# Vista level Bonehead mistakes in movies.



## psychotick (Oct 7, 2011)

Hi Guys,

I think the title says it all. I'm curious as to what you think are some of the most stupid mistakes directors and producers make in making movies. 

I've already mentioned one in another thread, the Vista level stupidity of producing a movie that's too dark to see and thus turning it into a radio program. That one drives me nuts, and I only mentioned it after a frustrating afternoon of watching Thor on DVD and wondering what the hell was going on for half of it. But AVP Requiem was just as bad. On the other hand,and what should really bother these overpaid hollywood types, Pitch Black wasn't.

But I'll chuck in two more pet hates for fat to chew on.

Throwing away the script is another pet peeve of mine and the most blatent example of that would have to be Highlander II. For a long time I would have rated Highlander as one of the best movies of all times. Which made its first sequal, a poor movie in its own right, one of the worst. I mean why take a beautiful simple fantasy, and try to turn it into some strange sci fi action flick with mood lighting?

And then there's the other classic which completely killed Tomb Raider, squeezing every last ounce of fun out of the movie. Tomb Raider was supposed to be fun. An adrenaline junkie action flick with a sexy MC, a few good laughs, and of course a happy ending. A female James Bond. But the sequal starts with bad - her friends get killed, gets worse when she has to team up with a borderline psycho ex, turns sick when they have a sleazy romantic interlude with him, and then ends horribly when she kills him. Its almost as though some moron went out and said, just how dark and morose can we make our fun action flick?

Anyway, those are the ones that annoy me most. Over to you guys.

Cheers.


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## TheTomG (Oct 8, 2011)

While I am not sure what "vista level" means (I am assuming the OS though I have had no real trouble with it myself)

My pet peeve to add to the ones already mentioned (which are also pet peeves of mine) is "Let's remake this perfectly good movie since special effects are better today, and because it was a big hit before bound to be a big hit again, and because we can't think of anything new."

What usually happens in the process is the loss of character, charm, mood and other things that contributed to the original. But yes, the CGI is usually better (big deal).


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## psychotick (Oct 8, 2011)

Hi Tom,

Yes the OS absolutely. Making an operating system that can't run your older games has to be one of the most stupid business decisions ever made. There was a reason Microsoft got sued by users who didn't want it put on their new PC's and demanded retrofitting XP.

And yes again, too often when they make the new version full of speciall effects wizardry they do lose story and characterizations. 

I'm filled with dread at the thought of what the US will do with two of my favourite shows, Primeval and Being Human when they produce them. I certainly don't like the new doctors much, but then I haven't really enjoyed them that much since Tom Baker. But on the other hand, they did take a rather cheesy Battlestar Galactica and turn it into something far better - until the end, when none of it made any sense anymore.

Cheers.


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## Mouse (Oct 8, 2011)

They've already re-made Being Human.  ^

That's my pet hate. Remaking a film (or TV show) that's already in English. For example, Death at a Funeral. British film made in 2007. Remade by the Americans in 2010. That's _three years_. I mean, come on!! Fair enough if the film is decades old, but three years?! We're all speaking the same language, aren't we?! 

I refuse to watch the 2010 version.


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## psychotick (Oct 8, 2011)

Hi Mouse,

You're probably right not to. It was poor at best. The same dialogue almost word for word, but not nearly as funny.

Cheers.


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## Dozmonic (Oct 8, 2011)

I've not found a movie that's dark enough it makes it unwatchable, not with the ability to increase brightness and alter contrast - especially if watching the dvd through your computer.

I'm not a fan of altering characters and lines when making a movie based on a book if the change doesn't make sense. Lord of the Rings is one of the worst offenders for that.


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## Cayal (Oct 13, 2011)

1. Shaky camera.

2. Remakes.


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## Daisy-Boo (Oct 13, 2011)

Cayal said:


> 1. Shaky camera.
> 
> 2. Remakes.



GAAAH! I _hate _shaky camera. Used in the proper context it can be very effective but these days shaky cam is everywhere and it can ruin a good scene or show. There was one episode of Breaking Bad where the shaky cam was so noticeable that it distracted me from what was happening in a very tense scene. So annoying.


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## Moonbat (Oct 13, 2011)

I'm beginning to hate Hollywood remakes of very very good foreign language films. Two very recent examples are

Let the Right one in - 2008 Sweedish masterpiece
Let me in - 2010 Hollywood remake with less everything except the one thing that the original didn't have (and was better for it) action.

The Millenium Trilogy (Girl with the dragon Tattoo) - 2009 Sweedish Masterpiece based on best selling novels

The Girl with the dragon Tattoo (not done the trilogy yet) - 2011 Hollywood remake that will no doubt be more action oriented and lose all its grace and power.


I also hate the Hollywood formula, Romantic comedys are a spawning ground for the patently obvious formulae, it goes something like

Boy meets girl
Boy and girl fall in love
Boy does something wrong
Boy loses girl
Boy realises how much he loves girl
Boy makes grand gesture to win girl back

Several times I've been wathcing a romance flick and have thought, well that was a good 90 mins, and a nice story about how love can be ruined if you don't respect your girlfriend, only to be horrified for another 30 mins as he somehow wins her back.

But also, and probably more devastating is the generic formulae for all films, be they action, comedy, drama or anything else. Batman Begins was a perfect example of a great 1st half, but then it descended into a Hollywood blockbuster that was almost an hour too long and had to have the big bad almost winning and the hero surviving by a hair's breadth.

I'm getting angry just typing it, so I will stop now.


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## Metryq (Oct 13, 2011)

Daisy, do you mean the "ShakyCam™" meant to heighten the action of a scene and create a fake sense of cinema verité, or do you mean the equally annoying "Hill Street Blues Cam™" that drifts and wanders all over the scene aimlessly?

And remakes aren't just remakes anymore! With its vanishing stock of creativity, Hollywood has come up with the terms re-imagining and reboot!  The home video marketers love it because then everyone runs out to buy the original(s), too, and then compare them and argue about it on Web forums.


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## Rodders (Oct 13, 2011)

I don't mind shaky cam, remakes don't bother me so much. (If an American remake of a known foreign film brings more attention to source material, then i'm of teh opinion that it's a good thing.) 

My biggest hate is the making of obviouslty bad sequels purely because the original was huge. The Matrix being a prime example. Somebody looked at those scripts, knew they were rubbish but green lit them anyway because the knew we'd come. How insulting is that? Grrr


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## Diggler (Oct 14, 2011)

The wanton use of sex and nudity. I'm not a prude by any means. But why do movies need to rely on copious amounts of half naked bimbo's, and boob shots to get bums on seats?

