h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Dinosaurs *always* attack humans during rainstorms.
When the engine of a space vehicle fails, the vehicle instantly stops.
Everybody knows it has stopped.
If it was in orbit round a planet/star before its engine failed, it will fall out of orbit.
Even in empty space, a vehicle can (& must) execute a turn by banking.

D.

Keys to car are always found in the sunscreen flap thing. If not there isn't any problem in hot wiring the vehicle in question.

When an (often female) American is captured by forein baddies she will often say "You can't do this. I'm an American."

In the final confrontation the villian will tell the hero that "We are alike, you and I."

No policeman ever reads someone their Miranda Rights. They just recite them.

Handcuffs and ropes are never difficult to get out of.

A hero who has proven to be no match for the lead villain throughout the film (and even trilogy in some cases) will always find the strength to best the bad guy in climactic ending when he either finds his love-interest threatened by said villain, is on the point of being turned into a human shish-kebab or suddenly recalls the words of his long-departed mentor (whom the villain may or may not have killed).

In historical battle scenes the hero will always have time to look around for his opposite number in the forces of darkness without being mobbed and slit up a right treat by the rank and file of the enemy troops amongst whom he is standing.

In the case of history, the British are always the bad guys (who are sneeringly arrogant), and in the very rare case they are not still need a maverick American to get them out of situations in which their years of training, discipline and meticulous planning are proven useless (usually after they refused to go along with the American's daring/stupid plan of action).

The thing that gets me is that they all, good guys, bad guys and supporting thousands, carry on as if nothing had happened, no matter how shattering the event. I am upset for hours after a row without any fisticuffs at all. These actors can wreck a room with their roustabout and then walk off as if they had just bought a paper.

It's OK in cartoons for Tom to be flattened by an anvil one minute and be back chasing Jerry the next but it defies the reality of human behaviour.



John Luke

Hollywood tends to funtion on a level that produces works that centre on a type of character that is never realised on anything but the most simplistic emotional and spiritual levels. The character reacts positivly towards things that are "good" and negativly towards those that are "bad." In the grand scheme of things you are very lucky to fins such a character who is really more than a scrawl in crayon when it comes to painting a portait of a three-dimensional human being.

American producers suffer from a tendancy to believe (quite wrongly) that the American public are incapable of appreciating anything more and thus pitch their films at the lowest common denominator. Though they may strive to cover monumental events on both a personal and a historical level the characters involved are thus unlikely to spend any time pondering their actions or immortal souls.

At the total other end of the scale you have Hamlet torturing himself for four hours on the stage. The happy medium is sometimes achieved in cinema, but seldom in that of the US.

If a character enters a church, he will find that there is currently a service taking place, and the church is full. The congregation will be singing 'Rock of Ages'.

Chess games never end in resignation. The first player slams a piece down, sneers at his opponent, and says 'CHECK'. The hero grins a smug grin, makes a move that his opponent was completely unable to predict for some reason, and quietly says 'Checkmate'.

The villain always studied at Oxford or the Sorbonne and the hero can barely spell his name.