# Refuted memes that won't stay dead **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** movies\ **Created:** [July 4, 2025, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/refuted-memes-that-wont-stay-dead/1020488 "2025-07-04T15:48:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2025, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/refuted-memes-that-wont-stay-dead/1020488/61 "2025-07-05T14:45:46Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > use in fiction has become associated with women and less-muscular men Though this is a hardly a Hollywood trope, seeing as it goes as far back as the Illiad at least > **[Greek contempt for archers](https://kiwihellenist.blogspot.com/2017/06/greek-contempt-for-archers.html)** > > The Greeks didn't despise archers - > even in their myths. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2025, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/refuted-memes-that-wont-stay-dead/1020488/62 "2025-07-05T16:10:20Z")
> [@DigitalC](#): > > It’s part of star wars cannon now. Canon ---
**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:** [July 5, 2025, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/refuted-memes-that-wont-stay-dead/1020488/63 "2025-07-05T16:29:14Z")
On the other hand, large amounts of kyber crystals are, in fact, part of Star Wars cannon. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2025, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/refuted-memes-that-wont-stay-dead/1020488/64 "2025-07-05T16:37:45Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > People giving milk to cats for them to drink. In reality like most mammals adult cats are generally lactose intolerant and _shouldn’t_ drink milk. On the other hand heavy cream is low-carb and cats do love to lick a small portion of it. ---
**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:** [July 5, 2025, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/refuted-memes-that-wont-stay-dead/1020488/65 "2025-07-05T16:46:59Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > this video making the case that the Stormtroopers were, in fact, very accurate In fact, the only way he can make his case is by ignoring the times they missed! Making an unproven assumption that at that time the troops chasing Luke & Leia, and Hand and Chewie, were deliberately missing, and then “proving” that they were accurate because they _missed_ is spurious logic at best. For the record: I take the sequence with the tracking device as being that the Empire intended to catch them on board, but having the tracking device was a backup. Not the main plan. Luke, Han and probably Chewbacca knew where the plans were, and probably wouldn’t stand up to “the mind probe” very well. If Our Heroes never got away, there was nothing to fear from Princess Leia’s Stolen Deathstar Plans. Wherever they were, the rebels weren’t getting them. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2025, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/refuted-memes-that-wont-stay-dead/1020488/66 "2025-07-05T16:49:39Z")
The Greek goddess Artemis was famously depicted as an archer (archeress?). Also, there was the legend of fleet-footed Atalanta and of the Amazons. The ancient Greeks seem to have liked the idea of female fighters at least as a fantasy. If they had had the meme of martial arts making a woman able to outfight a man twice her weight like the Black Widow, the Greeks would probably have loved that too. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2025, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/refuted-memes-that-wont-stay-dead/1020488/67 "2025-07-05T16:54:35Z")
> [@echoreply](#): > > Yes, we all know that, but “plot armor” is a really unsatisfying explanation This is basically George Lucas’ problem. He wanted to make a silly swashbuckling romp (he’s quite clear it was an homage to the 30s Flash Gordon series), but ended up making this incredible space opera with a brilliantly compelling mythos. People really cared about the small details like why the stormtroopers keep missing. Then when he made the prequels he made silly swashbuckling romps that didn’t give two craps about the mythos and everyone (myself included) was super pissed ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2025, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/refuted-memes-that-wont-stay-dead/1020488/68 "2025-07-05T16:56:14Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > If Our Heroes never got away, there was nothing to fear from Princess Leia’s Stolen Deathstar Plans. Wherever they were, the rebels weren’t getting them. On the other hand patience is hardly Vader’s strong point, and his burning desire to smash enemies at the expense of long-term strategy has more than once been his undoing, at least in the comics. Finding and destroying the Rebellion’s main base in one fell swoop was an irresistible temptation. ---
**Author:** ![FrenchDunadan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frenchdunadan/32/5449_2.png) [@FrenchDunadan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FrenchDunadan)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2025, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/refuted-memes-that-wont-stay-dead/1020488/69 "2025-07-05T17:03:30Z")
The Stormtrooper misses. The Red shirt dies anyway. No paradox needed. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2025, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/refuted-memes-that-wont-stay-dead/1020488/70 "2025-07-05T17:10:41Z")
You could probably tell a good story by focusing on shifting plans on the part of both Vader and Tarkin. Tarkin wants the Death Star to succeed and the Rebels crushed with it. Vader would be happy with the Death Star destroyed and the credit for destroying the Rebels - but then he senses a new Force-user (Leia may have potential but Luke is actually using it). Now Vader would be happy if the Death Star is destroyed and doesn’t care about the Rebels - he’s after a powerful apprentice. The poor Stormtroopers get whiplashed by conflicting orders, and possibly Force-sabotage ---
**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:** [July 5, 2025, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/refuted-memes-that-wont-stay-dead/1020488/71 "2025-07-05T17:22:24Z")
I like that. It fits the facts, and doesn’t contradict anything seen. As for the accuracy, look at the scene in Mos Eisley docking bay 94. It’s the reverse of the blockade runner opening: the troops have the superior numbers, and not bottlenecked, and have the element of surprise, and …they ht no one. Han gets at least one of them with his imprecise hand blaster. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/1U7sAAcYzA0/hqdefault.jpg "Star Wars A New Hope - The Millenium Falcon Escapes Mos Eisley") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1U7sAAcYzA0) For the record: it didn’t take years to notice. Probably the third or forth time I watched the film, in 1977, when Obi Wan says “only imperial troops are so precise” I was already snirking. “We’ve seen how well they shoot. I’m surprised they could hit the broadside of a Jawa transport from 20 feet.” Then I started noticing how Guinness isn’t really talking _with_ Luke, he’s reading his lines like he is in a vacuum. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2025, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/refuted-memes-that-wont-stay-dead/1020488/72 "2025-07-05T17:44:37Z")
