Common movie and TV mistakes

This is a list of mistakes, things done wrong, etc. that happen so frequently onscreen we barely notice any more. 'Movie logic', stupid behaviours, and everything related.

Factual error: When an indoor fire occurs, sprinklers often start spraying in the entire building. In reality, though, only the nearest sprinklers (those who got hot enough) will start sprinkling. This is to avoid unnecessary damage in real life, and to focus the available water on the most needed place.

Deliberate mistake: In fight scenes, it's often one person against a small army. Despite having the person greatly outnumbered, the enemies proceed to attack them one at a time, allowing each to be easily dispatched. The whole point of having so many is to overwhelm your enemy... not take turns getting punched out.

Quantom X

Factual error: Enhancing an image by zooming in to blurry CCTV footage and somehow reading the reflection of a ticket in someone's pocket off a nearby fridge.

Factual error: Most ventilation ducts are not large enough for a person to crawl around in, and any duct large enough for an adult to fit in wouldn't be able to support the person's weight. In the rare event that a company could afford a large ventilation system that could support a person's weight, they would likely forgo it anyway, as it would pose a security risk.

Phaneron

Factual error: People being in a vicious gunfight with no ear protectors and still being able to have a normal conversation afterwards.

Character mistake: In almost every film or TV show, if the villain actually bothered to kill the hero as soon as they met face to face instead of just talking about their plans, the villain would actually succeed in his or her plans. Instead, the villain letting the hero live becomes their real downfall.

Audio problem: Non-metal items making audible metallic sounds. The audible metallic sound effect of a blade, such as a sword, when it's being drawn from a wood or leather scabbard that doesn't have a metal throat, and also when it's drawn from a fabric or leather belt.

Super Grover

Factual error: True gun silencers do not exist in real life. There do exist what are called "suppressors," but they don't quiet the sound of a gunshot anywhere near what you see in movies and television shows.

Phaneron

Factual error: Snipers using a laser mounted to their rifle to line up their target. Snipers in real life don't use lasers in this manner. For one thing, it gives away their position, and additionally because lasers won't line up a target accurately at a long range, as the bullet is affected by gravity, the rotation of the Earth, and other factors.

Phaneron

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: Generally, people aren't thinking too forwardly or rationally when someone they're pursuing is about to get away. Their lizard-brain just thinks "getting away -> chase," not considering how unlikely (though not impossible) it is for them to either catch up with the car before it fully accelerates or when it makes a turn, then either pull the driver out of the car or jump on the car.

The person acts on instinct. Many people would do the same in real life.

Catwalk

Character mistake: In many space-based action sequences, all the craft involved act like space isn't 3D. Ships fly at each other head on, surround other vessels in a circle, not a sphere, attack with a pincer movement from the left and right, rather than above/below, etc. Most of the time the action is all broadly on one plane. Makes things easier to understand from an audience perspective, makes zero sense tactically speaking.

Jon Sandys

Factual error: People taking cover behind very small / flimsy things, like car doors or wardrobes, dozens of bullets being fired at them, but they emerge unscathed.

Jon Sandys

Video

Revealing mistake: "Hacking" something by hammering a keyboard and characters appearing they're nowhere near actually typing.

Factual error: In many films and TV series that feature passwords being cracked by a "brute-force" attack, individual characters of a password are found independently of each other. (See Ocean's Eight, Under Siege 2, various episodes of Alarm für Cobra 11 - Die Autobahnpolizei, or Person of Interest.) In reality, this is impossible; most of the times the password itself is not stored anywhere. Rather, an irreversible cryptographic hash of the password is stored, and the typed password's hash is compared with that. Either the whole thing is right or no access is granted.

FleetCommand

Deliberate mistake: You don't automatically get "one phone call" when you're arrested in the USA. Depends on the state, for a start. You're always entitled to access to a lawyer regardless, but not always making the call yourself. If you make a call with no-one answering, you've not "wasted" your call either. Plenty of states allow multiple calls, within reason. It's a plot device, not based in reality.

Jon Sandys

Other mistake: When someone is working on a car or changing a wheel they always manage to keep their hands clean.

eric 64

Deliberate mistake: Characters in super hero movies commonly wearing only a small mask over their eyes which somehow keeps people from identifying them. Despite the fact that most of their facial features and hair styles are visible and recognizable. Great examples being Robin, Green Lantern, The Lone Ranger, and The Incredibles. And of course Superman just takes off his glasses.

Quantom X

Factual error: Babies being born and looking a) much older than newborns, b) not covered in blood and gunk, and c) perfectly normal skin colour. Often no mention of cutting a cord or delivering the placenta either.

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