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One movie inaccuracy that gets me the Helms Deep scene in the LoTR. There are NO elves at Helms Deep. None, Nada, Ziltch, Zip. No pointy ears.

 Snrub wrote:
One movie inaccuracy that gets me the Helms Deep scene in the LoTR. There are NO elves at Helms Deep. None, Nada, Ziltch, Zip. No pointy ears.

Sure there were look

whole bunch of 'em

Saving Private Ryan- P-51s were high altitude escort fighters, not tank hunting attack fighters.

Also seconding the suckage of Top Gun... only slightly better than Iron Eagle IMO.

Hanith wrote:
I've always been bothered by oversights.

To explain, in one scene in LotR, Gandalf is asked to give up his staff (I think it happened in the 2nd Film). He doesn't claiming it is a walking stick. In the next scene (as he is entering the King's Throne room) he is using it as a walking stick (perpendicular to the ground). The camera angle changes and he is carrying the staff at his side (parallel to the ground). The camera angle again changes and it is again perpendicular to the ground.

I didn't like how his sword never glowed.

Or when they are on the ramparts of minas tirith and he's killing orc's but there is no blood even when he hits an orc in the neck.

It really took me out of the movie when I saw it in the theater.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Saving Private Ryan- P-51s were high altitude escort fighters, not tank hunting attack fighters.

This doesn't invalidate what you said at all, but it may blow your mind.

Aliens - possibly my favorite film of all time... but when Vasquez and Gorman are cut off and facing their impending doom together, clutching a grenade as the xenomorphs close in, her last words are;

"you always were an donkey-cave, Gorman...'

As though they'd enjoyed a long career together, instead of about 12 hours in each other's vicinity. It just doesn't sit well and sounds wedged in for cliched effect.

Pretty much anything regarding medicine and hospital work in a movie.

Although I did give props do the Joker in The Dark Knight when Nurse Joker remembered to dutifully apply alcohol disinfectant to his hands.

 AustonT wrote:

 Snrub wrote:
One movie inaccuracy that gets me the Helms Deep scene in the LoTR. There are NO elves at Helms Deep. None, Nada, Ziltch, Zip. No pointy ears.

Sure there were look

whole bunch of 'em

BURN HERETIC! YOU WILL BURN!

 NecronLord3 wrote:
The Watchmen. Awesome movie so acurate to the Graphic novel, then the ending was totally different why? Yes giant psychic alien squid are less realistic than bombs but why make everything else so accurate then change the ending? And IMO, the end result of the movie didn't unify humanity in the way the threat of aliens did in the novel.

Because the squid only makes sense in the context of 1980s comics, which shenanigans like psychic squid from another dimensional was stuff that happened. In a movie released today it loses any commentary on the media, and just becomes really stupid instead.

The issue with Watchmen was, if anything, that it was slavishly devoted to the source material.


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 Snrub wrote:
One movie inaccuracy that gets me the Helms Deep scene in the LoTR. There are NO elves at Helms Deep. None, Nada, Ziltch, Zip. No pointy ears.

In that the battle of Helm's Deep didn't actually happen, it isn't an inaccuracy, just a change to the original media. I've got mixed feelings about it, on the one hand the Elves were departing, and considered the fight against Sauron purely an affair of man, given how it was because of men that the ring still existed. But the was a strange disconnect, as LotR constantly referenced its own history, and to go through the books and have the alliance of men and elves not reflected at all never sat right with me.


The bigger issue with the movies are the changes to the dialogue, which are often just boiler plate Hollywood movie talk that makes no sense in the world of Middle Earth. A good example is the added dialogue to the scene mourning of the death of Theodred; "No parent should have to bury their child." That's a very odd sentiment coming from a man who leads a warrior culture - where men would be burying their sons all the time.


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chaos0xomega wrote:
Saving Private Ryan- P-51s were high altitude escort fighters, not tank hunting attack fighters.

Mustangs were used as fighter bombers. It wasn't its primary role but it was still used for it fairly often.

Also, that gak-fest, Pearl Harbor (the one with ben affleck and mat damon [que Team America joke here])...


