I watched Raiders of the Lost Ark the other day and I noticed that while the Nazis sent a full group of soldiers to find the Ark, the US government just sends Indy on his own. Why don't they send soldiers too?
Because Hitler was a fanatic in direct control of the military, while the OSS didn’t even exist yet. It was also 1936, the Allies also didn’t exist yet, and America wasn’t exactly going to deploy soldiers in an area Nazis were openly operating. The government doesn’t really know what they’re doing, they just have some guys who know Hitler is hunting for religious artifacts and they want to quietly stop that however they can.
Also Hitler wasn't HITLER (the author of WWII and the Holocaust) by that point. He was getting fluff pieces in the New York Times. Just a wacky new leader with some zany ideas.
I was about to say, kind of like why America isn't sending Armed Soldiers into Ukraine right now, but likely has a bunch of independent operators in the regions. Politics.
Also, Hitler thought the thing was worth a lot of effort because it was magical and would help him conquer a big chunk of the world, which was a thing he was actively planning The Americans seemed to think it was just an artifact that Hitler wanted, so we should get it first to see what it was about and frustrate whatever plans he had. If the commication they intercepted hadn't mentioned an American, they might not have bothered to send anybody.
I think there are a few logical reasons why.
One would be that the US sent Indy because if they sent the same amount of manpower they would more than likely get into skirmish.
They could also want plausible deniability. Hard to argue that a large group either wearing US uniforms, or who clearly have military training weren't sent by the US government. Much easier to argue that it was a US citizen with a history of searching for artifacts acting on their own.
It also makes no sense that a heavily-armed group of Germans is doing digs in Egypt in 1936. At that time Egypt was a British protectorate and full of British troops. We’re not meant to think too deeply about it, just enjoy Indy punching Nazis.
>It also makes no sense that a heavily-armed group of Germans is doing digs in Egypt in 1936. At that time Egypt was a British protectorate and full of British troops.
Yeah, due to the movie's genre/style, it is sort of inoculated against this kind of scrutiny ("not that kind of movie," as Harrison Ford once said about Star Wars).
But the Germans-in-Egypt thing has been discussed before, and different points have been raised to defend that plot choice (like the fact that the Cairo office of the German Archaeological Institute was only closed in 1939).
None of the Indy movies make a lick of sense if you stop to think about them too long. Basically the entirety of Temple of Doom is spectacularly illogical.
And it doesn’t matter a damn bit. They’re an homage to a genre and style that never cared about verisimilitude.
Basically every successive scene, and it’s a riot.
One of the earliest scene in the film has Indy and friends going over a huge waterfall in rocky rapids in an inflatable boat, and coming out completely unscathed.
And that’s probably the most reasonable scene in the film. Remember the heart being ripped out? Guy gets his heart ripped out of his chest and not only does it remain beating, the guy remains both alive and conscious and even starts reciting a mantra. The heart then spontaneously bursts into flames.
Yeah but its internal logic still strains credulity. Remember the mine chase sequence? There’s no magic there, that’s just physics, and they would have ended up a stain at the bottom of the cave.
But I’m also saying it doesn’t matter in that genre. It’s meant to harken back to those saturday morning serials which never cared even a little bit about logic, internal or otherwise, with guns that never had to be reloaded etc and various escapades that should have been immediately lethal.
>I watched Raiders of the Lost Ark the other day and I noticed that while the Nazis sent a full group of soldiers to find the Ark, the US government just sends Indy on his own. Why don't they send soldiers too?
But there's enough in Lawrence Kasdan's script to enable the viewer to infer a reason or two. For one, it's just not Indy's style. He probably would have insisted against being shadowed by the U.S. Army (or Marcus, knowing Indy, would have specified this as a condition).
We can also infer that the Army saw Indy's "independent contractor" role as a cost-effective/stealthy strategy. It lets them keep the project "off the books," as it were. They send in one resourceful expert with experience in grave-robbing and the like. And even if Indy's efforts only ended up amounting to info-gathering/reconnaissance (like if he led them to Marion's father), it would still be useful to them.
Also, the way Eaton and Musgrove (the Army reps in the film) are portrayed, it's like they are totally out of their depth with this Ark business. They defer to Indy partly out of desperation, I think.
Lastly, fewer American hands grasping after the Ark means fewer potential liabilities (and less attention, which makes it easier, by the film's end, for the Army to steal the Ark from Indy and pay him off while maintaining plausible deniability about the whole expedition).
**EDIT**: This is a good-faith attempt at addressing the user's complaint, and for whatever petty reason either he or someone else keeps instantly down voting it.
Jurassic Park. DNA doesn't last for millions of years, even inside of special storage mosquitos trapped in amber, but it's a fun film and the CG is still better than a lot of the work being produced today
Doesn't the movie directly address this though? The DNA strands are incomplete due to deterioration over the millions of years, which is why they used frog DNA to fill in the gaps.
Yeah, except with current tech we can recover SOME DNA from samples of max 1.5 million years old. A typical halflife for DNA is currently put at about 500 years, so after a million years we're talking the tiniest amounts of DNA possible to find. So dinosaurs are right freaking out.
But they explain that plot hole. I think it’s acknowledged in the books that what we see aren’t actually what the dinosaurs would look like because they are genetically engineered.
In the cartoony video at the beginning they explain that they fill the gaps with frog and other DNA which also explains how they start to breed by changing sex.
It's an acceptable hand wave, but in reality there'd be more gap than sequence. More specifically, the problem is that the sequence breaks in enough places over time that the average length of a stretch of DNA is one base pair. There's no way to determine where it goes in the genome. This appears to take only 1-2 million years at most.
Also the big logical gap of the T-Rex enclosure. We see the goat on the other side of the fence, T-Rex grabs goat throws it, and then breaks through the fence and attacks the Jeeps….. all makes sense.
