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How about the opposite of nonsense? Back in the day McGuyver taught his show’s audience that if you poured salt water into the coin slot of a vending machine it would short it out and cause it to jackpot it’s change and inventory. He needed to make a call and didn’t have money for the pay phone you see. It’s a thing that actually worked, and which people then went on a spree of doing. Don’t bother trying it now though, a number of changes were made to machine to thwart that.

He also built a plane out of bamboo, plastic wrap and a wall fan, so, you know, good and bad.

The sniper in The Admiral: Roaring Currents. Yay "hide from the evil sniper" tropes, but the smoothbore matchlock fired from a moving boat at another moving boat is pretty silly. (I'm only familiar with the timeline of rifling in Europe, so if someone wants to tell me about the advanced Japanese gunsmithing of 1597 I'm prepared to download it to "slightly silly".)

Batman Begins and the nonsense with the giant microwave. How did it know to only boil the city's water supply, and not all the other things around, such as... All the people?

 insaniak wrote:
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 or after seeing it on TV. No idea if that's actually true, though.

I think I that is the case. The lass I’m sort of seeing is a Paramedic, and has pulled muscles doing CPR due to the force needed.

And of course, doing CPR on a beating heart? Not good. So show the gist, not the full thing.

For me, I think the thing that's worse than the dodgy compression technique is how often the person doing the CPR does three or four pumps, gives up in frustration and resorts to punching and /or screaming at the body until they miraculously and spontaneously come back to life.

True. Humans aren’t computers and can’t be fixed that way.

We also have the issue that films create their own sense of fake that we then come to expect to see. For example we expect sound in space in a pew-pew film. We are also willing to accept spaceships with engines on the back; and we are also willing to accept that when characters look through binoculars it looks like two ovals linked together even though that is not what you see through binoculars.


The whole "stop kids doing it at home" is one of those odd things that sort of makes sense, but then again so much happens in films that they can still dangerously emulate. Anyone remember the stories of kids jumping off roofs and out of windows trying to fly like Superman?

One thing with CPR I've noticed is that a lot of depictions get the order wrong, they don't do enough compressions etc... That said they get away with it because (as yet) life saving isn't a key-skill we are taught from a young age.

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

This. Fiction's computers are just running on magic. More specifically, on plot magic! Does whatever is convenient for the plot.
Currently playing the first Watch Dog that I got for free on the EGS, it's a particularly egregious example.
I just did a prison mission which really took the cake though.
You want to intimidate a guy in prison so you show up at the prison with your gun, instantly surrender, get a mugshot taken, and then are put in your cell. There you put out your phone and bang you change your name on the prison's database, and everyone who saw your face, took your mugshot, wrote your name down on the database etc instantly forget you exist and do not recognize you during the high profile breakout where you kill several warden and are spotted by multiple policemen.

The most realistic hacking scene I've seen in films is ironically in Hackers. It's just not the weird, videogame flight sim, 3D database dive at the end of the movie. It's in the first couple minutes, when the guy calls a company after hours pretending to work there and convinces a janitor to read him some port numbers off a modem. It's pretty much been downhill from there.

Oh god, last weekend’s episode of Sword Art Online. Android gets shot to crap. It has visible damage. The power supply overloads and blows and the cables are visibly hanging loose and disconnected. The thing shuts down. Another character yells an emotional and inspirational plea at it, and it posers back up and saves the day.

 AduroT wrote:
Oh god, last weekend’s episode of Sword Art Online. Android gets shot to crap. It has visible damage. The power supply overloads and blows and the cables are visibly hanging loose and disconnected. The thing shuts down. Another character yells an emotional and inspirational plea at it, and it posers back up and saves the day.

I dunno. Thats a show about people being stuck (somehow) in a video game. If they're still in the game when that happens, I kind of give that a pass, since the entire premise of the show is non-functional if taken seriously.

Voss wrote:

 AduroT wrote:
Oh god, last weekend’s episode of Sword Art Online. Android gets shot to crap. It has visible damage. The power supply overloads and blows and the cables are visibly hanging loose and disconnected. The thing shuts down. Another character yells an emotional and inspirational plea at it, and it posers back up and saves the day.

I dunno. Thats a show about people being stuck (somehow) in a video game. If they're still in the game when that happens, I kind of give that a pass, since the entire premise of the show is non-functional if taken seriously.

Nope, that didn’t happen in the game. That was in real life.

 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.

Bones also had a crossover with Sleepy Hollow, which means it canonically has demons and magic in-universe, so on that basis...

It is funny how the tiniest thing “real world wrong” can break immersion.

 LunarSol wrote:
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!"

I haven't enjoyed CinemaSins in years, but last night they roasted this and it was SOOOOO satisfying.

In terms of CSI etc, outside of artistic license and expedience of story telling?

