Corrected entry: It's very common for shows, games, or movies that take place after the end of the world to still show people using fossil fuels like gasoline and diesel in vehicles. However, with the production of gas having ended, this could not last very long. Even when properly stored, civilian gas supplies would go bad and be unusable after about a year, diesel a little longer but not by much. Private stashes of gas, like in cans, would only last about 5 months. And the military supplies of gas would, at best, last for 5 years.
Quantom X
5th Apr 2020
Common mistakes
Correction: This all highly depends on the quality of the gasoline and the amount of ethanol and its exposure to oxygen. I've heard about jerrycans of gasoline 25 years old still usable. It's also possible to purify the gasoline again so it's usable by filtering it. Don't need a huge refinery for small amounts.
21st Oct 2018
Common mistakes
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.
21st Oct 2018
Common mistakes
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.
13th Dec 2018
Common mistakes
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.
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.
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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: 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.
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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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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).
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Correction: Stored gasoline is typically treated with fuel stabilizer (about 2 ounces of stabilizer will treat 5 gallons of gasoline and prolong its shelf-life by years). All of my stored gasoline is treated with stabilizer, and I've used cans that are 5 years old and older. Even untreated gasoline can have a remarkably long shelf-life: Some years ago, I sold an old Volvo that had been sitting in my garage with a dead battery for 11 years; the buyer brought a fresh battery and installed it just to test the starter, to see if the engine was frozen. To everyone's amazement, the old car immediately started, revved and purred like a kitten, burning the gasoline in its tank from over a decade earlier.
Charles Austin Miller