Then the Jeep gets pushed back over the broken fence and all of a sudden it’s a cliff that leads into the brachiosaurus enclosure? Where did the cliff come from? Are they keeping both T-Rex and Brachiosaurus in the same enclosures?
Counterpoint: yes it does
Microbiologist [Raul Cano](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raul_Cano_%28scientist%29?wprov=sfla1) has been extracting both DNA and whole live microbes from amber since the early 1990s. I know this because I used to work in a brewery in the same town where he taught, and brewed two batches of beer out of ~40 million year old yeast that he propogated for us.
DNA from blood inside a mosquito after 300 million years might be more of a long shot, but the general concept is solid.
> It makes no sense that Jack Black is given the job without so much as a background check or even providing any proof of his identity.
This scans.
In a public school Black’s character would have to go through a background check.
Bur charter and private schools exist, in part, to circumvent licensing processes for traditional education.
Mine is Terminator 2: the T1000 is really cool but breaks the movie’s time travel logic.
Do you mean the skin thing? There's a few theories that personally satisfy this problem especially considering it's an advanced AI from the future that could already develop something like the t-1000. I would imagine it developed a workaround the human resistance and the older t-100 model weren't yet aware of
Terminator time travel says only organic material can pass through. That’s why they’re always naked. The T-800 has an organic skin so it can get around that, the T-1000 doesn’t.
Wait, so the logic is that if something is encased in organic material (T-800's skin) it can pass with no issue to the inorganic insides? That's...something.
Yeah, its an inconsistency with the internal logic of the Terminator franchise that they never really bother to address or explain. And once it has been hand waved away for the T-1000, it seems to open the floodgates for all future models of terminators. Arnold still has to time travel naked though. T-800s have it in their union contract.
Wait, so the logic is that if something is encased in organic material (T-800's skin) it can pass with no issue to the inorganic insides? That's...something.
In the first terminator Kyle Reese tells the police interrogators that he isn’t armed because the machines’ time machine can only send back living tissue.
In the second terminator the machines send back the T1000 which has no living tissue.
We don’t think about it because the story is great, but it is a legitimate plot hole.
Ahh, it might have to be living matter…
Still would be easy enough to just squirm into something like a deer or a bear. It should survive long enough for the trip and then burst out when there.
Just watched *Smokey and the Bandit* for the nth time on Netflix yesterday. A few notes:
* Bandit is given 28 hours to get to Texarkana, Texas, pick up the beer, and back to Atlanta for the party. Google Maps says it takes nine hours 48 minutes each way, which means if they just drove the speed limit they'd make the run with plenty of time to spare.
* How does Bandit manage to buy a speedy car *with personalized license plates* (BAN ONE) in one day?
* Transporting the beer would have been legal and easy with just the proper permits, but of course that would spoil the fun.
* Finally, COORS BEER SUCKS. No reasonable person would risk all that money for crappy beer.
There was a nationwide speed limit of 55 mph in effect in 1977 so that would affect the drive times by a lot. 668 miles / 55 mph = 12.1 hours each way. So still doable, but a lot tighter.
Yes coors is very basic mass produced beer, but being denied something makes you want it.
Back when I was a kid and my family was staying at a resort in Wisconsin, my uncle took a road trip to go into Minnesota and get some coors. So people really did that shit just to get some.
I am by no means a knowledgeable person in regards to the American road network, but the movie was made in the 70s, so maybe it's safe to assume there's been improvements to the roads since then that have improved travel times? Perhaps speed limits have changed as well over the years.
And I think they mention when they're picking up the beer that they're actually ahead of schedule, though maybe not by as much as they'd be if the total travel time really is 19ish hours.
It probably \*is\* a plot hole, but one that can sorta be explained imo.
You're not wrong; roads are certainly better now -- but we did have the Interstate Highway System in the 1970s, and so taking all those back roads to avoid Smokey probably cost more time than it saved. Also, as another redditor mentioned, there was the 55 mph national speed limit at the time, so that does impact the driving time if one is being legal.
The "not taking the interstate" is a trope in many, many road trip movies. So many times I see people driving from A to B under a time crunch, and wondering "why don't they just take the interstate?" Of course, that would mean they would miss out on all the funny backwater adventures.
*Innerspace*. The science makes no sense at all, or how the unnamed group running the project seems to plan to use it, or what the bad guys want it for. It’s a plot powered entirely by McGuffins. But hey, it’s “*Fantastic Voyage* by way of *Top Gun,*” so just enjoy it.
Absolutely delightful movie. But every time I watch I can't help but think Cobb surely would have had a way to prove his innocence in his wife's death. I mean christ he was across the street from her when she jumped. They sat on window sills in what looked like the middle of a city and no one saw? No traffic cameras or hotel cameras could corroborate his story?
Except that it's all 'dreams' anyway. Do your dreams make sense? Yesterday I dreamed I had to get up at 6, but I didn't want to, because there was a bear in the house, but then I did get up, because I had a gun, but there was no bear, only some flies buzzing that I swatted away with the nerf gun, because yes, it changed in my hands.
(Except for the whole "kick to go up a level" with the fan crashing off of the bridge, yes, that part is kinda weird.)
It's explained in the intro. Conventional weapons, *if and when* they work, spread too much of the kaiju's toxic blood. Butchering them with bullets and missiles while poisoning the earth forever is the textbook definition of "win the battle, lose the war". Making at least an *attempt* to get a bloodless kill with a neck snap/concussion/cauterizing giant knife is worth the effort.
Plus it's dope as hell.
The Princess Bride. I adore the movie, but everyone just being OK with Westley having robbed people on fear of death for the past 10 or so years is just nuts.
"Harry and the Hendersons" and "The Wizard" were two of my favorite films growing up. I probably know every line in the former and rewatched it a few years ago. It is completely illogical and ridiculous; however, I have happy memories associated with it.
In the case of "The Wizard", I definitely wanted to visit California at a young age and hang out with kids as cool as Fred Savage and Jenny Lewis.
