# One little thing you wish you could change in a movie **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** movies\ **Created:** [January 14, 2025, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-little-thing-you-wish-you-could-change-in-a-movie/1012944 "2025-01-14T00:39:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2025, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-little-thing-you-wish-you-could-change-in-a-movie/1012944/141 "2025-01-16T03:31:25Z")
I was wondering about the timing needed for Marty to catch that cable at _precisely_ the instant the lightning struck the clock tower. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2025, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-little-thing-you-wish-you-could-change-in-a-movie/1012944/142 "2025-01-16T06:31:07Z")
I agree (and have long thought the same), but that sounds considerably less exciting then what we had in the movie. ---
**Author:** ![iamatractorboy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iamatractorboy/32/21261_2.png) [@iamatractorboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamatractorboy)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2025, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-little-thing-you-wish-you-could-change-in-a-movie/1012944/143 "2025-01-16T06:48:01Z")
Yeh definitely put that one down to ‘dramatic licence’. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2025, 11:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-little-thing-you-wish-you-could-change-in-a-movie/1012944/144 "2025-01-16T11:30:43Z")
> [@mbh](#): > > If your movie is set before modern science and technology, > and you consider it vitally important that a character have blonde hair, > and you cast a dark-haired actor in a blonde wig, > > then bleach the eyebrows, dammit! You seem to think bleaching just scalp hair blonde or wearing blonde wigs is some kind of modern invention. ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2025, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-little-thing-you-wish-you-could-change-in-a-movie/1012944/145 "2025-01-16T12:29:15Z")
The BTTF talk reminds me- having returned from the past, Marty wakes up on his stomach with his arm across his back. Does anybody really sleep this way? Seems unnatural. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2025, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-little-thing-you-wish-you-could-change-in-a-movie/1012944/146 "2025-01-16T12:45:57Z")
> [@Hypno-Toad](#): > > > [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > > > “Parsecs”. > > > > There is absolutely no convincing “no-prize” explanation for that fuck up. To add insult to injury, Lucas changes dozens of things that weren’t even wrong with _Star Wars_ and doesn’t bother to spend a couple bucks to dub in a word that makes sense. > > Lucas’ response to the criticism on this is practically Soviet in style. It looks to me that he was stung by people calling it out as stupid and responded by refusing to concede that there was even an issue. To even acknowledge it, much less FIX it, would give the criticism validity. Maybe someone laughed at it to his face and so it became personal. The TV series that was rushed into production to capitalize on the success of _Star Wars_, as if to complete the imitation, had a similar misused sciency word. In _Battlestar Galactica_ they were constantly saying how enemy ships were only “microns” away. Considering that a micron is a real unit of length – only one thousandth of a milliimeter – these lines come off as unintentionally hilarious. Especially when you’re watching it with a bunch of optical engineers, who frequently use microns as a unit of measurement. It was while I was watching Lucas’ student film version of _THX-1138_ that I finally realized what Lucas was all about. His stuff was intended to give the _look_ and _feel_ of science fiction, without necessarily having much substance. That poor radio reception you hear in the first _Star Wars_ film (when the X-fighters are approaching the Death Star – “We’re passing through the magnetic field”) is in his original THAX-1100 film, too, and I have no doubt it’s there because of the technological “feel” it gives to the scene. You wouldn’t get that impression if the powers that be that ran that world had perfect radio reception. I love Star Wars, especially that first film, but it’s Akira Kurasawa’s _The Hidden Fortress_ with the ending of _The Dam Busters_ and _Squadrion 733_ grafted onto it, all set in a science fantasy world of _Flash Gordon_ sets and _Valerian and Laureline_ background drawings, with common SF tropes like The Spaceport Bar and Hyperspace Travel and Doctor Doom thrown in. To expect scientific or terminological accuracy from this is just ridiculous. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2025, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-little-thing-you-wish-you-could-change-in-a-movie/1012944/147 "2025-01-16T14:30:22Z")
Oh, yeah! Found a YT clip of the scene and watching that lovely face change emotions is worth the price of admission. PLUS, RICK GRIMES AND NOT A WALKER IN SIGHT! @eschereal ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2025, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-little-thing-you-wish-you-could-change-in-a-movie/1012944/148 "2025-01-16T14:42:11Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > and _Squadrion 733_ The film was _633 Squadron_. Squadron 733 must have been the sequel. 🙂 I liked the garbled communications. It makes sense, in a way. Part of the “lived in” feel. > [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](#): > > Marty wakes up on his stomach with his arm across his back. Does anybody really sleep this way? It’s not just me! I thought so the first time I saw it. That looks so impossible and uncomfortable. Note, the film starts with him sleeping that way. It’s a nice circularity to the film. ---
**Author:** ![minor7flat5](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/minor7flat5/32/258_2.png) [@minor7flat5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minor7flat5)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2025, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-little-thing-you-wish-you-could-change-in-a-movie/1012944/149 "2025-01-16T14:50:04Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > > [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](#): > > > > Marty wakes up on his stomach with his arm across his back. Does anybody really sleep this way? > > It’s not just me! I thought so the first time I saw it. That looks so impossible and uncomfortable. > > Note, the film starts with him sleeping that way. It’s a nice circularity to the film. That was a detail I always liked. Even the first time I saw the film when it was released I could relate to sleeping in some weird position if I was very tired. It told me with no words that he had been in a deep slumber. Have you ever had that worrying thought: “What if I fall asleep on my arm and it cuts of the circulation and…” ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2025, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-little-thing-you-wish-you-could-change-in-a-movie/1012944/150 "2025-01-16T14:51:45Z")
> [@minor7flat5](#): > > “What if I fall asleep on my arm and it cuts of the circulation and…” “Hello, stranger!” 🙃 ---
