# Movies with incorrect basic premises? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 18, 2015, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778 "2015-12-18T16:12:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2015, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/21 "2015-12-18T21:03:18Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > The film is believed to have been lost in a studio fire. That feels like it should be in quotes. Lost in a “studio fire”. ---
**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:** [December 18, 2015, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/22 "2015-12-18T21:20:27Z")
Two words: **The Core** And its spiritual ancestor (with even worse science): **[Unknown World](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unknown_World)**. When the protagonist is corrected with the correct science, his answer is "That’s what you believe, but scientists know … " ---
**Author:** ![xizor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xizor/32/102_2.png) [@xizor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xizor)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2015, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/23 "2015-12-18T21:20:43Z")
[The Core](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0298814/) You can’t even get past the first sentence in the synopsis: “The Earth’s core has stopped spinning.” ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2015, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/24 "2015-12-18T21:38:36Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > _Die Hard 2_, AKA the Stupidest Movie Ever Made. _Live Free Or Die Hard_: I’m no expert on utility companies, but I’m pretty sure you can’t “hack” into a natural gas company’s… uh, software, and “send” all the natural gas back to the station, where it will blow up. ---
**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2015, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/25 "2015-12-18T21:50:41Z")
**Volcano.** Volcanoes typically only form in subduction zones, or over hot spots. The San Andreas fault near Los Angeles is a transform boundary, in which the continental plates move horizontally relative to each other, which is why there are no volcanoes in Southern California in reality. (Of course, that was the _least_ unrealistic thing about the movie…) ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2015, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/26 "2015-12-18T21:55:59Z")
I can let some scientific inaccuracies slide, but _The Day After Tomorrow’s_ premise of global warming causing an almost instantaneous world-wide freeze-up was considerably less plausible than Noah’s Flood. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2015, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/27 "2015-12-18T22:00:55Z")
**Armageddon** 1. A rock the size of Texas is about to strike the earth. 2. We can do something about it. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2015, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/28 "2015-12-18T22:07:29Z")
> [@bump](#): > > So I was watching the first part of “_Fury_” last night, and was struck again by the basic inaccuracy of the premise. That premise being that at the very end of WWII the fighting in the West was particularly savage and fanatical with very high casualties among the American troops This part sounds basically accurate (depending on what your definition of “very high” is) - fighting on the Western front in the last months of the war _was_ intense and fiercely contested by German troops (not just against American units, but other Allied forces as well), in weather conditions that were often severe. Can’t recall the title offhand, but my source on this is a recently published history of the fighting from about late fall of '44 to mid-'45. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_John\_Marcej](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Richard\_John\_Marcej](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_John_Marcej)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2015, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/29 "2015-12-18T22:11:32Z")
**"Signs"** The premise about an alien race, who obviously have the intellect and ability to seek out other planets in the solar system that support terrain life (life that can breath oxygen) and to build crafts that can travel the vast distance from their world to other worlds, and they don’t notice that the planet they finally come upon and land on is 2/3 covered with a liquid that can dissolve and kill them. It would be like NASA sending off a space craft full of astronauts to land on Neptune, without wearing helmets or having tanks of oxygen to breathe cause, gosh, Neptune is made from hydrogen and helium with no oxygen. Oops. ---
**Author:** ![chorpler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chorpler/32/2888_2.png) [@chorpler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chorpler)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2015, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/30 "2015-12-18T22:15:37Z")
> [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](#): > > The Matrix seems to be based on the premise that human beings create energy and can be used as batteries. I liked the excuse given in one of the **Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality** omake chapters, which goes something like this: > [@](#): > > **Paraphrased from [HPMoR Chapter 64: Omake Files 4, Alternate Parallels](http://hpmor.com/chapter/64)** > > **Neo** : Hang on, that makes no sense. Wouldn’t it be more efficient just to burn the food rather than feed it to millions of humans? The whole scheme defies the laws of thermodynamics! > > **Morpheus** : Where did you learn the laws of thermodynamics, Neo? > > **Neo** : Anybody who has taken high school physics knows the laws of thermodynamics! > > **Morpheus** : And where did you go to high school? > > **Neo _(horrified realization dawning)_**: … in the Matrix. > > **Morpheus _(nodding)_**: The machines spin elegant lies. > > **Neo _(meekly)_**: May I please have a real physics textbook? > > **Morpheus** : Sorry, Neo. There is no such thing. The universe doesn’t run on _math_. It kinda even makes sense, since the third movie seems to indicate that the laws of physics as we know them don’t really always apply out in the real world. Or maybe Neo is just a wizard. