# 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:** 9
**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 8, 2011, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/161 "2011-02-08T04:06:17Z")
> [@Patch](#): > > I hate it in movies when the guy’s semi-auto (or full-auto) firearm goes empty, and the gun goes click-click-click. True, all the semi-autos I know of lock the slide open when the magazine empties. I’m not sure however about full-autos; would it make a difference whether it was an open-bolt or closed-bolt auto? ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2011, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/162 "2011-02-08T04:08:18Z")
> [@Don\_Draper](#): > > When Michael Jackson & Farrah Fawcett died, he had separate books on each one of them out in stores in less than a week. less than a week? SHIPPING takes a week. I’ve seen a book in my store a hair under four weeks after an event (9/11), but that cost a freaking fortune in printing and shipping charges, it was poorly-edited, and it was almost all pictures. > [@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. One anecdote is not a generalized truth. I went through a sliding glass door and landed on hands and knees in the broken glass, and got up and walked away with minor scrapes. I also put my hand through a garage window almost unharmed. > [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](#): > > Nobody ever says ‘goodbye’ on the phone. This gets to me. They ask a question, get an answer, and hang up. Who does that? > [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > Also, I do love how sub-machine guns and shotguns can be fired accurately with one hand. I can fire a shotgun reasonably accurately (it’s a shotgun, after all) with one hand, as long as I’m only firing once. Forget repeat firing. And firing an Uzi one-handed on full auto? I doubt it. ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2011, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/163 "2011-02-08T04:12:41Z")
[quote=“Gary “Wombat” Robson, post:162, topic:570494”] This gets to me. They ask a question, get an answer, and hang up. Who does that? [/QUOTE] My dad. But it’s true that this is unusual behavior. (And for good reason, because it is freaking _annoying_.) ---
**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:** [February 8, 2011, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/164 "2011-02-08T04:13:21Z")
One that just occurred to me recently, that you’d think the moviemakers would know better: An actor or actress is on stage, and is looking out into the audience to see if their True Love showed up to the performance. Anyone who’s ever been on stage can tell you that it’s really hard to see _anything_ in the audience: The auditorium is unlit, and you’ve got very bright lights shining right into your face from that direction. You might be able to see the power light on a camcorder, but you’re not going to be making out faces unless you step in front of the stage lights, which isn’t something you’d ever do in most performances. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2011, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/165 "2011-02-08T04:24:00Z")
Forgot to mention my pet peeves. Have you ever seen an email client that flashes a big “message sent” graphic taking half the screen? How about a huge “access denied” when you mistype a password? Here’s a big one: looking at the footage from a security camera at a little store. It’s grainy and dark. “Zoom that in. Enhance that.” Suddenly you have a crystal clear image better than I could take with a ten-megapixel camera and professional lighting. And they do it all without touching a pointing device to pick the area to enlarge. Hacking. It’s boring, tedious, and often involves social engineering rather than computer skills. Virtually all movies and TV get it wrong. “Show me everyone between Fifteenth and Forty-third streets that bought a pair of white Nike cross trainers between January and March of 2009.” Tap tap tap. Beautiful map with names, addresses and shoe sizes; labeled and color-coded by race and gender. ---
**Author:** ![obfusciatrist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/4af34b/32.png) [@obfusciatrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obfusciatrist)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2011, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/166 "2011-02-08T04:35:00Z")
[quote=“Gary “Wombat” Robson, post:162, topic:570494”] This gets to me. They ask a question, get an answer, and hang up. Who does that? [/QUOTE] Me. ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2011, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/167 "2011-02-08T04:35:48Z")
> [@obfusciatrist](#): > > Me. …Dad?! ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2011, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/168 "2011-02-08T04:37:32Z")
> [@obfusciatrist](#): > > Me. Then don’t expect an answer out of me next time you call! Really. Is it that hard to say, “thanks, bye”? ---
**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 8, 2011, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/169 "2011-02-08T04:39:09Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > One that just occurred to me recently, that you’d think the moviemakers would know better: An actor or actress is on stage, and is looking out into the audience to see if their True Love showed up to the performance. Anyone who’s ever been on stage can tell you that it’s really hard to see _anything_ in the audience: The auditorium is unlit, and you’ve got very bright lights shining right into your face from that direction. You might be able to see the power light on a camcorder, but you’re not going to be making out faces unless you step in front of the stage lights, which isn’t something you’d ever do in most performances. [watch your backstop](http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2006-05-02) 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Agnostic\_Pagan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c4cdca/32.png) [@Agnostic\_Pagan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agnostic_Pagan)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2011, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/170 "2011-02-08T05:31:26Z")
[quote=“Gary “Wombat” Robson, post:165, topic:570494”] Here’s a big one: looking at the footage from a security camera at a little store. It’s grainy and dark. “Zoom that in. Enhance that.” Suddenly you have a crystal clear image better than I could take with a ten-megapixel camera and professional lighting. And they do it all without touching a pointing device to pick the area to enlarge. [/QUOTE] Criminal Minds had an episode where they got this right. Little girl is lost in a mall, and Garcia moves into the mall’s security office with only her laptop. She finds a shot of the girl and when asked to enhance it, she basically says no way with the hardware she has, at least not in any amount of time to do any good. ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2011, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/171 "2011-02-08T05:47:45Z")
> [@bengangmo](#): > > My one is the magic stop elevator button - I have NEVER seen one of these Not anymore, but they used to exist and I have used the to have a little quality time with a girlfriend if you catch my drift. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Hippy\_Hollow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hippy_hollow/32/4841_2.png) [@Hippy\_Hollow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hippy_Hollow)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2011, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/172 "2011-02-08T06:00:37Z")
