Are there common things that occur in entertainment that you find a constant minor annoyance?

One of mine is short teenage actors. In many American TV shows that have the parents and the teen kids in them I think Hollywood does a just awful job of casting. In the real world, girls tend to reach their adult height in their early to mid teens, and boys tend to do so in their mid to late teens. When the parents are very different in height, it's common for the kids to grow to be somewhere between the heights of the parents. When both parents are tall, the kids are generally all tall. Boys commonly end up taller then their mothers, and often taller than their fathers. And when they don't, they are usually at least pretty close to their father's heights. Same with girls and their mothers. There are exceptions, of course. But that seems to be less common.

However, on tv shows, it is common to cast actors to play the teens who are much shorter than the actors cast to play the parents. And it isn't at all unusual to cast actors to play blood relatives that don't look the least bit like one another. On the show Castle I was watching last night, the girl that plays Castle's daughter is a tiny pale redhead. Castle is played by a very tall dark haired man. Castle's ex wife by a tall blond, and his mother by a tall red head. And many shows do something similar. I tend to avoid the teen soaps now that I'm not near that age any longer, but sometimes boredom gets me to watch the occasional ep. And for the most part, with only a few notable exceptions, the pattern holds. On the original 90210 all but one of the "kid" actors was short, and all the parents I recall were tall.

So that's a pet peeve of mine. Anyone else got one?

- Movie trailers giving away wayyyy too much crap, spoiling movies for me. Seriously, what's the point? Why see the movie now that I know exactly what happens?

- "News" outlets whoring out stories about celebrities personal lives to me 24/7. CNN, MSN, random TV shows, it's ALL OVER THE PLACE AND I DON'T GIVE A CRAP

- Deus ex machina. Last night's episode of 24 had at least two.. Why do I still watch that show? Deus ex machina writing sucks, and they seem to be using it more and more.. Hire better writers, you douchebags, like.. maybe the guys who wrote the Wire? That show was amazing.

- Articles in the media correlating movie gross amounts with how good it is.. Not only that, if a movie does well financialy, you'll mostly see articles on how much money it's making.. It's like the people reporting this crap only care about money.. Give me articles about how good the movie actually is, please.

25 year olds playing teens. tv tropes called it dawson creek casting I believe. I know there are laws to obey about child labour but some people can pull it off (Alexis Bledel on Gilmore Girls is the first one that comes to my mind) and others just give you a creepy "why is that guy stalking highschool girls" vibe (most notably Luke Perry on Beverly Hills 90210 and that Dawson guy).

canned laughter. why, oh why? a laugh track works on shows that are mostly recorded live-ish where you re-use the audience reaction from take three and seven and thirteen on the final cut (like Will & Grace or Friends). on a purely shot-by-shot show it is quite horrible (Sports Night by the otherwise amazing Aaron Sorkin for example).

late night comedy humour. the part where the band plays a little whatever to accentuate the punchline. yes, it was a bad corny joke. about sex (Tiger Woods anybody?). I would have gotten that without the bass riff and the little drum spiel. notable exception: Craig Ferguson. the only late night show I watch for the monologue. with all the others I merely fast-forward to the interview if there is an interesting guest or I won't bother in the first place.

and I have to agree with warpus about the trailer part.

PS: are we some cranky old men or what? get of my lawn!
PPS: yes I am talking to you!
PPPS: NOW!

Poorly done expositions drive me bananas.

Everyone being good-looking - or what Hollywood seems to consider good-looking - in television and film. I'm sorry, but in real life, 90% of women I see on the street aren't worth a second glance - maybe a double-take for other reasons, like horrible fashion-sense - and 90% of the men aren't as good-looking as I am (and I've never claimed to be good-looking). Yet when I turn on my television I would find it easy to believe that I am uglier than 90% of all people on the planet, with most of the people worse-looking than me being villians. It's even worse with women.

