Current Events > Little "writers don't know other fields" tropes you dislike in media.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Someone gets shot.

"We'Ve GoT tO gEt ThE bULlEt OuT!"

Then they do and suddenly the person is fine after they've been writhing around in agony.

Are bullets fuckin' radioactive or something? The couple grams of basically-sterilized metal are not the thing you need to be worrying about, and digging around for it is way more likely to fuck something up.

When suspects get questioned by pathologists or crime scene analysts because they are the focus of the story.

I loved the Journeyman Project as a kid, but one part really irritated me. You get shot with an arrow and, knowing a number of basic survival/first aid tips from the cub scouts, I knew the last thing you wanna do is pull it out.

Then I died because I didn't pull it out.

Zoom in and enhance

That one show where they were trying to find a drug dealer, and discovered that the dealer hacked into his copy of Prince of Persia to leave a paper trail. The characters all then struggled to get enough points in order to find the documents.

DrizztLink posted...

Someone gets shot.

"We'Ve GoT tO gEt ThE bULlEt OuT!"

Then they do and suddenly the person is fine after they've been writhing around in agony.

Are bullets fuckin' radioactive or something? The couple grams of basically-sterilized metal are not the thing you need to be worrying about, and digging around for it is way more likely to fuck something up.

media in general treats a bullet wound like a papercut

movies also use to have it so if you got shot you went flying at mach 3

*Falls thousands of feet into the water*

*Somehow survives with no injury*

AceMos posted...

media in general treats a bullet wound like a papercut

Unless the person dies instantly no matter where they were shot

The silencer fight in John Wick is such a good example of this

None really bother me if the story is good enough. One thing I think is dumb tho is when an investigator or whoever takes a photo with their phone and they have the shutter sound enabled. Super specific but I see it enough and it's such a dumb active decision to make in post.

HylianFox posted...

Unless the person dies instantly no matter where they were shot

Bullet wounds are very flexible in fiction.

Seemingly fatal shots can 'miraculously miss every vital organ', while less serious ones can lead to shock deaths if they 'nick an artery' without anyone realising.

Smashingpmkns posted...

None really bother me if the story is good enough. One thing I think is dumb tho is when an investigator or whoever takes a photo with their phone and they have the shutter sound enabled. Super specific but I see it enough and it's such a dumb active decision to make in post.

Or guns that make an audible click when you point them at someone

Umbreon posted...

*Falls thousands of feet into the water*

*Somehow survives with no injury*

Because they landed in the water, duh. That's totally how it works, right?

DipDipDiver posted...

Or guns that make an audible click when you point them at someone

Everyone knows professional soldiers loosen all the screws and fasteners and whatnot on their weapons.

Proper function is way less important than making sure they rattle around threateningly when you shake 'em.

DipDipDiver posted...

Or guns that make an audible click when you point them at someone

I took a sound design class in college and I made a parody edit comprised of a bunch of standoff scenes from movies and I excessively added the dumbest gun handling noises just to piss the teacher off lol wish I still had it.

DipDipDiver posted...

Or guns that make an audible click when you point them at someone

I love this one. There was a scene in MGS2 that got downright ridiculous with it.

*spoilers*
https://youtu.be/q0DAv34i8fQ?si=SAGRDZ7e2HfE-5qF

"Hacking" that consists of someone wildly mashing on a keyboard as random shit scrolls on the computer screen

Turbam posted...

That one show where they were trying to find a drug dealer, and discovered that the dealer hacked into his copy of Prince of Persia to leave a paper trail. The characters all then struggled to get enough points in order to find the documents.

Please tell me when they caught the guy, someone said "Game over pal"

People in movies also seem to be super unbothered by being knocked unconscious for significant amounts of time. Like at least go to a fucking doctor

>Person gets smashed in the head

>Person is rendered unconscious for hours

>Person comes to without much issue besides a bump if that.

HylianFox posted...

"Hacking" that consists of someone wildly mashing on a keyboard as random shit scrolls on the computer screen

As per protocol, the video will now be posted:

https://youtu.be/kl6rsi7BEtk

"Oh no we need a password!"
*looks around the room*
*sees a model of Stonehenge*
N-e-o-l-i-t-h-i-c
"We're in!"

