Movies that really strain credibility. (1 Viewer)

[JohnRice]

OK, if we're going to talk about locations, how about The Deer Hunter. The guys get in their car, in Penn, drive a while and suddenly they are in Oregon.

 

[Matt Pasant]

An Uncle of mine every time we talk movies says what ruined Deer Hunter for him was in the hunting scene he didn't believe that he would have killed the deer with the weapon used and range to target of the deer. He said it took him right out of the movie.

-- Matt

 

[george kaplan]

The thing that strained credibility in the Deer Hunter for me was the idea that a man could play russian roulette over and over and survive, but just as his friend shows up that's when he finally loses. The odds against that are so astronomical as to be ridiculous. The guy would have been dead long before his friend ever came back to Vietnam. And if he was still alive, this is the night his number was finally up? Please.

 

[Dome Vongvises]

This thread has been wonderful so far. It goes to show that even suspension of disbelief has different limits for everybody.

Regarding The Deer Hunter, I have no trouble at all accepting what george kaplan believes strains the limits of credibility. But to each his own.

 

[FilipM]

Pearl Harbor
Perhaps my favorite was how Rufe, Cletus, Billy Bob or whatever their names were set up some Zeros to collide headon after a wild low level below rooftop chase.
Or how one of them coordinated with guys on the ground to shoot a Zero off his tail with a shotgun after running up a water tower.
Or even that they survived so long with multiple Zeros on firing away on their tails. If you know anything about WW2 air combat you know a P40 has no chance of survival with a Zero glued to him if he cannot dive away. And they were on the deck most of the time.
Or the way our fighter pilot heros suddenly become bomber pilots. This never happened. The secondary flight training is simply far too different for a multiengine bomber as opposed to single engined fighters. All of Doolittle's men were well established bomber pilots.
The sad thing about all of this is that we had two genuine heros named George Welch, of the grape juice family Welch , and Ken Taylor who actually managed to get up in their P40s. They downed perhaps up to 10 Japanese aircraft that day, even managing to land and rearm under enemy fire during the battle. So all these absurd sci-fi comic book action pieces were not needed, they could have told the real story and still wowed the audience.
I found this disgrace so sickening that it instantly joined my list of movies never to be seen again. That made two on the list....

 

[Rich Romero]

Definitely. My dad's been a hunter all his life. His two brothers are hunters. His dad's a hunter. I've been around it all my life but strangely have never shot anything (I don't see the point). Anyway, the deer hunting scene is completely and totally laughable. Amazing how the deer just LETS him pursue him. Deers run. Elks run. Things run. They don't trot a while, stop, and look to see if it's being chased again. Also, real hunters don't chase their animal, and kill it from such close range.

 

[Graeme Clark]

That's what I thought at first, but there's probably more to it. Adjusting to the conditions in space (ie. gravity) and getting into shape to handle those conditions will take some time.

They weren't up there for really all that long a time, and had technology to simulate gravity a good portion of the time. The movie explained that they weren't in peak physical condition, but that they could survive the trip. The commentary from their consultant stated that this was probably true.
Fortunately, NSync guy would have had the luxury have having more than 18 days before the world ends. I'm sure if he went up without much training, that the wouldn't die.
Anyway.... to bring something to the table - Face/Off. I'll even skip the whole face swapping thing and let them have that one. But how come John and Nic are sharpshooters with their pistols when they're aiming for Barney Redshirt, but can unload round after round at each other without hitting a thing?

 

[george kaplan]

I guess the problem is I'm a statistician. If someone played russian roulette once a day for a year, the odds of being alive, and then dying the next day would be
1 in 477,865,918,628,953,000,000,000,000,000
That pretty much strains credulity for me.
Hell, there's a higher probability that a movie picked at random is one that DonaldB and I agree upon.

 

[Josh Lowe]

Even bigger is that she would do so with a self-confessed mass murderer.

Not only that, she spurns him until he confesses the murders! So apparently, murder turns her on!

"Padme, I love you more than life itself."

"Oh, Annakin. We just can't be together, sorry."

"I murdered dozens of women and children today."

"KISS ME, YOU FOOL!"

