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Movie nitpicking

roguenuke

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So watching World War Z today, I heard a comment there that I found completely stupid.

This is the scene:
{On ship, in mess hall, getting food}
Daughter to Mother: Water here tastes funny.
Navy #1: It's jet fuel, young lady.
Mother: He's joking.
Navy #2: I wish; Desal has trouble filtering it out, probably because there's too many people on this ship.
There is a huge problem with this explanation. The number of people on the ship would in no way affect whether the water tasted like jet fuel. The only reason that the water would taste like jet fuel is if they were riding high (less weight), drawing in shallow water after a jet fuel leak while staying in that area or they had a jet fuel leak coming out right at the point where the intake for the DUs were. (It would only take one, but that would be noticed and a problem.) Our "Desal"s (they're called distilling units on a carrier) don't do what they suggest here at all. And number of people on the ship would only affect the amount of water available, not whether it tasted like jet fuel.

Now there are plenty more movies that I could get into with similar nits that I could pick. I'm looking for other people's nitpicking of movies, especially based on things that you know just aren't real, likely, feasible, etc.
 
I like the Matrix movies, but the idea of a perpetual human powered power plant is just silly. If the sunlight was blocked by the darkened clouds, they could just fly to the moon and build solar panels.
 
So watching World War Z today, I heard a comment there that I found completely stupid.

This is the scene:

There is a huge problem with this explanation. The number of people on the ship would in no way affect whether the water tasted like jet fuel. The only reason that the water would taste like jet fuel is if they were riding high (less weight), drawing in shallow water after a jet fuel leak while staying in that area or they had a jet fuel leak coming out right at the point where the intake for the DUs were. (It would only take one, but that would be noticed and a problem.) Our "Desal"s (they're called distilling units on a carrier) don't do what they suggest here at all. And number of people on the ship would only affect the amount of water available, not whether it tasted like jet fuel.

Now there are plenty more movies that I could get into with similar nits that I could pick. I'm looking for other people's nitpicking of movies, especially based on things that you know just aren't real, likely, feasible, etc.
The book that the movie is based on is completely different and a gazillion times better.

I could probably write pages of nitpicks since I do nothing but watch movies and TV shows all day if Im not out having fun but it'll be too much work, and I hate having to work. ;)
 
I have a big problem with Tenet. Very cool and interesting movie, but there's a huge plot "hole." People and objects are able to move backward relative to people moving forward (normally) through time. But these people are able to observe and interact with each other, even fighting hand-to-hand. The problem is that they would never be able to observe each other at all, certainly never fighting or interacting. If I'm moving forward at 12:00 PM and another person starts moving the other way at 12:10 PM I would never be able to see them except of maybe that fleeting instant when we passed each other at 12:05 PM. I wouldn't see this other person moving backward because they would be in the future compared to me and I can't view the future. And once they pass at exactly 12:05 PM they would just be gone to me. Even though we technically exist at the same time throughout that ten minutes we would never be able to observe each other for more than that passing instant because any other observation would require viewing the future, present, and past at the same time. And now I just confused myself because we would exist together in those ten minutes so maybe we could interact and now I have a headache.
 
The book that the movie is based on is completely different and a gazillion times better.

I could probably write pages of nitpicks since I do nothing but watch movies and TV shows all day if Im not out having fun but it'll be too much work, and I hate having to work. ;)
My husband liked the book better too. I didn't read it. But I was just going for those small things in movies that maybe few would pick up on, but may be a big deal to those working in those fields would go "aw, come on, really?".

Another one that comes to mind is The World Is Not Enough. When they were in the reactor compartment of the submarine and he says that they are safe as long as the coolant remains inside the reactor. What the hell?!?! No you aren't.
 