Also, hacking. Everything about hollywood hacking.

And, as an attorney, law. A ton of writers have no idea how it woks, and feature ridiculous portrayals.

ReturnOfDevsman posted...

I loved the Journeyman Project as a kid, but one part really irritated me. You get shot with an arrow and, knowing a number of basic survival/first aid tips from the cub scouts, I knew the last thing you wanna do is pull it out.

Then I died because I didn't pull it out.

Long Live The Queen had a nice subversion. There's a scenario where you get attacked by bandits. If you fail to dodge, you get hit with an arrow.

If you don't know what you're doing, you make the injury worse while trying to remove the arrow and die. But even if you do know what you're doing, if you fail another stat check you make too much noise from the pain and the bandits find you and finish you off.

LLTQ does not fuck around.

ReturnOfDevsman posted...

"Oh no we need a password!"
*looks around the room*
*sees a model of Stonehenge*
N-e-o-l-i-t-h-i-c
"We're in!"

I mean to be fair, this is just (highly exaggerated) social engineering, which is at least more accurate hacking than

https://youtu.be/K7Hn1rPQouU

>_>

Oh, yeah.

"Are you a cop?!"

Because apparently cops are under a magic geass that compels them to answer this question and must always identify themselves when undercover.

"One Phone Call," this weird idea in jail you get one single call

DipDipDiver posted...

Or guns that make an audible click when you point them at someone

I remember in the Chrono Trigger PS1 game during the animated cutscenes weapons would just make clinking metal sounds when they were being moved about despite not touching anything.

HighSeraph posted...

I remember in the Chrono Trigger PS1 game during the animated cutscenes weapons would just make clinking metal sounds when they were being moved about despite not touching anything.

*draws a sword*

*the fuckin' thing rings for about twenty seconds*

SCHINGeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Sharpened steel apparently causes tinnitus.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

What you never gave your younger sibling a controller that wasn't hooked up so they could play with you?

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

Also, they're using an NES controller, even though the game is Skyrim, and a Genesis is clearly shown plugged in and it's playing the audio from Pac-Man.

I wanna play a game that reverses this trope. For whatever reason, you have to go to a movie theater and they're watching Back to the Future but it's in Black and White and the music is from a piano on the stage, but you can clearly hear Star Wars dogfighting sound effects anyway, and audiences are wearing red/cyan 3D glasses, loudly gasping at everything and laughing, and pointing at the screen and stuffing popcorn in their faces so fast that it's somehow flying three feet above their heads.

Turbam posted...

That one show where they were trying to find a drug dealer, and discovered that the dealer hacked into his copy of Prince of Persia to leave a paper trail. The characters all then struggled to get enough points in order to find the documents.

Ok but this sounds like peak fiction tho

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

It was always kind of mind blowing when someone on a TV show would actually play a real video game.

DrizztLink posted...

Someone gets shot.

"We'Ve GoT tO gEt ThE bULlEt OuT!"

Then they do and suddenly the person is fine after they've been writhing around in agony.

Are bullets fuckin' radioactive or something? The couple grams of basically-sterilized metal are not the thing you need to be worrying about, and digging around for it is way more likely to fuck something up.

What shows or movies have you written for? I dont know what the research process looks like and would love to hear your insight.

DrizztLink posted...

As per protocol, the video will now be posted:

https://youtu.be/kl6rsi7BEtk

When they both start hammering on the same keyboard... classic.

LightSnake posted...

And, as an attorney, law. A ton of writers have no idea how it woks, and feature ridiculous portrayals.

A lot of actual lawmakers have no clue how the law works.
>_>

HylianFox posted...

Zoom in and enhance

Suddenly It goes from a low quality image to being able to see every pore on a person's face. If there's an open book in the background, they can read every word on the page it's open to.

ReturnOfDevsman posted...

