I was watching Twister while typing earlier, and one thing occurred to me; crappy Hollywood movies are notoriously infamous for twisting reality. And not from a political standpoint either.
I'm talking stuff like where humans can outrun an F-5 tornado...ON FOOT. (Twister)
Like where a guy (Bill Murray) thinks a camera caused Michael Jordan to get sucked down a golf hole. (Space Jam...I know it's a psuedo-cartoon movie, but come on; you see a lasso pull a guy down the hole, and your first impulse is 'THE CAMERA DID IT!'? Common sense please!)
Like where horror movie monsters (Jason, Freddy, pretty much all of them) are WALKING, yet can catch up or even GET AHEAD of people who are running.
And of course, the crappy apocalypse movies where one thing changes and everything goes crazy. Like Waterworld's lack of land and the Matrix's lack of sunlight (granted, the latter had intelligent computers. Has the Terminator taught them nothing?!).
Can you think of any other examples of movies twisting reality, common sense, logic, and/or the laws of physics?
I was watching Twister while typing earlier, and one thing occurred to me; Hollywood movies are notoriously infamous for twisting reality.
I disagree; crappy Hollywood movies are infamous for twisting reality.
You know, when I use the term 'crappy' no more than one page down, you can kind of guess what I was inferring.
Meh. Whatever. Same principle applies.
Well, the vast majority of science-talk in movies is (as far as I've heard, not being a dedicated scientist myself) generally inaccurate, if not entirely made up.
Not to mention all the action movies where the fights go on for an eternity with neither side tiring or sustaining any serious injuries, when just a couple of the punches they've thrown would a) quite possibly break bones/severely damage skin/internal organs, and b) cause much pain to the hand after a very short amount of time, if not breaking knuckles, and similar. And that's without going into the stunts...
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a) quite possibly break bones/severely damage skin/internal organs
True, but not that true. Your bones are harder than concrete. Unless your fist is a flying sledgehammer, it's not that easy to break some bones, though possible. Internal injuries are also very possible, depending on the person.
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b) cause much pain to the hand after a very short amount of time, if not breaking knuckles, and similar
If you know how to make a fist correctly, your hand will not suffer injuries. Most people simply ball their hands together, which will cause them to injure their fingers' joints when they punch. And if the exponent is trained properly, he can destroy even rocks with his hands.
However, despite all this, action scenes in movies are stupid. They can pummel a guy's head and he won't even respond. This is NOT possible. Concussion to the head is BAAAAAAD. It feels numb at first, but hurts like mad later.
Also, you know those scenes where they chop the neck? It's wrong. It's not BEHIND the neck. It's at the sides where they should chop. That's where your nerves are. The back of your neck is where the base of the cerebellum is. DO NOT TRY.
I tend to live by the "Don't let the facts of life ruin a decent movie/story", though sometimes it is tremendously bad because of that lack of attention, Batman and Robin is a good example, from iceskates magically appearing on Batman and Robin's at the click of their heals (I know Batman is mean't to be prepaired for anything, but Christ that was aweful) to Robin being frozen solid, which somehow made him light enough for Bats to carry him like a hollow dummy, and then dumped with in water, and boiled it with a lazer, which thawed out Robin in less than a second, instead of shattering him due to the imediate shift from sub-zero to "glowing red water" level of boiling. Even worse is that Alfred had his neaces exact messurements for a skin tight rubber suit (which is more creepy than improbable). Still, I think the problem with this film is that you'd expect Batman to be portrayed realistically, even if the enemies aren't.
Other films will get away with it though, Croaching Tiger Hidden Dragon and Hero are the types of films where you just accept that weird and improbable things happen, despite knowing that they shouldn't.
As far as I'm concerned, films that don't bend the laws of physics or human behaviour are rare and unusual things.
I really can't think of many. Lost in Translation, perhaps. Garden State.
While it is possible to destroy rocks, etc. without doing injury to your fist, it will still hurt in the short-term. As someone who has some experience in making a fist properly and punching things, your nerve endings still work well enough to inform you that something has hit you, hard. Also, if you are hitting an uneven surface, or something which absorbs pressure in an uneven way, it is still perfectly possible to do serious damage to your knuckles or other joints inadvertantly. Broken bones might not be that common through fights, but there's still no way people could take the amount of punishment some action movies show and only have minor injuries. In that way, possibly one of the best fight scenes in recent films was in Bridget Jones' Diary where, with the exception of the "being thrown through a window" not quite having enough damage done in terms of cuts, the fighting was generally pretty convincing in terms of how people would fight...
Nick Rollins' link also reminded me of the joys of exploding vehicles - especially fun when it's a vehicle that has run out of fuel. If real cars were so easily combustible, then driving would be extremely dangerous...
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While it is possible to destroy rocks, etc. without doing injury to your fist, it will still hurt in the short-term. As someone who has some experience in making a fist properly and punching things, your nerve endings still work well enough to inform you that something has hit you, hard. Also, if you are hitting an uneven surface, or something which absorbs pressure in an uneven way, it is still perfectly possible to do serious damage to your knuckles or other joints inadvertantly.
Agreed.
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Broken bones might not be that common through fights, but there's still no way people could take the amount of punishment some action movies show and only have minor injuries.
Yes, indeed. They get punched right in the face and nothing happens. Under normal circumstances, one's nose would begin bleeding already (Unless your nose is invincible.).
Given the way most action shows depict fighting, bruises and cuts should be forming EVERYWHERE. Girls can be scary, too - I've been kicked by one during sparring before, and blocked the kick with my fist. PAIN. Followed by a bruised, swollen right hand for a week. x.x
Well, one can never expect a movie to be perfect, but still, there has to be some realism to it...
On the subject of Twister the best part of that movie was the Van Halen song.
See, this is why Last Action Hero is one of my favourite action movies, it handles the clichs perfectly and at the same time gives Slater a believable character during the whole transition between his reality and ours. Of course they exagerrated the rules greatly and by the end of the Slater portion of the movie had a disregard for reality at all, but it was all done in the same style you'd expect of a actionb cop flick.
Major bonus points for Benedict pulling a movie mistake of not reloading..... then BANG! "Thought you'd say that. I just kept one chamber empty!" best moment ever! Go Last Action Hero! Prove the world that reality defying movies are fun to poke with a stick while maintaining some serious points, alot of parody and a gripping story.
"Too much" is a part of Hollywood since everytime...
And a part of myths. Hollywood is a modern mythology.
Very true, Craig. I was watching Last Action Hero recently with a few friends, and one of them just didn't get the point that the Slater portion of the film was deliberately over-the-top and unrealistic. Still, even then there were inconsistencies in the real-world section (such as Arnie tossing the kid vertically 10 foot or so with one arm, while suspending himself from a rope, and not dislocating his shoulder or some other adverse effect from the forces generated - even if it were possible to generate such forces).
10/10 for concept and effort, though...
You are correct, Robobotnik... but Batman and Robin wasn't a good movie.
Evolution is a good question too. A trainee fireman who failed his exam suddenly gets permission to use a vehicle that must be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars?
Plus his car was actually drivable after a meteor hit it. He should have been able to peel it off the ground.
But what a wonderful selling point for a car! "The only car in the world that's certified: Meteorproof". Not practical maybe but practicality is boring!
