do you have a job/hobby/knowledge in a particular field that allows you to spot mistakes in movies?

[davidmc1158_v1legacy]

I'm a student of history, especially early United States history.

Let's just say that Gone With the Wind makes he slam my forehead on the nearest hard flat surface with frustrated violence. While there are a handful of tiny details it gets right, the majority of it's historical concepts are just insanely ridiculous. I have to go watch a film that is more accurate than not to recover (like, say Glory which has a few minor problems, but is overall pretty good to the reality).

And don't get me started on that festering snot-pile that is Disney's Pocahontas. "Send him to England for emergency medical treatment"? COME ON! That just means you sailed just out of sight and dumped the body overboard, right?

 

[Alexei Do'Urden]

I'm a programmer so have the usual sense for seeing all the many, many things done wrong with computers as other people have mentioned. But what I often find even more distracting is I'm a pretty big fan of animals and know things like bird calls and different frog noises quite well. And that's one area where TV/Movies don't even seem to try, there's the extremely common and fairly well known fact that any time you see a eagle/hawk of any sort they play a Red Tailed Hawk cry (probably because the bald eagle in real life sounds ridiculous), but they'll also have things like marsh bird calls in desert scenes. It's just distracting in general to be aware of, since in The Walking Dead or something there'll be characters talking but I'll find myself straining to pick out the background forest noises to identify what animals there are around. Trained animals also just move very differently from real animals, it's fairly common still for shows to have some big carnivores like tigers and if you've got much familiarity with them in real life then the way they act and move in shows is just wrong and obviously at the command of a trainer.

 

[MrHide-Patten]

Well I'm a game developer so when bugs start appearing and the game comes apparent at the seems I can usually tell what's causing it. Like the game lagging because of collision issues and level streaming.

 

[Reaper195]

I work with signwriters. I've noticed some suspicious looking set pieces and 'faded' looking signs on 'old' buildings.

 

[mrdude2010]

I'm a physics major, so yeah, it's pretty easy to spot pretty glaring mistakes in nearly every film.

 

[dyre]

I pursuing a bachelor's degree in history in college and have some background on 19th and 20th century American and European history, but most of my study has been around political history, which isn't found in many films. I do study some medieval and classical history for fun, so most films set in those eras look pretty ridiculous. But honestly I'm pretty sure most medieval films seem ridiculous even if you don't know any of the relevant history; most of these things are about suspending disbelief and enjoying the ride.

I'm a firearms owner and hit the range once in a while, so I notice some dumb mistakes, but it doesn't bother me that much. What bothers me a bit more are things like people not bothering to take cover or heroes surviving frontal assaults unscathed or soldiers acting like retards, but that's more an issue of bad writing/directing than inaccuracy.

I study ancient and medieval history, so a lot of films that claim to be in any way "historical" are pretty unwatchable for me for a whole host of reasons.

That said, I'm not one of those bizarre ancient historians who gets all hot and bothered about films based on Classical mythology. That never made sense to me, it's like complaining that the movie Thor isn't an "accurate" representation of the Eddas: 1) those myths are just the inspiration for the films, which aren't adaptations (if something actually is claiming to be an adaptation of the Iliad or whatever then fair enough) and 2) it's freakin' mythology. There are gods throwing lightning bolts about. You can't get that "historically wrong."

So basically, I can watch Immortals no problem; Gladiator not so much (the inaccuracies in that are particularly unforgivable since Ridley Scott was supposedly actually trying for greater historical accuracy).

hmm, what'd you hate so much about Gladiator? The fire arrows and the cavalry charge through dense forest? I can't imagine anyone who could stand Immortals (yuck) but couldn't tolerate Gladiator. I mean, even putting aside that the latter is much better directed, has a vastly superior soundtrack, has better action sequences, etc, despite its artistic liberties it's helluva lot more faithful to some general themes of Roman history than Immortals is to Greek mythology!

 

[Blow_Pop]

Knowing more about the human body than I ever cared to know, almost anything to do with limitations of the body or bodily functions I catch.

Also, knowing a lot about blood, blood borne pathogens and the like, anything involving that in movies I catch.

Likewise medical diseases.

I use to work as a locksmith so naturally anything involving locks pisses me off usually. And this one is a serious irritant in video games for me. Especially since you need more than a bobby pin or paper clip to unlock most locks. Unless it's a basic privacy lock that's usually used on individual locks/doors in houses. AND FUCKING SKELETON KEYS!!!!!!!!!!!! My rage for those knows no bounds. Especially when it's being used to unlock something that's NOT a privacy lock. And I'm going to start ranting if I continue. Also my knowledge of locks isn't just business/residential. It also expands into automotive as well.(and yes I know how to pick locks on houses and break into most cars but don't...legal reasons y'know).

I also have an extensive knowledge of automotive work. Including mechanical and collision. I don't know much about electrical stuff for cars but there are basic bullshit things I can still pull off on the electrical sides of things with cars. But inaccuracies with cars bothers me severely both from a hobbyist perspective and actually working in the field and trying to get back into the field.

Also some basic house repair/maintenance stuff I know and some of that will bother me too.

And knowledge into how the human psyche works and mental disorders and such....Any film dealing with these is most likely 99% guaranteed to irritate the shit out of me (luckily it's mostly rom coms that have that problem and that's easy to avoid)

I know quite a lot about mythology so movies involving mythology 99% of the time bother me. That said I have quite the addiction to them and find the original Clash of the Titans to be a helluva lot better than the new remake (cheesy shit and all).

