Corrected entry: Unless the character is being portrayed as a bumbling oaf then their car is always spotlessly clean inside and out. No empty sweet wrappers, drinks cans, receipts, window streaks etc.
Common movie and TV mistakes since 4 Dec '18, 00:00 - page 2
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: Protagonists who have been able to clear their name after being framed, but only in the process of committing several other crimes, for which they receive no punishments. The law is still the law and crimes are all separate from each other committed in that time period.
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Suggested correction: This can be true or not. Prosecutors have a lot of discretion whether to prosecute a crime of not. If you help the police solve a crime that you were originally a suspect by committing another crime, as long as that crime is not murder (it can be self-defense) the prosecutor has discretion whether to prosecute.
Plus, in the case of common mistakes, they are not working with the police to clear their name. And just because they're not murdering people doesn't mean they're not assaulting people (outside the realm of self-defense). Plus, this common mistake is especially true for police officers kicked off the case and then break all sorts of police procedures with no consequences.
The only point I am making is that prosecutors do have discretion whether to prosecute crimes. If the crime is minor AND you helped the prosecutor with other more serious crimes, they can choose to not prosecute you for the minor crimes. The OP was vague as to what kind of additional crimes they committed. If murder, then I don't see how they get away with that just because they helped solve other crimes. It would depend on what kind of other crimes the protagonist committed.
Factual error: When someone dies with their eyes open and another character can close the dead person's eyes by gently running their hand over their face. The eyes of a dead body won't stay shut that way.
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Suggested correction: This is partially true. If the person is recently deceased then you can close the eyes with relative ease. If however they have been deceased long enough for rigor mortis to set in then the mistake is valid. It's a tough one to be honest.
That's not true at all. Muscles can not contract after death. Therefore, if someone tries to close the eyes of someone who is dead, the eyes will open back up to their original positions. They only way they can stay closed is if someone seals them shut, in the case after death, a wet swap may work, which is not what they commonly do in films.
Stupidity: Ground troops armed with semi-auto handguns, automatic rifles and even heavy artillery just keep wasting ammo, barrage-after-barrage, magazine-after-magazine, against giant robots and monsters 100 feet tall, long after it becomes obvious that the weapons have zero effect. This is an ongoing stupidity dating back to some of the earliest giant monster movies, and is still seen in giant monster and superhero films today.
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Suggested correction: Surely in the face of a no-win scenario, doing something that may or may not work is better than doing nothing and awaiting your doom. They would be doing everything they could to stop the enemy in the hopes of saving lives. Even if it takes every last round of ammunition, it may eventually be enough to wear down the monster / robot etc.
I hate to disagree. I think one of the best examples is the latest Godzilla movie where they keep firing their hand guns on it knowing it would be better to just get out, there was absolutely no point to do that. Same goes for Man Of Steel.
In everything from old Godzilla movies to modern superhero and kaiju flicks, we see military forces line up and throw every bit of small arms and heavier artillery they have at the giant monsters or giant robots, with zero effect. The military always retreats, regroups, then lines up and wastes all their ammunition again, as if they learned absolutely nothing from the first experience.
In a no-win scenario, you beat a hasty retreat and live to fight another day, hopefully better armed and better prepared next time. You don't hold your ground, futilely trying to bring down a giant monster the size of a Hilton Hotel with small arms fire.
It's strange because I can understand why filmmakers still do this, even though it makes little sense. They are trying to show that the monster, robot, whatever is unstoppable by conventional means and honestly I don't know how you would do that without these kinds of scenes. Even though they are dumb. It's extra dumb to me when you hear the General yell "Stand your ground, men!" or something like that. Or when the cop runs out of bullets and throws his gun.
I've seen too many scenes where they keep shooting, apparently to no avail, BUT there is always the chance that hitting the "monster" in a certain spot could get it to retreat. Instead of just continuing to rapidly fire with the general intent of hitting the monster, it would make much more sense to focus on a possible soft spot, such as an eye. The "just keep firing" mentality does fall under "stupidity." The military should be using a strategy that is rational, and emptying machine guns isn't.
Corrected entry: Particularly in sitcoms, characters will talk about another character behind their back while still being in the same room and talking at a normal speaking level, but the character being talked about somehow never hears anything.
