Pet Peeves/Things That Happen in TV and Movies That Would Never Work In Real Life.

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Oncefallen

Oncefallen

Idiot in Chief
Staff member
#21
Jan 15, 2011
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#21
I grew up in So Cal and it used to drive me nuts watching episodes of CHiPs or Emergency where one scene would be in the north west San Fernando Valley, and the next scene would be around LAX or Malibu or some other location at least 30 to 40 minutes away. Obviously for those not familiar with the area they would be blissfully ignorant of the impossibility of the situation.

Another one is watching cop shows in which cops are portrayed doing things that would violate the ethical standards of any law enforcement agency or blatantly violating chain of evidence standards and it is portrayed as being normal, not an aberration.
 
seoulsearch

seoulsearch

OutWrite Trouble
#22
May 23, 2009
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#22
Oncefallen said:
I grew up in So Cal and it used to drive me nuts watching episodes of CHiPs or Emergency where one scene would be in the north west San Fernando Valley, and the next scene would be around LAX or Malibu or some other location at least 30 to 40 minutes away. Obviously for those not familiar with the area they would be blissfully ignorant of the impossibility of the situation.
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I MUST protest this!!!

Please don't spoil the very last remnants of my childhood. :(

The Poncherella could do no wrong!!! :D

 
seoulsearch

seoulsearch

OutWrite Trouble
#24
May 23, 2009
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#24
Oncefallen said:

But you sure can, it was Poncherello. :p
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I figure if I ever meet him and I mess up the pronunciation/spelling...

I'll just tell him I don't know English very well. :D With this face, it works every time! :p

(I was trying to go from memory... And truthfully, all I could remember was "Ponch"...)

Hmm... Poncherella... The CA male cop version of Cinderella... Somehow, now it doesn't sound all that manly. :(
 
W

wwjd_kilden

Guest
#25
#25
Oh. In movies it is perfectly safe to be in a car crash .... as long as you get out before the inevitable explosion
 
Y

Yahweh_is_gracious

Guest
#26
#26
Space scenes with sound. There is NO sound in space. Engine noises, the pew-pew-pew of laser cannons, and all that junk is just an insult to the intelligence of anyone who didn't flunk 3rd grade science.
 
Magenta

Magenta

Senior Member
#27
Jul 3, 2015
60,020
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#27
Oncefallen said:
I grew up in So Cal and it used to drive me nuts watching episodes of CHiPs or Emergency where one scene would be in the north west San Fernando Valley, and the next scene would be around LAX or Malibu or some other location at least 30 to 40 minutes away. Obviously for those not familiar with the area they would be blissfully ignorant of the impossibility of the situation.
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Yes, and you could think, well, maybe they are just depicting the seamless passing of time, and forwarding us to the next plot-moving-forward scene, and yet a conversation was happening in that time, and there was no interruption of dialogue in that thirty minute disparity...

One of the worst movies I saw for plot holes was Billy the Kid. Him and some gal were holed up in a city hotel room that was surrounded by numerous cops and cop cars. A massive shoot out was in progress, at night time, and the next thing you know, Billy and this gal are driving across the open countryside in broad daylight, not a cop to be seen, no pursuit in progress. How did they possibly escape and get away??? No explanation was given. Just POOF! Like magic. They were free and clear :eek:
 
Y

Yahweh_is_gracious

Guest
#28
#28
Weapons with magazines holding 12-15 rounds that can miraculously fire 200 times before needing reloaded. Especially with revolvers. Grrr...
 
D

DCrawshawJr

Guest
#29
#29
How about 20-somethings living in nice apartments in big cities? Where do they get the rent money? Or perhaps...how well do they know the landlord/landlady?

(Yes, there is "rent control", but for every 20-something sitcom star to benefit from it...)
 
zeroturbulence

zeroturbulence

Senior Member
#30
Aug 2, 2009
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#30
Oncefallen said:
I grew up in So Cal and it used to drive me nuts watching episodes of CHiPs or Emergency where one scene would be in the north west San Fernando Valley, and the next scene would be around LAX or Malibu or some other location at least 30 to 40 minutes away. Obviously for those not familiar with the area they would be blissfully ignorant of the impossibility of the situation.