**Author:** ![minor7flat5](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/minor7flat5/32/258_2.png) [@minor7flat5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minor7flat5)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2025, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-little-thing-you-wish-you-could-change-in-a-movie/1012944/151 "2025-01-16T14:53:45Z")
Gack! Perhaps I should have finished the thought to keep minds from wandering where they ought not. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2025, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-little-thing-you-wish-you-could-change-in-a-movie/1012944/152 "2025-01-16T15:33:39Z")
One little thing, since we are in the season for the film: In _It’s A Wonderful Life_, Violet is trying to pick up George on the street, and he goes off on his tangent about running barefoot through the grass and climbing Mt Crumpet (or whatever) to see the sun rise, and Violet reacts like he’s a nut\*. The part that bugs me is the entire crowd starts gut-bustingly laughing at George. Don’t the people in town love George? Isn’t that the point of the film? Why are they laughing? It’s not _that_ crazy, all in all. And how big is Bedford Falls, anyway? Are there people that don’t know George, they guy that saved their homes in the depression? \*the jury is still out ---
**Author:** ![veryfrank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/87869e/32.png) [@veryfrank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/veryfrank)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2025, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-little-thing-you-wish-you-could-change-in-a-movie/1012944/153 "2025-01-16T16:05:20Z")
> [@Quondam\_Mechanic](#): > > Ahnold’s accent in _Conan the Barbarian_ would have been just fine if any of the other people in his village had had the same accent. Wouln’t have taken a scholar of the works of Nietche to figure that out, either. In FIncher’s adaptation of _The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo_, I can be on board with all the Swedish characters speaking English. You’ve gotta do that for an American blockbuster, and I’ll take that leap of faith the same way I did in _The Hunt for Red October_. So why is Rooney Mara the only character to act in a Swedish accent? If Mikael Blomqvist can speak in British English, surely Lisbeth Salander can sound like an American? ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2025, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-little-thing-you-wish-you-could-change-in-a-movie/1012944/154 "2025-01-16T16:13:17Z")
> [@veryfrank](#): > > I’ll take that leap of faith the same way I did in _The Hunt for Red October_. All of the Russians don’t speak English in HFRO. At the beginning of the movie, they’re all speaking Russian, with English subtitles. The movie transitions to English at the word “Armageddon”, which has no translation. This switch is only for the audience, and is only for Russian-to-Russian conversations. When Russians are in contact with Americans, only the Russians who know English speak English - the Russian enlisted still speak Russian (w/English subtitles) when aboard the American vessel. ---
**Author:** ![veryfrank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/87869e/32.png) [@veryfrank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/veryfrank)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2025, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-little-thing-you-wish-you-could-change-in-a-movie/1012944/155 "2025-01-16T16:17:22Z")
> [@Munch](#): > > All of the Russians don’t speak English in HFRO. At the beginning of the movie, they’re all speaking Russian, with English subtitles. The movie transitions to English at the word “Armageddon”, which has no translation. This switch is only for the audience, and is only for Russian-to-Russian conversations. When Russians are in contact with Americans, only the Russians who know English speak English - the Russian enlisted still speak Russian (w/English subtitles) when aboard the American vessel. Yeah, that’s what I meant. They’re speaking English as far as the audience perceives it. Within the narrative universe of the movie, I’m sure they’re all speaking Svenska but the multiplex screen can translate telepathically like the TARDIS does. I don’t have the disc handy but I’d guess signage in the background is in Swedish, like it’s in Russian in the English-language _Doctor Zhivago_. ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2025, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-little-thing-you-wish-you-could-change-in-a-movie/1012944/156 "2025-01-16T17:20:36Z")
A lot of that story involves the effort to raid some kind of shadow government agency that operated out of a suite of offices in an upscale apartment building. They never explain what this agency is doing. They managed Lisbeth’s father for a while? ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2025, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-little-thing-you-wish-you-could-change-in-a-movie/1012944/157 "2025-01-16T17:47:12Z")
> [@veryfrank](#): > > So why is Rooney Mara the only character to act in a Swedish accent? If Mikael Blomqvist can speak in British English, surely Lisbeth Salander can sound like an American? Just like Michael is the only member of the Darling family to speak with an American accent in _Peter Pan_… ---
**Author:** ![Zoobi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/13edae/32.png) [@Zoobi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoobi)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2025, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-little-thing-you-wish-you-could-change-in-a-movie/1012944/158 "2025-01-16T17:47:58Z")
You have your timing wrong. That scene is well before he “saved their homes” . ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2025, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-little-thing-you-wish-you-could-change-in-a-movie/1012944/159 "2025-01-16T17:51:35Z")
> [@Zoobi](#): > > You have your timing wrong. You’re right. Well, what do ya know about that! ---
**Author:** ![veryfrank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/87869e/32.png) [@veryfrank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/veryfrank)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2025, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-little-thing-you-wish-you-could-change-in-a-movie/1012944/160 "2025-01-16T18:33:40Z")
> [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](#): > > A lot of that story involves the effort to raid some kind of shadow government agency that operated out of a suite of offices in an upscale apartment building. They never explain what this agency is doing. They managed Lisbeth’s father for a while? Yeah. Zalachenko (her father) defected during the cold war, and the Swedish government sheltered him and let him be a wife- and daughter-abuser and sex trafficker because he was valuable as an intelligence asset. In the name of “national security” they had Lisbeth committed because were Zala’s crimes brough to light they’d have to acknowledge his existence and their complicitness. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-little-thing-you-wish-you-could-change-in-a-movie/1012944.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-little-thing-you-wish-you-could-change-in-a-movie/1012944.md?page=9)