Plot hole: Minuscule towns where you'd expect even a robbery at the local diner would be big news and horrify the local community for months, somehow end up having a crime rate worse than a Mad Max dystopia. Examples; Cabot Cove, Maine (where Jessica Fletcher lives), or the "This is the police" videogame series, where a small town in the mountains ends up having in just a couple months hostage situations, bomb threats, several murders, armed robberies and about half a dozen of violent crimes every day.
Common movie and TV mistakes - page 8
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.
Factual error: Often a person on the run will scale a fence quickly and get over it with little problem. And usually this fence has coils of razor wire or barbed wire at the top, and yet they show no sign of injury. This razor wire would cut you and your clothes to shreds. That's the whole point of it.
Continuity mistake: In episodic television shows, the heroes can be shot, stabbed, have broken bones, etc., but these vicious scars and injuries are never carried forward into the following episodes - the heroes are unscathed.
Character mistake: Someone kills an opponent with a sword, then immediately sheathes it without even a cursory wipe. That'll ruin their scabbard and probably rust up the blade too.
Deliberate mistake: Rather than gradually exploring character backgrounds as the story unfolds, characters in cheesier movies awkwardly rush to reveal whole biographies in just a couple of lines, right at the beginning of the film. Such an unlikely conversation might go like this: "I'm the luckiest girl in the world, married to the lead developer and system analyst of NASA's most ambitious interplanetary program ever"; and the husband replies, "Well, it helped that your father created the program and took a chance on me after that Wall Street computer-hacking scandal six years ago." There's no subtlety at all, it's just fast-food character development.
Factual error: Almost always in movies or TV, if a person dies and falls down on their back or side and have their hands visible, their fingers will be curled in the relaxed position of someone resting. A person's fingers go to this position in a living person due to natural tension in the muscles from circulation and blood flow. However, when a person dies, all their muscles in the body will fully relax with no tension. Thus when lying down dead, their fingers should actually be flat against the ground and not curled up at all.
Revealing mistake: Pizza that is supposed to be hot and fresh because it was just delivered but is obviously cold and stale. There is never any melted cheese, the slices are perfectly cut and come apart easily, and the slices are firm instead of drooping. Nobody would ever pay for a pizza if it was delivered looking that way.
Other mistake: A TV will be turned on exactly at the moment an important plot point is being explained or shown. Typically it will be a news story that a news anchor will tell from the beginning. Never is the TV turned on with a commercial playing or some other news being read.
Factual error: People running away from explosions and just barely escaping the fireball. Never mind the fact that would be pushing a wave of superheated air in front of it which would kill them just as easily as the bit you can see.
Audio problem: Tyres squealing on dirt roads.
Other mistake: Whenever you see TV characters riding in a car, the radio is almost never on unless it's plot-relevant. This is for two reasons: 1) Having it on would distract the audience from the characters' dialogue, and 2) The producers would have to pay to license any music that would be played.
Factual error: Rainfall in movies and television is almost always depicted as a sudden and heavy downpour (sometimes cued by a crack of thunder and/or lightning strike) as opposed to gradually building up to it. This is pretty rare in real life.
Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.
Suggested correction: Cloudbursts and showers are that way, and they are pretty common in some areas, specially near mountains. I don't know about New York but in several Latin American countries they are not eyebrow rising worth.
I'd add that along with the rain suddenly pouring, it falls in straight lines - with the exact same distance between streams - that are perpendicular to the ground. (All rainfall is vertical, never at an angle).
Other mistake: In TV shows when people are gathered around the table, usually because they're eating a meal, the characters do not sit completely around the table. Rather, they sit unnaturally horseshoe-shaped so the characters at the end of the table don't have their backs to the audience.
Factual error: Many early mystery movies do not consider fingerprint evidence, even though such evidence has been accepted in US courts since 1911 and in the UK since 1858.
Factual error: It's a common thing in shows dealing in law enforcement to see a cop kicking open a suspect's door in one try. Doors aren't that easy to break open in real life. This is why cops in the real world use battering rams or a sledgehammer for this purpose. Even a door that is hollow could lead to the cop kicking his foot straight through instead of forcing the door open, and a door with a solid frame is more likely to lead to the cop sustaining an injury.
Factual error: Chloroform doesn't render people unconscious almost immediately, it takes a few minutes.
Character mistake: Gunmen who follow moving targets with gunfire instead of leading them.
Other mistake: The "latest hit video game" in film and TV productions will often seem very old fashioned, with outdated features like numbered levels, high scores, extra lives, etc.; indicating that some writers have not kept up with video game trends since the early 1990's.
Factual error: Many times in movies, we can see the hero running into a burning building or approaching a burning vehicle to save someone, then escape from the flames with only a few black coal spots on his face. In reality, the extreme heat would make it impossible for an unprotected person to get THAT close to fiercely burning fire. Even if he can overcome his natural instinct, the pain from hot air would be unbearable (it's nearly as excruciating as direct burning) and leave him with severe injuries.
Factual error: In movies including fighter jet battle scenes, the pilot bailing out from a terminally damaged plane can walk away immediately after touching ground. In reality, emergency ejection is very stressful to the human body, even if trained. The least you can expect is back pain, dizziness, ringing ears and numb legs for days, but the pilot can even fall unconscious from the sudden shock while descending. EE is much more unpleasant and less heroic than usually depicted in films.
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Suggested correction: I don't agree it's common to see people jump barbed wire fences without injuries. Its more common to actually show cuts and torn clothes, as that adds drama.
lionhead
I'm referring to the countless times these are not shown.
Quantom X ★
The problem with "common" mistakes is that they are supposed to be easy to recall. From the top of my head I can't think of a movie scene where someone jumped over a barbed wire fence and got off without injuries. How common is it really?
lionhead
Have the same problem with the nuclear explosion one, can't think of any movie where people looked at a nuclear explosion without properly guarding their eyes.
lionhead
I can see what you mean about the barbed wire fence then. I know I've seen it in several films and even CinemaSins has pointed it out a few times... but I can't recall specific titles. As far as the atomic explosions one... The Wolverine, Dark Night Rises, Sum of all Fears, Godzilla 2014 (There's even a dumbass watching the explosion through binoculars), The Crazies, and The Divide to name a few.
Quantom X ★
Alright for the nuclear explosion, although in some of the movies you gave an example it's simply not true (Dark Knight Rises, Sum of All Fears and Godzilla nobody is watching the flash, Godzilla is even historical footage), it does happen often. So I'll thumb it up.
lionhead
In Dark Knight Rises, Joseph Gordon-Levitt's is standing on the bridge watching Batman fly away. He's staring out at the ocean and watches as the explosion goes off.
Quantom X ★
No, in the next scene you see he actually fully turned his head to cover his eyes. A group of people are seen ducking too but you don't know they can see the flash directly.
lionhead