Remaking of Foreign films for an English speaking audience drives me bonkers. If people are either too illiterate, stupid, bigoted or lazy to read subtitles, that's their loss! Asian cinema has unluckily suffered the biggest blow from the "terrible remake syndrome" with a plethora of abominations including One Missed Call, Dark Water, Pulse, Shutter, The Eye, The Grudge and My Sassy Girl being at the top of the list.


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## Cayal (Oct 14, 2011)

Diggler said:


> The wanton use of sex and nudity. I'm not a prude by any means. But why do movies need to rely on copious amounts of half naked bimbo's, and boob shots to get bums on seats?



That's my gripe with life in general at the moment. Everything has to be sexualised.
Heck, I saw a toothpaste ad that was sexualised, more accurately it implied sexual activity once you had fresh breath. (Being in Australia I imagine you would have seen it).


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## Foxbat (Oct 14, 2011)

Diggler said:


> Remaking of Foreign films for an English speaking audience drives me bonkers. If people are either too illiterate, stupid, bigoted or lazy to read subtitles, that's their loss! Asian cinema has unluckily suffered the biggest blow from the "terrible remake syndrome" with a plethora of abominations including One Missed Call, Dark Water, Pulse, Shutter, The Eye, The Grudge and My Sassy Girl being at the top of the list.


 
I agree absolutely 100%. I wonder if this is a product of a much deeper malaise in English speaking film (lack of originality and creativity).


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## Metryq (Oct 14, 2011)

Foxbat said:


> I agree absolutely 100%. I wonder if this is a product of a much deeper malaise in English speaking film (lack of originality and creativity).



That, plus the fact that the filmmakers think they can get away with it without anyone noticing. "Nobody watches movies that need subtitles." Long before the Internet my dad was teaching high school English and literature. Any student trying to plagiarize a literary critique quickly learned that my dad had read the original, and knew the source.


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## PTeppic (Oct 14, 2011)

TheTomG said:


> My pet peeve to add to the ones already mentioned (which are also pet peeves of mine) is "Let's remake this perfectly good movie since special effects are better today, and because it was a big hit before bound to be a big hit again, and because we can't think of anything new."



Even worse, when they make it largely with same dialogue and even same scenes...


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## Diggler (Oct 15, 2011)

Cayal said:


> That's my gripe with life in general at the moment. Everything has to be sexualised.
> Heck, I saw a toothpaste ad that was sexualised, more accurately it implied sexual activity once you had fresh breath. (Being in Australia I imagine you would have seen it).



LOL. I actually don't think I've seen that one. Though yes, the use of sex to sell everything from hygiene products to children's toys is really becoming quite worrisome.



Foxbat said:


> I agree absolutely 100%. I wonder if this is a  product of a much deeper malaise in English speaking film (lack of  originality and creativity).



I think you're right here Fox, though it would be more to do with a lack of wanting to take risks. Look at the great foreign directors that had creative freedom with their native productions, who are then controlled by the US studio's with a whip and leash when they make the transition to Hollywood. Hollywood is more interested in a name than the creative force behind it.

Hollywood also does not want great cinema. It wants digestible, cookie cutter cinema. The sort of thing that the masses will happily blow $10-$20 to see at the cinema. While this is great for the quick buck scenario (horror suffers from this). It kills any possibility of long term profits due to the fact that people will not buy that film on DVD, Blu-Ray and the next generation format when it arrives.


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## Foxbat (Oct 15, 2011)

Just to expand on your statement Diggler. I remember reading an interview with the creators of Stalingrad (one of my favourite German movies of recent years). They tried to get some funding from one of the big American studios. They were told -_yes you can have the money but we want a happy ending._

A German movie about Stalingrad? Happy ending? 

Does not compute. 

What planet are these people living on?


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## Metryq (Oct 15, 2011)

Foxbat said:


> What planet are these people living on?



A far left planet where historical revisionism is par for the course. All scripts are written in double-think.


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## Foxbat (Oct 15, 2011)

Metryq said:


> A far left planet where historical revisionism is par for the course. All scripts are written in double-think.


 

Must be a wonderful place if you don't 'do' the truth


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## PTeppic (Oct 16, 2011)

Metryq said:


> A far left planet where historical revisionism is par for the course.



It would be interesting to consider whether movies should come with a declaration of historical accuracy, when they portray "real" events or people, but I suspect it's too complex to be workable. But yes, I'd forgotten this category: usually applies to films in which Americans single-handedly win major international wars or suddenly find themselves performing key roles which the history books curiously ascribe to someone else...


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## Metryq (Oct 16, 2011)

PTeppic said:


> usually applies to films in which Americans single-handedly win major international wars or suddenly find themselves performing key roles which the *history books* curiously ascribe to someone else...



History books are written by humans, and humans can be fallible, or even outright biased—no matter which political party or country they belong to. Sometimes the editorial distortions can be humorous, like the movie _The Right Stuff_. I was thinking more along the lines of films that are bald-faced propaganda passed off as historical docu-dramas. This is not really a problem, unless one lives in a society _progressively_ short on book larnin'.


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## JunkMonkey (Oct 16, 2011)

Foxbat said:


> A German movie about Stalingrad? Happy ending?
> 
> Does not compute.
> 
> What planet are these people living on?



An irony free one.  He's probably the same guy who wondered aloud, during the development hell of the _Thunderbirds_ movie, whether one of the Tracy Brothers could be black.  Or the same twat Mike Figgis met who wanted to make Richard Gere's manic depressive  _Mr Jones_ 'just a manic'.  Hollywood is full of them.


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## JunkMonkey (Oct 16, 2011)

Bit of a cut and paste from another forum where I started a similar thread a while back:  Things that make me shout at films include:


