Scenes that pull you out of the movie

Cafe Society
61

[QUOTE=Hampshire]
Star Wars I (Phantom Menace).
Okay so the whole movie sucked. But were talking about what “pulled you out” of the movie right?
So Star Wars is in a galaxy “far far away” right? We got that from the original trilogy. Another time, another place, yada yada.

So we get to the pod race sequence and what do they throw in? A two headed sports casting announcer based on every American major leauge sports caster stereotype. Like somehow the western world invaded the Star Wars universe.
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How about in the second movie where they enter a bar showing robot football on big screens? Or, the 50’s style diner replete with a short-order chef and nasal-voiced waitress? Argh! Leave the American arcana out of the Star Wars universe please.

62

[QUOTE=JKilez]
Leave the American arcana out of the Star Wars universe please.
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Make that “Americana”.

63

[QUOTE=USCDiver]
I just reread the triology a few weeks ago, and IIRC, the ghost army is used to defeat the Corsairs as they are heading up Andruin towards Osgiliath so that Aragorn can bring the armies he’s recruited from South Gondor to help in the war. I don’t think the ghost army ever makes it to Minis Tirith.
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No, that is correct, they don’t.

There is at least two major differences between the Ghost Army in the books vs. the movies. In the books they don’t get as far as Minas Tirith, and it also isn’t clear if they do any actual physical killing of the bad guys, or if they just scare the crap out of them.

Significantly the army that is attacking Southern Gondor (in the books) consists mostly or entirely of men, so you don’t have to wonder about if Orcs would find spirits of dead humans scary. The Ghost Army scares the bad guys away then leaves, and then the good (living, breathing) guys can follow Aragorn north to liberate Minas Tirith.

I see why Jackson didn’t do it this way, it would have required casting and outfitting hundreds more extras for what would have ended up being only a few minutes in the final film, and probably would have confused the heck out of audiences unless he threw in a lot of maps and explanation.

So instead we have the green Scrubbing Bubble Ghost Army liberating Minas Tirith by atttacking the oliphaunts. FWIW I’m pretty sure Jackson wasn’t crazy about it either but he knew he would never hear the end of it if he left the Ghost Army out.

64

[QUOTE=Laughing Lagomorph]

So instead we have the green Scrubbing Bubble Ghost Army liberating Minas Tirith by atttacking the oliphaunts. FWIW I’m pretty sure Jackson wasn’t crazy about it either but he knew he would never hear the end of it if he left the Ghost Army out.
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I highly doubt the director of The Frighteners cused the idea that he might have to put ghosts in th movie.

65

[QUOTE=D_Odds]
For the first time in a long time, I saw a horror movie in a theater this weekend, Saw III. On at least two occassions the antagonist appeared out of somewhere that the antagonist could not be. This isn’t a supernatural flick. The antagonist was hidden in the room, wearing a big-ass mask, where s/he should have been easily spotted hours earlier. Rather than being frightened, I’m thinking, “How did s/he get there? How did the victim not notice?”
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Sounds pretty similar to my problem with the original Saw, which was:

[spoiler]what, these guys are trapped in a room with a “dead body” for like six hours, and not once do they catch him breathing? Or making the tiniest movement? As if!

My wife called it in the first few minutes of the movie. “Watch, I bet that dead body is really the killer!” I said, “…nah, that would be too stupid. They couldn’t possibly expect us to believe that.” And yet they did.[/spoiler]

66

[QUOTE=Loach]
Now that I think of it there is a scene in Godfather II that pulls me out of the movie. A hit is put on Hyman Roth. He gets whacked in the airport when he turns himself in surrounded by federal agents. Mafia hitmen generally like being paid for killing people and they like to be around to spend the money. The hit on Roth was a suicide mission. I have never heard of the mob doing anything like this.
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Jack Ruby?

67

[QUOTE=Evil Captor]
Any scene where the protagonist has to do something, has been TOLD he should do it, has ALL sorts of good reasons for doing it (whether it’s marry the princess/search for the mcguffin/visit the wise man, whatever) but for some reason just won’t do it.
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[shrug] That happens all the time IRL.

68

[QUOTE=shelbo]
Jack Ruby?
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No

69

[QUOTE=Ferret Herder]
I didn’t believe Denise Richards as a nuclear physicist because she looked like an undergrad or grad student at most, and she sucked pretty badly at acting like someone with that level of knowledge.
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I usually can’t watch a movie or TV show where the entire cast looks like they just stepped off a fashion runway. It screams “Hollywood actors.” Yeah, one fox in a work place, I can see, but unless you work at Vogue or something, at least some of your coworkers will look at least normal.

I really want to like Shark because I love James Woods, but this will probably keep me from watching it.

70

[QUOTE=PoorYorick]
I usually can’t watch a movie or TV show where the entire cast looks like they just stepped off a fashion runway. It screams “Hollywood actors.”
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cough GreysAnatomy cough :rolleyes:

71

[QUOTE=Max Torque]
Sounds pretty similar to my problem with the original Saw, which was:

[spoiler]what, these guys are trapped in a room with a “dead body” for like six hours, and not once do they catch him breathing? Or making the tiniest movement? As if!

My wife called it in the first few minutes of the movie. “Watch, I bet that dead body is really the killer!” I said, “…nah, that would be too stupid. They couldn’t possibly expect us to believe that.” And yet they did.[/spoiler]
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They tried to explain this in Saw III. I didn’t follow that piece as I hadn’t seen Saw or Saw II, but now it makes better sense.

