Things you're tired of seeing in movies

[p51]

Rotating guns (minigun, Vulcan or Gatling gun, whatever you might call them, electrically-powered) turning for a couple of seconds before they start firing. They're mechanical, and the motor simply turns the barrels to make them fire. You could actually grab the end of the barrel , rotate them and get a couple of shots off that way. Having seen them shot many times in the military, it drives me nuts how in sci-fi, they always spin for 1-2 seconds before the rounds start going downrange...

 

[p51]

Another thing, the idea that a jet aircraft can cross continents quickly and without refueling.
Movies like "Stealth" and the first "Iron Man," have something flying inside an atmosphere, alone, and going over numerous countries to get to something for a short while.
I'll never forget being in a theater for the Iron Man movie and suddenly he's flying over the 'stan. It was close to a USAF base and someone yelled out, "where'd you tank up?" to which a quarter of the audience busted out laughing, which was followed with murmured questions from others asking why that was funny and what it meant...

 

[Lightning]

I'll never forget being in a theater for the Iron Man movie and suddenly he's flying over the 'stan. It was close to a USAF base and someone yelled out, "where'd you tank up?"

But Iron Man doesn't use fuel, he converts arc reactor electricity directly to propulsive force (somehow). However I agree with your overall point.

 

[Riceball]

Another thing, the idea that a jet aircraft can cross continents quickly and without refueling.
Movies like "Stealth" and the first "Iron Man," have something flying inside an atmosphere, alone, and going over numerous countries to get to something for a short while.
I'll never forget being in a theater for the Iron Man movie and suddenly he's flying over the 'stan. It was close to a USAF base and someone yelled out, "where'd you tank up?" to which a quarter of the audience busted out laughing, which was followed with murmured questions from others asking why that was funny and what it meant...

Movie producers probably do that for 2 reasons.

One is to make a better, more streamlined movie. Who really wants to see a scene of jet landing somewhere to get fuel in order to be able to be able to go wherever they're going to? That's the kind of thing, if actually, shot, winds up on the cutting room floor because it serves no purpose in advancing the plot and just slows the movie down.

The other reason is that they're probably used to commercial airliners that can travel from the US to Europe or Japan non-stop. Because of that, they probably just assume all planes can do that, no matter how small; not realizing that fighters jets are thirsty beasts. But some business jets, like the Gulfstream G650ER has a range of 7,500 nm and it's less than 4,700 nm from CA to Japan and a touch over 3,600 from New York to the UK. So it's not entirely unrealistic, depending on the plane.

 

[AJK001]

The SR-71 Blackbird could go coast to coast in about 64 minutes but I don't know if it needed to refuel. It also set a record going to Europe in just under 2 hours. Most other super-sonic jets would require refueling and even then would still take a few hours to go coast to coast.

 

[Richard Baker]

IIRC that that US to Europe trip required the Blackbird to turn around to land, and it overflew several countries to do so...

Gassing up any sort of vehicle never happens unless it is for a plot point.
Same thing with Phones recharging

 

[PerfesserCoffee]

In spy movies, the CIA especially is big on hunting down and killing their own people just because a project was embarrassing or their boss just didn't like them.
And if course, it's done by dozens of SWAT-team-equipped men in the open, sometimes in broad daylight and always where anyone can see it happen (as if a neighbor wouldn't call the police or the local TV station).
I once talked with someone who worked for "The Company" and I asked what about spy movies drives them the most nuts. He said this was the thing that made him roll his eyes. "Could you imagine anyone signing on for the job if that happened with any frequency?" he asked.

"[W]ith any frequency" being the operative phrase. They only need a few examples now and again to keep the rest in line. And, from what I've heard, they may use operatives from one of the allied intelligence agencies overseas to do the dirty work.

 

[Riceball]

IIRC that that US to Europe trip required the Blackbird to turn around to land, and it overflew several countries to do so...

Gassing up any sort of vehicle never happens unless it is for a plot point.
Same thing with Phones recharging

I read somewhere, Wikipedia probably, that said that the SR-71 would normally take off light on fuel and rendevous with a take off shortly after take off to top off. I don't know if this is true or not but I do know that it's not uncommon for som tactical aircraft, I think the F-14 was one of them, to regularly do that, esp. when they have a full weapons load; in order to save on weight to help them get airborne they'd only have enough fuel in their tanks to get up in the air and meet up with a tanker since fuel equals weight.

 

[Strikerkc]

I read somewhere, Wikipedia probably, that said that the SR-71 would normally take off light on fuel and rendevous with a take off shortly after take off to top off..

One of the issues was that the plane was designed to function best at high altitude and fast speeds. And as a side effect, was actually quite leaky until it got up in the air. So the fuel tank didn't actually fully seal until the plane got high and the atmospheric pressure got lower.

