# Movies that Insult the Viewer with Shortcuts **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 23, 2008, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-insult-the-viewer-with-shortcuts/453915 "2008-06-23T14:46:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2008, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-insult-the-viewer-with-shortcuts/453915/62 "2008-06-25T20:45:54Z")
And if you’re Jack Bauer’s phone, the battery never dies. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2008, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-insult-the-viewer-with-shortcuts/453915/63 "2008-06-25T21:30:07Z")
[QUOTE=Raza] I was watching a bit of the 1968 Frank Sinatra pic **Lady in Cement** this weekend just to see what part Welch played. There is a scene in the cop friend’s backyard where Sinatra and a boy play catch with a baseball. Except there’s no baseball. You watch three or four volleys were both Sinatra and the boy are pretending to throw and catch a baseball, including the kid smacking his glove on the “catch.” Now, I easily caught this on my television, so imagine how much more obvious it would be on the big screen. I was, oddly enough, genuinely insulted that the director and actors “went cheap” on this, thinking the public wouldn’t notice. This wasn’t a continuity mistake or a less-than-convincing fist fight - this was a conscious decision to avoid a couple of extra takes that using an actual ball might have required (I can think of no other reason). And this is a movie, for Pete’s sake, not a daily soap opera. Are there movies where you noticed some cheap, intentional shortcut that insulted you? [/QUOTE] How do you know that the director didn’t resort to this until after they tried it 20 times or so? In one episode of _Pete and Pete_ Adam West was supposed to be sprayed with a strong spurt of creamed corn coming out of a large model of the ear. Despite them playing with it all day, when the scene was shot they had a case or feeble corn ejaculation. Cleaning everything up and redoing the scene would have been too expensive, so they eventually showed it in slow motion to try to hide the problem. Very disappointing when aired. Speaking of battle scenes, in the beginning of _Henry V_ we are told we have to just imagine the battle, since they can’t really show it on the stage. ---
**Author:** ![JSexton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/96bed5/32.png) [@JSexton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JSexton)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2008, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-insult-the-viewer-with-shortcuts/453915/64 "2008-06-25T22:06:27Z")
One episode of _Firefly_ shows Wash, the ship’s pilot, heroically flying through a difficult sequence. Except that in order to frame the shot right, he had to scoot the seat back a few feet and couldn’t reach the flight yoke…so he’s just miming flying while the yoke sits stationary. ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2008, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-insult-the-viewer-with-shortcuts/453915/65 "2008-06-25T22:16:46Z")
I guess Ed Wood’s movies were pretty much nothing **but** audience-insulting shortcuts. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2008, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-insult-the-viewer-with-shortcuts/453915/66 "2008-06-25T22:23:00Z")
Rome makes me think of “I, Claudius”–though you kinda gotta forgive them…not for battle scenes, but for scenes where they are addressing a crowd and the huge, roaring crowd is juuuust off camera. Still, does kind of add to the charm. ---
**Author:** ![Raza](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/raza/32/213_2.png) [@Raza](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raza)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2008, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-insult-the-viewer-with-shortcuts/453915/67 "2008-06-26T13:29:17Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > How do you know that the director didn’t resort to this until after they tried it 20 times or so? I did allow that using a real ball might require a few takes. But even if Franky or the kid couldn’t catch or throw after several attempts, they could have just eliminated the long shots showing both and just filmed each individually throwing. It would have made no difference to the scene or dialog. > [@](#): > > feeble corn ejaculation Have you been speaking with my doctor? I think the “_ring, ring_” one is the winner. ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2008, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-insult-the-viewer-with-shortcuts/453915/68 "2008-06-26T14:28:02Z")
[QUOTE=Justin\_Bailey] But Obi Wan throws the bartender some money for the mess. And Jabba talks about the price on Han’s head. And Han takes payment from Leia after bring them to the Rebel Alliance base. There’s lots of money in Star Wars. [/QUOTE] I think the point being made above wasn’t the lack of money in Star Wars so much as the fact that the UNIT of currency is never referred to. No “credits” or “dollars” or anything like that. Personally, I like it because no matter what term was decided on, it would have sounded made up and silly. -Joe ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2008, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-insult-the-viewer-with-shortcuts/453915/69 "2008-06-26T16:29:24Z")
[QUOTE=Merijeek] Personally, I like it because no matter what term was decided on, it would have sounded made up and silly. [/QUOTE] Thirty _quatloos_ on the newcomer! ---
