We all know that unless we’re watching a particularly well-researched and historically accurate documentary that the things featured in films and TV shows simply aren’t real. The writers and directors have to take certain creative liberties to create drama and tension and move the story along.
However, once you know something to be factually false, it can take you out of the story. Redditor u/Eatar sparked an interesting discussion on r/movies when they asked everyone to use their technical knowledge to ‘ruin’ popular movie tropes for everyone else. Scroll down to see what they shared. But be warned, Pandas, you might not be able to look at fire alarms, chloroform, silencers, and courtroom drama the same ever again!
#1
“Enhance!”
Anytime they take some grainy footage or picture then the tech specialist taps a few buttons, zooms in, and makes the license place of the car in the parking lot 2km away fully legible. Like pulling the pixels from thin air.
Anytime they take some grainy footage or picture then the tech specialist taps a few buttons, zooms in, and makes the license place of the car in the parking lot 2km away fully legible. Like pulling the pixels from thin air.
That’s not how that works, that’s not how any of that works.
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231points
#2
My sister is an architect and absolutely hates the spy trope of maneuvering through the air vents. air vents are designed to hold air, not people. they’d certainly collapse under the weight of fully grown, muscular man.
Negative_Gravitas:
Plus, even if it didn't collapse, it would be like crawling through a drum kit. The bad guys would hear you two floors away.
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219points
#3
The obligatory corset lacing scene in any period piece, particularly if the woman has to hold a bed post while she's being tight laced, PARTICULARLY if she's not wearing anything under the corset. These scenes are media shorthand for 'look how oppressed women were back back then' and perpetuate a lot of myths. For one, very few women tight-laced their corsets, only those who were extremely fashionable (on this note, you also shouldn't believe every antique photo of wasp-waisted women you come across - folks edited their photos back then too). For another, tight-lacing only even became possible part way thru the 1800's when metal grommets started being used for eyelets - in previous decades and centuries, these would be hand-stitched, and would rip if you even tried to tight-lace (here's looking at you, Pirates of the Caribbean). For a third, ALL women wore these garments for back and bust support, stomach support (when you spend a lifetime bearing kids, this comes in clutch), and garment support (wearing layers of petticoats, skirts, etc. would be extremely uncomfortable if hung directly off your waist). And finally, they were NEVER worn directly against your skin! They'd have been worn over a chemise, which would protect your skin from rubbing, and protect the corset from your body oils since it's a difficult item to wash.
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219points
When we go to the cinema or put on a movie at home, we’re entering into a sort of unspoken agreement with the team behind the entire project. They promise to entertain us somehow. Meanwhile, we subtly promise to go along with the story… so long as most things make sense within the context of the story.
The audience willingly suspends its disbelief, and in return, they get to go on a journey of adventure, intrigue, romance, mystery, horror, or all of the above.
#4
If you put the lights on the inside of your space helmet, you wouldn't be able to see s**t outside of your space helmet.
Of course, if you put the lights on the outside then we wouldn't see your pretty face. 😞
217points
#5
Any server room ever, or whenever they put racks of high power computer equipment in a scene to make it look techy, and then proceed to have a normal conversation at normal volume. Server rooms and server hardware is f*****g loud. The fans are f*****g loud. The ac units are f*****g loud. I generally need hearing protection when I’m in a server room. Literally no movie server rooms are realistic.
204points
#6
Against popular opinion, an explosion will not “blow you to safety”. You are going to be dead, my dude. A shockwave can cause rupture of your lungs in an instant as well as where any gas pockets in the body live. Gut, sinus cavities, ears. Thermobaric shockwaves can leave a spider web of fractures in the skull. Long story short, if you’ve been thrown by a blast, you may not be dead now but you will be soon.
192points
The main issue when it comes to immersion is believability. When building up the world of the film, the director, producers, and writers have to pay attention to how the details work together in unison. Let’s reiterate that everything has to make sense in the context of the story that’s being told.
