History Film / LochNess

* ArtisticLicensePaleontology: Characters occasionally refer to Nessie - posited as a surviving plesiosaurid - as an "aquatic dinosaur", which the plesiosaurs were not, they were in fact aquatic reptiles that just happened to have existed at the same time as the dinosaurs. Characters also frequently undershoot how long ago the plesiosaurs are supposed to have gone extinct, with the bailiff giving a timeframe of about 15,000 years and Adrian speculating that a colony might have become isolated in the loch at the end of the Ice Age. The conventional wisdom is that plesiosaurs went extinct some 66,000,000 years ago, around the same time as non-avian dinosaurs, ''long'' before the Ice Age.

* NothingIsScarier: Having developed the late Dr Abernathy's photo of a large, emerging flipper, Dempsey drags Adrian on one more search of the Loch. Their sonar detects a school of salmon fleeing a larger object - which Dempsey then determines to be forty feet long. Adrian tries to get a camera focus, but, due to the object's speed, all they show is a purple blur. The object then crashes into the boat...

* TookALevelInIdealism: On developing the late Dr Abernathy's photo of what appears to be a large flipper, the cynical Dempsey, cautiously excited, drags Adrian on one more search of the Loch - whereupon [[spoiler: something forty feet long capsizes the boat]].

* IdiotBall: After the Bailiff says that the plesiosaurs in the Loch have survived for thousands of years without human intervention, Dempsey catches the idiot ball when he fails to argue that, while it may be true that the creatures don’t require human interference for day-to-day survival but scientifically proving their existence would mean they could then classify them as an endangered species and mean that laws could be passed to protect them and their environment specifically from threats by human activity such as Nessie-hunters deliberately going onto the loch searching for them or pollution as the Bailiff and Isabel were seen cleaning up.

* IdiotBall: After the Bailiff says that plesiosaurs have survived for thousands of years without human intervention, Dempsey catches the idiot ball when he fails to argue that, while it may be true that the creatures don’t require human interference for day-to-day survival but scientifically proving their existence would mean they could then classify them as an endangered species and mean that laws could be passed to protect them and their environment specifically from threats by human activity such as people deliberately going onto the loch searching for them or pollution as the Bailiff and Isabel were seen cleaning up.

** [[spoiler: One of the monsters even appears to have saved Dempsey from drowning after it collided with the boat, during the collision Dempsey is knocked unconscious and sinking towards the bottom of the Loch and the monster can be seen swimming close-by yet when Adrian who swam to the surface is frantically looking around and calling for him John suddenly surfaces despite still being unconscious, implying that the monster pushed him towards the surface, something that whales and dolphins have been known to do.]]

** [[spoiler: It's unlikely that Loch Ness would have enough food to a support a breeding population of Plesiosaurs.]]

* ArtisticLicensePaleontology: Characters occasionally refer to Nessie - posited as a surviving plesiosaurid - as an "aquatic dinosaur", which the plesiosaurs were not. Characters also frequently undershoot how long ago the plesiosaurs are supposed to have gone extinct, with the bailiff giving a timeframe of about 15,000 years and Adrian speculating that a colony might have become isolated in the loch at the end of the Ice Age. The conventional wisdom is that plesiosaurs went extinct some 66,000,000 years ago, ''long'' before the Ice Age.

''Loch Ness'' is a 1996 Family adventure-drama film directed by John Henderson and starring Creator/TedDanson, Creator/JoelyRichardson, Creator/JamesFrain and Creator/IanHolm. Creator/JimHensonsCreatureShop also worked on the movie.

* ArtisticLicenseBiology: [[spoiler: It’s unlikely that Loch Ness would have enough food to a support a breeding population of Plesiosaurs.]]

* {{Sleepwalking}}: When Dempsey goes out on the lake, Laura mentions to a few of her neighbours at the local general store that he walks in his sleep as an example of his {{Cloudcuckoolander}} tendencies. [[NakedPeopleAreFunny And he sleeps in the nude.]]

* YouNeedToGetLaid: A family-friendly variation, when Isabel tells Laura "You're lonely." Izzy consistently plays matchmaking between her mother and Dempsey, with varying degrees of subtlety. [[spoiler: When they have their BigDamnKiss at the end, she can be seen in the background dancing with pure joy.]]