Things you're tired of seeing in movies

[AJK001]

I was watching Wargames the other day and the General at NORAD tells a base to scramble two F16s, and they cut to two F15s flying out. One designation number short and one vertical stab too many. I know most people don't know the difference, but come on. The only way the planes could look any different is if they showed two B52s flying by, ; )

Another trope is when TV shows and movies use clearly American planes as MIG's or whatever. Top Gun did this using F-5's and T-38's as MIG Fighters. I haven't seen the new Top Gun so I don't know if they still do this.

 

[bwayne64]

Another trope is when TV shows and movies use clearly American planes as MIG's or whatever. Top Gun did this using F-5's and T-38's as MIG Fighters. I haven't seen the new Top Gun so I don't know if they still do this.

Yea I so hated that. Guess it would cost too much to get real migs. Or they would have to go the Iron Eagle route and use models. Now they can cgi the crap out of anything.

 

[Laspector]

I have a question about fighter jets, helicopters, yachts, and even fictional spacecraft. Do they not have keys? Can you really just jump into a multi million dollar piece of equipment, flip a few switches, and just steal it like they do in the movies? I certainly hope not? Hell, my car probably isn't worth ten grand (if I'm lucky) yet you can't just jump into it, flip a switch and take off. My lawnmower won't even start without a key. Sure, you can hot wire stuff, but they never do that with fighter jets or helicopters in the movies. Just hop in and take off. Surely the military isn't this stupid.

 

[13doctorwho]

I have a question about fighter jets, helicopters, yachts, and even fictional spacecraft. Do they not have keys? Can you really just jump into a multi million dollar piece of equipment, flip a few switches, and just steal it like they do in the movies? I certainly hope not? Hell, my car probably isn't worth ten grand (if I'm lucky) yet you can't just jump into it, flip a switch and take off. My lawnmower won't even start without a key. Sure, you can hot wire stuff, but they never do that with fighter jets or helicopters in the movies. Just hop in and take off. Surely the military isn't this stupid.

It's worse than that. It takes a lot of setup for a fighter or helicopter to take off. Not to mention why is every fighter or helicopter fully fueled at all times in the movies. In Wonder Woman 1984 they steal a jet from the Smithsonian, why is it fueled... it's a display piece, Hell, why does it even work?

 

[Sluis Van Shipyards]

The ground assault was because the Rebel base was shielded, so they needed a ground assault to take out the shields. How the AT-ATs can take out the shield generator when a Star Destroyer couldn't I'm not too sure except that maybe the shields can only stop energy and not physical objects. If that's the case, then I wonder why the Empire couldn't find some nice big rocks to drop on Hoth instead.

As for combined arms, I'd argue that the Imperial attack on Hoth wasn't true combined arms, it was a pure armored assault until the Imperial broke through the trench line. We saw no signs of supporting infantry until they got to the base proper.. There was no supporting artillery unless you count the AT-ATs. And there definitely was no air cover. That is unless you're referring to the Rebels who did use combined arms tactics except that they had no armor, but otherwise they had all of the other elements of combined arms.

They landed the AT-ATs beyond the shield and as we saw in TPM, shields do not stop slow moving objects, like Battledroids or AT-ATs. So they walked under and then their target was taking out the shield. A Star Destroyer could do it, but it would be a sustained bombardment, probably over many days depending on their power source. I'm not sure how large the shield was, but it wasn't a planetary shield, just local.

I mistakenly clicked on one of those "OMG I hate everything!" Youtube SW channels and The Simpsons Comic Book Guy looking dude was complaining about the Star Destroyer in orbit in Rogue One. He said "They could have just use that to take down the Hoth shield!" It's a lot of fair weather fans (like the people in charge of SW at Lucasfilm now) who don't know much about the property.

 

[Riceball]

Because the Rebels could probably pick those up on scanners and blow them to bits. AT-AT's are considerably harder and they shoot back.

Pick them up on scanners, certainly, Shoot them out of the sky? I doubt it. For one thing, the Rebels only seemed to have one piece of artillery capable of hitting something in orbit, the ion cannon and I doubt that an ion cannon would have any effect on a large chunk of rock. And none of the other 2 pieces of artillery seemed to be capable of angling high enough to hit anything very high up. I'd also think that if the Empire were to drop rocks onto Hoth as a means of bombardment, they'd be dropping as large of a piece of rock that their tractor beams could handle. Large, city sized rocks would be something that even a Star Destroyer would be hard pressed to take out before it hit them. Don't mention the Rebels with their handful of light artillery.

