# not a mistake but it takes you out of the movie **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 23, 2009, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-a-mistake-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie/482629 "2009-01-23T13:34:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 13
**Author:** ![cactus\_waltz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/74df32/32.png) [@cactus\_waltz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cactus_waltz)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2009, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-a-mistake-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie/482629/241 "2009-01-31T11:29:01Z")
> [@Jack\_Batty](#): > > … things like Billy Crudup playing a guitar virtuoso in _Almost Famous_ and it’s obvious he barely knows how to hold his guitar let alone play it. Tia Carrere in Wayne’s World! ---
**Author:** ![bucketybuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@bucketybuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bucketybuck)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2009, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-a-mistake-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie/482629/242 "2009-01-31T13:20:13Z")
> [@runcible\_spoon](#): > > Hell yes! Or, rather, it’s the director’s job to convince me that taking it way-over-the-top-Tom-Cruise-climbing-a-cliff-for-shits-and-giggles makes sense in the movie. It’s one thing to have a hard-to-get-to Oracle, but we’re talking above and beyond here. I should not be expected to fabricate a scene where the Oracle’s doorman keeps Leonidas from taking the chest-full-of-gold entrance. > > Hell, even the pit made more sense - it worked stylistically, and once you accept that this is a world where people build crazy shit, hey, why _not_ have a nice bottomless pit in the center of town? At least everyone’s following the crazy-shit-building rules. It’s when characters don’t all follow the same set of rules that the movie breaks for me (incidentally, this is part of why I could never get into horror movies - every time a bad guy pops in from offscreen in the middle of a field, it breaks). Sorry, am I missing some vital information here? This is 300 you are talking about isnt it? Stylised graphics? Muscle bound spartans chopping heads off? A tent full of freaks? A tree full of bodies? Attack rhinos? Millions against hundreds? Arrows blocking the sun? And Leonidas climbing a cliff causes you trouble? Perhaps I was watching the wrong film… _This pointless sig has been approved by the Straight Dope Administration For name, please see above_ ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2009, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-a-mistake-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie/482629/243 "2009-01-31T15:58:51Z")
> [@cactus\_waltz](#): > > Tia Carrere in Wayne’s World! Tia Carrerre has a note from good permitting her to do whatever she wants. Well, she used to, anyway. I think Natalie Portman has it now. ---
**Author:** ![ExTank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@ExTank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ExTank)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2009, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-a-mistake-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie/482629/244 "2009-01-31T18:08:35Z")
It was a mistake, and it took me out of the movie: the first X-Men movie, outside the train station. Magneto uses his magnetic control powers to snatch the guns out of all the cop’s hands and then point them back at the cops. So far, okay. But he shoots one of the cops and stops the _lead_ bullet right at the man’s forehead. ---
**Author:** ![Gotterfunken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/58956e/32.png) [@Gotterfunken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gotterfunken)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2009, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-a-mistake-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie/482629/245 "2009-01-31T19:20:00Z")
> [@Tuckerfan](#): > > IIRC, the Spartans _did_ have a pit (though not bottomless, of course) that they dumped folks into. There was a recent excavation of the pit, and they found that the Spartans _didn’t_ find any babies dumped in there, but lots of POW types. Unfortunately, I can’t find any links to it at the moment (though I could swear I started a thread about it someplace). The first written reference to the Spartan pit comes from Herodotus: > [@Herodotus](#): > > Xerxes however had not sent to Athens or to Sparta heralds to demand the gift of earth, and for this reason, namely because at the former time when Dareios had sent for this very purpose, the one people threw the men who made the demand into the pit and the others into a well, and bade them take from thence earth and water and bear them to the king. (from [_Histories_, book 7, chap. 133](http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/hh/hh7130.htm)) And Thucydides, in _The History of the Peloponnesian War_, tells us that the Spartan pit (or gorge–it’s not entirely clear) was called _Kaiadas_, and was where they cast convicted criminals. ([cite](http://classics.mit.edu/Thucydides/pelopwar.mb.txt)). So _300_ is a bit off in its telling of the story–I seem to recall that in the film, the heralds were sent by Xerxes just prior to the battle of Thermopylae, when in fact they had been sent by Darius on a previous occasion. However, it does sound like the Spartans really _did_ have a pit or well into which they threw people–and what’s more, the Athenians appear to have had a similar set-up. We must assume, though, that neither pit was actually bottomless (and I’d have to imagine they’d have guardrails or something around the hole to prevent pedestrians from stumbling in by mistake). But, yeah, the movie clearly wasn’t intended to be entirely historically accurate, and I think it’s best just to suspend disbelief while watching it. I’d love to read about the excavations at Sparta–do post the links if you find them again. ---