Correction: Considering the fact that most sitcoms are recorded in front of a live audience, I wouldn't really say this is a mistake. Like in a live play, it needs to be heard by the audience. Also it's more of a cheat than a mistake, with the implications that they are speaking low enough that the person in question can't hear them but the person they are speaking to closer can. If anything, you might could consider this a Deliberate mistake. However it's more just a result of the style of the medium.
I don't see how doing this for the benefit of a live audience invalidates this as a mistake, especially since the actors could just as well go into another "room" on the set to have their conversation. If you are speaking at a normal volume and the person five feet away from you can't hear you, unless they are dead or hard of hearing, then it's a legitimate mistake, deliberate or otherwise.
I agree. If you think they characters are talking too loudly not to be heard, turn down the volume of your TV till you can't hear them from across the room.
Factual error: In movie plots that take place hundreds or even thousands of years ago, the characters have perfectly white, straight teeth. It is a known fact that Queen Elizabeth I was virtually toothless by age 40. Good dental hygiene didn't really exist until after WWII. Some movies get it right, but only for the bad guys.
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Suggested correction: False teeth have been around for centuries; they could be made from a variety of materials including wood, porcelain, or even human teeth taken from corpses or people who willingly sold their teeth to make some quick cash. People with the means to do so could acquire them quite easily, and they were often indistinguishable from a person's own natural teeth.
Your reasoning is very weak. Yes, false teeth have been around for centuries, but even today with much better technology, with close observation you can tell someone has false teeth. Everyone knew G. Washington had false teeth. No, these characters from 500 years ago are not ALL wearing false teeth.
Australian Aboriginals have (had, before colonization) almost perfectly white, straight teeth and it's known that this is somehow related with their foraging diet. If it's true, then most people back ago could have almost perfect teeth too.
Furthermore, widespread tooth decay before great age was only a rich person's problem until refined sugar became cheap, so the peasants wouldn't have bad teeth either.
Tooth decay is not caused by refined sugars. Any carbohydrates will promote bacterial growth, which can cause tooth decay. Additionally acidic food and drinks and alcohol (which can be high in carbohydrates) can damage the teeth and promote bacterial growth. And the mistake is talking about movies in general with countless characters, not a few select characters with significant means.
Thanks for your response. You said it better than I could have.
I mostly agree with you, but I am talking about characters who are rich with perfectly white teeth (and more importantly) great gums - no recession. What I disagree is that only sugar causes teeth decay. Not true. Virtually all food breaks down into simple sugars with enzymes in your saliva.
Factual error: In almost every movie from the introduction of sound on to present day, lightning and thunder happen simultaneously, while in reality there's always a delay between the former and the latter.
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Suggested correction: Hardly always, if the lightning hits right in front of you you hear the thunder immediately. I'd say from about 100 meters you perceive it as instantly, as it's only 0.3 seconds between flash and thunder.
This is a mistake about in almost all movies, not in all thunderstorms. The common mistake in the movies is when lightning isn't hitting 100m away from the character, but the sound is still instantaneous.
I assume it's about thunderstorms in movies. Name an example.
Instant thunder (even at a considerable distance of miles from the lightning or explosion source) is, indeed, a common and probably deliberate error in most films. The reasoning for it is simple: a prolonged and realistic delay between lightning and thunder could change a 1-second shot into a 6-second shot, for example, compromising the director's intended pace and mood for the scene. Steven Spielberg films have utilized both instant and delayed thunder. In "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," for example, when the UFOs zoom out into the distant background (certainly miles away) in a wide landscape shot, they produce a lightning effect in the clouds that is simultaneously heard as thunder. But in "Poltergeist" (a Spielberg film directed by Tobe Hooper), there is a very deliberate scene of characters realistically counting the seconds between distant lightning and resulting thunder. Choosing to obey physics or not is a matter of the director's artistic license.
I posted this while I was watching Death in Paradise, episode 7 of the third season, but really, you have never seen in pretty much any horror or cheap slasher movie whenever there's a storm, the flash of a lightning coming at the *same* time as a thunder jumpscare sound? It's vastly spoofed, even, when some ugly/creepy/terrifying character makes its appearance. One example randomly picked? Dracula by Coppola, in the first 10 minutes, carriage, lightning in the distance, not even a split second after, rumble. In RL it would reach you a couple seconds later. But really, it's such a movie archetype, I am sure you can find it in any Dracula movie.