I can't imagine anyone who could stand Immortals (yuck) but couldn't tolerate Gladiator.

As I haven't seen Gladiator yet, I can't comment much about it. But I can stand Immortals...despite it's obvious failings. And am enough of a masochist to watch the Percy Jackson movies and just cry every time they get something wrong either from the mythology standpoint(the most recent is the one I'm really thinking of here for that because it wasn't Zeus/Poseidon/Hades who were the ones who initially survived their dad it was just Zeus, though technically they were all alive in his stomach but that's a side point, and the only reason he did was his mum hid him away and ARGH!) or the book standpoint because they were actually really good books.

And I know more about history than your average person but am nowhere close enough to comfortably say I know almost all there is about any specific point in history but enough that I can point out inaccuracies in some movies.

 

[The Lugz]

basically everything is wrong with films starting with the usual 'bulletproof cars' no car is bulletproof unless it's purpose built, can you imagine how heavy, expensive and ridiculous to run it would be ?? right through to people surviving all manner of explosions at close range ( pressure will kill you pretty quickly ) ai's and supercomputers taking over anything more complex than a cctv system is completely impossible. the human race lacks the fundamental programming language to define digital intelligence, period it basically comes down to the concept that a computer cannot currently be programmed to rewire itself and software emulation isn't that advanced either which is a good thing too really, besides you don't want intelligent computers they'd just be smart-asses anyway.

blatant ignorance of fundamental scientific truths, such as the expression of square and cube law where applicable for the scaling of technology like giant robots, anything truly massive like planetary assault craft and such would require energy sources as yet unconvinced and engines as we know them would require fuel tanks so large they'd dwarf the vehicle, basically think space shuttle sized fuel tanks, so any space film with a flame coming out of an engine is just stupid.

oh, unless it's MacGuffin powered, obviously.[sub][sub][sub][sub][sub][sub][sub]ARK REACTOR HOOOOOO!!!!![/sub][/sub][/sub][/sub][/sub][/sub][/sub]

 

[Arakasi]

Philosophy and evolutionary biology.
You'd be surprised, but it makes a lot of dialogue stupid. Then again, that's not exactly exclusive to movies.

 

[lechat]

archery.
odds are if you watch the average movie or t.v show and someone is shooting a bow they aren't going to hit whatever they are "aiming" at and are more than likely going to injure themselves

 

[rutger5000]

Physics.
Really don't need to elaborate on it. Most shows/movies/games don't give a shit about the laws of physics.

 

[Grumpy Ginger]

For me it's ancient history after studying at University and sword fighting in fiction in general after doing some historical fencing.

 

[A_Parked_Car]

Military history for me. I obviously notice lots of silly things if a historical war movie is incorrect.

 

[McMullen]

Geology
Meteorology
Computer graphics
Programming
...and some physics, chemistry, biology, and anatomy.

I think the most annoying one for real-life purposes is the "Enhance" button from any surveillance tape scene ever. Way too many people think that shit is real, and I've been asked to do it a number of times.

My friends and I watched The Core when it came out just to see how bad it would be, and they fell lower than we had imagined possible. 2012 was even worse in some ways. The trailers for Pompeii were enough to convince me I needn't bother.

 

[the December King]

I'm a compositor/VFX artist with professional experience from B Unit Director (for special effects) to Lead Compositor, to Modeller, to Concept Artist/Matte Artist.

I love seeing comp jobs, both bad and good, fantastical and mundane- I especially love looking for comps that were done to cover stuff or remove rigging- I'm always enjoying how many shots in movies are top notch FX shots, simply by 'maintaining the status quo'!

 

[SoranMBane]

I have a special interest in animals, so I tend to see when the media gets details about animals wrong. It usually doesn't bother me at all unless the work is misrepresenting the animal for the sake of demonizing it or was in any way intended to be educational, but I do notice. The Guardians of Ga'Hoole movie, for example, shows the owls rolling their eyes when that's impossible (the reason owls can turn their heads almost completely around is because their eyes can't turn in their sockets). Even the books the movie was based on aren't immune; the Ga'Hoole books seem to imply that owls don't poop, and that casting pellets is unique to owls, when neither of those things are the case. Owls poop just like any bird, and lots of bird species cast pellets, including crows and seagulls.

The movie getting bird trivia wrong doesn't bother me because it was just supposed to be a fun fantasy adventure with talking animals, and because I realize that giving all the owls realistic fixed stares would have looked creepy on-screen and limited the expressiveness of the characters (plus it's directed by Zack Snyder; the intelligence bar naturally has to be set kind of low). The books getting bird trivia wrong does bother me because the books are clearly trying to be educational in addition to entertaining.

 

[J Tyran]

Health and safety, I had to go on course after course for my job as I got promoted. Sometimes when I watch a film and mentally tick off risk assessments and take note of a lack of fire exits in buildings when they are doing mundane stuff.

 

[Vausch]

I'm a mechanical engineering major with a high proficiency for physics and mathematics.

My friends do not invite me to see scifi movies any more.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

No actual helpful experience besides some physics background, but I do always find it funny in computer scenes to see what keyboard approach they're using (are the typing constantly for hacking? Are they playing an FPS without using the mouse? Are they controlling a non-canon Deadpool abomination by typing manual commands at what can only be an impossible rate?) and something that annoys me sometimes is when guns have plot-convenient ammo capacity - in particularly egregious cases having infinite ammo until they have the protagonist cornered and only need one bullet to kill them and have to reload, even when there has been no reloading in the rest of the movie (it can be that bad).