*The "schlingggggg" noise*  that swords and knives make whenever they are drawn from a scabbard -  or picked up off a table, or grabbed from one of those convenient wall  displays with a shield.  Doesn't matter if its a rapier, scimitar,  longsword, hunting knife or a spork, if it is picked up to be used as a  weapon it will always make the same 'Oooooh I'm sharp!' noise.
*The sound of flies* buzzing about on the soundtrack telling there is you there is something dead just out of frame.
*Movie references* in animated kids movies.  These days kids  movies seem to have to work on two levels.  Cute cartoon animals in  peril and having fun for the weans and a layer of post modern irony  ladled over the top for the adults - who, after all, are paying for the  thing and will only be likely to pay out for a sequel if they were at  least moderately entertained the first time round.   It seems lately  that the only way anyone who writes for DreamWorks can think to keep the  parents amused is to throw as many movie references at the screen as  they can.  Hence all the _Attack of the 50' Woman_ homages and characters shouting movie titles as dialogue ("Destroy all monsters!") in _Monsters Vs Aliens_ and (a particularly irritating  low point this one) naming a character in _Over The Hedge_  'Stella' for the sole purpose of having another character do a Marlon Brando / _Streetcar Named Desire_ cry of "Stelaaaaah!".   Oh dead clever.
*The obligatory inclusion *of an original cast member in any remake. I first came across this phenomenon the in the 1978 remake of _The Invasion of the Bodysnatchers_  when the hero of the first film, played by Kevin McCarthy, appeared for  a brief moment as the mad doomsayer he had become at the end of the  original - thus making the new film a sequel rather than a remake but  let's not split hairs.  These days everyone in Hollywood is so busy  homaging everyone else (see 3 above) that all remakes are obliged to  have some wrinkly old has-been appearing in a minor role solely because  he was in the (often better) original.
*Americans who can drive* vast distances without looking  through the windscreen because they have their head turned while talking  to their passenger. (Thank you, Amélie Poulain.)  As a rider to this,  pilots of spacefighters in things like _Battlestar Galactica_,  often turn their heads to talk to the pilot of the ship flying next to  them, for no other reason than it makes the audience feel uncomfortable  when their hero appears to be talking to himself.
*Spaceships that bank* like aeroplanes.  Makes. No. Sense.   I've given up being irritated by spaceships making noises as they fly  through a vacuum - and explosions.  I just think of them as part of the  music soundtrack.  After all, there aren't any symphony orchestras in  space and I happily accept non-diegetic music all over the place.  But  spaceships that bank like aeroplanes are just wrong wrong wrong.
*Noisy computer screens*.  This is a habit that seems to be  dying out, thank god, but for years text would appear with maddening  slowness of computer screens around the world to the accompaniment of  Teletype noises on the sound track.  "I'll run the simulation again  General." Clackityclackityclackityclackity.....
*The ******* cat*.  A tense moment is coming, the heroine is  alone.  The alley is empty and dark. Is the serial killer lurking in the  shadows?  The music seems to think so... barrrrooooom.  The heroine  clutches her coat tighter around herself and tries to stay away from the  creepy creepy music - and I'm thinking, 'please don't let it be the cat  gag again, just for once can we_ not_ have an off-screen grip  throw a cat in the general direction of the lead when the director  thinks he's ramped up the tension enough - just once.....  Please...  Oh  no, there's the cat and... yep there's the dustbin lid noise too.'
*Instant belches*.  Oh that hilarious comedy belch. Monsters and alien creatures do it a lot in eighties movies. Eat (Beat) Belch.  Laugh.
*Auto-tuning TVs*.  Character is at home chatting to another  character while performing some mundane household chore.  Fixing  breakfast is a common one.  Suddenly there's an interruption.  There's  another call.  "Hang on, I've got another call," Click. "Yes?" - or  someone comes into the room -  either way the newly arrived character  shouts "Turn on the TV!". The TV is switched on and LO! there is not an  episode of _Bonanza_, or an infommercial for an exercise machine,  or some crappy daytime quiz-show, or any of the other twenty-seven  gazillion simultaneous streams of **** that is poured into American TVs.   No, our hero's TV has automatically tuned into Channel 7 - Breaking  News That is Important to the Plot 24 hours a day 7 Days a Week.
*The Unreadable *- This has long irritated me while watching foreign-language films. I know  I can't expect a literal word for word translation, idioms have to be  thought about and  don't transfer easily, so I don't expect everything  that comes out of the actors' mouths to be represented exactly in the subtitles but when they don't bother to translate the signs on doors,  names on sides of vehicles, prominent graffiti etc. that the film maker  has deliberately included presumably because they thought it was  important, I start grinding my teeth. The best example I can think of of this is the final shot of the charming 2007 Indian film _Blue Umbrella _in which pans to some lettering above the shop around which most of the action has taken place.  The lettering is different to what it has been for the whole of the movie.  The shop has a new name.  The director thought that this lettering was so important he ended the film with it centred in the screen.  The translators didn't bother to translate it I have no idea what it meant.  I don't even know what language it was in.  Indian writing.  Frustrating.
*Dry Cup Acting* - It always pisses me off when the cup or mug the  actor is holding is obviously empty when he drinks out of it.  Quite  often you will see an actor make extravagant gestures with an obviously  empty cup before carefully 'sipping' from it.  Another give-away is the  pantomime of tilting of the cup at 90 degrees to the horizontal every  time a drink it taken.  IT'S EMPTY!
*Middle Class Ignorance* - Set designers/dressers in a certain type of British movie who shove a bottle of  brown sauce on the table of every 'Working Class' kitchen table.   No matter what time of day, or whatever the meal, some Tarquin or  Jocasta fresh out of film school has shoved a ******* bottle of HP,  Daddies or Own-brand brown sauce on the Formica tabletop.  Apparently  it's all we eat: fish and chips, sausages (always fried - never  grilled), white bread, and brown		sauce.
*Biology* - Why is it women giving birth in movies never seem to have a placenta?
*Geography* - Why is it all chases on foot in New York end up going past (or under) 'That Bridge' in Central Park?
My wife hates watching films with me.


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## Diggler (Oct 17, 2011)

Foxbat said:


> A German movie about Stalingrad? Happy ending?
> 
> Does not compute.
> 
> What planet are these people living on?



Planet Hollywood! 

I read a book, I think was called *Film* *Directors on Directing*(?) many years ago. Anyway, the hollywood directors all commented on the re-use of scripts. The studio's would have sets of scripts that were just re-worded and then pumped out as yet another film. Obviously if their vision of Stalingrad (with the happy ending) did well, there would have been a slew of upbeat, "buddy flick" style WWII films pumped out by Hollywood over the next 5 years.

Another thing of interest, which has probably already been mentioned, is the fabrication of real events by Hollywood (and other nations) when it comes to historical films based in WW2, Vietnam, WW1, etc. As far as *Band of Brother's*, *Saving Private Ryan*, *The Pacific* and 99% of American Vietnam war films are concerned, no other countries actually fought in them?!?!


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## JunkMonkey (Oct 17, 2011)

Diggler said:


> Another thing of interest, which has probably already been mentioned, is the fabrication of real events by Hollywood (and other nations) when it comes to historical films based in WW2, Vietnam, WW1, etc. As far as *Band of Brother's*, *Saving Private Ryan*, *The Pacific* and 99% of American Vietnam war films are concerned, no other countries actually fought in them?!?!