The Dracula example doesn't really show how far away the lightning is, it could right above them. It's fake as hell, I agree with that, but the fact there is lightning and thunder at the same time without actually seeing the distance is not a mistake to me. It's also highly unnatural lightning as it only happens twice and then nothing, it's not even raining. It's obviously meant to be caused by the evil surrounding the place. The idea is there is constant lightning right on top of them.
There's a scene in Judge Dredd where every few seconds, there is a flash of lightning instantly accompanied by the sound of thunder. It happens frequently in Sleepy Hollow as well.
I know the scenes you are referring to. In both those instances you have no idea about the distance of this lightning. It could be (and probably is) right on top of them. You can hear that from the typical high sharpness of the sound, only heard when the flash is very close. Thunderclouds are never very high in the air so even the rumbling within the cloud itself can be heard, sometimes you don't even see lightning when it rumbles (yet there is). It's a bit far fetched but you could hear a rumbling or the thunder from a previous flash and mistake it for the flash you see at the same time. Can happen when there are continuous flashes.
Factual error: When a police officer finds a suspicious powder he or she puts some on his or her tongue and knows straight away what drug it is, in reality the powder would need a lab test to analyse it.
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Suggested correction: Not true. Generally they are tasting it to see how pure the drug is. Hard drugs are often diluted with milk sugar, so they make a bigger profit. The higher the sweet taste, the less pure the drug is.
First, law enforcement officers don't ever taste drugs, it's a good way to die if you don't know what you're ingesting. But second, the mistake isn't saying they are tasting drugs to know it's strength or purity. The mistake is explicitly about a cop tasting a drug and positively identifying what it is based on taste, which happens a lot in cop movies. Such as when the cop says "that's cocaine", not "that's half pure cocaine."
Other mistake: When the "good" guys can easily kill someone wearing protective combat gear, bullet-proof vests, etc with just one shot, but the "good" guy can get shot multiple times and be OK.
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Suggested correction: It depends on where the good guy was hit at and how bad the bullet wound is.
Factual error: Actors playing police, soldiers or agents who keep their fingers on the triggers of their firearms. In real life, trigger discipline is an early and repeated part of firearms training. This is often most obvious on movie posters. This mistake has become less common as military veterans started to become advisers to movie makers and actors have sometimes undergone training before filming begins.
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Suggested correction: Except in the case of Secret Service Agents on the Presidential detail who are trained to keep their finger inside the trigger guard any time they draw their weapons.
Not a counter-correction, but has this been seen in fictional shows about the Secret Service? Eg In The Line of Fire or Olympus Down. It could be an interesting mistake or trivia, depending on the era and accuracy of the show.
Yes, it was a plot point in Line of Fire, but I have no idea if the finger inside the trigger guard policy was made up or true. Your suggestion that this is an interesting mistake is a good one. I doubt the Secret Service will be giving us any confirmation on how they train their agents.
Revealing mistake: In many in-car scenes, the background shown outside the windows either doesn't change or is the same scene used over and over.
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Suggested correction: I don't think I've ever seen this outside of animation. It certainly isn't a common error. Can you cite some specific examples?
What is more common in driving scenes, especially in crowded cities, is drivers never having to stop for street lights or make turns. They continue driving through the city in a straight line as the characters talk.
Factual error: Regular, unmodified weapons firing blank rounds. Real weapons use large and obvious attachments to block most of the propellant gases from going out of the barrel, which cycles the weapon. Hollywood weapons have blockages or mechanisms hidden in the barrel to do the same thing (or they have other effects like CGI or a gas flame), but those would make them unable to fire actual bullets. Also, real blanks are dangerous when fired close to people because they can still fire out debris. Die Hard 2 is a good example, with the bad guys swapping back and forth between blank and live ammunition in the same weapons.
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Suggested correction: Technically incorrect. You can get very high powered blanks called 4 in 1's that can cycle a weapon without the weapon being modified or having a blank firing adaptor. The reason they are not used commonly is because of how loud they are.
Character mistake: When someone gets shot and the first thing people try to do is remove the bullet, often with a knife and no anesthetic.
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Suggested correction: This commonly happens but this is not a mistake. What is wrong with removing the bullet with a knife and no anesthetic. Many times the characters don't have access to a medical facility with all the accoutrements to remove a bullet or don't want to go to a hospital where bullet wounds are reported to law enforcement.
