# Stupid errors that crop up repeatedly in TV shows and movies **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 29, 2014, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-errors-that-crop-up-repeatedly-in-tv-shows-and-movies/684866 "2014-03-29T23:33:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Accidental\_Martyr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ce7236/32.png) [@Accidental\_Martyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Accidental_Martyr)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-errors-that-crop-up-repeatedly-in-tv-shows-and-movies/684866/161 "2014-04-01T02:51:11Z")
> [@california\_jobcase](#): > > Another obvious car example is the lack of headrests on the front seats. They are removed so we can see the backseat passengers. Also cars without rearview mirrors to avoid seeing the reflection of the camera. ---
**Author:** ![ruh-roh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ruh-roh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ruh-roh)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-errors-that-crop-up-repeatedly-in-tv-shows-and-movies/684866/162 "2014-04-01T03:16:36Z")
Artificial gravity. Always taken for granted. Never explained. Seldom even acknowledged. Heck, if you can control gravity you can “dare I say it, take over the world”. The rest of the plot would be minor compared to the ability to control gravity. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-errors-that-crop-up-repeatedly-in-tv-shows-and-movies/684866/163 "2014-04-01T04:14:27Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > Lenses reflect the lights. Uhhhhh … yeah. That’s how you can tell when there’s _no lenses_ in the eyeglasses. It looks … dumb. :o Watch this episode of _ **The Untouchables** _ and you’ll see what I mean. Why bother putting eyeglasses on him _ **at all** _? 😕 https://www.youtube.com/embed/vQT2Y76vAto?feature=oembed&wmode=opaque ---
**Author:** ![psychobunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/54ee81/32.png) [@psychobunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychobunny)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-errors-that-crop-up-repeatedly-in-tv-shows-and-movies/684866/164 "2014-04-01T05:42:09Z")
So many medical things but the nitpicky one that drives me crazy is calling a code/pronouncing someone dead. They always make a big statement “Time Of Death: 6:51 PM”. You don’t actually have to make a pronouncement. It remind me of [this](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiCilTzhXrA). Nobody does that. Usually it’s more like “he’s not responding-let’s call it” Then you ask the nurse recording the code for the notes so you can put the time in your note although frankly nobody gives a crap about the exact time of death. If it’s not a code, it’s even more casual. As a resident, we covered for attendings who didn’t want to come in for routine things like death notices-so we got called for what we referred to as “Angel of Death” duty. The nurse calls you to tell you a patient has died, you go in and say “Yep, he’s dead” write a two line note and go back to bed while the nurse calls/tells the family. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-errors-that-crop-up-repeatedly-in-tv-shows-and-movies/684866/165 "2014-04-01T05:44:35Z")
One thing that bothers me is when someone who is supposed to be a saxophone player is holding the sax incorrectly. A sax is properly played with the right hand fingering the lower keys and the left fingering the upper keys, like the late [Clarence Clemons](http://www.theipinionsjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/clemonsb.jpg), for example. But occasionally, one sees an actor holding the sax with his right hand on the top and left hand on the bottom, as if in a mirror image. My high school band leader would have hit such a person over the head with his conductor’s baton. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-errors-that-crop-up-repeatedly-in-tv-shows-and-movies/684866/166 "2014-04-01T06:09:33Z")
> [@cochrane](#): > > One thing that bothers me is when someone who is supposed to be a saxophone player is holding the sax incorrectly. A sax is properly played with the right hand fingering the lower keys and the left fingering the upper keys. Next time you see _ **The Great Escape** _, watch how Steve McQueen plays the fife at the Fourth of July celebration. He holds it completely wrong and unless he’s invented a new style of fingering, he couldn’t play a tune on it that way to save his life! ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-errors-that-crop-up-repeatedly-in-tv-shows-and-movies/684866/167 "2014-04-01T06:17:49Z")
I remember watching an episode of _ **Wild, Wild West** _ where a marching band was parading down the street. I couldn’t say if _all_ of the musicians were holding their instruments wrong, but I do know the trombonist had never before held a horn in his hands. He kept waving it around from side to side out of time with the music and his slide positions made no sense at all. On an episode of _ **Columbo** _ aired a few weeks ago, John Cassavetes was “conducting” a symphony orchestra. Again, none of his gestures were even in time with the music. Yes, I know it’s just “acting,” but couldn’t they take a few minutes before filming to give the performers at least _some_ basic instruction in such things? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-errors-that-crop-up-repeatedly-in-tv-shows-and-movies/684866/168 "2014-04-01T06:32:46Z")