Apart from the Japanese, the Germans, and all those generic 'slopes' obviously.


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## Foxbat (Oct 17, 2011)

Personally, I have no objections about Americans making movies about the exploits of other Americans (be it in war or whatever else). 

What I do object to most strenuously is Americans being cast in a role that they did not actually participate in (eg. U571). Actually it was U110.

I'm surprised they didn't save the day at Waterloo.

Napoleon shouts across the battlefield:_ I veel defeat you, General Wayne_

General John Wayne: _The Hell you will!_ (Turns to his troop)
_7th Cavalry.....Ho!!_

Cue Music as the 7th cavalry charge towards Hougemont (I wish I were in Belgium..Hoorah Hoorah)


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## Diggler (Oct 17, 2011)

JunkMonkey said:


> Apart from the Japanese, the Germans, and all those generic 'slopes' obviously.



Yes they usually are the "generic" variety. I congratulate Clint Eastwood for *Flags of Our Fathers* and *Letters From Iwo Jima*. Two stories based on both sides of one battle for a tiny little island in the Pacific. Great stuff!



Foxbat said:


> Personally, I have no objections about Americans  making movies about the exploits of other Americans (be it in war or  whatever else).



What I take offence to is the omission of all other nationalities that had actually been involved. Being Australian, it is quite offensive to see shows, and movies, that give the impression that Americans were the only people that fought in, died for, and won WWII. The Vietnam films are quite different, because Communism won...


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## Metryq (Oct 18, 2011)

Diggler said:


> it is quite offensive to see shows, and movies, that give the impression that Americans were the only people that fought in, died for, and won WWII.



I take your point, and I'm not defending Hollywood. However, I've heard similar complaints that TV/films don't accurately represent the actual range of sex/race/age/[name any other category you like] found in the real world. A given story may "naturally" constrain such diversity. (Maybe _The Matrix_ should have had a few octogenarians in the latex fetish bar where Trinity picked up Neo?)

Shoe-horning in politically correct "diversity" might detour a story. And yes, such formulas generally _look_ forced. Would a movie like _Saving Private Ryan_ have looked better with the cast from _Star Trek_? If a movie with a broad scope (say, covering _all_ of World War II) still lacks the appropriate diversity, then it's unrealistic. But if the movie is _Transporter_ with a cast of five (good guy, token female, bad guy, and two thugs), then we're not talking high-brow entertainment in the first place.


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## Quokka (Oct 25, 2011)

JunkMonkey;1538771[B said:
			
		

> ] [/B]*Spaceships that bank*



I was watching a sci fi movie a little while ago where the ship actually used directional thrusters rather than just a jet engine at the back and it looked really odd, in a good way, just because they are never used in movies.

Another big space one is they always agree on which direction up is, really when a group of ships are parked or fighting close together there's no reason why they shouldn't be facing all different directions.

The audio is a big one for me more so when watching it at home than in the cinema, explosions too loud or conversations too quiet, I end up watching half the movie with the remote in my hand. 

Characters running into a fight or battle and then finding enough space to fight the enemy one on one. 300 was shocking for it but it was such a stylised movie I could except that but so often characters get into a fight and then walk along killing people as if Henry Ford had set all the opponents up on a production line.


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## HareBrain (Oct 25, 2011)

People getting knocked out for hours by a blow to the head and not suffering brain damage and other symptoms of severe concussion.

I assume this started as a comedy element of Keystone Cops, and everyone afterwards, even in serious films and TV, just assumed it was medically plausible.


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## paranoid marvin (Oct 25, 2011)

Someone being hit over the head with a bottle - that breaks. How can you break a bottle by hitting something that is softer than it?

It used to grate having to watch films where Americans take centre stage ; there is more than one Hollywood WWII film where the Yanks save the day when it was actually us Brits. The number of times they depict historical events to the extent that they become ridiculous; Braveheart and Gladiator are great examples of this , and Rob Roy is a great example of how to make it fun and relatively believable. As I said though, it _used _to grate , but now I've got over it and accept without the changes it is almost certain that the movies wouldn't have been made in the first place, and they _are_ still enjoyable to watch, however innacurate they might be.


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## JunkMonkey (Oct 26, 2011)

Another one that pisses me off every time I see it is  bullets which just stop when they reach the target.  There's a good example of this in_ Hellboy 2_.  During the shooting-fest that is the Tooth Fairy attack early on in the film the action spills out into the street.  One of the nasty little tooth fairies makes straight for an innocent passer by at full speed (horror!) Suddenly there is a* Kaboom! *and the tooth fairy is hit, instantly changes direction 90º and drops to the ground.  Cut to reverse angle of Hellboy holding a bloody big gun.  The implication is that he fired at the tooth fairy when it was between him and the innocent bystander.  The bullet travelled _just far enough_ to kill the nasty little critter then decided it was exempt from the usual laws of momentum and inertia and all that boring physics stuff and just fell on the floor.  (Because you see if normal physics had been applied the bullet would have carried on and buried itself and some speed in the face of the very person Hell boy was trying to save.)


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## JunkMonkey (Oct 26, 2011)

paranoid marvin said:


> It used to grate having to watch films where Americans take centre stage ; there is more than one Hollywood WWII film where the Yanks save the day when it was actually us Brits. The number of times they depict historical events to the extent that they become ridiculous; Braveheart and Gladiator are great examples of this , and Rob Roy is a great example of how to make it fun and relatively believable.



I made myself unpopular several times by saying I though _Rob Roy_ was a far better film than _Braveheart _( I live in Scotland and many people here though_ Braveheart_ was the greatest thing since sliced bread.  Actually I live near where several sequences for both were shot and can point out friends and neighbours milling about in the background in both.)  _Braveheart _is Hollywood balls from start to finish.  _Rob Roy_ has a recognisable human being in the middle of it. I paraphrase, but there is a moment early in the film where Neeson's character returns home and says: "Hello wife, I think I've pissed off the English.  I'm going to hide in the hills for a bit till they bored with looking for me. See to the cows for me will you?"  Now that is the voice of a real person not some pumped-up action hero.


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## Metryq (Oct 26, 2011)

> *Quokka wrote:* The audio is a big one for me more so when watching it at home than in the cinema, explosions too loud or conversations too quiet, I end up watching half the movie with the remote in my hand.



That all started around the time of Hi-Fi sound on videotape. High dynamic range means the sound engineer can record dialog at very low levels with no annoying amplifier "hiss," and still have plenty of headroom for explosions, music, and other exciting bits without peaking the record levels. If you live alone, far from neighbors, have an excellent sound system, and are _really_ into the action, then high dynamic range can be a plus. For the rest of us it can be a tad annoying. Check the menus on your gear (TV, disc players, etc.) for volume compression. A good compression circuit can moderate the loud and soft parts so that you don't have to keep pulling the cat off the ceiling. 



