# 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:** 4
**Author:** ![Kolga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e56c9b/32.png) [@Kolga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolga)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2011, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/61 "2011-02-07T16:53:40Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > A diversion is needed, more often than not in a police station, so someone holds a match to an overhead sprinkler, causing all the sprinklers, the entire system, to spray out water and create havoc. My understanding is only the sprinkler(s) feeling the heat will spray water, not every single one in a building or on a floor. Insurance companies would go berserk at all the needless water damage. A corollary to this - a friend told me that most of the time the water in sprinkler systems is not sparkling clean like it’s portrayed in the movies, but that it’s kinda dirty. So, when you see people running through indoor sprinkler water, they should be getting filthy. Is this true, or was my friend pulling my leg? ---
**Author:** ![llcoolbj77](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/eb9ed0/32.png) [@llcoolbj77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/llcoolbj77)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2011, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/62 "2011-02-07T17:12:54Z")
People get stabbed once, in the general torso area, and they die… immediately… usually with just one last whisper of breath. No muss no fuss. Cold fusion is blue. I guess because it’s, um, cold. ---
**Author:** ![Waenara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/50afbb/32.png) [@Waenara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waenara)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2011, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/63 "2011-02-07T17:19:37Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > Light boxes don’t exist any more? I could have sworn I’ve seen them around in my doctors’ offices. I guess it depends on where you live. But in my experience, the vast majority of x-rays are now digital, and are displayed on computer monitors. If copies of an x-ray need to be send to a doctor, most often they email a digital image or send a file on a disc, rather than developing a x-ray film. So maybe some doctors office have light boxes on the wall even if they aren’t used very often - they just didn’t remove them since they might be needed now and then. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_Draper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Don\_Draper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Draper)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2011, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/64 "2011-02-07T17:23:04Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > In television programs especially, people who write books always have them in their hands by the time the episode ends. In reality, it can take up to two years for a book to go through the entire process. > > Similarly, every television appearance is done live to ensure that a hilarious mishap will be broadcast to the nation without any way of stopping it. That delay between writing a book and publishing it depends on what the book is being written about. Books can be rushed out pretty quickly if the publishers desire it (a particular subject becomes a hot media topic, they can have a book out in a matter of weeks.) An “acquaintance” of mine actually makes his living by writing cheapy biographies of recently deceased celebrites. Basically, when a famous person dies, he tosses together a book-length overview of their career and it gets rushed out to bookstores. When Michael Jackson & Farrah Fawcett died, he had separate books on each one of them out in stores in less than a week. Also, the old cliche about the studio camera running may have been ridiculously un-true many years ago. But in this youtube age, it happens quite a lot. Mel Gibson calling an interviewer an asshole, or Seth Green having a meltdown at the Robot Chicken studios are pretty well known examples. An age-old chestnut: The bar-room fight in which someone is tossed through a plate glass window - and gets up and walks away. Back when I was in college, some kid actually did get shoved through a bar-front window. He had massive lacerations over his entire body and basically was dead before he hit the ground. ---
**Author:** ![LionelHutz405](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lionelhutz405/32/536_2.png) [@LionelHutz405](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LionelHutz405)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2011, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/65 "2011-02-07T17:34:39Z")
> [@Kolga](#): > > A corollary to this - a friend told me that most of the time the water in sprinkler systems is not sparkling clean like it’s portrayed in the movies, but that it’s kinda dirty. So, when you see people running through indoor sprinkler water, they should be getting filthy. > > Is this true, or was my friend pulling my leg? Pulling your leg. Where would the dirty water be coming from? ---
**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, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/66 "2011-02-07T17:39:02Z")
> [@](#): > > Where would the dirty water be coming from? I don’t know if it’s true, but I could see this as probable. Think about it – the water is sitting in the pipes. It doesn’t circulate – it’s not part of the building’s water system. If it corrodes the pipes, sitting there year after year, the water fills with rust. Look at the water coming out of fire hydrants when they flush the hydrants – it’s brownish-orange, for precisely that reason. So the water from sprinklers has a pretty good chance of being brownish-orange dirty water, at first. But as soon as the rest of the reservoir kicks in, it probably goes clear pretty fast. And a modern system, with PVC piping, probably wouldn’t be dirty at all (assuming they use PVC for fire-control water. Would they do that with pipes that might melt?) ---