I have a big problem with Tenet. Very cool and interesting movie, but there's a huge plot "hole." People and objects are able to move backward relative to people moving forward (normally) through time. But these people are able to observe and interact with each other, even fighting hand-to-hand. The problem is that they would never be able to observe each other at all, certainly never fighting or interacting. If I'm moving forward at 12:00 PM and another person starts moving the other way at 12:10 PM I would never be able to see them except of maybe that fleeting instant when we passed each other at 12:05 PM. I wouldn't see this other person moving backward because they would be in the future compared to me and I can't view the future. And once they pass at exactly 12:05 PM they would just be gone to me. Even though we technically exist at the same time throughout that ten minutes we would never be able to observe each other for more than that passing instant because any other observation would require viewing the future, present, and past at the same time. And now I just confused myself because we would exist together in those ten minutes so maybe we could interact and now I have a headache.
I haven't seen that movie, by time travel movies in general cause me problems with what could happen in them.
 
So watching World War Z today, I heard a comment there that I found completely stupid.

This is the scene:

There is a huge problem with this explanation. The number of people on the ship would in no way affect whether the water tasted like jet fuel. The only reason that the water would taste like jet fuel is if they were riding high (less weight), drawing in shallow water after a jet fuel leak while staying in that area or they had a jet fuel leak coming out right at the point where the intake for the DUs were. (It would only take one, but that would be noticed and a problem.) Our "Desal"s (they're called distilling units on a carrier) don't do what they suggest here at all. And number of people on the ship would only affect the amount of water available, not whether it tasted like jet fuel.

Now there are plenty more movies that I could get into with similar nits that I could pick. I'm looking for other people's nitpicking of movies, especially based on things that you know just aren't real, likely, feasible, etc.

Just to be clear: You were watching a movie about a Zombie apocalypse where the mindless undead rise up and do battle against the living and THIS is what you call into question?

I get it. You need to buy into the premise, but, really... Seems like you were well into the rabbit hole before your critical rejection of the unfounded kicked in. ;)
 
I like the Matrix movies, but the idea of a perpetual human powered power plant is just silly. If the sunlight was blocked by the darkened clouds, they could just fly to the moon and build solar panels.
Yea this always seemed like a lazy plot device. Super advanced AI couldn’t come up with a better power source?
 
So watching World War Z today, I heard a comment there that I found completely stupid.

This is the scene:

There is a huge problem with this explanation. The number of people on the ship would in no way affect whether the water tasted like jet fuel. The only reason that the water would taste like jet fuel is if they were riding high (less weight), drawing in shallow water after a jet fuel leak while staying in that area or they had a jet fuel leak coming out right at the point where the intake for the DUs were. (It would only take one, but that would be noticed and a problem.) Our "Desal"s (they're called distilling units on a carrier) don't do what they suggest here at all. And number of people on the ship would only affect the amount of water available, not whether it tasted like jet fuel.

Now there are plenty more movies that I could get into with similar nits that I could pick. I'm looking for other people's nitpicking of movies, especially based on things that you know just aren't real, likely, feasible, etc.
Whenever I see a movie that supposedly shows space flight and they get the physics completely wrong (like docking with another object while under full thrust), or movies that show the military and the uniforms are all wrong, it’s really annoying.
 
So watching World War Z today, I heard a comment there that I found completely stupid.

This is the scene:

There is a huge problem with this explanation. The number of people on the ship would in no way affect whether the water tasted like jet fuel. The only reason that the water would taste like jet fuel is if they were riding high (less weight), drawing in shallow water after a jet fuel leak while staying in that area or they had a jet fuel leak coming out right at the point where the intake for the DUs were. (It would only take one, but that would be noticed and a problem.) Our "Desal"s (they're called distilling units on a carrier) don't do what they suggest here at all. And number of people on the ship would only affect the amount of water available, not whether it tasted like jet fuel.

Now there are plenty more movies that I could get into with similar nits that I could pick. I'm looking for other people's nitpicking of movies, especially based on things that you know just aren't real, likely, feasible, etc.
On the weekend I watched the worst movie in history - "Left Behind" with Nicolas Cage. In my defense I didn't know what it was about.

