# You understand why they do it but it takes you out of the movie anyway **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 17, 2015, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-understand-why-they-do-it-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie-anyway/734928 "2015-10-17T19:48:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2015, 8:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-understand-why-they-do-it-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie-anyway/734928/141 "2015-10-20T08:31:39Z")
I neglected to mention that I do know why they do the fast hail–to save time on screen and keep the tension going. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2015, 9:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-understand-why-they-do-it-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie-anyway/734928/142 "2015-10-20T09:14:24Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > I heard an interview with the military advisor (R. Lee Ermey I think) for Full Metal Jacket explain how monumentally difficult it was to get the actors to behave as soldiers actually behave when under fire. He described how the actors wanted to just stand or crouch in full view, but said (IIRC) a “real soldier will do _anything_ to get cover when under fire, up to and including digging with his tongue if necessary” and that they had tenths of seconds to live, otherwise. > > Compare that to about 90% of all gunfight scenes. I think that advisor must have had limited combat experience. Being in plain sight is fine as long as you’re moving; no-one can adjust their aim faster than 1 degree per second, so you can comfortably run ahead of a stream of automatic gunfire. Similarly you’re safe as long as you’re near to something metal; bullets are magnetic, so will always hit (and spark off) handrails, pipes etc around you. ---
**Author:** ![OneCentStamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/13edae/32.png) [@OneCentStamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneCentStamp)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2015, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-understand-why-they-do-it-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie-anyway/734928/143 "2015-10-20T11:33:09Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > I think that advisor must have had limited combat experience. > > Being in plain sight is fine as long as you’re moving; no-one can adjust their aim faster than 1 degree per second, so you can comfortably run ahead of a stream of automatic gunfire. Similarly you’re safe as long as you’re near to something metal; bullets are magnetic, so will always hit (and spark off) handrails, pipes etc around you. This was brilliant. I ran the full spectrum of human emotions (internet version) in the fifteen seconds it took me to read it. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2015, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-understand-why-they-do-it-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie-anyway/734928/144 "2015-10-20T11:39:25Z")
Similarly. Well done ---
**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:** [October 20, 2015, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-understand-why-they-do-it-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie-anyway/734928/145 "2015-10-20T12:19:07Z")
Nobody uses a mouse on computers, it’s clackity-clackity-clack on the keys for a few seconds, the computer goes through some mandatory beeping and booping, and we see a generic progress bar from the 1990s saying “COPYING FILES” or such. Someone collapses, cop runs up to him, puts his fingers on his neck for about 2 seconds, and says “he’s dead”. No attempt to revive a person who was walking 30 seconds ago can ever be made, once the finger on the neck reading is done, that’s it. Saying “cover me” while tossing a handgun to someone. Yes, all the bad guys with their submachine guns are going to miss because someone might shoot them with a pistol from 100 yards away. ---
**Author:** ![Arcite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/67e7ee/32.png) [@Arcite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arcite)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2015, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-understand-why-they-do-it-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie-anyway/734928/146 "2015-10-20T13:17:55Z")
Audible explosions in space. I understand why they do it, because a huge explosion accompanied by no sound would look weird and take the casual viewer out of the movie. > [@Disposable Hero](#): > > Another example, engine noises which don’t match the obvious physical speed of cars in chase scenes, again its obvious why they don’t _really_ want to drive cars at 100 mph+ through heavy traffic on public roads, but unless the editing and production is well done its obvious the cars aren’t really driving that fast. Speeding up footage also falls under this category. I believe that the chase scenes in ‘Ronin’ were pretty much the real deal, but thats an exception. There’s a scene in _2012_ where John Cusack is trying to escape an earthquake, driving what is obviously a fairly new car, that should definitely have power steering, but the steering wheel has a lot of play and is flailing around left and right as though it didn’t. I guess that’s done for dramatic effect. > [@Morbo](#): > > “Zoom in and enhance!” - c’mon. Ah yes, the famous security-cam computer imaging software that can create detail that wasn’t in the original image. I barely understand why they do this. Just drop the “enhance” part and have them say “zoom in;” it would still have basically the same effect for the audience. > [@MoonMoon](#): > > Before the internet, I had no idea that coffee cups that were _obviously_ empty bugged so many other people too. It’s like a warm hug of nitpickiness. Before this thread, I had no idea that the coffee cups used in movies and TV shows were obviously empty. > [@Leaper](#): > > I can’t think of an example right now that actually takes me out of the movie or TV show or whatever, but the whole “timer down to 1” thing does bug me sometimes, EVEN THOUGH I UNDERSTAND IT’S DONE BECAUSE if it were much more, the audience wouldn’t feel as much suspense, and think, oh, there was no danger, there was plenty of time. Yes, another good example of something which we understand why they do, but it definitely takes me out of the movie. I’ve said that I’d like to direct my own action movie, just so I could have the hero defuse the bomb with 35 seconds still left on the timer. > [@BobLibDem](#): > > Nobody uses a mouse on computers, it’s clackity-clackity-clack on the keys for a few seconds, the computer goes through some mandatory beeping and booping, and we see a generic progress bar from the 1990s saying “COPYING FILES” or such. The flip side of the generic 1990s Windows progress bar is the super-slick computer GUI that doesn’t remotely resemble any real-life system. That takes me out of the movie because with a multimillion dollar budget it would be trivial to mock up a few screenshots from Windows or Mac. Along the same lines, the “tissue analysis” or “fingerprint search” or whatever program which actually displays a high-speed sequence of the images it’s analyzing. I understand why they do it because you want to show the audience that the computer’s actually doing something, but it takes people who know something about computers out of the movie because the computer’s wasting CPU cycles displaying the images for no reason. ---
