# Things Movies Almost Always Get Wrong **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 7, 2011, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494 "2011-02-07T06:45:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2011, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/21 "2011-02-07T14:26:36Z")
> [@BACI](#): > > All computers make beeping noises. All of them. Yeah, I was just watching an episode of _Babylon 5_ and noticing that The Future no longer has the technology to make silent computer monitors that don’t make blippity sounds when they display information. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2011, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/22 "2011-02-07T14:36:53Z")
A guy points a semi-auto pistol or a pump shotgun at somebody. The person doesn’t immediately do what the gun-holder wants him to do, so the gun-holder then jacks a round into the chamber. What was his intent prior to that: a poke in the ribs? Worse, someone feels the need to jack the slide on a pistol after he has already fired a round. I know it’s for dramatic effect, but it drives me nuts. The worst example of this was a movie about some military guys trying to save a bunch of horses. At one point, someone is required to walk down the line of horses and shoot each one with a .45 auto. He stops at each horse and racks the slide, which means he would be out of ammo after about three horses. Someone mentioned hanging from a ledge or other flat surface. The hero always manages to lever himself up onto the building or clifftop, just using his fingertips. Almost nobody can do this, other than the most accomplished rock climbers or gymnasts. ---
**Author:** ![Ronald\_C.Semone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/cc9497/32.png) [@Ronald\_C.Semone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ronald_C.Semone)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2011, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/23 "2011-02-07T14:36:53Z")
People walk up to a bar and tell the bartender they want “a beer” without specifying a brand and the bartender never asks them their preference. (This is especially odd in this day of rampant product placement in movies.) ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2011, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/24 "2011-02-07T14:50:05Z")
Everything beeps. I understand it’s for the audience, but motion detectors should not beep audibly! I have a really hard time losing myself in that scene from Aliens now; I always notice the stupid motion detector BEEP…BEEP…BEEP…BEEP…BEEP. For Marines! You don’t think they want to be quiet? Computers beep. I switched off all the beeping on my fax machine because it annoyed the piss out of me; why would I want my computer to beep every time I do something? Phones beep annoyingly. With the beer thing if they just said, “I’ll have whatever’s on tap” or something I could still buy it. I mean, I’d rather avoid the adverts, but it does jar me a bit. And now that TV Tropes has pointed it out, it drives me batty every time someone is threatening to shoot someone…and only then do they chamber a round or racks back the slide or make the “click-click” noise that signifies the gun is now ready to shoot. Especially experienced professionals! They should have the gun ready. I’m sure there’s more. I’ll be back if I think of it. ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2011, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/25 "2011-02-07T14:53:21Z")
People can be just “knocked out” with no long-term effect. Anything that can knock you out for more than a few seconds is SERIOUS. Concussions or even more serious damage can occur. Same with tranq darts. Unless the dart is custom tailored to the target, it will either have little to no effect from being to low a dose or will be a fatal overdose. ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2011, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/26 "2011-02-07T14:53:38Z")
> [@brocks](#): > > I mean things like this: in almost every adventure movie where somebody falls off of something and is hanging over space, they end up hanging on by one hand for an extended period of time while they are flailing around trying to get back onto the bridge or the ledge or whatever. > > Next time you go past a playground, go over to the jungle gym, grab an overhead bar with one hand, and see how long you can suspend your weight from it. Unless you’re unusually strong or light, I’ll bet it’s only a few seconds. Hanging from a flat surface like a ledge would be even harder than hanging from a bar, where you can wrap your fingers around it. [Mythbusters did this and agrees with your assessment.](http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/mythbusters-heroic-hang.html) ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2011, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/27 "2011-02-07T14:57:08Z")
It isn’t so much wrong but seeing **Anaamika** made me think of it: stereotypes in big public transportation places (airports, train stations). If you see someone who looks “India-ish”, it’s either two women in saris whose ages make them look like they may be mother and daughter (the older one has a red dot on her forehead, the younger one doesn’t; if any jewelry is displayed it’s a few bangles on the younger one), or a Sikh male with a salt’n’pepper beard and glasses. Choose one of those, add a drove of Japanese with their faces obscured by their cameras, and you’ve established that you’re in a “big location with lots of international movement”. There are apparently never any planes landing from Mumbay… ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2011, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/28 "2011-02-07T15:08:59Z")