Another one is watching cop shows in which cops are portrayed doing things that would violate the ethical standards of any law enforcement agency or blatantly violating chain of evidence standards and it is portrayed as being normal, not an aberration.
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I used watch ChiPs religiously when I was living in NJ and it was always my dream to one day live in socal because of that show, Adam 12 and Emergancy. I wanted to be like Poncharelli. I still think those cops were some of the coolest characters on tv.. :rolleyes:

As far as things that only happen in movies.... In movies, the underdog usually ends up getting the girl when she realizes he was right for her after all and decides to leave her jerk boyfriend... In reality... the underdog just gets friendzoned..
 
Lynx

Lynx

Folksy yet erudite
#31
Aug 13, 2014
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#31
I will begin with the traditional xkcd:


"The lab rat is perturbed. It must sense nanobots! CODE GREY! We have a Helvetica Situation!"

Yahweh_is_gracious said:
In TV and movies, subverting a very secure computer system takes only a few seconds. Characters can hack the Pentagon in a matter of seconds.

Monkey Muffins!

I understand though. Showing it realistically wouldn't be "fun" or "exciting". I mean, who wants to watch some fat, unshowered, neckbeard slug bladder-buster after bladder-buster of Mountain Dew while he pours through tens of thousands of lines of source code to try and find an exploit he can use to try and find a back-door into a system.
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I'll go you one better: In the movies when the good guys notice they are being hacked they go through a lot of computer-ish fol-de-rol to block the evil hacker. And I stress "ish" because of course all the junk they're spouting has no basis in computer reality.

In real life a good hacker doesn't show up on your screen... but if you did somehow notice a hacker was in your system all you would have to do is shut down the computer or pull the ethernet cable out. Even if you couldn't go to "Shut down" you could just hold the power button five seconds to trip the power breaker. All computers have that five-second tripout.
 
Lynx

Lynx

Folksy yet erudite
#32
Aug 13, 2014
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#32
Another thing, why is everybody standing around paying attention while the hero gives long speeches? They never seem impatient or in a hurry, they just stand there listening. You see it a lot in House, M.D. And nobody ever interrupts, unless of course it's in the script, and when it's a scripted interrupt they do so in a very unnatural manner.

I mean I know in a book you have exposition that you can't put on screen, but do you have to have so much speech-making to give the same exposition? Can't you condense it or make an extra scene explaining what you want to explain? This isn't Shakespeare here.

Although I wonder sometimes if those actors back in the day when Shakespeare's plays were new, if they ever felt silly making those long speeches...
 
Oncefallen

Oncefallen

Idiot in Chief
Staff member
#33
Jan 15, 2011
6,062
3,412
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#33
Yahweh_is_gracious said:
Weapons with magazines holding 12-15 rounds that can miraculously fire 200 times before needing reloaded. Especially with revolvers. Grrr...
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Of course while were talking about firearms......the 5,000 round shootout in which no one even gets nicked and then the star makes a hail mary of a shot and puts one round right between the bad guys eyes..........if you couldn't even wing him before, how am I supposed to believe that you could make a head shot??

or the ridiculous notion that Hollywood (or more accurately Burbank) pushes that a suppressor (more commonly termed as a silencer) actually silences a gunshot. In reality a suppressor muffles the sound a bit but far from silences the gunshot.
 
Lynx

Lynx

Folksy yet erudite
#34
Aug 13, 2014
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#34
And I close with another xkcd:


Moral of the story: Directors, the wrong movie pet peeve might stop people from watching your movie.
 
seoulsearch

seoulsearch

OutWrite Trouble
#35
May 23, 2009
16,442
5,391
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#35
Lynx said:
Another thing, why is everybody standing around paying attention while the hero gives long speeches? They never seem impatient or in a hurry, they just stand there listening. You see it a lot in House, M.D. And nobody ever interrupts, unless of course it's in the script, and when it's a scripted interrupt they do so in a very unnatural manner.

