# 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:** 6
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2015, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/101 "2015-12-22T12:30:36Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > Not to mention their annual evaluations. “No, I expect you to die.” . . . “Once again, you have failed to meet expectations. Work up an action plan with your supervisor to address the shortcomings.” ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2015, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/102 "2015-12-22T12:46:04Z")
The situation amongst US Armoured forces, really was dire and they really did end up retraining supply personnel as tank crewmen, often very very basic training. So that complaint at least has no merit. The Americans had plenty of Tanks and ammunition. They lacked trained crews. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2015, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/103 "2015-12-22T13:07:41Z")
Darth Vader stands at six-foot-something, and Leia is maybe five-foot-nothing, and yet Padmé isn’t ludicrously short. I may be doing this wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2015, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/104 "2015-12-22T14:06:31Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > _Die Hard 2_, AKA the Stupidest Movie Ever Made. Specifically, the idea that dozens of planes are going to circle around above Dulles Int’l Airport for hours until they run out of fuel. This might be plausible if DC was on an island in the middle of the ocean, far from any other place to land. But DC is right in the middle of the heavily-populated eastern seaboard. Do you have any idea how many other airports those planes could have diverted to? ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2015, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/105 "2015-12-22T15:40:13Z")
> [@Diceman](#): > > Specifically, the idea that dozens of planes are going to circle around above Dulles Int’l Airport for hours until they run out of fuel. This might be plausible if DC was on an island in the middle of the ocean, far from any other place to land. But DC is right in the middle of the heavily-populated eastern seaboard. Do you have any idea how many other airports those planes could have diverted to? They do address that, sort of. There is a snowstorm going on. At one point early on Trudeau (Fred Thompson) says that National Airport is shut down and diverting their planes to Dulles. I got the impression that other airports in the eastern U.S. had bad enough weather that the Dulles was everybody’s best option. Remember also that the planes don’t know the whole story of what’s going on. Before they lose communications, the tower (the real one) tells them to hold. After that they’re talking to the fake tower that Col. Stewart has set up. (How Stewart arranged for the snowstorm is not explained.) I’m no expert on ATC or weather patterns; don’t know at what point the pilots would decide not to trust Dulles and strike out on their own. However (and I’ve mentioned this before), the blatant idiocy of that movie is that they spend so much time looking for a transmitter so they can contact the planes. They even get ambushed trying to get to one. Guys, every airplane has a transmitter on it. You’re at an airport; look around, maybe you’ll get lucky. ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2015, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/106 "2015-12-22T18:39:16Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > They do address that, sort of. There is a snowstorm going on. At one point early on Trudeau (Fred Thompson) says that National Airport is shut down and diverting their planes to Dulles. I got the impression that other airports in the eastern U.S. had bad enough weather that the Dulles was everybody’s best option. Remember also that the planes don’t know the whole story of what’s going on. Before they lose communications, the tower (the real one) tells them to hold. After that they’re talking to the fake tower that Col. Stewart has set up. (How Stewart arranged for the snowstorm is not explained.) I’m no expert on ATC or weather patterns; don’t know at what point the pilots would decide not to trust Dulles and strike out on their own. > > However (and I’ve mentioned this before), the blatant idiocy of that movie is that they spend so much time looking for a transmitter so they can contact the planes. They even get ambushed trying to get to one. Guys, every airplane has a transmitter on it. You’re at an airport; look around, maybe you’ll get lucky. It really doesn’t speak well of the bad guys that their eeeevil plan is 100% dependent on the weather forecast. As for communicating with the planes, once bad stuff starts going down, there’s no reason why the authorities couldn’t call the tower at a nearby airport and have them broadcast a warning that the tower at Dulles is occupied by criminals, and any messages from Dulles should be disregarded until further notice. …and then there’s the SWAT team/military special ops/whoever the hell they were, supposedly good guys but actually entirely stocked with goons willing to betray their country by aiding a major terrorist attack. How did the captain form this team from, I assume, the general population of patriotic cops or soldiers? Did he post a memo on the bulliten board saying, “All those willing to help mass murderors escape, please see Bob. Everybody else, please ignore this.” ? _Die Hard 2_ really is an amazing movie, in that pretty much every last detail of the plot turns out to be laughably stupid once you start to think about it. ---