 

[Riceball]

Yea I so hated that. Guess it would cost too much to get real migs. Or they would have to go the Iron Eagle route and use models. Now they can cgi the crap out of anything.

That's exactly the reason why repainted Western jets were used as stand-ins for MiGs and Sukhois. During the Cold War, before the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union Soviet military equipment and vehicles were hard to come by. There were really only 2 ways of getting Soviet/ComBloc-made stuff, either from defectors or donated from captured stock by Israel. And when that stuff did get into Western hands, they were given to the military to take apart and study, thus far too valuable to sell to or let Hollywood use for a movie.

Now a days, they can either use CG as in the case of Top Gun Maverick with the Su-57(?) or they can probably rent one since there's plenty available now.

 

[JPH]

That's exactly the reason why repainted Western jets were used as stand-ins for MiGs and Sukhois. During the Cold War, before the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union Soviet military equipment and vehicles were hard to come by. There were really only 2 ways of getting Soviet/ComBloc-made stuff, either from defectors or donated from captured stock by Israel. And when that stuff did get into Western hands, they were given to the military to take apart and study, thus far too valuable to sell to or let Hollywood use for a movie.

Now a days, they can either use CG as in the case of Top Gun Maverick with the Su-57(?) or they can probably rent one since there's plenty available now.

In Hunt for Red October, didn't the sound guy from the American sub comment how the hydro-magneto-drive soviet sub was built using ancient tech? Vacuum tubes, and such, technlogy years behind the US...but they had a silent sub.
Supposedly Clancy had some special insight into the soviet tech which made certain people nervous.
Also, soviet jets were clunky and much larger than American counterparts, but put a big enough engine on a garbage truck and it will be fast

 

[Riceball]

I have a question about fighter jets, helicopters, yachts, and even fictional spacecraft. Do they not have keys? Can you really just jump into a multi million dollar piece of equipment, flip a few switches, and just steal it like they do in the movies? I certainly hope not? Hell, my car probably isn't worth ten grand (if I'm lucky) yet you can't just jump into it, flip a switch and take off. My lawnmower won't even start without a key. Sure, you can hot wire stuff, but they never do that with fighter jets or helicopters in the movies. Just hop in and take off. Surely the military isn't this stupid.

Nope, no keys. Even things like Humvees and 5 ton trucks didn't have keys. In fact, it was a joke pulled on new joins to tell them to go to the motor pool and get the keys for the Humvee or 5 ton. So, yeah, most military vehicles don't have keys. You have to think of the scenarios and situations that military vehicles are used, they need to be ready at a moment's notice and you don't want your crews having to worry about finding or getting the keys to their vehicles when seconds could mean the difference between life and death. To add to that, junior enlisted, and even officers, have a bad habit of losing things, sometimes big things like night vision goggles, or even their rifles, given that, how likely do you think it is that Pvt. Snuffy would end up losing the keys to their Humvee, tank, helo, jet, etc.

It's worse than that. It takes a lot of setup for a fighter or helicopter to take off. Not to mention why is every fighter or helicopter fully fueled at all times in the movies. In Wonder Woman 1984 they steal a jet from the Smithsonian, why is it fueled... it's a display piece, Hell, why does it even work?

Just because something is a museum piece doesn't mean that it doesn't work. It's not unheard of for military museums to keep the things in their collection in full working order. A good example of this is the Tank Museum at Bovington, the majority of the vehicles in their collection are in full working order. At least twice a year they hold a major event (Tiger Day and Tankfest) where they take some of the vehicles off of display and take them out to drive around in their arena for the visitors. This includes the only currently operational Tiger tank in the world, Tiger 131.

 

[Treadwell]

The Smithsonian doesn't. They drain out everything they can.

 

[pengbuzz]

Pick them up on scanners, certainly, Shoot them out of the sky? I doubt it. For one thing, the Rebels only seemed to have one piece of artillery capable of hitting something in orbit, the ion cannon and I doubt that an ion cannon would have any effect on a large chunk of rock. And none of the other 2 pieces of artillery seemed to be capable of angling high enough to hit anything very high up. I'd also think that if the Empire were to drop rocks onto Hoth as a means of bombardment, they'd be dropping as large of a piece of rock that their tractor beams could handle. Large, city sized rocks would be something that even a Star Destroyer would be hard pressed to take out before it hit them. Don't mention the Rebels with their handful of light artillery.

