# Things that totally ruin the suspension of disbelief in a movie **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 3, 2007, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-totally-ruin-the-suspension-of-disbelief-in-a-movie/394438 "2007-03-03T17:26:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![ouryL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ouryl/32/6067_2.png) [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2007, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-totally-ruin-the-suspension-of-disbelief-in-a-movie/394438/181 "2007-04-25T23:08:37Z")
[QUOTE=KayElCee] What kind of bubble bath are you using? I’ve never rinsed off after a bubble bath in my life, and I’ve never been sticky. [/QUOTE] :dubious: Mr. Bubble doesn’t count!! :mad: ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2007, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-totally-ruin-the-suspension-of-disbelief-in-a-movie/394438/182 "2007-04-25T23:19:45Z")
[QUOTE=BobLibDem] High school gymnasiums. No matter how big the high school looks in the rest of the film or how many students you see walking the halls, the gymnasium will have only about 4 rows of bleachers. [/QUOTE] Or how high school students dress. Judging from film and TV the typical high school girl wears designer clothes and is perfectly free to bare her midrift and wear miniskirts. ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2007, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-totally-ruin-the-suspension-of-disbelief-in-a-movie/394438/183 "2007-04-25T23:51:58Z")
[QUOTE=alphaboi867] Or how high school students dress. Judging from film and TV the typical high school girl wears designer clothes and is perfectly free to bare her midrift and wear miniskirts. [/QUOTE] As someone who spends a lot of time in high schools…find yourself a richer white one and, yes, they do. -Joe ---
**Author:** ![Kythereia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e8c25b/32.png) [@Kythereia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kythereia)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2007, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-totally-ruin-the-suspension-of-disbelief-in-a-movie/394438/184 "2007-04-26T00:18:07Z")
Excerpted from [the Evil Overlord List](http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html): > [@](#): > > 1. My ventilation ducts will be too small to crawl through. > > 2. Shooting is not too good for my enemies. > > 3. If it becomes necessary to escape, I will never stop to pose dramatically and toss off a one-liner. ---
**Author:** ![Chessic\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7c8e57/32.png) [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2007, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-totally-ruin-the-suspension-of-disbelief-in-a-movie/394438/185 "2007-04-26T01:03:47Z")
How about when the characters pause to ask stupid questions that they should already know the answer to, in order to inform stupid audience members. The worst one is the movie about the volcano that’s going to explode. Some “expert” says something like “enough magma will come out [blah blah blah]” and the geologist goes “uh, magma?” afterwhich she dutifully informs him that it’s subterranean lava. Dude, you’re a GEOLOGIST!! I know you at least went through the fourth grade!! How do you not know what magma is?! Also, as for accents, a lot of period movies in English (like 300) default to using the “American Theater Standard” accent which sounds very british. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2007, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-totally-ruin-the-suspension-of-disbelief-in-a-movie/394438/186 "2007-04-27T06:23:24Z")
My all time favorite is “The Green Mile” and it has NOTHING to do with the supernatural aspects of the story. It’s this (SPOILERS SPOILERS…the movie is old so I ain’t boxin’ The time period is the Depression. The setting is the South. A HUGE posse is searching for two tiny little blonde girls. They are found dead and covered with blood in the arms of a gigantic black man. And the giant black man ends up IN JAIL?!?!?!??!?!??!??!?!?!??!?!?!?!??! WHO ARE YOU KIDDING? Black men were lynched for looking at a white woman funny, a black man cradling the bloodied bodies of two girl children would be tarred, feathered, castrated and hung faster than you can read that sentence. ---
**Author:** ![Catamount](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/catamount/32/2840_2.png) [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2007, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-totally-ruin-the-suspension-of-disbelief-in-a-movie/394438/187 "2007-04-27T13:14:43Z")
[QUOTE=IntelSoldier] How about when the characters pause to ask stupid questions that they should already know the answer to, in order to inform stupid audience members. The worst one is the movie about the volcano that’s going to explode. Some “expert” says something like “enough magma will come out [blah blah blah]” and the geologist goes “uh, magma?” afterwhich she dutifully informs him that it’s subterranean lava. Dude, you’re a GEOLOGIST!! I know you at least went through the fourth grade!! How do you not know what magma is?! [/QUOTE] I can’t stand it when a movie that’s trying to be A-list pulls that stunt. That technique is straight out of 1950s B Sci-Fi flicks. See any number of MST3K episodes for examples. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2007, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-totally-ruin-the-suspension-of-disbelief-in-a-movie/394438/188 "2007-04-27T13:28:27Z")
[QUOTE=alphaboi867] Or how high school students dress. Judging from film and TV the typical high school girl wears designer clothes and is perfectly free to bare her midrift and wear miniskirts. [/QUOTE] A handful still do, but for most like my daughter it’s jeans every day. Probably a lot of the writers are about my age and remember when girls really did dress like Marcia Brady at school. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2007, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-totally-ruin-the-suspension-of-disbelief-in-a-movie/394438/189 "2007-04-27T13:39:20Z")
[QUOTE=friedo] Then there’s the fact that whenever someone is carrying a styrofoam coffee cup, you can tell it’s empty. _The West Wing_ is a serial offender here. During every obligatory walk-and-talk, every character carries a coffee cup and just lets it swing along in their hands as they walk. Why do they do it that way? BECAUSE THERE’S NOTHING IN IT! For God’s sake, at least put some water in there to force the actor to carry it the right way! And of course, when they take a sip, they tip the cup much too far, and if there was really any coffee in there, they would have burned their face off. [/QUOTE] This was the one I wanted to mention. It has extra irritation value because, as you point out, it is so easy to avoid. Mind you I think it is not restricted to styrofoam cups just cups in general. There is a fine example at the start of _Children of Men_ when Theo has bought his cup of coffee, added some rum to it and then when he spills it appears to have a third of a cupful. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-totally-ruin-the-suspension-of-disbelief-in-a-movie/394438.md?page=9)