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_John\_Marcej](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Richard\_John\_Marcej](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_John_Marcej)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2015, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/31 "2015-12-18T22:17:38Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > This part sounds basically accurate (depending on what your definition of “very high” is) - fighting on the Western front in the last months of the war _was_ intense and fiercely contested by German troops (not just against American units, but other Allied forces as well), in weather conditions that were often severe. > > Can’t recall the title offhand, but my source on this is a recently published history of the fighting from about late fall of '44 to mid-'45. Well one of the most horrific battles in the war in Europe, **The Battle of the Bulge** took place from December 1944 thru January 1945. ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2015, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/32 "2015-12-18T22:59:06Z")
> [@Ambrosio\_Spinola](#): > > Indeed so. I also had to sit through the stupid fucking _Serving Sara_ one time, which is premised on the idea that having a New York divorce would give a jilted wife a more equitable property division than a Texas divorce would. You could fill a whole post with a bunch of hypotheticals and asterisks about whether that’s true in any given circumstance, but Texas recognizes community property and the divorce laws here weren’t written by a bunch of “good old boys” to screw over wives like the movie claims. Which brings to mind _Liar, Liar_. In which a woman lies about her age to appear older than she really is. This reveal at the end of the movie cancels out that she signed a prenup that would leave her with nothing in her divorce proceeding, since she entered into the contract as a minor. However, wouldn’t that also invalidate her marriage, since she cannot enter into a contract as a minor? There was no mention of emancipation. ---
**Author:** ![HowSoonIsThen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e56c9b/32.png) [@HowSoonIsThen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HowSoonIsThen)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2015, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/33 "2015-12-18T23:42:57Z")
Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and countless others are based on the now discredited premise that magic exists. ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2015, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/34 "2015-12-18T23:53:26Z")
\*\*Curious George \*\*is based on the premise that a (not named) modern-day country in Africa would allow an American to remove “an ancient idol” that looks to be about thirty feet high from it, for free (at least, the museum is in no position to pay any fee) and permanently. This is an important piece of their cultural heritage, supposedly. It was “carved by a thousand craftsmen”. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2015, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/35 "2015-12-18T23:56:29Z")
> [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](#): > > The Matrix seems to be based on the premise that human beings create energy and can be used as batteries. > [@](#): > > Neo: “Doesn’t harvesting human body heat for energy, violate the laws of thermodynamics?” > > Morpheus: “Where’d you learn about thermodynamics, Neo?” > > Neo: “In school.” > > Morpheus: “Where’d you go to school, Neo?” > > Neo: “Oh.” > > Morpheus: “The machines tell elegant lies.” Sadly, [not original to me.](http://lesswrong.com/lw/s4/fundamental_doubts/) ---
**Author:** ![Sefton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@Sefton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sefton)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/36 "2015-12-19T00:01:52Z")
As much as I love _Casablanca_, I always found it hard to believe that the Nazis would give a damn about Charles de Gaulle’s signature on letters of transit. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/37 "2015-12-19T00:06:01Z")
> [@Richard\_John\_Marcej](#): > > **“Signs”** > > The premise about an alien race, who obviously have the intellect and ability to seek out other planets in the solar system that support terrain life (life that can breath oxygen) and to build crafts that can travel the vast distance from their world to other worlds, and they don’t notice that the planet they finally come upon and land on is 2/3 covered with a liquid that can dissolve and kill them. Of course, nothing in ‘Signs’ confirms that the beings are aliens or that they have spaceships, so your complaint about the premise is itself based on a faulty premise. ---
**Author:** ![dasmoocher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dbc845/32.png) [@dasmoocher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dasmoocher)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/38 "2015-12-19T00:18:57Z")
Nobody has mentioned _Sharknado_, yet? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![chorpler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chorpler/32/2888_2.png) [@chorpler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chorpler)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/39 "2015-12-19T00:32:17Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Sadly, [not original to me.](http://lesswrong.com/lw/s4/fundamental_doubts/) Hey! **Bricker** is trying to reverse-ninja me! ( **Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality** , which I linked to earlier, is written by Eliezer Yudkowsky, who was also known as LessWrong and owns the site **Bricker** linked to.) ETA: Sorry if this was too hijacky. I just found it pretty cool that somebody else’s mind went to that “the machines tell elegant lies” scene. Especially since it was **Bricker**. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/40 "2015-12-19T00:35:09Z")
“West of Memphis” and “Devil’s Knot” both take the premise that the West Memphis 3 were innocent. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778.md?page=3)