BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter

Subject: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 06:02 AM

Small errors in films, books, &c ~~ do they matter? Or bother you?

Just one example to go on with ~ perhaps others will be provided. ITV's Poirot series based on Agatha Christie's stories, and starring the admirable David Suchet in that magnificently tongue-in-cheek yet convincing characterisation, took great pains, generally successfuly, to get the right period atmosphere with the clothes, hairstyles, art-deco dwellings of the wealthier characters, &c. But I was, perhaps inordinately, bugged in watching a repeat episode not long ago, to find that it featured LMS trains from the North bound for Kings Cross: when, as even a [old-enuf] fule kno, the LMS [London Midland Scottish] London termini were Euston or St Pancras, while Kings Cross was the terminus of the LNER [London and North-Eastern Railway].

Does it matter? Did it bother you (or would it have done if you had seen it)? While spending that much money, should they research everything really carefully, and avoid misleading, even if minor, historical boo-boos?

Or is it not worth even a second's attention?

What you think?

~Michael~

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: Leadfingers
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 06:22 AM

Always good for a giggle when something silly crops up - like Vapour trails in Westerns , and Roman Sodiers wearing wristwatches !

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 07:01 AM

Yes. It should be right.

There was an HTV Robin Hood in which his merrie men wearing loincloths dropped out of trees ambushing the sheriff's men to reveal underpants.

And the famous pylons in whichever the film of whichever Shakespeare it was.

I get very cross at cars that had not been built at the time!

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 07:06 AM

Was it an Urban Myth, or was there really a red lorry parked at the side during the chariot race in Ben Hur? If so, what a scream! I do hate it when film versions change the details of much-loved classics, eg Pride & Prejudice. Mr Darcy never did go swimming in his shirt sleeves and emerge dripping wet to greet Miss Bennett. (nice fantasy though)You're quite right, MtheGM, and I have to admit to having travelled as a girl up to Durham on the old LNER steam trains from King's Cross many a time with my parents. The noise of the steam escaping from about ten engines on all the platforms terrified me.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: nickp
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 07:18 AM

And on the same theme, the excellent Murder on the Orient Express at Christmas... I'm sure that was a BR Standard being used. Surely there's enough preserved continental locos in the UK?

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 07:22 AM

MtheGM has been reading up on Sneaky Questions?

John

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 07:24 AM

Railway scenes are almost always wrong but the usual punter doesn't seem to mind.
On the other hand how would they react to seeing a Morris Minor amongst the horse drawn cabs in a Sherlock Holmes film? It's the same magnitude of error.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 07:33 AM

It does matter to me that attention to detail be given as much as is possible for films or programs at the cinema or on tv. Unless it is complete fantasy like the recent new Clash of the Titans with the Ozzie accents which does sound slightly funny and then they put Pete Postewaite who does the best he can, acting really well, as he does. It is entertaining to see errors and outtakes but there are enough special programs that feature the mistakes already.

With books it all depends on if the reader wants something factually informative or just light-hearted reading not to be taken too seriously. Good spelling in reading books should be important to show good example especially to young people who might pick it up to read and think that it is the correct way. If it is copying a dialect I don't have a problem with that.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 08:07 AM

There is a confusing bit in A. S. Byatt's Possession, where she started writing a long excerpt from a diary, then forgot it was a diary entry and started writing about what was going to happen later, after the diary was supposed to have been written.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: Green Man
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 08:23 AM

I love them, continuity errors, blatant logic outpoints in adverts and I drive my missus nuts pointing them out. Mind you she ususally figures out who done wht in the thrillers we watch so its fair I guess.

They do matter, they add to the fun. :)

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 08:49 AM

Topsie: Yes, A S Byatt is another in my collection. In her Still Life, a young woman asks her university tutor when it is convenient to call on him, and he says he is available every day between 4·30 & 6 p.m. A few days, and a few chapters, later, she calls on him accordingly, & at the end of her interview he invites her to stay for lunch. I wondered if anyone else in the world had ever noticed this.

And in one of Elaine Feinstein's novels, Mother's Girl, the timeline is such that a girl who is 4 in 1938 is still at school at the time of the Hungarian revolution, when she would have been 22.

There is the famous incident in Lord Of The Flies when Piggy's spectacles are used to focus the sun's rays to light a fire, which, as he was short-sighted, they would not have done.

& so on...

~Michael~

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 09:00 AM

In Philip Larkin's novel, Jill, the young man meets her when she arrives at Oxford station and the description says she is wearing a hat. A few pages later he is thinking about why he finds her attractive, including the fact that she doesn't wear a hat.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: Will Fly
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 09:03 AM

Have you ever noticed in TV programmes like Poirot - where vintage cars/buses/lorries have been procured - they're always spotlessly clean - as if! No matter what the weather, no matter what the road conditions are. And never a dent or a speck of rust.

It's always interesting to recognise a location which is actually miles away from the spot in which the drama is supposed to be set. 'Foyle's War' - which I love to death - actually uses only a very few real locations in its Hastings setting. Foyle's house is one of them, but not much else.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 09:13 AM

One of the examples which has always annoyed me inordinately occurred right at the beginning of that famous 1981 tv adaptaton of Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited. It started with Captain Ryder saying "Good morning, Sergeant-Major" to a soldier wearing the insignia of a Colour-Sergeant. One can see how the error happened: three stripes on the upper arm are the insignia of a sergeant; the officer ranked major wears a crown on his shoulder. So the unaware might think that a crown above three stripes signify a sergeant-major; but not so: they are a colour-sergeant or staff-sergeant, depending on the regiment. A Company Sergeant-Major [which this one was supposed to be] wears a crown on his forearm.

Important? Well, they spent literally millions on this series, including the services, acc to the credits, of a military adviser; so what was he doing for his money, eh?

~Michael~

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: SINSULL
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 09:19 AM

The opening scenes of Shogun made me crazy. You can clearly see a helicopter's shadow on the water as it panned the ship. Every episode opened with a helicopter. ARGHHHH!

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 09:20 AM

In Foyle's War, the Honeysuckle Weeks character belongs to what appears to be an arm of the service which never existed. My sister actually was an ATS driver during WWii; and I am sure that there was never a single instance of one of them being seconded to drive a member of the civilian police.

Still, she looks lovely in that uniform, doesn't she?

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: Will Fly
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 10:04 AM

The whole ATS-to-Police thing in Foyle's War is, of course, ludicrous. And I love they way she's just able to hop back and forth between them when told to. And didn't Sgt. Milner recover quickly from having the bottom half on one leg amputated after the Norway disaster? He runs around like a good-un at times!

