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Author Topic: Nitpicks that Ruined Movies  (Read 138274 times)

Bohandas

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Re: Nitpicks that Ruined Movies
« Reply #915 on: September 15, 2015, 12:24:08 am »

That's actually not a problem. The basic assumption is that the "apocolypse" happens everywhere at the same time; this need not be true. I think the most reasonable situation is this:
<snipping the interesting stuff, I like it...>
I do! I like that.  It's a slightly-less-apocalyptic On The Beach scenario, whether or not that was part of your initial inspiration.  Slower burning, less "utterly doomed anyway" (at least from the radiation, compared to the more obvious possibility of irrevocable/irrecoverable societal breakdown) but obviously with problems.

Ok, on reading the synopsis of On the Beach I'd like to know if there's a reason why with that much advance warning they couldn't shore up their supply of fallout shelters and have time to move needed supplies into said shelters. This seems like the kind of thing where the damage could be minimized - not prevented but definitely minimized - with ample advance warning, which the people and nations of the book seem to have in spades. Have the protzgonists been explicitly turned away from government shelters due to lack pf room or supplies? Are lead and iodine being hoarded by profiteers?
« Last Edit: September 15, 2015, 12:26:46 am by Bohandas »
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Starver

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Re: Nitpicks that Ruined Movies
« Reply #916 on: September 15, 2015, 08:53:38 am »

...Why do they always forget that handbrakes exist? I mean, seriously; it's called an emergency brake for a reason.
That's assuming they (the perpetrators) haven't thought of that as well and critically damaged it.
(And is it called an Emergency Brake?  Apart from at the extremes of 'defensive driving' where locking wheels and a skid of varying degrees of control is required, like a handbrake turn, I'm pretty sure it's not actually intended to be used for anything other than firmly keeping stationary a currently stationary vehicle.  I'd call it a Handbrake, which is indeed ambiguous, but it's also called a Parking Brake.)


Damn, Starver, I read all that and all I could understand was "well maybe the brake malfunction wasn't immediate and didn't fail until the critical moment" but the rest just seems like a lot of trope gibberish that makes my eyes glaze over. Or maybe it's just late and I need to go to bed.
I wrote it at 3:30am, myself, which could part of it.  Although I don't actually see anything too bad (more than my usual).  Which thus only really condemns my common rambling style.

(It was indeed "maybe it wasn't an immediate malfunction", at its core, though.  The rest was, yes, rather trope-related, off the top of my head.)

Ok, on reading the synopsis of On the Beach I'd like to know if there's a reason why with that much advance warning they couldn't shore up their supply of fallout shelters and have time to move needed supplies into said shelters.
It's been a while since I read it (and I can't even remember if I've seen the dramatisations, thereof), but I think there was an attitude of "we just can't do enough".  Even if there's enough time to get all the crops in, that's probably a year's-worth of food (maybe less, I don't know if Australia is a net importer, and you'd want to discount those that have already started to be dosed with the leading edge of the fallout), with the added complications that it's all perishables that wouldn't last the generation (or more) of 'nuclear drought'.  Non-perishable stockpiles are probably not up to a quantity that they could support any significant amounts of the population, either, and no way to enhance them in the short time they have left.

The everyday folk of Melbourne (never mind Darwin) couldn't expect survival.  Whatever facilities have been/can be prepared for the 'deserving few'.

Of course, it's the tone of the book.  Not a triumph-over-tragedy, or survivor-against-all-odds1.  It was supposed to represent the "(if) not with a bang (then) with a wimper" argument for how nuclear war would end humanity.  The actual flipside of the Mad Max canon where there's various (conflicting!) attempts to rage, rage against the dying of the light and just keep things going (or get them going again, but in some strangely weird perversion or personal fantasy).  Arguably at points only just the other side of the psychological/psychopathical watershed.

