Stupid movie cliches and impossibilities

[gmcbee]

Originally Posted by DTravel

I can't find it again at the moment but someone made a cartoon explaining why this was a bad idea. It showed the eagles rescuing Bilbo and the dwarfs in The Hobbit, one of the eagles gets hungry and uses one of the dwarfs as an in-flight snack.

Wonder if they taste like peanuts?

[2cheap]

Originally Posted by TCO95

Logic and movies seem to exist in parallel universes. As much as I like the Lord of The Rings the biggest flaw in the logic is the introduction of the giant eagles. Why not just hand them the ring they fly it to Mount Doom drop it in and problem solved. Better yet, you give the ring to Gollum then give Gollum to the eagles and have him and the ring dropped into Mount Doom solving two problems at once. (Directors Cut Version : The eagles fly Liv Tyler to my house for a celebration they then do not crap all over my freshly washed car and everyone is happy especially me, Ms Tyler, however, may require some therapy.)

From Wikipedia:
Temperatures of most magmas are in the range 700 °C to 1300 °C (or 1300 °F to 2400 °F)

Most gold alloys melt at less than 2000 degrees.
And, the bottom line is: If someone melted it to make it, someone else can melt it again.

Why not cut it?
Gold is soft.

[2cheap]

Originally Posted by HugoHackenbush

It occurred to me later, that if you can transport people who are in free fall, then there is no reason for the parachute jump down to the drilling platform, why not just transport them there?

That way, the expendable crew person does not accidentally swing into the drilling beam, vaporizing himself along with the explosives he's carrying.

Next, being bereft of the explosives, Kirk and Sulu after dispatching the Romulans who can' t shoot straight, simply pick up the Romulan's phasers and shoot the hub of the drilling platform, causing it to explode. Now if that's all it takes, no explosives would be necessary, and you could simply use the phasers or photon torpedoes of the Enterprise to destroy the drilling platform. No need to even send crew people there.

Wouldn't that be logical?

I think the free fall was necessary because the drill or the Romulan ship were jamming everything.
But it only takes a little more processing power to cancel out acceleration vectors if you have already perfected tearing people apart and reassembling them elsewhere.

[omar008]

I believe giving a link @ youtube of a parody is not relevant to the nature of this thread but for this once I'd ask for your understanding and enjoy this amazing comedy of 'mother of all cliches'! ROFL!!

What happens when you run out of Nazi generals cliches?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_Z6tv7cQmM

by Smith and Jones

[HugoHackenbush]

This comes from the always entertaining “Tuesday Morning Quarterback” column on ESPN.com. A rather devastating take-down, I’d say.

Who is the stupidest law enforcement officer in television crime?

“UNDER THE DOME”

Sheriff Esquivel in "Under the Dome" is a contender. She arrives just after two people are shot to death and finds two men standing at the scene, each with a gun. One committed the murders, the other tried to stop him. Sheriff Esquivel puts the good guy in jail while letting the evil guy walk, setting in motion the season-finale cliffhanger. It never occurs to her to examine the guns the men are holding (one would have a warm barrel) or check their hands (one would have powder residue). It never occurs to her to take both men into custody, then do a ballistics investigation. None of these thoughts cross her mind. She just blames the wrong guy.

“BREAKING BAD” (Spoiler Alert!)

That's seriously stupid, but nothing like DEA agent Hank Schrader in the just-wrapped "Breaking Bad." Formulaic television crime procedurals present super-sleuths who solve crimes with blinding speed and always close the case. One of the guilty pleasures of "Breaking Bad" is that it depicted Walter White as an amoral but very intelligent man operating in a world of idiots. Hank is the worst idiot of all.

Walt is directly under Hank's nose for the show's run, yet Hank takes till almost the end to notice. When Hank finally puts it together, he doesn't simply arrest Walt -- by that point he has probable cause -- or go to a judge for a search warrant. Officers who investigate drug running and other forms of organized crime have broad powers, and they know that arresting a suspect prevents the destruction or hiding of evidence. But even after Walt comes to Hank's garage, admits his "criminal enterprise" and threatens Hank -- threatening a federal agent is cause for arrest -- Hank does not act. He mumbles some B.S. about how he needs to catch Walt in the act. If law enforcement officers did take into custody only those caught in the act, every jail would have a VACANCY sign.

Then there's Hank's final scene. He thinks of a way to get Walt to drive to the place where his ill-gotten gains are buried in the desert. Hank and his partner Gomez tail Walt. Though they are going after a stone killer involved in perhaps 20 murders, they don't bring along backup. They do bring along Jesse Pinkman, himself a suspect. That makes for two lawmen handling two very dangerous suspects, yet they don't call for backup. Arresting Walt in mid-desert, Hank observes pickup trucks full of men approaching their isolated off-road location. Seeing those trucks, Hank doesn't call for backup. Since Walt alone knew the desert location, the approaching vehicles must contain someone Walt contacted. Hank mumbles, "Maybe that's the tribal police." If that was the tribal police, they would have been in uniform. When thugs hired by Walt get out and show rifles, Hank and Gomez don't take cover; they stand in the clear, exposed. Even when the shooting starts, they never call for backup.