For example, you can certainly enjoy a story about knights, dragons, and political intrigue even though dragons don’t exist. However, everything would fall apart if you suddenly added poor story development, stiff dialogue, irrational battle tactics, and illogical character motivations that flip-flop from one episode to the next. The events can (and even should!) be dramatic, but they have to be somewhat grounded and believable. You have to build up to the payoff instead of slapping your audience with illogical ‘twists’ that will make them grumble at the water cooler the next day.
#7
A ton of foley effects are basically just things we've been trained to expect earlier use in other movies. Swords don't make *shing* sounds when they're just being waved through the air (or even when pulled out of most types of scabbard), and even when hitting other swords they make more of a clacking sound most of the time. Punches are sometimes more realistic but a lot of movies use foley from smashing watermelons. Real eagles make sounds more like seagulls (the standard foley sound is a hawk). The MGM lion roar is actually a tiger sound. My favorite: a lot of animal sounds in movies are actually just Alan Tudyk.
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186points
#8
Tying a rope around your waist will not save you from a fall. Climbing harnesses go around yout pelvic bone and hips. They are designed to stretch to cushion your fall and place all your body weight on your a*s, which can take it. Tying a random rope around your waist will crush your internal organs and break your spine.
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185points
#9
In apocalypse the leather and natural fiber stuff will rot away first and the polyester and Lycra and spandex will last forever. So road warriors will be in lulu lemon.
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178points
"There can be a dragon. The dragon can swear, smoke cigars, and drink whiskey if it wants to. But if it starts talking about cigars and whiskey and gets basic facts (which are easily found) wrong, someone's going to notice, and that will pull them out of the moment. The audience will willingly accept the big stuff, or they wouldn’t watch the movie. It's the small stuff that's distracting, and sometimes you wonder if they could've avoided it,” writer and movie fan Christopher Burke explained to Bored Panda earlier.
#10
Mine is a complete misunderstanding of the weight of money. I think Way of the Gun pretty well nailed it, in that our protagonists wanted a million dollars in unmarked twenties and fifties or something, and I think it was two good-sized heavy-a*s duffel bags. This is accurate, because the weight of an American bill is about a gram, so you can figure the math from there.
Which brings me to that Zack Snyder Netflix Zombie Movie. So, Hiroyuki Sanada wants Dave Bautista to loot $200 million from a casino vault. At this point, I don’t even care about zombies; I start thinking about how to move that kind of cash. Like, physically move it; not like how to launder it or anything like that. Even if every single bill in that casino’s vault was a hundred dollar bill, we are talking about two thousand kilograms, or about 4,400 pounds, and the plan is to fly it out on what appears to be a UH-1H “Huey.” Problem is, they’ve got a big group, but we can sidestep that, because we know people gonna die. So, let’s say they’re planning on half of the people getting out. I think that ends up at seven people (I don’t know, because I haven’t seen this steaming pile of s**t since it was new), and we will just ballpark each person at 70 kilos, or about 154 pounds, which leaves about 2500 pounds for payload and, y’know, fuel. Well, now we’re already down to $100 million and change, which is great for the seven people, but this is still assuming everyone who walked into the casino with cash had $100 bills and nothing else.
At this point, Dave Bautista should have done some basic math on the napkin of the s****y restaurant he was working in and told Hiroyuki Sanada to go f**k himself, and everybody would have been a lot happier, including the audience.
171points
#11
Electricity has no idea what color wire it is flowing through. While there are standards colors for certain things (Black and red come to mind), trusting the mad bomber to follow any kind of color scheme is never done.
169points
#12
The fire alarm is a good one. The male lead pulls the alarm, and his lady love kisses him while the water romantically showers them both. As an electrician who has been there while they change the system, that water stinks and is black and disgusting. Chances are, especially in old school buildings, that water has been sitting in those pipes for possibly years. Whole generations of bacteria have lived their lives in those pipes. That s**t is the worst smell, it stinks up whole rooms when they drain it. And it’s nasty brown black. I don’t think I could kiss someone that just took a shower in it.
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167points
"Every now and then, I find myself focusing on something that just takes me out of it. Information is readily available. I would rather that the movie makers created a fictitious train, such as the T line, than use a real line and have it go where it doesn't belong (and no one has a problem with this)," the author gave an example of how subway systems should (not) be used in films.