He drugged himself to slow his breathing and heartrate.

72

[QUOTE=OneCentStamp]
cough GreysAnatomy cough :rolleyes:
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Yeah, I know it’s a TV show and all but I can’t help but ask my wife when it’s on “Would you really want to be a patient in a hospital like that with all the doctors and nurses running around sleeping with eachother and bringing their personal drama to work with them every day?”

73

[QUOTE=HubZilla]
“My axe is in his nervous system” by Gimli in the Two Towers. Would the folks of middle earth really know what a nervous system is and how it acts? Or use the words “nervous system”?

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I noticed that one, too. Which probably explains why the scene didn’t make the cut for the theatrical release.

74

I just saw **Little Miss Sunshine ** today. Great movie. However, just before the little girl is going to go on for her talent competition, her mother says, “Is that your costume?” It’s just not conceivable to me that the mother wouldn’t know what the little girl’s costume was, and indeed wouldn’t have been involved in making or acquiring it. The movie is so good that I give this a pass, (and the familie’s lack of knowledge about the nature of her performance is a plot point) but it just sort of jumped out at me while I was watching.

75

[QUOTE=randwill]
I just saw **Little Miss Sunshine ** today. Great movie. However, just before the little girl is going to go on for her talent competition, her mother says, “Is that your costume?” It’s just not conceivable to me that the mother wouldn’t know what the little girl’s costume was, and indeed wouldn’t have been involved in making or acquiring it. The movie is so good that I give this a pass, (and the familie’s lack of knowledge about the nature of her performance is a plot point) but it just sort of jumped out at me while I was watching.
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Given that you acknowledge it as a plot point (from the very first scene of the movie) – actually it’s more part of the premise rather than just a plot point – and given the movie’s pains to paint the various eccentricities of the characters – I don’t see how it could pull the viewer out at the end of the movie.

76

[QUOTE=Push You Down]
I highly doubt the director of The Frighteners cused the idea that he might have to put ghosts in th movie.
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Well guess what? You’re wrong!

I listened again to the director’s/writers commentary on the Return of the King Extended Edition. Jackson specifically states he didn’t like the idea of a ghost army from a story point of view because an immortal army at one’s command becomes an unstoppable force that kind of eliminates dramatic tension. He tried to deal with this by playing up the uncertainty as to whether or not the Army of the Dead would in fact follow Aragorn or not.

Peter Jackson obviously has no problem with ghosts in movies per se, but he recognized as other people did upthread that these particular ghosts as depicted in this particular movie created plot difficulties.

77

[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
[shrug] That happens all the time IRL.
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Lots of things happen all the time IRL that have no place in a movie. RL and movies are different. In short, if my hands were made of metal, that might mean something.

78

How about where the protagonists do something incredibly stupid and against their own characters that it pulls you out of the movie. Frex, in Star Wars I, Obi Wan and Calgon Jim buy Anakin from the slaver, but leave his mother enslaved.

At that moment, I’m going what? You’re going to leave the mother of a potentially very powerful Jedi Knight enslaved on a distant planet? WTF? Nothing but good can come of that? It was so obviously a piece of “managed” stupidity that it pulled me right out of the film.

79

[QUOTE=Evil Captor]
How about where the protagonists do something incredibly stupid and against their own characters that it pulls you out of the movie. Frex, in Star Wars I, Obi Wan and Calgon Jim buy Anakin from the slaver, but leave his mother enslaved.

At that moment, I’m going what? You’re going to leave the mother of a potentially very powerful Jedi Knight enslaved on a distant planet? WTF? Nothing but good can come of that? It was so obviously a piece of “managed” stupidity that it pulled me right out of the film.
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It’s worse than that. They left her enslaved, when they had the means to buy her. Follow me here:

Qui-Gon makes two bets with Watto. The first bet is their ship (that silver SR-71) against the parts they need to repair it. The second bet is Anakin’s freedom against Anakin’s pod racer. Qui-Gon does try to get Shmi in the bargain, but Watto says, “No pod is worth two slaves.” He takes the bet, though, so it seems that a pod can be worth one slave. And he’s pissed after the roll of the die that it turns out to be Anakin, who apparently he’d rather keep than Shmi.

Okay, so, the pod race ends, and Anakin wins. That means Qui-Gon wins both Anakin and the parts to fix the ship, free and clear. They keep their ship, and they keep the pod. Just before they leave, Anakin sells his racing pod, and apparently for a good price (and why not, it’s the pod that beat Sebulba). Shmi, when shown the money, is impressed and says, “That’s wonderful, Ani!”

So…why didn’t they use the money from the sale of the pod to buy Shmi from Watto? They didn’t need the money for anything else; they already had Anakin and the parts they needed. Watto apparently made other bets on the race, and he very likely needed money to cover them. It was established earlier that a pod is worth about one slave, and Anakin apparently got a great price for his. And it seemed earlier like Watto didn’t much care whether he lost Shmi anyway. So, why not buy her? They never even offered to buy her. For that matter, even Anakin didn’t think, “Hey, why don’t I use this cash to buy Mom’s freedom?” It’s just a big hole that the writer failed to fill.

80

[QUOTE=Evil Captor]
How about where the protagonists do something incredibly stupid and against their own characters that it pulls you out of the movie.
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For example, Claire Sterling’s falling in love **with a psychotic serial killer ** in “Hannibal”? Oh yeah, that fits into her character.