> *JunkMonkey wrote:* Another one that pisses me off every time I see it is bullets which just stop when they reach the target. There's a good example of this in Hellboy 2.



Let me get this straight: you're beefing about the realism in a movie like _Hellboy 2_? It reminds of a time when a friend was picking apart the preparedness of the hero in a scene dripping with hyperbole, "Oh, right. He just happened to have one of those obscure tools with him!" I looked at him and said, "That's the only weird thing you noticed about the scene?"

Wacky ballistics are a given in the movies, but the movies generally _exaggerate_ the performance of guns and bullets—such as "assault weapon" bullets that will pass right through an engine block as though it were not even there. 

I haven't seen _Hellboy 2_ and have no idea how big these fairies are. _Realistically_, a bullet could be deflected by impacting some small, airborne target and missing a body that was otherwise farther along its path. A bullet hitting a human body can do all kinds of crazy (and nasty) things if it hits bone. Contrary to Hollywood depictions, most bullets are not the hypothetical "irresistible force." For example, water can easily deflect most bullets. (But because a projectile can pass through its target, there are hollow-points, which were not created to be nasty, but to prevent them from continuing on after hitting the intended target.)


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## reiver33 (Oct 26, 2011)

Speaking as a Scot (OK a Lowland Scot from an area that has occasionally been in England), I also prefer _Rob Roy_ to _Braveheart_. The latter film kicks in on an emotional level, but if you have any knowledge of the period it falls seriously short. I'm not even sure why they took such liberties with history, as the real thing would still have made for good cinema.

Not as bad as _The Patriot_ though.


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## JunkMonkey (Oct 26, 2011)

Metryq said:


> Let me get this straight: you're beefing about the realism in a movie like _Hellboy 2_? It reminds of a time when a friend was picking apart the preparedness of the hero in a scene dripping with hyperbole, "Oh, right. He just happened to have one of those obscure tools with him!" I looked at him and said, "That's the only weird thing you noticed about the scene?"
> 
> Wacky ballistics are a given in the movies, but the movies generally _exaggerate_ the performance of guns and bullets—such as "assault weapon" bullets that will pass right through an engine block as though it were not even there.
> 
> I haven't seen _Hellboy 2_ and have no idea how big these fairies are. _Realistically_, a bullet could be deflected by impacting some small, airborne target and missing a body that was otherwise farther along its path. A bullet hitting a human body can do all kinds of crazy (and nasty) things if it hits bone. Contrary to Hollywood depictions, most bullets are not the hypothetical "irresistible force." For example, water can easily deflect most bullets. (But because a projectile can pass through its target, there are hollow-points, which were not created to be nasty, but to prevent them from continuing on after hitting the intended target.)



The fairies were the size of a small bird, say a sparrow. and the gun looked like a small cannon.  As for beefing about it no, I wasn't, I was just giving an example this was the first one that came to mind.  I'm no expert in ballistics and what you say about what bullets do may well be true but I do know they don't just stop in mid air.  (Unless someone is doing that bollocksy _Matrix _palm out, traffic-stopping gesture, while pulling that 'I'm having a really interesting crap here' face which Keanu patented.)


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## paranoid marvin (Oct 26, 2011)

JunkMonkey said:


> I made myself unpopular several times by saying I though _Rob Roy_ was a far better film than _Braveheart _( I live in Scotland and many people here though_ Braveheart_ was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Actually I live near where several sequences for both were shot and can point out friends and neighbours milling about in the background in both.) _Braveheart _is Hollywood balls from start to finish. _Rob Roy_ has a recognisable human being in the middle of it. I paraphrase, but there is a moment early in the film where Neeson's character returns home and says: "Hello wife, I think I've pissed off the English. I'm going to hide in the hills for a bit till they bored with looking for me. See to the cows for me will you?" Now that is the voice of a real person not some pumped-up action hero.


 

I could never understand the popularity for Braveheart with the Scots. It's a story about a man who takes on more than he can cope with , gets betrayed by his own people and ends up being dissected. And to cap it all it's quite possible that he wasn't even Scottish!

Rob Roy on the other hand is about a true Scotsman who uses guile and skill with a sword to outwit and outfight his English counterpart, and ends up making the English look foolish.

Surely he should be a greater inspiration?


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## Rommel (Oct 26, 2011)

Asto the bullets thingy.  how about you shoot the person in a car, blood spray the window behind him, yet no bullet hole in the window. Eh? how do you spray blood behind you if no bullet came through?

As the space ships banking i alsways thought it was nertia on the pilot that was the reasonong for banking. YOu turn the spaceship to alter direction. Your body is still going sideways. So you bank and let inertia push you down into the seat. Same as a jet really in that sense. ( iknow the diff of a jet vs space craft for flying purpose, just clearing that here) The banking is not to make the craft turn, but to make the pilot not fall off to the side.


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## Foxbat (Oct 26, 2011)

reiver33 said:


> Speaking as a Scot (OK a Lowland Scot from an area that has occasionally been in England), I also prefer _Rob Roy_ to _Braveheart_. The latter film kicks in on an emotional level, but if you have any knowledge of the period it falls seriously short. I'm not even sure why they took such liberties with history, as the real thing would still have made for good cinema.
> 
> Not as bad as _The Patriot_ though.


 
I agree. The battle account of Stirling Bridge is much more interesting than that depicted in Braveheart (there was no bridge in Gibson's movie). Braveheart has been described as a Porridge Western. It's the best description I've come across.


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## Metryq (Oct 26, 2011)

Rommel said:


> Eh? how do you spray blood behind you if no bullet came through?



It's possible. Hydrostatic shock typically applies to remote internal injuries, but even a bullet that does not exit the body can be messy. (WARNING: Graphic detail ahead.)

My sister is a "surgical technologist" (hands the surgeon the tools) and has seen many bullet wounds, as well as heard additional stories from the neurosurgeons she works with. She told me of two _failed_ suicide attempts. One patient placed the gun under his chin pointing upward. It looks pretty threatening in the movies, right? I don't know the caliber used, but the bullet stopped in the patient's sinuses and pretty much ruined his entire face. (The scene must have been gory because the bridge of the nose was gone, even though the bullet was still inside.) He's still alive, but much worse off.

