Television / Movie 'mistakes' that amuse you?

[Doombot]

Here's my favorite.

There's a grainy image from a video camera or a reflection in the glass or a detail in a small area of a photograph.

The scene usually goes like this:

*Computer scans the image and shows a tiny image*

*Tiny square goes around the image and magnifies it so the image looks like a Atari 2600 on a big screen*

Someone asks the tech to magnify it or enhance the image.

They repeat the first two steps over and over until they get the crystal clear image they want.

I would LOVE such a button for my computer.

Worse is when they can model the surrounding area in 3d based on that picture.

[Sylvee Bee]

mmm, like on CSI when they look at a photo of a gal, and enchance a reflection they see in her eye!

I especially like early made internet movies - how easy it is for teenage kids to hack into government computers. Oh, you just type in this..and this...and tada! now we have complete access of all the military equipment in the world.

[Doombot]

mmm, like on CSI when they look at a photo of a gal, and enhance a reflection they see in her eye!

I especially like early made internet movies - how easy it is for teenage kids to hack into government computers. Oh, you just type in this..and this...and tada! now we have complete access of all the military equipment in the world.

YES!!!!

That also reminds me of another thing. Computers that are able to understand conversational English.

"Computer... assume murderer is a male and lives within a 10 block radius of the crime"

*Police Mug shot appears on screen*

[BlueCross]

Here's my favorite.

There's a grainy image from a video camera or a reflection in the glass or a detail in a small area of a photograph.

The scene usually goes like this:

*Computer scans the image and shows a tiny image*

*Tiny square goes around the image and magnifies it so the image looks like a Atari 2600 on a big screen*

Someone asks the tech to magnify it or enhance the image.

They repeat the first two steps over and over until they get the crystal clear image they want.

I would LOVE such a button for my computer.

Worse is when they can model the surrounding area in 3d based on that picture.

Huh?  But that's exactly how my web cam works.

In fact, I wanted to talk to you about that mole on your neck...

[Night Owl]

The worst computer thing EVER was Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum uploading a virus to an alien's computer in ID4.

Yea... setting up a 4 computer LAN game is a pain in the ass... but Goldblum's laptop just happened to be fully compatable with an alien race's technology... uh HUH.

[Doombot]

The worst computer thing EVER was Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum uploading a virus to an alien's computer in ID4.

Yea... setting up a 4 computer LAN game is a pain in the ass... but Goldblum's laptop just happened to be fully compatable with an alien race's technology... uh HUH.

LOL.

That's funny. I just finished watching The Fly and it had this leap of logic.

They (Geena Davis and Jeff Goldbulm) are making out in bed. Geena Davis's character goes: "Your flesh is making me crazy!"

Then Jeff goes and puts some steak though the teleporter. One of the slabs is a success... the other it tastes...

VERONICA
It tastes, synthetic. So what have we proved?

BRUNDLE
The computer is giving us it's interpretation of a steak.
It's translating it for us, it's re-thinking it rather than
reproducing it, and something's getting lost in the
translation.

VERONICA
Me. I'm lost.

BRUNDLE
The flesh. It should make the computer crazy, like those old
ladies pinching babies. But it doesn't, not yet. I haven't
tought it to be made crazy by the flesh, the poultry, the
steak. So I'm going to start teaching it now!

This makes teleportation possible.

[Petrarch]

Anything that deals with an invisible man/woman premise.

Far from being the ultimate spy or secret observer, they would in fact be totally blind since light wouldn't reflect off their retinas.

[Chucara]

That also reminds me of another thing. Computers that are able to understand conversational English.

"Computer... assume murderer is a male and lives within a 10 block radius of the crime"

*Police Mug shot appears on screen*

That isn't that far fetched in my opinion.. Vista voice recognition has come a long way, and I'd actually say that it was possible to do that today. At least to the extent where you have defined the semantics of the language the computer understands. So it won't be able to understand english, but it will respond to a limited set of commands in english.


Anyway, my own "mistake" is also computer related, but more general. I love how hacking tools always have a graphical user interface. - And how movies use custom mail clients, operating systems etc. instead of just using a regular one.

[Turjan]

Here's one - most movie cars you see from the front in closeup (so you can see the driver & passenger yakking away) has a driving mirror in it - it gets in the way of the shot. And yet often you see drivers in such a car appear to look at their non-existent mirror and say they can see a car following them.

[Loveshack]

Here's my favorite.

There's a grainy image from a video camera or a reflection in the glass or a detail in a small area of a photograph.

The scene usually goes like this:

*Computer scans the image and shows a tiny image*

*Tiny square goes around the image and magnifies it so the image looks like a Atari 2600 on a big screen*

Someone asks the tech to magnify it or enhance the image.