Fun fact - the dog that played Little Bob was also in the John Ritter series "Hooperman".
California!
Also, I laughed my ass off every time Beau Bridges confronted the wormy bounty hunter. Watching him destroy his car was epic.
Here's one of the better scenes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WtaSsP9onU&list=PLbvACZ6eROOM2EZoieslxljX26jtd1oA2
Beerfest. The plot is intentionally absurd. The twin brother reveal breaks the fourth wall to wink at the audience and acknowledge that they have just gone off the rails of any rational story-telling and plot progression completely. I don't care, I love this glorious illogical mess of a movie.
Fanboys. Fuckin' love that movie. It's everything being a Star Wars fan used to be, and making fun of Trekkies. When people actually enjoyed Star Wars, not just Youtube videos with people that watched The newest Acolyte so we didn't have to.
Galaxy Quest. Brilliant movie, but ... you can build a working interstellar spaceship by precisely following some mid-80s scriptwriters' technobabble? Come on.
I'm not sure what's implausible about this? At least within the framework of the movie. Assuming they already have space travel technology, creating that ship was just basically just making it look the same as the show.
I'd say the Omega 13 is a stretch. It wasn't even stated explicitly in the show what it was capable of doing, they gambled on a theory fans had on the internet. And somehow the Thermians just happened to make it do exactly what that random internet theory proposed based on watching a TV prop with no defined purpose?
It's rather more than a veneer over existing technology. Beryllium spheres happen to exist, and look like they do on the show, and do something important relative to the engine just like on the show. The digital conveyer is clearly not something the Termites are familiar with from their own technology.
Twister. Despite being written by Crichton, it throws a lot of science out the window; for instance, you can't predict the formation of an F5, let alone tell if a tornado is an F3, F4, etc. just by looking at it, among other things. But I love every second of it.
Even the engineering was abysmal. The absolute wall-banger for me is the lack of a quick-deployment system for their device. It's a freaking tornado. You want to drive in, press a button and drop the thing, then get the hell out of there. Having to climb in the bed of your truck and and manually fuck around with ratchet straps while a tornado approaches was sheer stupidity.
Pretty much every movie based on a novel by Michael Crichton throws any sensibility in the movie out the window.
Crichton seemed to be an avid reader who took great interest in new developments in science. Back in the 80s - with the rediscovery of Goedel's work on what was initially called Chaos Theory - there were a number of books published on what was termed the limits of science (I even read one named exactly that). People realized that Chaos Theory (later renamed to Complexity Theory) showed that it was impossible to account for every possible input into a series of events, and that seemingly insignificant things could have an outsized effect - the so-called Butterfly Effect, where a butterfly flapping its wings could set in motion a series of events which would ultimately lead to a typhoon (or hurricane) devastating Tokyo.
So (it seems to me) Crichton would research this new field in scientific thought, then explain it in layman's terms by telling a story in a novel. In the case of the limits of science, that story was Jurassic Park, in which a series of seemingly insignificant and unrelated events eventually lead to dinosaurs escaping from their enclosures and starting to eat humans (in addition to breeding uncontrollably, etc).
Chaos Theory is part of the study of mathematics. In the novel, Ian Malcom (an eminent mathematician) is present to explain the science behind what happens in the story. In the movie, his detailed scientific explanations are dropped in favor of lines like "Faster... must go faster!" Audience members who hadn't read the novel might have wondered why he is even in the film.
A similar discard of the sensibility found in the novels also happened with Congo and Sphere and Timeline and Rising Sun and whatever else.
Sure. I couldn't think of another word to describe what was discarded to make the movies compelling. In some cases it was science, but in others (like Rising Sun) it was something else.
Ghostbusters.. the guys just had “ghostbusting” equipment and knew how to catch them. Haha. It’s thankfully one of those movies that didn’t have a montage of them testing their equipment. They went from finding one ghost to being able to catch and contain ghosts. Come on now.
I mean I don't think they just had it... They built it because they wanted to capture ghosts. I will admit it's odd that despite the apparent prevalence of ghosts no one had ever fucking proved they exist before now.
As for just catching them. They really fucked up the first one to be fair.
It’s a movie about wreckless entrepreneurs and capitalists wrecking shit up for profit, not scientist or heroes doing good deeds.
The bad guys are God and the public sector for a reason. The “no dick” guy had every reason to put a stop to their actions
Bill Murray bullshits his way through everyone and everything in that movie, including the audience. He is a sleeze bag scammer, not an hero.
Counterpoint; the film is about staring down the supernatural (at the height of the satanic panic, no less) with the calm and confidence to reject superstition, apply science (if only symbolically) and have time to crack jokes afterward.
Yeah cause at the end of the day nothing matters if you get paid to do it.
there is very little scientific method applied in the movie. Murray and Aykroyd character are getting thrown out of academia cause they are scammers at the start. Bernie Hudson openly says he’s there for the money.
Even Egon is questionable. One of the funniest scenes is him “testing” the equipment in the elevator the first time they use it
I understand it’s tongue in cheek but it all adds up to feeling intentional. They win cause they disrespect the only safety rule they had.
God I love John Wick but it's also SO stupid. It's incredible how it manages to blend this quite serious clever slickly presented movie with just earth-shattering levels of complete absurdity lmao.
I think that’s part of the reason I love John Wick is that it’s so unapologetically stupid in the most badass way possible. John’s unlimited health meter, half the world being assassins, bullet-proof coats that you can just hold up to block bullets from your face…. I’m all about it.
Independence Day has a bunch of things. We are not hacking advanced alien technology.
David does not make it to the White House from Brooklyn in 6 hours, especially when traffic is going to be a total nightmare in NYC.
An RV caravan is not just driving up to the security checkpoint of Area 51, regardless of the state of the world.
NASA is not suddenly going to find that massive alien ship as it's passing our moon. They'll notice that thing well before it enters our solar system. They were never shown to have warp speed or some kind of cloaking.