**Author:** ![Rocketeer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocketeer/32/4437_2.png) [@Rocketeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rocketeer)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2008, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-insult-the-viewer-with-shortcuts/453915/70 "2008-06-26T16:33:43Z")
[QUOTE=Raza] I think the “_ring, ring_” one is the winner. [/QUOTE] I have heard that this is really just an oversight by the Foley guy who was supposed to put the phone ring noise in during post-production. The verbal “ring, ring” is just a placeholder for the eventual real sound. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2008, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-insult-the-viewer-with-shortcuts/453915/71 "2008-06-26T20:04:53Z")
[QUOTE=Manduck] It was 1986. In 1986, when you turned off your computer, that computer didn’t ask you questions - that computer was OFF. [/quote] You must not have been using a Mac in 1986. > [@](#): > > One thing that works against the idea that it was a deliberate choice is that it would have been lost on the majority of the audience. In 1986, the average guy woulnd’t have any experience with computers and wouldn’t know what the result of turning it off like that would be. That’s a pretty convincing argument actually. I’ll go with “the movie folks were ignorant of computers too” as more likely than “it was deliberate”. ---
**Author:** ![Noel\_Prosequi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b19c9b/32.png) [@Noel\_Prosequi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noel_Prosequi)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2008, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-insult-the-viewer-with-shortcuts/453915/72 "2008-06-27T07:25:45Z")
There was a 1987 movie with a reasonable budget called The Lighthorsemen. Alright movie, but based on a cracking story about one of the last great cavalry charges, which occurred in 1917 in Palestine. Large unit of horsemen goes out into the desert with insufficient water to get back again. Plan is to attack a town called Beersheba. There is water in wells in the town, but the Germans have rigged the wells with explosives, so the cavalry charge not only has to be successful but quick enough to get to the wells before the Germans have a chance to blow them up… like I said, suspense galore in a ripping true yarn. Boys’ Own stuff. So in about 1992, there is an episode of Young Indiana Jones made, called Palestine 1917, which tells the story but somehow inserts Indiana Jones. As I remember it, it seemed like almost the entire show (including the dramatic cavalry charges) was footage simply lifted from the movie with scenes including Young Indy merely cut in to insert an utterly irrelevant (to history) character. So it was a shortcut in the sense that they lifted great chunks of another movie, but a long cut in the sense of why bother to remake it like that at all? ---
**Author:** ![Manduck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/manduck/32/256_2.png) [@Manduck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Manduck)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2008, 8:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-insult-the-viewer-with-shortcuts/453915/73 "2008-06-27T08:01:56Z")
That reminds me of a TV movie titled Fireball Forward that was shown (seemingly) evey week in the early seventies. It used great wads of battle footage from Patton. Great title, though. ---
**Author:** ![audit1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ed8c4c/32.png) [@audit1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/audit1)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2008, 8:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-insult-the-viewer-with-shortcuts/453915/74 "2008-06-27T08:58:25Z")
Which reminds me of the film MIDWAY which lifts whole sequences from TORA TORA TORA and stock footage from World War II. See Charlton Heston take off in one plane (a TBF) attack the target in another type (an SB2U) and land in a third plane .(a F6F Hellcat) ---
**Author:** ![caligulathegod](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/caligulathegod/32/9685_2.png) [@caligulathegod](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/caligulathegod)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2008, 9:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-insult-the-viewer-with-shortcuts/453915/75 "2008-06-27T09:58:16Z")
One shortcut that always bugs me is when they have an offstage character photographing other characters and they freeze-frame the image to simulate the photograph being taken (sometimes even dissolving to the image in a picture frame), except the actors in the “photo” are always looking off-camera presumedly where the actor with the camera is standing rather than right at us since “we” are meant to be the camera. So instead of having the actor with a real camera taking a picture (in the case where we see the framed result) or cutting to a different angle where the posed actors are looking directly at us, they always cheat and just use the freeze-frame of them posing for someone just offstage. I see this a lot. ---
**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:** [June 27, 2008, 10:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-insult-the-viewer-with-shortcuts/453915/76 "2008-06-27T10:29:35Z")
I find myself distracted by “musicians” - especially at the piano. How hard would it be for someone to direct the actor to restrict his hand movements within the range of the music he’s “playing” rather than stretching the length of the keyboard and back, oblivious of the octave or rhythm being played?? Same with “guitarists” who never move their fingers on the frets or move them up and down like they’re buffing the neck of the guitar. GAH!! ---
