Why do movie makers do not even bother with correct props?

O

Oleg Volk

Staff Alumnus
Watching "Patton" right now and I can't help but wonder about the tanks used in the film...they seems to be entirely incorrect for the situations. Am I the only one to be annoyed at lack of even half-hearted effort at accuracy?

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Oleg "peacemonger" Volk

http://dd-b.net/RKBA
 
I'm no tank buff, just a bit of a film buff, and I agree wholeheartedly, Oleg.

BTW, in "Patton" I believe the "Germans" are using M48 Pattons -- American, and not developed until after the war!

Might have a look around for a few others that bug the hell out of me.

B
 
Well, it isn't exactly easy to lay your hands on a fair number of intact working Panzers and then transport them to the location of the shoot. Movie makers are basicly at the mercy of the military units whom they've hired out as extras. Things have improved with the growth of CGI, which can help turn one authentic vehicle into multiple authentic vehicles on-screeen.
 
That's true. You don't hear people complaining about Top Gun, or Iron Eagle and movies like that where all the Migs are either T-6 trainers, or the old navy jets. Somewhere I recall seeing an F-4 being called a Mig too. So not just out of date hardware, but the current(or was at the time) BG stuff can't be had.
 
I agree.... most of us are history buffs and get upset when we see an obvious error (it torques my wife of when I point out an error ("Don't yell at the screen dear!") but the film companies have been trying for many years to make sure that the equipment used is as close as they can get for the time period..

movies like "The Longest Day", "The Guns Of Navorone", "A Bridge too far", "Kelley's Heros" and the civil war type movies amost always enlist the advise of re-enactors or vets.

I was much younger when "The Longest Day" came out and I know that the retired MSG that lived up the street from me was an extra in that movie in the landing scenes... as he was there during D-Day!


Tanks and aircraft are very hard to get when you need a specific type, but "Kelly's Heros" was one the closest as the tanks were hunting tigers and owned by Eastwood himself... also, look close to the sniper rifle in the movie.... it is a M1891 Mosen-Nagant but they used a german recticle in the tower scene...

great comments guys!!
 
Can’t recall the movie but in one scene a B-17 was taking off.
My dad noticed that on the inside when the pilot pushed the throttles up
they were in a C-47. Being 10 or so I never would have known.
 
It's even worse in commercials. We had Tobias Moretti trying to shoot the "Osterhase" (easter bunny) with a loudspeaker stand (it's black, it's long, it's got a tube at the front - about 4 or 3 gauge - it must be a gun). I have two of exactly the same kind, just hope I dont get caught carrying those "weapons" (illegal here in Austria).

What would the recoil of a 3 gauge shotgun be like? What would it do to the rabbit?
 
3 ga recoil just a bit more than 4 ga, however it does a noticably better job of removing the hair from the hare with the muzzle blast. :)

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Sam I am, grn egs n packin

Nikita Khrushchev predicted confidently in a speech in Bucharest, Rumania on June 19, 1962 that: " The United States will eventually fly the Communist Red Flag...the American people will hoist it themselves."
 
In Patton, errors were notlimited to getting wrong equipment. For example, when a plane crashed a mile away or so, the sound of the explosion was audible at once as opposed to five seconds later or so. The sound engineer (editor?) just didn't think that through.

Just watched uncrippled original of "La Femme Nikita" which was still a neat film...but the AUG scene was racking up errors by the second. Here we have a standard AUG scope with a cross reticle...and supressor would have shifted the impact point anyway making the regular scope less than useful. I would have also expected her boyfriend to smell burnt powder or notice the two empties...and hear the sonic crack quite well. Besides, the whole idea of asassins depending on guns they have never used before (never sighted them in or tested functioning) seems strange to me...I'd hate to pick up a gun I have never touched before and find that it prints high and left for me :(

Earlier in the film, nigh vision goggles turn into a rifle scope with a rangefinder, maybe by magic. A guy with a 40mm grenade launcher under an M16 barrel loads it with a 50mm finned mortar shell! For some reason French cops carry Czech Scorpions as sidearms and use them one-handed. A supressed .22 High Standard (or Buckmark, couldn't see) drops people DRT and shoves them backwards, all with one shot. And what was that crap about titanium bullets? They wouldn't even take the rifling...oh, and continuity folks missed a few "slide back, now forward" errors.

I am sure films with ships, planes and cars bug those who know, too. Just recently, I noticed that a film I liked as a kid had a mid-30s car on the tape cover...the story took place in 1918. And don't start me on all the WW2 Germans carrying RPK machine guns!