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 10:35 AM

Does the steam train travellng along the horizon in El Cid count as a small error?
Or the public hanging scene in Burke and Hare (Hammer version), when the cloak of one of the extras flapped open, revealing a folded copy of The Daily Mirror?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 10:49 AM

I love the bit in 'Charlie & Louise - Da Doppelte Löttchen' (1993 German remake of the original of 'The Parent Trap') where the girls are on the Jacobite Express heading over the Glenfinnan Viaduct. Not much point seeing they were headed to a language school north of Dingwall, so they'd just have to turn round at Mallaig.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 10:51 AM

They matter when they distract you from the story.

It's fun to read what IMDb.com has to say about any movie. I usually check it out after I have seen a film, to avoid reading anything that will spoil it for me. I especially like to read the "goofs" section, which contains comments by viewers who have noticed inconsistencies like the one you described.

It's definitely a mixed blessing to have the kind of knowledge that enables you to spot mistakes in a movie. I remember when I first became aware of this. In 1965, as a college student, I saw "Lord Jim" with a fellow student who had grown up in India, and had traveled extensively in Southeast Asia. A major plot point of the movie involves a ship loaded with Muslim pilgrims en route to Mecca. My friend whispered to me, "Those [extras] are Sikhs." He could tell by the way they dressed. Later in the film, he said "That's a Cambodian village." I think the locale was supposed to be Indonesia or Malaysia. Obviously, most American (and, I suppose, British) viewers wouldn't know the difference.

Here's one that bugged me: In "The Reader" reading and writing are important to the plot. We see several close-ups of printed text and handwriting. It is all in English, although the story takes place in Germany and it logically should be German. Now, this is just artistic convention; it shouldn't matter to us any more than the fact that the actors speak English. But once you accept a convention like this, you expect it to be applied consistently. So it bothered me when I saw a police car marked "POLIZEI."

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 10:58 AM

I always wondered why, in 'Auf Wiedersehn, Pet', all the Dusseldorf taxis and police cars had Hamburg licence plates.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: Dorothy Parshall
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 11:38 AM

Surely every inveterate reader has noticed that books are no longer edited for grammar, spelling or content. I have given up being bothered by it.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: Bert
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 11:52 AM

It's the architecture that gets me. How many times do you see elliptical and cycloidal arches in films that take place long before they were invented. Almost every film about Ancient Greece or Rome will have them.

These goofs bring you right back to reality and spoil the film completely.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: Ebbie
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 12:29 PM

Something that made me laugh when seeing the heavy movie 'The Towering Inferno': A closeup of Steve McQueen's face clearly showed - amidst all the soot and grime - his ear channel, completely clean.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: GUEST,999
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 12:56 PM

It`s used incorrectly really bothers me. That`s about it.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 03:07 PM

It depends. If the gaffe is really that noticeable that it pulls you out of your reverie, it is annoying. The occasional contrail in the sky probably not; Adidas shoes worn wit a toga, almost certainly. Current idiom used Victorian England, definitely.

Two series of books come to mind as poorly written:

John Jakes' Revolutionary War series of 35 years ago, which gave the reader (me anyway) no sense of time and place. I didn't even get through the first volume; I admit to liking the TV series of THE BASTARD slightly more, probably because of the visual aspect.

Another series under the umbrella title CHILDREN OF THE LION, covers the Book of Genesis, without any hint of religious impetus. Further, the events could have taken place yesterday, for all the description the authors (multiple authors writing as Peter Danielson)provide.

None of those books--and I think they had the same paperbck publisher--had the quality of writing as even TARZAN of the APES; Burroughs used a wonderfully large vocabulary, and wrote in complex sentences which keep the reader interested.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: gnu
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 03:54 PM

Ebbie... 'The Towering Inferno'... I watched the "original movie" in a structural engineering class at uni. The fire was started by loose aluminum wire fasteners on an air conditioning unit in an office tower (19th floor I seem to recall). It was horrific but totally accurate. One of my classmates vomited. Kinda sends the message home about what it means to wear an Iron Ring.

Does that movie start out with a shot of a helicopter flying along a river? and then change to a shot of the river valley from the chopper?

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: GUEST,kendall
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 07:22 PM

How about when the Truman balcony shows up in pictures of the White House when the time frame is pre Truman?
Or pictures of cap and ball rifles in revolutionary war scenes?
I also notice when a scene is say, 1932 and you see a 1938 car.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: josepp
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 08:02 PM

I remember a US movie called "Gung-Ho" where an American baseball team plays a Japanese team. With the score tied in the 9th, a batter on the American team hits an infield pop-up. As the Japanese shortstop camps it under ready to catch it, an American baserunner deliberately plows him over, circles 3rd base and scores. Hooray! The Americans win!! The problems is, of course, that the baseball rulebook clearly states that a runner cannot touch an infielder in the act of making a play or the runner is out. Even if the fielder backs into him as he's running and he tries his best to avoid him, doesn't matter. The runner is out. Yet nobody on either team seems to know this rule. Without that rule, baseball would look like hockey. Real umpires must have been watching that yelling, "WHAT?????" Not to mention that the Japanese actors in the movie spoke very slow Japanese with an accent!! Imagine watching a foreign movie where the English guy can barely put two English words together and even then you can barely understand his very un-English accent.

In some made-for-TV movie, these people in 1870s America are at a political speech and a band starts playing a strain of Joplin's "The Entertainer" which wasn't published until 1902.

In "The Titanic" you can see the ocean and the ship perfectly well at night. Trust me, out of the ocean, you can hardly see your hand in front of your face even with the moon out. You can't see it at all when the moon isn't out. There's no way you can see that much on the ocean at night as in the movie.

Likewise, why do they always show people crawling through ventilator shafts that:

a) Are shiny aluminum on the inside when within a week they are covered with thick black dust that feels like greasy fur.

b) You can see where you're going when you can't see shit even if you had a flashlight because everything is black.

c) They never encounter a ventilation fan motor in their way nor does a fan ever seem to kick on while they are crawling around in there.

d) What ordinary building has ducts big enough to crawl around in? The ones I crawled around in were for ventilating a big boilerroom on a ship that had to suck out a large volume of hot air on a continuous basis so the space wouldn't get too hot for human habitation. No ordinary building would have anything like that and it wouldn't take the weight of a human being inside it either.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: mousethief
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 08:20 PM

It rather ruins the moment for me if I am caught up in a movie and something jarring occurs that knocks me out of the "willing suspension of disbelief" and makes me think about the movie as an artifact, rather than the story it's telling. It's hard to get back into it after that point.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 10:48 PM

Agreed, mousethief ~~ indeed, it was the disproportionate [?] effect that so often occurs that inspired me to open this thread in the first place.

