# Really obvious mistakes in Movies and TV **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 23, 2007, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-obvious-mistakes-in-movies-and-tv/389050 "2007-01-23T04:26:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2007, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-obvious-mistakes-in-movies-and-tv/389050/61 "2007-01-23T19:49:58Z")
I think my favourite so far, and I’ve referred to this before, has been **Taking Lives** , in which a scene was shown to be in Montreal by the establishing shot of the Château Frontenac. The Château Frontenac is the most prominent building of Quebec City. That’s sort of like showing that it’s Boston with a shot of the Empire State Building. Also, everyone was speaking France French. ---
**Author:** ![Sarahfeena](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sarahfeena/32/519_2.png) [@Sarahfeena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarahfeena)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2007, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-obvious-mistakes-in-movies-and-tv/389050/62 "2007-01-23T20:10:00Z")
In When Harry Met Sally, they are shown leaving the University of Chicago campus (which is on the south side of the city), and then driving down the north end of Lake Shore Drive to get to New York. This would be an extremely circuitous route to get to NY from U of C! You would have to drive about 15 miles north, turn around, and drive south again. Maybe for just one last look at the nice scenery before leaving for NY? 🙂 I always wonder when I see that scene…why didn’t they just set the initial scene at Northwestern University, which IS north of the city, and which you WOULD get on Lake Shore Drive to go to New York? ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2007, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-obvious-mistakes-in-movies-and-tv/389050/63 "2007-01-23T20:19:30Z")
I think I’ve mentioned The Terminator before. Arnold can’t take any ray guns with him, because of “the field generated by living tissue”. But his magic metal endo-skeleton can make it just fine. And he can cut out his eye with an X-Acto knife to reveal the lens behind it. Why didn’t they put a ray gun into his abdomen, and then send him thru the time barrier? He gets to LA, cuts open his belly and pulls out the ray gun, and Sarah Connor is toast. Regards, Shodan ---
**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 23, 2007, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-obvious-mistakes-in-movies-and-tv/389050/64 "2007-01-23T20:23:12Z")
> [@](#): > > Why didn’t they put a ray gun into his abdomen, and then send him thru the time barrier? He gets to LA, cuts open his belly and pulls out the ray gun, and Sarah Connor is toast. Well, it’s obvious – 'cause then the movie’s over in 5 minutes. More to the point, how does the **T-1000** get through in **Terminator II**? He doesn’t have _asny_ flesh on him – he’s all liquid metal. ---
**Author:** ![lowbrass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dc4da7/32.png) [@lowbrass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lowbrass)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2007, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-obvious-mistakes-in-movies-and-tv/389050/65 "2007-01-23T20:38:33Z")
Then there’s the _entire premise_ of both The Matrix and Waterworld. Waterworld didn’t bug me that much; I could suspend my disbelief enough to get through the movie. But The Matrix bugged me because they could have easily thought of _another_ reason for the premise that didn’t violate any laws of physics. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2007, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-obvious-mistakes-in-movies-and-tv/389050/66 "2007-01-23T20:41:45Z")
[QUOTE=CalMeacham] I also like the majestic palm trees outside Yoyodyne headquarters in Grover’s Mill, N.J. in **Buckaroo Banzai**.In fact, the Yoyodyne building itself looks bigger than Grover’s Mill. (Pepper Mill is from GM, NJ. I’ve spent a lot of time there.) [/QUOTE] Crap. I didn’t get that any of BB was in Grover’s Mill at all. (I’m going to need to watch it again.) I used to pass through Grover’s Mill all the time on my way to Cranbury to go to the book store there. For those who haven’t been there, Grover’s Mill, like lots of places in this part of NJ, is hardly a town anymore, but used to be. Near me there was a town called Marshall’s Corner where the guy who discovered gold in California came from. It’s basically a bowling alley and a little shopping center now. Some signs around Princeton point to towns that really don’t exist anymore. As for odd mountains, the old monster movie **Beginning of the End** had giant grasshoppers on the road from Champaign Illinois to Chicago with mountains in the background. Coastal Virginia is the frickin’ Alps compared to there. ---
**Author:** ![Kizarvexius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/da6949/32.png) [@Kizarvexius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kizarvexius)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2007, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-obvious-mistakes-in-movies-and-tv/389050/67 "2007-01-23T20:42:28Z")
Don’t forget about the lovely Georgia pine forests subbing for the jungles of VietNam in _The Green Berets_. ---
