1) The humans have lost the ability to speak. Why? 2) Something on the order of a half-dozen species of primate all become sentient at the same time and rule the world collectively. 3) Two artifacts from the human era survive -- a bomb cared for by a bunch of worshippers (okay, makes sense it would be intact since they took care of it) and the Statue of Liberty, which is sitting on the seashore, totally exposed but it's arm is still intact holding the torch. Yep. This is the same arm that nearly fell off years ago.
Superman I, and various other movies that use the "go backwards around the Earth (or the sun) to turn back time" effect. I'm sorry, but time pretty much goes forward even if you spin around really really fast.
Jurassic Park -- Scientists may someday be able to extract DNA from bugs in amber, but...red blood cells lack nuclei, so it'd be a tough thing to clone from. Maybe reptile hemoglobin is different, but at least mammalian RBCs do not have nuclei. May want to double check the reptilian blood cell thing.
Of course, it'd be petrified anyway, so what's the point?
In Total Recall, the oxygen generators on Mars at the end of the movie work really, really fast. Why? Would it be necessary for an alien engineer to set up a system that would explosively generate oxygen when a more leisurely pace would do? And the silly turn-on mechanism? A handprint?
Posts: 22497 | Registered: Sep 2000
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quote:Well on that score The Matrix Reloaded Minor Spoilers is even worse. Trinity would've been killed if she hit the car but Neo coming in a past super sonic speeds and instantly changing her direction is fine? And then the same thing when he save Morpheus and the key maker.
more spoilers Hobbes, I didn't think it was the fall that killed her in any case. Remember, she still 'died' after Neo saved Trinity, due to the bullet.
Posts: 5422 | Registered: Dec 2001
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When I go see a good movie, I'm in a sense surrendering my brain to the director. I'm in their world, being pulled or pushed along by their pacing, their events, their twists. Anything that jars me into editor-mode during a movie ruins that fantasy.
Granted there are plenty of movies where I just shut off my disbelief entirely before the opening credits, but some are just consistent enough to believe in, and then wham! Something stupid and inexplicable happens. Sometimes it's a minor thing, like in Spider-man when Mary Jane hangs up on Harry, revealing him to have the world's only cellphone with a dial tone. Sometimes it's major and movie-crippling, like in Commando when the yellow Porsche is completely totaled on the left side, until Arnie drives away, whereupon it's miraculously restored.
[ July 29, 2003, 11:25 AM: Message edited by: Chris Bridges ]
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
Quick fact check: amazingly enough, I have never seen the movie It's a Wonderful Life. A friend pointed out that at the end, when everyone chips in to raise the money, wouldn't George still have to explain what happened to the first 8 thou?
Can anyone verify and/or explain this?
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
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Blade 2 had my favorite scene. The light bomb thingee goes off and they actually duck out of the way of the oncomming light "explosion." They actually see it comming.
Posts: 81 | Registered: May 2002
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quote:. . . It's a Wonderful Life. A friend pointed out that at the end, when everyone chips in to raise the money, wouldn't George still have to explain what happened to the first 8 thou?
I always assumed that while there might still be some explaining to do, it would be fairly minor. They tend to be a lot less upset about possible embezzlement if the money is replaced. And didn't the examiner show up, and say there were no hard feelings or somesuch? In any case, now we're talking explanations -- not losing the Trust & Loan, or jail time, etc.
I hate it when people are driving away and people behind them are shooting at them, and the bullets shatter the back window, but leave the front and side windows intact. I'm also bothered when people run through a hailstorm of bullets and all of them miss by inches. Or when people are shooting at the protagonist in an open space, and the bullets hit just inches from their feet. How bad are those shots? I think the car window thing is the worst, though.
I also hate it when Joe Average has to speak to a crowd, either in a courtroom or a political convention or some such situation. They always start off with a disclaimer about how they're not very smart or educated or well-spoken, and then they proceed to give an impromptu speech that Churchill would have had to spend a couple days preparing. Everyone is convinced by their well-crafted "down-home" logic, and the day is saved. That takes me out of the movie something fierce.
Posts: 2804 | Registered: May 2003
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posted
X-files: Fight the future (or whatever it was called).
I can believe that there is a vast alien plot to breed human-alien hybrids.
I can believe that a huge alien vessel lies below the antarctic ice (or wherever it was).
I can believe the governments of the world all know about it and can all keep it so secret that no member of the press has ever found out about it.
What I can't believe is that the aliens were so stupid as to hinge the success of their plot on honeybees pollinating corn. Corn is a grass, and any 8 year old farmboy from Nebraska knows that corn is wind-pollinated, not bee-pollinated. Corn offers no nectar and no attractants for honeybees.
Sorry to keep harping on this, but botany is a seriously underrepresented science in science fiction.
Posts: 173 | Registered: Jun 2002
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posted
I've thought of something else that bothers me. I know the column is long done, but I love this thread, so I'm going to resurrect it.