Related to this is people who are quite obviously NOT attractive being portrayed as attractive by the media because they tend to fit some arbitrary criteria for what constitutes "attractive." That douchenozzle off Twilight, Robert Pattison I believe his name is, is a great example. He is not a good-looking man. He looks like a drugged-out indie rock star. That's not a good look. Then there's the new Twilight tool who plays a werewolf and is in Valentine's Day banging Taylor Swift. His head is tiny. He looks like some sort of reverse bobble-head doll. Yet, because he works out he is somehow "attractive." No, he's an ugly guy with decent musculature.

A female example would be the chick I've seen in recent trailers for a film called She's Out of my League or something similar. She has blonde hair, blue eyes and big breasts, which apparently makes her attractive. She also has a jaw the size of a normal person's whole head, and her facial features in general are cringe-worthy. Her supposedly "text-book" attractive features are so run-of-the-mill as to be unworthy of notice. It looks like a bad film, but even if it looked entertaining I could never get past the fact that the supposedly dorky, out-of-his-league guy actually seems closer to the top on a scale of 1-10 level of attractiveness in men than she does on a similar scale in women.

I'm sorry, but my girlfriend is more attractive than 99% of women I see in television and film and while granted, my girlfriend legitimately is out of my league and an absolute stunner, there is no reason why her far less attractive sister should also be more attractive than around 90% of women in television and film. For that matter, the fact that my girlfriend is pregnant and currently looks pretty awful half the time, depending on how she feels, should slide her down the scale somewhat, but even at her worst she is still more attractive than a good 95% of women on television. At least, of the women who we are supposed to find attractive.

In the TV Universe, there are no door locks.

Oh, and when the love-lives of secondary characters are explored, it's time to change the station.

Oh, and when the love-lives of secondary characters are explored, it's time to change the station.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_H4Lv4ssS83g/RaIGyqxjuXI/AAAAAAAAAK4/ctzgUDVErWg/s400/vito.jpg

:mischief:

I have too many to go into them all, I'll cover a few major ones.

I agree with the above post about good looking actors. But the trend has also went into the music world. Video killed the radio Star effect. You never see any fat women singers anymore. And some of them were quite good. Esp. the R&B/soul ones. But now they are all thin as a razor. All music seems to be suffering from this, but pop is noticed the most. You won't see some of the ugly 80's stars in pop music anymore. They got to be lookers.

Stars who make the news for no discernible reason. Why is Lindsay Lohan still making news headlines? What has she done lately of any importance? I almost wish she'd OD already, so I can stop hearing about it. She's got to be close.

Speaking of OD, I hate it how people make such a big deal because of Corey Haim (or was it the other one?) OD'd. If it'd be some ugly guy like me, no one would give a :):):):). I swear this world only cares about good looking people, and I hate it. I wish I was good looking, maybe then someone would care about me. I think us ugly bastards need to rise up and and overthrow the good looking oppressors!

I posted this in the nudity thread in off-topic, but it deserves mention. The thing about actors/actresses covering themselves up with sheets during sex scenes in movies and tv. Even rated R movies they do this. Who in the hell has sex with a sheet wrapped around them? It's cumbersome, could lead to getting tangled up, makes it difficult to change positions and it's hot! I understand most actresses have no nudity clauses, but surely they could do something else.

One of mine is short teenage actors.

Often the actors playing teens are in their mid 20s or something, so the only way they even let them try to pass for this is by casting tiny/midget/"young" looking people... I find this annoying but don't watch any teen dramas anyway.

A lot of my answers would just be tv tropes - but I especially dislike plot holes, continuity problems, failure of suspension of disbelief, etc... Plot/writing > acting/effects/eyecandy generally.

I rarely watch sitcoms because so much of it is formula crap.

TV commercials & magazines at supermarket checkouts.

Films and TV aren't meant to be realistic, people. They are meant to seem realistic, without actually being realistic. There are obvious reasons for this. If characters couldn't park their cars right outside the building they're going to, or if they had to fumble for ages for the right change to give the taxi driver, or whatever, then the film would be five hours long and everyone would be bored.