**Author:** ![Blackberry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecd19e/32.png) [@Blackberry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blackberry)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2011, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/67 "2011-02-07T17:39:46Z")
> [@LionelHutz405](#): > > Pulling your leg. > Where would the dirty water be coming from? Rust that accumulates in the pipes that are rarely used, or at least that’s what my sister told me. Are you calling my sister a liar? ---
**Author:** ![LionelHutz405](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lionelhutz405/32/536_2.png) [@LionelHutz405](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LionelHutz405)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2011, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/68 "2011-02-07T17:43:59Z")
> [@Blackberry](#): > > Rust that accumulates in the pipes that are rarely used, or at least that’s what my sister told me. Are you calling my sister a liar? Significant rust would clog the sprinkler heads. I suppose a small amount of rust could happen and is no big deal but ‘filthy’ water is unlikely. The one and only time I’ve seen a fire sprinkler go off the water was clean. ---
**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, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/69 "2011-02-07T17:44:56Z")
> [@Don\_Draper](#): > > An age-old chestnut: The bar-room fight in which someone is tossed through a plate glass window - and gets up and walks away. Back when I was in college, some kid actually did get shoved through a bar-front window. He had massive lacerations over his entire body and basically was dead before he hit the ground. Yeah, a kid got pushed through a big window like that when I was in high school, and it didn’t kill him, but he did have to go to the ER and get a ton of stitches. It was not pretty. ---
**Author:** ![Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mean_mr.mustard/32/3865_2.png) [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2011, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/70 "2011-02-07T17:52:59Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > People usually taking turns to talk. Exception: Robert Altman films. Mine: Two characters are standing together. One sees something scary/amazing/or otherwise remarkable. He stands there, eyes wide, mouth agape, speechless. So what does his partner do? Does he look to see the cause of this reaction? Nope. Instead, he _stares at the other guy’s shocked face!!!_ It is only when shocked guy holds up his trembling arm and points at the monster/carnage/whatever that his buddy turns his gaze outward. mmm ---
**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, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/71 "2011-02-07T17:54:17Z")
> [@](#): > > Significant rust would clog the sprinkler heads. The rust needn’t be in big clumps. The rusty water that comes out of the fire hydrants (or household plumbing, for that matter, when it’s been worked on) looks merely discolored – the rust particles are pretty small, and unlikely to clog the sprinkler outlets, which are, after all, made pretty large to let lots of water out quickly. And it wouldn’t invariably happen. One data point does not a rule make. ---
**Author:** ![Blackberry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecd19e/32.png) [@Blackberry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blackberry)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2011, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/72 "2011-02-07T17:54:35Z")
> [@LionelHutz405](#): > > Significant rust would clog the sprinkler heads. I suppose a small amount of rust could happen and is no big deal but ‘filthy’ water is unlikely. The one and only time I’ve seen a fire sprinkler go off the water was clean. I don’t know, but in a house with old plumbing that I used to live in, the bathtub water would run very clearly brown/red-brown for several seconds if it hadn’t been turned on for just days. And then another time my apartment in an older building had flooding from the bathroom of the unit above and it was also brown. At first I was so disgusted I wanted to die, but then I found out it was just rusty/dirty pipe water, not sewage. ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@Bill\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_Door)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2011, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/73 "2011-02-07T18:01:18Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > (snip)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!” > . Somebody should have explained the difference between concealment and cover. Concealment is good, but cover is better. One of the few examples of Hollywood getting this right was in _Terminator: The Sarah Connors Chronicles_ where a upholstered chair that shielded someone from bullets was later revealed to have been lined with armor. ---
**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, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/74 "2011-02-07T18:12:00Z")
> [@Bill\_Door](#): > > Somebody should have explained the difference between concealment and cover. Concealment is good, but cover is better. One of the few examples of Hollywood getting this right was in _Terminator: The Sarah Connors Chronicles_ where a upholstered chair that shielded someone from bullets was later revealed to have been lined with armor. That reminds me, I need to armor my Lay-Z-Boy this week. ---
