Things you're tired of seeing in movies

[Strikerkc]

Everything is a historical event when you have a time machine and no "home" period of time.

In doctor who, the term is really more "fixed point". Something so drastically important to a world's history, or history of the universe, that changing it could nearly undo time itself.

It's the core concept behind them not killing Hitler, not strangling baby Master in his crib, etc. But they also extended it to why they need to make sure certain GOOD things DO happen, and prevent other time hoping jerks from undoing those good things, every now and then.

The idea being that lots of the other filler stuff between big events could change, but the big events would still happen regardless.

 

[Cephus]

I liked the episode and thought it was great when it turned out they were on Earth but I really cringed when they started the preaching, something that seems to happen more and more often. I don't think we will ever have a non BBC, which I've come to really hate over the last few years, Doctor Who unless they cancel it and some other entity can take it over.

I thought it sucked and I honestly don't need to watch Doctor Who at all. Now that they're coming out with the different Doctor sets, I can go back and watch the old ones that were actually good. Already got Tom Baker. Just waiting for the next one.

 

[DesertDan]

The keys to the car left behind the visor.
Gun-fu.
Walking away from the explosion.
Stepping out of the speeding/spinning vehicle.
Heroic bullet/knife wounds.
Standing unmoved while clothes-lining someone off of a speeding motorcycle, casually picking it up and riding off.
Being able to fight/run, etc after being hit by a car or falling off of a building.
Instant expertise.
Flagrant security violations with no repercussions.

 

[Strikerkc]

...Gun-fu..

Alright. Thems may be fightin words ;p

What's your definition of gun-fu?

 

[Rotwang]

Alien species who seem to have yet to master the ability to take a turn at any speed without skidding and slamming into their surroundings.

 

[Richard Baker]

Alien species who seem to have mastered interstellar travel but have yet to grasp the concept of clothing. There are a couple of exceptions, such as 'Predator' , but for the most part you have a landed/crashed saucer and a naked alien running around.

Secondary issue- humans/human form who are talkative to the point of annoyance but then transform into some sort of demonic creature and totally lose the ability to communicate. Best example: the Violator from 'The Spawn'. Best exception (oddly enough) Dr. Walter Jenning/Dark Overlord from 'Howard the Duck'

 

[DesertDan]

Alright. Thems may be fightin words ;p

What's your definition of gun-fu?

Gun fu - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Strikerkc]

Don't you dare ever insult Hong Kong action movie gymnastic gun play in my presence again.

I'm watchin you.

 

[Richard Baker]

Creating a whole new form of martial arts based on some star's ability to use the parallel bars
GYMKATA!

Now some films do it right- in 'Total Recall' (1990) Rachel Ticotin did not any fighting skills but was a dancer, so they adapted some of the dance moves she was familiar with into a fight scene with Sharon Stone.
Most films do not go through that bother- they get somebody who was famous for something and just make up an excuse for them to do it on screen. This was parodied in 'Scrooged', with Mary Lou Retton who just did a gymnastics routine for no reason other than the fact she could do it.

 

[p51]

How about the mechanic guy who can fix anything, in mere seconds. Never mind he's never even heard of whatever you just handed over, boom, it's fixed and functional almost as fast as anyone else would be trying to figure out how to even get to the broken part(s).
At least in the old Star Trek, Scotty often had problems with stuff, things broke down once he'd fixed them and he'd address the times he was to handle something he'd never seen before. You never saw that much after that.

 

[Richard Baker]

How about the mechanic guy who can fix anything, in mere seconds. Never mind he's never even heard of whatever you just handed over, boom, it's fixed and functional almost as fast as anyone else would be trying to figure out how to even get to the broken part(s).
At least in the old Star Trek, Scotty often had problems with stuff, things broke down once he'd fixed them and he'd address the times he was to handle something he'd never seen before. You never saw that much after that.

People fixing devices with integrated circuits which were damaged. Not even the original manufacturing facility can do that- the old chip is scrapped and replaced.
Corollary- stealing devices with high tech components to duplicate and pretend to invent. Chief examples- Rasmussen in ST-TNG's "A Matter of TIime" (yea, stealing a tricorder, scanner, Data) & Starling in ST-v's "Future's End".
Best examples which did not attempt to repair IC Chips- Doc Brown in BttF III (functional equivalents mounted on the hood) and Spock in TOS-Trek's City on teh Edge of Forever with his filling the room with old style equipment to expand his Tricorder to watch the time-doughnut's video.

