That's what makes it bad Science Fiction or worse, space opera. For some reason I can put aside the dog fights in space, but the "radiation of the week" and getting other basic science stuff so wrong really annoys me.
Things you're tired of seeing in movies
- Thread starter Joosh
- Start date
Angelus Lupus
Sr Member
Jarred Leto
I really hate it when the hero bends down, trips or ducks at THE EXACT MOMENT a sniper shoots at him so the bullet hits just above his head and he is alerted to the danger.
I’ve watched two movies this week where this has happened.
Usually followed by completely unrealistic hero drawing a pistol and shooting the sniper across a huge distance.
I’ve watched two movies this week where this has happened.
Usually followed by completely unrealistic hero drawing a pistol and shooting the sniper across a huge distance.
Complete rewrites of established characters/story line every time there's a big screen (in both animated and live action) or television adaptation made.
I understand people wanting their own creative spin on it, but so few are the films or TV series that actually represent fairly what we became fans of to begin with.
Oh, and movies that have a million sequels. (Star Wars does not apply here.)
I understand people wanting their own creative spin on it, but so few are the films or TV series that actually represent fairly what we became fans of to begin with.
Oh, and movies that have a million sequels. (Star Wars does not apply here.)
US3R
Active Member
Saw American Heist a couple of weeks ago. Hayden christenens plays a mechanic and offers to fix the car of his love interest. Apparantly it had sugar in the gastank and ended up clogging the fuel filter and broke the carburetor. The car in the movie is a late model fiat 500 with fuel injection.
I know it's just a minor detail but it doesn't exactly help with the believability of the character.
I know it's just a minor detail but it doesn't exactly help with the believability of the character.
As a physician, it irks me that when a critical patient rolls into the E.R. on TV or movies, there are 5 people pulling the stretcher into a trauma bay, someone randomly calling out "We need a CBC, CMP, EKG, chest x-ray and neck films, put a Foley catheter in, set me up for a chest tube, STAT!" and it just automatically happens that all of this bloodwork. x-rays, and procedures get instantly done and results available immediately . The most egregious is when the E.R. doc grabs the stretcher and says, "Call the Operating Room, tell them we're coming now!"
I've worked in an O.R. for over 20 years. You can't just wheel a patient to the entrance and say "do surgery, now!"
I've worked in an O.R. for over 20 years. You can't just wheel a patient to the entrance and say "do surgery, now!"
Zombie_61
Master Member
I have a good friend who is a former firefighter, paramedic, and EMT, and he always calls "B.S." when he sees a scene in a movie in which they get things wrong during an emergency response. These are usually things that people who are not in that profession wouldn't notice, but he's done it so often that now I start to nitpick such scenes on occasion.
somerset fox
Sr Member
On the medical theme, the hero turns up at the dead body. Still lying face down they are given causes of death etc, EMTs etc busying around in the background. Wait a mo, do the paramedics roll the victim back into place after working on them, before the cops turn up? Or has someone made the ‘yup, he’s dead. No point trying to save him’ call already?
Yeah. More often IRL it's like, "He'll need to go to the OR. Who's on staff tonight? Never mind, it's 0300. We can probably schedule him in at 1200. In the meanwhile he's stable enough for a non-telemetry bed." Then later it's, "What? The hospitalist hasn't come down yet for the admission? OK. Just give him a hit of Ativan and send him up anyway. We need the bed."
As a rule Hollywood NEVER gets it right when it comes to medicine.
How about when, in the ED, only 2-3 people seem to be working on the patient while everyone else is standing around doing nothing?
Or that when EMS comes through the ED doors pushing the gurney at 30 mph nonstop straight to the open bay unobstructed? (How often do we get that close up shot of the gurney caster wobbling rapidly?)
Or the ED staff, who were all hanging around the nurse’s station apparently doing nothing but leap to their feet when the patient arrives?
How about the patient with the ET tube which isn’t attached to the vent?
Or the telemetry of a dying patient going from sinus rhythm to sinus tach straight to flatline?
One that shouldn't bother me but is hard not to notice is bad quality of chest compressions. Naturally they shouldn't be crunching ribs on a fellow actor but those compression are so "gentle" it provokes my instinct to shout for them to do it right or get someone else to do them.
