Movie Myths

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  • Movie Myths

    I was watching Mythbusters last night on the discovery channel. They were testing a car to see if all these strange things you hear about were actually true, sugar in the gas tank, banana's in the tail pipe, things like that.

    Well, two things they tested, (and they mentioned movies which triggered my post) was taking cover behind the car door when someone shoots at you and the car blowing up when directly shot in the gas tank.

    Both were busted.
    BUT we accept them in movies.
    In fact many people would swear that THAT is reality because they have simply seen it so often.

    Movies walk a thin line between real and fake, believability and pure fiction. The viewer will only suspend their disbelief to a certain degree with out a reasonable explanation.

    What are some other movie myths that people just accept because they have been consistent through the years?


    I get three since I started the thread.

    You can easily kill someone just by slashing across their throat.

    Braveheart was the clearest example of this.
    The sheriff just walks up, slices her throat, and she dies.

    BUSTED.
    My sister in law is a throat surgeon. She says that you have to actually put serious pressure on the larynx in order to cut through that tough cartilage.
    You can slice the flesh and produce a bunch of blood but it's not fatal. In order to actually hit the juggler vein you have to break through the larynx.
    (Dpaterso and cinexploits on similar thread said that you can cut ear to ear and get the unprotected blood vessels at the sides of the neck causing the victim to "bleed out".)

    HOWEVER, I doubt movie audiences would really accept someone surviving with a slashed throat simply because we have seen people die from it on film over and over.

    What other myths are out there?

  • #2
    this site of movie cliches includes, almost by necessity, dozens of debunked movie myths.

    www.moviecliches.com/

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    • #3
      That bastard sheriff hacked her pretty damn good. I'd not be surprised that he tore her lovely, beautiful larynx.




      How about this one: I've heard that cigarettes do not burn hot enough to ignite gasoline, despite the fact that they are the #1 method of igniting gasoline in film.

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      • #4
        Wait, so if you fly a Klingon Bird of Prey into the sun and hit the warp engines, it really won't take you back to 1986?

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        • #5
          Movie Myths

          The CN Tower and Skydome, (in Toronto), are not visible from office and apartment windows in American cities, (such as New York City).

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          • #6
            Scripter1 - I saw that show. It was interesting to see how the AK47 rounds ripped that car to pieces.

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            • #7
              I've got an example of this from The Terminator, when Kyle shoots the terminator with a shotgun so he almost flyes through a window and crashes down on the street outside. Basic knowledge in physics tells you that this is impossible. Kyle (how is not that heavy) would fly backwards just as much. This is a quite common phenomen
              on in many movies.

              Another fun thing (maybe not like this) is from Terminator 2 when "Arnie" shoots at the police with a minigun from the cyberdyne building (I think) and when he's afterwards "scanning" the area we see from his display:

              Number of losses: 0.0

              What if it had been 2.3 instead... Young John wouldn't have been to happy and probably not the guy 0.3 dead either...

              /H

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              • #8
                When you cross the border from Detroit to Windsor you are NOT greeted by friendly little Canadian Mounties in a beautiful pine forest. I think that happened in Renaissance Man. It does not happen in real life.

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                • #9
                  Shattering windshield glass that breaks like regular glass always sh-its me. Anyone knows tempered safety glass breaks in little thick chunks and not like someone's living room window the way you see it in a bazillion car crashes in the movies

                  And lightning. Geezus they overdo the lightning in almost every movie. I'd love to see the sky light up white every 3 seconds like that in real life. Ditto thunder. Always overdone.

                  and agree on the Mountie thing. You only ever see the RCMP in Red Serge during ceremonial or official events. They stopped wearing those uniforms decades ago on duty.

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                  • #10
                    Here's mine:

                    Gorgeous 22 year-old women lusting after 70 year old men who are NOT playing the role of celebrities or rich guys.

                    )

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                    • #11
                      Re: i can't wait to

                      I'm a lawyer, so I always get a kick out of courtroom scenes. I could list twenty things that happen in movie trials that do not happen in real life. But my favorite: when lawyers are in the middle of a cross-examination of a witness, they make their point, and then they TURN TO THE JURY and start speaking as if making a closing argument.

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                      • #12
                        Re: i can't wait to

                        Pen, you've never seen an Arizona thunderstorm, then.

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                        • #13
                          Re: i can't wait to

                          My pet Peeve...I swear it happens in every freaking movie ever made.

                          Watch just about any movie and at some point one of the characters will go wash their face.

                          My wife gets on to me about this...she and I watch every movie that comes out and every time I see a "face washing scene" I start yelling "there it is...there it is". She tells me to shut up. I promptly turn to her and ask, "how many times do you go to the bathroom and wash your face?"
                          "I do it all the time she replies".

                          Yesterday she and I celebrated our 11th anniversary.... to my knowledge she has never gone to the bathroom to wash her face.

                          Oh, I make a point to put it in all my screenplays...I figure it is expected...lol

                          dawgy

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                          • #14
                            Re: i can't wait to

                            I haven't washed my right cheek 1/22/05.

                            It still feels like Wen.

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                            • #15
                              Re: i can't wait to

                              a lot of the movie myths is to save on time.

                              Cuz we don't want to see Jack Bauer looking for parking space in LA. Or being stuck in traffic on the 405.

                              We need a baguette in the grocery bag sometimes so we don't have to explain what is in it.

                              We see the Eiffel tower through the window so we don't have to show the obligatory streets of Paris.

                              Etc, etc. Do we really need to see the swearing in of witnesses of a trial?

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