Another thing that bugged me watching the Poirot repeats ~~ one of them opened with a newsreel with sound, supposedly in 1926.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: frogprince
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 11:21 PM

One that just made me smile a bit, rather than really bothering me: "Gunsmoke" was set just after the civil war. One of the older actresses, cast as a toothless, feisty old female recluse, came riding across the prarie in her buckboard singing "Strawberry Roan".
On the off chance that anyone here doesn't know, Curley Fletcher wrote "Strawberry Roan", probably just as a poem originally, in or about 1913.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: mousethief
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 11:40 PM

What about "Sweet Betsy from Pike"?

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: Little Hawk
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 11:41 PM

The Japanese planes in "Tora Tora Tora" were meant to look like Zeros (fighters), Vals (dive bombers), and Kates (torpedo and level bombers). Since there was not a single genuine Kate or Val left in the world in flying condition, and only maybe one early model Zero around that could still fly...the movie company understandably had to come up with something else, so they modified a large number of common American training planes to look like these 3 WWII Japanese planes...and they did a fairly good job at it. The Vals looked particularly good, the Kates not too bad (though a bit too small and chunky), and the Zeros not too bad...until you noticed their wings which were totally the wrong shape when seen from above or below! Also, their landing gear were much too short and stubby. Other than that, the movie company went to great efforts to make an accurate historical movie.

One can hardly blame them for using the training planes. They had to do scenes involving large formations of Japanese aircraft, both on the carrier decks and in the air, and they didn't have CGI in those days, so they did the very best they could with modified training planes, and most of the public wouldn't know the difference anyway.

But if you knew the original planes well, as I and other hobby and aviation enthusiasts do...then it was kind of frustrating seeing those inaccuracies in the aircraft. As for the American planes, they did a fine job with that. All in all, it was a pretty accurate and authentic depiction of the Pearl Harbour raid.

The more recent film, "Pearl Harbour", was full of CGI planes that flew impossible aerobatics but looked perfect (other than a few cases of incorrect camouflage on the early Zeroes). On the other hand, every single other thing about that movie outside of the special effects SUCKED!!! Terrible script. Dreadful acting. Laughable dialogue. Wretched drama. I'll take "Tora Tora Tora" any time, even with its not-quite-authentic Japanese aircraft.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: josepp
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 11:46 PM

I was watching NCIS at someone's house last Sunday and they're inside a Navy sub looking for an enemy agent. Biggest damn sub I ever saw. A real sub is so cramped and tiny that a 6'4" 220 lb guy is going to have trouble finding anywhere to stand fully erect or lay down and stretch out and if you walk towards one another in a passageway, one of you will have to get out of the passageway because there isn't enough room to sidle past each other. I mean, it's cramped! A regular ship is cramped as hell but that's nothing compared to a sub. But on this NCIS episode, they miraculously had all kinds of room. They tried to make it look cramped but it was actually still far more spacious than a real sub.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: frogprince
Date: 11 Feb 11 - 12:03 AM

Josepp, are you familiar at all with anything like the nuclear Polaris class subs? I didn't see the NCIS episode, but the Polaris subs were markedly more spacious than earlier "conventionals".

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: josepp
Date: 11 Feb 11 - 12:12 AM

No, they're not. When a sub is made bigger, the crew still gets the same amount of room as before and it is always minimal--no more than absolutely necessary. Military ships aren't built for comfort. Comfort costs money. Unless you absolutely need it, you ain't gettin' it.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: mousethief
Date: 11 Feb 11 - 12:18 AM

Although when I was in the NROTC I remember tying up alongside a carrier, and being absolutely floored that the ladders were at a 45º angle! They were staircases!

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: Joe Offer
Date: 11 Feb 11 - 01:13 AM

I guess I'll always remember the German crime novel ('Krimi') that made mention of the salt water of Lake Michigan.

I enjoy the books of Chicago Catholic priest/novelist Andrew Greeley....BUT he has very poor proofreading and a few deus ex machina plot resolutions that really bother me. Also, he has a nasty habit of mentioning electronic equipment by brand name, almost as if he had been paid product placement fees. I really don't care what brand of computer the heroine uses....

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 11 Feb 11 - 01:48 AM

Regarding a few comments above about scenes that should be completely black in which the actors (and often the viewers) see "too well," it might be noted that for some time many "dark of night" scenes have been shot in broad daylight, using an infrared or similar "dark" filter on the camera.

One photographer explained the popularity of the method as "most professional actors are so incredibly clumsy they'd kill themselves floundering around in actual darkness."

One might suspect that it's also handy for the crews working the scene to be able to see ... maybe. The real incentive probably is to get the work done without waiting for "the right light" - or the right lack of same.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: GUEST,Donal
Date: 11 Feb 11 - 02:03 AM

Joe, you are being unduly generous to Fr. Andrew Greeley, his proofreading is not poor, it's
atrocious, I gave up reading his books some years ago because of all the mistakes, and for someone
who apparently visited Ireland regularly he seemed to see it as it was about two or three generations
ago. An extraordinary proportion of the people seem to speak Gaelic, even in Dublin. His
characters always seemed to fly from the US to Ireland via London instead of going direct to Shannon
or Dublin, and even though they were only in transit they often had some sort of a run-in with
British Customs or Immigration. I could go on, but what's the point.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: Joe Offer
Date: 11 Feb 11 - 02:46 AM

Ah, Donal, but Greeley's stories are fun, and they're quick reads. And every now and then, he offers some good insights. Priestly Sins offered good, honest insights into the child molestation problem. In Greeley's Nuala Anne McGrail books, the characters seem to fly from Chicago direct to Shannon or Dublin. Greeley's main characters, Blackie Ryan and Nuala Anne McGrail, are quite engaging, albeit sometimes a bit too good to be true.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 11 Feb 11 - 04:16 AM

"What about "Sweet Betsy from Pike"?" ==

Well, what about it, mousethief?

Josepp on subs reminds me of the old [1941?] film of How Green Was My Valley ~~ the Welsh miner's cottage with a living room as big as the one you'd find in a Park Lane house or a 5th Avenue apartment!

~Michael~

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 11 Feb 11 - 04:34 AM

One of the worst films that I ever saw was 'Educating Rita' with Michael Caine and Julie Walters. The Walters character (Rita), in the film, was supposed to be doing an Open University degree. I happened to be in the middle of an OU degree course when I saw the film and the fictional course bore no resemblance, whatsoever, to the reality. Although the standard of teaching that I received was generally excellent the idea that a student would have regular one-to-one tuition from her tutor, in his private office, was utterly ridiculous!

The acting in the film was OK but the script was 'make-it-up-as-you-go-along' rubbish. I lost the will to live when Rita's 'working class' family had a hearty 'singaround' in the pub - a scene that, if it ever existed at all, was straight out of the 1930s.

Finally, the setting - which was supposed to be a northern English industrial city - bugged me. It didn't look like any English city that I knew. Eventually I learned that the film was shot in Dublin - which looks like the capital of Ireland (and a fine capital city it is) - not Liverpool or Manchester!

