# movies that fail the BS test **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 25, 2001, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-fail-the-bs-test/89473 "2001-10-25T04:09:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![pldennison](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9fc29f/32.png) [@pldennison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pldennison)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2001, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-fail-the-bs-test/89473/21 "2001-10-25T16:15:08Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by FriendRob \* > \*\*Oh, and what about **A.I.**? Haven’t those aliens ever heard of _cloning_? Wouldn’t a couple of real cloned humans be better information than a mere robot? \*\* Did you actually watch the movie? This was pretty well covered in the dialogue. > [@](#): > > -Blair Witch - Why didn’t they just follow the creek? Yeah, and why didn’t the mother and daughter in _The Exorcist_ just move out of the house? ---
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2001, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-fail-the-bs-test/89473/22 "2001-10-25T16:20:57Z")
**With Honors**. The Harvard student loses the only copy of his senior thesis. Riiight. This came out when my roommates and I were all working on our theses, which involved over a year of monthly-to-weekly meetings with advisors at which an updated draft would be submitted almost every time. Sorry kid, but if you’re that stupid, you deserve everything you get. ---
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2001, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-fail-the-bs-test/89473/23 "2001-10-25T16:35:54Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by pldennison \* > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > -Blair Witch - Why didn’t they just follow the creek? > > Yeah, and why didn’t the mother and daughter in _The Exorcist_ just move out of the house? \*\* Well, a good part of the movie was spent with the mother doubting that Regan was possessed. It was not immediately clear that leaving the house would have helped (would it have helped at all? Maybe you’re thinking of _The Amityville Horror_). With _Blair Witch_, where’s the doubt? You’re lost. There’s a river. Follow it out, Einstein! ---
**Author:** ![Demise](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/34f0e0/32.png) [@Demise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Demise)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2001, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-fail-the-bs-test/89473/24 "2001-10-25T17:16:25Z")
Any movie in which cops shoot at an unarmed fleeing suspect. Especially when it happens in a crowded area. Those get a big :rolleyes: from me. ---
**Author:** ![pldennison](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9fc29f/32.png) [@pldennison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pldennison)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2001, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-fail-the-bs-test/89473/25 "2001-10-25T17:25:33Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Sublight \* > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > \*Originally posted by pldennison \* > > \*\* > > > > > [@](#): > > > > > > -Blair Witch - Why didn’t they just follow the creek? > > > > Yeah, and why didn’t the mother and daughter in _The Exorcist_ just move out of the house? \*\* > > Well, a good part of the movie was spent with the mother doubting that Regan was possessed. It was not immediately clear that leaving the house would have helped (would it have helped at all? Maybe you’re thinking of _The Amityville Horror_). > > With _Blair Witch_, where’s the doubt? You’re lost. There’s a river. Follow it out, Einstein! \*\* Right. Because, you know, it’s not like there was, say, a witch, or anything, you know, supernatural occurring. Nope, nothing like that. Just your basic orienteering skills. Nothing supernatural. Oh, wait, wasn’t there something about a witch? ---
**Author:** ![Legomancer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/779978/32.png) [@Legomancer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Legomancer)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2001, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-fail-the-bs-test/89473/26 "2001-10-25T17:43:31Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by pldennison \* > \*\*Right. Because, you know, it’s not like there was, say, a witch, or anything, you know, supernatural occurring. Nope, nothing like that. Just your basic orienteering skills. Nothing supernatural. Oh, wait, wasn’t there something about a witch? \*\* In Aliens, I could believe that the cast was in deep doo-doo because these were highly trained professional badasses who were being reduced to tears. In the Blair Witch Project, it failed th eBS test because I had no confidence that, even without any alleged supernatural event, these three idiots couldn’t find their way out of a frickin closet. These guys couldn’t find their ass with a map, compass, ass-finding radar, and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Finding Your Own Ass. If they had TRIED to follow the stream and failed, that would be one thing. Of course, that may have made the movie scary and would have taken up valuable bitching-at-each-other time. ---
**Author:** ![Theobroma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b5a626/32.png) [@Theobroma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Theobroma)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2001, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-fail-the-bs-test/89473/27 "2001-10-25T17:58:05Z")
I got one! Julia Roberts plays a hooker (yeah, right) and has a hot romance with a wealthy hunk. I could never figure out why that movie was popular. My eyes were rolling so often, they got stuck up there for a week. Or, along the same lines, that movie where Michelle Pfeiffer played an ordinary cocktail waitress. Uh-huh. I’ll second Blair Witch. Another total eye-roller. I heard so much about the BS content of the recent “Pearl Harbor” that I didn’t go see it. Look, if you want to make up your own war, make up your own war. Don’t fake history, under the noses of those who lived it. (sheesh) There are many many more…so much BS in Hollywood, so little time to whine about it! ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2001, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-fail-the-bs-test/89473/28 "2001-10-25T18:24:26Z")
