Scenes in films that are so illogical it really grates.

[Yetmorebeanstocount]

Eat Pray Love.
The two women have just discussed eating, muffin-tops, body image, etc, and Julia Roberts says to enjoy the pizza and just buy bigger jeans.

So in the next scene they are buying jeans, but doing that stereotypical-joke thing of lying on the changing room floor trying to pull up the zip on too-tight jeans.
Why? - that totally defeats the object.

I guess the male writer/director thought it would be a fun scene, that is how he imagines women always shop for jeans.
It just makes no sense in the context of the film.

What scenes really annoy you?

The thing that always gets me is people arranging to meet and they never mention a place or time. I might be a bit anal but if someone says let's meet for dinner/coffee/drinks later I don't just say yes and then leave without the arrangements being made.

I don't mean if people just say we must meet up soon.

@borntobequiet the Birkinhead drill is for military vessels where usually there are very few women and children. On the Birkinhead there were a tiny number of women and children and many men.
It was different on commercial passengers ships.

""In the majority of shipwrecks, women have a much lower survival rate than men, which is consistent with the idea of every man for himself. Male chivalry seems to be completely unimportant or non-existent in reality when it comes to maritime disasters," Dr Elinder said.
"Even the Titanic story may not be to do with chivalry but with the order of the captain to rescue women and children first, which was enforced with the threat of violence against those men who resisted the order," he said.
The study of 18 maritime disasters from 1852 to 2011, involving some 15,000 passengers from more than 30 nations, found that the survival rate of women was on average about half that of men, and children had the lowest survival rate of all.
However, the Titanic disaster was an exception to the general rule. "

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/world-history/women-and-children-first-it-s-every-man-for-himself-on-a-sinking-ship-7987975.html

Try Thomas and the Magic Railroad if you really want illogical. DS2 is obsessed with it - I must have seen it 200 times and still can't follow the plot or parts of the dialogue.

I think I have Royal Navy dad to thank for my knowledge of it. I think it is so tragic to think of those hundreds of men lined up watching the lifeboats leaving knowing they had no hope. Maybe thinking of my dad in the North Atlantic in WWII and the danger he was in that brings it home to me.

I remember Look and Learn.

Season 3, Episode 5 of Mad Men. It takes place in the 60s so it's a "twilight birth". Pretty gory.

You said it was the only time it happened, it wasn't and the Birkenhead isn't the only other example. Even if we only knew about the Titanic and the Birkenhead you can't possibly know what has happened on every shipwreck.

I was rewatching H2O Just Add Water with my DD today.

If coming into contact with water turns them into mermaids, how can they drink anything out of a cup in public? (which they do frequently)
What about when they sweat? They live in Australia!

@herewegoagainy that's very interesting about the Titanic and male v female survival rates.

Slightly off topic, but I saw a documentary about disasters where people can save themselves if they move fast enough (things like the twin towers at early stage) and it said that psychologically people pause to faff around thinking about stuff they need to take with them and whether to take or leave it (coat, bag) and what they should do and whether to take the cat or the office trophy. The people who survive are the ones who just think "Run" and move it.

It really stuck in my mind.

If there's any truth in this documentaries theory, I wonder if women generally take longer to leave because they have more stuff/more responsiblities so that maybe another reason why there are lower survival rates.

@Iwasafool I had forgotten about military vessels, and was only thinking of commercial passenger ships. I read a lot about this a few years ago.

I screamed my head off. And I'm a very shy person who absolutely hates to make a fuss, but it was completely involuntary. My screams were so loud my husband almost fainted haha.

@ Itslegitimatesalvage
I know they did - there is a plaque commemorating them in my local church. I was referring to the hilarious idea, courtesy of a cheesy script, that implied that playing a violin or other stringed instrument would, as the violinist said, actually keep anyone warm, standing on a tilting deck in freezing conditions. What then makes it even funnier is that as the next piece of music starts - the Can-Can - Jack and Rose run past, almost in time to the music.

Wow, do you work for Handmade Films? I was under the impression that the sprocket holes for the projector were part of the manufacturing process.

@InstaRam people faff because in stressful situations the brain resorts to familiar patterns. So if you normally gather belongings and take them with you when you leave the office, then your default mode is to do that.
Women are less likely to survive and children even less because in a survival situation as things get worse, people shove to get out. So the fittest and strongest are more likely to survive.
But it is true those who act early are most likely to survive.

The other issue is that when things start to go wrong, people look around to see what others are doing and do not move until someone else does. It is the fear of over reacting partly. So if you are ever concerned e.g. fire alarm, just get out quickly.

Lastly those who survive are more likely to have read the fire alarm instructions/listened to the aircraft safety demo.

It annoys me that in Gilmore Girls, they live solely off junk food (pizza, chinese, chocolate..), mock people who exercise, and yet have flawless skin and slender, toned bodies.

@InstaRam the fire on the plane in Japan is a classic example of how efficient the evacuation drills are everyone follows instructions. No one stopped to try and grab belongings, they just got up and got the hell out.

I meant to say the recent fire on the plane in Japan, from a few weeks ago.

Have we had chemistry labs yet? Bubbling flasks full of brightly coloured liquids. In reality, the vast majority would be clear or yellowish.

Well, that and nearly everything involving scientists. Either things being plain wrong or explaining stuff to colleagues that they'd know already - yeah, I know it's for the audience but it grates. I remember 'Life Story' (aka 'The Race for the Double Helix' which was the rare exception that got the tone of the dialog and details about right (I'd like to see that again but don't think it's available anywhere).

My great great grandfather was on the Titanic. He had the chance to go in a lifeboat and refused. All the men in his travelling party were killed; all the women in their group survived.
They did that because that was what was expected of men in those days not because they were threatened with violence. I know it doesn't fit the Mumsnet anti-man narrative though, which has got worse recently for some reason.

Not wanting to derail the thread, but regarding unlocked cars.
I watched the rerun of a Susie Lamplugh programme last night. Last seen at 12:30, searching at 21:00, car found 22:00, unlocked and her purse and money still in the car.
The investigation was a disaster, but terrible that if a movie showed 1986 standards of concern for a missing, vulnerable woman we would consider it beyond belief.

In Greys Anatomy they have the surgeons manning A&E. Surely there are enough planned surgeries to keep them busy without having to be searching for cases? What about the normal A&E staff, why aren't they meeting the ambulances rather than trainee surgeons? As hands are rather vital for surgeons, you'd think they would avoid situations where they could be injured easily

I always thought that in American TV/film, it's odd how every punishment to a child is "you're grounded". Is that really the default punishment for everything?

Wrong thread, this is for the one complaining about women daring to say they're enjoying some kid-free time, isn't it?

Absolutely. Not only that, his father’s castle in Nottinghamshire turn out to be on Hadrians Wall!

My mum met a future author who was a safebreaker for the police. The person with the combination had gone on holiday and this man opened the safe in ten seconds.
Everyone was amazed how fast he worked - his explanation was that he usually tried the number written in pencil on the wall first.

Yes the film depicted him (it was actually FO Murdoch) as shooting one of the passengers and then himself....completely made up. He was a real person and all we really know is that he didn't survive.

Again I think that was really shabby. In reality he was in charge of loading passengers into the boats on one side of the ship, all the while knowing he himself probably wouldn't survive. That is imo as good a definition of heroism as any I have heard of (along with other crew members who did the same).

Was it too much to expect that his memory should have been treated with care, rather than traducing him?