It seems my original entry was edited to make it more brief. But in real life, bullets are not commonly removed because there's no need. The bullet is not the concern, it's the hole the bullet caused that's the concern. They (and more specific to what I was trying to suggest, they as in medical experts) are increasing the risk factors for no viable reason and are never addressing the main cause for concern. And the point of not using anesthetic is they are increasing the risk factors even more for an already pointless surgery.
Corrected entry: Movies, and TV shows often treat jails and prisons as if they are the same thing. They're not. Jails are typically run by local law enforcement, and local government agencies, and are designed to hold inmates awaiting trial or serving short sentences for misdemeanor crimes. Prisons on the other hand are facilities typically operated by either a state government, the federal bureau of prisons. Prisons are designed to hold inmates serving longer term sentences for more serious crimes.
Correction: This is not necessarily a film/script mistake. Even the American English speakers, who have this distinction often speak in metonymy and metaphor a lot. For example, when they say "it won't make a difference when you go to jail", they really mean "it won't make a difference when the authorities catch you." It does not matter whether the culprit is sent to a jail, sent to a prison, incarcerated at home, receives capital punishment or is forced to pay fines and do community service.
I would agree that it is a common mistake. "Jail" and "prison" are often used interchangeably or incorrectly. The "Corrected Entry" above gives the basic distinctions between the terms and - more often than not - the word "jail" is used for both jail and prison.
Factual error: Padlocks being shot off or unlocked by gunfire.
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It takes more than an experienced shooter to shoot open a padlock with a gun. You need to use the right gun, and the right bullet.
An experienced shooter will never take the risk of a ricochet or shrapnel from doing such a thing.
Other mistake: The hero can usually knock out henchmen with one or two punches, but the main villain (as well as the hero themselves) can take much more punishment. This is practically akin to enemies in video games. In fact, heroes are so confident of their abilities that they can knock an opponent down and know that they are down for the count without even having to verify.
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Suggested correction: How is this a mistake? Of course the main villain, the boss, is hardest to knock out. If his henchmen were just as strong or stronger, why are they just henchmen? See it like a race, the champion is hardest to beat, that's why he is champion.
Just to give an example, at the beginning of the movie "Goldeneye," James Bond knocks out a henchman sitting on a toilet with one punch. But at the end of the movie, Bond and Trevelyan are beating the crap out of each other and neither is knocked unconscious. It's certainly reasonable for someone to be a more formidable fighter than their underlings, but it wouldn't make them magically impervious to blows to the head.
The mistake is that the hero of the movie very rarely checks to see if a disabled opponent got back up. They are supremely confident that they are out, even if the hero literally just rolled them on to the floor. Makes for good movie magic, but is totally unrealistic.
This mistake has four aspects. (1) The hero knocks someone unconscious for good with just one hit. (2) The hero does this to several enemies in succession, with the same results. (3) The hero shows no signs of fatigue. (4) The hero takes on the tougher villains and takes them down too. Doing all of these requires immense superhuman strength. In films about superhumans, this is not a mistake. But there are films that deliver this and are cheeky enough to give the appearance of there being a modicum of reality in it.
It's not necessarily a measure of strength, technique has got a lot to do with it. When one goes for the throat for example or the jaw a knockout is almost always certain, if you know what you are doing. You have to if you got no time to hit someone twice because the next opponent is not waiting.
You are right. But we don't see proper technique either. I really have issues with people getting unconscious for good from a punch between their eyes, especially when John Reese does it.
I agree with you that some movies take it too easy. But is it really common? The first knock out of Goldeneye example isn't all that unlikely, he may even have hit that guy twice, but a blow to the head, a surprise blow to the head can definitely knock someone out, happens in boxing all the time. Even between the eyes, as long as the head is knocked around.
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Correction: How is this a mistake? Clean people do exist and it is not a mistake to want to film them. Cleanliness is a virtue, and the films might want to deliberately exploit the fact. Women with hourglass-shaped bodies? Now, that's a mistake.
FleetCommand
Every single person? I've never, in my life, been inside a spotlessly clean car.
The_Iceman
Bear in mind the vast majority of the time we aren't shown the entirety of the car. My car's pretty clean but has bits of leaves, etc. in the footwell because I never clean there - no movie ever shows the footwells! I don't throw random garbage around the inside either, it gets put in the side pockets, again, not somewhere that tends to be of great focus in movies.
Jon Sandys ★
Films are intended to bend reality. Wanting to have clean cars in the film is not automatically a mistake. It is at best a cliche or trope. Sometimes, it is advocacy.
FleetCommand