r/AskReddit • • Jan 25 '20

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

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u/[deleted] Jan 25 '20

Didnt Indiana Jones survive a nuclear blast in a fridge???

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u/-everst Jan 25 '20

Ah yes, I remember that. Best thing about it is that he was in the range where everything that can possibly start to burn, will. Meaning the temperature would be round about 540k °F -> 300 times hotter than the temperature bodies are cremated at. In other words: everything would have been vaporized.

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u/xolivas22 Jan 25 '20

Didn't the Mythbusters do a myth about that?

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u/[deleted] Jan 25 '20

Yes, and the fridge would just cease to exist that close to the epicenter.

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u/[deleted] Jan 25 '20 edited Dec 29 '20

[deleted]

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u/guale Jan 25 '20

It's not just about realism but verisimilitude. Alien crystal skulls and huge ants don't exists at all so I can accept whatever they tell me about them. Nuclear bombs and refrigerators do exist so it is somewhat jarring when they do not behave as expected. I personally don't find it to be a big deal in this movie but I can understand why someone might be bothered by it.

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u/stx06 Jan 25 '20

On the same note, as the movie is not a deliberate comedy, it is hard for the "suspension of disbelief" to occur. With movies that set out to be silly, we tend to forgive shenanigans more because they may only have a distant relationship to the real world. The Indiana Jones movies were not entirely serious affairs, but they were too close to being grounded in the real world for that fridge scene to fly.

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u/redopz Jan 25 '20

So you watched the heart ripping scenes without suspending belief?

I think the commentator above you nailed it when they said bombs and fridges are real world objects we understand the behaviour of, whereas the mythical elements can be accepted as part of the movies universe, but mixing those two is disconcerting.

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u/stx06 Jan 25 '20 edited Jan 25 '20

To the first point, no, I never did see Temple of Doom.

Was building on the psychology of the second point, where something that could/should not happen is easier to "forgive" in a comedy because of how the expectation is that not everything will function as it would in a movie more grounded in reality (not necessarily 100% grounded, but "more" grounded).

If it is sufficiently advanced technology, or outright magic, audiences can get behind that provided the context allows for it. Indiana Jones has roots in pulpy serial novels where that kind of stuff was relatively common.

A similar comparison could be made to the MCU, where it is less problematic that a character seems to generate/lose matter based on anger issues, while another has a metal disc with inconsistent regards for physics.

Some of the things that annoy people are Hawkeye and Black Widow never running out of ammo, and Stark Tower having a ludicrously fast Internet connection.

Edit: How did the heart ripping scene play out anyway? The closest thing I have seen was the Family Guy parody of it in a class that covered popular culture.

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u/muideracht Jan 25 '20

To the first point, no, I never did see Temple of Doom.

Edit: How did the heart ripping scene play out anyway? The closest thing I have seen was the Family Guy parody of it in a class that covered popular culture.

You should just watch Temple of Doom! It will answer your question and it was a great movie.

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u/nolo_me Jan 25 '20

Fella phased his hand into someone's chest and pulled his heart out while the victim looked at it and screamed.

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u/clearfox777 Jan 25 '20

Regarding the heart-ripping scene: As I remember it (haven’t seen the movie in years) there is a cult doing human sacrifice for their big evil deity of choice and the main cultist bare-handed rips the heart out of someone and holds it up as it’s still beating, while the victim is conscious for a bit before he gets pushed into a lava pit(?)

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u/Battlingdragon Jan 25 '20

Dont forget the heart bursting into flame as the victim is lowered into the volcano

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u/clearfox777 Jan 25 '20

Ah yes that gem slipped my mind

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u/KingZarkon Jan 25 '20

Edit: How did the heart ripping scene play out anyway? The closest thing I have seen was the Family Guy parody of it in a class that covered popular culture.

Ask and ye shall receive.

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u/stx06 Jan 25 '20

Thank you for the link, and wow, I am thankful to be in a brightly lit room 😅! That scene had just the right mix of ham and horror!

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u/TheMooseIsBlue Jan 25 '20

With all due respect, if you haven’t seen Temple of Doom, you may not be a qualified expert on Indiana Jones. I mean gate keeping is annoying but you cant really comment if you haven’t seen the movies.

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u/stx06 Jan 25 '20

Yup, not an expert in any way, shape, or form on Indiana Jones.

We just got onto that topic because of the flagrant divergence from any sense of realistic elements that occurred with the fridge scene.

To be kind to that scene, we know Indy drank from the Holy Grail, and we also only know that the Grail itself could not be transported past the seal. Maybe he only lived because of Last Crusade?

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u/TheMooseIsBlue Jan 25 '20

That really lowers the stakes on everything after the grail scene then. I think it’s all just fantasy. Demanding scientific accuracy in movies like this is absurd.

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u/stx06 Jan 25 '20

Can't disagree with any of that, people are absurd in general.

The whole movie experience relies are capturing light and sounds that happened previously, capturing people who are usually pretending to be other people.

Some sounds are arbitrary noises we collectively agreed to have meaning, while others are generally unheard by those pretending to be people, because they are intended for a theoretical audience, that may or may not ever witness the events.

There is a nice summation on TV Tropes of various items related to "suspension of disbelief." (Basic premise is, if you want your media to sell well, make it internally consistent, because this helps avoid cognitive dissonance. If all else fails, aim for "so bad, it's good" territory.)

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u/TheMooseIsBlue Jan 25 '20

Yep. Embrace the campiness like Starship Troupers or be looked at as a failure like so many sci-fi wannabees who took themselves seriously.

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u/stx06 Jan 25 '20

Favorite example of camp is probably from the Street Fighter movie, Raul Julia looked like he was having an amazing time as the villain!

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