Heh

 

Found on MeWe, courtesy of fellow author John van Stry (click the image for a larger view):

As Miss D. said in her comment about the image on MeWe:  “[This is] Why you never watch a war movie with soldiers, or a flying movie with pilots… unless you enjoy the commentary!”

I must admit, she has a point.  When I watch a war movie, I’m usually enraged by the nonsensical portrayal of combat troops, battles, etc. – which is why I usually won’t watch such movies at all.  Once you’ve “been there and done that”, badly scripted and acted portrayals of the real thing are anything but convincing.

Peter

20 comments

  1. My WWII veteran father would watch various World War II movies showing ground combat in Europe, making a running commentary about "stupid column of ducks" or "G_D Damn BAR" or "do that in real life and you'd be dead." He did seem to appreciate the "Band of Brothers" mini-series on TV though.

    I'm the guy, watching movies set in the early "Old West" say 1850's with everyone using Colt peacemakers and 1892 Winchesters ,who screams at the TV they didn't even have metallic cartridges then far less model '92 Winchesters.

  2. I'm not allowed to make comments about costuming in historical dramas for similar reasons.

  3. Same here with any kind of medical show. WHY can't they hire somebody to get the details right….

    1. Because the "writers" get pissed when their idiocy is put on display. Besides, it would have to pay scale, and it us easier to rely on the ignorance of their intended audiences.
      John in Indy

  4. See also, how people on TV and in movies use computers and the internet.

    Or collect and examine digital evidence.

    Or actual physical evidence.

  5. On the other hand I'm told Jimmy Stewart did it right in Spirit of St. Louis but then he really was a pilot.

  6. My mom saw "Hunt for Red October" with my brother, the "Oceanographic Systems Technician." ('We keep the ocean working'.) She said it was enlightening to watch that movie with someone who knew what Jonsey et al were doing.

  7. I had this problem with Passion of the Christ. At our small group when someone asked what I thought, my first response was "Their Latin was a later dialect than what they portrayed in the movie". I was asked not to contribute further…

  8. Or go to the symphony with a musician and sit next to them as they flinch when someone hits a wrong note.

    Or go shopping for men's dress pants with a person who worked in a garment factory making men's dress pants. As a teen-ager I wanted the floor to open up and swallow me, while Mom had a go at the floor manager about the seconds that were in the rack.

  9. When the first computer game of FPS came out, (wolfenstine?) I had to decline to play it. Had to explain to that roommate that I had trained for the real thing, and the game didn't mesh well with that personal background.

  10. Just to be contrary, the real deal is boring with a few moments of sheer adrenaline. Hard for a film maker to do "real life" and have many viewers.

  11. I found the real life not boring, but it would not make good tv either. Back in the 80s I ran a store in New Orleans, and had to answer a 3 AM burglar alarm. It took me 20 mins to get there, and because no doors were broken, the cops had left. I saw no one in the front, so I unlocked, drew the 1911, and entered. The phone rang, the alarm company told me v there was movement in the back room, 60 by 120, full of 6' fourble shelves with 2 60w bulbs 30 ft up. I opened the strong room, holstered the pistol in favor of a shotgun, and spent the next 45 minutes creeping through the back room and the furnacr and utility room. No one there, no breaches.
    I called the alarm company and reported this, andbthey told me that they had made a mistake, that the motion had been in the front of the store, not the back, and I had been searching for myself. I managed not to throw the phone.
    John in Indy

  12. If you were curious about the work day of a roughneck and watched the "reality" show that didn't last long, they actually did things screwed up to make it appear dirtier and harder than it was. I couldn't watch it.

  13. Locomotive engineer raises hand. Only realistic thing about the movie Unstoppable was the conductor's bad marriage.

  14. Heh.

    For me part of the fun of watching most scifi movies is an under my breath commentary about how that doesn't work in the real universe.

  15. Jimmy Stewart flew B-24s in WWII. Clark Gable went over with the 351st Bombardment Wing and flew a few missions as a waist gunner. See "Air Combat" at YouTube.

  16. My daughter gets upset with medical shows… RN in training, and she knows too much to enjoy them.

    I get a pass as there are no shows about mechanical engineering… no one in Hollywood would understand them, and so few people would find the subject interesting that the show would be a guaranteed flop…

  17. Oh I'll take this! Medical physics! (What, no one has even heard of that?)

    If you like the series "Goliath" with Billy Bob Thornton, they had an episode where a medical physicist in a hospital stole radioactive sources under coercion, and brought it to some bad guys who were threatening to make a dirty bomb.

    Same as the rest of the comments here, no matter how they try, Hollywood is just retarded when it comes to making something realistic…

  18. try watching "historical" movies with people for medieval reenactment groups .. the guys grouse about weapons and armor, the girls grouse abour the costumes (or vice versa) and both grouse about the politics and society things shown ..

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