 

[Riceball]

One of the issues was that the plane was designed to function best at high altitude and fast speeds. And as a side effect, was actually quite leaky until it got up in the air. So the fuel tank didn't actually fully seal until the plane got high and the atmospheric pressure got lower.

That's half true. While the SR-71 was leaky on the ground, it didn't immediately seal up once in the air though. It didn't seal up until it had been flying at high speeds for a while and the aircraft's skin got heated up. Once the skin heated up it would expand and that would cause the fuels tanks to seal up.

 

[p51]

When someone is showing super powers, or is about to do a beat down in whatever method they chose, small rocks all around them (and nothing else) start floating about 6-8 inches off the ground....

 

[dascoyne]

When someone is showing super powers, or is about to do a beat down in whatever method they chose, small rocks all around them (and nothing else) start floating about 6-8 inches off the ground....

... especially if they raise both arms in a lifting gesture, eyes glow and their hair starts to float.

 

[AJK001]

When someone is showing super powers, or is about to do a beat down in whatever method they chose, small rocks all around them (and nothing else) start floating about 6-8 inches off the ground....

But how else would you know that they have superpowers.

 

[ConvergencePro]

I know Digital Effects overuse is a subject that’s been well covered, but I was writing a speech on it the other day for one of my classes and realized something that made me kinda sad..

With the advent of CGI special effects taking over and effectively making it so that a Director today can basically do whatever shot or effect they want in a film.. Gone are the days of those unique creative solutions in filmmaking that only ever arose from the inability of a director to do whatever they originally wanted in the first place.
Iconic images in film like the three yellow barrels in JAWS, which add so much unbelievable tension to that movie just acting as a mere representation of the shark rather than showing the actual shark itself all the time, only ever happened because the damn robotic shark hardly ever worked..
Those imaginative solutions that actually often ended up making the film infinitely better in the end because of the need to overcome the limitations in what was possible, that has largely been lost forever
That little bit of Movie Magic is dead

 

[harrisonp]

I love things that came from necessity and ingenuity rather than a director getting something picture perfect with the wave of a mouse. I’m a big believer that sometimes “tell don’t show” is a better course of action if the alternative is a big splashy money shot of a monster. The tension and visceral response created by these glimpses of practical monsters is very hard to touch with digital effects purely because they are so deliberate by nature.

 

[NeedMoreBoost]

"white savior" movies

 

[Strikerkc]

...That little bit of Movie Magic is dead

No it's not.

It's common knowledge in cinema making, and story telling in general, that you can achieve certain things in story telling by implying things in some ways vs. outright showing them. It's a tool in the tool box; it's still there to use for anyone who wants to use it. Same as CGI is in the tool box.

 

[ConvergencePro]

No it's not.

It's common knowledge in cinema making, and story telling in general, that you can achieve certain things in story telling by implying things in some ways vs. outright showing them. It's a tool in the tool box; it's still there to use for anyone who wants to use it. Same as CGI is in the tool box.

And how many directors can you honestly say utilize it, and utilize it well these days? I think the list would be very short and primarily comprised of older directors.
Im not anti CGI by any stretch just fyi. I think its a wonderful tool that has helped advance film to amazing new hights, but with that freedom for a director to basically do whatever they want I also feel we’ve lost a bit of something, be it soul/art/creativity/ingenuity or whatever have you.. Thankfully we still have our George Miller’s and del Toro’s out there.

 

[Laspector]

Yeah, but unfortunately I think those days are gone. Or maybe I am wrong. Name a single good modern horror movie that gets away with with "suspense over showing the monster." I'm actually with you on the concept, don't get me wrong, but with today's modern audiences--will it really work? Yes, I believe it could, but it seems that type of movie making is gone.

Try to remake JAWS without showing the shark...Yes, it could be done, but would it be as effective? Would it be a box office giant? I don't think so .. Original ALIEN with only a few minutes of the Xenomorph? Very hard to do. It would take a very skilled filmmaker to do it and make it work.

 

[AJK001]

Yeah, but unfortunately I think those days are gone. Or maybe I am wrong. Name a single good modern horror movie that gets away with with "suspense over showing the monster." I'm actually with you on the concept, don't get me wrong, but with today's modern audiences--will it really work? Yes, I believe it could, but it seems that type of movie making is gone.

Try to remake JAWS without showing the shark...Yes, it could be done, but would it be as effective? Would it be a box office giant? I don't think so .. Original ALIEN with only a few minutes of the Xenomorph? Very hard to do. It would take a very skilled filmmaker to do it and make it work.

That is why I always liked the original Thing movie with James Arness as the monster. Most of the terror in that movie was in the viewers own mind. I don't think you saw the monster for more than a couple of minutes in the whole movie and it terrified me when I first saw it back in the 70's.