What is the biggest military movie/TV goof, basically the military Movie/TV mistakes that annoys you the most?

You said a mouthful... and all are correct!! thank you for sharing

And lets not forget radio/computer screens that are so bright, they glow on the user's face...

Yeah a lot of people hate that one

Yep.

HUGE pet peeve of mine!!!

Saving Private Ryan comes to mind there Chief.

SPC (Join to see) - yeah and Fury

Yeah and Fury

come on, what did they get wrong, hahaha...

Worse than both of these was Interceptor, which featured the bad guys crawling through the tanker boom, cutting a hole into the C-5 fuselage and commandeering the aircraft loaded with F-117s. Our hero F-117 pilot asleep in the troop compartment saves the day by leading them on an aerial Die Hard cat-and-mouse, popping up from underfloor and wherever, with the big finale dogfight after fueling and launching both F-117s from the still-flying C-5…

At least they killed off Segal in the first act...... ;o)

What kills me about those airplane disaster movies is the "explosive decompression" when a bullet goes through the fuselage...... Uhm, no.....Airplane fuselages are very strong, and a bullet hole is not going to compromise it. To get an explosive decompression, you need an EXPLOSION, ie a bomb. But I guess you need a plot device to keep the good guys from simply shooting up the bad guys on a plane.

SSG Pete Fleming - The world was a lot "bigger" when those movies were made. The average "Joe" wouldn't have known the difference. They probably saved money by using props and costumes they already had.

Yeah most likely that could be the case. Back then no one would have had a clue. A recent movie I saw that had the culture mixed was "Rock the Kasbah," It was supposed to be in Afghanistan. All the signs were Arabic and lot of people were wearing Arabic garb versus the Phoshto stuff.

This used to happen all the time on JAG, they'd use stock footage of planes and not only would they often use the wrong plane, the plane would often change from scene to scene as well. At the beginning of the scene we might see a Tomcat taking off, later on we see that the Tomcat is now and F-15, and when they land it's now an F-18.

Cpl Phil Hsueh - The Six Million Dollar Man was even worse then that. It got to be a big joke.

Was the movie bad because you thought Steven Seagal should have done more, because he was in it, or because it was the typical movie staring him but otherwise had no value...

SSG Pete Fleming - He did nothing in the whole movie except sit in a chair. I thought it was going to be A Seagal action film. I think they just got his name to draw people to watch the movie . Sorry I rented it on PPV.

SFC Jerry Humphries - I know the feeling... I don't have an example right now, but they will promote a major star and give them a pointless cameo just to get viewers...

He finances a lot of his own movies. They are all low budget pieces of crap. I had some friends work on one and it was real piece of garbage. Everything from the cinematography to the editing were all horrible. I think it is the only way he can support his acting career now. Usually all of his movies are the same with a slightly different plot. It is usually always him kicking the crap out of everyone for an hour and a half. Most of his stuff never gets into the theater. Its almost always exclusively straight to DVD. Oddly enough, apparently they do somewhat well in the Asian markets. Maybe the Asians see them as comedy.

CMSgt Donald Felch - It really depends. Budgets are weird things and it depends on where the director and producers priorities are. If the military is not the main focus of the show, but they have a scene with military people in it, they usually will not go get a mil adviser. The focus of that show is on the main character and is really out of the scope of the story. So most producers are not going to go out of their way. In some of those cases it gets a little easier as many crew on set are former vets, so they can grab one of those guys and ask if the uniform looks right.

If the show does focus on military subjects. Its up to the director to decide how accurate they want the look to be. Some directors want 100% accurate. Others will say they want it some what accurate, but they are not too concerned if its perfect. Some of them will say "well the importance of them looking exact, doesn't really have bearing on my story." Of course at the end of the day it all boils down to if the producer has money in the budget.

Producers are real persnickety about where they spend the money. They have a threshold to meet in order pay for contingencies, like if they have to do a re-shoot. The producer has a real tight clinch on the purse strings. Sometimes they may only have the budget to bring in an adviser just during the pre-production phase and maybe one or two days on set with the characters.

As for high budget movies, a lot of the money goes to the talent if they have an A-list actor in the show. A bunch of money goes to other production functions. If it is an action flick a huge portion goes to VFX and editing. Unfortunately a military adviser is more of a luxury position on set. Based on union contracts there are is set minimum crew that have too be there for the scope of the work being done. One shooting day minus the talent can cost over hundred thousand dollars.

Ideal situations if the movie puts the military in a good light. They can sometimes get support by military film liaison offices. What this gets the production is, tech advisory support and DOD instillation use.

So it really depends in a nutshell.

Budgets can be such a simple thing to manipulate if you exercise a little creativity. You could probably hire a vet that got out as an NCO if you knew where to look and spend no more than a few thousand dollars over the course of filming. It seems like a small price out of a hundred million dollar budget to not end up with a movie that has a million Vets rolling their eyes.

SGT Richard H. - Its not that easy. There are union contracts with Screen Actors Guild (SAG). Anyone who has a role with a speaking line has to have a SAG card, even if they say one word on screen. Anyone who does not have a SAG card a producer can use them, but the person being selected for the role will get Taft-Hartley'd into the union as a SAG eligible. The production will pay a fine to the SAG.

They can use people in a background non speaking role. SAG does not control background extras as they are not considered actors. In fact they will do that a lot of times. There have been some movies like "Transformers," where the production does casting calls for veterans and current military in speaking roles. I worked with a DAF-CIV/ retired AF Major who got a line in "Lone Survivor." He got Taft-Hartley'd into the union. In this case the Production will either pay the fines or they may negotiate with the union and pay an upfront fee for the permission to bring in non-SAG actors.

Believe me, I know producers, some of them are very very cheap. If they could get away with it they would hire all non crews and actors, and most likely there stuff would look like crap.

Lt Col (Join to see) - Understood. As with many things, it's a matter of people choosing to or being forced to think inside the tiny boxes that they create for themselves, and then being stuck with only the options that they brought into the box with them.

Red Dawn. A classic! :)

haha so true!

Yep, I remember being "hand receipted" to death in the mid 80s while drawing equipment from supply, weapons from the armory, and any radios from commo.