> [@Accidental\_Martyr](#): > > Also cars without rearview mirrors to avoid seeing the reflection of the camera. In the episode of _ **Murder, She Wrote** _ that was set in Moscow in the dead of winter, someone on the street (maybe it was Jessica; I don’t recall) is talking to a guy sitting in the back seat of a limo. They finish their conversation, and the guy rolls up his window, but before the limo pulls out, there’s a good two or three seconds where you can _clearly, **clearly** _ see the director, camera, and camera operator reflected in the glass from about three feet away! I remember watching that back in 1985 or '86 and going _ **“WTF?!?”** _ :eek: 😕 :smack: ---
**Author:** ![tellyworth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/977dab/32.png) [@tellyworth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tellyworth)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 7:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-errors-that-crop-up-repeatedly-in-tv-shows-and-movies/684866/169 "2014-04-01T07:36:16Z")
> [@Grestarian](#): > > One of the key plot points was that Morgan Freeman’s character pays his librarian friend to do a search of secret librarian records It was a [friend at the FBI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_w2-pAcYnHY), not a librarian. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 8:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-errors-that-crop-up-repeatedly-in-tv-shows-and-movies/684866/170 "2014-04-01T08:09:19Z")
> [@tellyworth](#): > > It was a [friend at the FBI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_w2-pAcYnHY), not a librarian. Doesn’t matter. Libraries don’t keep that kind of information, then or now. ---
**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:** [April 1, 2014, 8:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-errors-that-crop-up-repeatedly-in-tv-shows-and-movies/684866/171 "2014-04-01T08:45:27Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > Uhhhhh … yeah. That’s how you can tell when there’s _no lenses_ in the eyeglasses. It looks … dumb. :o > > Watch this episode of _ **The Untouchables** _ and you’ll see what I mean. Why bother putting eyeglasses on him _ **at all** _? 😕 You want to see the actor’s eyes, not the glare, but sometimes the glasses are necessary for the plot, or someone has decided they are necessary for the character. I’m not trying to justify it, just explain it. ---
**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:** [April 1, 2014, 8:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-errors-that-crop-up-repeatedly-in-tv-shows-and-movies/684866/172 "2014-04-01T08:57:34Z")
Here’s a specialty one that bugs me. When a character who is signing on TV (and _Switched an Birth_ is guilty, but it just happens to be a show with lots of signing, so I won’t pick on it especially; it happens every time there’s signing), the captions are always a really poor reflection of what is being signed. I’m sure it’s because the writers write, and then the Deaf actors do their own interpretations of the script, some of them making it very much ASL. As a result, there are better English translations than the original script, but the captions are taken from the script, not a reinterpretation of what the characters actually end up signing. It’s especially obvious when some American idiom, like “I’ll be your wing-man” appears in the captions. There’s no ASL equivalent of the idiom, so that character says something literal, like “I’ll support you,” or “I’ll help you,” but the caption still says “I’ll be your wing-man.” ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 9:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-errors-that-crop-up-repeatedly-in-tv-shows-and-movies/684866/173 "2014-04-01T09:02:41Z")
It’s usually quite obvious which actors have some practical experience with firearms and which have never held a gun before the prop guy handed them one and the director yelled “Action!” Holding a semi-automatic pistol with your thumbs in the crossed over position is not only a giveaway the actor hasn’t fired a handgun with live ammunition before, it’s a great way to do yourself an injury in real life (the recoiling slide will cause a nasty injury to one of your thumbs, which will will be in its way). ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-errors-that-crop-up-repeatedly-in-tv-shows-and-movies/684866/174 "2014-04-01T12:18:22Z")
Heh, yes, weapons and musical instruments do betray who has never had any training or experience with one. > [@RivkahChaya](#): > > You want to see the actor’s eyes, not the glare, but sometimes the glasses are necessary for the plot, or someone has decided they are necessary for the character. I’m not trying to justify it, just explain it. There are such things as nonreflective coatings for lenses, though they are not absolutely effective from all angles. ---
