Factual error: It's common in movies and shows, and even games sometimes, to see characters effortlessly lifting manhole covers. Usually when climbing out from them or even just walking up and lifting them with bare hands. In the case of the TMNT, where they have enhanced strength, it's a little more believable. However, in real life these lids are super heavy and usually require a crane or other heavy equipment to lift.
Quantom X
2nd Mar 2021
Common mistakes
27th Feb 2020
Common mistakes
Factual error: After waking up from a coma or being knocked out for several days, people in films often get up and proceed to wander around or have a conversation before moving on. But the body continues to function during this comatose state. When someone gets up after sleeping for 3 days straight, they would immediately need to head to the bathroom to relieve themselves. That, or they would smell very horribly to others around them and need to be cleaned up if they were not already taken care of when asleep by the other people.
27th Feb 2020
Common mistakes
Factual error: Almost always in movies or TV, if a person dies and falls down on their back or side and have their hands visible, their fingers will be curled in the relaxed position of someone resting. A person's fingers go to this position in a living person due to natural tension in the muscles from circulation and blood flow. However, when a person dies, all their muscles in the body will fully relax with no tension. Thus when lying down dead, their fingers should actually be flat against the ground and not curled up at all.
29th Oct 2018
Common mistakes
Factual error: Any time characters are underwater with no eye protection, they still always seem to have clear and perfect vision to see the world around them, other people and even small objects submerged with them. But to anybody who has ever tried opening their eyes under water, you know this isn't true. It's all a massively blurry mess where you can only make out fuzzy shapes and colors at best.
29th Oct 2018
Common mistakes
Factual error: Impacts from firearms don't throw people back when they get shot.
29th Oct 2018
Common mistakes
Factual error: Often a person on the run will scale a fence quickly and get over it with little problem. And usually this fence has coils of razor wire or barbed wire at the top, and yet they show no sign of injury. This razor wire would cut you and your clothes to shreds. That's the whole point of it.
29th Oct 2018
Common mistakes
Factual error: People often jump from great heights into bodies of water and avoid fall damage. But the surface tension of water is great enough it would be no different than hitting concrete if you're high enough up.
Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.
Suggested correction: If you jump in feet first you can survive a jump into water from a very great height without injuries.
About the max distance you can fall into water without injury is 65 feet, even at feet first. Professional high divers even struggle to control themselves from that height without doing actions they can control like flips. An untrained individual leaping from a bridge down into water would most certainly kill them in real life.
To dive for up to 90 feet is an official sport, while daredevils dive from up 120 feet. And "dive" means head first. Normal people can and do jump feet first without injury, although is a coin toss. Certainly fatal bridge jumps are from very high ones (The Golden Gate is something like 250 feet).
29th Oct 2018
Common mistakes
Factual error: Wild animals are depicted to be much more violent and vicious than in reality. Truth be told, most wild animals will avoid and run from humans. Even wolf packs, snakes, and jungle cats will avoid humans out of fear.
Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.
Suggested correction: This is only a common mistake if this always happens in a situation where there is absolutely no way the animal can be aggressive. It can happen, especially with a wolf or snake, so in that movie it just happened. Not a common mistake then.
29th Oct 2018
Common mistakes
Factual error: People are often watching or staring at the explosion of a nuclear bomb as it goes off, and witness the mushroom cloud form. In reality, the flash from this explosion would be so bright that it would cause instant, and usually permanent blindness. True Lies is a notable exception to this rule where Arnie specifically protects their eyes as the bomb goes off.
29th Oct 2018
Common mistakes
Factual error: In almost every sci-fi feature, things like explosions, laser blasts, ships colliding, asteroids hitting, and planets exploding, can all be heard. However in reality sound can not travel though empty space. So almost all of that would really be completely silent.
25th Oct 2018
Common mistakes
Factual error: In movies, TV shows, cartoons, and videogames people are often depicted as standing right next to molten lava or magma. Frequently walking or fighting next to it, getting inches away or only a few feet above it. In reality the heat coming off it alone would cause people's clothes and skin to catch fire and burn their lungs just from being within like 20 feet of lava.
16th Oct 2018
Common mistakes
Factual error: If a super speed character like Superman or Quicksilver grabbed and/or suddenly stopped people, such actions would most certainly kill the people they are trying to save. Taking them zero to hundreds of miles an hour or vice versa in a split second would snap necks, break bones, slosh brains, and pull apart limbs.
14th Oct 2018
Common mistakes
Factual error: Hearing a dial tone after someone hangs up a phone - that wouldn't be heard unless you hang up and pick it back up yourself.
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Suggested correction: I don't agree it's common to see people jump barbed wire fences without injuries. Its more common to actually show cuts and torn clothes, as that adds drama.
lionhead
I'm referring to the countless times these are not shown.
Quantom X ★
The problem with "common" mistakes is that they are supposed to be easy to recall. From the top of my head I can't think of a movie scene where someone jumped over a barbed wire fence and got off without injuries. How common is it really?
lionhead
Have the same problem with the nuclear explosion one, can't think of any movie where people looked at a nuclear explosion without properly guarding their eyes.
lionhead
I can see what you mean about the barbed wire fence then. I know I've seen it in several films and even CinemaSins has pointed it out a few times... but I can't recall specific titles. As far as the atomic explosions one... The Wolverine, Dark Night Rises, Sum of all Fears, Godzilla 2014 (There's even a dumbass watching the explosion through binoculars), The Crazies, and The Divide to name a few.
Quantom X ★
Alright for the nuclear explosion, although in some of the movies you gave an example it's simply not true (Dark Knight Rises, Sum of All Fears and Godzilla nobody is watching the flash, Godzilla is even historical footage), it does happen often. So I'll thumb it up.
lionhead
In Dark Knight Rises, Joseph Gordon-Levitt's is standing on the bridge watching Batman fly away. He's staring out at the ocean and watches as the explosion goes off.
Quantom X ★
No, in the next scene you see he actually fully turned his head to cover his eyes. A group of people are seen ducking too but you don't know they can see the flash directly.
lionhead