Or the young ICU patient who looks like they got a dusting of makeup instead of being bruised up and morbidly bloated from all the IV fluids?
Or when the actors stumble through saying technical terms - or they mispronounce them altogether. If I were an actor preparing for technical piece of dialogue I would try to find someone who uses the term in real life to hear how it's applied.
IMO Matt Damon in "Good Will Hunting" was one of the few convincing portrayals of a "smart" person I've seen on the screen (maybe even the only convincing portrayal IMO). The only break was when he mispronounced the word, "syncope."
But the worst Holywood conventions are the ones that affect public perceptions of the course of illness. Hollywood is a propaganda tool which teaches that even people who are technically brain dead on a vent can be the one “miracle” that will pull through if they believed hard enough. I don’t have a problem with hope, but when that belief has the poor patient suffering in ICU for an extra week or month because the family refuses to consider hospice it’s not only cruel but costly (in the realm of tens of thousands of dollars) and deprives another patient of those critical resources. (starting to get gloomy ... I'll stop here.)
”Heat” was a top-notch action film - one of my favorite of all time - but the sequence I want to forget is when Al Pacino crashes into the ED with a kid Natalie Portman bleeding in his arms half the ED staff surrounds him as he orders them to get a "trauma surgeon" and a "vascular surgeon" ... and they run off to carry out his orders! *facepalm*
I was conferencing once with family members about considering palliative care on their critically ill loved one. As I explained the goals of palliative care (i.e. relief of suffering) one person interrupted and, with a dramatic pause to take a breath said accusingly, "You're talking about MERCY killing!" Of course I explained the difference and they finally understood but cinematically histrionic moments like that are clearly inspired by Hollywood.
Finally there's the person who watches too much "House" or does too much "Google" and insist they have some rare disorder despite having all the hallmarks of something more common. Unfortunately I see this all the time.
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jarroth
Sr Member
That is one that extremely pees me off
Back when I suffered through "ER" because my ex watched it religiously, I got so tired of the scenes, two or three times an episode, where characters are having a deep discussion (usually not related to treating a patient) and one of them says something compelling, and you wait for the response, but WHAM! the doors to the ER slam open off screen (no ER doors have been slammable for over 50 years, they're automatic), a percussive score begins, and some EMTs shout a bunch of symptoms while rushing a gurney along, and all the ER workers stop what they're doing and rush to it.
Several times. Every episode.
People die so quickly in movies/TV.
(spoiler)
In the Star Trek Discovery premiere, the transporter chief can find no life signs to lock onto, seconds after someone was impaled. Sorry, that person might be a goner, but the organs are still at least TRYING to operate. There are "signs".
Riceball
Master Member
In some cases it's excusable because they're shooting in an old hospital and it was probably closed down before the advent of automatic doors. Like the show Scrubs, I know that was shot in an old hospital and if what I've seen in watching a bunch of paranormal investigation shows, there's plenty of old hospitals and mental institutions just lying around abandoned that could probably be cleaned for use as a movie/TV set.
jedi573 said:
Every Sunday we all go to my parents house and my grandpa comes over. He was an Army crash crew/firefighter at an airfield at Foggia, Italy in WW2. So about a month ago we were watching a WW2 show and they were telling about the Stuka and its sirens. He said "So that's what that was! I thought that was just the sound of the bombs falling." We all just went "What?" because even my mom (her dad) had never heard that story. So he said at one point the Germans bombed their base. He went running for cover and ran off a small cliff (like 10ft. high, but he said cliff), broke some ribs and knocked himself out. :lol So then he didn't even want to go to the hospital because the town it was in (don't recall the name sorry) was being heavily bombed. He figured he was better off letting it heal or taking care of it later if it didn't!
I have to add I'd like to see them stop killing dogs. I don't have a problem, oddly, if it's like a guard dog attacking a good guy or something. I just don't like dogs being killed in movies. For some reason that bugs me more than seeing a person shot. I guess maybe because the dog can't defend itself like a person could. I don't know.
Reelo
Sr Member
Reminds me of an old MAD comic I once saw. The title was "Books you shouldn't be reading in bed when you can't sleep" and the guy in the cartoon was reading a book called "Encyclopedia of deadly afflictions with harmless symptoms".
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