Ask Lemmy

Entire plot lines hinging on people not explaining themselves which would take about 5 seconds.

I’m a software engineer, so basically anything involving software/hacking. It’s always inaccurate. (Because accurate hacking is incredibly boring.)

People driving while staring intently at their passenger for way too long.

Cutting the palm to spill blood. Typically followed by a huge battle scene where a gash in your palm isn't going to affect your sword play/battle prowess

Bad physics. Totally pulls me out of immersion.

No, Captain America cannot lean back and hold a helicopter that is lifting off. It doesn't matter how strong he is - he will be lifted once there is enough force generated from the propellers. Basically anything Batman does that involves gravity in the Nolan films is similar.

The magic I can get behind. The mutant stuff or dragons or even time travel in superhero movies doesn't bother me. It's the lack of sensible mechanics on an alleged Earth that I'm bothered by.

Injecting medications into necks.

Medical things are rarely accurate, but Jesus this one is absolutely infuriating. There's no anatomy in a neck that you could even inject anything INTO. You're not aiming for a jugular vein on the fly and there's not enough tissue in a neck to receive an intramuscular or subcutaneous injection. If your needle is too long, you're definitely hitting something critical. It's feasible that you could squirt medication into someone's trachea or esophagus or - god forbid - spine if you actually tried this nonsense.

Arms, people, ARMS. This is where we inject things into people who are not interested in receiving an injection. Arms or butts, right through the clothes. You're aiming for the deltoid muscle or the glutes. I'm even willing to concede the inaccuracy of a medication affecting someone instantly (they don't), if Hollywood would just stop having characters inject things into people's necks.

On our next episode of medical things that make me crazy: People getting shot through the shoulder with zero consequences.

Concussions. Especially when they are used as plot vehicles where someone is knocked out, and they wake up in a jail cell or whatever.

If you got hit THAT hard on the head that you're unconscious and unresponsive for hours? You are going to wake up dizzy, nauseated, and disoriented with a huge headache, loss of motor control, and a disorienting tinnitus. Possibly permanently. Your brain swelled up and cut off blood flow. You might look like a stroke victim. You will not wake up, rub your head, then pick a lock in a dark room and construct a bomb with a gum wrapper and a smoke detector battery. You will weep, vomit, and be unable to walk straight until you get real medical attention.

Some action stars get knocked out almost every episode. I think MacGyver would have been mentally incapacitated after just a few shows.

It really really bothers me when a character puts something down, and then walks away without picking it up, especially if they show them with it again later.

Something not so small that bothers me is when a victim is running from a bad guy or monster and then happens to knock them down, like with a baseball bat or something, and then they just take off running again. Fucking finish the job, you dumb ass! Hit him a few more times and he won't catch up to you again in 30 seconds when you unsurprisingly trip over your own feet.

When people and places that should be dirty are clean and kempt. Pirates on the seas should be dirty. Soldiers in the field should be dirty. Cowboys on a cattle drive should be dirty. Swamp cultists should be dirty. I appreciate realistically dirty characters. It distracts me every time when characters are clean and showered with their hair done on day three of being lost in the woods or some shit. It's one of the many things Our Flag Means Death nails. Even Stede gets grimy, because piracy is grimy work.

People always hang up the phone without saying goodbye or anything. I read that it's some time is money thing in film and TV but it just sounds like bullshit to me.

Lots of scenes with two parties exchanging gunfire, often with like full machine guns, no one's wearing ear protection, and they're always urgently yelling shit at some teammate standing right next to them.

Even though they're yelling, the only thing the dude you're talking to is going to hear is "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE" cuz his ears are now FUCKED.

Characters repeatedly "dying" but then surviving again. That's why I liked game of thrones so much when I first watched it

1890 beggars with ... Perfect teeth!

I work in the film business. Im one of the on set tech worker bees and the thing that annoys me most in movies is making them. What a shit industry. In the past +5 years of so, it has really gone down Hill. I'm an IATSE member and year after year these big studios have taken everything from us, refused to give reasonable raises, even if only to keep up with inflation, and the daily production demands get bigger and bigger, putting so much pressure on the crews. On top of all that, they brag about setting record profits every year while pretending to be shooting a huge film on a shoestring budget. I hate it and I've been trying to get into another industry but it's so hard. It's hard for me to enjoy movies anymore because I'm so resentful. I work on the big big stuff too so it's not like I'm getting screwed over my little indie shit stain prod cos. These are the jobs people dream of and it's not what you think it is and everyone hates it once they get here. It's not the work itself though, it's those you work for. Ignorant peanut counters and the precious shareholders ruin everything.