Mine are music related. People pick up a guitar and never need to tune it. They pick it up and instantly start jamming. Ensembles always play in harmony, in time, even if it’s the first time they’ve played together. Drummers can wail away and everybody can be heard perfectly fine. In my grad school band, our drummer knew to play fairly softly so we could hear each other. Amplification is rarely needed. One guy, one guitar can easily be heard in a large auditorium. ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2011, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/173 "2011-02-08T12:43:22Z")
[quote=“Gary “Wombat” Robson, post:165, topic:570494”] … How about a huge “access denied” when you mistype a password?.. [/QUOTE] **“password incomplete, do you wish to continue?”** ---
**Author:** ![Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Attack_from_the_3rd_dimension)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2011, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/174 "2011-02-08T12:48:25Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > Granted this is the Third World, but even modern Western-style hospitals in Bangkok still use lightboxes for X-rays. AND they use digital too. I had two shoulder surgeries in the second half of 2008, and while I saw the doctor in his office at the modern, private BNH Hospital, I had to take my X-rays with me to the government-run Chulalongkorn Hospital, where he performed the actual surgery. In fact, I neglected to go pick up my X-rays when I first went over to see him at Chula, because I missed the part where I was supposed to do that and thought they would be sent over, so it turned into a wasted trip. Obviously I was wrong. Light boxes are all but obsolete where I work. Only older mammograms still get read with a type of light box. That said, now that I think about it, I think my area invested in computerized viewing because of geographical isolation, so maybe we’re farther ahead of the curve. - we’re usuallly last adopters. ---
**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 8, 2011, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/175 "2011-02-08T12:50:45Z")
> [@](#): > > One anecdote is not a generalized truth. I went through a sliding glass door and landed on hands and knees in the broken glass, and got up and walked away with minor scrapes. I also put my hand through a garage window almost unharmed. I’ve heard of many cases of cuts gotten by going through glass, and saw one case myself – the breaking glass forms radial cracks, which turns the window into a collection of wedge-shaped shards, each with a nasty sharp cutting edge. It’s an invitation to injury. Tempered glass is sup[posed to fragment into less damaging, rounded pieces, and maybe that’s what you went through. But I’ve seen lots of warnings about the danger of going through ordinary glass windows. And, FWIW, Hollywood stuntmen don’t go through glass – the windows are actually panes of some substance that isn’t glass, but shatters easily and relatively harmlessly, generally spun sugar “candy glass”. ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2011, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/176 "2011-02-08T12:56:45Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Speaking of Catholicism… nuns haven’t worn floor-length gowns since I was in second grade (well over 40 years) in real life, but always wear them in the movies. I expect there’s probably a few orders out there that still use them, but these days many orders of nuns don’t wear habits at all. It seems like nobody in Hollywood has been inside a church since the 1940’s. One that gets me is when you see a funeral in a Catholic church, and everything is draped in black. These days, purple is used for mourning, although I’ve heard of white being used as well. They never use black trappings anymore; I suspect that most Catholic churches don’t even have them. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2011, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/177 "2011-02-08T13:25:30Z")
In many of the examples here – such as the one about stage lights, the weird telephone behaviour, Wombats computer examples, and Hippy’s music examples – I disagree that these are cases in which the film “got it wrong.” These are cases in which they intentionally deviate from fidelity to reality in order to serve sone purpose other than being completely realistic. Movies are a part of the tradition of dramatic performance, which has throughout history incorporated conventions and shorthand that deviate from reality. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2011, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/178 "2011-02-08T13:42:38Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > After Vatican II nuns started transitioning from the medieval gowns & attached headress to normal black/blue/grey dresses & skirts and smaller veils. Then the veils became optional. Now nuns don’t really dress any differently from other modestly dressed women. > > Keeping them in a habit of some kind is convenient visual shorthand that make’s it clear they’re a nun. Some TV shows are more realistic. This season of **Big Love** has a Roman Catholic nun who doesn’t were a habit and the Law & Order shows have had nuns who didn’t were habits. Also IRL _younger_ nuns are apparently more likely to were a habit than their elder sisters. The real ones wear veils which do not look like an upturned galleon, though (google images clarisas, for example) whereas the ones in movies would have a minimum of four sails. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2011, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/179 "2011-02-08T14:11:38Z")
> [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](#): > > Obviously I was wrong. Light boxes are all but obsolete where I work. Only older mammograms still get read with a type of light box. That said, now that I think about it, I think my area invested in computerized viewing because of geographical isolation, so maybe we’re farther ahead of the curve. - we’re usuallly last adopters. In my experience, specialists have the fancy screens (well, specialists and my dentist) but the doc in the box you go to when you think you might have broken your foot the day after Thanksgiving has a light box. ---
**Author:** ![Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Attack_from_the_3rd_dimension)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2011, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494/180 "2011-02-08T14:33:58Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > In my experience, specialists have the fancy screens (well, specialists and my dentist) but the doc in the box you go to when you think you might have broken your foot the day after Thanksgiving has a light box. Again, not the case here in the hell of socialized medicine we call Canada :D. No physical films are being created in this province, except maybe some mammograms in the North and I doubt that most of Canada makes actual films. Where are you and your broken foot? EDIT: Ah, South Carolina. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-movies-almost-always-get-wrong/570494.md?page=10)