I hate it when people have to get into a secure room in a building with incredibly sophisticated security, so they climb through an air duct or remove a ceiling tile, which always gives them unobstructed access to anywhere they want to go. Everyone knows that it doesn't work that way in real life even in buildings with relatively little security, but for some reason it's a staple of the written-into-a-corner scriptwriter, and it's made many an otherwise good movie seem much cheesier.
As a corollary, I hate it when people are in an elevator and they have to escape so they climb up through the conveniently placed ceiling hatch that no one else seems to notice. I've ridden in hundreds or maybe thousands of elevators in my life. I always look for the ceiling hatch and it's almost never there. I've seen a couple old cheap elevators with them, but they're always fairly securely locked. But in the movies they're always present, and they're about as secure as your average doggy door.
That's all for now.
Posts: 2804 | Registered: May 2003
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My vote for movie plot holes--"True Lies" with Arnold.
If there is any doubt about Arnold's view of women, see this movie.
He lies to his wife the entire length of the movie, and laughs about it.
Then he believes his wife is possibly considering an affair, which she doesn't go through with.
What does Arnold do? He kidnaps her, terrorizes her, and demands she perform a sexy strip dance in front of the cameras.
Is this where we got our Iraqi prison training film?
However, that is my personal beef with the movie's philosophy.
There was the point where he drops an automatic weapon down a flight of steps, and kills 10 or so badguys as it starts shooting.
Then he nukes a section of the Everglades, but that's OK as long as we get the bad guy. No radiation warning, no EMP problems. Just have to grab the next attack helicopter so he could blow up the building where all the Arabs--er--terrorists are.
Of course, the one good muslim sounds like a cross between Gunga Din and Uncle Tom and is killed.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
Read this thread through now that it's resurfaced and I've got a few things to add.
Re: the Independence Day joke where Goldblum's laptop can interface with the alien ship? I saw the (slightly) extended version, with an extra 9 minutes, and it makes a bit more sense. Still a stretch, but more emphasis is given to Goldblum's analysis of the initial satellite signal and how they use his discoveries and what they've learned from the ship in Roswell to extrapolate accurate frequencies and connection protocols. I would've been much happier had that been left in.
I heartily recommend What Lie Did I Tell? by William Goldman. He has a largish section on this kind of movie shorthand crap, which he explains as all being due to the same thing: time. He reprints the classic "Things I Learned From Movies" e-mail and says that every single one of them is because they're time-savers. Things have to happen quickly in a movie. His example is Mel Gibson pulling up to a building and finding a parking space right in front, which is unlikely as hell but speeds the movie along. He makes his point with four pages of script depicting Mel circling the block, trying to find a spot...
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
How comes in Star Wars Han can fly the falcon upside down in the environment and not feel the effects of gravity, but in space sharp turns send them back and forth?
Posts: 2445 | Registered: Oct 2004
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There are more limitations to the inertial compensator in the Falcon than there are to my flying, buddy-boy.
Posts: 9 | Registered: Apr 2002
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Also, good pilots keep the inertial compensator turned down a little so they can feel acceleration.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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Did anyone mention how Jake and Elwood pulled off a truly magical feat by repeatedly racing through long empty stretches of road in and around Chicago in The Blues Brothers ?
posted
Suitcases in all movies are light and can be tossed around like they're filled with feathers. Suitcases are never like that!
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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I'm a costume geek, but I had to see Mel Gibson's Hamlet three or four times before I could actually watch the movie and not get totally distracted with the schizophrenic costuming. Armor that either never existed, or was mixed with different countries and centuries. The creative use of knitting sewn to leather...and Glenn Close's blue sideless surcote with celtic knotwork? It was bizarre, like the costumer couldn't quite make up her mind what she was doing, and so threw together elements that seemed interesting to her. It was very distracting.
But my favorite costuming comedy is First Knight. When Sean Connery showed up dressed in something that looked like it had been salvaged from a sofa, I lost it. Julia Ormond's costumes were just as bad, especially that stuffed, feathery looking thing. It's such a bad movie anyway, but with the costumes, it took it to a whole new level of awful. I laughed SO hard the first time I saw it. I still love to watch that movie just for the costumes. Cracks me up every time.
Posts: 5948 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote:Speaking of Die Another Day , did anyone wonder how a bone marrow transplant can make someone into a completely different human being? It even wiped out the guy's accent. My grandma had a bone marrow transplant when she got cancer. I guess that explains why she came out of the operation as a large burly black man.
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I'm sorry, but the thought: Botany, Sci-Fi's Underrepresented Science made me snort as well!
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This thread has come and gone and it's not what Chris was looking for, but have you noticed that in Bad Boys, there is one latino in the entire city of Miami (he is a drug dealer), and in Bad Boys II there are three (one is a drug dealer, and the other two are gay)? Did you notice that not a single one (of the four Latinos) was Cuban?
Just like South Florida, neh?
