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?

I read somewhere also that a lot of the decay-causing bacteria that children in the West accrue in their mouths comes from adult saliva. Parents who suck a dummy that's fallen on the floor to "clean" it, or who share utensils with their kids, lick each others ice creams etc. I don't know how true that is, but in many parts of the world they have much stricter rules around cleanliness - in India two people would absolutely never drink from the same cup for example - so there's less bacteria being transferred from adults' mouths to childrens'.

Without ANY sex at all, in fact. (And often because there is no sexual chemistry whatsoever between the two leading characters.)

I once on a plane with an American lady who saw RH, recognised the tree and was confused!

In one of my favourite films 'The Ghost and Mrs Muir ', her daughter Anne has her name carved into a post on the beach, and says to her mum that all the sailors out at sea will see her name, only, the carving is facing inland! Does mt head in every time I watch the film!

Ok - but it’s not necessary in this case for dramatic reasons. “We will be in sherwood by Saturday nightfall” or whatever would have been just as effective as a line and then show the same snippets of the journey.

My husband has been watching Star Trek Discovery. Why on earth is this fabulous, futuristic spaceship not fitted with seatbelts? The slightest bump and they are all throwing themselves around.
Also, every time there is an attack there are showers of sparks from the ceiling and some kind of machine sends up gouts of flame at regular intervals. It's laughably stupid and I find that's all I'm watching for now.

<Pops on nerd hat>

In the 'trek universe' it's called "inertial dampeners", a bit of technobabble that means "machines that stop things inside the ship from feeling the inertia of the ship accelerating or decelerating".

Basically, the show would be really boring if everyone became a thin paste on the back wall of the bridge whenever the ship started moving, so the writers changed the rules of the fictional universe so that wasn't a problem.

Additionally transporters were invented to avoid the expensive of creating shuttles.

Movies that end with some emotional speech to a massive audience usually someone grabbing the mic and saying how much the gave just realised they love someone. Eurgh and so me me me......
Never seen that in real life!

Because it’s Star Trek!! They’ve always been that way. They can’t change it ever!

'Brace for impact!', like that will help The reboot films had snazzy seatbelts so wtf don't they in discovery, set nearly a thousand years later. I know Discovery is an antique from the original timeline but surely someone would have invented those belts and retrofitted them by now?

In fairness if they were reversing the Enterprise into the mother and baby bay at Tesco's and were about to dink a stray shopping trolley then it might be an appropriate warning call.

We're watching Discovery season 4 at the moment and the illogicality which grates at the moment is their fondness (even worse than in any other series) for stopping for a sentimental or philosophical chit-chat at a time-sensitive moment of peril.

I LOVE Dark!

Things that annoy me…

Computers that make blip blip blip sounds

And when a grainy, pixelated CCTV image of someone is brought up on a screen and they run it through some magical programme that somehow turns it into a crystal clear, high-definition face.

One thing that I always get caught up on is when in films/tv shows they make pop culture references that would result in the characters knowing they were in a film/ show.

Examples of this include in Love Actually when Liam Neeson references that his wife made a joke about Claudia Schiffer being his date for her funeral, and then at the end of the film he meets a woman at the school who he evidentially fancies, which is Claudia Schiffer. Clearly he is aware of who Claudia Schiffer is, so why would he not know the woman is Claudia Schiffer????

Another example is on Line of Duty, Matthew Cotten being referred to as ‘Dot’ in reference to Dot Cotten from Eastenders. Eastenders is a BBC1 show, as is Line of Duty, so do they tune in to watch themselves on Sunday nights or is there just a blank space in broadcasting on the TVs within the show??

I don't like the Claudia Schiffer one, because she is referenced AND appears in the same film.

But the Line of Duty characters existing in the 'real world' where Eastenders is a long running soap seems more reasonable.

HRTFT but most of it.
My biggest bugbear is people getting into bed, in any film or programme and not having to faff and fiddle about with pillows and getting comfy! I get into bed, have to bash and plump my pillow, lay my head on it, move my hair out of my face, wiggle my head around to "bed" in... Then shuffle about a bit to get into a comfy position! All actors do is get in, head down and sleep!!! Not real life at all! 🤣

Not to mention those triangular sheets that come up to the man's waist and to the top of the woman's boobs.

A bit off topic but you reminded me of something: I think there used to be a programme called The ghost and Mrs Muir which I loved as a child but which I had completely forgotten about. Is anyone else old enough to remember it?

No, not at all.

A huge part of drama is momentum, urgency and timing. "We will now interrupt the thrust of the narrative for a pedantic four-day dawdle to Nottinghamshire" is a story-killer in an action movie.

It doesn't particularly annoy me, but in films or TV series people rarely watch TV - the TV is usually off or they don't have one. Unless there is something that they need to know (person on run/murder victim/natural or unnatural disaster/etc) then they'll conventiently switch on the News, or walk into a room or a bar where it's on, on at precisely the right time when the relevant info is being reported.

Whenever anyone goes back in time the only music playing (including on the radio) is music from that era. I rarely listen to music from this decade and both DS have playlists from 1960s to today (DS1 has probably got some 50s in there as well).

I loved Dark too. Mindbending stuff.

As per my post, the exact same 'travel' scenes could have been filmed, with the presumption being that one was Monday at 2pm, the next Tuesday at 4pm or whatever.

So no impact on the momentum, IMO. But you do you.

I think we’re wanting to find a balance between what is fully accurate and realistic versus what is believable, because they’re not necessarily the same things. You have to err towards believability for the audience, because if you lose believability in the audience, it doesn’t matter that you were right. That has to be the first connection.
John August, screenwriter, on this podcast:

https://johnaugust.com/2024/realistic-but-distracting

A huge part of drama is momentum, urgency and timing. "We will now interrupt the thrust of the narrative for a pedantic four-day dawdle to Nottinghamshire" is a story-killer in an action movie.

It's a film! They can skip as much time as they like.

Yes, there would be an impact on the momentum between scenes that are suppsoed to take place in one day and scenes that are supposed to take place over several days.

You can skip time, but the audiences' perception of the urgency or a series of scenes taking place over several days and a series of scenes taking place over a single day is different.

Dramatic unity, innit.