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  • Please see the most recent updates in the "Where did the .com name go?" thread. Posts number 16 and 17.

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OT: Hollywood makes me crazy.

S

spotlope

Charter Member 2014
Okay, here's a fun rant thread for ya. How many times have you been at the movies or watching a little telly, probably enjoying the show, when WHAM! some major aviation faux pas just kills it for you? I've learned to keep my mouth shut to my wife, 'cause she just rolls her eyes and calls me a plane geek, but come on -- how hard is it to hire an aviation consultant? Doesn't have to be an industry expert, most any of us 'simmers would do.

Case in point: Plane registrations. I've lost count of the times I've been watching a movie that's supposedly set in Kansas or Arizona, only to have the actors wind up at an airport that's populated with C-XXXX registered planes. Look, I know that a lot of movies get made in Canada, but at least stick on some vinyl N-numbers for the day, lol.

My pet peeve du jour is the opening sequence of the TV show "Burn Notice" (not sure if this is even seen outside the US). In the pilot episode, the main character gets blacklisted as a spy and has to high-tail it out of the country where he's operating at the last moment. There's the obligatory shot of him getting on a plane in some third-world country. It's a high-wing twin prop, sort of like a Dash-8. Then they cut to him taking off, and the dang thing has morphed into a DC-3, fer cripes sake! The only thing the two planes share in common is a red stripe! It was bad enough to have a gaff like that in the first show, but they included shots of both planes in the opening credits of every subsequent episode. Gaaaack!

I could go on, but you get the point. So how about it -- does this stuff get to you sometimes, too? Maybe I just need to :friday: more.
 
Most TV shows with airplanes don't even show the same plane throughout the show. It is really bad when it comes to business jets. At the beginning they show a big extravagant Gulfstream taking off. Then they go inside it and its a Falcon interior. Finally the landing footage shows a cessna citation or learjet. Doesn't make too much sense, but anyone but us and real pilots wouldn't know the difference (or care).

By far the worst part is when news anchors have to talk about airplane stories. They always say some of the most retarded things. Even a minute in FS would save them from saying such stupid things let alone a minute in a real plane.
 
It does occasionally annoy me, but then I read a thread somewhere else where they slated a version of 'The 39 Steps' because the train he abandons on the Yorkshire Moors or some such was only used by Great Western Railways and therefore would never have been seen further North than Bristol. After that I learnt to let go if only to avoid becoming a trainspotter!

Reference the news commentators, I'm starting to think if they appear to know f*** all about stuff I do know about, how bad are they on the stuff I don't know about?
 
Oh, don't get me going about newscasters. My favorite lately was a commentary I heard recently about the Dash-8 crash in Buffalo, NY. "Sources report that it's possible one or both of the engines stalled," the bleach-blonde says with a furrowed brow. And I'm jumping up and down on the sofa yelling "stalls in aviation have nothing to do with the engines stopping!" And then I have to get a beer.
 
kilo delta said:
You mean that those black jets in Top Gun really weren't MiG-28's???? :faint::friday:
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I hope that doesn't ruin it for you LOL

Again, just another example of taking advantage of the general public's lack of knowledge (and in this case probably the unavailability of real migs to use). Another good example is in movies about pearl harbor... you gotta love all of those T-6's flying around. Though the number of flying Zeros is probably closer to 3 than 300...
 
Kiwikat said:
(and in this case probably the unavailability of real migs to use).
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:D Hmmmm......back in '86 they had a whole squadron of them out in Tonopah ;P

Regarding dodgy aviation scenes in tv series.....it all comes down to budget, hence they use stock footage. For example.......how many times did Airwolf shoot down those same OH-6's? :) The average joe won't know the difference between a Cessna Citation and a Gulfstream anyhow..........least of all a Griffon engined Spitfire or a Merlin engined "Me-109" during a movie about the Battle of Britain.
 
I remember watching one WW2 film in which Mustangs were painted as German fighters.......



Or, in the 70's when car chase scenes were a staple of every TV show, made-for-tv-movie, Hollywood movie and the cars would go down a hill but a different make of car would emerge in the next shot of it going over the next hill?

Chrysler turns into Chevy just by going up a hill !!
 
spotlope said:
Oh, don't get me going about newscasters. My favorite lately was a commentary I heard recently about the Dash-8 crash in Buffalo, NY. "Sources report that it's possible one or both of the engines stalled," the bleach-blonde says with a furrowed brow. And I'm jumping up and down on the sofa yelling "stalls in aviation have nothing to do with the engines stopping!" And then I have to get a beer.
Click to expand...