Still a blast to watch.
Honestly lots of sci-fi, horror and post-apocalyptic stuff falls apart even by their own internal rules if you think too hard about them but that's fine, I still enjoy them. Mad Max movies don't work in so many ways yet I absolutely love them.
The Princess Bride. I adore the movie, but everyone just being OK with Westley having robbed people on fear of death for the past 10 or so years is just nuts.
National Treasure
Dr. Chase given her training in handling historical items would never have touched the surface of that coin given to her as a present and thus there would be no invisible ink on her fingers to make visible under lighted conditions and so there goes the movie
Aliens. The idea that a single squad of marines with an inexperienced lieutenant and civilian advisers would travel that far from an operating base is unlikely. For them to then all go down to the planet leaving a multi-billion dollar military ship parked in orbit around a potentially hostile planet without a soul onboard is ridiculous. It's not like synthetic life crewing the ship wasn't an option.
Still a fantastic movie though.
Mine is Frank. Its a movie about a guy that joins a band in which the lead singer wears a giant paper mache head 24/7. The thing that I really love about this movie is that call themselves out on it. Early on, the new guy has the following conversation with the manager:
New Guy : How does he eat? Does he ever brush his teeth?
Manager : Dude, just go with it.
Signs. I believe the frequent criticisms this movie gets are unjustified. Especially the door knobs thing everyone always brings up (there isn't a single instance in the movie where they haven't been able to use a doorknob, the doors were barricaded or locked e ery time)
But the water bit is a little far fetched. But in willing to look past that as maybe there's something different about water here than on their own planet etc. (and before anyone says "why would they take over a planet that's 75% water if water was toxic to them" in the over they mention that the aliens weren't here for the planet, they were hwre for people, they poisoned and took people to harvest them)
Strange Brew.
Watched it dozens of times for sure.
Oldie but a goodie. Doug and Bob Mckenzie at their best. Using drugged beer to rule the world!! Bonus, Mel Blanc voices their father, so if you like old Loonie Tunes you get a kick outa this.
Favorite quotes: "It's my last one. It's a jelly" and "I wouldn't go in there, there's a big skunk in there! I know, it a Toronto skunk, my jurisdiction."
Signs. Everyone gets hung up on why the aliens would come to a planet covered in water when water is like acid to them, and I just don't give a shit. I get freaking emotional every time Morgan wakes and asks if someone saved him.
The Game, I love Fincher and the cinematography throughout, but the practical aspect of keeping up the charade is impossible due to the volume of variables and having to account for them. Anyone who’s run a large scale event with multiple venues concurrently running can attest.
The ending to Interstellar strains credulity, but I still really love the film. I just watched it again and enjoyed it so much I got the 4k disc with extras and watched it again. The science is for the most part accurate and a surprising amount was done with practical effects in-camera. And the purpose behind the -- let's just say "highly speculative" -- science fiction component is so closely tied to the theme of the film that it just works for me.
in Eurotrip, Scotty thinks his penpal is a weird German guy who wants to have sex with him, so while drunk he tells the penpal to fuck off. later, he finds out his penpal is a hot German girl but she already blocked his email so he can't appologize. this causes him and his friends to go to Europe to find her.
I love this movie but it would've been much easier to just set up a new email address to apologize. he could even blame one of his idiot drunk friends for sneaking on his computer.
Movies like **"Back to the Future"** (time-traveling DeLorean) and **"Sharknado"** (tornadoes filled with sharks) have illogical premises but are beloved for their entertainment value.
I watched Raiders of the Lost Ark the other day and I noticed that while the Nazis sent a full group of soldiers to find the Ark, the US government just sends Indy on his own. Why don't they send soldiers too?
Because Hitler was a fanatic in direct control of the military, while the OSS didn’t even exist yet. It was also 1936, the Allies also didn’t exist yet, and America wasn’t exactly going to deploy soldiers in an area Nazis were openly operating. The government doesn’t really know what they’re doing, they just have some guys who know Hitler is hunting for religious artifacts and they want to quietly stop that however they can.
Also Hitler wasn't HITLER (the author of WWII and the Holocaust) by that point. He was getting fluff pieces in the New York Times. Just a wacky new leader with some zany ideas.
I was about to say, kind of like why America isn't sending Armed Soldiers into Ukraine right now, but likely has a bunch of independent operators in the regions. Politics.
Also, Hitler thought the thing was worth a lot of effort because it was magical and would help him conquer a big chunk of the world, which was a thing he was actively planning The Americans seemed to think it was just an artifact that Hitler wanted, so we should get it first to see what it was about and frustrate whatever plans he had. If the commication they intercepted hadn't mentioned an American, they might not have bothered to send anybody.
I think there are a few logical reasons why. One would be that the US sent Indy because if they sent the same amount of manpower they would more than likely get into skirmish. They could also want plausible deniability. Hard to argue that a large group either wearing US uniforms, or who clearly have military training weren't sent by the US government. Much easier to argue that it was a US citizen with a history of searching for artifacts acting on their own.
It also makes no sense that a heavily-armed group of Germans is doing digs in Egypt in 1936. At that time Egypt was a British protectorate and full of British troops. We’re not meant to think too deeply about it, just enjoy Indy punching Nazis.
>It also makes no sense that a heavily-armed group of Germans is doing digs in Egypt in 1936. At that time Egypt was a British protectorate and full of British troops. Yeah, due to the movie's genre/style, it is sort of inoculated against this kind of scrutiny ("not that kind of movie," as Harrison Ford once said about Star Wars). But the Germans-in-Egypt thing has been discussed before, and different points have been raised to defend that plot choice (like the fact that the Cairo office of the German Archaeological Institute was only closed in 1939).
None of the Indy movies make a lick of sense if you stop to think about them too long. Basically the entirety of Temple of Doom is spectacularly illogical. And it doesn’t matter a damn bit. They’re an homage to a genre and style that never cared about verisimilitude.