Also, when things have to be represented visually, this sometimes means representing them in unrealistic ways because they look better. We all know, for example, that if you transfer a large sum of money from one account to another on a computer, you don't really see the balance increasing in increments of one very quickly, as if the money is literally being poured into it. And we all know that after entering a password on a computer you don't really get an enormous message saying PASSWORD ACCEPTED blinking across the whole screen. These are just visual cues to make it clear what's going on and to make it dramatic. Complaining that it's not realistic is kind of to miss the point. You might as well complain that Waiting for Godot is unrealistic because Vladimir and Estragon don't seem to notice all these people sitting watching them.

William Goldman has written about this at some length and in quite a funny way (he imagines a script in which someone just peels off notes at random to give to the cab driver, like they do in films, and how the cab driver would react if it were real). In fact the whole of Last action hero was about these differences between films and the real world. And I don't care that I have now cited that film twice in as many posts.

Films and TV aren't meant to be realistic, people. They are meant to seem realistic, without actually being realistic.

But the thing is, all fiction that works is dependent on the concept of "suspension of disbelief". The willingness of the audience the dismiss, or set aside, what is clearly not real in order to just enjoy the story. And the pet peeves that I am referring to are things which make it harder to suspend disbelief. Much of it is just bad casting. But bad writing, badly set scenes, bad themes, overused themes, memes, and tropes, they make it more difficult to just sit back and enjoy the story.

Shows like ER, the original CSI, and Law & Order worked well because the creators put a lot of time and effort into aiding the suspension of disbelief by making the shows as realistic as the medium allowed for. So an investigation that might take police weeks or months is done in a few days show time, or 40 minutes air time, and people are more than wiling to ignore that for the story.

But there is a point at which, and this is different for different people, where the things done to make a show or movie are so unrealistic or overused that, at least for some people, genuinely interfere with enjoyment.

Video games in Tellyland are almost always ridiculously depicted. Unless it's deliberate product-placement, they always seem to be a stream of squealing noises and beeps, with anachronistic talk of "points" and "levels" being thrown around willy-nilly, while the player waggles a joystick and mashes random buttons. If we actually see the game, it's inevitably some generic shooter or fighter. You never see anything like Civilization or Age or Total War, and the only alternative to mindless violence is, apparently, a generic puzzle game or The Sims.
Exceptions, of course, include Spaced and The IT Crowd, among others, in which the writer seems to have the slightest idea what they're on about.

Plotinus, of course, but some directors take it overboard.

The single greatest irritant to me from the world of entertainment is "reality", vote based elimination shows. It has to be the laziest, most misleading and talentless stuff on TV right now. Its sold as reality but its just as fictional as Eastenders thanks to the wonders of modern editing. As usual Charlie Brooker says it best:

BBwepkVurCI

It requires little creative skill, on either side of the camera. On top of this, the format is extremely popular which just serves to piss me off more.

Video games in Tellyland are almost always ridiculously depicted. Unless it's deliberate product-placement, they always seem to be a stream of squealing noises and beeps, with anachronistic talk of "points" and "levels" being thrown around willy-nilly, while the player waggles a joystick and mashes random buttons. If we actually see the game, it's inevitably some generic shooter or fighter. You never see anything like Civilization or Age or Total War, and the only alternative to mindless violence is, apparently, a generic puzzle game or The Sims.
Exceptions, of course, include Spaced and The IT Crowd, among others, in which the writer seems to have the slightest idea what they're on about.

Yeah excellent point. :goodjob:

Laugh tracks.

More often than not, the most amusing parts of a show don't even have the laugh track at that time, whilst there's stupid amounts of laughter when nothing funny happened.

It is so fun editing either in or out laugh tracks and see what the result is.

I hate stupid characters, and when plotlines are driven by characters' stupidity. Needless to say, I hate pretty much every character not played by Humphrey Bogart and not named McGuyver. Okay, that's an exaggeration, but you get the point.