**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:** [January 31, 2009, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-a-mistake-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie/482629/246 "2009-01-31T19:31:19Z")
> [@cactus\_waltz](#): > > I really hate it when characters ‘explain’ things to eachother, that they supposedly already know. Of course, what they are actually doing is explaining stuff to the _viewer_, but they can’t explicitly do that without breaking the fourth wall, so they have to explain to eachother instead. It’s pretty common in shows like CSI, House, Lie to me and the like. > Musician 1: That sounded really good, musician 2! > Musician 2: Thank you, musician 1! That was a “chord”, which, as you know, is when you hit three or more notes at the same time. The one thing I liked about the last Futurama movie was when Farnsworth was explaining something super obvious and Amy says something like, “Guh, don’t condescend to us.” Well, that and the Tyrannosaurus bringing down the UFOs in the Scary Door episode. ---
**Author:** ![Sleel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/73ab20/32.png) [@Sleel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sleel)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2009, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-a-mistake-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie/482629/247 "2009-02-02T02:50:18Z")
> [@cactus\_waltz](#): > > Tia Carrere in Wayne’s World! Besides the pass from The Big Guy, Tia deserves a pass because she was doing her own vocals. Yeah, she actually put out [a few albums](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tia_Carrere#Music_Career). So she may not have been playing guitar, but she was singing. ---
**Author:** ![Moirai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/96bed5/32.png) [@Moirai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moirai)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2009, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-a-mistake-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie/482629/248 "2009-02-02T04:13:27Z")
> [@rainy](#): > > This one always kills me and it is damn near as ubiquitous as the Wilhelm Scream. > > TV, movies, good guys, bad guys, everybody does this. Somebody will be armed with a gun, headed into a dangerous situation (robbing a bank, holding a prisoner at gun point, etc.) They will exchange some words, stare each other down for a moment…THEN they’ll actually load a round into the chamber. > > WTF!?! > > Are directors so enamored with the sound of bolt working that they totally loose their minds? The only time they don’t so this is when a gun needs to accidentally go off and shoot somebody in the ass. One movie actually did something so **right** that it took me out for a second. It was _The Fugitive_, in the scene where Gerard and his team are chasing Kimball into the tunnel. The team is hauling ass, but only as they approach what they assume is the target do they lock and load, _pointing down and away from everyone else_ (right or left, depending on where they are in the clump of marshals). I thought it was nice to include a bit pf proper firearms safety. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Kolga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e56c9b/32.png) [@Kolga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolga)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2009, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-a-mistake-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie/482629/249 "2009-02-02T04:14:35Z")
> [@ExTank](#): > > But he shoots one of the cops and stops the _lead_ bullet right at the man’s forehead. I thought it was Charles Xavier that stopped that particular bullet. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2009, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-a-mistake-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie/482629/250 "2009-02-02T04:16:11Z")
Xavier isn’t telekinetic. It was Jean Grey that did the bullet-stopping. ---
**Author:** ![BMax](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bmax/32/4267_2.png) [@BMax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMax)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2009, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-a-mistake-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie/482629/251 "2009-02-02T05:20:25Z")
> [@Sleel](#): > > Besides the pass from The Big Guy, Tia deserves a pass because she was doing her own vocals. Yeah, she actually put out [a few albums](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tia_Carrere#Music_Career). So she may not have been playing guitar, but she was singing. Who the hell was looking at her hands? ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2009, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-a-mistake-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie/482629/252 "2009-02-02T05:44:43Z")
> [@cactus\_waltz](#): > > I really hate it when characters ‘explain’ things to eachother, that they supposedly already know. Of course, what they are actually doing is explaining stuff to the _viewer_, but they can’t explicitly do that without breaking the fourth wall, so they have to explain to eachother instead. It’s pretty common in shows like CSI, House, Lie to me and the like. Something that’s a little better done but still obvious to me, and tends to take me out: there’s some laboratory/command center/what have you where busy people are busy doing things they are thoroughly familiar with, and we’re introduced to what they’re doing by some clueless layman character introduced from the outside who keeps saying some variation of “who is that?” “what is she doing?” “why is she doing that?” Somebody mentioned lens flare in animation. I notice that, as well as when some CGI cartoon does the shaky “camera” thing. Also in some medieval or wild west battle scene when the camera gets spattered with blood. If I was in the middle of that battle and blood flew into my eyes, I wouldn’t be seeing a spatter overlay, I’d be seeing nothing, 'cause, like, there’s blood in my eyes. ---
**Author:** ![ExTank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@ExTank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ExTank)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2009, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-a-mistake-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie/482629/253 "2009-02-02T22:35:41Z")
> [@Kolga](#): > > I thought it was Charles Xavier that stopped that particular bullet. > [@silenus](#): > > Xavier isn’t telekinetic. It was Jean Grey that did the bullet-stopping. :smack: I always took it that Magneto was “escalating,” as in, “Back off or I let the bullet go ahead and kill this cop!” ---