BTW, for all of the imagery of the Storm Troopers, having the high-level Imperial leaders backstab and undermine each other would be the most authentic way of making the Empire Nazi-like ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2025, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/refuted-memes-that-wont-stay-dead/1020488/73 "2025-07-05T17:48:34Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > If they had had the meme of martial arts making a woman able to outfight a man twice her weight like the Black Widow, the Greeks would probably have loved that too. And if they were able to conceive of a clever women able to use strategy to beat men even when outnumbered, they probably would have liked that too. They just couldn’t think in terms of clever women because they didn’t educate women to solve problems. They certainly though of women as having brainpower, though, because legends were full of women oracles, soothsayers and muses, not to mention goddesses who understood the nature of animals in order to outsmart them in a hunt, and lead men to do so. Actually, it’s a kind of begging the question. Education is wasted on women because they aren’t smart enough to do or understand most of what occupy men, so we won’t bother to tell them about these things. OK, so I haven’t quite got my slogan together-- but you get what I mean. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2025, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/refuted-memes-that-wont-stay-dead/1020488/74 "2025-07-05T17:50:42Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > Then I started noticing how Guinness isn’t really talking _with_ Luke, he’s reading his lines like he is in a vacuum. That’s because Guinness is in a Shakespeare play, and Mark Hamill is in a Saturday morning Cartoon. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2025, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/refuted-memes-that-wont-stay-dead/1020488/75 "2025-07-05T17:54:14Z")
“_Hey kid, it ain’t that kind of movie_,” ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2025, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/refuted-memes-that-wont-stay-dead/1020488/76 "2025-07-05T18:04:05Z")
You know, in the US army, 27 targets out of 40 is all you have to hit to pass your rifle qualification, and that is the only weapon the ordinary soldier, including members of the infantry, have to qualify on. You can carry other weapons, and you do carry a bayonet that fixes to the end of your rifle in case you are ever without bullets (you are more likely to need your smallpox vaccine), but the only other thing you have to qualify in is a grenade, and that’s mostly to make sure you can throw it fast and far enough to do it safely. Now, there are people who hit 40/40, but they get recruited for sniper school, and some of the elite corps have higher standards or more difficult trials. I qualified 36/40 at basic, if anyone wants to know. Two people in my company were 40/40 (both women, at that time). None of the men in my battalion were 40/40. So maybe stormtroopers are less barbed wire than a board fence. ---
**Author:** ![TreacherousCretin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treacherouscretin/32/476_2.png) [@TreacherousCretin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TreacherousCretin)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2025, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/refuted-memes-that-wont-stay-dead/1020488/77 "2025-07-05T18:19:57Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > No under-18 tournament is going to permit full force contact to any part of the body, much less to the head. Whether other competitors were getting away with violating rules or not, Daniel’s kick to the face was certainly illegal. The bigger question is how did this kid who has only received at most a few weeks of training and a montage culminating in crane kicking (a kick nobody would actually do in a tournament much less a fight because of how telegraphed it is) defeat a group of students who have been intensively studying martial arts for years to get to the championship, why the Okinawian Mr. Miyagi appears to be teaching a Chinese _gung fu_-style art while the Cobra Kai dojo is actually doing some kind of _Shotokan-ryū_ style (which originated in Okinawa), and exactly what cocktail of sedatives, pain-blockers, and methamphetamines did Daniel take to fight through the pain of a disabling knee injury? > [@Velocity](#): > > Frankenstein was the scientist, not the monster. In context of the original novel I think that point can be argued. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2025, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/refuted-memes-that-wont-stay-dead/1020488/78 "2025-07-05T18:23:40Z")
The knight guarding the grail says that the whole thing only works if you stay within the boundary of the temple; he’s expecting Indy to take over from him and stay there (and cheat death). He says: “You have chosen wisely. But the Grail cannot pass beyond the Great Seal. That is the boundary and the price of immortality.” So I think it makes sense that the longevity effect of the grail water wears off if you go outside. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2025, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/refuted-memes-that-wont-stay-dead/1020488/79 "2025-07-05T18:31:10Z")
> [@TreacherousCretin](#): > > > [@Velocity](#): > > > > Frankenstein was the scientist, not the monster. > > In context of the original novel I think that point can be argued. Frankenstein was not the _creature_, but point taken. ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2025, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/refuted-memes-that-wont-stay-dead/1020488/80 "2025-07-05T18:32:57Z")
The movie **Commando** similar to Star Wars is also made fun of because of just how impossible Arnold standing in the middle of an open field is to hit. But the film does explain this, Bennet tells the General that all of his men are untrained and that him and Arnold could easily destroy the entire base without a sweat. And this is played out with literally the only person who can hit Arnold with a bullet is Bennett. So all of the Generals troops are indeed just completely incompetent to shoot a giant man the size of a barn door. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/refuted-memes-that-wont-stay-dead/1020488.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/refuted-memes-that-wont-stay-dead/1020488.md?page=5)