Dan Browned Discussion - Television Tropes & Idioms

Eakin: This trope page has progressed from a mess to a disaster. Reading the discussion page highlights how much natter and Thread Mode crap has to be purged to make it reasonable, all for maybe two dozen examples that may or may not actually fit the original definition? I'm Cut Listing this and proposing it be merged with any of the other (multiple) "poor research in fiction" tropes

Also: I took down the examples that are apparently still using the "this is annoying to people familiar with the material" definition. Unless the work's creator claimed it was accurate it shouldn't be here.

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Anime and Manga

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21 is supposed to be "Based on a True Story." Even aside from the... liberties... they took with the actual people involved, they also make blatant errors about gambling and math in a movie that is supposed to be about how a bunch of MIT students beat blackjack.

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Mission to Mars was supposed to have a physicist as a consultant to get the details right. ...Oh, the pain... It seems he was ignored.
Oliver Stone's JFK film. This site should tell you everything you need to know.

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Swedish action-adventure writer Jan Guillou displays many such errors in his recent medieval romance trilogy about Arn, a genuine Knight Templar. The books contain numerous Dan Brownish expositions on among other things swordsmanship, heraldry, period Catholic ideas, and Scandinavian history. Jan Guillou made his name in the 1970s as a skilled crusading journalist, so most readers assume he knows what he is writing about. However, those that are knowledgeable cringe during reading.

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Try knowing anything about any form of swordfighting, even just fencing, and read any book about Drizzt. It's a little... bizarre.

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Live Action TV

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Darths And Droids gives a solution to Game Masters on how to nip this problem in the bud in regards to their campaigns. If there's a certified expert in the group who would nit-pick your valiant, yet ultimately doomed, attempts at realism, recruit them for their knowledge when designing your world. That way, not only will they not nit-pick your setting that much, they'll defend it when another player says something is unrealistic.

Madrugada: Quite a few of those examples do meet the criteria of "a creator has been making noticeable claims — or simply strongly implying — that their work is highly researched and as correct as they can make it, only for you to quickly discover it to be a big pile of pants? " which is what the definition of this trope is.

I think that you are making the definition far too narrow, by eliminating the "strongly implying" part. CSI did make a point that there was an actual CSI on staff to make sure that it was going to be accurate, as did Mission to Mars, Bones, Numbers, and House. The Darths and Droids example directly address how to avoid this in a game. 21 weaseled with "based on" but still claimed to be factual — the tagline on the poster was "Five students who changed the game forever"

Next, simply because a page is receiving regular maintenance is no reason to Cut List it. If anything, it's a reason not to since someone (which in this case is me, not you) is willing to put energy into keeping it cleaned up.

And finally, new comments go at the bottom of a discussion page, not the top.

Major Major: I added a Crichton example, before checking this page. I think it fits, but anyone who disagrees should feel free to remove—I'm impressed with how much time went into paring this page down, and think it was a commendable effort I don't want to mess up.

Can I suggest the definition/discussion on *what* makes something a valid Dan Browned be kept at the top of this page? I agree with Grimace's post, far below, which I've edited, pared down and reproduced here:

I took Dan Browned to be when an author/creator etc. makes noticeable claims about how 100% factual & correct their work is, only for people to quickly find out it to be a big pile of pants (hence it being named after the...misinformed Mr Dan Brown). Did Not Do The Research is general ignorance on a topic and Critical Research Failure, from looking at the trope, is/should be when Techno Babble goes horribly wrong.

Prfnoff: This trope is becoming a sickening case of Complaining About Shows You Dont Like because they Did Not Do The Research. Something badly needs to be done about this.

Prfnoff: I've had enough, and gone and done it. As I said, this trope needs to be more than about shows "This Troper" can't watch because they know too much about the subject to exercise Willing Suspension Of Disbelief. Here are all the examples I removed:

Any work of fiction involving kendo not written by an actual practitioner invariably has moments like this for kendoka, the most glaring examples being the use of bokken during non-armored practice sections. You see, a bokken is made out of wood, and there was a reason people took to carrying them in the Meiji Era when metal swords were banned. Those things can break bones and give concussions, being roughly the equivalent of a baseball bat hitting you. Shinai aren't much better, for that matter, but at least they're made of bamboo and have a bit more give. Still, you should never use any kendo equipment against someone who's not in armor unless you actually intend to hurt them.
- Notable exception: Bamboo Blade.
This troper has a friend who holds a grudge against a fanfic (now published) author, because she claimed that her works were "deep" and "revolutionary", topping with the statement that she has "ten years polishing my Spanish". My friend is getting a master in Hispanic Literature, so is qualified enough to point the author's numerous mistakes in the Spanish language (being native!), real lack of deepness and originality, and excess of Deus Ex Machina and Mary Sues.
This troper tends to bury his head in his arms every time Western television makes jokes about anime. To the point he refuses to acknowledge the existence of Kappa Mikey.
- A related, and especially egregrious example was the shortlived "The Book of Daniel," in which the writers seemed to get Manga and WEBCOMICS confused.
This editor's mother is a nurse of 30+ years, and can't watch medical dramas of any kind without launching into a discussion on how Medicine Doesn't Work That Way.
- This troper's mom, who is a doctor, hates House for the same reason. During one episode, upon hearing the patient's symptoms, said "I'd give him [this drug]." At the end of the episode, when House finally makes the correct diagnosis, the patient is cured by the exact same drug that my mother mentioned.
- This troper is a medical student and all his colleagues love the likes of House and Greys Anatomy, although most acknowledge their dubious nature.
Any series, film, book, or so forth involving one or more Transsexual or Transgendered characters, even as cameos. Yes, even that one.
- The only exceptions so far: Boys Don't Cry, Different For Girls, and Ma Vie En Rose.
  - Also, Tales Of MU, but... well, you should compare the author's given name with the name her Paypal account is registered under before you decide it's an example of "research." See above, in reference to "writing what you know." Word Of God is that Steff's experiences are autobiographical.
This humble contributor had the privilege of attending a lecture by one Johnny Long on "Hollywood Hacking," a catalogue of the worst cinematic offenses against the network security profession. Did you know you can send e-mail over FTP? Sandra Bullock can.
People getting into a horse's saddle on the wrong side. You get on from your left hand side when standing facing the horse's head (or the horse's near side) as any modern rider knows. Somewhat justified in older things, but anything post 1900 shouldn't have people getting up on the wrong side, since after that it became standard to do that so the horse would be trained not to startle on that side and injure the rider.
- Also, any reference to a baby horse being a "pony". Despite their smaller size, ponies are not baby horses, though adult ponies may only get to be the size of an average foal. It's like calling a chihuahua a mastiff puppy for comparison.
Formulated as Mark's Law in rec.arts.sf.written:
Mark Hughes: Lo, I have formed a law, Mark's Law of Fiction: "There is no field of knowledge that a sufficiently stupid writer cannot get wrong."
Generalized and applied to movies by Lore Sjöberg in Sjöberg's Law of Cinematic Inaccuracy: "Movies get everything wrong. Hacking-based movies are laughable to hackers, military-based movies are laughable to members of the armed forces, and Indiana Jones movies are laughable to archaeologists."
Explained by the protagonist of Robert A Heinlein's The Cat Who Walks Through Walls. After leaving a career in the military, he becomes a writer. Since he knows the military, he tries to write military fiction and fails. His editor tells him that he can't write military fiction because he knows the military, and suggests he write romance novels instead. When he protests that he doesn't know anything about romance, his editor replies "neither does anyone else writing about it".
An Air Force officer this troper met has admitted she can't watch movies about the military without noticing how badly the characters break regulations.
- Similarly, this troper got to listen to a recently debriefed Iraqi marine rant about military movies, specifically the scene in Jarhead where Jake Gyllenhaal points his loaded M16 at a fellow soldier inside his tent.
Obtaining one's law degree has the unfortunate side effect of shattering one's Willing Suspensionof Disbelief when watching almost any Courtroom Drama show. See the article on Courtroom Antic for some of the worst offenders.
- Heck, this troper got the same effect from participating in "Mock Trial" competitions in high school.
- In a bit of a subversion, this troper's grandmother (who has been a prosecuting attorney since before said troper was alive) says that she adores the Phoenix Wright series because of her familiarity with the law.
This editor studies linguistics and computer science. This editor's brother is a history buff and military enthusiast. This editor's mother is a psychologist with a degree in theology and experience as a nurse. This editor's father can't watch anything without snarky commentary about something the movie got wrong from the rest of the family.
- In a similar vein: This other editor is a psychology major with a minor in chemistry. Her brother is an engineering major in Air Force ROTC. Her mother is a middle school teacher. Her father has been working with computers and networks for the last 25 years, and her boyfriend has degrees in aerospace engineering and international policy studies. We call it The "It Don't Work That Way!" Game.
Many, many movies that are about computers are painful to watch to anybody familiar with the subject. Bizarre interfaces with gigantic fonts, beeps and computer voices. Hackers are capable of breaking into anything and producing any effect imaginable on anything electronically controlled. Matrix style displays for source code. This troper had many people ask him whether he could break into a bank or the Pentagon because "that's what computer experts do".
A lot of articles about the Furry Fandom. If it's mentioned somewhere it may be explained as zoophilia. Or presenting furry conventions as places where everybody wears a fursuit and participates in a mass orgy. In reality, fursuits can cost more than $1000, and are extremely hot. Many people don't want one, and many of those who do can't afford it.
- Which made fursuit lovers smack their heads even more when the CSI episode "Fur and Loathing" depicted a fursuit lined with latex inside (which would make the overheating danger even worse). That episode is one of the big reasons why most furries consider any media coverage of their Fandom a Dan Browning until they've seen it themselves. Even then, the fandom is usually split on whether a certain article/episode/whatever is a Dan Browning or not.
- Really, most articles about fandom, period. Not to mention all the media coverage of 4chan/"Anonymous" now that they've gained mainstream attention with the anti-Scientology protests.
After becoming a lifeguard, this troper has found it difficult to watch anything involving CPR/rescue breathing or even first aid without picking it to pieces. She has never seen it done right, which is rather frustrating.
- That's more due to the safety issues of trying to restart or substitute the beating of the heart of a perfectly fine person although it doesn't excuse not switching to a mannequin for the relevant shots.
This troper had an English teacher who was fond of assigning said "classics" as out-of-class reading, then making the majority of the questions on the test relate to things that the movie or Cliffs Notes got wrong. Watched Pride and Prejudice instead of reading it? Have fun explaining that 19% score to your parents.
This troper, aside from usually knowing exactly what any given movie gets wrong due to his constant reading of the IMDB, also makes it impossible to watch any sort of period piece or sci-fi around him. Notably, he spent most of The Man In The Iron Mask making fun of Leo Di Caprio's American accent.
This editor is a lawyer. He finds any lawyer movie with Tom Cruise in it strangely accurate on his portrayal of lawyers as assholes, but laughable on every other court procedure contained therein.
- This editor spent 4 years in the Navy Judge Advocate General's Corps. Based on his experience, he can tell you that Cruise has the honor of appearing in the single most factually accurate scene in a legal drama, ever. That's the scene in A Few Good Men where he's hitting the softball for his team's fielding practice, while negotiating a plea agreement with trial counsel. I can tell you that is accurate, because I have actually lived out that scenario several times (in the role of the trial counsel; I don't play softball).
- Also, because of his experience as a JAG, the same editor can't watch more than about 15 seconds of JAG without getting physically ill.
This editor remembers an episode of One Tree Hill where a character impressed an acquaintance by having heard of The Descendents, and owning the album "Milo Goes To College". One of the best known pop-punk records of all time...
Then there's the 1602 comics, which are less fun after doing an A Level in the period. Although in fairness, most of the times historical fact gets fudged are due to the fact that the comic is factoring in the existence of super-powered mutants. Which admittedly would change the political climate a bit...
This troper's experience with an episode of Mac Gyver, where an American aircraft is shot down by something purporting to be a MiG-25, but which looks nothing like that aircraft, led him to write Just Plane Wrong.
This is sort of a meta Truth In Television: I don't think I've ever seen ANY news article on a subject I know something about that didn't contain at least one obvious error. Which makes me wonder what their batting average is like for the things I'm ignorant about....
This troper's research in Native American cultures and in anti-racist sociology makes her almost literally bang her head against the wall when she sees most media representation of Native people (and often of people of colour in general), even in movies, TV series, etc. that are supposedly progressive and based on solid documentation. Her reactions aren't even funny to watch because they're UnstoppableRage.
- And this same troper will always remember the face of her philosophy teacher in high school when a friend of hers explained to him completely seriously that Commodus had been killed in a gladiator fight by a gladiator named Maximus. Said philosophy teacher had an extravagantly huge knowledge of ancient Indo-European cultures.
This troper is an aerospace engineer. Suffice it to say that airplanes, their constituent systems, and related procedures don't work that way.