The second case would be comical, if it were not so sad. Patient number 2 tried to suicide by putting the muzzle in the center of his forehead. Again, I do not know the caliber. The bullet stopped somewhere in the back of the skull, but did not touch the _corpus callosum_. In fact, the surgeon said the bullet did no damage worth mentioning at all. That's humiliating. If you think these cases are impossible, read about the famous case of *Phineas Gage*.



> As the space ships banking i alsways thought it was nertia on the pilot that was the reasonong for banking.



It's as good a rationale as any other. However, "dogfighting" is unlikely to be a practical tactic in space. Take _Star Wars_ or _Battlestar Galactica_ as examples; the ships are capable of interplanetary speeds within a matter of hours (or about as long as one might expect a pilot even with an iron butt to remain seated). The G-forces at those speeds would be impossible to tolerate. The counter argument might be that the turn radii are simply that much greater, which would also make the distances between craft much greater, and the targeting thus that much more critical. At such speeds and distances, it is unlikely that pilots would _ever_ score a shot.

_Star Trek_'s "photon torpedoes" (which are actually tiny ships with an anti-matter bomb) or the super-weapons described in Murray Leinster's _The Wailing Asteroid_ are more credible.


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## Snowdog (Oct 26, 2011)

Cayal said:


> That's my gripe with life in general at the moment. Everything has to be sexualised.
> Heck, I saw a toothpaste ad that was sexualised, more accurately it implied sexual activity once you had fresh breath. (Being in Australia I imagine you would have seen it).



We seem to live in a society today where, as you say, everything is sexualised, and yet the authorities have a prudish attitude towards sex itself that has taken us back past the 70s into the era where they criminalised saucy seaside postcards. It's positively schizophrenic.

One thing I hate about about many modern action films is the way scenes are cut to emphasize the action, but do so to the extent you can't actually make out what's going on. One director did it and a load of others went 'that's cool, I'm going to do that, but do it more'. It's style over substance and when it's done to the degree that you can't follow the story it becomes non-sensical. Another style-over-substance thing is the over-use of slo-mo. 300 had so much that it got ridiculous, if you ran it at normal speed you'd only have half a movie.

Another thing in action films I hate is impossible/stupid stunts that would get the hero killed double-quick if he really tried them. Such films use these stunts to replace good storytelling, which has largely disappeared from modern cinema (at least in the action genre).


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## JunkMonkey (Oct 26, 2011)

Rommel said:


> As the space ships banking i alsways thought it was nertia on the pilot that was the reasonong for banking. YOu turn the spaceship to alter direction. Your body is still going sideways. So you bank and let inertia push you down into the seat. Same as a jet really in that sense. ( iknow the diff of a jet vs space craft for flying purpose, just clearing that here) The banking is not to make the craft turn, but to make the pilot not fall off to the side.



Often the ships that are shown banking like this are also shown to have 'Inertial dampers', 'artificial gravity' and other not fall over / float about  gizmology.  With all that stuff on board why bank?


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## bedlamite (Oct 28, 2011)

Oh, remakes;

-ive Example 1: Who exactly were the people clamouring for a remake of _Frigh_t _Night_? If you had sufficient funds kicking around to get a film made, _this_ is the one you want to do? It's just the laziness of it that makes me sick to the stomach. You just know that the decision to greenlight this was a collision of statistics - kids can't get enough vampires, and this here film on our back catalogue is just old enough to be the perfect nostalgia fest for those kid's parents....

-ive Example 2: Like many other people, I think this remaking of foreign language films has got to stop. _Let the right one in_ was the final straw for me. Again, it's laziness, but this time it's the audience. Thought: why don't they invest in a better dubbing process if subtitles are too difficult?

+ive Example 1: I know I'm probably letting myself in for a shocking letdown like always (I'm looking at you, AvP culprits), but I'm looking forward to two films, not that they're remakes per se. No 1 - The Thing, No 2 - Prometheus. Neither are remakes, but they're both supposedly designed to be 'canonical' to the originals, and able to partner the stories. Maybe these two could prove to break the hoodoo.


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## JunkMonkey (Oct 28, 2011)

reiver33 said:


> Speaking as a Scot (OK a Lowland Scot from an area that has occasionally been in England), I also prefer _Rob Roy_ to _Braveheart_. The latter film kicks in on an emotional level, but if you have any knowledge of the period it falls seriously short. I'm not even sure why they took such liberties with history, as the real thing would still have made for good cinema.
> 
> Not as bad as _The Patriot_ though.



If you want some seriously bad films about that period of our history try _The Bruce_ or _Chasing the Deer_.


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## CyBeR (Oct 28, 2011)

My favorite pet peeve with boneheaded mistakes in films has got to be the famous hydraulics failure bit. Without fail in most films someone's gonna shout "We've lost the hydraulics capt'n!' and then cut away to a big room that's rapidly filling with water, and which apparently housed...







You may remember such a famous bit in *2012*.

And then we go for broke with the *Transformers* films where a small car, complete with interiors and luggage space, apparently turns into this hulking robot by complete disregard of anything relating to volumes.


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## Metryq (Oct 28, 2011)

CyBeR said:


> And then we go for broke with the *Transformers* films where a small car, complete with interiors and luggage space, apparently turns into this hulking robot by complete disregard of anything relating to volumes.



At least _Terminator 2: Judgment Day_ was "realistic" on that point. The T-800 explained that the T-1000 could not emulate the chemicals and complex moving parts of guns, and was limited to objects of equal size.

I wouldn't defend any of the _Transformers_ films, but computer animators often "break the laws of physics" in order to make the images "look right." Draco's wings in _Dragonheart_ scaled up and down as they opened and closed. If the animators hadn't cheated that way, they found that Draco's folded wings would cover him like a tent, or look laughably inadequate when spread.

The rings of The Machine in _Contact_ were not actually nested within each other. I tried such an animation on my own—mounting the spin axis of each nested ring inside another—and the resulting movement does look weird. 

And the software package used for _The Last Starfighter_ was programmed for rigid body dynamics (the way real, solid and weighted objects tumble and collide). I read that the animators eventually added invisible "ghost wings" onto the ships so that they'd bank and turn the way airplanes do. (I guess manual keyframing was not available at the time. Such a tool did not exist for _Tron_, where the animators used an Oxberry animation stand to calculate the frame-by-frame coordinates needed for moving objects.)


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## mosaix (Oct 28, 2011)

JunkMonkey said:


> I've given up being irritated by spaceships making noises as they fly  through a vacuum - and explosions.



We've discussed this before on here, JunkMonkey and it may not be so daft after all. Spaceship engines (chemically driven ones anyway) and explosions are probably going to have one thing in common - an expanding gas cloud, and that's exactly the thing that is going to transmit sound. So, if you are close enough to either of those things, you'd probably hear them through the helmet of your spacesuit.