 

[JohnRice]

Me too. Movies, or just about anything else, for that matter.

 

[ThomasC]

just wanted to point out another thing about armageddon...after harry presses the button and the asteroid splits, a guy from nasa says the pieces will miss earth by 400 miles, and they all cheer. in reality, if it was that close/far, it would still cause tidal waves that would have no problem obliterating lots of life. there's a great site that points out movie inaccuracies from the mouths of physicists...here's the section for armageddon:
http://www.intuitor.com/moviephysics/armageddon.html
even with all the inaccuracies, i still enjoy armageddon as a "kick back and turn off your brain" movie.

 

[JoeDelan]

Austin Powers, Like someone can actually be frozen and woken up 30 years later, not to mention being shot into space in a Big Boy...Not very realistic if you ask me...

 

[Carl Johnson]

I could suspend belief for most of the silly things that happened in Speed but it bothered me when they took the bus to the airport to circle runways. The bus didn't have to weave thru any security checkpoints or traffic, they just made it look like exit #123 headed directly to the runway.

I spent a couple of years working @ the airport so I was probably the only one who would think that was more ridiculous than a bus doing a Knight Rider style turbo boost over an incomplete bridge.

 

[Andrew_Sch]

Austin Powers, Like someone can actually be frozen and woken up 30 years later, not to mention being shot into space in a Big Boy...Not very realistic if you ask me...

I don't think they were exactly going for realism with the Austin Powers movies. The utter ridiculousness of the situations is part of what makes it so fun.

 

[Steve Christou]

Monsters inc the monsters need the screams from children to power their city, eh? What was that? Now that really strains the credibility meter folks, in fact Monsters inc is full of 'eh?' moments, why was this film popular? Why don't the monsters use their own screams to power the city?
Sorry guys just spoofing some of the posts here, if movies didn't stretch credibility now and than, they would get pretty boring wouldn't you say. Plus they'd be less enjoyable IMO.
Imagine a totally credible Bond movie. One where the villain simply shoots Bond in the head as soon as he is captured and not taken to some easily escapable cell.

 

[JoeDelan]

Andrew--

I don't think they were exactly going for realism with the Austin Powers movies. The utter ridiculousness of the situations is part of what makes it so fun.

It's no less ridiculous than any of these other threads...It's a Movie, it's all about suspending disbelief, unless it's based on Actual Fact. Dont even think of these movies as taking place on this planet, think of them taking place on another earth in another dimension.
Yeah, there are alot of movies out there that just have it wrong, but do they ruin the overall impact of the film? Do you goto a movie to get educated on Physics? No, you go to get entertained...Quit looking at it like a College Course and look at it like it should be entertainment...

 

[RobertR]

Do you goto a movie to get educated on Physics? No, you go to get entertained...

But why not entertain in a way that respects the laws of physics? There is a willful disdain for them (and/or an extreme creative laziness), a disdain that's simply not necessary.

As for them "taking place on another earth", the problem I have with that is that we're supposed to care about these characters as if they are people on THIS earth. But they aren't. Imagine watching a movie about the events of 9/11 that takes place on "another one of your earths" where everyone in the Twin Towers and on the planes is as invulnerable as Superman. Would such a movie have ANY drama to it? Obviously not. A movie such as Armageddon isn't quite that bad, but it's bad enough.

 

[JohnRice]

Joe, I think the point is some movies take themselves seriously, but are completely absurd. Austin Powers doesn't take itself seriously, so they can do pretty much whatever they want and not worry about suspended disbelief. I thought you were joking about Austin Powers.

 

[JoeDelan]

I was joking about Austin Powers...

As for Armageddon, its funny how everyone wants to bash the same movies, but if we attack a movie we all love then it's sacrilege....

2001
Any Bond Movie
Star Wars
Star Trek
Etc...

 

[RobertR]

Joe, I think the point is some movies take themselves seriously, but are completely absurd.

Exactly, John. That's why I used the Road Runner analogy. If people want to view a movie like Armageddon as nothing more than a live action equivalent of a Saturday morning cartoon, then the filmmakers should spare us their dramatic pretensions at it being anything more than that.