HeartBurn Kid: The Exodus example got blanked with zero discussion by somebody with a 1-letter handle... yeah, I feel safe restoring the page.

Red Shoe: I wanted to point out that the commentary about Angels and Demons and The Da Vinci Code in relation to Digital Fortress wasn't a claim that Dan Brown's religion books are more accurate. It was meant to point out that Dan Brown doesn't get hsi facts right, but it only bothers you if it's about something the reader knows about.

Kizor: I probably should've checked the length of the page before I started cleaning it from This Troper, but at least it's now usable instead of an unnavigable morass of Complaining About Shows You Dont Like. Prfnoff has it right above. Some of this stuff will probably be usable after it's cleansed; some parts of it are a good demonstration that unnecessary personal perspective, even if harmless by itself, often leads to addendums and additionallys and questions and "This Troper thought that..." and all other kinds of junk and natter that bog the page down to intelligibility. This is not a forum, people, YOU ARE ALLOWED TO CHANGE OTHER PEOPLES' TEXT.

Removed this:

This troper is in for hearing some major MSTing whenever she watches CSI with students in biology, chemistry, or any science for that matter.
Then again, in Angels And Demons itself he manages to get things wrong in fields ranging from Greek architecture, the cause of Copernicus' death, and... well, there's a pretty gigantic list here.
Wait, it took you that long to give up on Digital Fortress? This troper, armed only with a bachelor's degree in information sciences and technology, lost it about ten pages in when the existence of the NSA was treated as some huge shadowy secret and the book went on from there to postulate that hackers would be shocked, shocked to know that the NSA is reading their email.
- To be fair, the NSA -used- to be an actual secret.
- This troper was only a junior in high school when he read Digital Fortress and his suspension of disbelief left the building once they claimed there was a law stating that any code could be cracked on a giant computer in the NSA. With current technology, brute-forcing stuff like that would take something about the size of the entire Earth. It also ignores the existence of the "One Time Pad" code, which, if used correctly, is totally impossible to crack.
- For that matter, the ultra-top-secret slit-your-throat-before-even-admitting-it-exists facility that let the employees freely take the computer equipment home shattered the suspension of disbelief for this troper.
Seriously, minimal political, historical or biological awareness makes this quote from The Da Vinci Code, accusing the Catholic Church of suppressing 'leftness', offensively nonsensical, to the extent that this troper spent the rest of the book mentally screaming "Shut up, Dan!". "To this day, radical thought was considered left wing, irrational thought was left brain, and anything evil, sinister."
This troper is rather nitpicky about Japanese stuff, but Deception Point got annoying with that Japanese Corrupt Corporate Executive. He prays to the Shichigosan: what he calls the "seven deities of good luck" (they're real, but their actual name is Shichifukujin; "shichigosan" refers to the special birthdays of seven, five, and three). Oh, and the executive in question has some random not-actually-a name-at-all Japanese name.
For that matter, to think that a Japanese person would pray at all, much less to a group of idols who are more akin to Santa Clause than actual gods is pretty farfetched.
- Not to mention that it apparently didn't occur to anyone that the ancient plants they'd resurrected were a hell of a lot more dangerous than the dinos.
- That's Ruleof Cool. A T-rex about to bite a head off is more dramatic to the audience.