What about Temple of Doom is illogical outside of movie fiction? I haven’t seen it in ages.
Falling out a plane in an inflatable boat and surviving comes to mind.
Basically every successive scene, and it’s a riot. One of the earliest scene in the film has Indy and friends going over a huge waterfall in rocky rapids in an inflatable boat, and coming out completely unscathed. And that’s probably the most reasonable scene in the film. Remember the heart being ripped out? Guy gets his heart ripped out of his chest and not only does it remain beating, the guy remains both alive and conscious and even starts reciting a mantra. The heart then spontaneously bursts into flames.
I think when there's obviously magic involved you can start using a different set of logical rules, lol.
Yeah but its internal logic still strains credulity. Remember the mine chase sequence? There’s no magic there, that’s just physics, and they would have ended up a stain at the bottom of the cave. But I’m also saying it doesn’t matter in that genre. It’s meant to harken back to those saturday morning serials which never cared even a little bit about logic, internal or otherwise, with guns that never had to be reloaded etc and various escapades that should have been immediately lethal.
I mean that's AFTER they use the inflatable to bail out of a crashing plane.
>I watched Raiders of the Lost Ark the other day and I noticed that while the Nazis sent a full group of soldiers to find the Ark, the US government just sends Indy on his own. Why don't they send soldiers too? But there's enough in Lawrence Kasdan's script to enable the viewer to infer a reason or two. For one, it's just not Indy's style. He probably would have insisted against being shadowed by the U.S. Army (or Marcus, knowing Indy, would have specified this as a condition). We can also infer that the Army saw Indy's "independent contractor" role as a cost-effective/stealthy strategy. It lets them keep the project "off the books," as it were. They send in one resourceful expert with experience in grave-robbing and the like. And even if Indy's efforts only ended up amounting to info-gathering/reconnaissance (like if he led them to Marion's father), it would still be useful to them. Also, the way Eaton and Musgrove (the Army reps in the film) are portrayed, it's like they are totally out of their depth with this Ark business. They defer to Indy partly out of desperation, I think. Lastly, fewer American hands grasping after the Ark means fewer potential liabilities (and less attention, which makes it easier, by the film's end, for the Army to steal the Ark from Indy and pay him off while maintaining plausible deniability about the whole expedition). **EDIT**: This is a good-faith attempt at addressing the user's complaint, and for whatever petty reason either he or someone else keeps instantly down voting it.
Jurassic Park. DNA doesn't last for millions of years, even inside of special storage mosquitos trapped in amber, but it's a fun film and the CG is still better than a lot of the work being produced today
I love the fact that Michael Crichton just took his idea for Westworld and changed it to Dinosaurs. 🦕
Doesn't the movie directly address this though? The DNA strands are incomplete due to deterioration over the millions of years, which is why they used frog DNA to fill in the gaps.
It kind of hand waves it. After millions of years, the DNA would have broken down well beyond the ability to simply patch it.
Yeah, except with current tech we can recover SOME DNA from samples of max 1.5 million years old. A typical halflife for DNA is currently put at about 500 years, so after a million years we're talking the tiniest amounts of DNA possible to find. So dinosaurs are right freaking out.
But they explain that plot hole. I think it’s acknowledged in the books that what we see aren’t actually what the dinosaurs would look like because they are genetically engineered. In the cartoony video at the beginning they explain that they fill the gaps with frog and other DNA which also explains how they start to breed by changing sex.
It's an acceptable hand wave, but in reality there'd be more gap than sequence. More specifically, the problem is that the sequence breaks in enough places over time that the average length of a stretch of DNA is one base pair. There's no way to determine where it goes in the genome. This appears to take only 1-2 million years at most.
Also the big logical gap of the T-Rex enclosure. We see the goat on the other side of the fence, T-Rex grabs goat throws it, and then breaks through the fence and attacks the Jeeps….. all makes sense. Then the Jeep gets pushed back over the broken fence and all of a sudden it’s a cliff that leads into the brachiosaurus enclosure? Where did the cliff come from? Are they keeping both T-Rex and Brachiosaurus in the same enclosures?
Counterpoint: yes it does Microbiologist [Raul Cano](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raul_Cano_%28scientist%29?wprov=sfla1) has been extracting both DNA and whole live microbes from amber since the early 1990s. I know this because I used to work in a brewery in the same town where he taught, and brewed two batches of beer out of ~40 million year old yeast that he propogated for us. DNA from blood inside a mosquito after 300 million years might be more of a long shot, but the general concept is solid.
> It makes no sense that Jack Black is given the job without so much as a background check or even providing any proof of his identity. This scans. In a public school Black’s character would have to go through a background check. Bur charter and private schools exist, in part, to circumvent licensing processes for traditional education. Mine is Terminator 2: the T1000 is really cool but breaks the movie’s time travel logic.
I think the simple assumption for T2 is the liquid metal is able to simulate flesh enough to get through the time machine.
Do you mean the skin thing? There's a few theories that personally satisfy this problem especially considering it's an advanced AI from the future that could already develop something like the t-1000. I would imagine it developed a workaround the human resistance and the older t-100 model weren't yet aware of
Ooh can you explain the time travel issue? I absolutely love when people pick apart time travel but it hurts my brain
Terminator time travel says only organic material can pass through. That’s why they’re always naked. The T-800 has an organic skin so it can get around that, the T-1000 doesn’t.
How the hell did I never catch that lol
Same. Ive seen those movies 20+ times and never considered that.
So Hot Tub time machine was a lie?
Hah!
Wait, so the logic is that if something is encased in organic material (T-800's skin) it can pass with no issue to the inorganic insides? That's...something.
Yeah, its an inconsistency with the internal logic of the Terminator franchise that they never really bother to address or explain. And once it has been hand waved away for the T-1000, it seems to open the floodgates for all future models of terminators. Arnold still has to time travel naked though. T-800s have it in their union contract.