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: JennieG
Date: 11 Feb 11 - 06:19 AM

The Hercule Poirot series is currently being re-run here and I don't think it is up to the usual standard of such programs - a few too many errors that really annoy me. One is the speech of the characters, in several instances they use idioms which seem out-of-character - an upper-crust person using a slang expression, for example. Now while upper crust folks have no doubt gone slumming from time to time and picked up the lingo, it's when it is used by an unlikely character.....say, an elderly lady......that it doesn't ring true.

Cheers
JennieG

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: GUEST,PeterC
Date: 11 Feb 11 - 06:34 AM

I quite enjoy looking for anachronisms and other errors in films, particularly architecture that is wrong for the supposed location.

I believe that aircraft in most war films are later models as there are seldom surviving examples of the actual combat aircraft. Not being an aircraft buff I don't notice that.

In first of the revived Doctor Who shows the Doctor and Rose are shown running over Westminster Bridge with night buses running past. Rose phones her mother who is shopping.

Also in Doctor Who the "London" street scenes are often shot around Cardiff and the architecture is just wrong.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 11 Feb 11 - 09:55 AM

There was always 'Hamish Macbeth' where they all stood waving goodbye to characters driving away through Plockton, oblivious to the fact that at the top of Harbour Street they'd have to turn round and come all the way back down again.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: jacqui.c
Date: 11 Feb 11 - 10:36 AM

I never seem to pick up on the mistakes - get too caught up in the stories.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: mousethief
Date: 11 Feb 11 - 11:09 AM

"What about "Sweet Betsy from Pike"?" ==

Well, what about it, mousethief?

Is it old enough that she could have been singing it in that movie?

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: GUEST,Songbob
Date: 11 Feb 11 - 01:11 PM

"A Hard Day's Night:"

The boys are on a train, and an upper-class, stodgy businessman-type enters their compartment. After some interaction, the boys leave, and then are seen, running along beside the train, tapping on the window and shouting, "May we have our ball back, please?"

And the train is going the other way from when they just left the compartment. Not to mention that the windows would be far higher than the roadbed, making tapping on them rather difficult. And further not to mention that a train running so slowly that boisterous young men could keep up with it and tap on the (too-high) windows would be as slow as the infamous "Dummy Line" of song.

Other'n that, a good film. I'm sure there were other goofs, too -- I just didn't notice them.

But, to answer your question, this did not detract from this particular film.

Bob

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: GUEST,kendall
Date: 11 Feb 11 - 01:41 PM

What about pictures of the TITANIC that show smoke coming out of the aft most stack? That was a dummy made to make her look bigger than she was. It was actually an engine room vent.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: MikeL2
Date: 11 Feb 11 - 02:30 PM

Hi

We watch Foyle's War and laugh at the inaccuracies. Like Will we too wondered where Milner received his miracle treatment that enables him to walk ( and occasionally run) since he lost part of his leg. In the forties !!!!

I also cringe at many period films that contain current word usage and phraseology. Absolutely is one overused word in such films.

I also read a lot and I find that nowadays there are many typing and spelling errors creeping into the texts. I suspect that computers and word-processing have much to do with it.

Cheers

Mikel2

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: Donuel
Date: 11 Feb 11 - 02:34 PM

To certain kinds of people it matters foremost.

I once wrote a truely profound insight of great importence but the only comment was of a spelling error.

To **** all she saw was a fly in the pudding, so it was all inedible.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: Slag
Date: 11 Feb 11 - 07:15 PM

Getting it right is what it is all about whether fiction or fact. In a work of finction, the setting, the historicity, the details all serve to draw the reader/viewer into the created reality of the piece. When a detail is wrong it defeats the author's purpose and jars you the reader out of that reality. If the work is good and tight in all other aspects one can generally find their way back in with a little suspension of disbelief. If I can't do that, I'm finished. I can't read or watch any more of it.

Right now I am reading Tragedy & Hope: A History of the World in Our Time by Carroll Quiggley, which my son gave me as a gift. Well, it's not really a history. It's an opinion piece made to look like history. It is indexed but saddly lacking in footnotes and corraborating evidence. Some of it is heresay, some purported inside information and much of it is fact which tends to provide camoflage for the opinions. Some of it is self contradictory within a page or two of previous statements. I am annotating the margins for my son's sake as he expressed a desire to read it himself. Ever the father, that's me. I hope he appreciates it.

But YES! Those details matter. In films and other visual productions that is the job of the "Best Boy". It is his to make sure that all the props are in exactly the same place between takes which may be months apart. Sometimes I watch for shadow variations or ships passing by in a harbor shot, things which the film crew has little or no control over. I'm no fun to watch a movie with!!

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: Andy Jackson
Date: 11 Feb 11 - 07:34 PM

Just to drag it back to Folk for a bit...
The scene in, I think a Miss Marple, where the cops chase a car along the esplanade at Sidmouth around the corner at the Ham and then emerge in the next shot in open countryside. All done with mirrors you know.
As to clean cars referred to earlier I like to think that those cars were probably new at the time and cherished much like the modern owner with fancy tin boxes, of course they were gleaming!

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: mousethief
Date: 11 Feb 11 - 08:12 PM

I watched a movie about something (crime? footware? donut makers? I forget) set in Chicago. A longish scene involves people running along the top of the "el" trains. If you had ever ridden the various train lines in Chicago you would know that they were heading north on the red/green line one second, then west on the blue the next, then south on the ....

It was hilarious. Ruined the movie for me, but had a lot of fun laughing at the impossible scenery changes. I mean, why? How hard could it have been to make that scene work right geographically?

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: HuwG
Date: 11 Feb 11 - 08:38 PM

Knowing a locale can sometimes spoil things. In Rebecca's Daughters, a film I love and which is set and shot in South Wales, Anthony Raine (played by Paul Rhys) and Rhiannon, daughter of Lord Sarn (played by the ever lovely Joely Richardson) go for a ride on horseback. Between two shots, they gallop from the seashore near St. Donat's Head to the feet of the Brecon Beacons, a distance of over 20 miles.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: GUEST,Alan Whittle
Date: 11 Feb 11 - 10:56 PM

I worked with a guy who reckoned he had been one of the moving trees in Birnam Wood in the Tynan/Polanski Macbeth film.

Anyway he reckoned one day, all the trees got a banana in their pack lunch - so they hung the banana skins on the trees so they would be able to see themselves when the film came out.

However I looked carefully through the film and I can't see it.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: Genie
Date: 12 Feb 11 - 09:52 AM

Why is that in mysteries/suspense movies, nobody ever hears anyone sneaking up on them, and nobody ever smells dead bodies before seeing them?    The characters walk, even run, through buildings surreptitiously without others in the area hearing them, and people will walk right up to, and stumble over, a long-dead corpse, with apparently no clues beforehand that there's any decaying matter about.

