Movie Conventions Ruined By Your Job

Otacon · 27-01-2010 03:21PM #1

Are there any particular scenes in a movie or generic movie conventions that you scoff at, due to knowledge you have because of the work you do?

I was reading the 'Hurt Locker Plot' thread and Manic was explaining how certain scenes were completely unbelieveable for him due to his occupation. Does anyone else have similar opinions?

As I work in IT, I find 'Hackers' to be a larf!

AnonoBoy · 27-01-2010 03:32PM

Otacon wrote: »

As I work in IT, I find 'Hackers' to be a larf!

As a person who once used a computer I too found Hackers to be utterly implausible.

syklops · 27-01-2010 03:33PM

Most hacking movies.

(I used to be an IT security consultant)

Thats said I love Hackers. Its so bad its actually good.

L31mr0d · 27-01-2010 03:35PM

I work as a network/sys/root admin and this was pretty much how I felt watching Die Hard 4.0

L31mr0d · 27-01-2010 03:49PM

syklops wrote: »

Thats said I love Hackers. Its so bad its actually good.

I love it too. Probably because it started to get me more interested in computers (who am I kidding, Sneakers did that

). Excellent soundtrack and Angelina Jolie along with, now, retro hardware specs. I just love when they are drooling over the laptop specs. What did it have, a 28.8 BPS modem and 8K of RAM

syklops · 27-01-2010 03:50PM

L31mr0d wrote: »

I work as a network/sys/root admin and this was pretty much how I felt watching Die Hard 4.0

LMAO

Thats the first time I have ever used that acronym.

Mclean:"What do you need my phone for, there is no signal"
guy(cant remember his name): "Even so I can use the satilite network. Hackers use them all the time for chatting"
</May not be exact quote.>

Thats nice. but if you have no signal....

syklops · 27-01-2010 03:55PM

L31mr0d wrote: »

I love it too. Probably because it started to get me more interested in computers (who am I kidding, Sneakers did that ). Excellent soundtrack and Angelina Jolie along with, now, retro hardware specs. I just love when they are drooling over the laptop specs. What did it have, a 28.8 BPS modem and 8K of RAM

"RISC architecture is going to change everything"
"This is insanely rgeat guys, it has a 28.8 bps modem!"
"For real?"
"Active matrix, a million different colors"
"P6 chip. Triple the speed of the Pentium."
" Yeah. It's not just the chip, it has a PCIbus. But you knew that."

And you get to see Angelinas tit.

NothingMan · 27-01-2010 03:55PM

Hackers is amazing, just watched it again last week. But yes, any film with "hacking" in it is generally rediculous. Although I generally try and not worry about it. I could sit back and enjoy Die hard 4 because when watching a movie anything is possible.

If I worried about pedantic details, imagine watching The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus and thinking. pfft, mirrors don't lead you into a magical wonderland, that's just rediculous.

L31mr0d · 27-01-2010 04:00PM

syklops wrote: »

Thats nice. but if you have no signal....

I believe there is also a scene where they are transferring data to some HDDs, and the hard drives have NO top on them. It's just the raw platter spinning in the air

fuelinjection · 27-01-2010 04:01PM

Loved that cartoon above.

I hated 'Independance Day' when the USA took out all the alien motherships by uploading a virus from their laptop into the alien mainframe (luckily compatible, even though they had far superior technology).
Moral of the story, if you go up against Will Smith - than you better make sure you update your firewall and anti-human-virus package. :mad:

jeffreylebowski · 27-01-2010 04:11PM

I'm asthmatic, and I did notice that the way Le Chiffre puffs on his inhaler in Casino Royale is a bit odd. A friend of mine who is also asthmatic was slightly outraged. (He really does look uncomfortable with it, like he doesn't know how it works)

I found it distracting but I didn't really mind all that much.

I'm with Nothingman, I generally try to keep my suspension of disbelief going as much as possible. If a story is better with some technical inaccuracy than it is with slavishly correct detail, I'd appreciate if they chose story.

bnt · 27-01-2010 05:20PM

I spent years in IT, but I don't have much to add to the above, except one word: OVERRIDE. :pac:

Now I'm studying Engineering, and find the things they do to cars totally implausible. Jump a standard car anything more than a few feet and land it on the flat, its suspension bottoms out and the chassis gets bent. (Note how rally drivers and motocross bikers land on a downslope, and the bad things that happens if they mess that up.)

