Movie Magic II

MORSE CODE

If a tapping sound or flashing light represents morse code, there's always someone around that can interpret the message. When Morse Code is used, the interpreter will call out words as they are being sent, rather than letters. Furthermore, a single word is represented by a few "beeps", and all words are sent at the same rate, no matter how long the word is. Example:

• beep-beep-be-beep... "Help..."
• be-be-beep beep... "Us...."
• beep-be-be-beep beep... "We're..."
• beep beep-be-beep... "Surrounded..."
• be-beep beep beep... "Send..."
• be-be-be-beep beep... "Reinforcements..."
• beep be-beep beep... "Hurry..." etc.

A message in Morse Code will start several seconds before someone actually interprets it; however, no information is lost, as the message actually begins when the interpreter starts to read it.

SKYDIVING

You got plenty of time up there, often a couple of minutes. You can almost talk casually to all your skydiving friends on the way down. If you don't have a parachute, just cling on to someone who has got one and don't let go until you're down.

SMOKING

Smokers smoke only when there is a romantic or dramatic reason to. At other times the smoker has no need for cigarettes.

SPACE & VACUUM

Explosions in space make noise. Exposure to a vacuum makes you horribly swell up and/or explode within seconds (ex. "Total Recall", "Outland") There's a deep humming in space, no doubt about it. Space is not Newtonian; spacecraft can't 'coast' but just stops dead if it runs out of fuel or power. Laser beams are visible in a vacuum.

SPACESHIPS

Spaceships make noise! Spaceships always fly perpendicular to the same axis. When two spacecraft encounter each other, they're always aligned on a plane and never approach at odd angles. All spaceships, no matter how small, have internal artificial gravity and no matter how badly your ship gets pummeled by the evil aliens in the evil alien ship, no matter how many external panels get blown away, no matter how many sparks or how much smoke pours out of your control panels, the artificial gravity will always keep working. There are tiny cameras mounted everywhere, on every panel, in your spaceship. No matter what happens anywhere in the ship, you will always be able to ask the computer to replay the scene for you later (even if the computer went up in smoke) and unlike those blurry convenience store cameras, your tiny ship cameras always capture everyone's actions at eye-level with perfect lighting.

Warp or hyper-drive will always fail at critical moments. Inertial dampers will always prevent passengers from being plastered against the walls during acceleration into warp speed, yet any explosion will send passengers reeling across the room. In a spaceship battle scene, for a ship to fire a weapon at another, it must be in visual range. Even though the 20th century saw the advent of weapons that can be fired without visual contact, the people of the future have lost this technology.

SPORTS

In any type of sport movie, a player on the field can look up into a crowd of 1 billion and immediately spot their loved one.

STAIRS

Whenever anyone is chased to a staircase, s/he will run upstairs rather than down.

SUSPENSE

In any movie where "something" has happened and villagers come to look at it, they always decide to "go for help". The most expendable member of the group is left to "keep an eye on it", and supplied with a weapon or signaling device "in case something happens".