They were flying the wrong mark of Spitfires when he was in England, and I'm fairly sure that during the Dec. 7th event, they were flying the wrong mark of P-40 as well. I suppose that if they were using an actual flying airplane for certain shots, this could explain the discrepancy, but it still bugs me.

 Snrub wrote:
One movie inaccuracy that gets me the Helms Deep scene in the LoTR. There are NO elves at Helms Deep. None, Nada, Ziltch, Zip. No pointy ears.

A deliberate change from the original fictional source material isn't really an 'inaccuracy' though.


When a book is made into a movie, stuff gets changed, for various reasons. But the same has happened for thousands of years in every mode of storytelling. Every storyteller will tell a story their own way. Often, the same storyteller will tell a story differently at different times.

A movie based on a book is someone else's version of the story. So it won't be identical... and nor should it be, or there would be little point in making it.

 insaniak wrote:

 Snrub wrote:
One movie inaccuracy that gets me the Helms Deep scene in the LoTR. There are NO elves at Helms Deep. None, Nada, Ziltch, Zip. No pointy ears.

A deliberate change from the original fictional source material isn't really an 'inaccuracy' though.


When a book is made into a movie, stuff gets changed, for various reasons. But the same has happened for thousands of years in every mode of storytelling. Every storyteller will tell a story their own way. Often, the same storyteller will tell a story differently at different times.

A movie based on a book is someone else's version of the story. So it won't be identical... and nor should it be, or there would be little point in making it.

Word.

I fething love what Peter Jackson did with the LoTR movies....

While it's not the book in verbatim, it captures spirit of the books rather well.

I just wished they figured a way to incorporate Zeppelin Misty Mountain song...

 whembly wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

 Snrub wrote:
One movie inaccuracy that gets me the Helms Deep scene in the LoTR. There are NO elves at Helms Deep. None, Nada, Ziltch, Zip. No pointy ears.

A deliberate change from the original fictional source material isn't really an 'inaccuracy' though.


When a book is made into a movie, stuff gets changed, for various reasons. But the same has happened for thousands of years in every mode of storytelling. Every storyteller will tell a story their own way. Often, the same storyteller will tell a story differently at different times.

A movie based on a book is someone else's version of the story. So it won't be identical... and nor should it be, or there would be little point in making it.

Word.

I fething love what Peter Jackson did with the LoTR movies....

While it's not the book in verbatim, it captures spirit of the books rather well.

I just wished they figured a way to incorporate Zeppelin Misty Mountain song...

As much as I love Led Zeppelin I'm pretty sure 70's heavy metal music would have sounded out of place.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
Also, that gak-fest, Pearl Harbor (the one with ben affleck and mat damon [que Team America joke here])...


They were flying the wrong mark of Spitfires when he was in England, and I'm fairly sure that during the Dec. 7th event, they were flying the wrong mark of P-40 as well. I suppose that if they were using an actual flying airplane for certain shots, this could explain the discrepancy, but it still bugs me.

I'm about 99% sure that Matt Damon isn't in Pearl Harbor...

The military guys got most of mine, but my one personal pet peeve is the movie the Hurtlocker.

Watch it with a military EOD tech. Just once. Holy hera for a movie that was hailed as the "Saving Private Ryan" of our generation it's about as accurate as by someone on LSD trying to use a machinegun. Sure it got one or two things right, but those are explained solely by the law of averages and not any actual effort towards reality on their part.

The big scene that got me from the first time I watched it (I didn't see it with a EOD tech handy till the second time I saw it) was the freaking sniper battle. Now there's some plausibility there as EOD sometimes sets off big detonations with a precision weapon, but that's very different then actually sniping and engaging targets at range. The range to the enemy is also suspect with the main characters saying the enemy position is approx 800m and some change from the ridge line they moved up to. They then show that the insurgents are engaging them (the good guys) with Dragunov rifles. These DMRs have a max effective range of about 800m, a skilled man with a scope can probably use them out to their max range of 1300m, but you really have to know what you're doing. So that's bollocks and speaking of that, who the FETH were those random British dudes?