In Terminator 2, when Arnie jumps the semi in to the LA River viaduct, you can actually see the front axle collapse as it hits bottom. A quick jump cut to another truck, he's still roaring along...

fuelinjection · 27-01-2010 05:29PM

bnt wrote: »

In Terminator 2, when Arnie jumps the semi in to the LA River viaduct, you can actually see the front axle collapse as it hits bottom. A quick jump cut to another truck, he's still roaring along...

Arnold held that truck together by sheer awesomeness alone. :cool:

Getting elected head of Kal-i-for-nia, when he can't pronounce it was a bigger miracle.

hobochris · 27-01-2010 05:34PM

NothingMan wrote: »

Hackers is amazing, just watched it again last week. But yes, any film with "hacking" in it is generally rediculous. Although I generally try and not worry about it. I could sit back and enjoy Die hard 4 because when watching a movie anything is possible.

I had to take Die hard 4 with a pinch of salt same with sword fish.

Going by what hollywood would suggest the first thing you learn in IT is obviously how to crack complex encryption algorithm's with pretty GUI apps and that any firewall as moot once the words "start hack" have been typed into any command line window. :pac:

Also when an attack is successful the information you are looking for will be presented to you in a nice graphical manor. :rolleyes:

Duggy747 · 27-01-2010 05:36PM

bnt wrote: »

In Terminator 2, when Arnie jumps the semi in to the LA River viaduct, you can actually see the front axle collapse as it hits bottom. A quick jump cut to another truck, he's still roaring along...

That was the T-1000 driving the truck

I'm in IT too so loads of movies that deal with computers is usually high-larious. Die Hard 4 was pretty painful to watch, especially when Justin Long spoke anything computer wise (Still couldn't get over the fact he hadn't seen any Die Hard movies before he was cast)

Geek lulz

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2rGTXHvPCQ

Flamed Diving · 27-01-2010 05:39PM

Ah come on, we go to the movies to engage in fantasy, right?

I mean, ffs, you complain about Arnie ramping off a bridge, but don't point out the difficulty of say... time travel? Liquid robots?

lizardfudge · 27-01-2010 05:43PM

There's a huge amount of films where someone is doing research on the web and when you look at the address bar you can see all the web pages are actually located on the C: drive.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar · 27-01-2010 05:48PM

hang on.. angelinas tit is in hackers?
srs?

senordingdong · 27-01-2010 07:03PM

Is there anybody here that doesn't work in IT?

L31mr0d · 27-01-2010 07:30PM

senordingdong wrote: »

Is there anybody here that doesn't work in IT?

Who else is going to be on boards.ie between the hours of 9 to 5 on a weekday. Unemployed and employed IT workers that's who.

Orim · 27-01-2010 07:35PM

Duggy747 wrote: »

Geek lulz
Stoopid IRC Video

That video was awesome.

"Can we get a screenshot"
"Wait a second"
*tappity tappity*
"Got it"
Phew!

NothingMan · 27-01-2010 07:54PM

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

hang on.. angelinas tit is in hackers?
srs?

Yep, just google angelina jolie hackers nipples and check images. It's 3 pics in.

DazMarz · 27-01-2010 09:08PM

Learned not technically from work, but from working with a reckless diabetic man (as in he does not look after his health at all really) for years:

-In both Con Air and Panic Room, two characters

go into shock and convulsions and so on due to not receiving insulin

. This is incorrect. Both were suffering from

low-blood sugar, which insulin would only exaccerbate and possibly kill them

. While Con Air has it technically incorrect in every possible way, Panic Room has it almost correct

regarding the type of syringe and the way in which the 'cure' for the low blood sugar would be administered; the only thing they really got wrong was the name of the 'cure', which is Glucagon

.

longshanks · 28-01-2010 12:07AM

fuelinjection wrote: »

Arnold held that truck together by sheer awesomeness alone. :cool:
.

he then took a piss on that truck, and so optimus prime was born

fuelinjection · 28-01-2010 12:24AM

longshanks wrote: »

he then took a piss on that truck, and so optimus prime was born

:D:D

I never thought of it before but it makes sense .... same face and voice and awesome acting range ?

