[Movies] Movies that have cool but completely unrealistic parts.

Dave

Staff member
Okay so I got into a "discussion" today with someone about the movie "The Blues Brothers". I said that the audience got screwed. Here's my reasoning.

  • In 1982 the average concert ticket was only about $12. So in 1970 that would be even lower. Now, these prices are for KNOWN acts. The Blues Brothers would have been a completely unknown act so charging as much as they did was too much. That would be like paying $80 today for an unknown band. (Note that the 2016 average price was $65 but you can't buy tickets now without Ticketmaster/broker fees takes that to $80.)
  • They played two songs. Two. Minnie the Moocher and Someone to Love. And one of those was by the warm-up act.
  • During the only song they played they fucked off in the middle of the song, never to return.
And we won't even talk about how difficult it would be as an unknown performing group to fill that hall REGARDLESS of the marketing.

The Blue Brothers is a fun movie and one of my favorites, but it's complete bullshit what they did at the end.
 
I thought they were a known band getting back together, but it's been a while since I've seen it. So like the Eagles reunion if they performed Take It Easy and half of Hotel California.

On the thread topic, I will submit: all porn.
 
In episode 2F09 of Itchy and Scratcy, when Itchy plays Scratchy's skeleton like a xylophone, he strikes the same rib twice in succession, yet he produces two clearly different tones. I mean, what are we to believe, that this is some sort of a magic xylophone or something? Boy, I really hope somebody got fired for that blunder.
 
I feel like the movie Wanted is "cool but unrealistic" from beginning to end. From being able to curve bullets from a handgun like that, to being able to raise your adrenaline levels until you have bullet time, to a goopy white bath that can heal all wounds in a matter of hours, to every single assassination scene and fight scene (but the train battle is the most egregious)...
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Most movies that deal with time travel.

Like in Star Trek, when they time travel by whipping around the sun? Smelled fishy to me.

Superman 1. He made time rewind by making the planet spin the other way? Really?? I mean, did that really reverse the flow of ALL time, or was it just an area-effect event localized to earth and its orbit? Is there some kind of threshold as a result of that, where crossing it will catapult you forward in time a few hours?

And that's not even getting into the whole "but the earth isn't in the same place it was" argument of all the other time travel movies.
 
Superman 1. He made time rewind by making the planet spin the other way? Really?? I mean, did that really reverse the flow of ALL time, or was it just an area-effect event localized to earth and its orbit? Is there some kind of threshold as a result of that, where crossing it will catapult you forward in time a few hours?
I thought he went so fast he travelled back in time.

And that's not even getting into the whole "but the earth isn't in the same place it was" argument of all the other time travel movies.
When I was a kid I had a compilation of short twilight zoneesque stories and this was the twist ending to one of them. Always stuck with me.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Ooh, wait, I've got another - The Matrix. The energy generated by a human, both thermal and electrical, is less than you could get from a potato battery. I guess that's why they hedged by saying "combined with a form of fusion, the machines had found all the energy they would ever need." Well, yeah, cold fusion alone would kinda solve the energy problem.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
I thought he went so fast he travelled back in time.
He goes around the earth so fast, it starts to spin backwards, then when he's rewound it far enough, he goes around the OTHER way to start it spinning the right direction again, just at an earlier point on the metaphorical tape or something.
 
Okay so I got into a "discussion" today with someone about the movie "The Blues Brothers". I said that the audience got screwed. Here's my reasoning.

  • In 1982 the average concert ticket was only about $12. So in 1970 that would be even lower. Now, these prices are for KNOWN acts. The Blues Brothers would have been a completely unknown act so charging as much as they did was too much. That would be like paying $80 today for an unknown band. (Note that the 2016 average price was $65 but you can't buy tickets now without Ticketmaster/broker fees takes that to $80.)
  • They played two songs. Two. Minnie the Moocher and Someone to Love. And one of those was by the warm-up act.
  • During the only song they played they fucked off in the middle of the song, never to return.
And we won't even talk about how difficult it would be as an unknown performing group to fill that hall REGARDLESS of the marketing.