**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 22, 2015, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/107 "2015-12-22T18:50:13Z")
> [@Diceman](#): > > _Die Hard 2_ really is an amazing movie, in that pretty much every last detail of the plot turns out to be laughably stupid once you start to think about it. I can’t decide if my favorite scene was the one where McClane grabs a machine gun in the Police Station and starts spraying everyone with bullets to prove they were blanks and does not get shot, or the one where he lights the gasoline and it travels through the air and blows up the plane, Bugs Bunny style. ---
**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 23, 2015, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/108 "2015-12-23T04:20:58Z")
> [@Morbo](#): > > I can’t decide if my favorite scene was the one where McClane grabs a machine gun in the Police Station and starts spraying everyone with bullets to prove they were blanks and does not get shot, or the one where he lights the gasoline and it travels through the air and blows up the plane, Bugs Bunny style. You’re just lucky they edited out the rest of that scene where the bad guy falls out of the explosion and hits the tarmac, leaving a perfectly-formed spread eagle silhouette. He then climbs out to reveal that his head is smoking _and_ he’s compressed like an accordion. He tries to walk away, but he just waddles with his accordion-body playing two notes as it wheezes in and out. It’s available on Lucas/Disney’s _“John Shot First” Special Edition DVD set._ ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2015, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/109 "2015-12-23T05:22:18Z")
> [@Arcite](#): > > I recently watched _The Avengers: Age of Ultron_, and was bemused to see that a basic plot point revolves around the notion that the internet has one central “hub” through which all traffic passes. Not only is that not true, but the internet was specifically designed to avoid being like that. Correct. The designers of the internet instead created a GUI interface using Visual Basic. ---
**Author:** ![DiggitCamara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/df788c/32.png) [@DiggitCamara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DiggitCamara)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2015, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/110 "2015-12-23T18:31:57Z")
> [@MovieMogul](#): > > I’ve always been bothered by all the harping about this scientific “inaccuracy”. In the first film, Morpheus specifically says that the process of making humans batteries was created in part, by the machines using some sort of “fusion”–essentially, scifi talk about some scientific advance beyond our current capability. Also, the battery meme is not really a major plot point at all. It’s a thematic McGuffin that’s used just to create a slavery metaphor. I chalk that up to simple poetic license. > > The two sequels still suck, though. The only reason it bothered me is because I read… somewhere… that the original idea was to use the networked human brains to enable the machines to run their sentient programs. In my mind I kind of fanwanked that they were using the “unused” cycles of the human brains as well as the parts that weren’t active (motor control for the limbs, for instance). And they shelved that idea to replace it with cheap product placement. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2015, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/111 "2015-12-23T20:17:29Z")
> [@Ethilrist](#): > > **Armageddon** > > 1. A rock the size of Texas is about to strike the earth. > 2. We can do something about it. 1. What we can do about it is blow it up with nuclear weapons, even though that means we will have an equivalent mass of fragments on the same vector towards Earth, plus now they’re radioactive. ---
**Author:** ![Seanette](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/seanette/32/9139_2.png) [@Seanette](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Seanette)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2015, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/112 "2015-12-23T20:40:17Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > How about [Sunshine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunshine_%282007_film%29)? The premise is that the Sun is dying, so a ship is sent to kick-start it using a bomb consisting of all the fissionable material on earth (a bomb the “size of Manhattan”) that’s designed to explode once it gets to the core of the sun somehow. The first ship is lost so a second ship is sent with another bomb (consisting, perhaps, of the fissionable materials found in the sofa cushions). The movie follows the voyage of the second crew. > > I kind of like the movie for the insane idea that the people are supposed to get right up against the surface of the sun, drop the bomb in and get away somehow. IIRC, they _weren’t_ expecting to get away. They knew they were on a one-way trip and chose to do it for the benefit of the rest of the world. ---
**Author:** ![Seanette](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/seanette/32/9139_2.png) [@Seanette](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Seanette)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2015, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/113 "2015-12-23T20:43:10Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > Darth Vader stands at six-foot-something, and Leia is maybe five-foot-nothing, and yet Padmé isn’t ludicrously short. > > I may be doing this wrong. Isn’t a lot of his height the helmet? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/intergalactic_gladiator/32/112_2.png) [@Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Intergalactic_Gladiator)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2015, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/114 "2015-12-23T20:46:43Z")
Leia’s got like 2 feet of attitude too, so it does even out. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2015, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/115 "2015-12-23T21:36:28Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > 1. What we can do about it is blow it up with nuclear weapons, even though that means we will have an equivalent mass of fragments on the same vector towards Earth, plus now they’re radioactive. The average vector of the fragments would be the same as the vector of the initial object, but that doesn’t mean all the fragments will hit the Earth. Blow up the meteor when it’s far enough away and most of the fragments will disperse enough to miss. Plus, I think lots of fragments would burn up more completely in the atmosphere, and cause less damage, than an equivalent single mass. Still a stupid movie, though. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2015, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/116 "2015-12-23T21:42:16Z")
