posted
One thing about horses in most movies I watch is that the hero will jump onto a horse saddled and ready to go, and magically the stirrups are the right length, the saddle the right size for the rider, and the rider knows the horse well enough to manipulate him through just about anything. It takes time for a rider to know and trust a horse to these extremes. It just doesn't happen in an eyeblink or overnight. An extremely talented rider might be able to do it, but not your average run-of-the-mill horse back rider.
I'd just once like to see a person get on a horse that just happens to be there and see the stirrups too short or too long, or the person crammed into too small a saddle or one too big to the point the person can't hardly keep his seat or stay aboard the horse. That would be much more realistic.
One of my favorite pastimes is tearing apart movies using horses and seeing how many mistakes I can catch.
And while I'm at it: Let's not forget the big boner in NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM. Cecil is driving a stage coach with a team of four horses. Larry yells the secret word to stop the running horses. The scene shows the stage coach wheels stop turning because the horses stopped. Not so. Large four-wheeled horse drawn vehicles have brake levers. The driver has to pull back on that lever when he stops the coach or it would run right into the horses pulling it. Soooo, someone pulled the stop lever on that stage coach in the movie. It's the only thing that would stop the wheels from turning.
posted
I think we had a thread a couple of months / years back where we discussed movie flaws...but sometimes you see a certain unreality (that also shows up in writings), kinda designed to move things along, but seem jarringly unrealistic.
What comes to mind are:
A character finding the perfect parking spot right in front of wherever they're going.
Talking on the phone without saying "hello" or "good-bye" or even "Who the blankety-blank is calling me at this blankety-blank hour?"
News that just happens to be about them, without sitting through a bunch of other news.
Incredibly good lifestyles without visible means of support. (In my twenties, and again in my forties, I came yea close to living in a cardboard box.)
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