Cinema has always offered audiences a sense of escapism from the mundane routine of everyday life but sometimes movies can push the boundaries of realism. Here, we take a look at the top five most unrealistic scenes that have been created in cinema history.
2nd Poker Scene – Casino Royale (2006)
The first outing of Daniel Craig as James Bond was seen as a huge hit by cinema goers and one of the most intense scenes in the movie was the poker scene. The high risk nature of the game was encapsulated by Bond almost losing his life after being poisoned at the table. He then returned to the game immediately to take on the arch villain Le Chiffre.
A previous scene had shown Le Chiffre defeat Bond in a heads up scenario when Bond incorrectly thought that the villain had been bluffing. This added another level of uncertainty to the second scene. This second scene saw four players involved in a massive hand worth $115 million. What followed was something that would almost never happen in a real game of poker. The first player draws an Ace, King, Queen flush. The second player then draws a full house of 8s over Aces. Then it is Le Chiffre's turn and he shows an even superior full house hand of Aces over 6s. Finally, it's time for Bond to step up. He reveals a straight flush to win the hand. Sure, it was undeniably dramatic cinema but it failed on the realism scale.
And frankly, these days Bond would probably be sat on the sofa at home gambling on his laptop or smartphone (one that Q had made him, of course). Sure, it would lack style, but he could try getting his game on one of the many UK-friendly mobile casinos (there’s a bunch listed here if you want to try).
The Quantifiable Connection Scene – Interstellar (2014)
Director Christopher Nolan saw his stock at its highest value when he started directing this sci-fi epic after receiving wide praise for previous movies Memento, Inception, and the Batman trilogy. This space adventure received mixed reviews that were mainly favourable but there were parts of the film that were pin pointed as its weakness.
One of those scenes was near the end when the hero Cooper, played by Matthew McConaughey, transported himself into a black hole as a last ditch attempt to get back home after a failed space mission to find an alternative home planet for humanity. In what can only be described as a surreal and extremely fortunate scenario, Cooper was sent into a dimension that placed him behind the book case of his daughter's bed room back when she was a child. He then used this situation to send her a message that she later worked out to help find her father in space. Honestly, it's an ending that could not be written... except it was, and it was included in the movie. It has since been called the Quantifiable Connection scene and we still have no idea what the hell it was all about!
Scotty Using the Apple Computer – Star Trek 4: The Voyage Home (1986)
Here is one for the Trekkies out there. Now, firstly, this is undoubtedly a much-loved franchise for a reason and is one of the great sci-fi creations of our planet. Unfortunately, sci-fi often means bending the rules of science to compose a storyline that fits for the script writers. That results in certain scenes that come across as truly unrealistic.
The fourth instalment of the Star Trek movie series delivers one of those unrealistic moments. When the crew of the Enterprise are transported back to Earth in 1984 they must deal with all of the primitive technological issues that come with going so far back in time. The crew repeatedly struggle to adapt to the basic technology as they have no knowledge of how it all works. Scotty gets his hands on an Apple Macintosh and after failing to get it to operate by using voice command that works for the advanced technology he is more familiar with he soon becomes pretty handy with the device and it comes across as a completely unrealistic scene as he masters shortcuts and bringing up the right menus needed.
Cloning Dinosaurs – Jurassic Park (1993)
Steven Spielberg brought dinosaurs back into the mainstream with this hit movie that spawned three further instalments and there is no denying that it is one of Hollywood's great classic movies. The tale of a dinosaur theme park that is the scene for a bloody nightmare scenario when the power gets cut and the dinosaurs break free is the perfect story for vintage cinema thrills.
However, the film is not without its flaws. If you have seen the movie then we will only need to utter the words “Mr DNA” and you will instantly understand where we are coming from. As the park's creator John Hammond, played by Richard Attenborough, is giving a tour of the park to a number of dinosaur experts he shows them a video explaining how his scientists have managed to clone dinosaurs and bring them back from extinction. What follows is the most obscene DNA tampering of all time. In amongst all the jargon there is the explanation of extracting dino DNA from fossils, using virtual reality technology and super computers to analyse the billions of strands of DNA, and using frog DNA to fill gaps in the DNA strands.
Plane Scene – Fast and the Furious 7 (2015)
For a franchise that has become its own beast it is perhaps understandable that such a high-octane series of movies such as the Fast and the Furious films should have one entry on this list but it is not until the seventh instalment of the series that the most insanely unrealistic moment occurs.
Dominic and Brian, played by Vin Diesel and the late Paul Walker respectively, have hatched another plan to use cars to make huge dollars. This time their plan is the most extreme yet and involves them flying their convoy of cars thousands of feet into the air in a cargo plane. They then reverse out of the plane in mid-air and use parachutes to land the cars on the ground and drive off. It is as crazy as it sounds. To add to the unrealism, the characters are all talking without their voices cracking with fear or loss of breath as their cars plummet to the ground. The mind boggles as to how they pulled this off.
