Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Have you ever watched a movie or tv show that just made you want to scream "Nonsense!!!"?

I was watching "NCIS: LA" and they had an ep called "Full throttle" that involved a stolen experimental naval car lithium ion battery used in a street racer with a combustion engine supercharged with NO2.

Ok, so the battery was supposed to be super advanced lithium ion, never needed changing (At this point my BS meter was twitching) and mostly supposedly made the combustion process in the fuel chamber far more efficient and powerful.

Nonsense!!!

The efficiency and power of the detonation of a fuel air mix in a piston is determined by the fuel composition, the air mix and the quality of the pistol design in avoiding any of the explosion leaking out when the spark detonated the mix.

The source of the electricity used to create the spark is pretty much meaningless as long as the spark ignites the fuel mix. A more powerful spark wouldn't increase the yield of the fuel air nix reaction, and lithium ion batteries are known for endurance and efficiency, not high power levels anyway.

Now an electronic ignition system with a microchip controlling timing and adapting to changing circumstances could increase performance and efficiency slightly I admit, not by increasing the force yield of the detonation of the fuel air mix in the pistons though. But again the source of the electricity running things is irrelevant as long as it supplies the proper current.

I was just amazed that a series would have an episode focusing on automotive mechanics and make such an ignorant mistake that even a non expert on automotive engineering and internal combustion engine mechanics would spot in in a nanosecond.

So what moments made you want to shout "Nonsense!!!" at the screen and why?

Not sure what you expected of NCIS? It's the series that is famous for a lot of bs moments (when they are getting hacked for example and, get this, they both get on the same keyboard to type simultaneously - not that anything else they are portaying or saying in this scene makes any sense).

Mostly, I just accept that the movie or series is just fiction and don't bother that much.
But a scene from Butterfly Effect stuck with me since I saw it as a teenager because it just doesn't make sense, even in its own movie reality:
When Ashton Kutcher is in prision, he travels to his kindergarden time and rams the metal spike thingies through his palms and then returns. His cellmate now thinks he's Jesus or something because he suddenly has scars. But all the time it is portrayed that he travels back in time, changes something and then lives with these changes through this new timeline. But now suddenly he goes back and "jumps" back into the present, without the change creating a new timeline? If he has scars since he was a kid, he would already have them when going to prison.

Hans, it's just that they made a mistake someone who knows very little about auto mechanics could spot. I've never changed a tire and can barely fill a gas tank, but even i spotted that one in an instant.

Heh, that's nothing. Watch GI Joe - specifically the bit where they're all fleeing from the underwater base because the ice cap above them has been blown up and all the chunks are sinking towards them.

The *ice*. Is *sinking*.

Never mind your 'anyone who knows auto mechanics'. Anyone who's had a bloody cold drink should know that gak is wrong.

Oh man, there was a slew of these movies that took the Indiana Jones formula, but then made artistic analysis and research look instantaneous and unequivocal. National Treasure was pretty outrageous, but the DaVinci code was far, far less believable. So this one guy uncovers all of the secrets of these intentionally obscure master artists, without ever getting one wrong, in the course of a few days? There would have been hundreds of possible explanations and connections, steps along the way would have been destroyed, defaced, or simply unknown to the researcher.
Futurama did a great episode about how ridiculous it was. Very fun movies, don't get me wrong, but the sort that makes you go bs.

I mean this is NCIS you're talking about. You don't watch it for the science or logic, you watch it for the characters (which is somewhat why I've never liked the spin-off versions all that much).

Despite the fact that almost every crime is solved either by indigestion in a lead character or lightning fast iron clad forensics; the forensics is rarely accurate.



That said apparently David Keith McCallum (Ducky) has put a significant amount of research into his role and autopsy science in general.

But yeah half the time we are in the realm of "quick use the enhance button on the the reflection of the reflection of the reflection on the hubcap on the 3.1mp snapshot from an old mobile phone - we've got the killer!"

The Mummy Returns.

Why didn’t the ancient Egyptians just meltdown the bracelet?|

Would’ve saved a lot of bother!

Well to be fair i was thinking of stuff supposedly set in a realistic world. Worlds with magic and such in them are not exactly what i had in mind.