Characters needing to talk “privately” when in a location with others. The solution is always to take a few steps in one direction. They’re still clearly within easy hearing range of anyone who isn’t massively hard of hearing. Yet apparently the other characters in the room all just go temporarily deaf.

When hackers/IT people in a movie have a fully mobilzed datacetner/networking/rack gear they've seemingly configured in a matter of minutes or hours, not days or weeks. Forget stabilizing custom software, too. It just works. AND you can hack any protocol with it!

When hackers/IT people in a movie work in a room that has a bunch of server racks blinking away and it's not 90db of whirring fan noise. Datacenters are LOUD.

People obviously fake-playing musical instruments. Either get a double who can play it or have a pro spend a few hours a day with the actor for 2 weeks to get them to at least have the basics down enough to look somewhat convincing.

I'd laugh my ass off if an actor racked a slide, or pumped a shotgun, and it kicked out a round because it was already loaded.

Nobody in film seems to understand motorcycles. I'm tired of seeing sport bikes rumble like cruisers, Im tired of seeing 4-stroke bikes sounding like two-strokes, and people riding open-piped cruisers jn situations where they need to be quiet. There was that recent attempt at cashing in on Indiana Jones, set in the late 1940's, and someone is riding a bike with fuel injection, overhead valves, and disc brakes. I've seen it too many times where an "old bike" was needed and it's obvious someone bought a Softail off craigslist and expected that nobody would notice the difference between a ten year old bike and a 70 year old bike.

That every TV show and movie seems to re-use the same sound effects. Always takes me out of the story when I hear the same crying baby or fake “car clunking and breaking down” noises for the 1000th time.

inaccurate official subtitles

Lazy plot setups. Main example: if someone coughs for no reason in the first 10 minutes, they DEFINITELY have a terminal illness that will be revealed shortly.

I hate it when the whole thing revolves around the protagonist being young and they act emotionally stupid.

I know, I just hate stupid teen drama.

Why can't the main guy/gal be an emotionally smart person?

Breaking the "show, don't tell" rule. In a similar vein, exposition dumps bug me.

May not be "minor" but the whole trope about the kid knowing more than the adults in horror movies is very tired.

Sound in space.

Strange decisions with cinematography.

Fall of house Usher episode 1: Conversation between 2 people about a man we don't know is in a strange house. Next shot we have focused on a car pulling up and a slow reveal of someone leaving the car. But it's the same person as previous scene.

Just why? Why slow reveal the person in the scene just seconds before? We pull up to the house and don't focus on his face for his reaction OR the house itself for our own reaction. Instead we get the end of a car advertisment and some shoes.

Not only in movies, in series too. Fake coffee. People takes hot coffee in a disposable cup, never burn their hand, can drink it like water or says damn it's hot but the cup is empty, they never dropped a drop, never choke, never spill it, etc. They can drink it and talk at the same time, run with it, etc. I hate it.

When a single person is fighting multiple assailants but they still only attack one at a time while the others just stand there trying not to look odd while waiting for their turn.

Shoehorned romantic stories.
Just give me my damn movie.

Top Gun for example.

Badly performed CPR. Extra point if it's surprisingly/unrealistically/impossibly effective.

Treating mental conditions like you can simply come back from it.

Depending on how you interpret that, can refer to something like brain trauma (think of all the times people were knocked out) or something like someone's state of being (e.g. I'm probably the only one in the world who thinks Pokémon Horizons is rushing with how they treat Dot).

Useless damsels in distress.

The hero and villain are fighting 1-vs-1 and it's about evenly-matched, and the damsel just stands there. I'm like, "get in there and help! You might not be a great fighter but 2-vs-1 will make up for that!

Or they just scream. Useless!

There's a bad horror movie called Night of the Lepus, which is about giant killer bunny rabbits. I like the female lead because she doesn't just stand there and scream or be useless. No. She grabs a fucking shotgun and starts blasting bunnies.