DazMarz · 28-01-2010 01:29AM

Another one is in the film Lucky You based around a poker player.

At one point in the movie, the lead character wins a game by betting into another player. The other player reaches over and turns the lead character's cards over and sees he had 'nothing' and was bluffing.

This would NEVER be done, nor would it be allowed to happen in a real setting. It is incredibly bad etiquette and could lead to a ban from a poker table.

In the movie, the offending player does not even get a warning.

I've seen fights started at card tables over less!!!!

LenaClaire · 28-01-2010 01:50AM

This is kind of petty, but in the Matrix I hate that the package delivery guy comes to his desk to give him he envelope with the phone. In a real company that size it would go to the mail room and get sorted and delivered later.

chillin_penguin · 28-01-2010 02:07AM

Work as a engineer but a lot of the machines the csi people use do completely different things then they state.......sometimes sometimes they do get it right but not too often

niallon · 28-01-2010 08:46AM

Recently Invictus pissed me off a lot. Enjoyed the film but a few moments in the rugby match by the end are incredibly annoying:

Based on fact but:

Firstly, when a drop goal is taken in rugby, one or two players will be freed up to gaze whistfully as the ball soars over the posts but the majority of them are still stuck in a ruck or are carefully preparing themselves in case the ball deflects off the posts or misses altogether. This ain't NFL Clint!

Also, the match ends in the movie when during a scrum, with NZ losing and the clock in the red, the ref raises his hand in the direction of New Zealand!! Awarding a try in their favour would allow play to continue with the clock only just barely in red. On top of that, during said scrum the ref stares intently at his watch as the last three or four seconds tick away, again, not gonna happen!!

Finally, as IMDB can clarify, on of the restarts (final one I think) in the game clearly does not go the required 10 metres.

Horrifically annoying mainly because apart from the above mistakes the film is a pretty good interpretation of rugby from a Hollywood point of view.

liah · 28-01-2010 09:08AM

Basically any movie with a horse in it pisses me off to some degree. They change the horses all the time, and half the time a horse who's supposed to be male is generally female, or one breed is generally a completely different breed.. normal people wouldn't recognize this stuff but it always gets under my skin. :pac:

lizardfudge · 28-01-2010 09:33AM

liah wrote: »

Basically any movie with a horse in it pisses me off to some degree. They change the horses all the time, and half the time a horse who's supposed to be male is generally female, or one breed is generally a completely different breed.. normal people wouldn't recognize this stuff but it always gets under my skin. :pac:

Martin: Uh, Sir, why don't you just use real cows?
Painter: Cows don't look like cows on film. You gotta use horses.
Ralph: What do you do if you want something that looks like a horse?
Painter: Ehh, usually we just tape a bunch of cats together.

jeffreylebowski · 28-01-2010 01:09PM

Hmm, I've gotta say, the more I read this thread the more glad I am that I turn off the "goofs spotting" bit of my brain when I watch movies. A friend of mine notices little mistakes in everything he watches and I always feel kinda sorry for him for how that spoils movies.

I personally prefer to separate things from the reality I live in, to the reality of the film.

One of my favourite movies is Blade Runner. I know the Voigt-Kampff machine is not real, it's something dreamt up by the (incredibly talented) prop guys. So, that's a machine on screen, and the movie tells me what it does and within what limits etc, and I accept it. I feel much the same about any other machine in a movie, from a gun to a car to an aeroplane.

I don't mean to be a smartarse though, I appreciate that sometimes you notice stuff and you can't "unsee" it.

who the fug · 28-01-2010 01:19PM

niallon wrote: »

Finally, as IMDB can clarify, on of the restarts (final one I think) in the game clearly does not go the required 10 metres.

Have been told that happened in the actual game

faceman · 28-01-2010 01:56PM

I dont work in IT so i cant make techie references. But ignorance is bliss so who cares!

that aside, some other common movie mistakes:

CPR - giving mouth to mouth does not bring somebody back to life. No matter how hard you hit their chest, breathe down their neck or angry you look while doing it. In fact giving mouth to mouth during CPR is nowadays believed to be pointless, with the chest pushs being the main factor to keeping the brain alive until a defib arrives. Oh and the defib doesnt restart the heart, it stops it. Kind of like a system reboot.