25 year olds playing teens.

Born on the Fourth of July.

In fact the whole of Last action hero was about these differences between films and the real world.

I always thought that was a fantastic movie, and mostly because of its self-aware parody. Its like The Importance of Being Ernest for the 20th Century.

Poorly done exposition and technobabble. The worst thing is when technobable is crossed with deus ex machina: a miraculous plot resolution through some quantum mumbo jumbo that comes out of nowhere. It was always a problem with Star Trek but especially infuriating in Voyager. Fortunately it doesn't seem to be an issue with newer SF.

And something you see in every SF-show, movie or whatever medium: When something is "downloaded" it disappears from the original medium. Data is not copied, it's literally transfered.

I always find it distracting whenever there is a scene where someone is riding a horse in movies about ancient Rome, and the rider is using stirrups well before stirrups were invented.

What always annoys me is when even (semi) historical movies get their chronology wrong. I'm using an extreme example but my key point is 300. One can rant and rave about the other issues in it, but they put the burning of Athens before the battle of Thermopolye. How did the Persians get to Athens without going through Thermopolye?!
Other things:
>Show doesn't obey its internal laws of physics. Star Trek can get away with having its warp fields and such because it at least pretends to have its own laws of physics. Lost fails because the Island is simultaneously time traveling, planeshifting, and invisible but people are always able to find their way back to it.
>Stupid technobable. At least when ST invented that it was unique. Now when shows like Fringe do it is annoys me to no end. "If we charge the photon particles we can see though the veil!" (How you morons. If we could charge the photon particles to see if there was another world we would have by now.)
>Overly convoluted plots. I like story arc plots, such as Babylon 5 and the new Battlestar Galactica but I cant stand convoluted plots that hide the lack of anything new. AKA: the Lost Syndrome. Lets walk back and forth across an island until we encounter another plot twist. But was that a plot twist? Or was it an alternate phase shift experiance? Or was it a possible look into the future? Ect, ect, ect, ect.....

Sounds like you just don't like lost, Ajidica ;)

At least Lost was so weird to start with, it's not quite so bad when it stays weird. I gave up on it a couple of years ago.

Historical inaccuracy is a MAJOR peeve for me. The only good things about the movie Gladiator, for example, are the music and Derek Jacobi having a small role in it. The "history" presented in the movie is sheer nonsense.

An even worse offender is the series Rome. By not having Octavian/Augustus marry Scribonia, the producers promptly wiped out all of the Julio-Claudian Emperors after Tiberius! :gripe:

Basically all cliche's.

Its not really historical innacuracies that bother me, no Hollywood movie will get historical time periods right. What annoys me is when they blatantly ignore history like the burning of Athens in 300. Or in an old movie about Oliver Cromwell I watched where they make Parliament seem as incompetant as Louis XVI and they completly ignore Fairfax, and the name of the Speaker of Parliament who I am blanking out on right now. At least in Gladiator it wasn't batantly obvious that the history was wrong. It may also be that it was a far better movie than 300 so that likely influenced my perceptions.

Warpus, how could you tell?:lol:

Its not really historical innacuracies that bother me, no Hollywood movie will get historical time periods right. What annoys me is when they blatantly ignore history like the burning of Athens in 300. Or in an old movie about Oliver Cromwell I watched where they make Parliament seem as incompetant as Louis XVI and they completly ignore Fairfax, and the name of the Speaker of Parliament who I am blanking out on right now. At least in Gladiator it wasn't batantly obvious that the history was wrong.
It was blatantly obvious to me. :huh: It was also blatantly obvious to anybody else who has a basic knowledge of the earlier Roman Empire (ie. from Augustus through the Five Good Emperors, of whom Marcus Aurelius was the last).

Now I wouldn't be likely to notice inaccuracies regarding Oliver Cromwell, as I'm not well-versed in that area of history. I've studied some Greek history, but not a lot about the war that was the subject of the movie you've referenced.