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This is a problem with the book (I hear) as much as the movie, but if Harry Potter had just listened to the grown-ups in the first movie and left everything alone, nothing bad would have happened, because the bad guys needed him to get to their goal. (Hey Huck, if you had just leftt Jim at home, he would not have been sold!) Oh, and hey! It's a good thing Harry's hands can burn off evil people's faces now. Who knew? Oh, hey, that's the power of love! This came close to ruining altogether a movie that, up to that point, I had thoroughly loved. I still like it okay, but it's a shame they couldn't wrap it up more neatly.
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You ever notice how, in the original Star Trek movies, William Shatner has spoken lines? Why couldn't they fix that?
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I wish I could remember the two movies I spoiled for Bob upon their completion. Those would have been perfect for this thread! Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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I have a few but I can't remember them. One I do remember though is in Die Hard 2. When Bruce Willis' character is trying to explain to some police chief or something that the general facked the whole attack thing with blanks he proves his point by firing the blanks at him...IN A ROOM FULL OF POLICE OFFICERS WHO DON'T IMMEDIATLY SHOOT HIM YET STILL DRAW THEIR WEAPONS.
Posts: 2489 | Registered: Jan 2002
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quote: Did anyone mention how Jake and Elwood pulled off a truly magical feat by repeatedly racing through long empty stretches of road in and around Chicago in The Blues Brothers ?
Stephen - I certainly thought that same question when I was stuck on Lower Whacker drive (is that the right name of that street) this past fall in Chicago..
quote: Was that the one where it was somehow easier to train drill operators to fly the space shuttle than to teach highly educated astronauts to operate drilling equipment? Or was that the other asteroid movie?
This was exactly my thought while watching the show. I can usually suspend belief but this particular idiocy was so blaring that I was irritated during the rest of the movie.
Posts: 2022 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
How about in the revised star wars where greedo shoots first? He's a ****ing bounty hunter at near point blank range, he wouldn't miss.
Posts: 2489 | Registered: Jan 2002
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posted
Wait a minute, they didn't teach the drill operators to fly the space shuttle. They taught them the basics to survive in space and checked them out on the portable drilling rigs. That was actually the only believable part to me - drilling isn't simple.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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To be fair, in Armageddon they had the real astronauts flying the shuttles...the oil drillers were just along for the ride and just had to be taught how to do basic physical things in space.
quote:Speaking of Die Another Day , did anyone wonder how a bone marrow transplant can make someone into a completely different human being? It even wiped out the guy's accent. My grandma had a bone marrow transplant when she got cancer. I guess that explains why she came out of the operation as a large burly black man.
ROFLMAO I LOVE this line!!!!
Posts: 4515 | Registered: Jul 2004
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Seeing as we're a bunch of sci-fi geeks, I am surprised no one has mentioned how the Klingon warship had an entry on humpback whales in its database. Even if you assume it has been undated with federation info (which would invalidate all the whining about the Klingon technology they do) why would that info be in there?
quote: That's true speed, the "alarm" went off, but Jones still managed to throw a 100lbs idol across a very respectable chasam, and it was caught easily on the other side.
I chalk this up to the guy who caught it being Doc Oc. :drifts off into magical movie mixed metaphor land:
Posts: 666 | Registered: Dec 2003
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Well, it's been quite awhile since I saw the movie but I distinctly remember thinking it was goofy to send the roughnecks into space instead of teaching the astronauts to drill. Perhaps I was uninformed concerning the difficulty of drilling but I'm still not convinced that this is how it would be approached in a real life scenario.
Posts: 2022 | Registered: Mar 2004
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In spiderman 2, wouldn't Doc-ock's metal arms be so heavy he wouldn't be able to walk. He wasn't exactly one of the most fit men I've seen.
Posts: 2489 | Registered: Jan 2002
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What I did like about that was that he braced two of his arms on the ground when he lifted heavy things. In the comics, and especially the cartoons, there are instances of him holding a car up with all 4 arms, meaning his back and legs are bearing the entire weight of the car.
posted
How about in TTT, when at the end of the movie Frodo walks up to a Nazgul and almost hands him the One Ring.....but then Sauron can't figure out what they are doing with it, even though they are right across the river from Mordor....
Even worse, in the extended edition of ROTK, the Witch-King of Angramar is so powerful he breaks Gandalf wizard staff by simply raising his sword of fire.....and then, when he has Galdalf the White, head of the White Councuil and the largest thorn in the side of Sauron throughout the ages, completely in his power....he leaves, because some horns are blowing.
I threw popcorn at the screen at that one, it pissed me off. Both of them did, I was swearing in the theatre during TTT becaue of Sauron saw Frodo at all the game was up....and then he found a hobbit wandering through Mordor but cound't figure it out? lol
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Yeah, in the book it's clear Gandalf is at least able to go toe to toe with the Nazgul, although we don't get to know who would have actually one. The witch king leaves before they come to grips in the book - much more believable, because the book is clear that the fear of the Nazgul is the major motivating force of the dark army. So he's needed on the field, and he's not sure he can beat Gandalf.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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