> [@](#): > > -Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon-There’s no suspense in people fighting in the tops of trees if said people can fly!!! There’s wasn’t supposed to be – at least, not about the fighting in treetops. If they were going to get killed, it would have been due to a sword through the gut. That was poetry, not realism. Complaining about it in realistic terms – as you have – gets a gold medal in Missing The Point. I can rant on forever about the stupidity in the first “Alien.” The plot holes were immense and anyone with an IQ of the 3 Stooges could come up with simple ways to kill the alien (blow all the air out the airlocks, pull the trigger when he’s standing in front of your gun, etc.) ---
**Author:** ![ianzin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ed655f/32.png) [@ianzin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ianzin)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2001, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-fail-the-bs-test/89473/29 "2001-10-25T18:46:45Z")
I’d nominate any movie in which a dozen bad guys are firing state-of-the-art spray-lead machine guns at the hero who manages to avoid injury by the cunning ploy of… _running a bit quick and ducking every now and again._ This covers a lot of movies, including several featuring Arnie, Stallone and Willis. I second all that has been said about Blair Witch. I did quite enjoy the movie, but I couldn’t stop screaming “Follow flowing water!!!” at the screen (in my head, not out loud). I don’t get **pldennison’s** point about The Exorcist. The girl was possessed, not the house. ---
**Author:** ![MrVisible](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@MrVisible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrVisible)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2001, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-fail-the-bs-test/89473/30 "2001-10-25T18:46:53Z")
IIRC, the whole plot of Poltergeist revolved around the fact that the contractors who’d built the condos were supposed to move the bodies to quailify for the building permits, but they didn’t. They just faked it, and moved the headstones. It was pretty specifically stated in the film. For me, it’s any scene in any movie where the characters discharge weapons in an enclosed space. I’m sorry, if you’ve just been in a gunbattle in a relatively small room, the dialog for the next half hour is going to consist of “What?” “Huh?” and “What did you say?” Guns are loud. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2001, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-fail-the-bs-test/89473/31 "2001-10-25T19:06:07Z")
I continue to say that _everyone_ in **Deep Impact** is a total moron, and they should have all been killed by the runaway meteor – it would have raised the collective IQ of the universe by a major chunk. Too many instances of sheer stupidity to recall, but my one forehead-slapper was – “Ho, we’re sending a team of astronauts to the meteor to set some explosives and blow it to bits. Whoops! The explosives were misplaced, and now we’ve got two runaway chunks headed for Earth! Too bad we didn’t think of bringing _more explosives_ or even a _geologist_ on board!” And the movie actually gets _worse_. I swear, by the final reel, I was rootin’ for the rock… ---
**Author:** ![Fiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e274bd/32.png) [@Fiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiver)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2001, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-fail-the-bs-test/89473/32 "2001-10-25T19:12:24Z")
**ianzin** , **Theobroma** , **Sublight** , **FriendRob** , once again with feeling: in _The Blair Witch Project_ there was a witch in the movie that was using its powers to make them lost. The witch is even, you may have noticed, referred to in the title. I’m getting SO tired of this conversation at SDMB. It’s becoming like the McDonald’s coffee thing. And **Legomancer** , if you thought the characters seemed too stupid to find their way out of the forest even without witchy manipulation, that may be a fault of the movie, but surely you’ll agree it’s in a different category from this thread. Now, for my own contribution, when I saw _The Net_ I could not suspend my disbelief enough to accept that the bad guys could cause as much mischief as they did through the Internet. Modifying a hospital’s patient records? Deleting someone’s driver’s license information? I don’t think so. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2001, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-fail-the-bs-test/89473/33 "2001-10-25T19:22:10Z")
What? Nothing about **Battlefield Earth** yet? Oh, where to begin? Hmmm…think I’ll let the good people at the [IMDb](http://us.imdb.com/Goofs?0185183) speak for me. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2001, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-fail-the-bs-test/89473/34 "2001-10-25T19:23:24Z")
I’ve seem many complaints about the trio in BWP not following the water in this thread that I gotta defend it. (It has a lot of problems, but this ain’t one of them.) Many wild areas are long and narrow, surrounding a stream valley. I don’t recall seeing a map of the region in the movie. They had maps. Maybe they knew that following the stream meant staying in the wilderness area for a couple more days. As opposed to going perpendicular to it they might be out in a half day. They were getting pressed for time and were looking for a quick way out. (Where “out” would be farms/roads/whatever.) Following a stream is in fact a less than optimal solution in many (but not all) survival situations. I would prefer to go _up_ to the top of a nearby medium size hill and get my bearings. (I’d also be able to read a map though.) The main thing they did wrong was to _move without having a clear idea of where they were going._ That is always a no-no. ---