**Author:** ![CGav8r](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/34f0e0/32.png) [@CGav8r](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CGav8r)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2015, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-understand-why-they-do-it-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie-anyway/734928/147 "2015-10-20T13:24:43Z")
Aviation-related stuff, mostly. A very unsurvivable crash - \*even if your were strapped in by a five point harness \*- is survived by all aboard an aircraft, even the hero and villain, who are actually fighting in the aisles (_Transporter 2_). The plane crash in hilly terrain that doesn’t end with a wing catching a hill and the plane cartwheeling into a fire ball (_Quantum of Solace_). ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2015, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-understand-why-they-do-it-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie-anyway/734928/148 "2015-10-20T14:01:13Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > 555 phone numbers, though this seems to come up less often these days. The first time I saw this in a movie as in the original BTTF. Girl gives Marty her phone number on a piece of paper, and it starts with 555. My instant reaction back in 1985 was, “She’s blowing him off! He’s gonna dial that number and get Information.” > [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > When somebody runs in and yells, “Quick, turn on the TV!” and the people already there don’t ask what channel to turn to. And the news item is apparently starting over again from the very beginning so that those watching the report get to hear all of it. In certain situations, people can run into a room so fast that time briefly goes backwards. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2015, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-understand-why-they-do-it-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie-anyway/734928/149 "2015-10-20T14:55:20Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > I think that advisor must have had limited combat experience. > > Being in plain sight is fine as long as you’re moving; no-one can adjust their aim faster than 1 degree per second, so you can comfortably run ahead of a stream of automatic gunfire. Similarly you’re safe as long as you’re near to something metal; bullets are magnetic, so will always hit (and spark off) handrails, pipes etc around you. I second **OneCentStamp** - freakin’ brilliant. You could write a piece titled something like “The Physics of Movie Gunfights” using this post as a kernel. Dress it up with some equations purportedly showing how the magnetic attraction between bullets and other metal objects manages to significantly alter their trajectory, and you’ve got it made. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![G0sp3l](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c68b51/32.png) [@G0sp3l](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/G0sp3l)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2015, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-understand-why-they-do-it-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie-anyway/734928/150 "2015-10-20T15:34:15Z")
When someone misses a commercial flight. There’s always a scene of them watching from a window or outside a gate as a plane takes off. There are hundreds of flights per day, per carrier. ---
**Author:** ![HowSoonIsThen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e56c9b/32.png) [@HowSoonIsThen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HowSoonIsThen)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2015, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-understand-why-they-do-it-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie-anyway/734928/151 "2015-10-21T02:44:41Z")
Maybe watching trials is a popular past time in the US, but I (in Australia) have never seen a court room gallery as crowded as they are in movies and TV shows. Usually it’s just family/friends of the parties and high school students. But I guess empty court rooms would make the scene feel… Well, empty. ---
**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:** [October 21, 2015, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-understand-why-they-do-it-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie-anyway/734928/152 "2015-10-21T02:52:46Z")
> [@HowSoonIsThen](#): > > Maybe watching trials is a popular past time in the US, but I (in Australia) have never seen a court room gallery as crowded as they are in movies and TV shows. Usually it’s just family/friends of the parties and high school students. But I guess empty court rooms would make the scene feel… Well, empty. Even in a rum-of-the-mill American courtroom it’s rare that they would be filled with spectators. Courtroom galleries often are filled, but most of the people are waiting for another case to be called. You don’t get an appointment time before a judge in a routine matter. You are told to show up when the court opens on the morning and then wait until your matter is called. A case with some notoriety that has been covered in advance by the press might attract spectators. That does happen. But that’s hardly the case on any given day. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2015, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-understand-why-they-do-it-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie-anyway/734928/153 "2015-10-21T03:28:22Z")
> [@OneCentStamp](#): > > This was brilliant. > [@Princhester](#): > > Similarly. Well done Wow, I’m blushing. Ironically, a rare “hit” for me 🙂 [quote=] Audible explosions in space. I understand why they do it, because a huge explosion accompanied by no sound would look weird and take the casual viewer out of the movie. [/quote] With “sound in space” I try to just assume the camera’s “ear” is pressed up against the object. It would be interesting to see a film try to explicitly do this; make all the sounds as if they are reverberating through solid media, interspersed with silent shots. Not sure if it would work or just be confusing though. WRT explosions, we can probably calculate what it would sound like if 1. You could survive being inside the explosion and 2. The amplitude of said sound was vastly reduced If the result sounds weird, then good…we would have a distinct “space explosion” sound. ---