**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:** [February 2, 2009, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-a-mistake-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie/482629/254 "2009-02-02T23:34:01Z")
> [@Raguleader](#): > > Plus, it’s handy for them to remind the King where his place is, crawling up the side of the mountain to beg for their wisdom. He might not share their opinion, but it’s good for their egos, and since the rules evidently favor the King having to confer with them first before he can do anything, they get to set the price of admission. Priest 1: Is that Leonidas climbing up the cliff? Priest 2: Yep. Priest 1: Didn’t anyone tell him about the stairs? Priest 2: Walter did, last time. Priest 1: And? Priest 2: Leonidas said, “Stairs are for pussies.” Then he set Walter on fire. Priest 1: Goddammit, I fucking hate Greeks. ---
**Author:** ![Sleel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/73ab20/32.png) [@Sleel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sleel)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2009, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-a-mistake-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie/482629/255 "2009-02-02T23:55:34Z")
**Miller** , that’s dead-on perfect! **ExTank** , that was exactly my interpretation of that scene. ---
**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:** [February 3, 2009, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-a-mistake-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie/482629/256 "2009-02-03T00:02:16Z")
> [@ExTank](#): > > :smack: > > I always took it that Magneto was “escalating,” as in, “Back off or I let the bullet go ahead and kill this cop!” My thinking as well. Didn’t Magneto say something like “Don’t push your luck Charles. I don’t think I can stop them all.” ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2009, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-a-mistake-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie/482629/257 "2009-02-03T00:17:44Z")
Yes, Magneto said that, but I think that was a misread line or a flaw in the script. There was no reason for him to cock and fire a weapon and then halt the bullet. Xavier glances at Jean when Magneto says that, and her look says “I can’t stop them all.” ---
**Author:** ![teela\_brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d9b06d/32.png) [@teela\_brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teela_brown)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2009, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-a-mistake-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie/482629/258 "2009-02-03T00:23:17Z")
As I’ve mentioned in a couple of recent threads, I’m in the process of watching the entire Sherlock Holmes television series starring Jeremy Brett. Included in the boxed set of episodes are three or four television movies. We just watched _The Master Blackmailer_. There’s a scene which was mildly touched upon in the book, but in the movie it is expanded: [spoiler]Holmes, disguised as a plumber, gets romantic with a housemaid in order to learn the goings-on within the villain’s household. Things get a lot steamier than he plans and he finds himself rolling around on the ground with her. This scene is played well by Brett, for the plumber character is clumsy and stammering and awkward when trying to get intimate with the girl; is this part of the plumber disguise or is Holmes’s own asexuality showing itself? Well done, Brett. However, it’s very uncomfortable to see Holmes having anything to do with a woman, and it does indeed bring you out of the film.[/spoiler] ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2009, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-a-mistake-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie/482629/259 "2009-02-03T01:20:40Z")
Ooh, I thought of another one, in the vein of “just because it’s a fantasy movie anything goes”. In _Prince Caspian_, I have no problem with the minotaurs or the swashbuckling mouse or the liqueur which instantly heals any wound-- Those are part of the premise. But those rapid-fire catapults the Telmarines were using? It doesn’t do much good to put a counterweight on _both_ ends of a trebuchet arm. And were the drive chains and cogs on them made out of wood? Yeah, that’d work really well. ---
**Author:** ![IdahoMauleMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/71c47a/32.png) [@IdahoMauleMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IdahoMauleMan)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2009, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-a-mistake-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie/482629/260 "2009-02-03T01:25:37Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > I was trying to come up with a well worded thread title. Pretty sure I failed. Shawshank Redemption was…at one point…one of my favorite movies. And it’s still a good one. But the final ‘escape’ scene has tarnished over time. First off - 16 years of digging with a little piece of poster-paper as the only shield between Andy and the guards finding out? Didn’t they ever roust his cell? Or move cells? Especially after the big blowup with the Warden where the warden threatened him? And then, his escape is discovered before breakfast. That’s usually what…6am or 7am in the joint, at the latest? How far could he get in that time? Where did he shower and put on the suit? It was the middle of the night in a thunderstorm, for crying out loud. Then he waltzes into a small-town, local bank in the early 1960’s that probably opens at 9am. That’s plenty of time for the warden to assemble a search team and go straight to the banks…since that’s where the warden knows the evidence is going to be. Add in the fact that Andy needs to go to ‘over a dozen banks’ and you’re talking well after lunchtime before he has made his full rounds. He drops the letter to the paper in the first banks’ outgoing mail, which means it’s probably another day or two before the DA comes after the warden at Shawshank. So basically the warden had an entire, free day or two and he couldn’t figure out…after opening his safe…where Andy would go? In short, the timing of the whole morning escape/discovery/bank sequence makes no sense. Especially since the warden knows where the smoking gun is (the banks) and could probably be there within 15 minutes, if he desired. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-a-mistake-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie/482629.md?page=12) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-a-mistake-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie/482629.md?page=14)