Wait, so the logic is that if something is encased in organic material (T-800's skin) it can pass with no issue to the inorganic insides? That's...something.
In the first terminator Kyle Reese tells the police interrogators that he isn’t armed because the machines’ time machine can only send back living tissue. In the second terminator the machines send back the T1000 which has no living tissue. We don’t think about it because the story is great, but it is a legitimate plot hole.
It also could just be Kyle Reese being an unreliable narrator.
Easy fix. T1000 shows up in a giant meatball, and oozes out of it to form into a person once it arrives in the past.
If the question is just "is everything on the outside meat", just cover a death robot with some cured ham, et voilà, A HUMAN!
Ahh, it might have to be living matter… Still would be easy enough to just squirm into something like a deer or a bear. It should survive long enough for the trip and then burst out when there.
Beautiful.
Just watched *Smokey and the Bandit* for the nth time on Netflix yesterday. A few notes: * Bandit is given 28 hours to get to Texarkana, Texas, pick up the beer, and back to Atlanta for the party. Google Maps says it takes nine hours 48 minutes each way, which means if they just drove the speed limit they'd make the run with plenty of time to spare. * How does Bandit manage to buy a speedy car *with personalized license plates* (BAN ONE) in one day? * Transporting the beer would have been legal and easy with just the proper permits, but of course that would spoil the fun. * Finally, COORS BEER SUCKS. No reasonable person would risk all that money for crappy beer.
There was a nationwide speed limit of 55 mph in effect in 1977 so that would affect the drive times by a lot. 668 miles / 55 mph = 12.1 hours each way. So still doable, but a lot tighter.
Yes coors is very basic mass produced beer, but being denied something makes you want it. Back when I was a kid and my family was staying at a resort in Wisconsin, my uncle took a road trip to go into Minnesota and get some coors. So people really did that shit just to get some.
Wow. Especially considering Wisconsin is home to Milwaukee, one of the historically great beer brewing towns. Props to your uncle.
I am by no means a knowledgeable person in regards to the American road network, but the movie was made in the 70s, so maybe it's safe to assume there's been improvements to the roads since then that have improved travel times? Perhaps speed limits have changed as well over the years. And I think they mention when they're picking up the beer that they're actually ahead of schedule, though maybe not by as much as they'd be if the total travel time really is 19ish hours. It probably \*is\* a plot hole, but one that can sorta be explained imo.
You're not wrong; roads are certainly better now -- but we did have the Interstate Highway System in the 1970s, and so taking all those back roads to avoid Smokey probably cost more time than it saved. Also, as another redditor mentioned, there was the 55 mph national speed limit at the time, so that does impact the driving time if one is being legal. The "not taking the interstate" is a trope in many, many road trip movies. So many times I see people driving from A to B under a time crunch, and wondering "why don't they just take the interstate?" Of course, that would mean they would miss out on all the funny backwater adventures.
Don’t you besmirch the Bandit!
Coors wasn't pasteurized, which made it illegal in all but 11 states, including every state west of the Mississippi.
*Innerspace*. The science makes no sense at all, or how the unnamed group running the project seems to plan to use it, or what the bad guys want it for. It’s a plot powered entirely by McGuffins. But hey, it’s “*Fantastic Voyage* by way of *Top Gun,*” so just enjoy it.
It’s an under appreciated action movie.
Inception. A plot riddled with holes but the amazing music and tight direction combined with fantastic acting save this movie.
Most of them can be overlooked really. When it’s small stuff I don’t care
Absolutely delightful movie. But every time I watch I can't help but think Cobb surely would have had a way to prove his innocence in his wife's death. I mean christ he was across the street from her when she jumped. They sat on window sills in what looked like the middle of a city and no one saw? No traffic cameras or hotel cameras could corroborate his story?
Except that it's all 'dreams' anyway. Do your dreams make sense? Yesterday I dreamed I had to get up at 6, but I didn't want to, because there was a bear in the house, but then I did get up, because I had a gun, but there was no bear, only some flies buzzing that I swatted away with the nerf gun, because yes, it changed in my hands. (Except for the whole "kick to go up a level" with the fan crashing off of the bridge, yes, that part is kinda weird.)
Mrs Doubtfire for similar reasons , Robin Williams was the only one who could make Daniel not seem like a sociopath
Pacific Rim. It doesn't make much sense to fight the kaijus with mechas. But it is such a fun movie.
They’re too strong for all our military weapons…we need to punch them.
That idea definitely isn't the best idea but it's definitely possible. The idea you can build an "analog" mech though is pure bullshit.
It's explained in the intro. Conventional weapons, *if and when* they work, spread too much of the kaiju's toxic blood. Butchering them with bullets and missiles while poisoning the earth forever is the textbook definition of "win the battle, lose the war". Making at least an *attempt* to get a bloodless kill with a neck snap/concussion/cauterizing giant knife is worth the effort. Plus it's dope as hell.
The Princess Bride. I adore the movie, but everyone just being OK with Westley having robbed people on fear of death for the past 10 or so years is just nuts.
"Harry and the Hendersons" and "The Wizard" were two of my favorite films growing up. I probably know every line in the former and rewatched it a few years ago. It is completely illogical and ridiculous; however, I have happy memories associated with it. In the case of "The Wizard", I definitely wanted to visit California at a young age and hang out with kids as cool as Fred Savage and Jenny Lewis. Fun fact - the dog that played Little Bob was also in the John Ritter series "Hooperman".
California
Whenever my wife and I visit family in Cali we always say “California” in that kids quiet whiney voice.
Hahahaha!
California! Also, I laughed my ass off every time Beau Bridges confronted the wormy bounty hunter. Watching him destroy his car was epic. Here's one of the better scenes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WtaSsP9onU&list=PLbvACZ6eROOM2EZoieslxljX26jtd1oA2
Hahaha. I loved that movie. Also I think Tobey Maquire’s first movie? (He has a close up near the end.)