"Using Vancouver or Toronto for Brooklyn is fine. I accept that. Using Hoyt–Schermerhorn as a stand-in for City Hall is fine, too,” he urged the teams creating movies to do some proper fact-checking so that they could maintain the immersion for more people for longer.
#13
Private investigators existing in some legal gray area where they’re willing to risk their lives/do highly illegal s**t for clients. I make good money as a PI, I’m not about to risk my license to do anything illegal for a client, and I’m certainly not going to get in a fist fight on the roof of a high rise building.
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165points
#14
As someone who competitively rode horses for over a decade, my husband now reflexively looks at me whenever a horse appears on screen because there's always just so many things I have to eye roll at.
The most common offense is the horse neighs that are piped in as the hero rides on/off screen. Amazing that they're vocalizing without moving their mouth/nose.
The "majestic stallion" is almost NEVER a stallion as they're notoriously difficult to work with, and you shouldn't pair with an unexperienced actor. And sometimes you can tell the horse changes gender or markings between scenes due to multiple horses being used.
Some actors and actresses are pretty good riders, but a lot of them are just hanging on for dear life.
I'm also remembering at the end of Hidalgo, Viggo's character let's his horse go free and as he's dramatically galloping away you can clearly see he still has horseshoes on. Like congrats he's free, but is gonna be crippled in no time with no one maintaining those shoes.
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161points
#15
There are virtually never surprises in court, and 98% of the work is done before you ever get in front of a judge. Most court events other than trials are minutes long. Shout out to my homies who drive an hour or more to attend a five minute status conference.
158points
#16
Gun silencers don't magically make bullets completely quiet.
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156points
#17
The scientists who knows everything about everything…That person doesn’t exist. I work as an organic chemist, and I regularly have to consult with biochemists and molecular biologists because it’s not feasible to be an expert in even field that are directly adjacent to my own.
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156points
#18
People cutting the palm of their hands when blood is needed. I would prefer to cut a lot of places on my body BEFORE the palm of my hand because YOU NEED THAT. You are going to be moving that hand. It's not a trivial pain either.
Maybe if you've got a love handle, or part of a butt cheek. Maybe someone can help me out with "best place to draw blood." I'm pretty pain resistant, but some of the worst injuries to heal are the palm. Or between the fingers.
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152points
#19
Autism isn't a superpower. My extensive knowledge of geeky s**t isn't useful, I hate math, and no movies ever want to talk about the intense fear of death a lot of autistic folks deal with.
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144points
#20
Virologist here. Any movie, be it 28 Days Later zombie movie, or any other movie with a dangerous virus that acts in seconds or minutes is a Hollywood trope. Viruses do not, cannot act that fast. At best you might have something happen after 24 hours but even that is fast.
Why? Because the virus has to do some things in the body that take time. It needs to get in, find a receptor to bind to, go through the process of getting into a cell. Then once in the cell it has to go through the process of reproducing itself, then releasing those viruses which find other cells and do the same process. It does not happen in a blink. Those steps take some time.
Nor are you infectious immediately on exposure. Again the virus has to go through this process above before someone will be infectious.
And if you really want to talk about real life, be it COVID, the flu or common cold, you will get exposed to the virus, it will go through this process over a day or so, then you will be infectious but will not yet have symptoms. You are infecting others before you know you have millions of virus particles inside you. So if you are at work and a coworker has a cold it is good to avoid them, but if you interacted with them the day before when they had no cold, you were potentially exposed and may get the cold yourself. And as I teach students, the symptoms you experience are not due to the virus, but your immune response to the virus. Otherwise you would not be asymptomatic yet have the virus raging inside of you. When your body recognizes the foreign invader you start to get symptoms. One last tid bit, you are sick longer than you are infectious. With a cold you might be infectious till day three or four of symptoms or so, then no longer, but you still have several days of symptoms to go.
Ironically as a scientist, my beef with 28 Days Later was just this. Yet having zombies running around eating people I am able to suspend belief. I am a scientist hypocrite.
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144points