**Author:** ![Raza](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/raza/32/213_2.png) [@Raza](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raza)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2008, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-insult-the-viewer-with-shortcuts/453915/77 "2008-06-27T13:20:57Z")
> [@caligulathegod](#): > > they always cheat and just use the freeze-frame of them posing for someone just offstage. You’re right! I see this effect often, but never paused to think that “hey! they should be looking at us in the still!” > [@Noel Prosequi](#): > > footage simply lifted from the movie with scenes including Young Indy merely cut in Really? They actually used the same segments, not just a recreation? Now that’s big-time cheating. And I’ve never started a 70+ reply thread…thanks to all that responded. ---
**Author:** ![UncaStuart](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/uncastuart/32/404_2.png) [@UncaStuart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncaStuart)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2008, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-insult-the-viewer-with-shortcuts/453915/78 "2008-06-27T14:40:20Z")
[QUOTE=FairyChatMom] I find myself distracted by “musicians” - especially at the piano. How hard would it be for someone to direct the actor to restrict his hand movements within the range of the music he’s “playing” rather than stretching the length of the keyboard and back, oblivious of the octave or rhythm being played?? Same with “guitarists” who never move their fingers on the frets or move them up and down like they’re buffing the neck of the guitar. GAH!! [/QUOTE] The “fingerwork” of Stubby Kaye and Nat King Cole in \*Cat Ballou \* was particularly distracting. Yikes. However, was just watching _The Rocketeer \* the other day, and was struck by the fact that the clarinetist band leader in the night club was actually fingering correctly to_ Begin the Beguine\*. Struck enough to exclaim aloud to my wife, at any rate. ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2008, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-insult-the-viewer-with-shortcuts/453915/79 "2008-06-27T15:08:23Z")
[QUOTE=audit1] Which reminds me of the film MIDWAY which lifts whole sequences from TORA TORA TORA and stock footage from World War II. See Charlton Heston take off in one plane (a TBF) attack the target in another type (an SB2U) and land in a third plane .(a F6F Hellcat) [/QUOTE] I was going to mention _Midway_ as possibly the winner of this thread. The re-used gobs of footage from other film, not just TTT, but _Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo_ (in B&W!), _Battle of Britain_, and at least one Japanese film. And I hate to nitpick, but Heston is first in an SBD, then it’s an SB2C, and as he crashes it an F9F Panther jet! Here the Wikipedia article cataloging all this: > **[Midway](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midway_%28film%29)** > > Midway often refers to: > Midway may also refer to: > Listed alphabetically by state (And I always wondered where they got the SB2U Vindicators for the torpedo squadrons, but you’d think they could have mocked up some fake torpedos.) ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2008, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-insult-the-viewer-with-shortcuts/453915/80 "2008-06-27T15:26:18Z")
[QUOTE=Merijeek] I think the point being made above wasn’t the lack of money in Star Wars so much as the fact that the UNIT of currency is never referred to. No “credits” or “dollars” or anything like that. Personally, I like it because no matter what term was decided on, it would have sounded made up and silly. [/QUOTE] That’s what I figured. But in TPM, they not only refer to “Republic Credits”, but there’s a dispute over the type of currency that’s acceptible on Tatooine. ---
**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:** [June 27, 2008, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-insult-the-viewer-with-shortcuts/453915/81 "2008-06-27T16:14:06Z")
[QUOTE=Voyager] Speaking of battle scenes, in the beginning of _Henry V_ we are told we have to just imagine the battle, since they can’t really show it on the stage. [/QUOTE] That’s not what the prologue says, or what gets performed in the play. The text your refering to is: But pardon, and gentles all, The flat unraised spirits that have dared On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth So great an object: can this cockpit hold The vasty fields of France? or may we cram Within this wooden O the very casques That did affright the air at Agincourt? O, pardon! since a crooked figure may Attest in little place a million; And let us, ciphers to this great accompt, On your imaginary forces work. Suppose within the girdle of these walls Are now confined two mighty monarchies, Whose high upreared and abutting fronts The perilous narrow ocean parts asunder: Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts; Into a thousand parts divide on man, And make imaginary puissance; Think when we talk of horses, that you see them Printing their proud hoofs i’ the receiving earth; For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings, Carry them here and there; jumping o’er times, Turning the accomplishment of many years Into an hour-glass. He’s not saying they won’t show the battles, he’s saying that what’s going to appear on the stage isn’t going to be half as grand as what actually happened, and tells the audience that they must use their imaginations to make up the difference. All the battles are definitly performed: that’s the chief attraction of the play. _Henry V_ is Shakespeare’s Summer action blockbuster. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-insult-the-viewer-with-shortcuts/453915.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-insult-the-viewer-with-shortcuts/453915.md?page=5)