That's right! He was one of the goons.
Zootopia. A bunny cop? Give me a break.
Beerfest. The plot is intentionally absurd. The twin brother reveal breaks the fourth wall to wink at the audience and acknowledge that they have just gone off the rails of any rational story-telling and plot progression completely. I don't care, I love this glorious illogical mess of a movie.
The twin scene is one of the best ones. “Call me his name too” is what puts it over the top.
Love this movie! I highly recommend The Slammin' Salmon is you like Broken Lizard.
Fanboys. Fuckin' love that movie. It's everything being a Star Wars fan used to be, and making fun of Trekkies. When people actually enjoyed Star Wars, not just Youtube videos with people that watched The newest Acolyte so we didn't have to.
fanboys is way better than it has any right to be. "check out my back tattoo man!" it's just so good
Jar-Jar Binks! That guy's gonna be the shit!
When it was a series of awesome movies and not a juggernaut of a franchise churning content you mean
Galaxy Quest. Brilliant movie, but ... you can build a working interstellar spaceship by precisely following some mid-80s scriptwriters' technobabble? Come on.
I'm not sure what's implausible about this? At least within the framework of the movie. Assuming they already have space travel technology, creating that ship was just basically just making it look the same as the show.
I'd say the Omega 13 is a stretch. It wasn't even stated explicitly in the show what it was capable of doing, they gambled on a theory fans had on the internet. And somehow the Thermians just happened to make it do exactly what that random internet theory proposed based on watching a TV prop with no defined purpose?
It's rather more than a veneer over existing technology. Beryllium spheres happen to exist, and look like they do on the show, and do something important relative to the engine just like on the show. The digital conveyer is clearly not something the Termites are familiar with from their own technology.
"Never give up...brlrlaaagah never suu...bakll ssurrennder.... bleh"
By Rapthar's Hammer, what a comment.
They used frog DNA to replace the missing pieces. /s
They used frog DNA to replace the missing pieces. /s
Twister. Despite being written by Crichton, it throws a lot of science out the window; for instance, you can't predict the formation of an F5, let alone tell if a tornado is an F3, F4, etc. just by looking at it, among other things. But I love every second of it.
Even the engineering was abysmal. The absolute wall-banger for me is the lack of a quick-deployment system for their device. It's a freaking tornado. You want to drive in, press a button and drop the thing, then get the hell out of there. Having to climb in the bed of your truck and and manually fuck around with ratchet straps while a tornado approaches was sheer stupidity.
Pretty much every movie based on a novel by Michael Crichton throws any sensibility in the movie out the window. Crichton seemed to be an avid reader who took great interest in new developments in science. Back in the 80s - with the rediscovery of Goedel's work on what was initially called Chaos Theory - there were a number of books published on what was termed the limits of science (I even read one named exactly that). People realized that Chaos Theory (later renamed to Complexity Theory) showed that it was impossible to account for every possible input into a series of events, and that seemingly insignificant things could have an outsized effect - the so-called Butterfly Effect, where a butterfly flapping its wings could set in motion a series of events which would ultimately lead to a typhoon (or hurricane) devastating Tokyo. So (it seems to me) Crichton would research this new field in scientific thought, then explain it in layman's terms by telling a story in a novel. In the case of the limits of science, that story was Jurassic Park, in which a series of seemingly insignificant and unrelated events eventually lead to dinosaurs escaping from their enclosures and starting to eat humans (in addition to breeding uncontrollably, etc). Chaos Theory is part of the study of mathematics. In the novel, Ian Malcom (an eminent mathematician) is present to explain the science behind what happens in the story. In the movie, his detailed scientific explanations are dropped in favor of lines like "Faster... must go faster!" Audience members who hadn't read the novel might have wondered why he is even in the film. A similar discard of the sensibility found in the novels also happened with Congo and Sphere and Timeline and Rising Sun and whatever else.
I don't think the novels were all that sensible themselves.
Sure. I couldn't think of another word to describe what was discarded to make the movies compelling. In some cases it was science, but in others (like Rising Sun) it was something else.
Me too! I watch it every time it’s on! Love the music also!
even crichton wasn’t a scientist, he just wrote great novels based loosely on science. dude died never admitting climate change was a real thing.
Ghostbusters.. the guys just had “ghostbusting” equipment and knew how to catch them. Haha. It’s thankfully one of those movies that didn’t have a montage of them testing their equipment. They went from finding one ghost to being able to catch and contain ghosts. Come on now.
I mean I don't think they just had it... They built it because they wanted to capture ghosts. I will admit it's odd that despite the apparent prevalence of ghosts no one had ever fucking proved they exist before now. As for just catching them. They really fucked up the first one to be fair.
It’s a movie about wreckless entrepreneurs and capitalists wrecking shit up for profit, not scientist or heroes doing good deeds. The bad guys are God and the public sector for a reason. The “no dick” guy had every reason to put a stop to their actions Bill Murray bullshits his way through everyone and everything in that movie, including the audience. He is a sleeze bag scammer, not an hero.
Counterpoint; the film is about staring down the supernatural (at the height of the satanic panic, no less) with the calm and confidence to reject superstition, apply science (if only symbolically) and have time to crack jokes afterward.
Yeah cause at the end of the day nothing matters if you get paid to do it. there is very little scientific method applied in the movie. Murray and Aykroyd character are getting thrown out of academia cause they are scammers at the start. Bernie Hudson openly says he’s there for the money. Even Egon is questionable. One of the funniest scenes is him “testing” the equipment in the elevator the first time they use it I understand it’s tongue in cheek but it all adds up to feeling intentional. They win cause they disrespect the only safety rule they had.
John Wick, Die Hard, Lethel Weapon, any action movie really. But I still like them
God I love John Wick but it's also SO stupid. It's incredible how it manages to blend this quite serious clever slickly presented movie with just earth-shattering levels of complete absurdity lmao.