Perhaps. ;)


1 As an example of this, see the pretty much 'It Does What It Says On The Tin' series of "The Survivalist" ... or at least see the plot synopsis in that article... although the last 'summary' paragraph does absolutely no justice to the whole Argentinian Nazis, Friendly Russians, Space Refugees, Suboceanic Colonies, etc, that result.  Safe to say, though, that the protagonist, his family and his lover live far longer than they might have ever done without a nuclear conflict.  And it reads very much like a conservative polygamist gun-nut's 'Mary Sue' story, as I recall.  But it was there in the library, so I read it. ;)
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Sergius

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Re: Nitpicks that Ruined Movies
« Reply #917 on: September 15, 2015, 09:38:25 am »

...Why do they always forget that handbrakes exist? I mean, seriously; it's called an emergency brake for a reason.
That's assuming they (the perpetrators) haven't thought of that as well and critically damaged it.
(And is it called an Emergency Brake?  Apart from at the extremes of 'defensive driving' where locking wheels and a skid of varying degrees of control is required, like a handbrake turn, I'm pretty sure it's not actually intended to be used for anything other than firmly keeping stationary a currently stationary vehicle.  I'd call it a Handbrake, which is indeed ambiguous, but it's also called a Parking Brake.)

All those names are used interchangeably. Handbrakes use the same plates, but some cable instead of hydraulics, so I suppose it also could be cut. In the case of a non-automatic car, or one that's parked in neutral, this could hilariously result in the previously parked car rolling off a hill as soon as it's cut tho. You'd probably need some really strong cutters tho, can't just saw it off with a knife.

Handbrakes are pretty weak and only lock 2 wheels, the best way to slow down is actually to downshift gradually. Still, better than nothing I guess.
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LordBaal

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Re: Nitpicks that Ruined Movies
« Reply #918 on: September 15, 2015, 09:44:14 am »

In some modern cars the pressure of the brake system is keep at check and any sharp drop would be warned of to the driver as the check brakes light. Also some automatic transmission cars require the driver to press the brakes in order to shift from Park to Drive or Reverse, which would result in the brakes failing at the very start of the drive. Given that a lot of people sternly ignore or simply don't check the warning lights on the board this might get them to crash onto the neighbour's car or being unable to avoid crushing your cat while backing up or some other mildly dangerous accident

I guess if you goal is to simply ruin somebody's day early you could accomplish that. If your mind is on murder you will fail, unless you have a grudge against that cat.

On the other side handbrakes are completely useless at halting an already moving car, depending on the size of the vehicle, the speed and other factors, on the best case you'll accomplish nothing, at the worst you end up without brakes and rolling around on all your axis on top of that (no that brakes would help you at that point anyway).

Your best choice is to have a manual transmission car, and slow you down by shifting gears down until you can simply bump onto something with a relative safe speed.
« Last Edit: September 15, 2015, 09:53:54 am by LordBaal »
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Sergius

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Re: Nitpicks that Ruined Movies
« Reply #919 on: September 16, 2015, 12:42:47 am »

^^^ This guy gets it. 8)

I remember once years ago that I drove all the way to work and thought the car was sluggish. Turns out I completely forgot to release the parking brake.

My current car however will barely budge if I try to move it with the handbrake on.

It's also automatic but you can limit it to 3rd, 2nd and L gears so I suppose I could downshift too. No idea what it would do with cut brakes.
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Starver

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Re: Nitpicks that Ruined Movies
« Reply #920 on: September 16, 2015, 08:18:06 am »

If you can stand a little tale from my real life...

When I was learning to drive (thus normally accompanied by either instructor or a parent, to fulfil the requirements of the provisional licence) I was the totally unnecessary 'chauffeur' to my mother as we went to conduct some business from a local blacksmith1 whose shop was down a short private road.  Just to get the practice in, really.  Whilst down there, and mother decamped to the premises, I (on my own, but off of the public road so it was legal) practised my three-point-turn.  It was a narrow lane, so it was difficult, but therefore good practice.  (And, I suspect, being lined by vegetation it was less risky on the bodywork than anywhere with brick or stone walls to potentially crash into... not that I was actually in the habit of doing that, but it was the family car...)

Now returns mother, into the freshly-rotated vehicle, and as we prepare to start off out again to the main road she reminds me to let off the parking brake.  Which (as you will have already realised - but I had not until that very moment) was still on from when I first parked up and disgorged my parental passenger.  But it explains why (as the novice driver I was) I'd had difficulty finding the clutch's biting-point and really had to use more revs.

