# 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:** 3
**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 19, 2015, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/41 "2015-12-19T00:37:06Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > 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. So what are they then, cosplayers with an aversion to water??? ---
**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, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/42 "2015-12-19T00:43:49Z")
> [@Richard\_John\_Marcej](#): > > So what are they then, cosplayers with an aversion to water??? Demons? ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/43 "2015-12-19T02:19:18Z")
[This one](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2245988/?ref_=nv_sr_1). ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/44 "2015-12-19T03:00:23Z")
[_Krakatoa: East of Java_](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064555/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1) Krakatoa is [west of Java](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krakatoa#/media/File:Sunda_strait_map_v3.png). ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/45 "2015-12-19T03:09:36Z")
[One Million Years B.C.](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060782/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_53) (1966) ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/46 "2015-12-19T03:20:27Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > [_Krakatoa: East of Java_](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064555/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1) > > Krakatoa is [west of Java](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krakatoa#/media/File:Sunda_strait_map_v3.png). Technically, it’s both. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/47 "2015-12-19T03:29:11Z")
I think we need to stop and take a moment to recognize an important distinction here. There are some movies which are supposedly set in the real world. Movies like _Casablanca, The Godfather, Gone with the Wind, Citizen Kane_, etc. It’s acceptable to nitpick when these movies don’t conform to reality. There are also movies like _Star Wars, The Matrix, The Avengers, The Lord of the Rings_, and _Top Hat_. These movies are not set in our reality so they don’t have to follow our rules. They’re set in universes where wizards cast magic spells, starships travel faster than the speed of light, and people express their feelings by bursting into song. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/48 "2015-12-19T03:40:52Z")
> [@Richard\_John\_Marcej](#): > > So what are they then, cosplayers with an aversion to water??? Boogeymen. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/49 "2015-12-19T04:42:12Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > There are also movies like _Star Wars, The Matrix, The Avengers, The Lord of the Rings_, and _Top Hat_. These movies are not set in our reality so they don’t have to follow our rules… But they do have to follow their own rules. If Samwise Gamgee suddenly pulled a blaster pistol out and zapped a big smokin’ hole in the middle of a ring-wraith, it might just pull you out of the movie… ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/50 "2015-12-19T04:45:13Z")
> [@Ethilrist](#): > > **Armageddon** > > 1. A rock the size of Texas is about to strike the earth. > 2. We can do something about it. Both of those premises are plausible. The incorrect premises in that movie are: 1. Asteroids travel in swarms, and the arrival of a large asteroid is preceded by an arrival of many smaller asteroids. 2. Burying a bomb deep in the asteroid is the best way to move the asteroid. (In reality, it’s better to explode the bomb on the surface to push the whole asteroid, rather than splitting the asteroid.) 3. A manned mission is better for this purpose. (Several unmanned missions could have been flown in the time it took to prepare the one manned mission.) 4. Professional oil workers with 1 week of astronaut training are better suited for this job (i.e. flying to an asteroid and drilling a hole in a weightless, airless environment while wearing a spacesuit) than professional astronauts with 1 week of well-digging training. ---
**Author:** ![scabpicker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scabpicker/32/8268_2.png) [@scabpicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scabpicker)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/51 "2015-12-19T06:47:43Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Demons? I’m not sure that changes anything. They’re still sent to do something on a world that they’re wholly unsuited for, to attack something that’s as dangerous to them as a Xenomorph would be to a human. We’re more than half water. ---
**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, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/52 "2015-12-19T06:58:01Z")
> [@scabpicker](#): > > I’m not sure that changes anything. They’re still sent to do something on a world that they’re wholly unsuited for, to attack something that’s as dangerous to them as a Xenomorph would be to a human. So demons, then. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/53 "2015-12-19T07:18:30Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I think we need to stop and take a moment to recognize an important distinction here. There are some movies which are supposedly set in the real world. Movies like _Casablanca, The Godfather, Gone with the Wind, Citizen Kane_, etc. It’s acceptable to nitpick when these movies don’t conform to reality. > > There are also movies like _Star Wars, The Matrix, The Avengers, The Lord of the Rings_, and _Top Hat_. These movies are not set in our reality so they don’t have to follow our rules. They’re set in universes where wizards cast magic spells, starships travel faster than the speed of light, and people express their feelings by bursting into song. I disagree completely. 99% of movies are based on an implication that the universe is the same as our universe except for x, y and z. As such either all movies take place in another reality or none do. Nobody called Johnny Fonatine ever won an Oscar and, if we accept Fontaine was as a psuedonym for Sinatra, Ava Gardner wasn’t a talentless nymphomaniac, so the Godfather clearly did not take place in our reality. Nor did Gone with The Wind or Citizen Kane for similar reasons. There isn’t some line between movie set in “our reality” and movies set in some other reality. They are all set in a fictional reality, then they spell out how it deviates from our reality and then explore that hypothetical. There are degrees to which any given movie deviates from our reality, ranging from: Relatively faithful biopics Movies like Unforgiven or any Shakespeare where the general outline is accurate but the characters never existed or not in recognisable form. Historical epics like Cleopatra or Robin Hood PoT where there are multiple anachronisms or other inaccuracies. Movies like Ben Hur or The Green Mile which add a little magical stuff to a world that is superficially very similar to our own. Movies like Harry Potter or Avengers that throw in vast amounts of magic to a little of the real world. Movies like the Matrix add mystical stuff to universe that only tangentially touches our own. Movies like Star Wars or Lord of the Rings that run on magical stuff and never intersect with our reality but have the same fundamental laws. Movies like Who Framed Roger Rabbit where the laws of reality don’t apply at all. There is no point along this line where you can possibly say “that movie is supposedly set in the real world and that movie isn’t”. 