Oleg
 
I think the German tanks in "Patton" were M46's. As others have pointed out, it's hard to lay hands on operating AFV's of WWII. At the risk of re-opening (do I mind?) the "Saving Private Ryan" discussion, at least they got some authentic-looking German hardware. The German half-track that the Airborne destroyed by multiple bazooka shots sure LOOKED more true-to-history than the tired old US M3 half-tracks that showed up in about half the episodes of "Combat".
 
I am not someone you want to watch computer movies with. I'll point out everything.

The worst was when some guy was trying to access information on a database at a law firm, and you could hear the floppy disk drive turning (I could even tell that it was a Macintosh floppy noise coming from the Windows computer that he was on). There's so much wrong with that, that I couldn't hold it back. Everyone around me was trying to find someone to sedate me.

I'm much better now.
 
Here's one that still gets me after all these years. Anybody remeber the old Joe Isuzu ads where Joe is a big liar about everything. They were very funny, but one had him fire a gun, get in his Isuzu and chase down and pass the bullet. Finally he put a target in front of his face and caught the bullet in his mouth. All in all a funny ad. But the problem is that as they showed the bullet in flight, it was the entire round, casing and seated bullet!
 
It's all make-believe, folks. And it's all about "graphics" and "getting the film in the can." Most actors, writers, directors, producers, haven't the faintest clue about anything that has to do with firearms (other than they hate them in the hands of the serfs and peasants). Nor do most of them have any idea about the reality of war, nor the equipment used.

Old equipment is very hard to come by, so the props people just cobble something up that resembles what was used. The director says, "Hey, that looks fantastic, and nice and graphic. Cut. Print."

Don't expect reality, and you'll never be disappointed, when watching the flicks or teeeveee. FWIW. J.B.
 
I guess the biggest mistake in "Ryan" would have been a tactical one. Sergeant Sizemore carried an M1 Carbine throughout the movie. In reality, I think almost anyone wouldn't have made it too far up the beach before losing the carbine, and picking up a Garand somewhere. Especially an experienced NCO. I still love that movie though. I love "Patton" too. Whenever I can't think of anything else to watch, Patton is the one. I piss my wife off by renting it more than 3 times a month. I guess I ought to by it.
 
What really bugs me is when some guy whips out a revolver and draws down on someone, and it sounds like a 12ga pump being cycled.
I wish my sixguns could make that noise!

Or shooting through a pillow supposedly is as good as using a suppressor?
Yah, as if.

Or, sticking a potato on the end of your revolver makes for a good suppressor.
Sheesh.

-Kframe
 
The "Tigers" in Kelly's Heroes are dressed up T-34s. You can tell by the road wheels. The M-46 "panzers" were the worst part about Patton. I guess they didn't want to spend the moolah dressing them up. At least they used an He-111 for the strafing scene, though. Maybe they could have borrowed the Panther from the Samaur museum and filmed it from a bunch of different angles.

That titanium bullet thing in La Femme Nikita bothered me also. The gun would go boom, but your hand would also be gone.

I'll go ahead and nitpick Ronin also, even though it's one of my favorite movies. Why did Jean Reno's character always uae a pistol? I mean in the ambush scene they knew there would be gunfire, so what does vincent bring? A Beretta! The driver character is the farthest one back, and he brings a short, pistol-grip shotgun. That'd be a good way to whack your buddies, wouldn't it? De Niro's character was the only smart one. He brought a SAW(?) and a Sig-550(?) to the party.
 
I'm always a little annoyed when a movie has a confrontation between police officers or others armed with Glocks and you hear them cocking the hammers. I believed this occurred in the opening scene from "The Matrix" when the police attempted to arrest Trinity.
 
Money's the biggest problem, I think, when folks want to make a movie like Patton.
But a lot of Hollywood types are just so out of it that they wouldn't be able to tell a potato cannon from a Brown Bess.

We're talking seriously diminished mental capacity aided and abetted by a leftist buffoons.
 
John Milius did his homework for Red Dawn.
Very few discrepancies. Ones to note are:
*RPGs do not "whoosh" when they launch.
*The T-72s drive sprocket is up front.
*The Hinds are dressed-up Pumas.
*The Dashikas are dressed-up M-60Ds.
*The magic 1911A1.

Notice when the colonel ordered one of his
boys to the sporting goods store to get the
4473s?

All in all a great movie: 10 Rounds.

[This message has been edited by pack_rat (edited May 25, 2000).]
 
kjm-- as much as you enjoy the movie, "Patton," you ought to check out the site, www.warroom.com, scroll down to "Most Wanted," click on it, then scroll down to "Patton's D-Day Speech." You'll see what he really said, and what they left out of the flick. It's an helluva read.

Pack Rat--- Milius is a longtime shooter and hunter. Does his homework. Part of his deal on "Jerimiah Johnson," was that he got to shoot the animals shot on screen, and that he got to keep the guns used in the flick.

FWIW. J.B.
 
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