MovieChat Forums > The Big Bang Theory (2007) Discussion > Why do movies and TV shows always do thi...

Why do movies and TV shows always do this?


They don't have to, and yet, they always do it.

They try to tell a story and make it believable, and then suddenly it's almost as if they do EVERYTHING in their power to absolutely obliterate, destroy, mangle, maim and rip to tiny pieces any, tiniest possibility of having any believability, immersion or credibility.

Sheldon makes a questionnaire for his friends about himself. He hands about 3-5 one-sided papers to everyone, and as we can clearly see the text lines on the paper, there can't be more than about five questions per page.

Five questions on one-sided paper would mean you need two pages to have ten questions.

It's clearly stated multiple times in this episode that there are 'over two hundred questions'.

I probably don't need to go any further for people to realize my point, but just a simple math would dictate, Sheldon would need at least forty (40) paper sheets for the questionnaire.

He has only about five or fewer than five.

Even if we raise the amount to ten (10) questions per page, he would still need TWENTY (20) paper sheets!

We're shown only a 'few sheets of paper' instead of twenty or forty.

WHY? There is _NO_ reason for this other than some kind of convenience, and this definitly treats the audience as idiots. Why would idiots even WANT to watch a TV show like this, where every character is supposedly smart (told, but not usually shown)?

Other examples are so easy to find, it's depressing. Almost ANY movie that says a 'big number' of something, and then shows that something, DEFINITELY does not have even near of that 'big number' of those things on the screen, and almost no one notices.

Fight Club talks about four hundred (400) gallons of nitroglyserine (or is it nitroglyserin?), but then shows a tiny van that might fit maybe 100 gallons, but we are SHOWN probably less than 20 gallons MAX.

Another movie is the crime-worshipping 'Smokey and the Bandit', where the 'money man' is shown to have a bunch of bills, and hands money to the moustache miracle. What is said and what is shown is completely incongruent; there's NO WAY that man holds enough money for what the script demands in that scene.

WHY do movies do this? There is ABSOLUTELY no need to do it this way, and yet they always, ALWAYS; AALLWWAAAYYSSS do this crap!

Is there some kind of secret contract in hollyweird, where they have to constantly test just HOW dumb people are, and how they don't notice anything, or that things that are shown are NOT allowed to match what is said or what the script demands?

I can't explain this, holy cow is it annoying, though. It's like trying to tell a kid a low-value coin is more valuable than a hundred dollar bill, or being really obvious about your lie, but still lying, although no one can take you seriously.

How am I, as a viewer, supposed to take ANYTHING seriously or have any immersion to anything, if this kind of thing keeps constantly happening?

Couldn't they just have a few more sheets at least?

reply

Have a drink and relax! 🍷🍸🍹 😏

reply

Prop departments have multiple deadlines and budgets, that's why.

As for only a few lines of text on each page of Sheldon's questionnaire, obviously he's included some essay questions.

reply

Wow, in another episode, Leonard claims he bought "four thousand containers" (for Chinese food, I think), and then he continues claiming he keeps them in the trunk of his car.

HOW BIG a trunk does he have? The writers don't understand amounts or scale AT ALL - there's NO WAY he has four thousand anything in the trunk of his car! (Except atoms or oxygen molecules perhaps, if you want to nitpick)

Do the writers not understand how VAST AN AMOUNT four thousand containers is? Geez.

reply

I just remembered ANOTHER example, maybe the most blatant of them all so far.

The video game 'Detroit Become Human' (not that the title makes sense anyway, but does it have to omit the Oxford comma, too?) has a scene, where a character claims that "RA9" has been drawn on the wall 2471 times.

What we're shown is a wall that has MAYBE a hundred, I will even be generous and give two hundred.

There's NO possible way there are 2471 'RA9's on the wall, the visual just doesn't match the script. They ALWAYS use a really big number in what is said (or written in the script), and then COMPLETELY FAIL to show _anything_ close to that number, and everything's supposed to be fine. Why is it always like this?



reply


Here's what 2471 "RA9"s would look like - just realize that it would take WAY more space on a wall as depicted in the game, due to irregular way of writing, varying sizes and shapes of the font, plus not being written orderly or in an optimized way for space:

https://pastebin.com/Ri0VVBvN

The game's wall looks _NOTHING_ like that. But we're supposed to just believe that it would fit that many 'RA9's the way it looks visually. I HATE this phenomenon, and I can't understand why it's SO prevalent!

Are we being programmed to not understand numbers, scales, sizes, visuals, etc.? Are we being programmed to just blindly believe whatever someone says REGARDLESS of what our other senses tell us?