This troper suffered this from watching Star Trek episodes after he took high-school physics classes, and he learned what all those Techno Babble terms actually meant. For example: "Proton bursts" doing funky things to spaceships. The problem? Free protons are hydrogen ions. Federation starships are vulnerable to the most common element in the universe. Then there's that hated episode where the Problem Of The Week was fixed by bombarding the patient with antimatter. That's not even counting the many sins against evolution theory present in each continuity.
- Imagine being a person with a degree in Physics whose friends want all that Treknobabble explained to them, especially the nonsense parts. That's been this troper's life for twenty years.
- Doctor Who would also suffer from this, if its tongue wasn't firmly in its cheek, and the Doctor wasn't so obviously making up Techno Babble that sounds cool to "explain" things to his companions.
  - The historical gaffes in Doctor Who are sometimes more painful than the technical ones, especially since the show was originally conceived of as an edutainment program. This troper, a history minor, will never watch "The Fires of Pompeii" ever again because the scriptwriter actually ignored an important scientific detail about the volcano... that would have made for even more dramtic tension if used! It erupted twice in the real world, but only once in the episode. This troper is also thinking of mailing James Moran a copy of one of her research papers... that she wrote for a freshman science class.
- This troper knows a paleo-climatologist who refused to go to see (and review) the film unless someone else paid him $100. They did. He did. Review here.
- This troper rather thinks bringing a meterologist withing spitting distance of a copy of Twister would get the same result. Or possibly worse.
This troper was a meat and poultry inspector for a dozen years and volunteered to review Fast Food Nation for a certain website that has its own entry here. The review was severely edited because I pointed out nearly two dozen things that were outright wrong and complete propaganda. And every single food inspector has secret orders to kill Larry the Cable Guy on sight for what he did to our profession.
- Clarification request: is that troper referring to the non-fiction book or the movie?
- Let an evolutionary biologist (or a biologist period), practicing catholic/muslim/jew, OB/GYN, palentologist, or any number of other people near those things and laughter is the best result you can hope for.
  - Moving to the other end of the scale, let an atheist near a Chick Tract and laughter is the only result you can get.
This editor, a marching band veteran, couldn't even get halfway through Drumline.
- This troper's band director loves the movie, but his (ex) assistant director hated it. He doesn't care, because he's just in the orchestra (and can't stand seeing people pretend to play a stringed instrument).
- One of this editor's favorite memories of high school band was when our brand-new, incredibly naive instructor, after showing that movie, asked our percussion section why they couldn't play like that. It took about fifteen minutes to get the senior section leader to stop swearing, and another five for the rest of the class to stop laughing.
- Meanwhile, the one scene that sticks in this (other) troper's mind is when the music score for the final number is printing out on the classroom computer's inkjet printer, clearly accompanied by the sound of a dot matrix print head...
- Oh, let us not forget that that music that is printing, being produced by a snare drum performance, has flats, sharps, naturals, and varying pitches...not to mention the complete dissimilarity between the rhythms of the performance and those on the page.
This editor, a Physical Anthropology student, couldn't even get halfway through 10,000 BC.
- This troper like how the animals shown were almost entirely American, but then, OMG, Egypt.
- Let this troper count the ways: Inuit are attacked by Norse slavers who take them through the jungle. Our hero traverses the African desert recruiting several African and at least two Asian warrior tribes and arrives at an Egypt ruled by Indians.
This editor is a Classics student who finds it nearly impossible to sit through a classical epic without complaining. Troy? Don't get her started. 300? One version of Jason and the Argonauts has Medea, the most badass woman in Greek mythology, as a damsel in distress. See also Clash Of The Titans or any Hercules movie: they were fun though.
- Being upset at inaccuracies in a movie such as Troy is all well and good...but 300? When a movie clearly sets up shop in Audacity Central, you need to relax your standards a bit.
This editor refuses to read any fiction set in Feudal Japan written by a non-Japanese. There are a few exceptions, but anything with the words "ninja", "geisha" and "honor" written on the blurb gets immediately tossed back into the pile. Doubly so if the protagonist is a foreigner man who learns bushido or ninjitsu and acquires a Yamato Nadeshiko love interest. I'm looking at you, James Clavell and Eric Van Lustbader.
- It might be important to note that the Shogun is based on real events. Yes, it contains a whole shebang of inaccuracies, but there really was an Englishman who befriended the Shogun, was given a new, Japanese identity, and became a samurai.
Exception: My mother is an archaeologist specializing in the southwest, and my stepmother is a cultural anthropologist who works in much the same area. Both of them love Tony Hillerman's novels on those subjects and find them highly accurate.
- Semi-agreeance from this troper. The Thieves Of Time title is just wonderful when it reveals exactly what the rather mythological sounding thieves are, pot diggers. However, I find it rather odd he didn't mention kokopelli art's one feature that is always left off the tourist version. I'm willing to give Hillerman the benefit of the doubt, however, and guess it was less Did Not Do The Research than he really didn't want to go into it.
This troper is a geologist and volunteer firefighter. Ask me my professional opinion about Volcano and Backdraft.
- And while on that subject, I saw Backdraft in a theatre when it came out, coincidentally at the same time as a group of city firefighters. We were howling with laughter.
This troper's father is an electrical engineer who designs integrated circuits for a living. Going with him to see Iron Man was a mistake.
- What are you talking about? Tony Stark can do it! All others must Fail.
- Actually Tezuka-sensei completed his medical training and was a physician. He never practiced medicine but his knowledge of it went into his character Blackjack.
As a tremendous fan of Disney theme parks and their history, this troper can't read or watch anything that heavily features them unless it's an actual Travel Channel documentary about the parks. Inevitably, some character will take the family to "Disneyland" in Florida, or get the names of the castles wrong, or something equally egregious that anyone who has actually been to the park in question would know about. Worst of all is probably Ridley Pearson's young adult adventure novel The Kingdom Keepers, which has five kid heroes searching the Magic Kingdom in Orlando, Florida for clues supposedly left there by Walt Disney himself (who died in 1966) when the park was being constructed (in 1971). Icing on the poisonous cake? This thing was endorsed and heavily tampered with by Disney's Marketing Department, and yet no one caught the errors. Explain that one to me.
This editor cringes a little when he hears that punk's going to be represented on mainstream TV. The most recent incident was an episode of House with the somewhat assholish leader of a punk band going to PPTH after coughing up blood outside a show. Every time they play some of his band's music, though, it sounds less like any brand of what may be considered "punk" and more like an angry cougar raping an amplifier.