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## williamjm (Oct 29, 2011)

paranoid marvin said:


> I could never understand the popularity for Braveheart with the Scots. It's a story about a man who takes on more than he can cope with , gets betrayed by his own people and ends up being dissected. And to cap it all it's quite possible that he wasn't even Scottish!
> 
> Rob Roy on the other hand is about a true Scotsman who uses guile and skill with a sword to outwit and outfight his English counterpart, and ends up making the English look foolish.
> 
> Surely he should be a greater inspiration?



I agree that Rob Roy is the better film, but in terms of which story is more influential I don't think it's too surprising that Wallace's is since even ignoring the films Wallace was a more significant figure in Scottish history than Rob Roy was. Wallace's cause was eventually successful, even if it was after his death, and it's difficult to say for sure if Scotland would have regained its independence if Wallace (and Andrew Moray who was completely ignored in Braveheart) hadn't won the Battle of Stirling Bridge. I'm not sure why you're doubting his Scottishness, either, he might have had some Norman ancestry but as far as I know all the records show him being born in Scotland. Rob Roy's story is entertaining, but his cause isn't really as significant as Wallace's was and defeating one Englishman isn't as significant as defeating an army of them.


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## JunkMonkey (Oct 29, 2011)

mosaix said:


> We've discussed this before on here, JunkMonkey and it may not be so daft after all. Spaceship engines (chemically driven ones anyway) and explosions are probably going to have one thing in common - an expanding gas cloud, and that's exactly the thing that is going to transmit sound. So, if you are close enough to either of those things, you'd probably hear them through the helmet of your spacesuit.



You know, I'd never thought of that; I'm almost convinced... Any idea where that thread is?

EDIT: Hang on.  Wouldn't you have to be IN the expanding gas loud to hear it?  Must deep space exploding I've witnessed in films has had the audiences POV (the camera and by implication the microphone) well away from the action.  But then Movie Physics always cheats the sound of distant explosions so that the speed of sound and light are the same. One notible exception is in _Robinson Crusoe on Mars_.  When our hero on the surface explodes his orbiting mother ship lest it be detected by aliens there is a significant on screen lag between the brief bright light in the sky that is the explosion and the sound reaching his ears a few seconds later.  Must have been a hell of a bang.


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## JunkMonkey (Oct 29, 2011)

CyBeR said:


> My favorite pet peeve with boneheaded mistakes in films has got to be the famous hydraulics failure bit.



I would have loved to have seen your face while watching *SST -Death Flight* a TV movie which has an airliner's hydraulics fail in mid air when all the hydraulic fluid leaks out after an explosion.  The crew repair the hydraulic system by diverting the water used for flushing the toilets into it. Honest! Mind you this is the same crew that has been making the plane pitch by getting all the passengers to run up and down the body of the plane and roll by pumping fuel from one wing tank to another.  Doug McClure was involved.


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## bedlamite (Oct 29, 2011)

Another thing that grinds my gears whenever I see it on screen: 

The big climactic fight between our hero and the bad guy takes place (for some reason) in a deserted industrial space. During the melee, our hero is taking a battering and needs to buy some time; he releases steam into the villain's face, and whilst he is reeling improves his position/grabs a handy crowbar/gets to the forklift etc. 

Now then, industrial steam. What good purpose would a valve serve that releases steam directly to the air - steam only does any good inside the pipe, not to mention that this mysterious piece of apparatus discharges directly at the operator. A safety valve to discharge extra pressure always discharges into another, larger diameter pipe. Not to mention the fact that the bad dude  is merely incapacitated for a few moments, and back to the fray. A blast of steam from an industrial system would definitely remove flesh ie take the face off completely, and possibly at high presssures blow a hole through the body. 

Also, aren't these factories disused / deserted? Why on earth is the dangerous and highly expensive to run steam line in operation?


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## CyBeR (Oct 29, 2011)

JunkMonkey said:


> I would have loved to have seen your face while watching *SST -Death Flight* a TV movie which has an airliner's hydraulics fail in mid air when all the hydraulic fluid leaks out after an explosion.  The crew repair the hydraulic system by diverting the water used for flushing the toilets into it. Honest! Mind you this is the same crew that has been making the plane pitch by getting all the passengers to run up and down the body of the plane and roll by pumping fuel from one wing tank to another.  Doug McClure was involved.



I think I'd just scream at the TV at that point.  And I mean just senselessly scream at the screen. My mind can take a lot of absurdity in films (that's why they're films, I won't go anywhere expecting a realistic view on life cuz, frankly, that would be so boring) but with this...I really do think I'd scream.


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## psychotick (Oct 30, 2011)

Hi,

There are actual cases of pilots steering planes by pumping fuel from one wing tank to another when the flaps have failed. I'm not sure how many of them actually landed though. It's even become an accepted emergency steering system.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227035.000-airbus-invents-steerbyfuel-emergency-system.html

Cheers.


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## Foxbat (Oct 30, 2011)

CyBeR said:


> I think I'd just scream at the TV at that point.  And I mean just senselessly scream at the screen.


 
I do that all the time. I thought it was normal


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## JunkMonkey (Oct 30, 2011)

I just remembered another of my favourites. * Mission to Mars* a film that clocks up more than its fair share of 'duh wha?' moments (it could be argued the whole movie was a mistake but we won't go there).

In the film Val Kilmer has walked more than halfway around Mars*, fought off killer bugs, and a psycho robot, and bitter -50F  ice storms, and all sorts of other perils to reach the site of an abandoned 30 year old Russian lander that failed to launch its return stage.  If he can prize the lid off, empty the rocks out, hot wire the thing, and point it in the right direction he might JUST be able to rendezvous with the mother ship that only has something like 27 and a half turbo-minutes left on the clock before it has to fire the main engines and return to Earth.  

Kilmer arrives at the site of the 30 year old piece of s**t Russian   lander. He prizes off a panel and fires up the 30 year old Russian   computer within.  Clickity-click! Aha here it comes now up on the   screen...  
What? 
The Russians not only helpfully labelled everything on the outside of   their unmanned Mars lander in big letters for people to read (you know, Martians?), they also built in a 15 inch   colour CRT monitor!?

Why?

Why would anyone spend god knows how many gazillion litregallonunits of   rocket fuel first launching, and _then gently landing_, a computer  monitor  on Mars?



*did you see what I did there?