I live about 30mins from the crashsite. You think that's bad Spotlope! The first report I heard from the local Buffalo station went something like this: "There have been reports of a small plane crash. Initial sources are saying that it was a small Cessna aircraft. All three passengers on board have been reported fine and walked away from the crash." JEEEZ! Talk about heads up your arse! I looked at my wife and said that you don't often crash a plane in a housing area and walk away fine. Later reports proved unfortunately that the crash was much worse.....tragic.
 
Odie said:
Or, in the 70's when car chase scenes were a staple of every TV show, made-for-tv-movie, Hollywood movie and the cars would go down a hill but a different make of car would emerge in the next shot of it going over the next hill?

Chrysler turns into Chevy just by going up a hill !!
Click to expand...

Plus they had an unending amount of hub caps destined to fly off........and speeding up narrow alley-ways included the obligitory "crash" through empty cardboard boxes :woot: :monkies: :focus: :)
 
I don't mind the technicalities so much. If it get's the story across, well I can handle a little suspension of reality. People get on a plane in LA, and get off one in NY, and only us aviation buff notice they got on a 737 and got off a 747. They got where they needed to go and the story goes on.

What chaps my rear end is when these faux pas make the story unbelievable. For instance the helicopter chase scene in Mission Impossible 3. Chasing each other through the windmills? Come on now. The gunship pilot would've just flown above the windmills and shot the Huey from there. Or that ridiculous Harrier scene in True Lies, and the final battle in Behind Enemy Lines, with the two Hueys hovering out in the open taking on the entire Serbian army. That stuff is what gets me.
 
SkippyBing said:
...only used by Great Western Railways and therefore would never have been seen further North than Bristol.
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Nope. You'll never make a trainspotter. ;)

I travel through the Great Western station in Birmingham every workday. They just pulled down the one in Wolverhampton for some new development that has since gone bust and will never happen. Back in Big 4 days, GWR included the LNWR. Still the wrong side of the country, but hey, MS put the Frying Scotsman on the (LNWR/LMS) West Coast Main Line Settle and Carlisle rather than the (LNER) East Coast Main Line. Bah, these Hollywood types. Game developers are just as bad. Why's that American Pacific DHC-8 sitting at Birmingham International (EGBB, not KBHM) eh?

</geek mode> :wave:
 
Kiwikat said:
Most TV shows with airplanes don't even show the same plane throughout the show. It is really bad when it comes to business jets. At the beginning they show a big extravagant Gulfstream taking off.
Click to expand...

You brought up the very thing I was going to say... Even funnier are the ones that show the pax loading on a CJ1, then cut to a Gulfstream interior...

About the only way you can "walk down the aisle" in a CJ1 is on you knees! :gossip:
 
Very annoying sometimes! Texans have been used in almost every major war movie, including Tora,Tora,Tora and a bridge too far. The Hughes H-1 with the canopy disappearing in the clos-ups was annoying too, as was the scene were they are welding! the wooden spruce goose together..
Anybody noticed the use of 'runway 44' in 'Catch me if you can'..?
There's a scene in 'Rat race' where you see a Learjet from the outside, but once inside there's four rows of seats and at least twenty people aboard..
 
Some movies do much better. A Bridge Too Far was not bad, making an effort to use the correct vehicles and weapons, Band of Brothers was great with mostly correct hardware, scenery and tactics, as was Saving Private Ryan.

I don't know who advised the makers of Hogan's Heroes, but the uniforms were very well done. Even down to the NSDAP pins on the SS uniforms and the proper insignia, awards and decorations, helmets, dress hats, etc. Weapons were also mostly correct although the armored vehicles often were not, probably because they just were not readily available. Of course the plots were ridiculous, without much historical accuracy.
 
How about when the news people say "it may have been ice on the tail wing". Never heard tires squeal on a gravel or sand road. I have a Z28 and never heard it, but then I don't do that with this car. On a gravel road that is.
 
....and ain't it amazing when a aircraft is diving it sounds like a Stuka dive bomber............doesn't matter whether it piston,turboprop, or jet powered :faint:
 
As soon as any aircraft sequence comes on the television, my wife shoots me a look, rolls her eyes, and says "here we go..." :costumes:


Mike
 
Boy, if you think all of this is bad, be grateful you aren't a birdwatcher like me...Hollywood puts certain species in the most unlikely places, and the calls of a red-tailed hawk and the common loon are THE movie-makers' most misused "natural" sounds.
 
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