They repeat the first two steps over and over until they get the crystal clear image they want.

I would LOVE such a button for my computer.

Worse is when they can model the surrounding area in 3d based on that picture.

I will not stand idly by while you insult the awesome power of the E.S.P.E.R. machine from "Blade Runner".  It's a movie set in 2029.  It's perfectly plausible in a world of super powered clones and flying cars that you could get a crystal clear image of someone's face by scanning a photo where they are standing in a huge crowd in poor lighting and the only thing visible is the back of their head.

[Loveshack]

Yeah, computers in scifi movies are always funny in that they date the movie horribly.  ::coughcoughWar Gamescough2001::  Personally though, I love how, in the future, computers will loudly state whatever action they're doing after being given a verbal command.  (Star Trek rode a fine line because the computer would usually just make that chime sound if it was working properly.  You know, in those holodeck episodes where it didn't malfunction.  And not to go off on a rant here, but A. You have a room capable of creating selfaware computer programs that are able to kill you if they so choose.  This room frequently malfunctions in dangerous ways.  If you escaped one of these scenarios once, would you ever go back?  B.  Is there any doubt in anyone's mind what the holodeck would really be used for?  Worst job on the Enterprise?  Holodeck Janitor.

But I digress, this is a typical conversation with a computer from every scifi movie from 1985-1997.

Hero:  HAILBOB, scan for any hostile presence.
HAILBOB:  SCANNING FOR HOSTILE PRESENCE...
Hero:  HAILBOB, have you found anything?
HAILBOB:  SEARCHING DATA...
Hero:  HAILBOB, download the data to my wrist communicator...
HAILBOB: DOWNLOADING DATA TO WRIST COMMUNICATOR...

Now seriously, as annoying as the "blue screen of doom" is, can you honestly imagine how this would wear on your patience and sanity, especially when considering that the plots of movies featuring these machines usually involve some stressful situation like a killer something making short work of people.

Basically, you're perhaps hours away from being horribly slaughtered and how are you spending your last precious moments of life?  Playing what essentially amounts to a game of "I know what you are but what am I?" with a machine.  Welllcome to the Worrrllld of Tomorrrrrroooooowwww!!!

[Loveshack]

People who reach into their wallets and grab money to pay for things without ever actually looking at the money.  It's always the right bill.

The wise elderly cop who's mentored the main character is tagging along for one final bust two days before he retires.  If this happens during the first half hour of the film, you're not seeing this guy again.

I'm a fan of the stuff that continuity people miss or ignore that we're just supposed to pretend we don't notice.  I can think of some minor examples, but the worst one that comes to mind right now is a movie from the '80's with Melanie Griffith called Cherry 2000.  In it, there's a scene where a guy falls backwards from a car while holding a suitcase.  The suitcase flys open and the contents are scattered everywhere, (clothes and stuff that's kind of hard to ignore.)  The camera cuts to a closeup of this same scene and yet the suitcase is now closed and otherwise intact.  It would be easy to ignore if the suitcase had just popped open seconds earlier, but it sort of exploded like a laundry filled party popper and they left it in the film.  I had to rewind it just to make sure I saw it correctly.  it was like something out of an Ed Wood movie.

[Loveshack]

Anything that deals with an invisible man/woman premise.

Far from being the ultimate spy or secret observer, they would in fact be totally blind since light wouldn't reflect off their retinas.

The only one who ever gave that fact any thought was the progenitor of the concept, H.G. Wells.  When he wrote The Invisible Man, everything about the character was completely invisible except for his eyes, which were nearly invisible, but described as like a fine mist.  So people in the early 20th century got a story with more actual thought given to the plausibility of the events described therein in an era filled with medicinal quackery and misinformation, than those of us in the late 20th century.  We got Hollow Man.

[Hoopy Frood]

When typing on a computer, no one ever hits the space bar or delete key.

Any computer vital to the plot will always be on and running as a server at the exact moment the heroes need to access it. Evil villians are never smart enough to emply the most secure of all anti-cracking mechanisms (assuming the computer has to be connected to an externally visible network in the first place):  turning the damn thing off.

Computers never just stop working. All electronic/mechanical failures are accompanied by any combination of flashes, bangs, smoke, and explosions.

All computer processing and data transfers are done at the speed of plot. If the heroes' lives are not in danger or time is not important, any information transfers and/or processing occurs within matter of seconds. Otherwise, it will take up to a minute as the heroes fret about how long its taking.

All software and data is readable by all computers. Usually instantly after you put a disc in.

[The SysMan]

Enhance...
Enhance...
Enhance...
Enhance...

JUST PRINT THE DAMN THING!