**Author:** ![Marlonius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/838e76/32.png) [@Marlonius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marlonius)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2015, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-understand-why-they-do-it-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie-anyway/734928/154 "2015-10-21T03:38:19Z")
> [@Disposable Hero](#): > > Underwater scenes filmed in beautiful crystal clear water, for example a character falls into a river in the middle of a city but somehow its like a beautiful clear Bahama’s sea beneath the water. Again, they do this because (a) the audience needs to see whats actually going on and (b) it wouldn’t be healthy to use actual rivers etc given what’s in most of them, but it still takes me out of a movie. Further to your point, the characters who are underwater can always tell what they’re doing (for example, untying someone’s knots to rescue them), whereas in real life, without goggles, it’s a big non-distinct blur - never mind water clarity or lack thereof. ---
**Author:** ![Kenm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bc79bd/32.png) [@Kenm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kenm)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2015, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-understand-why-they-do-it-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie-anyway/734928/155 "2015-10-21T03:43:27Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > If the result sounds weird, then good…we would have a distinct “space explosion” sound. It would become iconic, another Wilhelm scream, used for the next 60 years at least, having turned into an inside joke after 15. I wonder how old ricochet sounds are. They might be on Edison cylinders. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2015, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-understand-why-they-do-it-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie-anyway/734928/156 "2015-10-21T03:54:39Z")
> [@Kenm](#): > > It would become iconic, another Wilhelm scream, used for the next 60 years at least, having turned into an inside joke after 15. You may as well say a shotgun blast is another Wilhelm scream. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2015, 9:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-understand-why-they-do-it-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie-anyway/734928/157 "2015-10-21T09:16:53Z")
The glasses thing bothers me in a different way - when glasses-wearers in films take off their glasses to talk to somebody, staring at them intently. They are permanent glasses-wearers and it’s otherwise made obvious that these are not reading glasses, which you might well take off in that context. People who have to wear their glasses all the time wouldn’t be able to see the person they’re having this intense conversation with; they’d end up squinting and the other person would ask if they were OK. Or they just take their glasses on and off randomly. The X-Files TV show did this well, with Scully using glasses at her computer but not otherwise; hers were just reading glasses, and some people do use those at the computer even when they don’t need them when reading physical documents. Other shows fail almost all the time. In keeping with the thread title, I understand why they do this: they want to show the actor’s facial expression unhindered by glasses. But it’s still annoying. With the TV show Haven the main actor did it so much that it was one of the reasons I stopped watching after a few episodes. He obviously wasn’t that great an actor and thought of his glasses as a prop to take on and off and twirl around rather than something that his character, the person he was supposed to be pretending to be, actually needed them to see. If he couldn’t get into the character then it makes it more difficult for me to do so too. Similarly, when a character loses their glasses that they wear all the time but then carries on with no problems whatsoever. They’d be bumping into things because, if nothing else, their depth perception would take time to adjust. Often these are characters with really thick lenses before they lose them, too. Again, I can understand why they do this, but it’s still annoying. ---
**Author:** ![OneCentStamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/13edae/32.png) [@OneCentStamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneCentStamp)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2015, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-understand-why-they-do-it-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie-anyway/734928/158 "2015-10-21T12:04:06Z")
> [@SciFiSam](#): > > The glasses thing bothers me in a different way - when glasses-wearers in films take off their glasses to talk to somebody, staring at them intently. They are permanent glasses-wearers and it’s otherwise made obvious that these are not reading glasses, which you might well take off in that context. People who have to wear their glasses all the time wouldn’t be able to see the person they’re having this intense conversation with; they’d end up squinting and the other person would ask if they were OK. > > Or they just take their glasses on and off randomly. I remember this being specifically mocked in a late-80s/early-90s episode of _Saturday Night Live_ hosted by Alec Baldwin. The skit was titled something like “Handsome Actors’ School” and featured Baldwin acting out a bunch of ridiculous movie tropes. One of them was that a handsome actor must wear glasses… **removes glasses with a flourish** …so that he can whip them off for dramatic effect. ---
**Author:** ![Gothic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/839c29/32.png) [@Gothic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gothic)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2015, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-understand-why-they-do-it-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie-anyway/734928/159 "2015-10-21T12:14:11Z")
Avatar, every time Jake Sully woke up. ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2015, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-understand-why-they-do-it-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie-anyway/734928/160 "2015-10-21T13:26:39Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > With “sound in space” I try to just assume the camera’s “ear” is pressed up against the object. You can also try to assume that the spacecraft’s sensor system is generating sounds to help the pilot know what’s going on in the area without having to look at a radar screen or other visual display. I’ve seen that used as an explanation before. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-understand-why-they-do-it-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie-anyway/734928.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-understand-why-they-do-it-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie-anyway/734928.md?page=9)