The Blue Brothers is a fun movie and one of my favorites, but it's complete bullshit what they did at the end.
The actual musicians did stick around, we don't know how many more songs they played that night. So the audience probably got a Curtis (Cab Calloway) concert out of the deal. As much as I love The Blues Brothers, that's a better deal. :D

My movie is Speed Racer. I'm okay with the crazy racetracks, but the demolition derby driving is annoying. There is no way that style of racing would be an advantage to a driver, it slows you down! Some of the goofy stuff, like the spikes in the tires to drive up the mountain, are right out of the manga and that's part of the fun. But they should have kept the racing more realistic.
 

Dave

Staff member
He goes around the earth so fast, it starts to spin backwards, then when he's rewound it far enough, he goes around the OTHER way to start it spinning the right direction again, just at an earlier point on the metaphorical tape or something.
The way I read that was because HE was going so fast that time reversed, which is why the Earth starts spinning backwards. But regardless, this means he broke his promise and a nuclear missile hit Hackensack.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
The way I read that was because HE was going so fast that time reversed, which is why the Earth starts spinning backwards. But regardless, this means he broke his promise and a nuclear missile hit Hackensack.
But then why would he need to fly the OTHER direction to get time flowing forward again? Shouldn't that have just moved him back to where he started?

As for the nuclear missile, that part's easy. Sending himself back in time created a brief paradoxical period where he was in two places at once.
 
But then why would he need to fly the OTHER direction to get time flowing forward again? Shouldn't that have just moved him back to where he started?
Maybe he's dumb and time just went forward because that's what time does. He's a journalist, not a physicist.
 
I feel like the movie Wanted is "cool but unrealistic" from beginning to end. From being able to curve bullets from a handgun like that, to being able to raise your adrenaline levels until you have bullet time, to a goopy white bath that can heal all wounds in a matter of hours, to every single assassination scene and fight scene (but the train battle is the most egregious)...
Don't forget their humorous movie poster.
And that's not even getting into the whole "but the earth isn't in the same place it was" argument of all the other time travel movies.
Surprisingly enough, the Superman comic sorta addresses this. Experimention with time travel is outlawed on the planet Krypton because the first guy who tried it (successfully!) accidentally set his destination date for the day after the planet exploded, and so he died. The instruments he left back in the present faithfully reported his death to the others in the room, and so time travel was ruled "too dangerous."
But then why would he need to fly the OTHER direction to get time flowing forward again?
That was just to un-dizzy himself.

--Patrick
 
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Ooh, wait, I've got another - The Matrix. The energy generated by a human, both thermal and electrical, is less than you could get from a potato battery. I guess that's why they hedged by saying "combined with a form of fusion, the machines had found all the energy they would ever need." Well, yeah, cold fusion alone would kinda solve the energy problem.
I heard that originally they where supposed to be using humans as RAM in order to have more creative processing (which would also explain the difference between machines like the Oracle and ones like Smith). But apparently the suits thought that would confuse audiences...
 
I'm going to submit Armageddon on behalf of Mr. Z. He loves that stupid movie, and watches it every chance he gets, but oh my god, the plot holes are bigger than that asteroid! I can see why NASA uses it as a training exercise to name all "168 distinct things that are impossible (not just improbable) but impossible.".
 
I heard that originally they where supposed to be using humans as RAM in order to have more creative processing (which would also explain the difference between machines like the Oracle and ones like Smith). But apparently the suits thought that would confuse audiences...
From what I read about the production, humans were originally supposed to be used as a neural network, something about human brains being able to improvise and thus allowing evolution and change of the programs they created. It was heavily influenced by the philosophy of Jean Baudrillard.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacra_and_Simulation
 
From what I read about the production, humans were originally supposed to be used as a neural network, something about human brains being able to improvise and thus allowing evolution and change of the programs they created.
And, since they didn't store data on their brains, it's RAM. :rimshot:
 
That scene in Love Actually when the kid jumps past airport security and manages to get to the gate to see his crush leave.
 
