Your Favorite Reality Flaws

[Flick James]

Movies, both good and bad, are loaded with them. What are some of your favorites?

I'll start with one:

Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) - In the final epic battle scene, we see a boulder the size of a sanitation truck being hurled by Trebuchet from the walled city of Minas Tirith. We see it approach a bunch of orcs standing in ranks waiting to attack. We see a bunch of them start moving out of the way to avoid being hit by this enormous boulder. We see the big bad and particularly ugly orc general (I don't know the character name) stand his ground and then step casually to the side as it hits the ground, narrowly avoiding getting hit and then demonstrating his fearlessness by spitting on it. Now, as badass as that made him look, there is one bad reality flaw. I don't care how big and strong you are, if a boulder of that size lands next to you without hitting you, the ground shock alone would knock you on your ass. That one made me howl.

[JPickettIII]

This happens in a lot of movies.

Our hero or hereon is shooting at the bad guys and hitting them all.  But miraculously all the bad guys are bad shots.  The hero or hereon can run, walk craw about with getting hit.  Or if a bullet does hit, it is never serious.

One example is Commando where Arnie is on the Island taking on the bad soldiers.

Another example is never running out of bullets.  No matter how many times our hero or hereon shuts the gun (s), they always have bullets.

Same example "Commando"

Later,

John

[Couchtr26]

There is of course also, movie gun physics as a shotgun sends us flying back 30 feet at rapid speed. 

Explosions are also of course questionable, shockwaves and such not being considered. 

[Criswell]

How punches sound in pretty much any movie ever.

[JPickettIII]

Another one is where every character (good and bad) know how to fight.

or

Most of the Asians know some form of Kung Fu or Martial Arts.

Later,

John

[Couchtr26]

Most of the Asians know some form of Kung Fu or Martial Arts.

The 70 year old Asian guy knows some move that will cause instant death. 

On the subject, I always like Jet Li in Romeo Must Die.  "State Law."   Great little zing to that Asians knowing martial arts, suggesting that all must study by law. 

[Trevor]

When someone fires a pistol / revolver with their hand at an angle: no matter how cool that looks, you will damage your hand and wrist firing a real weapon like that, not one loaded with blanks. 

[Pilgermann]

This is basically along the same lines as never running out of ammo, but in Django (1966) our hero fires 7 shots from his six shooter in the final standoff, which is awfully unnecessary on his part 'cause he only had 6 targets.   

[Trevor]

This is basically along the same lines as never running out of ammo, but in Django (1966) our hero fires 7 shots from his six shooter in the final standoff, which is awfully unnecessary on his part 'cause he only had 6 targets.   

Good to see the Green Running Man back again! 

[Flick James]

The gun one seems to be popular so far. And it's true. All the more reason I respect the Dirty Harry bit all the more:

"I know what you're thinking. 'Did he fire six shots or only five?' Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?"

[Jack]

One of my favorites is the way you can hook an electrical generator up to a building to electrify the whole exterior.  Great for fending off attacks from just about anything - you don't even have to worry about completing any sort of circuit, or the whole thing being grounded or anything    And you can get thousands of volts from a little 3 hp generator.

[Flick James]

In Kill Bill Vol. I., Uma Thurman wakes up from being catatonic for several years. Upon awakening she soon discovers her legs are completely inoperable due to muscular entropy. Yet, her arms and upper body seem to suffer no degradation whatsoever.

[AndyC]

One of my favorites is the way you can hook an electrical generator up to a building to electrify the whole exterior.  Great for fending off attacks from just about anything - you don't even have to worry about completing any sort of circuit, or the whole thing being grounded or anything    And you can get thousands of volts from a little 3 hp generator.

This usually works by touching both wires (or clamping jumper cables) to whatever conductive material is going to carry the jolt to the bad guys. Never mind that the current has no reason to go there, when the easiest path is through the short circuit you've made right in front of you. The most it's going to do is flash in your face and maybe burn your hands before blowing a fuse.

And of course, touching a power line or electric fence or other electrified object will result in electrocution, even if it's the only thing you're touching. Like that scene in Jurassic Park, where Grant and the kids are trying to get over the fence before the power comes on. Why Hammond ran a second power line throughout the park just to run an alarm warning that the fence is about to be turned on is another question, but the wiring scheme of Jurassic Park raises a lot of questions. Anyway, hanging above the ground, you might get a shock as you are charged up to the same potential as the fence, and again when you let go, but that's it. No big jolt like the kid got. Climb down to just above the bottom and jump off. You'll be fine. Linemen will actually connect themselves to high voltage lines and work on them with bare hands. As long as they're isolated from ground, it's quite safe.

[Archivist]

In Kill Bill Vol. I., Uma Thurman wakes up from being catatonic for several years. Upon awakening she soon discovers her legs are completely inoperable due to muscular entropy. Yet, her arms and upper body seem to suffer no degradation whatsoever.

Yes!!!  That only occurred to me the third time I saw that movie, which was perhaps four years after the last time I saw it.  She seems perfectly able to slam Buck's head in the hospital door, but she has to do it while dragging her legs around with her miraculously able arms.

[WyreWizard]

My favorite is in the Star Trek series, the element neutronium.  Believe it or not, this stuff is real.  Its extremely dense and heavy, which makes it impervious to all attacks.  I find it funny that this stuff is used in the Star Trek universe.  Where do you find neutronium?  On the surface of a neutron star of course.  Bur I wonder how they harvest it.  A neutron star has almost the same mass and gravity as a black hole.