# Movie WTF moments **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 19, 2006, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-wtf-moments/348954 "2006-03-19T02:04:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2006, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-wtf-moments/348954/101 "2006-03-22T13:03:52Z")
> [@JSexton](#): > > It’s worse than that. Lemon juice IS invisible ink. So they were trying to view invisible ink by _pouring more ink over it_, essentially. Derf. Derf[sup2[/sup]. Lemon juice is invisible ink, but not all invisible ink is lemon juice. Granted I can’t think offhand of an invisible ink that is developed by lemon juice, but that doesn’t mean that no such thing exists. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2006, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-wtf-moments/348954/102 "2006-03-22T13:08:30Z")
On the other hand, the preceding post offers ample evidence that I should preview. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2006, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-wtf-moments/348954/103 "2006-03-22T15:34:49Z")
> [@Tapioca Dextrin](#): > > There’s a classic WTF moment in the Wesley Snipes vampire flick _Blade_. There’s an identical moment in the kung-fu parody _Fistful of Yen_, filmed years earlier. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2006, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-wtf-moments/348954/104 "2006-03-22T15:47:39Z")
> [@Raguleader](#): > > Is there a name for when an organism lives in/on another organism and benefits, but the host suffers no benefit or harm from it? “Commensalism.” See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbiosis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbiosis). ---
**Author:** ![JohnM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/848f3c/32.png) [@JohnM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnM)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2006, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-wtf-moments/348954/105 "2006-03-22T16:27:55Z")
> [@Bippy the Beardless](#): > > Certianly they can get married, but they don’t as a rule take confessions. (I guess they are allowed to hear confessions, but there is no set religious significance to such an event any more than any other talking to a priest in confidence. While private sacramental confession may not be common, it is available and does have religious signifance for Anglicans. [This](http://www.episcopalchurch.org/19625_15176_ENG_HTM.htm) is from the official site for the ECUSA: > [@](#): > > Reconciliation of a Penitent > > Sacramental rite in which those who repent may confess their sins to God in the presence of a priest and receive the assurance of pardon and the grace of absolution (BCP, p. 861). It is also called penance and confession. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2006, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-wtf-moments/348954/106 "2006-03-22T16:30:16Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > **Gattaca** > > At the end, did he really turn on the incinerator from the _inside_? I never noticed that. But I was troubled by the assumption that in the future, astronauts will fly in business suits! ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2006, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-wtf-moments/348954/107 "2006-03-22T16:46:53Z")
Classic WTF moment: _Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom:_ In the mines, the Good Guys are fleeing the Bad Guys in a railcar. There is a gap in the tracks. The Good Guys’ car jumps the gap, lands precisely on the rails, and rolls on. (The Bad Guys’ car jumps the gap and crashes.) I was watching it with relatives. MY COUSIN: I don’t believe it! MY AUNT: That’s the first thing you don’t believe?! (By now, of course, we have watched the Evil High Priest pluck the heart out of a man’s body without breaking the skin or killing him, among other things.) ---
**Author:** ![DxZero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@DxZero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DxZero)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2006, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-wtf-moments/348954/108 "2006-03-22T17:56:18Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Classic WTF moment: _Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom:_ In the mines, the Good Guys are fleeing the Bad Guys in a railcar. There is a gap in the tracks. The Good Guys’ car jumps the gap, lands precisely on the rails, and rolls on. (The Bad Guys’ car jumps the gap and crashes.) I was watching it with relatives. > > MY COUSIN: I don’t believe it! > > MY AUNT: That’s the first thing you don’t believe?! > > (By now, of course, we have watched the Evil High Priest pluck the heart out of a man’s body without breaking the skin or killing him, among other things.) Ha…on a similar note, when my friend and I saw Kill Bill Vol. 1 in the theatre, after the scene where the bride flies into Tokyo, he leans over to me and says, “They would have never let her on the plane, carrying a sword.” I just looked at him and said “Dude, after all the stuff that’s been in this movie, you got to suspend some disbelief.” ---
**Author:** ![Push\_You\_Down](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/push_you_down/32/9095_2.png) [@Push\_You\_Down](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Push_You_Down)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2006, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-wtf-moments/348954/109 "2006-03-22T18:03:32Z")
I think it’s been pointed out in another thread that in Japan they would have since the sword would have been considered a priceless piece of art. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2006, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-wtf-moments/348954/110 "2006-03-22T18:46:54Z")
> [@Laughing Lagomorph](#): > > Well, it depends. Is the train on a treadmill? Bwahaha. You need a beating, but you made me laugh. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2006, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-wtf-moments/348954/111 "2006-03-22T19:02:08Z")
> [@fluiddruid](#): > > I had just assumed he wasn’t actually human, and it was sweat. > > My WTF moment from LOTR: The Two Towers - how on earth did it take days or longer to walk to the Entmoot, but when Fangorn sees the destruction of the trees around Isengard, he just yells and all the Ents come out of nowhere? _Why_ didn’t Peter Jackson just follow the books and make the Ents decide to go to war at the Entmoot so it would make sense? If I’d seen the movie, I’d say that PJ was attemping to make it clearer that the Ents’ going to war was a direct result of the Junior Hobbits appearance in Fangorn Forest, so he had to have Pippin trick Treebeard into it, which in turn required him to change the timing of the sequence. It was all a result of his asssumption that his audience was composed of idiots. But of course I didn’t see the movie. How can I see what doesn’t exist? Everybody knows Jackson died in a bizarre yodeling accident during preproduction and everything was shut down. It’s all for the best, as LOTR is clearly unfilmable and any attempt to adapt it was doomed to failure. It certainly wouldn’t have won an OSCAR. –Maxie, dodging crocodiles as he paddles down Denial River ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2006, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-wtf-moments/348954/112 "2006-03-22T19:36:17Z")