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Not a movie, but the part of Stranger Things season 3 where not being able to get your friends to play DND is supposed to show Will as immature when this is actually a common adult problem
 
Superman 1. He made time rewind by making the planet spin the other way? Really?? I mean, did that really reverse the flow of ALL time, or was it just an area-effect event localized to earth and its orbit? Is there some kind of threshold as a result of that, where crossing it will catapult you forward in time a few hours?
I think the idea is that Superman is traveling so fast that time is reversing for him, not that he is causing the earth to spin in the other direction.
We as the outside observers are witnessing the earth rotate the other way as time reverses.

But apparently the people working on the Elseworlds crossover in the arrowverse decided to take it in the other direction by having the flash and supergirl speed in opposite directions around the earth to slow it's rotation and slow the progression of time.

"The Flash suggests that they can buy themselves some more time if he and Supergirl run around the Earth in opposite directions at just over Mach 7, generating enough centrifugal force to slow the Earth's rotation."
 
Not a movie, but in the start of the Walking Dead where Rick just...practically walks his ass out of that hospital...after being in a coma for 4 to 5 WEEKS according to the creator, suffering supposedly NO muscle atrophy! Even the Bride in Kill Bill had to wiggle her big toe at first. Its like yeah, conquering hero and what not, but its still bugged me for years.
 
Not a movie, but in the start of the Walking Dead where Rick just...practically walks his ass out of that hospital...after being in a coma for 4 to 5 WEEKS according to the creator, suffering supposedly NO muscle atrophy! Even the Bride in Kill Bill had to wiggle her big toe at first. Its like yeah, conquering hero and what not, but its still bugged me for years.
I don't think you'd suffer muscle atrophy after 5 weeks. The bridge was out for the count for 4 years.
 
I don't think you'd suffer muscle atrophy after 5 weeks. The bridge was out for the count for 4 years.
Muscle atrophy can start in as little as 72 hours from what I'd read. The Bride having it worse I can believe given the timeline, but even so in the comics and show Rick was just a LITTLE too mobile when he woke up. I can buy adrenaline distracting him because zombies, but after he calms down and gets his cowboy gun he's just...walking around fine, as if his body wasn't lying on a bed for 4-5 weeks which would cause his muscles to weaken.
 
I just want to say that all this atrophy talk is making me apprehensive about all the hours I've spent in front of my computer screen lately.

--Patrick
 
Come on, the most obvious one is from the original Back To The Future movie. I mean, let's be real: a DeLorean will never get up to 88 miles per hour!
 
In It Chapter 2,
Bill finds his original bike from 27 years ago. And while it barely works at first, it magically starts running smoothly again after a little bit of pedaling. Um, no. I've done bike mechanics. That thing wouldn't make it past the driveway.
 
The thing that most people miss about apocalyptic movies like any zombie movie, Water World, etc--is gasoline.
Gasoline degrades much faster than you'd suppose. Within a year of the apocalypse, nobody's driving anywhere.

https://mechanicbase.com/cars/how-long-does-gasoline-last-in-a-plastic-container/
Gasoline can last up to half a year if stored in an airtight, clean plastic container. It also works just as well with a metal tank. For complete protection and safety, you may be required to label your gasoline containers. Gasoline may still lose its combustibility and degrade over time as it oxidates and loses some of its volatility, it may last between three and six months.
 
In It Chapter 2,
Bill finds his original bike from 27 years ago. And while it barely works at first, it magically starts running smoothly again after a little bit of pedaling. Um, no. I've done bike mechanics. That thing wouldn't make it past the driveway.
This is something I miss from the book, and oddly enough, the miniseries. Both of them showed there had to be a lot of elbow grease to get it running.
 
The thing that most people miss about apocalyptic movies like any zombie movie, Water World, etc--is gasoline.
Gasoline degrades much faster than you'd suppose. Within a year of the apocalypse, nobody's driving anywhere.

https://mechanicbase.com/cars/how-long-does-gasoline-last-in-a-plastic-container/
Waterworld lost a few points with me for the idea that they were essentially running all their engines directly off crude oil from the tanker, and that the dude in the hold was still alive at all, since the vapor is heavier than air.

--Patrick
 
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