And do not get me started on indiana jones, you'll regret it. My god, gun powder being pulled towards a magnet and flowing around crates instead of sticking to the sides. How about someone in the warehouse just having a compass on their keychain?


And temple of doom...ugh. How does that stuff get into movies?



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Overread wrote:
I mean this is NCIS you're talking about. You don't watch it for the science or logic, you watch it for the characters (which is somewhat why I've never liked the spin-off versions all that much).

Despite the fact that almost every crime is solved either by indigestion in a lead character or lightning fast iron clad forensics; the forensics is rarely accurate.



That said apparently David Keith McCallum (Ducky) has put a significant amount of research into his role and autopsy science in general.

But yeah half the time we are in the realm of "quick use the enhance button on the the reflection of the reflection of the reflection on the hubcap on the 3.1mp snapshot from an old mobile phone - we've got the killer!"

I kinda like Hetty in NCIS LA. For a woman like her to wield such power in a society obsessed with youth and beauty is a testament to her competence.

Said it before, will say it again - Die Hard 2. If you know anything about aircraft it's a laugh a minute mine of gibberish bobbins. In fact most representations of aircraft in films are. I think there was a film Lawnmower Man 2 (haven't got a clue how I ended up watching it) where a guy managed to control an aircraft's autopilot remotely (load of crap, but we can forgive this because of the film) and the crew are all "the autopilot has taken control, there's nothing we can do!"

Maybe pull the circuit breaker for the autopilot?

The sad thing is most movies, books or TV shows will have you shouting at it if you have the smallest amount of knowledge on the subject. Who on this forum hasn't watched Game of Thrones attack on Winter fell and laughed at the comically bad basket case of supposed military tactics?

Bones. I remember one episode where the bad guy carved intricate detail onto the ends of the victim’s ribs. When they scanned his skeleton into their 3D computer simulation, they found out that detail was actually a highly advanced computer code that promptly infected their systems with a virus. I don’t care how good your virus is, typing a bunch of 1s and 0s into mspaint isn’t going to corrupt my pc.

 AduroT wrote:
Bones. I remember one episode where the bad guy carved intricate detail onto the ends of the victim’s ribs. When they scanned his skeleton into their 3D computer simulation, they found out that detail was actually a highly advanced computer code that promptly infected their systems with a virus. I don’t care how good your virus is, typing a bunch of 1s and 0s into mspaint isn’t going to corrupt my pc.

On a similar front, it was bloody lucky that the virus they wrote in Independence Day was compatible with the alien fleet's operating system. And that they were able to connect to upload it. Hey, I guess USB literally is a *universal* serial bus...

Tank enthusiasts and any WW2 film scene probably in existence

There's a lot of bad "zoom/enhance" sequences out there, but none bother me as much as Jack Black in Enemy of the State, partially because the entire plot hinges on it:

"Okay, bring up the store security cam footage. Freeze there. Zoom... enhance..... now rotate 180 degrees.... and... there it is!"

Archers being told to “fire”.

You shoot a bow, or loose an arrow. You. Do. Not. Fire. A. Bow.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Archers being told to “fire”.

You shoot a bow, or loose an arrow. You. Do. Not. Fire. A. Bow.

Lord of the rings is horrendously bad for this.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
The Mummy Returns.

Why didn’t the ancient Egyptians just meltdown the bracelet?|

Would’ve saved a lot of bother!

Ah. One of my least favorite tropes.

Never, ever 'curse' your worst enemy with immortality and/or untold magical power. It's just really stupid.
Have a 'Weekend at Bernie's' with his corpse instead. Humiliate his name and legacy.

All the time unfortunately! A few that spring to mind

King Arthur: Legend of the Sword. Building-size Oliphants with sorcerors on their backs shooting fireballs - fine. The King using his horse to ramp off the edge of a building and jump onto the backs of those Oliphants? Nope. No such thing as suicide horses.

Marvel Avengers series - Bruce Banner's line, after being asked how he controls his rage? "I'm always angry". Sorry not quite as bad as suicide horses but it doesn't make any sense in the context of the Hulk and what triggers his transformation.