"Titanic" was full of unbelievable things. E.g., Kate Winslett running through frigid sea water up to her middle, in a sheer gown for 15 min or more, with her muscles & joints apparently not affected by the icy water, then staying alive on top of a floating piece of wood for well over an hour. This in the same movie where Leo DiCaprio, earlier in the film, dissuades her from considering jumping off the ship by pointing out that you'd be dead in about 4 min. if you were in that water.

It's distracting to me when movie characters use verbal idoms that are blatantly out of place for the time. E.g., idioms that were spawned by technological developments - e.g., "turned on," "tuned in," etc. - that occurred much later than the period of the film.

And a LOT of songs are used in movies that are set in times long before those songs were composed or generally known.

TV westerns of the 1960s and 1970s often had the characters wearing hairstyles of those decades, though set in the late 19th or early 20th C.

How about all the spare time - not to mention privacy - that medical interns and residents always seem to have on TV doctor shows to "get it on" in the supplies closets?

Thelma and Louise make the cop get into the trunk of his police car and try to leave the audience with the impression that he will be OK, when he is eventually found by someone after who knows how long in the hot desert sun inside that 'oven', because they have shot a few "air holes" into the trunk.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 12 Feb 11 - 10:02 AM

Dr Who running along with night buses while Rose's mother is shopping - surely not a problem for a Time Lord.

I'm surprised the Archers haven't surfaced in this thread yet ...
When Caroline and Oliver got engaged he surprised her by giving her an engagement ring which fitted perfectly. When she asked him how he knew what size to get, he said he had borrowed a ring from her dressing table. So are all Caroline's fingers exactly the same size? Unlikely.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 12 Feb 11 - 10:12 AM

Isn't it amazing that there is always a derestricted parking space right outside the city centre building which the character who has just driven up is about to enter!

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 12 Feb 11 - 10:26 AM

Of course nobody hears people sneaking up on them in films. The sounds of footsteps are drowned out by the 'atmospheric' music.

And it's not just in Westerns that sixties fashions ruled. The hair and makeup in Far From the Madding Crowd were pure sixties.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: mousethief
Date: 12 Feb 11 - 11:22 AM

Isn't it amazing that there is always a derestricted parking space right outside the city centre building which the character who has just driven up is about to enter!

There was one scene I remember from the cheesy old Batman TV show where they pull up in the Batmobile outside City Hall, and Robin is about to go running into the building when Batman stops him and says they must first feed the meter because they are good and law-abiding citizens. Pure camp.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: Will Fly
Date: 12 Feb 11 - 02:30 PM

As to clean cars referred to earlier I like to think that those cars were probably new at the time and cherished much like the modern owner with fancy tin boxes, of course they were gleaming!

Mmmm... so after a 20-mile car chase through muddy country roads, my car would be spanking clean, eh? :-)

The luckiest driver in the world, as far as being able to park exactly where he needs to, is Morse - in Oxford. Ho ho ho. As if.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: mousethief
Date: 12 Feb 11 - 02:36 PM

Also people who wake up in bed after a long night's rumpy-pumpy and (one presumes some) sleep, and their hair is perfect.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: kendall
Date: 12 Feb 11 - 02:51 PM

How about those two pirates in Pirates of the Caribbean who sailed a brig from Jamaica to Tortuga? Talk about multi tasking.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: kendall
Date: 12 Feb 11 - 02:52 PM

Now, a question, Why the hell do we care?

One of our tv stations insist on announcing the weather...We've got you covered! I asked them if they know the difference but no reply.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 12 Feb 11 - 02:55 PM

And those women with perfect makeup after several days in the jungle.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 12 Feb 11 - 03:04 PM

I don't think Pirates of the Caribbean was meant to be realistic.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: mousethief
Date: 12 Feb 11 - 03:19 PM

Now, a question, Why the hell do we care?

Because it's a fun thread topic and we got tired of kicking the dog?

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: Bert
Date: 12 Feb 11 - 03:20 PM

josepp, Yes the ducts they are always wrong.

In a large building they can be up to six feet square at first, but when they get to the individual rooms they are very small. I've built some that were 4 inches by 3 inches.

Hardly big enought to crawl through.

Then on the inside they are joined together by sharp sheet metal screws that are screwed in from the outside leaving their sharp points pointing inwards. So if you ever got one to crawl through you'd get torn to pieces at every joint.

----------

Then there's the welding or burning (oxy-acetylene cutting) it is always wrong. In The Full Monty they showed someone arc welding and commented that the gas mixture was all wrong. There is just the possibility that they were trying to make the character seem ignorant but I don't really believe that.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: Dorothy Parshall
Date: 12 Feb 11 - 03:32 PM

Geez! Just when I was wondering, like Kendall, why anyone cares!! But I don't even have a dog to kick and the darn worms don't even talk back. (In my new worm composter.)

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 12 Feb 11 - 03:52 PM

I'd like to see a scene in a comedy movie where they would spoof the crawling-through-the-ventilation-duct cliché.

First the bad guys would hear the loud rumble of the sheet metal flexing and bending under the weight of the crawler. They would also hear coughing and sneezing. Of course the intruder would be lost, since there are no signs saying, "This way to the secret laboratory." The hero's path would take him right over the table where the bad guys are playing poker. They look up in amazement at the sound. They draw their guns and take aim at the noisy bulge in the ductwork. Then the supports give way and all the ductwork collapses onto the floor.

Did I actually see a scene like that, or did I just imagine it? I am picturing Mike Myers as Austin Powers.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: Bert
Date: 12 Feb 11 - 03:53 PM

We care because it brings us right back into our living rooms staring at the television and spoils the movie magic.

They might just as well have shown televisions in Ancient Greece.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 12 Feb 11 - 04:14 PM

I also cringe at many period films that contain current word usage and phraseology. Absolutely is one overused word in such films. MikeL2···

Not a very good example, MikeL, tho I agree with general point about later vocab ~~ like Craig greeting Bentley at beginning of Let Him Have It, about famous 1950s murder, "You've been keeping a very low profile lately" ~~ a computing-based usage no older than the 60s at earliest. But 'absolutely' I can recall for the whole of my long life ~ a fave word of my dear Aunt Lille, who used to call people "Poppet" right back in the 30s ~~ absolutely!!.

In the film of Fredric Raphael's The Glittering Prizes, Tom Conti & friends cycle wrong way along Trinity Street, Cambridge, which is a one-way street.

And Chariots Of Fire, film about 1924 Olympics, opened with a screen caption saying "Caius College, Cambridge" over a shot of the gate of Trinity Hall.

