# Threshold of Disbelief **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 6, 2018, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/threshold-of-disbelief/825689 "2018-12-06T17:22:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![D\_Odds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/d_odds/32/2882_2.png) [@D\_Odds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Odds)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2018, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/threshold-of-disbelief/825689/121 "2018-12-13T17:00:22Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > I get frustrated when good guys are essentially invincible and never die no matter what. It ruins any sense of suspense when you know the hero/protagonist is never in real danger. The \*Taken \*series were like this; you just knew nothing could kill Liam Neeson and it got exasperating. Sounds like every Steven Seagal movie I’ve watched. Can’t say if it’s every SS movie, as I stopped watching after about 4. ---
**Author:** ![dorvann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/df705f/32.png) [@dorvann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dorvann)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2018, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/threshold-of-disbelief/825689/122 "2018-12-13T17:10:26Z")
> [@D\_Odds](#): > > Sounds like every Steven Seagal movie I’ve watched. Can’t say if it’s every SS movie, as I stopped watching after about 4. You obviously never watched _Executive Decision_. ---
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2018, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/threshold-of-disbelief/825689/123 "2018-12-13T21:54:23Z")
Another data point on the CPR thing. My son, an EMT, says that once an EMT starts CPR they will not stop until they have reached the hospital. No rule or law, it’s just that nobody dies in the ambulance, no matter what. They are either dead at the scene or die in the ER. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2018, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/threshold-of-disbelief/825689/124 "2018-12-14T03:03:35Z")
> [@Biggirl](#): > > Another data point on the CPR thing. My son, an EMT, says that once an EMT starts CPR they will not stop until they have reached the hospital. No rule or law, it’s just that nobody dies in the ambulance, no matter what. They are either dead at the scene or die in the ER. Also might be done for red tape purposes. In my state, at least (unless this has changed in recent years) you aren’t dead at the scene until the coroner shows up and says that they are dead. So it is a common thing to pick up a corpse at a scene, “work on it” on the way to the hospital, and then pretend that they died there because it is “official.” ---
**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:** [December 14, 2018, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/threshold-of-disbelief/825689/125 "2018-12-14T04:06:29Z")
Way back the first time I ever learned CPR, as a teenager, the instructor (who was also an EMT) said that, because he was not a doctor, there was only a very limited set of circumstances under which he was allowed to declare death: IIRC, it was decaptitation, decay, or rigor mortis. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2018, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/threshold-of-disbelief/825689/126 "2018-12-14T04:43:07Z")
In the late 1970s my mother and bought a police scanner, and a succession of those were left turned on in the house literally 24/7 until they both died. I can’t count the number of times we heard from “chatter” that people at accident scenes were obviously dead only to later see in the news where they were “pronounced dead” “at the hospital.” Usually, when they say that someone is “in cardiac arrest” and on the way to the hospital, what they mean is that they didn’t want to wait for the coroner to arrive before transporting the body. ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2018, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/threshold-of-disbelief/825689/127 "2018-12-14T19:27:55Z")
> [@ExTank](#): > > Geography doesn’t generally bother me too much, unless it’s egregiously broken, like the “Mountains of Illinois.” I may not be remembering it correctly, but wasn’t there a scene in the first Star Trek reboot movie - the one with Zachary Quinto as Spock and Karl Urban as McCoy - where Kirk is blasting along in his car, and nearly runs into a cavernous, dramatic gorge… In the middle of Iowa. ---
**Author:** ![ExTank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@ExTank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ExTank)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2018, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/threshold-of-disbelief/825689/128 "2018-12-14T20:20:00Z")
> [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > I may not be remembering it correctly, but wasn’t there a scene in the first Star Trek reboot movie - the one with Zachary Quinto as Spock and Karl Urban as McCoy - where Kirk is blasting along in his car, and nearly runs into a cavernous, dramatic gorge… > > In the middle of Iowa. Yup. But I didn’t put it down to a natural geographical feature; looked too clean-cut. Now as to _why_ someone would want to make a mini-Grand Canyon in the middle of Iowa…I got nothin’. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2018, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/threshold-of-disbelief/825689/129 "2018-12-14T20:38:56Z")