But anyway here's my nit-picking:
1. A bunch of people disappear including Cage's co-pilot. With the plane on autopilot he decides to take a stroll into the passenger cabin (several times). No pilot would leave a cockpit completely unattended.
2. He can't reach an airport and has to land in NYC. Rather than take a chance on one of their airports' many runways he decides the best course of action is to land on a highway under construction. In preparation for this his daughter uses a pickup truck to clear a path through the construction barricades. Yup, a pickup truck width of clearance for a passenger jet should do the trick!

So my questions are a) do y'all think it's fair that my GF won't let me pick movies any more? and b) why did Cage ever work after this movie?
 
On the weekend I watched the worst movie in history - "Left Behind" with Nicolas Cage. In my defense I didn't know what it was about.

But anyway here's my nit-picking:
1. A bunch of people disappear including Cage's co-pilot. With the plane on autopilot he decides to take a stroll into the passenger cabin (several times). No pilot would leave a cockpit completely unattended.
2. He can't reach an airport and has to land in NYC. Rather than take a chance on one of their airports' many runways he decides the best course of action is to land on a highway under construction. In preparation for this his daughter uses a pickup truck to clear a path through the construction barricades. Yup, a pickup truck width of clearance for a passenger jet should do the trick!

So my questions are a) do y'all think it's fair that my GF won't let me pick movies any more? and b) why did Cage ever work after this movie?
So Nicolas Cage has been in several movies, including a new one coming out where he actually plays himself. Just saying.




But I do want to thank you for this because it is exactly what I was going for with this thread.
 
The Hobbits could have just ridden the giant eagle to Mount Doom



"Perhaps the most pertinent explanation for this perceived plot hole comes in an exchange from Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring, in which Gandalf asks the Great Eagle, Gwaihir the Windlord, "How far can you bear me?" To which the beast replies, "Many leagues, but not to the ends of the earth. I was sent to bear tidings not burdens."


I also don't believe they could have summoned the great eagles like that since they no longer serve a master.
 
This reminds me: never see a sci-fi movie with a physicist.
It is really hard for nukes to watch movies with nuclear reactors or radiation. My roommates described their response to The World Is Not Enough quite amusingly while we were in Prototype (last school of Navy nuclear power training, hands on training on real nuclear reactors). They said they got some bad looks for laughing at that reactor compartment scene, but it was so worth it (I'm not a James Bond fan, so it was a number of years before I actually watched it).
 
do you want to be entertained?
if you do, sometimes you have to be willing to accept that things work differently in the world on the screen than they do here in real life.

If I can accept there's a world with magic and dragons, I can accept there's
  • a world where someone pounding furiously at a keyboard hacks a password one character at a time,
  • a world where you can kick the helmet of someone riding a motorcycle toward you and be glad about it,
  • a world where you can obviously have your tendons sliced but still use your limb almost as well as before (but you have to wince really, really hard).

all the same, it's nice when a show "gets it right"
 
A civilization capable of interstellar travel still has to rely on a bot that can only speak in bleeps and bloops, and they still rely on animal fat for lighting, still wear animal fur and still duel with swords.
Yeah right.

I know that about half the folks here know which movies I am talking about.
 
Yea this always seemed like a lazy plot device. Super advanced AI couldn’t come up with a better power source?
The Matrix movies are interesting because they delve into the "brain in a vat" example which is used, in philosophy classes, to explain Cartesian skepticism (Renee Descartes thought of it as a dream. But it has been updated), and eventually lead to Descartes famous "I think therefore I am" argument.

 
I like the Matrix movies, but the idea of a perpetual human powered power plant is just silly. If the sunlight was blocked by the darkened clouds, they could just fly to the moon and build solar panels.
They never once showed that humans our machines never reached the moon tho i kind of get your point
 
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