Things you're tired of seeing in movies

There is no freeway between LA and Las Vegas. There is only a desolate two-lane road. There might be some windmills.

Exception being The Hangover. Averted a bit with Dolan's Cadillac (both the novella and the film based on it), as Dolan is reported (in both) to take a scenic route between Las Vegas and L.A. for safety reasons.
 
There is no freeway between LA and Las Vegas. There is only a desolate two-lane road. There might be some windmills.
What about I-15? Sure, it's not exactly downtown LA to the Vegas strip as you got to use I-10 to get there when heading east, but that's clearly the route people take between the two points by car. I'd assume that is the route suggested in most movies.
 
Perhaps my sarcasm was lost. Let me rephrase. I'm tired of seeing a frontage road alongside the I-10 outside Palm Springs, where windmills are visible, representing the modern four (or more) lane I-15 going to Vegas. Sure, it's more picturesque, but it's not still 1950 out there.
 
Oh, gotcha. Yeah, even when Hunter Thompson went through there on his two trips to Vegas, I-15 had already been there for quite a while...
 
For some reason I'm starting to get annoyed by the usage of fake swear words in sci-fi shows these days. It was innovative when the original BSG first came out, cool when Farscape did the same (although I don't know that would work with the translator microbes), and then new BSG made it really cool, but since then it seems that a lot of different sci-fi shows are using it and it's getting old. I mainly notice this in Defiance but I think that Falling Skies is doing it too and it's beginning to get old and sort of distracting.
 
Movies that are supposed to take place in a specific location but then they leave in clues that it is somewhere else. I'm watching "Identity Thief". The guy is flying to Winter Springs in Florida, literally next to Orlando, to try to catch her but they show Miami Beach. Then when he is chasing her on the highway you can see Georgia road signs on the overpass they are running under.
 
Well I just watched This Is the End today so I'm going to go with the entire cast of This Is the End. Seriously they should either all be never allowed to work in a public format or possibly shot. They're all just awful.
 
Movies that are supposed to take place in a specific location but then they leave in clues that it is somewhere else. I'm watching "Identity Thief". The guy is flying to Winter Springs in Florida, literally next to Orlando, to try to catch her but they show Miami Beach. Then when he is chasing her on the highway you can see Georgia road signs on the overpass they are running under.
Nothing new there. Back when most TV shows were filmed in Southern California, it was always funny to see scenes taking place, say, in the upper midwest or Northeast, and palm trees would be in the background.
The original episodes for "Duke of Hazzard" were filmed in North Georgia, but the production quickly shifted to the LA area. As someone who remembers that show in it's initial run and living in North Florida at that time, I remember people in the South weren't happy with the switch of locations.
 
It's probably not as much of an issue as it once was in the 1980's and 90's but stories set in the 1940's-60's always seemed to have cars that were in showroom condition as if they were just restored. It was probably easier to find a restored and loved antique than a weathered one that's running, I guess.
 
Nothing new there. Back when most TV shows were filmed in Southern California, it was always funny to see scenes taking place, say, in the upper midwest or Northeast, and palm trees would be in the background.
The original episodes for "Duke of Hazzard" were filmed in North Georgia, but the production quickly shifted to the LA area. As someone who remembers that show in it's initial run and living in North Florida at that time, I remember people in the South weren't happy with the switch of locations.
I remember watching "The A-Team" as a kid and one episode they were in Florida and there were mountains in the background. For those who do not know, Florida doesn't have mountains. And until recently they also put front license tags on the cars so you knew it was supposed to be Florida even though we do not use front tags.
 
It's probably not as much of an issue as it once was in the 1980's and 90's but stories set in the 1940's-60's always seemed to have cars that were in showroom condition as if they were just restored. It was probably easier to find a restored and loved antique than a weathered one that's running, I guess.

There's a scene in Lucky Number Slevin that takes place in the parking lot of a race track in the late '60s or early '70s. It bugs me because every car is period-correct (within a couple of years) and in perfect condition.

Compare that to an episode of CHiPs (or the motorcycle crash scene in Blue Thunder) where suddenly every car on the road is an old junker.
 
How about too much ammo?

With automatics I can give them a little leeway for dramatic effect, but in Red Heat Arnie is packing a six gun, and fires 18 shots out of it, reloads, then fires 18 more.
 