> [@Biggirl](#): > > Another data point on the CPR thing. My son, an EMT, says that once an EMT starts CPR they will not stop until they have reached the hospital. No rule or law, it’s just that nobody dies in the ambulance, no matter what. They are either dead at the scene or die in the ER. Around here, an EMT will stop when they feel tired. They are taught that the chance of anyone recovering is minimal if the heart hasn’t started after 5 minutes. ---
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2018, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/threshold-of-disbelief/825689/130 "2018-12-14T21:36:16Z")
> [@ExTank](#): > > Now as to _why_ someone would want to make a mini-Grand Canyon in the middle of Iowa…I got nothin’. It was the Xindi with their space probe thingy. ---
**Author:** ![BrickBat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac91a4/32.png) [@BrickBat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrickBat)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2018, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/threshold-of-disbelief/825689/131 "2018-12-15T18:22:09Z")
> [@ExTank](#): > > Yup. But I didn’t put it down to a natural geographical feature; looked too clean-cut. > > Now as to _why_ someone would want to make a mini-Grand Canyon in the middle of Iowa…I got nothin’. ‘Pensacola, Wings of Gold’ always made me scoff. Now, Pensacola Fla actually has real honest-to-god hills…fairly steep ones. Noteworthy in billiard flat Florida, but the show’s action filming locations in the high desert of California is an insult to a cretin. ---
**Author:** ![dorvann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/df705f/32.png) [@dorvann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dorvann)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2018, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/threshold-of-disbelief/825689/132 "2018-12-15T18:42:42Z")
> [@BrickBat](#): > > ‘Pensacola, Wings of Gold’ always made me scoff. Now, Pensacola Fla actually has real honest-to-god hills…fairly steep ones. Noteworthy in billiard flat Florida, but the show’s action filming locations in the high desert of California is an insult to a cretin. I’m still trying to figure out the ending of the original Planet of the Apes as to where the Statue of Liberty ended up where it was because there is no terrain like that along the East Coast of North America. ---
**Author:** ![BrickBat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac91a4/32.png) [@BrickBat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrickBat)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2018, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/threshold-of-disbelief/825689/133 "2018-12-15T18:51:12Z")
> [@dorvann](#): > > I’m still trying to figure out the ending of the original Planet of the Apes as to where the Statue of Liberty ended up where it was because there is no terrain like that along the East Coast of North America. True. Even considering erosion over that long time frame, the surrounding cliffs of the beach are much much higher than the land of the NYC area. ---
**Author:** ![ExTank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@ExTank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ExTank)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2018, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/threshold-of-disbelief/825689/134 "2018-12-15T19:43:57Z")
> [@dorvann](#): > > I’m still trying to figure out the ending of the original Planet of the Apes as to where the Statue of Liberty ended up where it was because there is no terrain like that along the East Coast of North America. Well, 4,000+ years after a nuclear holocaust…sorry, I’m making excuses. Unless the [nukes were powerful enough to cause massive changes on a geological level](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0BtQxtVRWE;t=50s) (and a small cliff is pretty massive when talking about man-made weaponry). Still, you’d think after all that, a structure like the SoL wouldn’t still be standing. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2018, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/threshold-of-disbelief/825689/135 "2018-12-15T20:02:24Z")
If you thought the person you knew was the serial killer of a bunch of people, would you confront them alone without telling anyone about it? ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2018, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/threshold-of-disbelief/825689/136 "2018-12-16T04:05:37Z")
In Planet of the Apes, I wondered why the pre-apocolyptic humans bothered to airlift the Statue of Liberty to [the Palisades](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Palisades_%28Hudson_River%29). ---