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-errors-that-crop-up-repeatedly-in-tv-shows-and-movies/684866/175 "2014-04-01T12:34:30Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > Here’s a specialty one that bugs me. When a character who is signing on TV (and _Switched an Birth_ is guilty, but it just happens to be a show with lots of signing, so I won’t pick on it especially; it happens every time there’s signing), the captions are always a really poor reflection of what is being signed. I’m sure it’s because the writers write, and then the Deaf actors do their own interpretations of the script, some of them making it very much ASL. As a result, there are better English translations than the original script, but the captions are taken from the script, not a reinterpretation of what the characters actually end up signing. > > It’s especially obvious when some American idiom, like “I’ll be your wing-man” appears in the captions. There’s no ASL equivalent of the idiom, so that character says something literal, like “I’ll support you,” or “I’ll help you,” but the caption still says “I’ll be your wing-man.” It is the same with subtitles. There are guidelines about how much text should be on screen at once, so what is said is often cut down to something simpler. What is much, much worse is something I see a lot on Swedish TV when Imperial/English units are used. They have a tendency to translate them to Metric and get it badly, badly wrong. A common one is the confusion over “mile”. Swedes insist, when speaking English, on using the word “mile” (or sometimes if you are lucky “Swedish Mile”) to mean 10 km (“mil” in Swedish) instead of, you know, multiplying by ten and saying that many km. More often than not the person they are speaking to has no idea what they are on about, so they have to explain it, or the other person just gets information that is out by a factor of ten. This often spills over into subtitles when, in English, someone will say something like “two miles” and the subtitles say “två mil”, which is 20km. Weight and temperature seem to be weirdly confusing for the translators too. ---
**Author:** ![Flywheel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Flywheel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flywheel)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-errors-that-crop-up-repeatedly-in-tv-shows-and-movies/684866/176 "2014-04-01T12:37:34Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > It’s usually quite obvious which actors have some practical experience with firearms and which have never held a gun before the prop guy handed them one and the director yelled “Action!” [“Yes, I know.”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearm_action) “…Well.” ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-errors-that-crop-up-repeatedly-in-tv-shows-and-movies/684866/177 "2014-04-01T13:19:33Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > You want to see the actor’s eyes, not the glare, but sometimes the glasses are necessary for the plot, or someone has decided they are necessary for the character. I’m not trying to justify it, just explain it. **[Voice of Graham Chapman:]** I meant that rhetorically. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-errors-that-crop-up-repeatedly-in-tv-shows-and-movies/684866/178 "2014-04-01T13:28:45Z")
> [@Grestarian](#): > > Okay, so I gotta ask this one 'cause it’s been bugging me for almost 20 years: > In 1995 (pre-Patriot Act) the movie Seven came out. One of the key plot points was that Morgan Freeman’s character pays his librarian friend to do a search of secret librarian records to find out who’s been borrowing books with biblical themes (or something like that) and gets a list of people to start questioning. > > So that kind of _list borrowers by key words_ ability actually existed? > > –G? Ha. No. BTW, lemurs SCREAM when the train’s coming. Before you can hear the train. It is terrifying. It sounds like a human being is being murdered in an alley. ---
**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:** [April 1, 2014, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-errors-that-crop-up-repeatedly-in-tv-shows-and-movies/684866/179 "2014-04-01T14:08:45Z")
Speaking of “actor has obviously never handled \ before in his life”, one that impressed me was Will Smith in _The Pursuit of Happyness_. It’s a plot point in the movie that Smith’s character can solve a Rubik’s Cube, and so Smith insisted on learning how to actually solve it. I can think of at least four other ways they could have filmed those scenes without Smith doing it himself, but they didn’t. ---
**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:** [April 1, 2014, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-errors-that-crop-up-repeatedly-in-tv-shows-and-movies/684866/180 "2014-04-01T14:20:59Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > Heh, yes, weapons and musical instruments do betray who has never had any training or experience with one. Clearly, Suzanne Crough had never seen a tambourine, or heard the word, before trying out for the role of Tracy Partridge. > [@](#): > > There are such things as nonreflective coatings for lenses, though they are not absolutely effective from all angles. I know there are, but for a one-off character, maybe it’s just easier to put empty frames on them, especially if the glasses are a last minute choice. This just doesn’t bother me. The ate-up military uniforms someone mentioned earier bother me much more, because I was actually in the Army. Also, when lawyers, or characters who deal with lawyers a lot (like the cops on L&O) misuse the phrase “Begging the question.” I know people misuse it all the time, but I think a lawyers, who had to take classes in logic, would know how to use it correctly. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-errors-that-crop-up-repeatedly-in-tv-shows-and-movies/684866.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-errors-that-crop-up-repeatedly-in-tv-shows-and-movies/684866.md?page=10)