If a character is muslim, he /she will sprout off weird and obscure Arabic terms that most muslims have absolutely no idea about. They want to show a devout/oppressed muslim woman. Have her wear a hijab …indoors, no matter what she is doing, in the Kitchen, watching TV, checking her kids homework looking in a mirror etc etc. S ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2011, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/29 "2011-02-07T15:13:54Z")
There’s numerous videos and [websites](http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/buickot3.htm) showing how ineffective a car door (much less a sofa, table, etc) is at stopping a bullet but you never see anyone actually get _shot_ through one. I’ll agree that a car door is better than just standing in the street but the movies would have you think they provide a 100% protection rate. ---
**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:** [February 7, 2011, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/30 "2011-02-07T15:20:03Z")
> [@](#): > > you never see anyone actually get shot through one. Usually not, but occasionally they make dramatic use of this. James Caan’s partner gets killed by a shot through a car door at the beginning of **Alien Nation** ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2011, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/31 "2011-02-07T15:30:37Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Usually not, but occasionally they make dramatic use of this. James Caan’s partner gets killed by a shot through a car door at the beginning of **Alien Nation** The whole car body. To be fair, it was a shotgun firing slugs and in the novelization it was a military shotgun loaded with saboted .50 bullets. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2011, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/32 "2011-02-07T15:36:02Z")
The overly-sophisticated graphical computer displays are a well-known item, but what really bugs me is when they have an overly-sophisticated graphical computer display for something they’ve just discovered or something that’s just occurred to them. “Bob, that’s a _completely new_ way of looking at the data that’s never occurred to us before! Pull it up.” Bob moves the mouse, and a rotating, 3-d, color projection of the data, cross-referenced against all known other databases, appears on the screen, with the a key plot point the characters are unaware of highlighted in red so that it attracts their attention. Nobody ever turns to Bob and says, “_Damn_, Bob, what the hell did you click? Teach ME how to do that!” > [@Jophiel](#): > > There’s numerous videos and [websites](http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/buickot3.htm) showing how ineffective a car door (much less a sofa, table, etc) is at stopping a bullet but you never see anyone actually get _shot_ through one. > > I’ll agree that a car door is better than just standing in the street but the movies would have you think they provide a 100% protection rate. My dad was in the infantry in WWII in Europe. He told me many times that when he first hid behind marble tombstones from German fire, he was stunned to see each rifle bullet would split the tombstone it hit and knock it right over, exposing the man hiding behind it. Later, he got up and ran beside a moving freight train, using a boxcar for cover, and machine-gun bullets punched right through the side of the train, walking down the car towards him. He said he hit the dirt again, furiously thinking “The movies LIED to me!” . ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2011, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/33 "2011-02-07T15:37:05Z")
> [@Labor](#): > > Actors never know the correct way to hold musical instruments. This is true when they are pretending to perform and when just carrying them around. > > Musical instrument repairmen would be rich if real musicians were as clumsy. I don’t know about that, I seem to read about a lot of stradivarius and guaneri [sp] or other high end stringed toys being left in cabs =) ---
**Author:** ![joebuck20](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/74df32/32.png) [@joebuck20](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joebuck20)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2011, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/34 "2011-02-07T15:38:45Z")
If someone shoots an embarrassing video of you and posts it on YouTube, everyone you know, and everyone that you’ll ever run into will see it within a matter of hours. ---
**Author:** ![soulmurk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b782af/32.png) [@soulmurk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/soulmurk)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2011, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/35 "2011-02-07T15:40:49Z")
Electronics and machinery work perfectly every time, the first time; unless it’s a suspenseful moment and they need them to not, in which case they’re frustratingly unreliable. Cell phones never die or need recharging unless, again, it can be used to build suspense/drama. ---
