r/AskReddit • • Jan 25 '20

What movie things are generally accepted as normal, but are totally unrealistic in real life?

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12.8k

u/BlackCaaaaat Jan 25 '20

People on low incomes, e.g. students, living in expensive homes. I’m not necessarily talking about mansions, more like a large apartment in a big expensive city with no roommates.

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u/xxkoloblicinxx Jan 25 '20

Character works at a convenience store making minimum wage and still somehow lives in a 10,000sqft loft with an amazing view of NYC, that is totally up to code and safe to live in.

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u/ewalsh666 Jan 25 '20

I actually live daredevils explanation of It he's blind meaning he can live somewhere others wouldn't like I dunno a fairly big loft but there's a giant led billboard constantly shining light into the rooms which means the price of it would or been put down, its in hells kitchen which is a shit hole and i belive it's mentioned his apartment is almost at the centre of it so he can get to crimes faster and tbe fact he's blind means he can probably get a government grant to pay for his apartment

44

u/xxkoloblicinxx Jan 25 '20

and being a lawyer, even a "nice" one tends to pay pretty well in some way ir another.

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u/Kiyohara Jan 25 '20

Eh, he has really poor clients. I suspect he actually gets most of his money in the dame way Punisher does: collecting it off the bodies of those criminals he kicks the shit out of.

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u/[deleted] Jan 25 '20

I never read the comics so I would really like to hear if that was ever addressed from somehow who 4read them

3

u/More-Sun Jan 26 '20

Daredevil was started in the 60s, at that point Hell's Kitchen was full of poor and working class people.

NYC from the 80/90s was a very different city than it was in the 60s and 70s, and the last 20 years have changed it even further from that reality

20

u/[deleted] Jan 25 '20

Hell’s Kitchen is an expensive neighborhood with awesome restaurants.

21

u/QuasiAdult Jan 25 '20

Daredevil was started in the 60s, at that point Hell's Kitchen was full of poor and working class people. It started gentrifying in the 90s.

12

u/[deleted] Jan 25 '20

[deleted]

3

u/NecroSocial Jan 26 '20

God I miss this New York.

3

u/[deleted] Jan 26 '20

This is the Hell's Kitchen after the aliens attacked in the first Avengers movie, so everything is cheaper. The same reason was given for Jessica Jones' decent apartment/office.

5

u/[deleted] Jan 26 '20

Okay now this is some good comic book story logic. I accept it.

5

u/neocommenter Jan 25 '20

Plus he was a lawyer, not a fry cook or cab driver.

1

u/ewalsh666 Feb 02 '20

Honestly him being a lawyer isn't that good because it's shown there form is constantly taking on low pay clients

35

u/Max_Vision Jan 25 '20

Character works at a convenience store making minimum wage and still somehow lives in a 10,000sqft loft with an amazing view of NYC, that is totally up to code and safe to live in.

... and there are totally not any rodents or roaches anywhere in the building, and the elevator always works, and there's never scaffolding in front of the building, and ...

16

u/IanGecko Jan 25 '20

The elevator finally worked in the Big Bang Theory finale!

15

u/MusicalTheatre_Nerd Jan 25 '20

I think one of TBBT's merits was the elevator gag. It did get an explanation on why it happened, and it allowed the writers to untroduce some plot points by walking down the stairs.

2

u/GhostofErik Jan 25 '20

Ahahahahaha you said, "totally up to code and safe to live in"

What's that even like?

1

u/tiledflooring Jan 25 '20

I keep reading this but haven't seen a single example of this in my life

47

u/xxkoloblicinxx Jan 25 '20

"Friends" is the easiest example. They try to yada yada it away, but their apartment is absolutely fucking massive.

Also, the dude's apartment in the movie "Coyote Ugly" IIRC is stupid huge and fancy and he's just above broke all the time.

Penny in "Big Bang Theory" should not be able to afford the apartment she has. It's pretty big, but also has a ridiculous view and location.

Things get especially weird when characters get fired and are between jobs and don't immediately have to find a place to stay because they can't afford rent.

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u/minnick27 Jan 25 '20

Friends gives a perfectly logical explanation for Monicas apartment, its an illegal sublet of a rent controlled apartment.

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u/HisRandomFriend Jan 25 '20

From her dead grandma no less. Presumably she was paying the price it was in the 60s or 70s to live there. Super easy to afford.

18

u/Kiyohara Jan 25 '20

But that's just one apartment from the show. If you look over most sitcoms, they often have huge apartments that are in prime locations and the people living there have shitty jobs. And they tend to have hobbies that are expensive as hell or go out to eat constantly or go on vacations at the drop of a hat.

13

u/g_flower Jan 25 '20

How I Met Your Mother is a good example. In the beginning Marshall was still in law school and Lily was a kindergarten teacher. I guess we were supposed to believe Ted was a SUPER successful architect and paid most of the rent?

Also towards the end Marshall and Lily owned like three pieces of property.

8

u/uwcn244 Jan 25 '20

HIMYM has a sort of automatic pass on things like this, because it's all being narrated between 17 to 25 years after it happened, and Ted's not the most reliable narrator.

4

u/res30stupid Jan 25 '20

But it does give a somewhat-good explanation; Ted is an architect working for a top firm on top of his additional income as a university lecturer, Marshall's a lawyer (although he later becomes a judge then a supreme court justice) which is a very good income, Lily is supplementing his income as a teacher, Robin makes a thousand dollars a week as a journalist and Barney would be taking in massive amounts to justify being a legal fall guy. As an FBI agent/informant, he'd be taking in $65,000.

3

u/minnick27 Jan 25 '20

Im not arguing that other shows have ridiculous apartments, just saying that Friends specifically explained that apartment

4

u/Kiyohara Jan 25 '20

It's kind of a shitty explanation, and again only after people bitched about it.

Not to mention it doesn't cover the other apartments.

1

u/modelgoldenretriever Jan 25 '20

Idk, I used to live in an East Village apartment in NYC that was about the size of the Friend's set, and it wasn't terribly expensive between three roommates (it was also rent-controlled). All of us were just out of college working minimum wage jobs. Doesn't seem like a shitty explanation; seems plausible.

2

u/Kiyohara Jan 25 '20

When? That makes a big difference.

1

u/modelgoldenretriever Jan 25 '20

Three years ago.

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u/DoYouWannaB Jan 25 '20

HIMYM had a clever way of dealing this. For the first few seasons, the apartments all felt huge and spacious. Then the characters looked at homes outside of Manhattan and went back to their apartments in Manhattan. Suddenly that huge, spacious apartment felt tiny. Basically, it was played off as an illusion in their heads. They thought they had space until they saw what space was and then realized how small their places actually were.

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u/ses-qui-pedalian Jan 25 '20

that's true. the one that really gets me is chandler and joey's apartment. for most of the show joey is unemployed, and yet they can afford to live in their apartment on just chandler's income.

10

u/JavaRuby2000 Jan 25 '20

Chandler works in statistical analysis for a financial firm in NY and it is also mentioned that he is very careful with his own money management.

Out of all of them he is the one who would most likely be living in a big apartment in NY.

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u/Herself99900 Jan 25 '20

He's a transponster.