On the other hand, I have studied a LOT about the first-century Roman Empire and some of the following history regarding the Flavian Dynasty and the Five Good Emperors. And it's true that Hollywood takes liberties with things such as costumes and props such as stirrups. But it's when they don't even try to get it right, assuming the audience is too stupid to know the difference... THAT is what really angers me! :mad:

Its not really historical innacuracies that bother me, no Hollywood movie will get historical time periods right. What annoys me is when they blatantly ignore history like the burning of Athens in 300.
300 was an historical fantasy, though. That's a genre which, by it's nature, liberates itself from such concerns. Certainly, in this case, the fact that the whole thing was framed as a story-within-a-story told by a less-than-unbiased narrator excuses it of a certain measure of artistic license.
Which is the key point here; historical inaccuracies are justified as long as they serve the story, only becoming "blatant" when they become an act of disinterest, a cheap way to bypass a particular tangle in the plot, or if they verge on patronising. It's debatable, of course, as to where we draw these lines, particularly when a film (or other piece of fiction) draws directly on recorded events, but the principle itself holds firm.

An even worse offender is the series Rome. By not having Octavian/Augustus marry Scribonia, the producers promptly wiped out all of the Julio-Claudian Emperors after Tiberius! :gripe:

oh you do not get to diss ROME on my watch! it had Titus Pullo, an amazing Caesar and a very hunky and entertaining Marcus Antonius. not to mention the town crier dude and the delightful Attia.

they could have been walking around with shotguns for all I care.

Point taken. My bias about 300 likely comes from when (no joke) one of my friends tried to show his immense knowledge about the Graeco-Persian wars by using examples of 300. Their depiction of Xerxes made me cringe.
Valka, I'm not good on my early Empire history though so could you point out the key overall innacuracies of it? THe only thing I remember as being blatantly inaccurate was Commodus going into the gladatorial ring to fight. The rest appeared to be close enough to Hollywood fabricated history.

Valka, I'm not good on my early Empire history though so could you point out the key overall innacuracies of it? THe only thing I remember as being blatantly inaccurate was Commodus going into the gladatorial ring to fight. The rest appeared to be close enough to Hollywood fabricated history.
Actually, that's one of the bits they got right- the historical Commodus was a great lover in the games, going so far as to participate in them himself from time to time, much to the disgust of the Roman aristocracy. Strange, but true.

300 was an historical fantasy, though. That's a genre which, by it's nature, liberates itself from such concerns. Certainly, in this case, the fact that the whole thing was framed as a story-within-a-story told by a less-than-unbiased narrator excuses it of a certain measure of artistic license.
Which is the key point here; historical inaccuracies are justified as long as they serve the story, only becoming "blatant" when they become an act of disinterest, a cheap way to bypass a particular tangle in the plot, or if they verge on patronising. It's debatable, of course, as to where we draw these lines, particularly when a film (or other piece of fiction) draws directly on recorded events, but the principle itself holds firm.

I agree. I'd also point out that the Persian army didn't really field orcs, too, something which people who complain about its inaccuracy often seem to overlook. 300 was never supposed to be a historical film, which really made it more honest than films that claim to be historical but obviously aren't (e.g. King Arthur with Clive Owen). No film can ever really be historical because history doesn't conform to the strict structure required to make a film work.

oh you do not get to diss ROME on my watch! it had Titus Pullo, an amazing Caesar and a very hunky and entertaining Marcus Antonius. not to mention the town crier dude and the delightful Attia.

they could have been walking around with shotguns for all I care.
Hey, there were characters and other aspects of that series I liked - else I wouldn't have watched the whole thing AND read all the old threads on it at the Television Without Pity forum.

I thought Titus Pullo was a fun character, Julius Caesar was amazingly watchable (;)), and I loved the Town Crier (who also played Baron Harkonnen in the Dune miniseries on TV, btw). Couldn't stand Marc Antony, though. :ack:

However... that doesn't take away from the producers having shrugged off some extremely important points about late Republic/early Empire events, including the conception of future Emperors - since in real history, Augustus and Livia had no children of their own (Tiberius was Livia's eldest son by her first husband).