I can go on like this for a dog's age really.

Hanith wrote:
I've always been bothered by oversights.

To explain, in one scene in LotR, Gandalf is asked to give up his staff (I think it happened in the 2nd Film). He doesn't claiming it is a walking stick. In the next scene (as he is entering the King's Throne room) he is using it as a walking stick (perpendicular to the ground). The camera angle changes and he is carrying the staff at his side (parallel to the ground). The camera angle again changes and it is again perpendicular to the ground.

Another editing error which just KILLS a scene I'd otherwise love (I love all the way up to this point, then urrrgh). The battle of Pelennor fields in the film, as the riders of rohan charge there is a half second where you see Eowyn holding her spear and shouting 'aaaaah'. After they hit the orc line? Exact. Same. Image. Gets me every freaking time, and ruins the flow of that bit. Just kills it.

Also, I'm pretty sure in Waterloo there is a doubled up bit of film of the French attacking one of the farm houses/chateaus

 AustonT wrote:
I'm about 99% sure that Matt Damon isn't in Pearl Harbor...

It's kind of telling that a thread that's supposed to be about complaining about inaccuracies in films has had quite a few inaccuracies of its own


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 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
The military guys got most of mine, but my one personal pet peeve is the movie the Hurtlocker.

Watch it with a military EOD tech. Just once. Holy hera for a movie that was hailed as the "Saving Private Ryan" of our generation it's about as accurate as by someone on LSD trying to use a machinegun. Sure it got one or two things right, but those are explained solely by the law of averages and not any actual effort towards reality on their part.

The big scene that got me from the first time I watched it (I didn't see it with a EOD tech handy till the second time I saw it) was the freaking sniper battle. Now there's some plausibility there as EOD sometimes sets off big detonations with a precision weapon, but that's very different then actually sniping and engaging targets at range. The range to the enemy is also suspect with the main characters saying the enemy position is approx 800m and some change from the ridge line they moved up to. They then show that the insurgents are engaging them (the good guys) with Dragunov rifles. These DMRs have a max effective range of about 800m, a skilled man with a scope can probably use them out to their max range of 1300m, but you really have to know what you're doing. So that's bollocks and speaking of that, who the FETH were those random British dudes?

I can go on like this for a dog's age really.

The British guys were private contractors or something. There was some talk about collecting a bounty, dead or alive.

That was actually the scene where I realised the movie wasn't anywhere near as good as people were claiming it was, though not because of the range of rifles, which is the kind of military knowledge that sails right over my head.

Nah, my problem was that once we saw the British contractors come on screen, get wiped out like a bunch of chumps, only for our plucky bomb disposal squad to outsniper the enemy snipers... it was pretty obvious we weren't dealing with the grim realities of war, we were dealing with the grim stupidity of script immunity, and that no matter how ridiculous the crazy guy acted our three leads were getting through to the end. Then the psychiatrist asks to go along on a combat op, and everything is so telegraphed it's laughable.

And once that film lost its suspense it just didn't work.

Red. In the begining one of the agents advances whilst firing an M60 GPMG from the shoulder. And it wasnt bursts-he was hosing the house with that thing on full auto. No way on earth can you do that without suffering a broken shoulder.
Also the amount of damage they caused was dissproportanate to the firepower that they had. 2 M16 assault rifles and an M60 GPMG do not just shred a house.
And then theres the bit where one of the old men shoots an RPG out of the air. With a revolver

 master of ordinance wrote:
Red. In the begining one of the agents advances whilst firing an M60 GPMG from the shoulder. And it wasnt bursts-he was hosing the house with that thing on full auto. No way on earth can you do that without suffering a broken shoulder.
Also the amount of damage they caused was dissproportanate to the firepower that they had. 2 M16 assault rifles and an M60 GPMG do not just shred a house.
And then theres the bit where one of the old men shoots an RPG out of the air. With a revolver

Considering that John Malkovich and Bruce Willis are involved, I find it to be entirely believable.