**Author:** ![furryman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/furryman/32/99_2.png) [@furryman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furryman)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2001, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-fail-the-bs-test/89473/35 "2001-10-25T19:24:42Z")
Quite a few people on this board liked “Kiki’s Delivery Service”. I’m sorry, but the basic premise of this story is completely unbelievable. Let’s see: Witches send there 10 year old (?) kids out **alone** in the world so that they can “find their calling”. I don’t think so. Haven’t the people who made this movie ever heard of a thing called a “Child Labor Law”? If I ever saw any parent send there 10 year old out to get a job I’d report them for child abuse! Couldn’t the kid run the business out of her parent’s garage ala “Our Gang”? wouldn’t that make more sense? ---
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2001, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-fail-the-bs-test/89473/36 "2001-10-25T19:31:56Z")
That was good, MrVisible, and so true. :polite clap: For me it’s the physical stuff… When a car runs into another car it’s not suppossed to self-launch skyward into a triple axle. “Mom, have you seen my vehicle ramp? I left it somewhere and can’t find it.” Refused to see Crotching Tigger, Hidden Draggin for the same reasons voiced above. Same with the one with that Robin guy where he jumps off a cliff, falls a couple of hundred and grabs an icicle to stop. Any movie that starts to make Cliffhanger belivable is in deep snow. And Sua, wasn’t The Client the worst? ---
**Author:** ![Saltire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saltire/32/553_2.png) [@Saltire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saltire)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2001, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-fail-the-bs-test/89473/37 "2001-10-25T19:38:10Z")
_ **Tomb Raider** _ for two big things (and a lot of little ones): When Lara Croft is bouncing on her bungees and trading fire with the commandoes, no one is hit by a bullet at any point in the scene. She actually has to land and punch someone to eliminate them. Second, just after her father tells her not to go back in time to save him because she shouldn’t mess with the past, she does exactly that except that she saves the other doofus and leaves Daddy dead. ---
**Author:** ![FriendRob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ecc23a/32.png) [@FriendRob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriendRob)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2001, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-fail-the-bs-test/89473/38 "2001-10-25T19:55:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Theobroma \* > \*\*I got one! Julia Roberts plays a hooker (yeah, right) and has a hot romance with a wealthy hunk. I could never figure out why that movie was popular. My eyes were rolling so often, they got stuck up there for a week. > > Or, along the same lines, that movie where Michelle Pfeiffer played an ordinary cocktail waitress. Uh-huh. > \*\* Right! Or **The Net** , where Sandra Bullock plays a computer nerd who can’t get a date. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by MrVisible \* > For me, it’s any scene in any movie where the characters discharge weapons in an enclosed space. I’m > sorry, if you’ve just been in a gunbattle in a relatively small room, the dialog for the next half hour is going to > consist of “What?” “Huh?” and “What did you say?” That’s a good one! > [@](#): > > _Originally posted by pldennison_ > Did you actually watch the movie? This was pretty well covered in the dialogue. Yes, I saw **A.I.** What did I miss? Are you going to tell me that a whole robot survived, but not a single cell of a single human? BTW - _his power source was still functioning!!!_ Must have been Eveready… ---
**Author:** ![pldennison](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9fc29f/32.png) [@pldennison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pldennison)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2001, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-fail-the-bs-test/89473/39 "2001-10-25T20:06:02Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by FriendRob \* > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > _Originally posted by pldennison_ > > Did you actually watch the movie? This was pretty well covered in the dialogue. > > Yes, I saw **A.I.** What did I miss? Are you going to tell me that a whole robot survived, but not a single cell of a single human? BTW - _his power source was still functioning!!!_ Must have been Eveready… \*\* They told him that they **were** able to clone humans from hair and cells, but they only lived for one day before dying again. They said it a few times, as a matter of fact. That’s what they were \*\*doing[/b–excavating former human habitats, looking for artifacts, and cloning humans. Thus, finding a functioning robot that knew humans was rather exciting for them. It was actually kinda integral to the end of the movie. You didn’t go to the bathroom or something, did you? And now that I look back at your OP on the movie, they weren’t aliens, they were super-advanced robots. That’s why they all looked identical to the logo of the company that built David, and considered David so important to their history, and had _visible circuitry_ in their freakin’ heads. Are you **sure** you watched the movie? ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2001, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-fail-the-bs-test/89473/40 "2001-10-25T20:13:05Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by MrVisible_ > IIRC, the whole plot of Poltergeist revolved around the fact that the contractors who’d built the condos were supposed to move the bodies to quailify for the building permits, but they didn’t. They just faked it, and moved the headstones. It was pretty specifically stated in the film. I guess my point is that, no matter whether they moved the bodies or not, they would not have qualified for any building permits for that site, if it was in my jurisdiction. As I stated, in my jurisdiction, you couldn’t receive a building permit for a former graveyard for fifty years after the last body was disinterred. Of course, I’m sure that some places have shorter waiting periods before building. But to remove bodies from a graveyard then immediately build legally, was to me, beyond belief. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-fail-the-bs-test/89473.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-fail-the-bs-test/89473.md?page=3)