Also, they're using an NES controller, even though the game is Skyrim, and a Genesis is clearly shown plugged in and it's playing the audio from Pac-Man.

http://sydlexia.com/pinballwizard.htm

The episode starts with David making goofy faces as he plays Game Boy by the campfire. As his handheld emits sounds effects that clearly belong to the Nintendo classic Donkey Kong, David frets that he needs to get a key. This scenario is interesting for a couple of reasons. First of all, while there was a Game Boy version of Donkey Kong and while did it feature keys, it didn't come out until 1994, two years after this episode aired. Second, it was damn near impossible to play Game Boy in those sort of lighting conditions, because the system didn't have an illuminated screen. So if the first issue seems eerily prophetic, the second one proves that it was anything but; the writers knew absolutely dick about video games. This is illustrated again moments later when Eric walks by an accidentally hits the reset button on the front of David's Game Boy. You know, the one that DOESN'T FUCKING EXIST. After that, David cries like a bitch about how he'll never get the key, then Frank grabs the Game Boy and starts playing.

ablegator posted...

What shows or movies have you written for? I dont know what the research process looks like and would love to hear your insight.

I'm not entirely convinced you're getting the point of this topic.

the way mouse cursors move is not human

LightSnake posted...

Oh, yeah.

"Are you a cop?!"

Because apparently cops are under a magic geass that compels them to answer this question and must always identify themselves when undercover.

"One Phone Call," this weird idea in jail you get one single call

To be fair, a lot of the time it's just stupid teenagers that think cops are obligated to answer truthfully. I don't have trouble believing stupid people would fall for it, it's just when career criminals fall for it that my suspension of disbelief is gone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQOp_D4O5z8

LightSnake posted...

And, as an attorney, law. A ton of writers have no idea how it woks, and feature ridiculous portrayals.

Well it would be boring to depict years of sending discovery back and forth and the occasional 15 minute argument about procedure in front of the judge. Or to depict a court trial taking weeks to finish and being completely mindnumbingly boring 99% of the time because it's mostly doing things like calling in some random accountant or whatever to say "yup that is an itemized bill right there." Much easier to just jump to the end of the trial where the lawyers make a bunch of closing statements where they make completely irrelevant accusations about the other side that no judge would ever allow to be uttered.

Speaking of lawyers/court rooms, isn't walking up to the person on the witness stand actually not allowed?
--

And I wonder if the guns clicking when drawn is a hold over from westerns and older movies where the pistols used were mostly single action, which requires the hammer to be cocked back manually for the gun to fire as opposed to most modern firearms which are double action where the hammer cocks itself when the trigger is pulled. Popular guns like the Colt Single Action Army, which is the most common gun you will see in westerns, and the semi automatic Colt 1911 .45 are single action pistols.

Characters back then would draw their gun and cock it because it was required. The sound must have just stuck. Same goes when a character will pull the hammer back to show they mean business when 99% of the time it's unnecessary.

Southernfatman posted...

Same goes when a character will pull the hammer back to show they mean business when 99% of the time it's unnecessary.

I still fucking LOVE The Expanse for that.

Can't remember if it's in the show, but in Book 2:

The crew is helping out this botanist and they're doing the whole "we're all pointing guns and negotiating" thing.

The botanist is all "I'm gonna drop a one-liner and cock my gun, it's what they do in the movies!"

Everyone IMMEDIATELY opens fire.

Umbreon posted...

*Falls thousands of feet into the water*

*Somehow survives with no injury*

There was an early Batman: TAS episode that did this. The guy is shown to survive, but Batman acts like he died.

(it was the first League of Shadows episode)

Umbreon posted...

*Falls thousands of feet into the water*

*Somehow survives with no injury*

Falls multiple stories onto concrete. Groans and slowly gets up to keep fighting/running

One stab wound to the abdomen kills you in seconds, and you have no verbal reaction to said stabbing.

MorbidFaithless posted...

One stab wound to the abdomen kills you in seconds, and you have no verbal reaction to said stabbing.

And slitting someone's throat makes them die instantly. Choking or smothering someone just takes a few second and they're dead.

DrizztLink posted...

Neat twist on that trope.

*gets shot in the stomach*
*visibly confused*
*touches stomach, looks at fingers*
*still confused*
"OH NO I'VE BEEN SHOT!"