- Essentially every movie that shows people learning to 'waltz' or dancing to a 'waltz' is on absolute crack. The incorrect timing is the most frequent offender, but the most egregious slight this editor has ever seen was a set of people doing a tango. And calling it a waltz. To waltz music. ARGH.
  - For that matter, why are they making up a third note to replace the perfectly serviceable quarter note in the waltz?
- Considering the fact that the writers had to fight to keep dinosaurs out, the movie could be worse.
  - Don't you mean could be more awesome?
  - NO.
The above applies even further to Volcano. Dantes Peak, not so bad, but Volcano, the world's first geological comedy, is so full of suck that the science consultant for the film had to plead that he had been ignored constantly when he attended conferences and other geologists made fun of him.
My father is a Reverend, my mother is an RE teacher. Together they've raised me in a home with a fairly sturdy understanding of the Christian religion and some others as well, but not so much that I feel too uncomfortable when shows get it wrong. They do, however. In the past I've had to put up with their complaining about:
- An episode of Angel involving a possessed child and an exorcism involving magic sand, a box and lots of Latin.
- Eko's entire plotline in Lost.
- God The Devil And Bob in its entirety.
- Bedazzled.
- Devils Advocate.
- and anything with a priest character in it, ever. If they get to talk, chances are they'll say something wrong. At the moment I'm trying to decide whether its safe to let them try to watch Dogma.
  - Nonsense. Dogma should be your go-to movie for all your theological needs! It doesn't help, though, that the sheer scale of ambiguity regarding theological questions will inevitably conflict with someone's views, without even starting into the actual misconceptions.
This troper had this reaction during an episode of Navy NCIS when the team deals with a woman from Uzbekistan. First off, she was blond and blue eyed, most likely ethnic Russian. Uzbekis, however, are dark-haired and generally look more Asian than European, and ethnic Russians are only 5% of the population. The entire thing spoke of Did Not Do The Research and just picking a random Soviet satellite.
- Not really Dan Browning, as there are some blond-and-blue-eyed Uzbeks. If there were none, or if the character had said she was of pure Uzbeki ancestry, thet would be a Dan Brown.
- Speaking of NCIS, pretty much anyone who knows what NCIS stands for dislikes the original redudent title (helped by the fact that it was forced by the network)
As far as this troper knows, any time Hollywood uses an actual country as the place of adventure, people actually living in the country will have an "OMG, WTF, some research or consultants please?" reaction.
This troper, a self-described computer nerd, feels genuinely sorry for the people she saw Live Free or Die Hard with. The scene where the Playful Hacker sidekick proclaims that he can ""use the satellite network" to access the Internet on a regular cell phone when the cell network is down was especially egregious.
This troper has put a decent amount of research and study into the military, firearms, and small-unit tactics, so when he read the novelization of Command And Conquer: Tiberium Wars and got to the part where Vega drops his fully-loaded rifle to shoot a Nod soldier at long range, holding a hostage, in the head with his pistol, there were groans. Later on, when Vega gets promoted to Sergeant on his first day out of boot camp, the book hit the wall.
Charmed is infamous for this, often getting as many as three details right and thirty wrong on their monsters of the week. This troper, a student of fantasy and mythology, may only watch episodes with original bad guys; the (badly) plagerized monsters cause her to rant and throw things.
I usually miss these kinds of things as I'm not sufficiently expert in any specific field, but my wife and I recently cringed while watching the second season Columbo episode "Etude In Black", in which the murderer was an orchestral conductor played by John Cassavetes (and the ep was written by Steven Bochco). A respected actor and director like him should have known better, but every time we saw him conducting we might as well have been watching a 7 year old schoolkid! Up, down, left, right, up, down, left, right....
This troper was recently watching an episode of The Unit that involved a school hostage situation. Though the episode showed some realistic aspects of assaulting a building held by hostages, there were parts that made his head hurt. Not only were the SWAT troopers apparently bumbling idiots who were never trained for this sort of thing (and thus required members of The Unit to show up to give them basic room-clearing training) but one scene had the Unit commander make the SWAT officers train to fire at targets between moving civilians by having other SWAT officers move back and forth while the shooter fired between them with live ammunition. Has the concept of a target range never occured to the writers of this show? And then, at the climax of the episode, the members of The Unit lead the assault by the elements of fully-armored SWAT officers armed with submachine guns....while unarmored and wearing civilian clothes and equipped with pistols.
This troper is a NASA geek and has basically comitted and (using toys/models) has for all intensive purposes simulated a Space Shuttle launch sequence in real time (close to two days) coinciding with an actual launch, and could explain fowards, backwards and upside down how Hollywood got the process wrong. A particularly egregious movie lauched a couple of kids into space accidentally after they decided to sneak onto a "simulator that wasn't in use" while waiting for their space camp sim which turned out to the real deal and which they accidentally launched three days ahead of schedual! Even more outragious was the notion that the space camp building is next to the launch complex. When fully fueled, the anticipated blast radius is three miles! This troper even watch a small light in the four AM sky fly upwards that he was told was the space shuttle from the roof of the space camp dorms (which are on the furthest end of the Cape property FYI). But go ahead, dare me to like a space movie not based on the real deal.
On the other side of the spectrum is Richard Dawkins. This is especially jarring since this troper used to like the guy as a biologist. Then came the God Delusion. This troper is a history major and Dawkins's treatment of the history of religion, science, and atheism made him throw the book in the trash about half-way through it. Seriously, all historians have secret orders to kick the guy's ass for what he did to our profession, and apperantly philosophers and theologians have similar feelings. Then the guy comes out and admits that he did not do the research. Now, far from liking him, this troper can't take anything he says seriously.
- ...and any ammunition the religious had against Dawkins was wasted when they made Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. Let's put aside the underhanded tactics (like tricking scientists like Dawkins into interviewing for another movie), the blatant prosetlyzation, and the godwinning of evolution. Stein and company show less understanding of evolutionary theory than your standard second grader. Stein himself believes that scientists believe evolution is the answer for everything from the Big Bang to why your car didn't start today. And he evidently doesn't believe that any progress has been made in evolution since Darwin's time, even though biologists not only discovered DNA, but mapped the entire human genome since Darwin. (This was added later, but I took the fact that some people on one side acting stupid was used to condemn that entire side as proof that this should be set aside and straightened out before it explodes.)

