DVD of _The Abyss_ tells of a number of inaccuracies. Examples: at the extreme depth and pressure at which most of the movie takes place, lotsa helium is used to create a stable, high-pressure atmosphere, and as a result the crew members’ voices would be very Mickey Mouse-ish. But, that would have made the movie kinda goofy. Well, goofier than it turned out, anyway… Ed Harris’s dive at the end of the movie is around 2 miles deeper than any diver has ever gone. All together now: “Yah, right!” Not to mention that the real oxygen-rich liquid solution isn’t actually pink, as it is in the movie; they just dyed it to make it more visible. ---
**Author:** ![Suo\_Na](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/898d66/32.png) [@Suo\_Na](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suo_Na)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2000, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-inaccuracies/35293/35 "2000-10-02T22:20:40Z")
In _The Cell_ the main character (can’t remember her name) talks to the cop about the boy, and she says he has schizophrenia. A few seconds later she refers to the virus reaching his brain. Schizophrenia is a chemical imbalance, not a virus. I’ve heard that _Rumble in the Bronx_ contains to other Canadianisms: someone drinks PC pop, and a bus says _issue de secours_ on the back. If you want to nitpick tv shows as well as movies, commercials, books, etc, try [http://www.nitcentral.com](http://www.nitcentral.com). ---
**Author:** ![Padeye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@Padeye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Padeye)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2000, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-inaccuracies/35293/36 "2000-10-02T22:58:51Z")
**Max Torque** - I know the rats actually breathed fluid in the movie but did Ed Harris or a stunt man do so? ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2000, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-inaccuracies/35293/37 "2000-10-03T00:21:32Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Padeye \* > \*\ ***Max Torque** - I know the rats actually breathed fluid in the movie but did Ed Harris or a stunt man do so? \*\* According to the disc, neither. Harris’s helmet was filled with pink water, and he just held his breath for the duration of the shot. They toyed around with a double-walled glass thingy with pink liquid between the layers, but it didn’t look right. During the diving scenes, they could get away with just a pink-tinged visor. Problem is, breathing that oxygen-rich fluid strips your lungs of their protective mucus coating, and you have to go on wicked antibiotics for a while or catch pneumonia after breathing it. They didn’t want to do that to Ed. The rats received antibiotic shots, and were just fine. ---
**Author:** ![Mirth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@Mirth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mirth)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2000, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-inaccuracies/35293/38 "2000-10-03T02:16:01Z")
I saw the X-Files movie in the theatre at Grapevine (half hour from Dallas) and the entire audience groaned when the scene came up that is supposed to be near Dallas. You see the Dallas skyline in the distance and the scene is a desert trailor park. Sorry guys, try heading west a few hundred miles if you want a desert. ---
**Author:** ![Philbuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e9a140/32.png) [@Philbuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philbuck)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2000, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-inaccuracies/35293/39 "2000-10-03T02:49:35Z")
I saw _Gladiator_ for the first time on-campus this weekend. I thought it was pretty neat at the beginning to see the cavalry on their war horses without stirrups. And then later noticed that the horse Maximus wound up on in the chariot battle scence had them. Oh, well. And while not an inaccuracy, I got a kick out of watching the “dead” Marcus Aurelius (sp?) breathing in the background in the post-murder scene. (and yeah, there are a lot of historical inaccuracies, but we all know it was fictionalized anyway.) I had hopes of doing a _Die Hard II_ rundown when I opened this thread, but Sam beat me to it. So I’ll just point out that the whole two-way radio thing that Johnny LA mentioned drives me crazy whenever I watch the first _Die Hard_. ---
**Author:** ![Revedge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecae2f/32.png) [@Revedge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revedge)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2000, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-inaccuracies/35293/40 "2000-10-03T04:01:23Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Tengu \* > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > \*Originally posted by Revedge \* > > **The Texas Chainsaw Massacre happened in Michigan** > > Wisconson, actually. > > TCM, like Silence of the Lambs and Psycho were inspired by Ed Gein, a Wisconson farmer. > > \*\* I knew it was Ed Gein. Michigan, Wisconson, They are both about a two day drive from Texas. Damn Yankees! 🙂 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-inaccuracies/35293.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-inaccuracies/35293.md?page=3)