99% of people will tell you that Ben Hur or the “real world” parts of the Matrix are set in the real world while they will tell you that First Knight isn’t, even though the latter contains less magic than the former. The important thing is, a movie has to make sense within its own universe. Even if Don Corleone is the most intelligent and powerful crime boss this side of Lex Luthor, if he gets into a gang war because he wants to trading Ecstasy in 1943 then that’s an incorrect premise. Even if Harry Potter can cast magic spells, he lives in a London that is explicitly identical to our London. If the plot relies on London police carrying pistols, that’s an incorrect basic premise. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 7:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/54 "2015-12-19T07:21:00Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > So demons, then. In what mythology are humans immensely dangerous to demons? ---
**Author:** ![scabpicker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scabpicker/32/8268_2.png) [@scabpicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scabpicker)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/55 "2015-12-19T07:24:36Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > In what mythology are humans immensely dangerous to demons? Especially because of their water content. ---
**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, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/56 "2015-12-19T07:26:36Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > In what mythology are humans immensely dangerous to demons? The one in which God is on the side of humanity, has a divine plan where subtle events (or _signs_, if you will), turn out to be of great importance later, and where the power of faith can banish evil. Which is, you know, the entire point of the movie. It’s not a movie about aliens. It’s a movie about faith. > [@scabpicker](#): > > Especially because of their water content. Water doesn’t hurt the creature because it’s water. It hurts the creature because the son _believes_ it will. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 7:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/57 "2015-12-19T07:58:58Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > The one in which God is on the side of humanity, has a divine plan where subtle events (or _signs_, if you will), turn out to be of great importance later, and where the power of faith can banish evil. > > Which is, you know, the entire point of the movie. It’s not a movie about aliens. It’s a movie about faith. If that is what the movie is about, it fails utterly at making its point. Multiple characters in movie state that water is the weakness of the aliens. The father says that he has heard several rumours that they avoid water and that the family should take shelter at the lake. The TV experts are all saying that the aliens invaded inland areas all around the world and, IIRC, avoided areas where it was raining. If we have to assume, for no reason, that the we have an unreliable narrator to the point of discounting what was on TV and what the father was told, then the movie becomes arbitrary nonsense. Anything could have been true. Maybe the wife wasn’t dead, maybe the brother never played baseball. Maybe the whole thing was an alcoholic’s dream. If the aliens aren’t aliens but literal magic demons then the movie is utterly devoid of any tension, atmosphere or reason. Anything that the characters did was pointless. This is a massive failure. I’m sure most people got that the aliens were a \*metaphor \*for demons or the challenges of life or similar. That was none too subtle. But you are claiming that they were \*literal \*demons. If that was the director/writer’s intent then they failed horribly. > [@](#): > > Water doesn’t hurt the creature because it’s water. It hurts the creature because the son _believes_ it will. But he doesn’t, in any way. The son is unconscious. The brother believes that his baseball bat will hurt the alien, which it does not. The alien is completely accidentally splashed with water and starts to burn. There is no indication anywhere that anybody believed that water would have any effect at all until after it started to have an effect. Once again, total failure on the part of the makers. If faith was what worked then the baseball bat would have worked. Any homeowner’s pistol would have worked. People have faith in weapons damaging intruders, so weapons should have worked. And if you mean that it was faith in God that worked, in that case the whole water thing was silly. Are there fewer people with faith in the inland Bible belt states? If it’s faith in God, then why did the water burn but not the baseball bat? Are their more people with faith in God in the coastal areas of China? If the movie didn’t have a silly premise, or it was a total failure in conveying that faith had any role to play in the accidentally spilled water burning the alians, threw out multiple red herrings about the aliens avoiding water and had a complete \*deus ex machina \*ending where someone in the room apparently had faith in the water before it burned the alien, but never indicated that at any stage. IMO That’s even worse than a flawed premise. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 8:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/58 "2015-12-19T08:44:35Z")
As realistic as _The Martian_ was overall, Mars does not produce windstorms powerful enough to tip over a spacecraft. Without that event, there’s no movie. ---
**Author:** ![campp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@campp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/campp)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/59 "2015-12-19T13:20:00Z")
The Civil War depicted in _The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly_ was, um, a bit different than the real Civil War. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/60 "2015-12-19T14:38:36Z")
While the basic premise of “Double Jeopardy” is bogus, remember something: it wasn’t a lawyer who told Ashley Judd she could kill her husband legally. It was one of her fellow convicts. Prisons are filled with people who THOUGHT they knew the law but didn’t. Many a drug dealer in Attica believed an undercover narc had to tell the truth if asked, “Are you a cop?” Point is, consider the source of the info. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778.md?page=4)