Grimace: You are my new God. Pagan or not, I don't care. I came to this page hoping to chortle smugly with tropers pointing out the faults in know-it-all author's books, but instead found people complaining about historical inaccuracies in 10,000 BC and electrical mix-ups in Iron Man. I mean good god people, just sit down and enjoy the damn action flick!

Narvi: Why'd you cut out the scifi examples? Scifi fans complaining is in the trope description. I'm not sure what your definition of Complaining About Shows You Dont Like is, since some of the examples you've cut out were just complaining about the technical gaffes, and not about the actual quality of the show, which is what this trope is about.

Elihu: I feel like we have to do something about this. Without a change of some sort, all the effort put into cleaning up the mass of off-topic entries is going to go to waste. Anyone else feel like we need to standardize a format so that we don't keep getting HUGE paragraphs that start off with "Just watch X with a Y or anyone with a high school degree education in Chemistry/Biology?" Not that we have to have rigid rules or anything, just something to curb all the blatant ego-masturb ation masquerading as a trope example.

Lord Seth: Should the Exodus example be removed? I'm concerned on the Rule Of Cautious Editing Judgment on this one, and it reads a bit like a Take That.

Elihu: Feels mean-spirited and reads like potential Flame Bait. Clipped.
- A word of advice: Never see anything that even obliquely references the biblical book of Exodus with an Egyptologist. As we know now, Exodus is itself a Dan Browning of actual Egyptian history, and given that most adaptations tend to tinker around with it as well... well, let's just say you're in for a rant or thirty. And guess what that means!
HeartBurn Kid: I honestly didn't mean that as Flame Bait. I meant that from my personal experiences after having seen Prince of Egypt with my sister-in-law. It was an ugly, ugly rant.

Professor Thascales: How does Dan Browned differ from Did Not Do The Research, or Critical Research Failure?

Grimace: I took Dan Browned to be a subset of the two - when an author/creator etc. makes noticeable claims about how 100% factual & correct their work is, only for people to quickly find out it to be a big pile of pants (hence it being named after the...misinformed Mr Dan Brown). Did Not Do The Research appears to be general ignorance on a topic (no, not Alan Davies) and Critical Research Failure, from looking at the trope, is/should be when Techno Babble goes horribly wrong. This entry as it stands appears to be tropers with a (admitted, commendable) knowledge of certain subjects pulling apart movies that were just trying to entertain audiences.

The Nifty: Arggh, This page is not for Complaining About Shows You Dont Like, dammit. I'm cutting:

(Not an example of the trope)

Christopher Guest's For Your Consideration was considered a bit of a disappointment by its fans. Movie satire might just not go well with movie buffs who know how the process works.

(Not an example of the trope)

Judith Tarr's novels are a bizarre mix of fantasy/medieval history, and feature such 'gems' as Sioned, Richard the Lion-heart's illegitimate Celtic fairy princess half-sister, who marries Saladin's brother Al-Adil (who apparently doesn't care that his bride is a pagan, so long as she's "open-minded about the children.") Muslims and medievalists everywhere weep bitter tears.

(Also not an example of the trope - it's clearly Did Not Do The Research)

Jennifer Toth's book The Mole People Life In The Tunnels Beneath New York City has been criticized for its descriptions of abandoned tunnels, some of them bearing no resemblance to any location in Manhattan.

(doesn't even include examples of what is being Dan Browned, skirts perilously close to Flame War territory, and isn't about a work of fiction.)