> [@Seanette](#): > > Isn’t a lot of his height the helmet? 🙂 And boots. ---
**Author:** ![Accidental\_Martyr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ce7236/32.png) [@Accidental\_Martyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Accidental_Martyr)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2015, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/117 "2015-12-26T03:40:07Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > How about [Sunshine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunshine_%282007_film%29)? The premise is that the Sun is dying, so a ship is sent to kick-start it using a bomb consisting of all the fissionable material on earth (a bomb the “size of Manhattan”) that’s designed to explode once it gets to the core of the sun somehow. The first ship is lost so a second ship is sent with another bomb (consisting, perhaps, of the fissionable materials found in the sofa cushions). The movie follows the voyage of the second crew. > > I kind of like the movie for the insane idea that the people are supposed to get right up against the surface of the sun, drop the bomb in and get away somehow. > [@Seanette](#): > > IIRC, they _weren’t_ expecting to get away. They knew they were on a one-way trip and chose to do it for the benefit of the rest of the world. I also thought this was the premise. I have the DVD, maybe I’ll watch it again. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2015, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/118 "2015-12-26T13:06:32Z")
> [@DiggitCamara](#): > > The only reason it bothered me is because I read… somewhere… that the original idea was to use the networked human brains to enable the machines to run their sentient programs. In my mind I kind of fanwanked that they were using the “unused” cycles of the human brains as well as the parts that weren’t active (motor control for the limbs, for instance). > > And they shelved that idea to replace it with cheap product placement. I thought the movie was going to explain pretty much what you said - that humans are in the Matrix because of our brains processing power (similar to how the Core used people in Dan Simmons’s _Hyperion_ series). But when he (agent Smith? It’s been a while…) did the battery thing, completely took me out of the movie as being the dumbest explanation ever. I don’t care that it’s a McGuffin, it still doesn’t make a damned bit of sense. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2015, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/119 "2015-12-26T14:15:43Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > The most recent James Bond film with the massive SPECTRE facility in the meteor crater in the middle of the Moroccan desert really did make me wonder how they hired all of these people, if there really were that many evil people who were rushing to work for this organization, and where did they live and shop out there in the middle of the desert. SPECTRE and other such supervillainous organizations seem a lot like a _secular_ IS/Daesh, with much nicer living quarters and fewer decapitations – but at least in the 1960s incarnation one could fanwank it as being a bunch of leftover Nazis/Fascists and sympathizers using their stolen treasure/hi-tech. What explains it in the 20teens? Going back to the Matrix: the traitor/turncoat/sellout character - when you KNOW the Matrix can just plain and simply erase your existence altogether, why in the world would you bother to make a deal in which your reward is to rejoin it, have the bad memories erased and be left alone to live a happy virtual life? You’ve got to know you’ll just be mulched for feed! ---
**Author:** ![Stealth\_Potato](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Stealth\_Potato](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stealth_Potato)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2015, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778/120 "2015-12-26T21:52:15Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > The average vector of the fragments would be the same as the vector of the initial object, but that doesn’t mean all the fragments will hit the Earth. Blow up the meteor when it’s far enough away and most of the fragments will disperse enough to miss. Plus, I think lots of fragments would burn up more completely in the atmosphere, and cause less damage, than an equivalent single mass. Given the mass involved, even a tiny fraction of the Texas-sized asteroid burning up in the atmosphere would still kill literally everything on Earth, so I’m not sure that’s much of an improvement. My napkin calculations suggest that an object of that size moving at a fairly typical relative speed of 60km/s has enough energy to raise the temperature of the entire atmosphere by around 100,000 degrees Celsius. Even if you somehow had enough nukes to blast it into a cone of tiny fragments such that only 0.1% of them burned up in the atmosphere, you’re still going to have a very bad time. 😃 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-incorrect-basic-premises/740778.md?page=7)