**Author:** ![Antinor01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecae2f/32.png) [@Antinor01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antinor01)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2007, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-obvious-mistakes-in-movies-and-tv/389050/68 "2007-01-23T20:48:37Z")
My boyfriend is really into the Hellraiser movies and just bought the entire series, so I’ve been subjected to them this past week. Aside from all the obvious, I noticed two things in one of the films. In Hellraiser III (Hell on Earth, the one with Terry Farrell) there’s a scene where she runs into a church. Pinhead follows her and the priest raises his silver cross toward Pinhead to try and ward him off. Pinhead then makes the cross melt and the priests hand basically melts off. In the very next scene you can clearly see both of the priests hands…with no damage whatsoever. A bit later Farrell’s character gets hit with one of those hooked chains and the front of her sweatshirt rips. Not two minutes later, while still running down the street her shirt has no damage. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2007, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-obvious-mistakes-in-movies-and-tv/389050/69 "2007-01-23T20:50:45Z")
In **Children of Men** , our protagonist push-starts a car with an automatic transmission, which is an impossibility. In **Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy** , set in the early 70s, a Rubik’s Cube is sitting on the desk. Hadn’t been invented yet. ---
**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 23, 2007, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-obvious-mistakes-in-movies-and-tv/389050/70 "2007-01-23T20:53:21Z")
**Voyager** writes: > [@](#): > > Crap. I didn’t get that any of BB was in Grover’s Mill at all. (I’m going to need to watch it again.) I used to pass through Grover’s Mill all the time on my way to Cranbury to go to the book store there. For those who haven’t been there, Grover’s Mill, like lots of places in this part of NJ, is hardly a town anymore, but used to be. It’s a fairly important plot point – the reason there are those Red Lectroids on Earth is that they came through the portal Dr. Lizardo opened when he activated his device at Yoyodyne in Grovers Mill. The sudden influx of aliens lead to that whole “War of the Worlds” thing\*, and the government hushed it up and gave all the aliens false IDs (that all had the first name “John”). The point is that there really _was_ a sort of invasion by aliens on October 31, 1938. - scripter Howard Koch , at Orson Welles’ insistence, reset the story in America, having the Martians land at Grovers Mill, which was conveniently close to Princeton. Pepper mill has a secret ID, as do all her friends, the first name of which is “John”. They took to calling that weird building on Princeton-Hightstown Road (the one with the external brightly-painted pipes and the giant orange LifeSaver on top) “Yoyodyne”. Great used book shop, that **Cranbury Book Worm** , eh? I picked up a copy of the Dover reprint of the original edition of **Joe Miller’s Jokes** there. Also some interesting Ophthalmics books. ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2007, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-obvious-mistakes-in-movies-and-tv/389050/71 "2007-01-23T20:58:37Z")
[QUOTE=Shodan] Why didn’t they put a ray gun into his abdomen, and then send him thru the time barrier? He gets to LA, cuts open his belly and pulls out the ray gun, and Sarah Connor is toast. [/QUOTE] Was that really an issue? It’s not like you need a raygun to kill people. From the video of the future they show, the rayguns work pretty much like normal guns. You still have to point and shoot. Now, Reese might have wanted a raygun, so he could kill the _Terminator_, but he’d also be a little less able to handle the emergency surgery such a plan would require. ---
**Author:** ![lisacurl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/41988e/32.png) [@lisacurl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisacurl)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2007, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-obvious-mistakes-in-movies-and-tv/389050/72 "2007-01-23T21:06:09Z")
[QUOTE=JKellyMap] This particular problem will gradually be phased out of existence, since apparently about a decade ago they stopped using the kind of vaccination that produces that scar. [/QUOTE] I’ll be 40 in a little over a month and hardly anyone I know my age or younger has the smallpox vaccination scar on their arm. ---
**Author:** ![Mollie\_Magill](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mollie_magill/32/20882_2.png) [@Mollie\_Magill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mollie_Magill)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2007, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-obvious-mistakes-in-movies-and-tv/389050/73 "2007-01-23T21:13:21Z")
[QUOTE=JohnT] **White Christmas** Bing, Rosemary, Danny, and Vera-Ellen are on a train heading to Vermont from (IIRC) NYC. Dreaming of the winter wonderland that awaits, they start singing the song _Snow_. Upon finishing the song, the scene fades to black, reopening on an exterior shot of the train… … clearly passing a number of very obvious **palm trees**. No wonder there was no snow at the ski-lodge when they arrived! 😉 [/QUOTE] They were going from Miami to Vermont. ---