Richard Dawkins is well-known for thought-provoking books on genetics and sociology - take, for example, The Selfish Gene, which introduced the concept of 'memes' into the public consciousness. Many of his recent books, though, seem to discard research more and more in favor of 'proofs' against religious belief and declarations of the harm religious thought has done in general, giving at least a few tropers a Wall Banger moment or two.
- Take the opening flavor text for this article, and replace "Art Historians" with "Theologians." Heck, even a fellow scientist remarked that "Dawkins' utter ignorance of religion causes him to say things that are, bluntly, stupid from both scientific and theological perspectives." Despite serious inaccuracies in his recent books attacking religion, Dawkins responded to those claims by saying that he doesn't need to research theology or religion because it's all bunk to him anyway.
  - Hate to risk an edit-war, but that's not as ridiculous as you make it sound - the "courtier's reply" argument is logically valid.

(Which movies and what examples of the trope occur in them?)

Pick a film produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. Actually, you'd better not.

ccoa: This trope is a huge mess. The trope is apparently that the work is plausible to someone without familiarity with the subject matter, but many of the examples just seem to be Critical Reasearch Failure or Complaining About Shows You Dont Like.

Removed the following:

(The plotholes should be obvious to anyone, no reasearch or special knowledge required. This just seems like complaining.)

This troper is still unsure about whether The Inheritance Trilogy was the product of Dan Browned or simply Just Didnt Care. Between the way Paolini set The Empire up and the reasons the people are rebelling against King Galbatorix (for collecting taxes and enforcing conscription) makes for some Wall Banger moments. By Paolini's logic the people of most European nations should have rebelled against their present governments long ago. And I am somewhat scared to go into his version of the elves because all the inconsistencies and sloppy world building there.
- This troper has not read the books in a while, but thought the conscription thing was only in the movie. In the books, its only taxes, and Galbatorix's rather nasty fetish for burning towns to the ground.

(Anyone with an IQ above room temperature should know this is false, no knowledge of D&D required. The only one that's even borderline fitting this trope is the last comment, since it does actual require some knowledge of game mechanics to realize it's BS. Thus, I'm putting back this comment in edited form, with only the last as an example of this trope.)

The Jack Chick tract Dark Dungeons has been a source of hilarity for a generation of Dungeons And Dragons players, with its strawman devil-worshipping teens uttering lines like "Go away, Elfstar! You don't exist anymore!", and a DM offering to teach one player "the real power".
- The "oh no, if my character dies, I'll die!" lines are particularly amusing to recall whenever this troper's dad starts complaining about how he's been ganked twenty times in the past hour and he's tired of walking back from the graveyard so often.
- For a hilarious parody of this mindset, see this video. It's funny because it's true.
- This editor got a laugh from the notion that the main character was having trouble with a zombie...and was playing a cleric of at least 8th level.

(This is apparently not a mistake, but instead of deleting it, someone decided just to point out that it was wrong.)

Try watching the waltz scene from Enchanted with a group of collegiate ballroom dancers. Why the hell are they doing the waltz, in 3/4, to a 4/4 song?
- Because "So Close" has a 6/8 underbeat that makes it waltzable. (In fact, this troper has waltzed to it, and had to go back and listen to the song to verify that 6/8 wasn't actually the primary beat.)

Elihu:

Nobody mentioned the computer note because it falls under Magical Computer.

Elihu: That's it. You know people are just running wildly with the purpose of this trope when you see this:

George RR Martin generally presents battles, weapons, and wounds very realistically in A Song Of Ice And Fire. However, anyone with even a casual acquaintance with archery knows that no bow ever made by man can shoot from the bottom to the top of a 300 foot tall wall.
- Toady One seems to think that GRRM is correct on this.
- Additionally, Jon Snow should NOT be wearing Longclaw on his back. Swords on the back is a Hollywood invention, rarely, if ever, happens in real life.
- This troper would like to point out that although the world of ASOIAF is relatively realistic (for a fantasy world, anyway), it isn't the "real world" by any stretch of the imagination, containing such things as dragons and what's essentially the Great Wall of China made out of solid ice. I think therefore that we can forgive GRRM for occasionally abusing the Rule of Cool.

It's fantasy. FANTASY. By it's intrinsic definition, fantasy is going to have unrealistic elements. Especially things that don't work that way in real life. For the love of God, think before you write examples in here. GRRAH!

Chad M: To be fair, GRRM does a lot more historical/period research than your average fantasy author. As such, he's probably held to a higher standard and then probably still manages to disappoint some of the most knowledgeable about the topics he uses in his work.

Grimace: This page is a huge mess. 60% is Complaining About Shows You Dont Like, and/or stuff that Just bugs people. We really need some clarification at the beginning, but considering my attempt at doing so seemed to upset people ("fancy that"), I'll leave it up to other tropers to give it a whirl.

Blork: Removed a few examples:

How many times have TV shows had an episode where a pretentious gallery owner randomly sees the artwork of some character and immediately declares that they simply must do a show for the gallery? For some reasons this tends to come up a lot in cartoons; King Of The Hill, Family Guy, and The Simpsons have all had plots like these. 'Cause we all know gallery owners and art dealers prefer random idiots off the street instead of, y'know, actual people in the art world with a proven track record. It's not like they're in it for the money, after all.

This sort of thing is not supposed to be an accurate portrayal of how art galleries work, and it tends to be treated as unusual within the story. It's just a plot device to set up the "main character becomes a professional artist" storyline.