**Author:** ![BwanaBob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bwanabob/32/2985_2.png) [@BwanaBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BwanaBob)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2011, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/75 "2011-02-07T18:12:18Z")
Covered in other threads but with rare exception (Australian films), they never get the idea of a crescent moon right. If it is evening in the northern hemisphere (locale for bif majority of films), the crescent moon should have its open end on the left, facing east, away from the sun. Only in the early mornings, and when the moon is waning should it appear with the open end on the right. I’ve seen loads of kids movies where kids are out on the porch in the evening, having a conversation and the moon appears like it does at 4 in the morning. Even worse is if they have a star twinkle in the dark portion of the crescent moon -as if that part of the moon isn’t there. ---
**Author:** ![Kolga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e56c9b/32.png) [@Kolga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolga)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2011, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/76 "2011-02-07T18:19:57Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > I don’t know if it’s true, but I could see this as probable. > > Think about it – the water is sitting in the pipes. It doesn’t circulate – it’s not part of the building’s water system. If it corrodes the pipes, sitting there year after year, the water fills with rust. > > Look at the water coming out of fire hydrants when they flush the hydrants – it’s brownish-orange, for precisely that reason. > So the water from sprinklers has a pretty good chance of being brownish-orange dirty water, at first. But as soon as the rest of the reservoir kicks in, it probably goes clear pretty fast. And a modern system, with PVC piping, probably wouldn’t be dirty at all (assuming they use PVC for fire-control water. Would they do that with pipes that might melt?) This was basically his explanation - water sits around and collects rust and deposits from the pipes. ---
**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:** [February 7, 2011, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/77 "2011-02-07T18:24:55Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > In the 1960s, _Star Trek_ introduced the idea of a self-destruct in space ships to visual SF. Although they threatened to use it, I think the only time they actually did was **The Doomsday Machine**. It served a useful plot point. Some minor nitpicks: In **The Corbomite Maneuver** , Kirk _bluffs_ that the Enterprise has a built-in device which will not only destroy the ship but contaminate a large region of space for several years. It’s a big fib, but useful enough that it’s used again in **The Deadly Years** , to trick some Romulan attackers into backing off. In **The Doomsday Machine,** the Constellation’s badly damaged impulse engines (“Aye. In her shape, it’s hard to keep her from blowing”) are allowed to destruct. And in **Let That Be Your Last Battlefield** , after the Enterprise has been hijacked ?five? times in previous episodes, Starfleet evidently decided that a self-destruct capability was a good idea, but it required a lengthy procedure in which the senior officers had to agree that yes, they’re really, really, really, really, really, really sure they want to do it. ---
**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, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/78 "2011-02-07T18:29:42Z")
> [@](#): > > Some minor nitpicks: In The Corbomite Maneuver, Kirk bluffs that the Enterprise has a built-in device which will not only destroy the ship but contaminate a large region of space for several years. That’s not a nitpick – I said that it wasn’t used. But the idea was certainly there – the first time I know it was raised since RCoM ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_T](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Gary\_T](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_T)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2011, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/79 "2011-02-07T18:30:08Z")
> [@BwanaBob](#): > > Covered in other threads but with rare exception (Australian films), they never get the idea of a crescent moon right. If it is evening in the northern hemisphere (locale for bif majority of films), the crescent moon should have its open end on the left, facing east, away from the sun. Only in the early mornings, and when the moon is waning should it appear with the open end on the right. I’ve seen loads of kids movies where kids are out on the porch in the evening, having a conversation and the moon appears like it does at 4 in the morning. Whether the crescent moon looks like ) or like ( depends on which hemisphere (northern/southern) and which phase (waxing or waning), but not on time of day. ---
**Author:** ![stegon66](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee59a6/32.png) [@stegon66](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stegon66)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2011, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/80 "2011-02-07T18:30:10Z")
> [@](#): > > People usually taking turns to talk. > [@](#): > > Exception: Robert Altman films. And Orson Welles. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494.md?page=5)