(Being so low a speed, I probably didn't kick up much of a stink from the brake-pads.  Not so much as you'd get from holding oneself back on a steep hill, anyway, through normal braking at the end of a long drive on a hot day.  I sometimes worry about that.)

Which is not to say that I haven't sometimes had (a notch or two of) handbrake on, whilst driving, in later life.  At least for a few moments until I realised and corrected my error.



1 About as irrelevant a detail to this tale as you can get, but the memories are so strangely vivid...
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Rolan7

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Re: Nitpicks that Ruined Movies
« Reply #921 on: September 20, 2015, 07:55:42 pm »

A prisoner in this CSI-style show just choked out a guy with his ankle chains...  No twisting, and took him like 20 seconds.  Poor guy fell unconscious.

OH WAIT he's dead somehow.  This was treated as the obvious result of strangling someone with a thick chain.  Even though it was actually important that it took so long, so it's not like he crushed the guys windpipe.
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Bohandas

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Re: Nitpicks that Ruined Movies
« Reply #922 on: September 20, 2015, 08:48:58 pm »

This is actually for a computer game, but in Edna and Harvey: The Breakout
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Urist McScoopbeard

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Re: Nitpicks that Ruined Movies
« Reply #923 on: September 21, 2015, 12:05:02 am »

transitions that are wipes.
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Neonivek

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Re: Nitpicks that Ruined Movies
« Reply #924 on: September 21, 2015, 05:29:52 am »

When you're strangling someone, it has nothing to do with trying to prevent them to breathe. You're cutting off the circulation to their brain. 13 seconds is enough to knock someone out, with anything further rapidly entering death range. He didn't die because he couldn't breathe; he died because the blood flow to the brain was cut off for so damn long.

Assuming that is what happened... and usually it isn't. Often it really is just crushing someone's windpipe so they can't breathe as opposed to getting those two major arteries at the sides. EVEN then... while it is physically possible to survive 45 minutes in that condition (in ideal circumstances) it definitely takes more then 5 minutes before any damage is actually done.

HECK! the most likely cause of death in that situation is that the person's windpipe was crushed closed... since it is pretty tough to get at those arteries without trying.
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i2amroy

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Re: Nitpicks that Ruined Movies
« Reply #925 on: September 21, 2015, 06:40:55 pm »

Actually anyone who knows anything about strangling knows that you should be pushing on the sides of their neck (thus cutting off those arteries) rather than pushing on the windpipe. It renders people unconscious much, much faster than trying to crush their windpipe. (Which isn't to say that someone trying to strangle someone would necessarily know that, but I wouldn't put it beyond the knowledge of a murderer).
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Neonivek

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Re: Nitpicks that Ruined Movies
« Reply #926 on: September 21, 2015, 06:56:03 pm »

Actually anyone who knows anything about strangling knows that you should be pushing on the sides of their neck (thus cutting off those arteries) rather than pushing on the windpipe. It renders people unconscious much, much faster than trying to crush their windpipe. (Which isn't to say that someone trying to strangle someone would necessarily know that, but I wouldn't put it beyond the knowledge of a murderer).

Good thing you actually see this murder and thus you can judge for yourself what he was trying to do.
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10ebbor10

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Re: Nitpicks that Ruined Movies
« Reply #927 on: September 26, 2015, 04:04:23 pm »

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jaked122

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Re: Nitpicks that Ruined Movies
« Reply #928 on: September 26, 2015, 07:54:22 pm »

This thread started 3 years ago. The majority of criticisms seem to be about Avatar. None of them mention how it's Pocahontas in space.

Tell me how it isn't.
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Akura

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Re: Nitpicks that Ruined Movies
« Reply #929 on: September 26, 2015, 08:07:14 pm »

Generally, it's because it's Dances With Wolves in space, not Pocahontas.

In Pocahontas, the white-guy protagonist does not infiltrate the natives, to become part of the tribe. He just makes out with the chief's daughter.
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