Forensic Science at crime scenes - Forensic coppers are highly unlikely to find just one random hair that regular coppers missed that can be linked to the criminal. Most DNA samples take weeks to months to give results and are never clear cut given the amount of DNA that is picked up by the hair along the way before the coppers get it. and you have to hope that the criminal's DNA is already stored on the database. Otherwise its useless.

Tracing a call - a quick call to the phone provider and you can find out where the phone call came from. The whole "keep him on the line" routing is just added by hollywood for dramatic effect.

US system and the "one free phone call" - Doesnt exist. Its at the discretion of the coppers whether you can use the phone or not, and its usually a payphone too.

Explosions in Space - you wouldnt hear them.

Diasters while climbing moutains/cliff faces - in particular in the movie Cliffhanger. What rockclimbers go up the moutains with plastic harnesses?????

lizardfudge · 28-01-2010 02:16PM

AwesomeO 4000 wrote: »

Hmm, I've gotta say, the more I read this thread the more glad I am that I turn off the "goofs spotting" bit of my brain when I watch movies. A friend of mine notices little mistakes in everything he watches and I always feel kinda sorry for him for how that spoils movies.

I personally prefer to separate things from the reality I live in, to the reality of the film.

One of my favourite movies is Blade Runner. I know the Voigt-Kampff machine is not real, it's something dreamt up by the (incredibly talented) prop guys. So, that's a machine on screen, and the movie tells me what it does and within what limits etc, and I accept it. I feel much the same about any other machine in a movie, from a gun to a car to an aeroplane.

I don't mean to be a smartarse though, I appreciate that sometimes you notice stuff and you can't "unsee" it.

But even within in science fiction things need to make sense within the context that they are in.

The Voigt-Kampff machine in Bladerunner is perfectly acceptable as a machine that would exist in such a world.

Films set in a real world context that we are all familiar with because we live there and use computers every day are annoying when they get things wrong.

tricky D · 28-01-2010 02:22PM

DazMarz wrote: »

Another one is in the film Lucky You based around a poker player.

At one point in the movie, the lead character wins a game by betting into another player. The other player reaches over and turns the lead character's cards over and sees he had 'nothing' and was bluffing.

This would NEVER be done, nor would it be allowed to happen in a real setting. It is incredibly bad etiquette and could lead to a ban from a poker table.

In the movie, the offending player does not even get a warning.

I've seen fights started at card tables over less!!!!

Absofeckinlutely. As a former occasional tournament director, I'd be hard pressed not to send the player from the table for at least 10 mins. I'd also be trying to ensure the chairs didn't fly.

Other poker snafus would be in Casino Royale where Bond slow plays his Aces. (Slow playing is where the winning player reveals the winning hand as slowly as possible for dramatic effect) In the real world you have the winning hand, show it without rubbing your opponent's nose in it. This behaviour gets a stop being a wanker warning every time.

The other poker one is in Rounders where Damon goes in teaches the old fogies a lesson. Doesn't really happen that way in the real world as some of those more elderly players are a lot more savvy than that.

From travels in the IT, Web and info security realms, the hacking and other stuff is almost always nonsense and usually using a Mac - gtfo, required search result comes up first - nope, etc....

Also how come every Hollywood car crash has cars flipping over. I've never seen a car in real life with that pipe bomb assembly underneath.

jeffreylebowski · 28-01-2010 02:25PM

lizardfudge wrote: »

But even within in science fiction things need to make sense within the context that they are in.

The Voigt-Kampff machine in Bladerunner is perfectly acceptable as a machine that would exist in such a world.

Films set in a real world context that we are all familiar with because we live there and use computers every day are annoying when they get things wrong.

I dig that, and you make a good point, but I generally feel like the news should portray stuff exactly how it works in real life. Movies, I don't really care so long as it makes for a good story. I love that Penny Arcade comic, but I also love Die Hard 4.

I think our main difference of opinion is the idea that the world of an "everyday" movie has to conform to realism tightly. I definitely see that argument, but I just feel within a movie, just by sitting down to watch fiction I'm accepting that it's different from reality. I also agree the movie has to establish its own parameters of reality, but to use Terminator as an example, in T2 that's a world where trucks are stupidly resilient and don't act like trucks I'm used to. I have no problem with that.