This is one that's been bugging me for a while now, the inconspicuous wearing of a hood. I love how whenever someone in a TV show or movie wants to be inconspicuous or avoid being noticed they always put on a hood and they usually don't do that until they notice the polices/misc. goons/security in their general area looking for them and when they do they're the only ones around that is hooded and yet no one notices either putting on the hood or that they're the only one around with a hood around trying hard not to be noticed. If I were looking for someone and I saw someone all of a sudden put on their hood and/or they're the only one around with a hood on I would be immediately suspicious of that person and I'd check them out right away, not just simply ignore them just because I can't see their face.
 
It's probably not as much of an issue as it once was in the 1980's and 90's but stories set in the 1940's-60's always seemed to have cars that were in showroom condition as if they were just restored. It was probably easier to find a restored and loved antique than a weathered one that's running, I guess.
It's tough to find period autos that will run well when filming is going on, but looks like it needs a trip to the garage. Hardly anyone will maintain an older vehicle to look like that. I'd read when they filmed, "The Rocketeer," that they'd found several early 30s cars that had been stored for a very long time and looked, 'correctly used,' yet when the movie came out they all looked like they'd rolled out of a car show the previous day.
Even military vehicles are hard to find in great mechanical shape that a film crew needs, yet looks like they've driven through heck and back.
 
It's tough to find period autos that will run well when filming is going on, but looks like it needs a trip to the garage. Hardly anyone will maintain an older vehicle to look like that. I'd read when they filmed, "The Rocketeer," that they'd found several early 30s cars that had been stored for a very long time and looked, 'correctly used,' yet when the movie came out they all looked like they'd rolled out of a car show the previous day.
Even military vehicles are hard to find in great mechanical shape that a film crew needs, yet looks like they've driven through heck and back.

With the advancements in CG technology that should no longer be an issue, producers/directors can now either opt for completely CG cars rendered to look used or use real cars but alter them in post to look a little more used.
 
With the advancements in CG technology that should no longer be an issue, producers/directors can now either opt for completely CG cars rendered to look used or use real cars but alter them in post to look a little more used.
I know a guy who does CGI for movies and he says the toughest thing is to do are things people know well. He said anyone can make a sci-fi spaceship because nobody knows if it looks wrong. But everyone knows what a car looks like and how it looks when its moving. He worked on 'Pearl Harbor' and said that even he could clearly tell the difference between the CGI planes and the real ones, and it drove him nuts because they never could get the look right.
 
I know a guy who does CGI for movies and he says the toughest thing is to do are things people know well. He said anyone can make a sci-fi spaceship because nobody knows if it looks wrong. But everyone knows what a car looks like and how it looks when its moving. He worked on 'Pearl Harbor' and said that even he could clearly tell the difference between the CGI planes and the real ones, and it drove him nuts because they never could get the look right.

I agree but at the same time I have to say that it can be done. My job at work is to look at CG models of cars (real cars) and with a good render you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference between the CG model and the real deal. The key to all of this isn't in the modeling, it's in the rendering and the compositing and that's where a lot of CG falls short because they put enough effort/time/money into that end of it which is why you'll get bad or really obvious CG work on screen. The technology is there, it's just a matter of the post houses having enough time to render out the models properly and enough time to comp it right.
 
I know a guy who does CGI for movies and he says the toughest thing is to do are things people know well. He said anyone can make a sci-fi spaceship because nobody knows if it looks wrong. But everyone knows what a car looks like and how it looks when its moving...
I've been saying this for years now. It's comparatively easy to make the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park look real because nobody has ever actually seen a dinosaur. But we all know how the things we encounter in our every day lives look and move and behave, and how Earth's atmosphere and gravity affect them. So it's much more difficult for CGI artists to fool us when they replicate such items, especially when they're working under the typical time and budgetary constraints of the movie and television industries. Of course, the same is/has been true of those artists who are/have been responsible for practical make-ups and special effects for generations, so that's nothing new. And I'm guessing just about the time they're able to create flawless CGI almost every time, the next new technology will show up and they'll have to start all over again.
 

Your message may be considered spam for the following reasons:

If you wish to reply despite these issues, check the box below before replying.
Be aware that malicious compliance may result in more severe penalties.
Back
Top