Of course, if Hank had not been a total idiot, Walt would have been thrown in prison, and the series could not have lasted five seasons.


“THE BRIDGE”

The FX series "The Bridge" wraps its first season this week. Initially advertised as social commentary about Mexican poverty and American hypocrisy, the social commentary lasted about two episodes and was quickly replaced with a slasher-film-style splatter -- more on that in a minute. First, the idiot detectives.

On "The Bridge," a serial killer murders two dozen people in the same area in just a few weeks, yet only a couple local cops are working the case. And what idiots they are. The show's law enforcement leads are played by Diane Kruger and Demian Bichir. The latter's character, viewers learn after a half-dozen episodes, has known all along that the serial killer has a strong reason to want revenge against him personally -- yet it never occurs to him mention this, or to protect his family. Kruger's character is supposed to be the smartest detective in Texas. Yet even after being warned that the Big Bad knows everything that's happening at the police station, she drives off with someone the serial killer wants to slay -- without taking another police officer along and without telling anyone where she is headed, which turns out to be (inexplicably) a dark, isolated country road. When she and her fellow idiot cops locate the house the serial killer uses to build things, not only do they fail to notice the huge, elaborate "Saw"-style doom trap there, they leave the house unwatched, allowing the killer to return and place someone in the doom trap.
Much recent pulp television and cinema has presented serial killers who have superhuman strength, incredible ability to sneak up on people without making the slightest sound, and never-explained knowledge of where everyone in the plot will be at specific moments. The absurd serial killer on "The Bridge" tops them all.

The serial killer has a small wireless device that allows him to shut down the electric power at the United States-Mexico border by pressing a button, then press another button to turn the power back on; this device is never explained. He possesses unlimited money and resources, unexplained and odd since viewers are told he was fired by the FBI years ago after flunking a psych evaluation. He's a skilled surgeon, which is never explained, and also has plumbing skills. He needs only minutes to rig cars so the doors can't be opened from the inside. He can overpower police officers without making a sound. He can sneak up on people in public in broad daylight without his targets noticing or calling "Help!" when grabbed. He knows exactly where everyone essential to the plot is at all times, without any explanation of how that could be possible.
He's got a hypo of something that renders a person instantaneously unconscious. (Depicted in many action movies and slasher flicks, no instant-unconsciousness substance exists: if one did, it would be issued to law enforcement officers.) When a witness the serial killer wants dead runs away from Kruger's character into the streets of El Paso, the serial killer knows in advance which direction she will run; he kills her and vanishes, though cops are converging from all directions. When the Kruger character idiotically drives away alone with someone the killer wants dead, he not only knows in advance exactly what dark remote road she will take but is able to position two cars precisely where she will pass -- one to slam into her car, another to use for his escape. Though the Kruger character is badly hurt by the collision, the serial killer isn't scratched. Later, he is shot in the chest at close range, is not wearing a vest -- and gets up and walks away.

Most absurd, at a black-tie party, the serial killer follows a man into the washroom and murders him with a knife. Young and seemingly fit, the man does not resist and never cries for help. No one wanders into the washroom while the serial killer stabs the victim, who dies in mere seconds -- even a mortally wounded person who is bleeding profusely would live for a while. The serial killer then strolls out of the washroom back to the party without a drop of blood anywhere on his tuxedo, which remains crisply pressed.

[2cheap]

Hugo Reminded me of the absurdity of TV and movie characters that possess many skill sets that take normal humans years or decades to learn.
I worked with electronics for decades, yet someone on TV or in a movie can figure out which two wires in ANY car will get it to start in 10 seconds or less.
It never involves 3 or more wires and there are never interlocks, even on newer cars.
(How many of you have to step on the brake to shift out of park or at least have it in neutral before turning the key?)
It would take me a lot longer and the wires would be buried deeper than they are in movies and TV.

[Wendigo]

A character with superhuman powers does something so quick that it amazes everyone else.
Like this from The Champions where Richard completes a crossword in minutes .....
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0538477/

Only trouble is - freeze frame the crossword.

He manages to get CHAMPION in it but the rest

[xenontrioxide]

I think this qualifies as a cliche: I noticed that on television whenever anyone uses the word "pizza" the word "pie" is used either just before or soon after. Has anyone else noticed this? In real life I've don't recall this ever happening. No one I know ever refers to a pizza as a pie. Thoughts?

[DTravel]

Originally Posted by xenontrioxide

I think this qualifies as a cliche: I noticed that on television whenever anyone uses the word "pizza" the word "pie" is used either just before or soon after. Has anyone else noticed this? In real life I've don't recall this ever happening. No one I know ever refers to a pizza as a pie. Thoughts?

Its sort of like calling a hamburger a "sandwich". Technically a pizza IS a "pie". So properly one should say "pizza pie" to differentiate from an apple pie or lemon meringue pie. But people are lazy so common usage has truncated it to just "pizza".

[lothian]

The only calibre of artillery used by the Germans in WW2 films are " 88's "