~Michael~

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: Micca
Date: 12 Feb 11 - 04:24 PM

Jim Dixon, Re:-Ducting,its been done a bit, see the Abrams, Zucker Bros(the Guys who gave you Airplane) Movie "Top Secret" That spoofs Elvis films and Spy films, for more info try Here

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: josepp
Date: 12 Feb 11 - 08:27 PM

The boot camp sequence in "Stripes" was laughable. I don't know what military those guys went to but it wasn't the U.S. I especially thought it was funny when the CC (company commander) has everybody in the company (about 6 guys when there would be more like 60) taking turns talking about themselves and what they were looking for in the Army and all this boyscout shit.

Your CC doesn't give a rat's rotting asshole about where you come from or what you're hoping to get out of your experience and if you tried talking about it, he'd scream right in your face "SHUT THE FUCK UP, ASSHOLE!!!" The whole idea of bootcamp is to strip your of every vestige of your former civilian life and transition you to a soldier of a sailor or a marine. They shave your hair off, take away your civilian clothes, and everything you need to have they will give you--towels, soap, toothpaste, sewing kit, uniforms, dental/medical checkups. You might as well bring nothing with you other than the clothes on your back because they won't let you have it anyway. You have to learn to march, to carry a piece, to recognize rank symbols, to know your chain of command, to say "yes, sir" and "no, sir." You don't have time to talk about where you came from and what your buddies called you and they won't give you that time. That part of your life is over and you ain't gonna dwell on it.

Full Metal Jacket was a bit more realistic. In fact, the barracks and everything was just like how it really looks. Getting woke up in the morning was like that too. And when they wake you up--you better get your ass out of that rack right the hell now. Don't keep laying there. They don't like that. At all.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 13 Feb 11 - 03:58 AM

Well, I've just read a very sloppily proofread Clive Cussler book: "partisan" for "partition", several other spelling & factual errors (ignoring the pseudoscience of the plot) the worst being "The Algentinians call the Falkland Islands the Maldives" ! Even in a formulaic potboiler like his such errors do irritate.

RtS

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 13 Feb 11 - 05:14 AM

Nowadays publishers quite often send books to India for copy-editing - much cheaper but you get some curious results.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: GUEST,PeterC
Date: 13 Feb 11 - 05:35 AM

Knowing a locale can sometimes spoil things.

Early episodes of The Bill was filmed near the office where I was then working in the East End.

To film a conversation in between driver and passenger in a car they shoot all of one side then all of the other and edit them together. The driver was driving along The Highway towards The City and the passenger was travelling up Cable Street towards Limehouse.

Never watch Morse too closely if you know Oxford. He regularly drove off in the opposite direction to wherever he was supposed to be going.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 13 Feb 11 - 05:46 AM

Sometimes the whole film is excruciatingly wrong. I'm thinking of a ghastly version of Mansfield Park, with Billie Piper as Fanny Price. The whole point of the book is the timidity and submissivness of Fanny, and her consequent suffering by bullying and selfishness. In the film, she's a hoyden, feisty, sexy and bold. I was amazed and disgusted. Also, the recent 'Marple' series blatantly changes the story beyond recognition. I do feel that Jane Austin and Agatha Christie can't really be 'improved' upon like this!

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: GUEST,kendall
Date: 13 Feb 11 - 08:33 AM

Crabapple Cove doesn't exist. Cabot Cove doesn't exist.
Suck it up.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: mauvepink
Date: 13 Feb 11 - 08:34 AM

Iinternet Movie DataBase (IMDb) had lists of gaffs for most films

I find some really annoying. Almost like they are treating the potential audience as not intelligent enough to notice when something glaringly wrong is done. I like aviation films, as an example, and they are often so full of holes. They really rattle me sometimes! lol

B727 (3 jet engines, rear mounted) takes off, a B747 in flight (4 wing mounted jet engines) and B767 landing (two wing mounted jets). B747-400 shown from the outside and crew of three (including a flight engineer) in the cockpit. B747-400's have a two crew cockpit (as do most modern generation aircraft). The amount of twin jet engined helicopters that have single piston engined Bell 47 sound when flying or on the ground is quite remarkable. And the real major annoyance are the jets that are diving toward the ground complete with the sound of a single piston engined fighter type diving. Cockpits are always massive and have loads of space. In fact most cockpits are quite cramped because there is no money to be made from the space being used for the poor pilots. Very few aviation films have kept my respect for good efforts. For me it is poor attentiuon to detail and an insult to the audience. They spend millions on films, I doubt it would be any more expensive to dub authentic sounds rather the sound archive ones that get used. Obviously I am touchy on this as it an area of interest I have. I am sure many notice it on many other topics.

The Airplane parodies are not short of material from the true aviation films to be able to mock. I think there is less excuse for such glaring errors these days than there were in the past. The technology now is so good they can make things accurate.

I'll shush now ;-)

mp

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: GUEST,PeterC
Date: 13 Feb 11 - 11:56 AM

Crabapple Cove doesn't exist.
You mean M.A.S.H. was fiction????

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 13 Feb 11 - 12:17 PM

I particularly despise TV and cinematic 'Sci-Fi'. As a lad I was obsessed with (written) Science Fiction (which was abbreviated to 'SF' - never 'Sci-Fi'!). I suppose that I was (and still am - to a certain extent) a bit of a nerd. But written SF was stirring and fascinating and left me with an understanding of the human race's place in the Universe. In addition most SF writers were capable of thinking their creations through.

In the visual media, though, the writers seem completely and utterly incapable of thinking anything through! Most of their work appears to be soap opera with undigested and misunderstood SF tropes stuck on with wall paper paste. It's also glaringly obvious that the writers know absolutely NOTHING about science. Any science content in their creations seems to have been gleaned from the 'News of the World' Science column ("Elvis clone found in wormhole!"). Most of them haven't got a clue about interstellar distances and don't seem to know the difference between a planet and a star.

An example of not thinking things through is in Spielberg's 'War of the Worlds'. Why did the aliens bury their war machines and then wait for centuries, until humans had evolved, and only then invade?
Another example is 'Alien'. This was supposed to be set on a "mining ship" - who the f**k would transport minerals or metal ores over interstellar distances!!

The latest abomination is the new BBC serial 'Outcasts' - which appears to me to be 'Eastenders' set in outer space. I stopped watching it after the first episode, during which some silly tw*t attempted to land a starship (presumably the size of a city) on a planet - and, not surprisingly, failed. Oh dear - there goes 10 trillion quids worth of technology - not to mention the passengers and crew!

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: pdq
Date: 13 Feb 11 - 12:22 PM

Somebody asked if "Sweet Betsy From Pike" was old enough to be sung authentically in a Western.

