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Movies that really strain credibility. (1 Viewer)

RobertR

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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
Most of your examples aren't good ones, Joe. First of all, there simply are NO criticisms of this nature that apply to 2001. It's EXTREMELY accurate from a scientific standpoint. In fact, with a TINY number of exceptions, no other SF film in history is more scientifically accurate than 2001.

Second, Star Wars is clearly a fantasy film and doesn't pretend to be otherwise (neither does Lord of the Rings), so criticisms of this nature don't apply, whereas Armageddon PRETENDS to be realistic human drama. Thirdly, there's been plenty of fun poked at Bond, so it's hardly sacrilegious. Finally, Trek at least makes an attempt to be internally consistent with respect to its technology.
 

JoeDelan

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Teh Star wars Critism was all about how those awesome Star Destroyers make that great sound in the vacuum of space.

As for Armageddon, Like you said, it pretends to be realists HUman Drama, Not realistic Basic Physics...Care about the Characters not the physics...
 

RobertR

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As for Armageddon, Like you said, it pretends to be realists HUman Drama, Not realistic Basic Physics...Care about the Characters not the physics..
So if the Bruce Willis character had destroyed the asteroid by walking around on it without a spacesuit and dropping 20 lbs of TNT down a 10 foot hole, you would have said "I buy it all, because all I care about is Willis' character"?
 

Andrew_Sch

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Sorry Joe, I guess I missed out on your sarcasm there.:b When I was arguing my point, I was actually saying the same thing you basically said in your reply.
 

JoeDelan

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It's no Problem Andrew...
I guess I am in the Minority and try to be entertained by movies and not pick them apart...

Oh, FYI, I hated Armageddon...Not cause of the fact it was unrealistic but cause it was just plain BAD
 

Dome Vongvises

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RobertR said:
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.
I don't think that the makers of Armageddon were being pretentious with their drama. It was a by-the-numbers Hollywood blockbuster and covered practically every ground from heroes saving the day to romantic scenery between two characters. You're ascribing pretense to the wrong genre. If the commentary alludes to anything, they just wanted to make a fun action movie.
 

JohnRice

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Well, Joe......what I look for depends on the movie. When I watch American History X or Monster's Ball I expect one thing. When I watch Independence Day (yes, I do enjoy it and I'm not afraid to say so) or Starship Troopers, I expect something quite different. I don't find Armageddon all that bad, but I prefer Deep Impact. I am willing to accept an awful lot from Starship Troopers I wouldn't accept from Monster's Ball. Isn't that really the way it should be?

Still, some movies suffer from what I call the "terminal eyeroll." None of the movies I've mentioned so far failed that one. What has? Forrest Gump, Gladiator, Titanic and the most recent one I can think of, Clockstoppers. I started getting a headache from every one of those since I was rolling my eyes so much.
 

ThomasC

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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.
erm...i think u missed out on something. the entire highway was closed, thus the bus was the only one to come in from that certain entry...and when they entered the airport, it seemed like they passed some sort of a security checkpoint because the bus passed what looked like a security post with guys posted there...the guys even said, "hey, stop!" or something to that effect. one of the bus tires also ran over those tire flattening things...if you go over it one way, you're fine, but the other way, all your tires are screwed. wave-like pointy things. whatever. :D
 

Dick

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To my mind, anything that Michael Bay had directed fits easily into this post. He is the Ed Wood, Jr. of the modern film age, but without the charm.
 

Phil Florian

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Pearl Harbor. I didn't see this movie (I can't...I refuse) but I did hear a friend of mine complain about one aspect of it (okay, many). The biggest is the setting. There was no smoking. There was too much bravado across various ethnic lines. There wasn't nearly enough derision of the Japanese. I point this out because this same friend saw Windtalkers and while it wasn't a great movie, at least it got 1940's American military attitude right. People spoke horribly about the enemy, they smoked like chimneys and the white guys didn't get along with the black guys just because they were on the same team. I am not usually PC, but if you are going to do a period piece, do it with period flair. It belittles the struggles of the civil rights movement to show everybody just getting along when that wasn't the case at all. Sheesh.
Phil
 

Anders Englund

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I'm not a huge fan of Armageddon (though I enjoy it), but I'm curious about how many of you who bash it actually OWN it.

--Anders
 

Andrew_Sch

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Why would anybody own a movie that they enjoy endlessly bashing? Personally, I've never seen it and never will, so I've got nothing to say about the film itself, but wouldn't seeing it once be enough experience to bash it?
 

Jason Seaver

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I think he's more asking about how many people own it for the purpose of showing off their subwoofer, or because there's a multi-disk Criterion, or some other reason.
And, no, I do not let that thing into my apartment. :)
 

Dave Poehlman

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I just watched "Hackers" on network TV this past weekend. Well, I watched the first 5 minutes of it... then I got irritated and turned it off.

Why is it that any time computer hackers are portrayed in film, their computers use enormous fonts and make wierd sounds? They make hacking look like playing a video game. Especially in 1996 when this film was made, the general public had a much higher understanding of computers than the studios give them credit for.

It irritates me to see computers "dumbed down" in film. (IE: the flying graphics in Jurassic Park as the girl is trying to hack into the system to enable the door locks)
 

Jason Seaver

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Why is it that any time computer hackers are portrayed in film, their computers use enormous fonts and make wierd sounds?
Because just filming people typing C++ and/or Unix code is really, really boring. The audience has to be able see what's happening - or at least get a feel that something is happening - so the filmmakers use some license.

What I like, of course, is that every videogame sounds like Atari 2600 Pac-Man, especially if the character "dies" because he or she is interrupted. That amuses me more than it annoys me, though.
 

Jack Briggs

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Well, speaking of straining credibility, take K-PAX (please!): The way the filmmakers completely distorted how the Hubble Space Telescope works and what it can do was the first tip-off the film would be a struggle for me. The HST cannot resolve images of planets circling other stars; no optical telescope in existence today can (nor will the HST's successor, the Next Generation Space Telescope). At present, no astronomers know of any Earthlike planets circling other stars. But that may change when the Terrestrial Planet Finder array is placed in solar orbit in the 2010s.
 

Mike Broadman

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Jack, between this post, the Mullholland Drive thread, and your signature, you are the Hero of the Day.

I could slam K-PAX for other reasons, too, but that's a whole other thing...
 

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