Point taken. My bias about 300 likely comes from when (no joke) one of my friends tried to show his immense knowledge about the Graeco-Persian wars by using examples of 300. Their depiction of Xerxes made me cringe.
Valka, I'm not good on my early Empire history though so could you point out the key overall innacuracies of it? THe only thing I remember as being blatantly inaccurate was Commodus going into the gladatorial ring to fight. The rest appeared to be close enough to Hollywood fabricated history.
Will do. Please allow a couple of days for me to have the necessary links for you. ;)

Thanks. ten char.

and I loved the Town Crier (who also played Baron Harkonnen in the Dune miniseries on TV, btw). Couldn't stand Marc Antony, though. :ack:

gah! that's where I know the town crier frown. that has been eating at me since yesterday, thank you!

still like the british-hunk-of-the-year-for-umpteen-years-running guy, though, for some reason. it's hard to do a likeable arse and for me he pulled it off. would have liked to see the "friends, romans, countrymen" bit but the character seemed more real-life-ish to me this way.

I thought the "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears" speech was just a dramatic invention and not from a historically documented source. :confused:

I thought the "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears" speech was just a dramatic invention and not from a historically documented source. :confused:

I believe it very much is. it is just that so much caesar babble is from Shakespeare nowadays as far as visual media is concerned so I was very much expecting this bit (mind you, we got it off-screen).

Sounds like you just don't like lost, Ajidica ;)

I do like LOST, and the things he criticized are probably some of the less-criticize-able elements, so yeah? :confused:

It's been extraordinarly hard for people to get to/from the island, those who have done so are presumed to have a lot of experience/prior knowledge and previous access.

I'd also point out that the Persian army didn't really field orcs, too, something which people who complain about its inaccuracy often seem to overlook

At least for the one "knives-for-hands guy" I had to cede the point to a friend of mine - while maybe not accurate, it could still be feasible that even an ancient empire to experiment/mutilate some slave enough if they had a specific purpose like an executioner.

I hate the acting on Untold Stories of the E.R. It's terrible.

While we're on the subject of historical (and other) inaccuracies, has anyone here seen a film that was on over here in Australia a few weeks ago called The Last Templar? It had Jerusalem on the motherfrakking COAST for Wodin's sake.

However... that doesn't take away from the producers having shrugged off some extremely important points about late Republic/early Empire events, including the conception of future Emperors - since in real history, Augustus and Livia had no children of their own (Tiberius was Livia's eldest son by her first husband).


i think that was done because they only got a budget for a 10 episode second season, having been told they need to conclude the series within those.

While we're on the subject of historical (and other) inaccuracies, has anyone here seen a film that was on over here in Australia a few weeks ago called The Last Templar? It had Jerusalem on the motherfrakking COAST for Wodin's sake.
Reminds me of King Arthur... Being a Northern lad, I spent the last portion of the film bulge-eyed and red face, snarling about the geography of Northern England, the Scottish borders, the relatively location of Germany, and so on. I mean, really? Hadrian's wall in a flat, pleasant Oxfordshire field? With the gate's opening inwards? Bah! :crazyeye:

Not as daft as pretty much the entire treatment of Pelagianism in that film. It was an interesting attempt to link Arthur to that movement, but wrong in pretty much every important respect, from chronology onwards. But then, as I said, films of this kind use ideas from history to create new stories, and this is legitimate as long as they don't pretend to be telling accurate history (as in fact that film did, which was silly). I think it was still a decent film though.

While we're on the subject of historical (and other) inaccuracies, has anyone here seen a film that was on over here in Australia a few weeks ago called The Last Templar? It had Jerusalem on the motherfrakking COAST for Wodin's sake.