And in the process, those star destroyers would be sitting ducks for the Ion Cannons.

 

[Riceball]

And in the process, those star destroyers would be sitting ducks for the Ion Cannons.

Not really, no more so than they already were, I don't think that they'd need to be all that close to launch a hunk of rock at a planet. It's not like you need a great deal of accuracy. A city sized rock would probably only need to hit with a few hundred miles or so of the Rebel base to have an effect, assuming that the shields won't protect them from the effects of the impact. All an SD has to do is push the rock along with its tractor beam(s) while cruising at high speed, then turn off the tractor beam(s) and hit reverse, the rock will continue on its course until eventually it gets caught in Hot's gravity where it continues on its course, unimpeded.

 

[Bigdaddy]

Not really, no more so than they already were, I don't think that they'd need to be all that close to launch a hunk of rock at a planet. It's not like you need a great deal of accuracy. A city sized rock would probably only need to hit with a few hundred miles or so of the Rebel base to have an effect, assuming that the shields won't protect them from the effects of the impact. All an SD has to do is push the rock along with its tractor beam(s) while cruising at high speed, then turn off the tractor beam(s) and hit reverse, the rock will continue on its course until eventually it gets caught in Hot's gravity where it continues on its course, unimpeded.

 

[pengbuzz]

Not really, no more so than they already were, I don't think that they'd need to be all that close to launch a hunk of rock at a planet. It's not like you need a great deal of accuracy. A city sized rock would probably only need to hit with a few hundred miles or so of the Rebel base to have an effect, assuming that the shields won't protect them from the effects of the impact. All an SD has to do is push the rock along with its tractor beam(s) while cruising at high speed, then turn off the tractor beam(s) and hit reverse, the rock will continue on its course until eventually it gets caught in Hot's gravity where it continues on its course, unimpeded.

But if all that is true, then they would do that more often, wouldn't they?

 

[Riceball]

But if all that is true, then they would do that more often, wouldn't they?

You would think but it's a blunt instrument that would destroy a lot more than just a single Rebel base if used on a populated world. Granted the Empire doesn't care much about collateral damage, but chucking rocks at your world and having your planet slowly die doesn't quite have the same kind of effect as just orbital bombardment or just blowing it up into chunks of rock with a Death Star. Plus, I'd imagine that not every world out there has an asteroid field conveniently close enough for an ISD to harvest some nice chunks of rocks from.

 

[pengbuzz]

You would think but it's a blunt instrument that would destroy a lot more than just a single Rebel base if used on a populated world. Granted the Empire doesn't care much about collateral damage, but chucking rocks at your world and having your planet slowly die doesn't quite have the same kind of effect as just orbital bombardment or just blowing it up into chunks of rock with a Death Star. Plus, I'd imagine that not every world out there has an asteroid field conveniently close enough for an ISD to harvest some nice chunks of rocks from.

So why not just chuck a few at Alderaan instead of destroying all the mineral and other resources by blowing the planet up?

 

[Bigdaddy]

So why not just chuck a few at Alderaan instead of destroying all the mineral and other resources by blowing the planet up?

It didn't have any astroids close enough? The tractor beams aren't powerful enough? They wanted to show off the new technological terror they had created? The most likely reason is...the movie had to happen.

 

[blewis17]

It didn't have any astroids close enough? The tractor beams aren't powerful enough? They wanted to show off the new technological terror they had created? The most likely reason is...the movie had to happen.

Rich Evans of RLM fame, said that as a Jedi (or Sith), you would NEVER fight ANYONE in close combat. No light saber needed. You would simply Force-explode their brain inside their skull. So having Jedi running around, fighting all of these bad guys, seems pointless when you have that kind of power.

 

[Bigdaddy]

Rich Evans of RLM fame, said that as a Jedi (or Sith), you would NEVER fight ANYONE in close combat. No light saber needed. You would simply Force-explode their brain inside their skull. So having Jedi running around, fighting all of these bad guys, seems pointless when you have that kind of power.

Poor Rich Evans, he will be missed.

 

[somerset fox]

It's worse than that. It takes a lot of setup for a fighter or helicopter to take off. Not to mention why is every fighter or helicopter fully fueled at all times in the movies. In Wonder Woman 1984 they steal a jet from the Smithsonian, why is it fueled... it's a display piece, Hell, why does it even work?

I thought it was even nicer that they found a fighter jet with side by side seating, rather than one in front of the other!