Crispy78 wrote:
On a similar front, it was bloody lucky that the virus they wrote in Independence Day was compatible with the alien fleet's operating system. And that they were able to connect to upload it. Hey, I guess USB literally is a *universal* serial bus...

IIRC that's 'explained' in the novelization - our computer tech is based / reverse engineered from theirs.

beast_gts wrote:

Crispy78 wrote:
On a similar front, it was bloody lucky that the virus they wrote in Independence Day was compatible with the alien fleet's operating system. And that they were able to connect to upload it. Hey, I guess USB literally is a *universal* serial bus...

IIRC that's 'explained' in the novelization - our computer tech is based / reverse engineered from theirs.

I thought that was obvious considering that in the film they had an alien spaceship and that it its systems came online when the fleet arrived. Ergo they did have access to the aliens systems. The amazing part is more that they cracked the code and then were able to design a system to let them on board and were able to penetrate the aliens military system to disable the shields. If anything its odd that the aliens had such a connection system in place, then again perhaps it was simply a sign of how they had, for generations, picked on weaker species. So having had no major opponent to fight they'd basically got "lazy" with their own security.

There was the supervirus in the prison arc of TWD (yeah, another virus after the zombie bug) that was killing people in a couple days. But no worries...they cured it with ANTIBIOTICS.

 Overread wrote:

beast_gts wrote:

Crispy78 wrote:
On a similar front, it was bloody lucky that the virus they wrote in Independence Day was compatible with the alien fleet's operating system. And that they were able to connect to upload it. Hey, I guess USB literally is a *universal* serial bus...

IIRC that's 'explained' in the novelization - our computer tech is based / reverse engineered from theirs.

I thought that was obvious considering that in the film they had an alien spaceship and that it its systems came online when the fleet arrived. Ergo they did have access to the aliens systems. The amazing part is more that they cracked the code and then were able to design a system to let them on board and were able to penetrate the aliens military system to disable the shields. If anything its odd that the aliens had such a connection system in place, then again perhaps it was simply a sign of how they had, for generations, picked on weaker species. So having had no major opponent to fight they'd basically got "lazy" with their own security.

The timeframe is pretty damn tight. Aliens first pitch up on the 2nd July. They go to area 51 on the 3rd July and see the hardware for the first time then. Matey is then able to write the virus to disable an alien fleet's shields in less than a day, and deploys it on the 4th.

Well they'd had the ship itself since Roswell.

Right. The idea is that all of our (then) modern computer systems were actually reverse engineered alien tech from the Roswell ship.

Which is undone by anyone who has ever worked in IT, and knows of the 'I' word (integrations), where quite often systems often have massive problems communicating with each other (even when they have been designed and built by the same company!)

28 Days Later.

From the Tower Block, they drive to Manchester from North London by....erm.....taking the Blackwall Tunnel.....southbound.

 Overread wrote:
Well they'd had the ship itself since Roswell.

Not powered up though - I thought it only came online once the ships showed up. So they still had 2 days max to reverse engineer an alien OS / language and write a virus to target specific functionality within it. Dubious.

Has anyone actually argued that ID4 is a smart movie?

Currently greatly enjoying an ooooold British cop show called “The Professionals”.

Overall, it’s aged very well. Except I’m on the 4th episode of series 1, and it involves a customised sniper rifle.

Now that in itself is fine and dandy. Except? We see the as yet unidentified by name sniper, who owns the rifle, setting it up for some practice.

We see him tripod mount it. Which is fine. We see him fiddle with the settings and that. Which is fine. He feels it’s all about nice. Which is fine.

Then.......he hand loads the bolt action mechanism, clearly and visibly wobbling the gun on its mount!

Now, this is from 1978, so the bolt action bit (the receiver? Chamber? I dunno) is understandable. But setting your sights then loading just feels daft.

The way prom1 landmines are portrayed in behind enemy lines.

Pretty much anything involving a computer virus and /or hacking is guaranteed to be nonsense.

I also wince at most depictions of CPR, although that one supposedly was originally somewhat deliberate. Read a thing years ago that suggested that aside from the logistics of showing proper CPR in the days before dummies were particularly realistic, it was often portrayed incorrectly to prevent kids from killing each other trying to duplicate it after seeing it on TV. No idea if that's actually true, though.