Your most pointless TV/movie/book nitpicks

[MarkB]

Modern TV shows in general with firefights. In the past, the characters would go for cover before returning fire. Now they just run straight into the fray time and time again and never get hit.

I haven't particularly noticed this trend. In modern police procedurals and the like, characters still seem to respect cover. Maybe I'm not watching the right genres for this one.

 

[Ryujin]

The Colt Model 1851 Navy Revolver was capable of 3 inch groupings at 25 yards. The effective range of a Sharps rifle was measured in hundreds of yards and it was introduced in 1848. If firearms weren't accurate in the Old West, it's because people didn't maintain them properly or it's similar to modern firefights were adrenalin gets in the way of accuracy.

I can't remember which Western it was but I do clearly remember a gunfighter going into a town store, asking to see the revolvers the shopkeeper had, then disassembling them and making one that he thought was acceptable with the best bits. Not specifically in response to your post, but I thought it might be interesting to note.

 

[MarkB]

I can't remember which Western it was but I do clearly remember a gunfighter going into a town store, asking to see the revolvers the shopkeeper had, then disassembling them and making one that he thought was acceptable with the best bits. Not specifically in response to your post, but I thought it might be interesting to note.

That would be Tuco in The Good The Bad And The Ugly, shortly before robbing the store's owner with the same gun.

 

[Ryujin]

That would be Tuco in The Good The Bad And The Ugly, shortly before robbing the store's owner with the same gun.

Thanks for that. You just interrupted what likely would have been a 6 hour dive into IMDB, to try and remember what movie it was.

 

[jdrakeh]

In The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, the scale/size of the Nautilus changes multiple times when it is onscreen. Which drove me absolutely mad. It's pointless because there is so much other bad/wrong in the movie that to focus on this one thing as I have is ridiculous.

 

[Kobold Stew]

Seems like a deliberate meta joke on Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, given that all of Caesar's dialogue in the play is in English except for that line.

FWIW, ancient sources record Caesar's last line in Greek (καὶ σύ, τέκνον), and so Shakespeare is representing Greek with Latin, and Latin with English.

V. meta indeed.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The Colt Model 1851 Navy Revolver was capable of 3 inch groupings at 25 yards. The effective range of a Sharps rifle was measured in hundreds of yards and it was introduced in 1848. If firearms weren't accurate in the Old West, it's because people didn't maintain them properly or it's similar to modern firefights were adrenalin gets in the way of accuracy.

I specifically mentioned handguns, rifles were clearly accurate. How much of a gunfighter's legend had more to do with well maintained weapons than speed? I would imagine the 3 inch grouping would be achieved using a two handed stabilised grip, rather than shooting from the hip!

 

[Paul Farquhar]

In The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, the scale/size of the Nautilus changes multiple times when it is onscreen. Which drove me absolutely mad. It's pointless because there is so much other bad/wrong in the movie that to focus on this one thing as I have is ridiculous.

Alan Moore made his Nautilus massive, and the movie even more so, appearing much bigger than a battleship. I would estimate well over 10,000 tons. That's much bigger than the original novel, where it is stated as displacing 1,500 tons, smaller than many modern submarines. However, that would make Verne's Nautilus too small to contain all the stuff Verne put in it.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Seems like a deliberate meta joke on Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, given that all of Caesar's dialogue in the play is in English except for that line.

According to my English teacher*, Casca's line "It's all Greek to me" is a deliberate meta-joke.


*I did Julius Caesar for my O level English Lit.

 

[MGibster]

I specifically mentioned handguns, rifles were clearly accurate. How much of a gunfighter's legend had more to do with well maintained weapons than speed? I would imagine the 3 inch grouping would be achieved using a two handed stabilised grip, rather than shooting from the hip!

A three inch grouping at 25 yards is pretty good. The firearms produced in the latter half of the 19th century were generally fairly accurate. When they weren't accurate it was most often because the firearm wasn't properly cared for, user error, or perhaps the firearm was a cheaply constructed piece of junk. The point is that firearms produced at the time were fairly accurate. Shooting from the hip is just as inaccurate today as it was in 1880.