I like how the Battle of Stirling Bridge in Braveheart takes place on a field with neither bridge nor water in sight. Really ruined the whole movie for me, if they can't get simple crap like that right.

Also, I think the dude's name is Wodan. You gotta pick Odin or Wodan. :lol:

I like how the Battle of Stirling Bridge in Braveheart takes place on a field with neither bridge nor water in sight. Really ruined the whole movie for me, if they can't get simple crap like that right.
According to Gibson, they wanted to use the bridge, but found that it "got in the way". :crazyeye:

Although, on a related note, I quite liked Bruce's line at the end- "You have bled with Wallace. Now bleed with me." It's a good example of how you can work poetic "Friend's, Romans, countrymen" lines into an historical piece without it seeming jarring.
(It references the opening line of Robert Burn's song Scots Wa Hae (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXh4b_jikqU)- "Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled/Scots, wham Bruce has aften led/Welcome tae yer gory bed/Or tæ Victory." The song is a poetic imagining of a speech made by Bruce before Bannockburn.)

Also, I think the dude's name is Wodan. You gotta pick Odin or Wodan. :lol:
Odin, Wodin, Oden, Woden, Wotan, Wodan, there's a bunch of ways you can spell it; the ancient Germanic tribes weren't all that consistent with their spelling, even within particular languages. You want to seem clever, you can even use "Óðinn". ;)

I like how the Battle of Stirling Bridge in Braveheart takes place on a field with neither bridge nor water in sight. Really ruined the whole movie for me, if they can't get simple crap like that right.

Also, I think the dude's name is Wodan. You gotta pick Odin or Wodan. :lol:

That reminds me of Pearl Harbor. Spend millions on CGI to recreate the looks of every ship, but then use a modern American super carrier to represent the Japanese carrier and show 2 modern American destroyers in the harbor instead of WWII era destroyers. What, did they think no one would notice? :rolleyes:

I love those things. I was watching a History Channel show on Thor in my Mythology class and the 'Christian converters of the 8th century' were 2nd-3rd Crusade era Templar footsoldiers. I suppose considering the level of scholarship I saw in that show, using templar soldiers was the least of it. AND they also showed Vikings as using Lateen rigged sails. Fail.

It probably says something about this forum how quickly "Entertainment Pet Peeves" has become a thread about historical inaccuracies. :p

It's not precisely "historical" inaccuracies. It's "entrainment" inaccuracies.

While It's not a major pet peeve, I think I may be getting a little tired of hearing the Wilhelm scream in seemingly every movie. The Wilhelm scream is the default stock sound for when someone gets shot and/or falls off either a cliff or a building.
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While It's not a major pet peeve, I think I may be getting a little tired of hearing the Wilhelm scream in seemingly every movie. The Wilhelm scream is the default stock sound for when someone gets shot and/or falls off either a cliff or a building.
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The Wilhelm Scream was awesome... 20 years ago. Now it's just annoying. Surely you can just pay people to give you a variety of screams?

Reading all that stuff about King Arthur makes me glad I never watched it. I fully expect the upcoming Robin Hood to provide equally daft inaccuracies, combined with a generally crap film.

While It's not a major pet peeve, I think I may be getting a little tired of hearing the Wilhelm scream in seemingly every movie. The Wilhelm scream is the default stock sound for when someone gets shot and/or falls off either a cliff or a building.


Its a major one to me. I hate hate hate overused sound bites. Especially the gasping crowd one that is in every damn commercial and tv show.

It probably says something about this forum how quickly "Entertainment Pet Peeves" has become a thread about historical inaccuracies. :p

the thing about hollywood or any production is the directors and producers have creative control to do what they like. Sure they use "advisors" and the like, but they only vaguely follow their recommendations. They often do what they want especially for plot devices.

Inaccuracies don't make a movie bad. I actually liked Apocalyptico even though it has no accuracy whatsover. It blends in 800 years of culture into a couple of days. But it's a good action film. And if you only watch that film as an action film, you'll enjoy it.