I mean I know in a book you have exposition that you can't put on screen, but do you have to have so much speech-making to give the same exposition? Can't you condense it or make an extra scene explaining what you want to explain? This isn't Shakespeare here.

Although I wonder sometimes if those actors back in the day when Shakespeare's plays were new, if they ever felt silly making those long speeches...
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A-ha!!!

So the Guest of Honor finally makes an appearance in his own thread (that he's been pestering me for at least a week to write ;).)

I was just about to put out a box of cat litter... as bait.
 
Lynx

Lynx

Folksy yet erudite
#36
Aug 13, 2014
27,286
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#36
Oncefallen said:
Of course while were talking about firearms......the 5,000 round shootout in which no one even gets nicked and then the star makes a hail mary of a shot and puts one round right between the bad guys eyes..........if you couldn't even wing him before, how am I supposed to believe that you could make a head shot??

or the ridiculous notion that Hollywood (or more accurately Burbank) pushes that a suppressor (more commonly termed as a silencer) actually silences a gunshot. In reality a suppressor muffles the sound a bit but far from silences the gunshot.
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Yeah, you see that so much in the old A-Team shows that TV Land actually made a commercial making fun of the "safe violence" where everybody shoots at everybody but nobody gets hurt.

I wish doghouse diaries hadn't closed down. There was one comic where a guy was at a shooting range firing like crazy at a paper target. Then they bring the target forward and there are bullet pocks everywhere around the target outline. The trainer says, "He's ready." Turns out this took place at Bad Guy Training Ground.
 
Lynx

Lynx

Folksy yet erudite
#37
Aug 13, 2014
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#37
In honesty I have to say I do not deserve credit for this thread. I got the idea from a meme picture I saw on the internet. The picture is the well known Picard pic where he has his hands outstretched like "What in the world?!" The caption says, "Who the (deleted) is mowing all the grass in those zombie apocalypse movies?"
 
zeroturbulence

zeroturbulence

Senior Member
#38
Aug 2, 2009
24,644
4,305
113
#38
seoulsearch said:
I MUST protest this!!!

Please don't spoil the very last remnants of my childhood. :(

The Poncherella could do no wrong!!! :D

Click to expand...
Wait... you like Poncherello?! :eek: I wanted to be him!! :rolleyes: All the girls I knew were into the blonde guy... But to me he was just a good cop. Ponch was a visionary!! :rolleyes:
 
JonahLynx

JonahLynx

Senior Member
#39
Dec 28, 2014
1,017
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#39
The entire political landscape of the Star Wars prequels is absurd... especially Episode I. So much rant material in that movie.

Imagine if Texas blockaded Florida and then took the governor hostage. Then he escapes and has to go all the way to D.C. to explain to the senate what happened, and no one believes him.

Actually scratch that, I can totally see it now.
 
cinder

cinder

Senior Member
#40
Mar 26, 2014
4,426
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#40
seoulsearch said:
Did this bother anyone else?

* The fact that Luke Skywalker asks Leia if she remembers her real mother in Return of the Jedi, and she answers, "Just a little bit. She died while I was very young." And then the prequel had their mother dying... in childbirth.

I remember sitting in the theater wondering if the writers of the prequels had even BOTHERED to watch the first 3 movies (I've read theories about "Force memories" to explain Leia's explanation and other assorted mumbo jumbo...) But that doesn't stop me from thinking, "Is a little continuity between some of the biggest movies of all time really too much to ask???"

I can hardly wait to see everything they casually "forget"... in the "new" Han Solo movie. :rolleyes: Stay tuned. :)
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I always explained that away by assuming that Mrs. Organa died when Leia was young and Leia didn't know she was adopted. Somehow Luke knew that he was living with his aunt and uncle, but we have no evidence that Leia ever knew she wasn't an Organa until Luke told her. But yes I thought they could have worked that out better in the prequels.
 
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