**Author:** ![ExTank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@ExTank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ExTank)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2018, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/threshold-of-disbelief/825689/137 "2018-12-17T00:18:44Z")
> [@Johnny\_Ecks](#): > > **The worst way for a work to break the suspension of disbelief is to ignore its own rules**. Example: in the movie perfect stranger, a reporter investigates a tycoon she suspects murdered her friend. Turns out, she murdered the friend and used her investigation to frame the tycoon. Disbelief broken: we see many scenes of her conducting her investigations alone, when she had no reason to pretend- nor any reason to actually investigate! Another example: _[Gravity]([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbPZgOwnH4U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbPZgOwnH4U); t=11m19s)_. ---
**Author:** ![Guest-starring\_Id](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guest-starring_id/32/21736_2.png) [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2018, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/threshold-of-disbelief/825689/138 "2018-12-17T00:52:27Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > I love the SD! I ding a movie and we get a debate about the Cascades v the Rockies. And I learned something. Cool, yeah I was just about to hop on here for some tectonic refresher and boom, there we go. Coulda sworn there was another iteration or two of this, but only came up with this old thread about [movie scenes that defy logic](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=163241), among other threads that crossed over into the somewhat similar ground of annoying tropes and stereotypes. ---
**Author:** ![Noel\_Prosequi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b19c9b/32.png) [@Noel\_Prosequi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noel_Prosequi)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2018, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/threshold-of-disbelief/825689/139 "2018-12-28T18:12:28Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > Because they grew up watching Hawaii 5-0? 🙂 > > I swear, every episode had some equivalent of “Chin, get me the name of everyone that bought a number 2 pencil on the islands within the last month. Danno, check every gas station and see if someone bought gas in a blue chevy. Kono, get me the blueprints for the warehouse.” > > Even in this day of computer record keeping you can’t get this kind of data. Poor Danno would have to personally talk to every gas station attendant, including the ones not working every day. Well, there’s a week. I’ll get back to you, Steve. Chin probably thought, “I should have been a doctor, like my mom wanted.” Kono would have to personally dig though file cabinets to find decades old plans, if they even exist. And that assumes it isn’t a weekend. > > But even now, magikal “hackers” and FBI databases still are used to find this unfindable data on every procedural I watch. No mention of Magic Databases would be complete without reference to the CSI effect, where ordinary people treat tropes from crime fiction as real. In one of those cases that pops up from time to time which gets ludicrously excessive media attention disproportionate to its actual significance, an Australian woman named Schapelle Corby was convicted of transporting several kilos of cannabis into Indonesia in a plastic bag concealed in a bag with a boogie board. Her flight went from Sydney, stopped at Brisbane and finished at Bali, and she put the bag through the hold. Her account was that “someone” must have planted it in the bag as an elaborate scheme among baggage handlers to transport weed from Sydney to Brisbane. Corby claimed (as I recall) that she packed the bag at her home near Brisbane, then went to Bali via Sydney because reasons. I recall some genius who wrote a letter to the paper in the firm belief that he had Cracked the Case. Why hasn’t anyone, he said with a discernible tone of triumph, tested the plastic in which the cannabis was wrapped? If it came from Sydney, then that would clear her (not really, but let’s let that ride). If it came from Brisbane, she is in the poo. Poor letter writer had not considered that there is no database of plastic that would allow such a test, nor that commercial reality would mean that since plastic was fungible and therefore distributed around the country, there is unlikely to be Brisbane-bought plastic that could not have come from Sydney or vice versa. Clearly he was a fan of that species of show that solves narrative problems with patent forensic hand waves of the “with one bound, Jack was free!” school of narrative discourse. ---
**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:** [December 28, 2018, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/threshold-of-disbelief/825689/140 "2018-12-28T20:07:59Z")
And that’s even assuming that plastic from different places would be different to begin with. You _might_ be able to test the weed itself that way (if the databases etc. existed, which they probably don’t), but plastic is manufactured according to consistent recipes. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/threshold-of-disbelief/825689.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/threshold-of-disbelief/825689.md?page=8)