But I can see how people can be bothered by entertainment about a subject they are very familiar about. I always laugh when I see movies about the navy (I served 8 years). Even in Star Trek 4 when they supposedly showed the USS Enterprise (I served 4 years on that ship). Hilarious stuff.

I work in a casino now, and when you watch casino shows like that one on TNT it's hilarious. It's nothing like that. We don't have that kind of technology. You have casino admin doing FBI searches :lol:. We don't have that kind of access.

As I said directors/writes do what they want to satisfy the plot and action, throwing all realism aside in the process.

1 - Characters doing something grossly contrary to their depictions in the film just to set up a dramatic ending. See : Heat.

2 - Deaf people in movie theatres who think they have the right to have their friend/spouse/child repeat every third line of the movie.

Many of my peeves have already been said(historical inaccuracies being the big one U-571 anyone?)

One that hasn't been mentioned is the highschool/family/teen sitcom character cliches. All jocks are dumb. All blondes are dumb. All nerds wear pocket protectors and wear all the bad clothes from the 80s, and 70s. Every family sitcom has one popular child, one geek/nerd child, one goth, one lazy, one quarky kid, one jock and so forth. I don't know any family that has one of everything. Oh and all twins are identical or of the same sex.



Oh and swords and knives can cut through anything made of metal, and occasionally rocks. Otherwise known as Katana Syndrome

6 words:EVERY DISNEY KIDS MOVIE SINCE 2000!
And for those of you who want an explaination, let me explain why:
In America, the way most of our economy runs is this:
Small Child: Mommy! Mommy! I saw an comeral for a mova on tevi! Take me to it!
Mom: Okay, sweety!
At the theatre after the show.
Small Child: That was horrible mommy! Make it up to me by buying me all the merchandise!
Mom: Okay sweety!
The Corpate Ruling Class: Cha-ching!

Disney movies themselves are basically extinct - the kind I went to when I was a kid, I mean.

During my childhood (in the '60s and '70s), it was just taken for granted that the family would gather and watch Walt Disney at 6 o'clock on Sunday evenings. Whether it was a comedy, an animal documentary, a movie - it was a weekly family event. In the theatre, I remember what a treat it was to go see 101 Dalmatians for my 9th birthday. Back in those days, admission was 50 cents, and treats were 25 cents. There were lots of wholesome family movies to see, even if some of them were rather sad - I remember coming out of the theatre bawling my eyes out after seeing Old Yeller, for example.

The last Disney movie I saw that I liked was Toy Story 2. And I've wanted a Mr. Potato Head ever since! :lol:

6 words:EVERY DISNEY KIDS MOVIE SINCE 2000!
And for those of you who want an explaination, let me explain why:
In America, the way most of our economy runs is this:
Small Child: Mommy! Mommy! I saw an comeral for a mova on tevi! Take me to it!
Mom: Okay, sweety!
At the theatre after the show.
Small Child: That was horrible mommy! Make it up to me by buying me all the merchandise!
Mom: Okay sweety!
The Corpate Ruling Class: Cha-ching!
On the other hand, Pixar picked up the slack pretty neatly, so today's kids aren't really much worse off than those who grew up during the "Disney Renaissance". Besides, The Emperor's New Groove, the traditional start of the post-Renaissance era, was never bad, just out of place, and The Princess and the Frog is actually meant to be quite good.

The Emperors New Groove was pretty awsome. Then again I watched it in Spanish class where any movie we didn't have to do a worksheet for was awsome.
All of the Pixar movies I've seen lately have been pretty good. The worst was probably Cars but even then it was pretty good. The best was WALL-E.

On the other hand, Pixar picked up the slack pretty neatly, so today's kids aren't really much worse off than those who grew up during the "Disney Renaissance". Besides, The Emperor's New Groove, the traditional start of the post-Renaissance era, was never bad, just out of place, and The Princess and the Frog is actually meant to be quite good.

I know, but I'm talking about the really bad movies, like Spy Next Door.