I think it's the first Blade movie where the bad guy at the end gets the super regen blood powers, but the blood smear on his face switches back and forth between two patterns during the fight scene.

One that really got me though is the end of the first GIJoe where the ice Sinks when the cobra base gets blown up.

 AustonT wrote:

marv335 wrote:Top Gun.
Pretty much the entire film really...

Welcome to my ignore list.



Heathen.

I'm an Airframe Fitter by trade, and I've worked with aircrew and on various combat aircraft for 20 years.

Top Gun, where shall I start...

1. When Maverick tells Goose " I'm going to hit the brakes and he'll fly right by." He throws the throttle straight forward which actually would have sent him into afterburner and thus the speed brakes would not have actuated.

2. In the closeup cockpit shots, the ejection seats have the maintainence magards fitted.

3. The CWP (Central Warning Panel) is lit up like an Xmas tree for much of the in cockpit shots. If this had been in flight the aircraft would be in serious trouble (no power, no hydraulics, no engines, etc.)

That's my top three, I could go on.

marv, I'm surprised you didn't mention that the range the dogfights were fought at would be the equivalents of tanks trying to ram each other to death. Actually, wait, you're an Airframe Fitter - no I'm not. It makes more sense that you'd notice the technical details.

Hurray, self-defeating circular post!

In the 1993 movie Gettysburg, there is a scene of the opening engagements of the battle, when a confederate battery of artillery arrives to support Archer's brigade in their foray against some of Buford's Federal cavalry.

Anyway, the movie shows one of those confederate artillery pieces getting blown up. However, it is a well known fact that the Army of Northern Virginia did not lose a single artillery piece during the entire Gettysburg campaign.

That really bothers me.

 Snrub wrote:
One movie inaccuracy that gets me the Helms Deep scene in the LoTR. There are NO elves at Helms Deep. None, Nada, Ziltch, Zip. No pointy ears.

They explain that in the extras. And its not the only thing in the three films that changes the book.
They wanted to remind you that Aragon and Arwen are in love, they were going to send her in but thought that was too obvious, so sent in some different elves instead.

And surely Legolas would have been there anyway? Or was he busy that day?

It's an old one but a classic, in the film Gladiator, in the seen where Antonius Proximo(oliver reed) is buying some animals and slaves off some market trader guy, he says (can't remember the exact numbers but it's something like this):
'So that's 4000 for the slaves and 4000 for the animals, so that's 7000 in total'

I know it has a rational explanation (he's deliberately fast-talking to con the merchant), but that little mathematical error really gets on my wick...

As a weather forecaster, The Day After Tomorrow drove me absolutely bonkers.

I didn't really love the movie either... not really a fan of Jake Macgillicagootch.

But yeah, that movie makes weather people cringe.

I can't think of a specific example because I have watched a lot of old "Epics", but when Roman soldiers use their Pilums like spears, it kind of bothers me.

Seeing very early Republican Romans using Roman Empire style rectangular scutums can annoy me.

 AustonT wrote:
I just saw Skyfall on Sunday and there a part where M is walking away from the coffins where she jumps ahead 18-36 inches. Unless that was just my theatre that bugs me. Find out on DVD I suppose.

marv335 wrote:Top Gun.
Pretty much the entire film really...

Welcome to my ignore list.

Admit it. Your favorite scene from Top Gun is the Volley Ball scene.

djones520 wrote:
As a weather forecaster, The Day After Tomorrow drove me absolutely bonkers.

I didn't really love the movie either... not really a fan of Jake Macgillicagootch.

But yeah, that movie makes weather people cringe.

If you want another really cringe worthy disaster movie... Check out Volcano!
- lava flowing uphill.
- people running about without any protection in a heavy ashfall.
- helicopters FLYING through a heavy ashfall!!!
- swimming pool water, (and not much of it really), cooling a lava flow.
- that whole scene on the subway...
- the fact that the tarpits aren't anywhere near the Cascadia Subduction Zone to begin with. (and it's not a hot spot either)

Yeah... Disaster movies should never be watched by anyone who has any actual knowledge of the real science releated to the specific disaster!