**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:** [January 23, 2007, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-obvious-mistakes-in-movies-and-tv/389050/74 "2007-01-23T21:16:13Z")
Huh. I’ve seen that movie twice in the past month and somehow missed that point. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2007, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-obvious-mistakes-in-movies-and-tv/389050/75 "2007-01-23T21:31:29Z")
In the “Boys and Girls” episode of _The Office_, Jan tells the warehouse staff that if management hears talk about unionization, then the entire Scranton operation will be shut down. Such a statement would be a blatant violation of U.S. labor law. With so many witnesses, it would get Dunder-Mifflin into huge legal problems. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2007, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-obvious-mistakes-in-movies-and-tv/389050/76 "2007-01-23T21:34:39Z")
[QUOTE=JKellyMap] For some reason, the only time this bothered me was in Brad Pitt’s portrayal of Odysseus in _The Trojan War_ . This particular problem will gradually be phased out of existence, since apparently about a decade ago they stopped using the kind of vaccination that produces that scar. [/QUOTE] 'Cause Odysseus, the professional soldier, lover and con man, couldn’t have acquired a round scar on his arm any other way? Arrow? Spear? Flaming saganaki accident? I do have one age mate who has a smallpox vaccine scar (she’s 32) because her doctor was older than God and didn’t get the memo that it was no longer needed, but Pitt (43) does seem on the young end for one. And he never played Odysseus. And he wasn’t in “The Trojan War”. He did play Achilles in _Troy_, though. 😉 (Yes, I know flaming saganaki isn’t really Greek. Sue me, it sounds better.) ---
**Author:** ![xanthous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/53a042/32.png) [@xanthous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xanthous)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2007, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-obvious-mistakes-in-movies-and-tv/389050/77 "2007-01-23T22:06:11Z")
Probably the only mistake that ever truly reached out and slapped me: **Big Night-** When Ann arrives at the restaurant and stands at the bar, she’s wearing black heels. Then, as she walks over to look at the paintings with Primo, she’s wearing what looks like flat white slip-ons. Then when she’s dancing later, she’s wearing black heels again. ---
**Author:** ![corkboard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9bcb4/32.png) [@corkboard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/corkboard)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2007, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-obvious-mistakes-in-movies-and-tv/389050/78 "2007-01-23T22:07:35Z")
[QUOTE=WhyNot] I do have one age mate who has a smallpox vaccine scar (she’s 32) because her doctor was older than God and didn’t get the memo that it was no longer needed, but Pitt (43) does seem on the young end for one. [/QUOTE] I’m 39 and I have one, and as a kid in school we all used to compare our scars. I think I’ve seen them on plenty of people (currently) in their mid-30’s. ---
**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:** [January 23, 2007, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-obvious-mistakes-in-movies-and-tv/389050/79 "2007-01-23T22:49:49Z")
> [@](#): > > Chance says that about 50% of the movies should have them right (a bit more if you consider the lucky ones where the set guys knew chess). Even if they didn’t know chess, you’d still expect better. A lot of boards have a fold in the middle, and most folks who have ever played any board game would correctly put the fold horizontal to the players’ view (so each player has es own rigid half of the board). And of course, the Wizard Chess scene in _Harry Potter_ is still problematic, in that a capturing piece doesn’t occupy the space of the piece it captured. You could probably play an interesting game using those rules, but it wouldn’t be chess. Oh, and a smallpox vaccination scar isn’t just a circle. It’s a very distinctive flower-like pattern. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2007, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-obvious-mistakes-in-movies-and-tv/389050/80 "2007-01-23T22:55:43Z")
[QUOTE=wolfman] There are actually some pretty cool things you can do to analyze CCTV footage. … The image part being analyzed needs to be a certain number of pixels to get any accuracy, but a tiny blurry license plate moving past a security cam can sometimes be cleaned up an amazing amount. [/QUOTE] Thank you for this information. I feel much better now. [QUOTE=Antinor01] Not two minutes later, while still running down the street her shirt has no damage. [/QUOTE] They showed a shirt running down the street? That does stretch the imagination. 😛 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-obvious-mistakes-in-movies-and-tv/389050.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-obvious-mistakes-in-movies-and-tv/389050.md?page=5)