It was pulblished in 1858 so it is old enough to be in a Western, but not in a story about the early days of the Gold Rush.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Feb 11 - 01:56 PM

Not sure about that, pdq. It probably existed in oral tradition from the Days Of 49, but only achieved actual book publication a few years later. Its well established 'Villikins' tune would be just the sort of thing that travellers towards the diggings would improvise words to as they went.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: Bettynh
Date: 13 Feb 11 - 02:10 PM

Hollywood seems to have a warped idea of New England, it's language and particularly, geography. There have been tv shows based on glaciers in the White Mountains, abandoned gold mines, hot springs, and creek beds. We have NO glaciers, hot springs or tunnelled mines (I'm not absolutely sure about the mines, but if we have them, they're very rare). We have brooks, not creeks. And for all the effort to paak cahs, nobody in New England takes "the 128," which is a peculiarly LA term for using a highway.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: Micca
Date: 13 Feb 11 - 06:52 PM

On the subject of Sci Fi in the movies and on TV a colleague some years ago did a lecture on the Physics of Superheroes. 2 of his suggestions were
1 Supermans X-Ray vision would kill him because the heat generated in his skull by generating X-rays would cook his brain, he used the correct equations to show the energy produced.
2 that a motor cycle that had a particle beam weapon on it ,to raise enough energy for the beam to work as the show suggested would weigh several hundred tons, but, more importantly, be 3/4 of a mile long!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 13 Feb 11 - 07:18 PM

Then again, I believe that it was proved conclusively in the late nineteenth century that travelling at more than 30mph would be fatal for humans.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 13 Feb 11 - 09:30 PM

There was a scene in the first Superman movie in which Lois Lane, skeptical that Superman really had X-ray vision, challenged him to prove it by telling her what color panties she was wearing. He answered (if I remember correctly) "blue" and convinced her.

That wouldn't work. Have you ever seen an X-ray image that showed you, for example, what color your liver was? X-ray IS a color. It's just beyond the range of visibility for ordinary humans. If X-rays were visible to us, they would appear as another color added to the spectrum as we know it.

If you shine a pure red light on anything, it looks either red or black. You can't use a red light to see any color other than red. Likewise you couldn't use X-rays to see any color other than X-ray.

(I'm ignoring fluorescence, but that's not likely to be a factor.)

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 13 Feb 11 - 10:11 PM

But who's to say that Superman's "X-ray vision" literally works via the mechanism of X-ray generation? Maybe "X-ray" is simply an analog or metaphor used to explain, in human terms, something so far removed from our ubderstanding that we have no words for it. Maybe Sup doesn't literally see through things at all, but projects some seeing part of his psyche through space - something more akin to astral projection than X-ray vision.

Yeah, I know the guy who wrote the comic called it X-ray vision, but he was human. Superman isn't.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: GUEST,DonMeixner
Date: 13 Feb 11 - 10:19 PM

I remember when Master and Commander came out all the grief that was generated in this forum because Aubrey had too many epaulets on his uniform. Now thats nit pickin'.

I get bent when westerns have the wrong guns for the time. But a lot of slack has to be given just so there is enough room in the Sub or the log cabin or miners home just for the camera to record the story. I remember reading what a nightmare Barry Lyndon was to shoot because Kubrick insisted that it be shot with available natural light.

Don

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 13 Feb 11 - 10:48 PM

I recently read a Stephen King short story with a couple of glaring errors in it.

The main character was driving from Jacksonville, Florida to Sarasota, Florida. The route between those to cities is quite simple: drive west from Jacksonville on Interstate 10 for about an hour and then turn south onto Interstate 75 for another four hours or so. The I10/I75 interchange is just north of Lake City. Mr. King had his protagonist stop at a rest stop on I75 toward the end of his trip, but he had yet to reach Lake City. As I understand the geography of Florida, and I've lived in the state my entire life, Lake City should have been a couple of hours behind him.

And the rest stop on I75 at which the driver stopped was indicated by a sign pointing to the left. Now, we drive on the right-hand side of the road in Florida, and a rest stop sign pointing left is going to mean the rest stop is in the median strip, between the northbound and southbound lanes. Sorry, Mr. King, but to the best of my knowledge there are no rest stops so situated on either I75 or any other interstate highway in Florida. They're all either on the right side of the highway or off the highway all together, and they're all accessed by turning right, not left. The service plazas on The Florida Turnpike are situated in large median areas, but that's not where the guy was driving.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 14 Feb 11 - 12:13 AM

Regarding Superman's vision: To each his own taste, I suppose, but I think any counterfactual assumptions in a science-fiction or fantasy story (such as Superman's special powers) should be defined early in the story, and then the rest of the story should be consistent with those assumptions.

I'm not saying X-ray vision couldn't be a metaphor for some more complicated power, but if it is, we need to have the storyteller give us some sort of explanation of how it works. We shouldn't have to invent explanations ad hoc.

(By the way, I never thought Superman's eyes emitted X-rays. I only thought he could see them when they were emitted by some other source, such as the sun.)

The audience will feel cheated if, at the climax of the plot, Superman uses some power we didn't know he had.

Actually, I did feel cheated when Superman reversed time by flying rapidly around the earth. Who knew he could do that? And how the hell would it work? I was so disgusted I never watched another Superman movie.

See Deus ex machina at Wikipedia.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 14 Feb 11 - 04:13 AM

"But who's to say that Superman's "X-ray vision" literally works via the mechanism of X-ray generation? Maybe "X-ray" is simply an analog or metaphor used to explain, in human terms, something so far removed from our ubderstanding that we have no words for it."

No, the writers were too stupid and lazy to do any proper research!

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 14 Feb 11 - 04:19 AM

And here's me thinking that 'Superman' was a fictitious comic strip for children!

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 14 Feb 11 - 05:26 AM

There's no reason why children's fiction shouldn't be properly researched. In fact feeding children poorly thought through, shoddy nonsense might even be construed as a form of child abuse.

As a consumer of fiction I prefer it if the authors I read know more than me about the subject/subjects that they are writing about. And if it's fantasy that I'm consuming I need to be able to suspend my disbelief. Therefore the particular fantasy world needs to be consistent and properly thought through. I hate the type of fantasy in which the author has contempt for the medium (and his/her audience?) and thinks that he/she can make it up as he/she goes along without any regard for credibility or consistency. I suspect that most intelligent children would agree with me.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 14 Feb 11 - 05:37 AM

Which is why I used to love 'Dan Dare'. I've never been a great lover of Superman, though I was quite happy to take it for what it is. It was much more creditably thought through than a lot of the opposition, and I don't think anybody seriously thought that X-Ray Vision had anything to do with Roentgen - just a shorthand for 'he can see through things'.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: Will Fly
Date: 14 Feb 11 - 07:30 AM

The most maltreated artefact in film and TV is the poor old computer!

How often do we see (a) whole files wiped out with the press of one switch (b) hacking into a complex system performed in a few seconds or minutes (c) screen graphics that bear no resemblance to any known program living or dead.

The most hilarious bit is in Die Hard 2 where terrorists take over an old church and, in the space of around an hour, set up a whole complex, computerised alternative airport command and air traffic control system. Once again - As if!