Something's not right .. why is this form of incongruency so common in entertainment?

reply

I am still thinking about it, and after pondering about Lottery and the IMMENSE improbability that makes it impossible for pretty much anyone to ever win (I know there ARE winners, but just count how many losers there are..), and I started realizing something.

Perhaps this is done to KEEP our brain from realizing how big the big numbers really are. Even a thousand is a lot more than your brain immediately thinks. You think of a 'ten', then a 'hundred', and a thousand is just one more zero added. Simple, easy, very tiny amount.

If you had a thousand car tires, for example, I can guarantee it would be way more than you immediately think. Maybe with experience or thinking about it a bit, you can start realizing how many, what a vast pile it would be. But immediately, you don't know.

If people COULD do this scaling and understand large numbers, they would never buy a Lottery ticket, so it's profitable to keep people dumb and unable to do this kind of thing.

People don't know how small the odds are, if they are 1 against a trillion. Most people can't really comprehend what 'a trillion' is. Heck, most people can't REALLY, in their mind, differentiate 'million' and 'a billion', either. Both are just 'very big numbers', when it comes to intuitive understanding of something that big.

However, the difference between a million and a billion (so we're not EVEN talking about a trillion yet), is... let's use time, shall we?

A million seconds amounts to about 11.5 or let's round it up to around 12 days. Wow, million seconds, almost two weeks!

A billion - don't calculate or count it yet, just try to answer purely by 'how it feels', ok? How many days would you think it is? It feels like it should be at least a few months, right? A whole year?

A billion seconds is around 32 years. Thirty-two YEARS.

Remember, this is not even a trillion yet.

So I think this could be the reason - to keep people's brains 'unable to comprehend large numbers'.

reply

So they always exaggerate the SPOKEN numbers while showing just a TINY amount of visual numbers, so we keep thinking the odds of winning the Lottery is pretty good, if it's one out of a trillion.

I once found an online 'Lottery Simulator', that you can enter numbers to, and then it calculates how long it takes for you to win. It simulates the purchase once or twice a week, then calculates random numbers against your numbers, does it again and again and keeps track of the time (I even made a similar program for my own fun).

Can anyone guess how long it took me to get the 'jackpot', to win ONCE, to get all the numbers right?

Oh, only about a hundred thousand years. 100 000 years to win.

This convinced me it's not worth it, because you can literally not win unless you have about 300 000 years lying around (I mean, I might've been lucky, or unlucky, it could be that YOUR numbers win in around 60 000 years!)

I never found that simulator again, sadly, but it would've been interesting to try to experiment a few more times. Still, a hundred years is -nothing- in this kind of numbers game. Maybe for someone, it could take a million years. That's ok, though, because your brain can't REALLY distinguish between a million and 100 000 years anyway..

By the way, a trillion seconds would be around 32 000 years. Good luck with your Lottery!

reply

By the way, I found a different simulator site:

https://www.cuandomevaatocar.com/en/megamillions/simulator/

I am running it right now, and it has been '192 years' so far, no big win yet. I have spent about 40 000 dollars so far, my 'winnings' are around 3000 dollars. What a great investment Lottery is..!

reply

Ok, I made a small program for four (4) numbers (it's exhausting to do with a non-programmer brain, so adding one more number would fry my head), and it usually takes anything from around 300 to 900 years to get all four to match.. just once.

I used 34 as the upper limit to the number, just to give some kind of chance.

Making this kind of programs and using these as well, makes it pretty darn obvious and clear that it's basically IMPOSSIBLE (in practical terms) to win any 'Big Lottery'.

By the way, my 'Mega Milions Simulator' is still running, and it has been 25000 years, I have gotten 4+1 twice (first one took 17332 years to get), never 5+0 and never 5+1 (the jackpot).

If 5 + 1 or even just 5 numbers is THIS hard to get right, you can imagine those lotteries that scam people with 6 or 7 numbers. It's just not gonna happen.

I guess human brain is not equipped to comprehend scales, big numbers or odds very well, so most people can't even BEGIN to comprehend just _HOW_ vastly unlikely it is to win any of these lotteries, even if you buy a thousand tickets or more.

It's rightly called 'tax on stupid people' or 'tax on poor people', because it gives them hope... too bad all of that hope is of the false variety.

By the way, I would have spent 5.2 million on lottery tickets during these 25200 years, and the prizes I would have received aren't even half a million. So that's another factor to consider..

reply

My issue was coupling up all the guys. I can see Leonard getting someone (not necessarily Penny but someone) but Sheldon? Really? And Howard was funnier as the sleazy single guy although he at least was given a Shrew for a wife.

They were even trying with Raj by the end.

It just killed off the show for me. Some of the guys should have remained single.

reply