 

[Riceball]

How about the mechanic guy who can fix anything, in mere seconds. Never mind he's never even heard of whatever you just handed over, boom, it's fixed and functional almost as fast as anyone else would be trying to figure out how to even get to the broken part(s).
At least in the old Star Trek, Scotty often had problems with stuff, things broke down once he'd fixed them and he'd address the times he was to handle something he'd never seen before. You never saw that much after that.

Voyager was criminally guilty of this and, to a somewhat lesser degree so was Enterprise. I don't know how many times the Voyager or Enterprise crew encountered some alien species they've only just met and helped them out with repairing their ship. It's like having the maintainers for an F-18 sent over to Russia to work on a MiG without even so much as taking a peek at the repair manual for it. But at least in this example, it's similar tech, and not something made by aliens from another part of the galaxy.

 

[Treadwell]

Remotely "hacking" into things that don't even have computers in them, much less are accessible via modem/internet/wifi/whatever. Like normal appliances, a car*, a lawnmower...

(okay cars have had computers for a while but unless it's a Tesla you can't drive the damn thing with a keyboard!)

"If I can just find the right frequency..."

 

[Richard Baker]

Voyager was criminally guilty of this and, to a somewhat lesser degree so was Enterprise. I don't know how many times the Voyager or Enterprise crew encountered some alien species they've only just met and helped them out with repairing their ship. It's like having the maintainers for an F-18 sent over to Russia to work on a MiG without even so much as taking a peek at the repair manual for it. But at least in this example, it's similar tech, and not something made by aliens from another part of the galaxy.

It is implied that Star Fleet personal undergo training to interpret and operate new Alien hardware. In Generations they designed Soran's launch controller to have it understood by Picard but not easily. This does make sense to me. While I have direct experience in PCs and older operating systems found on the old Atari and Commodore Amiga computers, I have been able to also figure out and operate unfamiliar computers using other operating systems. This is by looking for familiar processes which the units are expected to have, even if their arrangement and naming conventions are very different.
Having hardware compatibility is a totally different thing though. I really got fed up when Archer stole part of a warp drive system from an alien ship to get the Enterprise repaired. That is like stealing a carburetor to get your Prius back in service. It is even difficult to even swap identical parts from different cars made by the same company if there is a couple of years between them.

 

[p51]

I really got fed up when Archer stole part of a warp drive system from an alien ship to get the Enterprise repaired. That is like stealing a carburetor to get your Prius back in service. It is even difficult to even swap identical parts from different cars made by the same company if there is a couple of years between them.

That was one of many things I liked about the movie, "Kelly's Heroes" where their Sherman tank's fuel pump went out and Moriarity (Odd Ball's "Mechanical genius") had to answer a question on why they couldn't use one from one of the knocked out German MKVIs in the town.
"Look, Oddball, I can't fix it without the parts no matter how positive I think!"

 

[Richard Baker]

Kelly's Heroes' is such a great movie on so many levels.'

 

[p51]

Kelly's Heroes' is such a great movie on so many levels.'

Agreed. Sure, its got some things that aren't right (a hippie in the 40s, all the civilians dressed in obvious postwar clothes and hairstyles, a Belgian BAR, those odd leather magazine pouches, M-44 packs, etc) but it's a very impressive movie for its scope and all the things they got right.
And it's the only WW2 I know of that adequately explains why so many people are carrying Tommy guns.
In fact, I watched it on DVD the other day for the first time in a while. I never get tired of this movie!

 

[Lightning]

I really got fed up when Archer stole part of a warp drive system from an alien ship to get the Enterprise repaired.

The worst part was that stole a "Warp coil" which was established as being the large rings in the nacells, not simmilar at all to the gismo they stole. Of course, when these type of scenes get written I'm sure the real world example of the Apollo 13 CO2 scrubbers are on their minds.

 

[AJK001]

Agreed. Sure, its got some things that aren't right (a hippie in the 40s, all the civilians dressed in obvious postwar clothes and hairstyles, a Belgian BAR, those odd leather magazine pouches, M-44 packs, etc) but it's a very impressive movie for its scope and all the things they got right.
And it's the only WW2 I know of that adequately explains why so many people are carrying Tommy guns.
In fact, I watched it on DVD the other day for the first time in a while. I never get tired of this movie!

I loved Kelly's Heros even with a few little quirks one of which the same actor would be using different Tommy guns in the same scene. Normally it is very hard to tell the difference on screen but they had a few Thompsons that did not have the side rails on the back site so they were very easy to spot.

 

[Richard Baker]

Stellar cast, good mixture of character humor and action, good look at the chaos and confusion of war at several levels- I even love the ending theme song.
I don't have a practiced eye towards weaponry, the only thing that bother me a bit was the mocked up Tiger tanks looking out of proportion. I am sure someone will call out what chassis was used for it, but they did make a good attempt to show German armor...