Factual error: Regular, unmodified weapons firing blank rounds. Real weapons use large and obvious attachments to block most of the propellant gases from going out of the barrel, which cycles the weapon. Hollywood weapons have blockages or mechanisms hidden in the barrel to do the same thing (or they have other effects like CGI or a gas flame), but those would make them unable to fire actual bullets. Also, real blanks are dangerous when fired close to people because they can still fire out debris. Die Hard 2 is a good example, with the bad guys swapping back and forth between blank and live ammunition in the same weapons.
Common movie and TV mistakes - page 6
This is a list of mistakes, things done wrong, etc. that happen so frequently onscreen we barely notice any more. 'Movie logic', stupid behaviours, and everything related.
Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.
Suggested correction: Technically incorrect. You can get very high powered blanks called 4 in 1's that can cycle a weapon without the weapon being modified or having a blank firing adaptor. The reason they are not used commonly is because of how loud they are.
Factual error: Trains that do not stop, but crash through objects on railroad tracks. Train engineers will hit the brakes of the train when they see anything or anyone on the tracks, and if they come in contact with said objects, will stop to investigate what they hit, and cooperate with local and Federal authorities. Two examples are "Back To the Future, Part III" and "Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry."
Other mistake: Characters that are on the run from the law or otherwise go into hiding, and they cut their hair themselves and it looks like it was done by a professional stylist. Examples include "The Fugitive," "Gone Girl," and even "The Outsiders" showed two youngsters cutting each others' hair with a knife but having a decent end result.
Factual error: Any time characters are underwater with no eye protection, they still always seem to have clear and perfect vision to see the world around them, other people and even small objects submerged with them. But to anybody who has ever tried opening their eyes under water, you know this isn't true. It's all a massively blurry mess where you can only make out fuzzy shapes and colors at best.
Deliberate mistake: In almost every movie with shootouts, highly trained soldiers, or experienced mercenaries or thugs suddenly get "Storm Trooper Aim" when shooting at the heroes. Even cops do this where they have clear shots of people running away from them, often times multiple of them with fully automatic weapons firing rapidly at a semi close target and somehow just hit all around them and even the ground.
Factual error: Whenever someone flatlines and a doctor (or nurse) grabs the defibrillator and is able to shock the person back to life. Defibrillators only work when the person still has a heartbeat, but the heart is in fibrillation. And even when doctors do use a defibrillator, they still perform regular CPR afterwards, which is rarely (if ever) shown being done. Usually in the film or show, the person comes back to life, sits up, and takes a huge gulp of air as if they had been holding their breath underwater.
Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.
Suggested correction: The spirit of this entry is correct - defibrillation is WAY overused to add drama - but the facts are wrong. First, defibrillators are rarely used unless there is electrical activity but no heartbeat, as is the case when fibrillation is occurring. In fibrillation, the heart is not beating, only twitching without rhythm. CPR is never done after restoring the heartbeat, no doctor would perform compressions on traumatized heart. Finally, most patients suffer serious complications after defibrillation. A patient who jumps up after defib only happens... in the movies.
I did oversimplify when I said heartbeat. But a twitching heart is different than a completely stopped heart. And the point of the entry is the fact that defibrillation machines are over used and patients don't jump up afterwards, which you only confirmed, so the correction is unnecessary. And, where do you get your information about not performing CPR? The general consensus is to do CPR. Here's a short article. Again, this correction is unneeded. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/25597505/.
I think the original points that CPR is over depicted in films and TV, and that patients are debilitated after defibrillation is valid. You can make a better case by avoiding terms like always and never, because there is always an exception, and never and end to the comments. By the way, the article you cite is a database review of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, not the hospital settings you describe, so now a correction IS needed.
Factual error: When the police are on the phone with a suspect who is using a landline and they try to keep them on the line long enough to trace the number and location. If the film takes place after the advent of Caller ID, then this information would be available instantly.
Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.
Deliberate mistake: Often in rainy scenes in movies, the crew has the rain machines set to have the rain drops far far larger than natural. Huge water drops so that they will actually be visible in the final print.
Character mistake: Chess boards being set up wrongly, or pieces being in places that make no sense and they would never have got there in the course of a normal game.
Continuity mistake: Cigarettes and food items changing size/shape between shots.
Factual error: Using a car door as a shield for bullets. They're really thin and you'd be shot right through them really easily.
Factual error: Films set in or around the middle ages depict horses being the size of modern horses. In actuality, horses during that time period were smaller, closer to modern ponies.
Factual error: When the character holding a gun keeps cocking the slide whenever they are about to get into trouble. Once a weapon is cocked, it's loaded. Every other time the slide, or cocking handle is manipulated, the weapon will extract a round from the chamber and draw a new round from the magazine. Whenever this happens in movies or shows, the weapon never extracts the round in the chamber.
Character mistake: A lawyer in an American court will object to part of a witness' testimony and when the judge sustains it, the lawyer does not move for the objectionable testimony to be stricken from the record. In real life, if a judge sustains a lawyer's objection to a testimony, the lawyer will request the testimony be stricken from the record, otherwise it will be fair game for the opposing counsel to refer back to that testimony later in the trial.
Deliberate mistake: How many times have we seen cars and trucks drive through snow, dirt and mud, only to arrive at their destination perfectly clean.
Revealing mistake: Vehicles that are about to be involved in a crash have their windows cracked, shattered or blown out immediately before (a fraction of a second to 1-2 seconds). Conversely, some vehicles suffer no glass shattering when they roll over. The Good Son can serve as an example of both "mistakes." in chapter #9: "Mr. Highway", the first bus that turns on its side has no window breakage; the car that smashes into the bus has a crack in the driver's side windshield; at least two other cars get their windows blown out before ramming into the wrecked cars ahead of them.
Factual error: Women didn't start routinely shaving their legs until the 1920s, but in films and TVs shows set before then, women's legs are always hair free.
Factual error: An especially stupid but common blunder in film and TV over the decades involves a character picking up a random object from nearby and bashing a heavy padlock and steel chain a few times until the lock and chain break and fall away. Of course, steel chain and heavy padlocks are designed to withstand tons of stress that a human being couldn't possibly exert through striking alone.
Deliberate mistake: When a man and woman have sex in a movie scene, after the sex is over the woman covers her breasts with the blanket/sheet and the man covers up from the waist down. Also, if the woman gets up off the bed, she drags the bed-sheet with her to cover up. You just had sex, why would you all of a sudden have modesty? Also, they always have sex under the covers. Who has sex under the covers?
Deliberate mistake: Trains should stop when the engineer is killed or otherwise incapacitated because of a switch known as a "Dead man's" which is used in these events to stop the train. This mistake is often done purposely to keep the action going and for plot purposes. This is especially common in action films.
Join the mailing list
Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.