Re Invisible Ink IIRC (and I might not) You can use a small amount of milk as ink and reveal the message with lemon juice. RE The Fifth Element I thought it was Lithium. Re The Ents I assumed that when Treebeard called the moot he used a standard ‘It is a matter of the utmost urgency and may alter the whole of Middle Earth. Be here in a week or less’ call. But, when he saw the deforestation Treabeard used an exceedingly rare ‘Come immediately, if not sooner. Make all possible speed. Hurry!’ call. Plus, as has been said, the other Ents would still be relatively close by. A leisurely stroll back home could take them months. ---
**Author:** ![bluetrust](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e7dd6/32.png) [@bluetrust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bluetrust)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2006, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-wtf-moments/348954/113 "2006-03-22T19:47:04Z")
> [@Push You Down](#): > > My favorite WTF moment from Gattaca… When you go into space… you wear a business suit. WTF, indeed. I didn’t particularly like the movie, but I thought it made sense. Pilots wear business suits while flying commercial airliners. ---
**Author:** ![Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac8455/32.png) [@Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bippy_the_Beardless)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2006, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-wtf-moments/348954/114 "2006-03-22T21:46:11Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > RE The Fifth Element > > I thought it was Lithium. > > . Nope Hydrogen, Helium, Lithium, Berylium, Boron, Carbon … Wonder what the fifth element discovered to be an element was? Thanks for the info about Anglican confession earlier. I knew I may have been wrong about there existing some form of Anglican confession, but my web search for such a thing drew a blank so I assumed wrongly it did not exist as a specific sacrement. ---
**Author:** ![Ghanima](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Ghanima](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ghanima)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2006, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-wtf-moments/348954/115 "2006-03-22T22:00:53Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > Re Invisible Ink > > IIRC (and I might not) You can use a small amount of milk as ink and reveal the message with lemon juice. Nope. You need heat to reveal milk too. You can also use grape juice or red cabbage juice, but not lemon juice. As far as I know, there is no method that uses lemon juice to reveal invisible ink. ---
**Author:** ![LiveOnAPlane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3d9bf3/32.png) [@LiveOnAPlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LiveOnAPlane)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2006, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-wtf-moments/348954/116 "2006-03-22T22:20:16Z")
> [@Bippy the Beardless](#): > > Nope > Hydrogen, Helium, Lithium, Berylium, Boron, Carbon … > > Wonder what the fifth element discovered to be an element was? _We don’t know!_ [From this site](http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Discovery-of-the-chemical-elements), the time/order of discovery of the first 9 elements is shrouded in antiquity (Lordy, I have always wanted to use that phrase. Finally!). Carbon, gold, silver, copper, sulphur, tin, lead, mercury, iron. Next is arsenic, which is only believed to have been discovered in 1250, but evidently, this is not absolutely certain. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2006, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-wtf-moments/348954/117 "2006-03-22T22:35:02Z")
> [@Push You Down](#): > > I think it’s been pointed out in another thread that in Japan they would have since the sword would have been considered a priceless piece of art. Maybe. But then she uses it to fight the Yakuza? I think real-life Yakuza use **guns.** Despite Japan’s stringent gun-control laws. ---
**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2006, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-wtf-moments/348954/118 "2006-03-22T22:40:40Z")
> [@Ghanima](#): > > In National Treasure (yes the entire movie is a big WTF, but anyway) they are trying to see the message written in invisible ink on the back of the Declaration of Independence. The first thing they try is lemon juice! How the hell is that supposed to work? Then, when they decide to use heat to see the writing (which should have been the obvious first choice), they are scared to put it up to a flame…the whole time I was like “use the damn lightbulb right next to your head!” so instead they breathe on it…breathe on it? WTF? I think Ebert pointed this out in his review of the film how he had a WTF moment when Connery just happened to have not 1 lemon in his fridge, but a whole bowl full of lemons. Who keeps a bowl of lemons on hand besides a restaurant? My other WTF moment in this film is when they go to that little turret thing and wait to see at exactly the correct time of day where it’s shadow will fall so they can open the wall at that point. But there’s no mention of what day or month of the year. Shadows fall all over the place depending on the day of the year. I guess they just got lucky. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2006, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-wtf-moments/348954/119 "2006-03-22T22:45:57Z")
Of course, some people seem to think inserting WTF moments into movies, for their own sake, is legitimate artistic expression . . . > **[If you were the director, what random strangeness would you put in your film?](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=361980)** > > for me? I would definitly have a scene at a check out counter and on the shelf would be a tabloid with the headline “Elvis is DEAD, Run over by Kenedys Limo” at some point the word “Frak” would be uttered as a serious insult or exclamation. I had... ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2006, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-wtf-moments/348954/120 "2006-03-22T23:02:24Z")
> [@JPen](#): > > Ha…on a similar note, when my friend and I saw Kill Bill Vol. 1 in the theatre, after the scene where the bride flies into Tokyo, he leans over to me and says, “They would have never let her on the plane, carrying a sword.” I just looked at him and said “Dude, after all the stuff that’s been in this movie, you got to suspend some disbelief.” Did she have it as carry-on? Because I’ve taken a sword on an airplane before with no problem. I had to check it in with the rest of my luggage, of course, but the only hassle involved was trying to wrap the damn thing so it would impale somebody’s Samsonite in the cargo hold. This was within a week of 9/11, too. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-wtf-moments/348954.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-wtf-moments/348954.md?page=7)