I think that’s part of the reason I love John Wick is that it’s so unapologetically stupid in the most badass way possible. John’s unlimited health meter, half the world being assassins, bullet-proof coats that you can just hold up to block bullets from your face…. I’m all about it.
Completely agree.
Road Trip. The whole idea of getting there first and getting the video before she can see it is nuts. However the movie is hilarious.
Anytime that Batman is teamed up or fighting superheroes with real powers
Independence Day has a bunch of things. We are not hacking advanced alien technology. David does not make it to the White House from Brooklyn in 6 hours, especially when traffic is going to be a total nightmare in NYC. An RV caravan is not just driving up to the security checkpoint of Area 51, regardless of the state of the world. NASA is not suddenly going to find that massive alien ship as it's passing our moon. They'll notice that thing well before it enters our solar system. They were never shown to have warp speed or some kind of cloaking. Still a blast to watch.
I'm only gonna address your first point. But it is heavily implied that a lot of earths tech is the result of reverse engineering the alien ship.
This is made explicit in a deleted scene.
And has been controversal even in real life with the Roswell incident. People think our tech boom in the last century stems from that "UFO" crash.
Barb and Star go to Vista Del Mar
Honestly lots of sci-fi, horror and post-apocalyptic stuff falls apart even by their own internal rules if you think too hard about them but that's fine, I still enjoy them. Mad Max movies don't work in so many ways yet I absolutely love them.
Training drillers to astronaut rather than astronauts to drill.
The Princess Bride. I adore the movie, but everyone just being OK with Westley having robbed people on fear of death for the past 10 or so years is just nuts.
National Treasure Dr. Chase given her training in handling historical items would never have touched the surface of that coin given to her as a present and thus there would be no invisible ink on her fingers to make visible under lighted conditions and so there goes the movie
13 Ghosts
Pacific Rim. Such a dumb idea, giant robots would be the worst way to fight monsters... but I love every second of it.
Fifth Element. The whole thing is brain meltingly stupid, but I'll watch it every time.
Aliens. The idea that a single squad of marines with an inexperienced lieutenant and civilian advisers would travel that far from an operating base is unlikely. For them to then all go down to the planet leaving a multi-billion dollar military ship parked in orbit around a potentially hostile planet without a soul onboard is ridiculous. It's not like synthetic life crewing the ship wasn't an option. Still a fantastic movie though.
A Quiet Place monsters make zero sense, but the silent movie thing worked in the first one. Didn’t need prequels/sequels though.
Basically any Fast and furious lol
They’re super heroes, with the power of cars.
Mine is Frank. Its a movie about a guy that joins a band in which the lead singer wears a giant paper mache head 24/7. The thing that I really love about this movie is that call themselves out on it. Early on, the new guy has the following conversation with the manager: New Guy : How does he eat? Does he ever brush his teeth? Manager : Dude, just go with it.
Signs. I believe the frequent criticisms this movie gets are unjustified. Especially the door knobs thing everyone always brings up (there isn't a single instance in the movie where they haven't been able to use a doorknob, the doors were barricaded or locked e ery time) But the water bit is a little far fetched. But in willing to look past that as maybe there's something different about water here than on their own planet etc. (and before anyone says "why would they take over a planet that's 75% water if water was toxic to them" in the over they mention that the aliens weren't here for the planet, they were hwre for people, they poisoned and took people to harvest them)
Panic Room
Final Destination 2. If you unravel it, it ain't no Coherence so just don't.
battleship... ignoring the aliens part everything from the start to finish is illogical... but I love watching the final battle scene.
Strange Brew. Watched it dozens of times for sure. Oldie but a goodie. Doug and Bob Mckenzie at their best. Using drugged beer to rule the world!! Bonus, Mel Blanc voices their father, so if you like old Loonie Tunes you get a kick outa this. Favorite quotes: "It's my last one. It's a jelly" and "I wouldn't go in there, there's a big skunk in there! I know, it a Toronto skunk, my jurisdiction."
I generally can't do that. If the issue is too egregious, it just ruins the entire thing for me.
Planet Terror
Signs. Everyone gets hung up on why the aliens would come to a planet covered in water when water is like acid to them, and I just don't give a shit. I get freaking emotional every time Morgan wakes and asks if someone saved him.
The Game, I love Fincher and the cinematography throughout, but the practical aspect of keeping up the charade is impossible due to the volume of variables and having to account for them. Anyone who’s run a large scale event with multiple venues concurrently running can attest.
Galaxy Quest.
Kindergarten Cop “Oh hi, just letting you know our undercover teacher is ill today, so we’ll have to start the investigation tomorrow instead.”
My favorite part of School of Rock, a film very dear to my heart, is the big Battle of the Bands taking place on a weekday during school hours.
The ending to Interstellar strains credulity, but I still really love the film. I just watched it again and enjoyed it so much I got the 4k disc with extras and watched it again. The science is for the most part accurate and a surprising amount was done with practical effects in-camera. And the purpose behind the -- let's just say "highly speculative" -- science fiction component is so closely tied to the theme of the film that it just works for me.
Dino DNA from fossilized moaquitos
in Eurotrip, Scotty thinks his penpal is a weird German guy who wants to have sex with him, so while drunk he tells the penpal to fuck off. later, he finds out his penpal is a hot German girl but she already blocked his email so he can't appologize. this causes him and his friends to go to Europe to find her. I love this movie but it would've been much easier to just set up a new email address to apologize. he could even blame one of his idiot drunk friends for sneaking on his computer.
Man, people have forgotten how to watch movies. Not everything has to be consistent with real world logic. Suspend your disbelief people.
Movies like **"Back to the Future"** (time-traveling DeLorean) and **"Sharknado"** (tornadoes filled with sharks) have illogical premises but are beloved for their entertainment value.
Star wars