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 14 Feb 11 - 09:10 AM

If it is an action fantasy movie I accept a few mistakes because it is fantasy any way so I overlook it but I do hate it when films don't pay attention to detail when it is supposed to be depicting a certain era and they get it totally wrong. Perhaps I am being icky-picky but it irritates me no end if the hair and style is all wrong. Westerns are a typical example, 1940's cowboy films depict women with 40s waves and curls, make up staying miraculously intact whatever the situation. 1950's Westerns done in a 50s style. In 1960's cowboy films the women wear modified 'beehives' sporting 60s make-up. Today in contrast hair of the actors or actresses often looks too well cut, coloured and conditioned and that can look just as unrealistic to me.

Westerns are just an example but any historical costume drama that is supposed to be in a particular time (even Biblical) is spoilt for me by inaccuracies like this. Biblical epic movies where the actress often is wearing a 50s foundation bra is hilarious.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: kendall
Date: 14 Feb 11 - 09:12 AM

M.A.S.H. was created by a Doctor in Waterville Maine. He did not like the choice for Hawkeye in the series.

Did you also know that Hoppalong Cassidy was created in Maine?

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 14 Feb 11 - 11:15 AM

Yes, Dave, as a kid I disliked Superman and loved Dan Dare (I suspect that some cultural differences were involved as well - I suppose that if you're British you don't really believe in omnipotent heroes ...?).

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: frogprince
Date: 14 Feb 11 - 05:11 PM

My all-time movie glitch; in "Somewhere In Time", Christopher Reeve drives up to the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island. If you've ever been on Mackinac Island, you'll understand.
My second-to-worst glitch on TV: There was a (short lived, I think) effort at a newer "Zorr o" series. I saw one episode. Several characters spent an extended time aloft in a hot air balloon...with no heat source.
My all-time TV boner: in some series which was mercifully euthenized at an early age: A radio-controlled toy car chassis, with a camera mounted on it, used for surveilance; the good guys watching on a TV monitor; the camera was a common 35mm film camera. This was on something made and sold for regular network television.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: mousethief
Date: 15 Feb 11 - 12:57 PM

My all-time movie glitch; in "Somewhere In Time", Christopher Reeve drives up to the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island. If you've ever been on Mackinac Island, you'll understand.

I can't remember if I went to Mackinac first, or saw the movie first. But I never caught it. That was a major fudge.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 15 Feb 11 - 02:08 PM

With the up and coming execution of Catherine Howard in The Tudors, it will be interesting to see if the correct axe is used!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: paula t
Date: 15 Feb 11 - 05:23 PM

Once found some old carol sheets. They included that well known traditional carol......"Shepherd's Arse."

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 16 Feb 11 - 05:03 AM

Another bit of Morse ~~ he is always going on about hie expertise at The Times crossword, but a recent rerun showed him doing the one in the Telegraph. Still, come to think of it, no reason he shouldn't do both, I suppose. I do, & The Guardian & Indy, esp when in my club, where copies available.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: Will Fly
Date: 16 Feb 11 - 08:39 AM

There's a fun bit in one of the Morse episodes where he's walking down the corridor in the Oxford police station and comes to a door with a number-button lock on it. You know the style - 2 rows of numbers on a vertical panel and you press in 4 numbers to clear the lock. We had them on certain rooms at work. You have to stand there for at least 15-20 seconds to operate the thing.

Good old John Thaw got to the door, waved his fingers vaguely in front of it and opened it and walked through without breaking step. It's little things like that...

... which reminds me, Barnaby produced some "passport photos" of a missing suspect the other day - huge snaps that could never have been accepted as passport pics in a million years.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: catspaw49
Date: 16 Feb 11 - 10:38 AM

I enjoy finding the small errors and few films are without them. If the movie purports to be "history," then I have a bigger problem. Of course no one needs to learn history through movies but I appreciate a decent try at least to provide the real story.

The jarring errors in an otherwise great movie are another story. Deer Hunter is an excellent and award winning film with a blockbuster cast. The scenes around their home were all shot on locations in eastern Ohio, the WVa panhandle and the western PA. border. This is an area of steep hills, the foothils of the Appalachians, and an outstanding area for deer hunting. Yet when the group heads out for a short drive to their favorite spot, they arrive two thousand miles away in the Rockies which make for great background but look nothing like the Appalachians. I'm sure others have never noticed because they are unfamiliar with the area but it really bugs me.....LOL

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 17 Feb 11 - 04:16 AM

The early British soap Crossroads had one big error hardly any of the cast could act. One laughable flaw was the shaking scenery, the old Doctor Who episodes had a similar flaw (polystyrene rocks) which in a way is why I have more affection for them than today's sophisticated hi-tech Doctors with their special effects.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 17 Feb 11 - 04:44 AM

The early Star Treks had the same problems, and they changed planets by changing the colour of the back-lighting.

The later Star Treks had better actors. In the past few days I've watched Armin Shimerman in 'The Hitcher', Marc Alaimo in 'Seems like Old Times' and a better than expected Jolene Blalock in 'I dream of Murder'.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: J-boy
Date: 17 Feb 11 - 10:39 PM

The hunting scenes in The Deer Hunter were filmed in the Rockies? One of my all time favorite movies and yet(as you said)I never noticed. Thanks, Spaw.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 19 Feb 11 - 07:24 PM

Maybe this belongs in the broadcasting standards thread, but something that annoys me is readers getting the emphasis wrong and either changing the meaning or rendering what they are reading meaningless. An example was a reading of Cider with Rosie a few years ago on Radio 4. Laurie's mother recounts how she went to Aldershot dressed in her Sunday best, including 'crochet-work gloves' - but in this reading she was wearing 'crochet work-gloves'!

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: YorkshireYankee
Date: 19 Feb 11 - 09:47 PM

I'm not knowledgeable enough about planes, trains, cars, guns, architecture, geography etc. to be bothered by those kinds of mistakes.

However, I do notice when someone is playing an instrument (especially if it's a stringed instrument) and their fingering and/or bowing/strumming has no discernible connection to the music you hear (Pa's fiddling on Little House on the Prairie comes to mind). Likewise dancing that is entirely out of rhythm with the music being played
(I particularly remember an episode of Hart to Hart where they attended a Highland Games; they showed a minute or so of sword dancing where they clearly had just put some bagpipe music into the soundtrack while the dancing was going on. It was at least the right music for the sword dance, but the dancing was completely out of sync
with the music.) That kind of thing really does bug me and strikes me as real sloppiness -- they don't even need to do any research to see/hear that these things don't
match up, but can't be bothered to get it right...

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 20 Feb 11 - 04:50 AM

I rewatched 'Chocolat' recently, and when Johnny Depp was playing slide on a National, it sounded more like a lap guitar without a resonator.