**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:** [February 7, 2011, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/36 "2011-02-07T15:41:37Z")
People riding, or being picked up by,winged animals where the animal’s wing span/area isn’t nearly large enough. Or people themselves who, for whatever reasons, have wings. You might be able to glide downward at an alarming rate, but never actually fly with the wings Hollywood gives you. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2011, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/37 "2011-02-07T15:42:43Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > It isn’t so much wrong but seeing **Anaamika** made me think of it: stereotypes in big public transportation places (airports, train stations). > > If you see someone who looks “India-ish”, it’s either two women in saris whose ages make them look like they may be mother and daughter (the older one has a red dot on her forehead, the younger one doesn’t; if any jewelry is displayed it’s a few bangles on the younger one), or a Sikh male with a salt’n’pepper beard and glasses. Choose one of those, add a drove of Japanese with their faces obscured by their cameras, and you’ve established that you’re in a “big location with lots of international movement”. There are apparently never any planes landing from Mumbay… Oh yeah. I mean, you can’t just have brown faces among the regular people. No, we have to be established as suitably exotic. I haven’t worn a salwar-kameez in public in like two years. I’m as American as they come and dress like one - but I’m still brown! The thing that’s been irritating me since I’ve been rewatching my X-Files is this. So the lab person has a picture of someone’s face up on the screen. Mulder says “Age him ten years” or “make him ten years younger”. And then with no command prompts on the screen at all, the person types furiously on their keyboard and the aging happens. What’s wrong? NO TOOLBARS. NO MENUS. So what are we supposed to assume? This person has every single key command memorized? Just open up the simplest picture editor most of you have on your computer; MS Paint. See that thing on the left? A TOOLBAR. See the thing across the top? A MENU. GRRR! RAWR SMASH! Oh yes, Son of a Rich, I really liked How to Train Your Dragon, but that really bothered me. I kept thinking the dragons, especially the big fat one with tiny wings, should never have been able to fly. Its wings should have been ripped off on any descent. But I don’t say things like that at home, though, or my SO gives me the hairy eyeball. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Cuckoorex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ad7895/32.png) [@Cuckoorex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cuckoorex)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2011, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/38 "2011-02-07T15:46:56Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > A guy points a semi-auto pistol or a pump shotgun at somebody. The person doesn’t immediately do what the gun-holder wants him to do, so the gun-holder then jacks a round into the chamber. What was his intent prior to that: a poke in the ribs? Worse, someone feels the need to jack the slide on a pistol after he has already fired a round. I know it’s for dramatic effect, but it drives me nuts. Oh, but this [really happens!](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBSi8qC0tFA) ---
**Author:** ![drastic\_quench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e36b37/32.png) [@drastic\_quench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drastic_quench)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2011, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/39 "2011-02-07T15:47:23Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > People usually taking turns to talk. People in films also don’t answer each others questions too. In real life, we do of course, but it makes for painfully tedious dialogue. It’s nice that this one actually improves the film. > [@Mangetout](#): > > Similar to the thing about hanging from one arm: > > If you’re falling you just grab something (even with one hand) and stop yourself - even if you’ve fallen 200 feet - you’ll be OK and your arm will not even be severely wrenched. > > If you’re falling anything that arrests your fall before you hit the ground (no matter how suddenly or violently it stops you) will save you. Years back there was a series of tactical action shooter games on the PlayStation called Siphon Filter. The main character, Gabe, had this uncanny ledge-clinging ability as a feature of the game. In one particularly unbelievable level, he must hang from a mountain bridge’s girder work, let go, drop thirty feet, and grab onto another girder below – all using only his finger tips. We used to rant about how that stunt would rip his arms right out of his sockets. Oh, and the sound effects accompanying Indiana Jones’s punches. Maybe a riff on the serials, but still. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2011, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/40 "2011-02-07T15:49:45Z")
All elderly Jews speak with an Eastern European, Yiddish accent. I once saw a college production of Merchant of Venice in which Shylock spoke with a Yiddisher accent. Wasn’t he from Venice? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494.md?page=3)