I often wonder if the techniques shown are partially to put people off crimes?

Sure, stuff like the hacking and CCTV is laughable. Especially the CCTV, I sometimes have to review such things, and even getting it sent in a format I can watch is a pain in the balls.

But a lot of the forensic stuff is more rooted in realism, and genuine existing tech. Will your local Plod have that at their fingertips? Probs not! But, to know it is possible to find the merest shred of evidence linking you back to whatever heinous crime you committed? Surely it’s got to have some people thinking twice?

And for the “not as clever as dumb they are” that might fancy a bit of crime? Do they offer deliberate whoppers of fibs on how to circumvent such things?

Enquiring idiot minds like my own wish to know!

One time when watching an episode of The Sopranos I stood up, pointed to the screen and said loudly, "You can't pump your own gas in New Jersey!"

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

I often wonder if the techniques shown are partially to put people off crimes?

I recall seeing a clip on a show a few years ago talking to police about the issue of crime dramas and how it affects juries. The thing is crime dramas, whilst being fake, often have a lot of correlating information. Fingerprints and DNA are perfect answers and proof, for example. This can influence a jury to think that some methods of forensics are more reliable than they actually are. Similarly other elements might be underestimated in their importance. Because they are going off the TV world as their first contact point for this kind of information.

Stands up to scrutiny!

 Overread wrote:
We are also willing to accept spaceships with engines on the back

*looks at every human space vehicle to date*

Umm...

 AduroT wrote:

Voss wrote:

 AduroT wrote:
Oh god, last weekend’s episode of Sword Art Online. Android gets shot to crap. It has visible damage. The power supply overloads and blows and the cables are visibly hanging loose and disconnected. The thing shuts down. Another character yells an emotional and inspirational plea at it, and it posers back up and saves the day.

I dunno. Thats a show about people being stuck (somehow) in a video game. If they're still in the game when that happens, I kind of give that a pass, since the entire premise of the show is non-functional if taken seriously.

Nope, that didn’t happen in the game. That was in real life.

Point of order, AduroT - anime =/= real life. If you're getting the two confused (or watching anime in the first place), seek help.

 bbb wrote:
One time when watching an episode of The Sopranos I stood up, pointed to the screen and said loudly, "You can't pump your own gas in New Jersey!"

“Sir, Sir. You can’t pump your own...Oh, sorry, Mr. Soprano. I didn’t recognize you. Please have a pleasant day. “

 Dysartes wrote:

 Overread wrote:
We are also willing to accept spaceships with engines on the back

*looks at every human space vehicle to date*

Umm...

 AduroT wrote:

Voss wrote:

 AduroT wrote:
Oh god, last weekend’s episode of Sword Art Online. Android gets shot to crap. It has visible damage. The power supply overloads and blows and the cables are visibly hanging loose and disconnected. The thing shuts down. Another character yells an emotional and inspirational plea at it, and it posers back up and saves the day.

I dunno. Thats a show about people being stuck (somehow) in a video game. If they're still in the game when that happens, I kind of give that a pass, since the entire premise of the show is non-functional if taken seriously.

Nope, that didn’t happen in the game. That was in real life.

Point of order, AduroT - anime =/= real life. If you're getting the two confused (or watching anime in the first place), seek help.

That would apply to every single show and movie mentioned in this thread.

 bbb wrote:
One time when watching an episode of The Sopranos I stood up, pointed to the screen and said loudly, "You can't pump your own gas in New Jersey!"

Is this for real?

 Matt Swain wrote:

 bbb wrote:
One time when watching an episode of The Sopranos I stood up, pointed to the screen and said loudly, "You can't pump your own gas in New Jersey!"

Is this for real?

I googled it and yeah it's true.

IIRC Oregon has a similar law?

when people "flatline" in movies and they get the ol' electric paddles out and give'em a shock to get the ticker going again.....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defibrillation#Society_and_culture

Nonsense as in "Nonstop Nonsense?"

https://youtu.be/iZNOk7upy7A

 ScarletRose wrote:

 Matt Swain wrote:

 bbb wrote:
One time when watching an episode of The Sopranos I stood up, pointed to the screen and said loudly, "You can't pump your own gas in New Jersey!"

Is this for real?

I googled it and yeah it's true.

IIRC Oregon has a similar law?

Oregon law prevents self service except sometimes during pandemics.

Attendant Service just seems weird to me as a Brit, as it’s not really a thing here.

 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.

Well, it could have been a supernatural computer virus. Bones had a cross over episode with Sleepy Hollow so technically the universe of Bones includes the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse and all kinds of other nonsense.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Attendant Service just seems weird to me as a Brit, as it’s not really a thing here.

I am from NJ but have lived in other states. It's annoying that self service is not allowed in NJ.