When I watch a movie set in everyday reality, the actors don't look much like the people I see in everyday reality, nor do their clothes. The way they speak is stylized, not much like regular people, etc. These are all things I'm fine with.

But anyway, I totally see your point and I think it's a fair one, it's just not how I choose to see things, I think I enjoy movies more seeing it my way than your way.

niallon · 28-01-2010 04:56PM

who the fug wrote: »

Have been told that happened in the actual game

Maybe so, I haven't seen the entire match in full. Either way, if you're going to show it in the film then either show the repercussions (there was surely a penalty if it did happen in the actual game) or don't show the action. I was very skeptical as to how Yanks would handle rugby and bar these few annoying errors I was impressed.

who the fug · 28-01-2010 05:00PM

niallon wrote: »

Maybe so, I haven't seen the entire match in full. Either way, if you're going to show it in the film then either show the repercussions (there was surely a penalty if it did happen in the actual game) or don't show the action. I was very skeptical as to how Yanks would handle rugby and bar these few annoying errors I was impressed.

The person who told me this, went and watched the whole game because of this point, and that is how it was in the game.

He was not a Kiwi either

longshanks · 28-01-2010 05:15PM

liah wrote: »

Basically any movie with a horse in it pisses me off to some degree. They change the horses all the time, and half the time a horse who's supposed to be male is generally female, or one breed is generally a completely different breed.. normal people wouldn't recognize this stuff but it always gets under my skin. :pac:

is it true they used to paint cows to look like horses?

LiamMc · 28-01-2010 05:56PM

faceman wrote: »

I dont work in IT so i cant make techie references. But ignorance is bliss so who cares!

that aside, some other common movie mistakes:

CPR - giving mouth to mouth does not bring somebody back to life. No matter how hard you hit their chest, breathe down their neck or angry you look while doing it. In fact giving mouth to mouth during CPR is nowadays believed to be pointless, with the chest pushs being the main factor to keeping the brain alive until a defib arrives. Oh and the defib doesnt restart the heart, it stops it. Kind of like a system reboot.

Forensic Science at crime scenes - Forensic coppers are highly unlikely to find just one random hair that regular coppers missed that can be linked to the criminal. Most DNA samples take weeks to months to give results and are never clear cut given the amount of DNA that is picked up by the hair along the way before the coppers get it. and you have to hope that the criminal's DNA is already stored on the database. Otherwise its useless.

Tracing a call - a quick call to the phone provider and you can find out where the phone call came from. The whole "keep him on the line" routing is just added by hollywood for dramatic effect.

US system and the "one free phone call" - Doesnt exist. Its at the discretion of the coppers whether you can use the phone or not, and its usually a payphone too.

Explosions in Space - you wouldnt hear them.

Diasters while climbing moutains/cliff faces - in particular in the movie Cliffhanger. What rockclimbers go up the moutains with plastic harnesses?????

Those forensic scientists drawing their guns and interviewing suspects. Can you imagine wee Dr. Marie Cassidy doing that?

Explosions on earth when the noise is heard before the Blast and the Blast doesn't knocked bystanders three feet into the air.

Cars exploding when they roll down a hill. (I know Sth. California can get quite hot but really!!.) Seeing the little fire start in the back and then the front seat explodes before the engine.

Regarding Cliffhanger, I remember watching it in Savoy 1 in Dublin and there was a note in the closing credit, something like " The XXXXX harness was redesigned to malfunction in this movie".

Automobile nosedives are all the rage on 1970's and '80's cop shows. Audiences would feel short-changed if there wasn't one.

Thinking further there's natural outcomes that may take time and money to set up, breath in cold envirnoment, scorch or enflammed areas of the face if a character has been close to a fire.

28-01-2010 09:07PM

Hard to believe but a large percentage of the worlds population believe that all of the below videos to depict accurate demonstrations of what a computer can do.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uoM5kfZIQ0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkDD03yeLnU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRU1JKHbn7Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Z70BmmSkMY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2rGTXHvPCQ

Movie Conventions Ruined By Your Job

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