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## Quokka (Oct 30, 2011)

The universal compatability is always a good one, even though I like a lot of apple products I don't use them because of the hassle of them freaking out if a non apple product gets within 10 feet but Jeff Goldblum's laptop syncs in with the alien mothership and he even gets a loading icon .


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## Dozmonic (Oct 30, 2011)

The aliens just love the c++ virus - they thought it was a MothershipApp <3


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## mosaix (Oct 30, 2011)

JunkMonkey said:


> Hang on.  Wouldn't you have to be IN the expanding gas loud to hear it?



Yep, you'd hear it just as it reached you and that may be before or after the associated debris.


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## steve12553 (Oct 30, 2011)

JunkMonkey said:


> ...then Movie Physics always cheats the sound of distant explosions so that the speed of sound and light are the same. One notible exception is in _Robinson Crusoe on Mars_. When our hero on the surface explodes his orbiting mother ship lest it be detected by aliens there is a significant on screen lag between the brief bright light in the sky that is the explosion and the sound reaching his ears a few seconds later. Must have been a hell of a bang.


 

*Robinson Crusoe on Mars *was a rare movie and a classic as far as i'm concerned. The sound in a vacuum thing has always bothered me. *2001* addressed it well, while it's sequel, *2010*, although a decent film had rocket noises while orbitting Jupiter.


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## JunkMonkey (Oct 30, 2011)

steve12553 said:


> *Robinson Crusoe on Mars *was a rare movie and a classic as far as i'm concerned. The sound in a vacuum thing has always bothered me. *2001* addressed it well, while it's sequel, *2010*, although a decent film had rocket noises while orbitting Jupiter.



I agree, *Robinson Crusoe on Mars,* was far above the usual dross of its day.  It actually looked like someone in the production team had read some SF.  Both Ib Melchior (writer) and Byron Haskins (director) had above average, interesting SF movies under their belt before this one.


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## Ursa major (Oct 30, 2011)

JunkMonkey said:


> I just remembered another of my favourites. *Mission to Mars* a film that clocks up more than its fair share of 'duh wha?' moments (it could be argued the whole movie was a mistake but we won't go there).
> 
> In the film Val Kilmer has walked more than halfway around Mars*, fought off killer bugs, and a psycho robot, and bitter -50F ice storms, and all sorts of other perils to reach the site of an abandoned 30 year old Russian lander that failed to launch its return stage. If he can prize the lid off, empty the rocks out, hot wire the thing, and point it in the right direction he might JUST be able to rendezvous with the mother ship that only has something like 27 and a half turbo-minutes left on the clock before it has to fire the main engines and return to Earth.
> 
> ...


Yes: you gave the wrong film title.

_Mission to Mars_ starred Gary Sinise, not Val Kilmer, and lacked a Russian spacecraft. You may have been thinking of the film, *Red Planet*.


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## JunkMonkey (Oct 30, 2011)

Nuts!  You're right.  I initially wrote_ Red Planet_, thought it was wrong, double guessed myself, didn't check, and changed it.  _Mission to Mars_ is the one where they all form a conga line and jump onto a passing satellite isn't it?  I watched them both around the same time and they get mashed up in my head.

Why is it all first manned missions to Mars go horribly wrong?  _Robinson Crusoe on Mars_ is another, then there's:_ World Without End, Capricorn One, __Rocketship X-M - _okay that one was only supposed to be going to the moon and missed _- Stranded, Battle Beyond the Sun_, etc.


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## Metryq (Oct 31, 2011)

steve12553 said:


> The sound in a vacuum thing has always bothered me. *2001* addressed it well, while it's sequel, *2010*, although a decent film had rocket noises while orbitting Jupiter.



People love to dump on this one for some reason. As I pointed out in another thread, this "scientifically accurate" film _2001: A Space Odyssey_ featured a "moon bus" cruising linearly over the surface rather than making ballistic hops, "fill light" in _Discovery_'s shadows in deep space, the AE-35 communication antenna rotating like a radar, and suspended animation chambers inside the centrifugally accelerated portion of the ship. 

As noted in Stephen Whitfield's _The Making of Star Trek_, Gene Roddenberry opted to put a "swish" in the soundtrack as the _Enterprise_ zips past in the opening titles because the shot looked dead without it. Similarly, he knocked crewmen out of their chairs for "near misses" during battle sequences. (Although one might argue that some kind of EMP from the weapon momentarily upset the ship's artificial gravitation—whatever.)

Back to _2001_, that hallmark of scientific accuracy: the filmmakers deliberately left off _Discovery_'s radiator panels because they figured the audience might think they were wings. _2010_'s _Leonov_ featured radiator panels, but they were still very small. 

Many "mistakes" in movies are deliberate for the sake of drama, or because the audience can't be expected to know things like nuclear engines needing radiators. Sparks from bullets ricocheting off non-ferrous surfaces is a common dramatic license. Cars surviving long-jump landings that would have bent the frame and destroyed the suspension is another. One of my favorites is the hero unflinchingly moving through a room that is positively engulfed in flames.

The industrial steam-in-the-face was a good gripe, but the sound-in-space thing is nitpicking. One might as well complain about the musical score. (Why can't the hero spot the bad guy by listening to the evil music? It's so simple for the audience!) Movies are made for people. Even Shakespeare had lots of murder and infidelity to appeal to the peanut gallery.


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## JunkMonkey (Oct 31, 2011)

Metryq said:


> Even Shakespeare had lots of murder and infidelity to appeal to the peanut gallery.



At the risk of being over pedantic (can one be over pedantic?)  It was hazelnuts and the galleries were the expensive seats.  The hoi palloi were on the ground near the stage.

Totally agree with you on the sound in space thing.  I think of it as non-digetic soundtrack and the problem goes away.


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## Metryq (Oct 31, 2011)

JunkMonkey said:


> It was hazelnuts and the galleries were the expensive seats.



You're right. It's been so long since I saw Will's troupe on stage that my mind is slipping.  Although "peanut gallery" was the term for vaudeville, "groundlings" for the Globe.



> Totally agree with you on the sound in space thing.  I think of it as non-digetic soundtrack and the problem goes away.



_2001_ also had breathing noises for exterior shots of the pod, or an astronaut on EVA. "Throat mics" would not trigger for such sound, and unless the camera POV is from inside the helmet, the breathing noises are just as inappropriate. Aesthetically, the breathing sounds in _2001_ are startling and impress the sense of vastness and isolation. When HAL takes control of a pod, the breathing becomes the stuff of classic horror—especially when it stops.

Now, if the engines of a ship could be heard from inside another, _then_ the Vacuum Noise Pollution demonstrators would have a relevant point. Otherwise, even the hard silences in _2001_ are artistic.


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