There is an interesting in-story example in His Dark Materials, when Lord Asriel shows the head of a man who was "trepanned and killed" by a northern tribe. It's later revealed that said tribe doesn't trepan its enemies but its members instead, indicating that Lord Asriel was using fear and doubt to get some funding.

Not this trope.

The novel Relic met the wall (and has never been finished) after the author helpfully informed the reader that radiocarbon dating of igneous rock gave an age of over a billion years. One would expect this would normally be a case of Did Not Do The Research... except that the same author, on the preceding page had explained how C14 dating worked and that it wasn't useful for ages much over 50,000 years. And to cap it off, this data was determined by a type of mass spectrometer only available in the US... while in our world, only roughly 95% of the universities and institutions that have such a device are not in the US.

This is a particularly stupid mistake if true, but if the important information was in the same book then the mistake was clearly not only noticable to people with in-depth knowledge of the subject.

How about the portrayal of how court works in Phoenix Wright?
- Was it ever supposed to be realistic?
- According to Word Of God, no, it's supposed to be fun.

As stated, the game doesn't even pretend to be realistic. You might as well complain that real go-karts don't shoot shells and lightning bolts.

I also removed a bit that suggested Jack Chick gets his facts wrong deliberately, since I've never seen anything to suggest he doesn't totally believe in everything he says.

TARKINGTON: I cut this example:

This troper who is an actual writer detests those movies where the aspiring writer writes for half an hour, then gives the completely untouched piece to their love interest. Writers are essentially artists of language, and therefore they also require lots of time to perfect the piece they're working on. Even if you write something that's only a few pages, writers are anal-retentive about diction, word flow, and on a computer, font choice. That's right: Italics are often used for thoughts and quiet emphasis, bold-font may be used to signify loud emphasis or something unnatural, and underlining is rarely used except to add that finishing touch to chapter/story titles. Unless you are a genius with lots of time on your hands, the closest most people get to the mentioned situation is leaving one part as-is (as in, a paragraph or conversation), then revising the rest of it like hell.

- because even as a cheerfully amateur writer I find it embarrassing, from 'actual writer' to 'font choice = formatting' (neither of which really matter).

Blork: I haven't seen the film for a while and so aren't quite confident enough to remove it, but is that Justifying Edit about Man of the Year really correct? As I recall the narrator initially talked about the discovery as being a case of the programmer pulling huge amounts of overtime, the executive wanted to silence the programmer because news of the faulty product could kill the company rather than a desire to rig the election, and the bug was discovered before the eventual winner even entered the race. Even if I'm remembering this all wrong, the idea that one executive could change the program, order everyone else not to test for basic functionality and then the government would just implement this vital piece of software without checking to see if it works would probably fall under this trope anyway.

Nornagest:

** Oh, and by the way, Nietzsche hated his Nazi sister.

It's true, but what is it doing here?

Matthew The Raven: There's a weird conversation in the film where one of the characters dismisses Nietzsche's work as burnable because he was in love with his sister. So yeah, Dan Browned. time=1230664953

Anonymous Mc Cartneyfan: What anime is this?! Please name it in the example before putting it back...

HORSES' LEGS DO NOT MOVE THAT WAY!!! GOODNIGHT! What we think of as the horse's rear "knee" is actually more like the ankle/elbow, and it bends the other way!! (about 1:45 in)

Kizor: Nerdboy smash!

The Core
- Especially jarring is knowing that the main writer has a degree in physics.
  - Also jarring is reading the article in Discover Magazine, printed before the film's release, lauding it as well-researched hard science fiction. This troper, a geology enthusiast, almost paid to see The Core in theaters on the strength of that article alone before happening to receive a very different (and, as it turned out, more correct) evaluation of the film.
  - This troper was responsible for fact-checking that review before publication and, having just re-read it, can confirm that every fact explicitly stated in that review is true. The words "well-researched" do not appear anywhere in it.
- Oh, I don't know. It might be fun if the physicist were snarky enough.
- This physicist watched The Core with a marine biologist. At the end, she mentioned how unrealistic the movie was ... because those whales aren't found anywhere near Hawaii. Apparently she wasn't concerned with "drill down to the Earth's core and set off 12 nuclear bombs to restart it spinning".
- This troper physics teacher in high school actually has shown the movie as a sample of Physics well researched. He & this troper had already seen the movie, he just said "no" laughing and walked out. This teacher also have very liberal ideas of Wormhole Physics (think of the movie Jumper; at least this troper wasn't there anymore when this one came).
- This troper saw The Core in a cinema full of physics and engineering students. The whole movie is so absurd that everyone was hysterically laughing for a whole 1.5+ hours of it.
- Oh, come on guys. Can't you recognise an Affectionate Parody when you see it? They even call the Applied Phlebotinum Unobtainium for Chrissakes...
- Amusingly enough, this troper's Systems of the Earth class watched The Core for the geology unit. A sizable portion of the accompanying worksheet involved pointing out what was wrong in the movie.

Arrow: This page is an absolute mess, but I have no idea what we could possibly do about it at this point, besides a mass purging (and that's tough since not every example listed necessarily ISN'T this trope; we might accidentally pull legitimate stuff). Any ideas?

Greenygal: Putting this here until someone can, you know, name the show.

Being a police procedural involving the military, it shares many problems with CSI, JAG et al mentioned above. It also provides a good example of the common mistakes made with MRI machines. One episode has the team trying to autopsy a body without doing a proper autopsy so they have to secretly put take it to a hospital to be scanned. Now while why this has to be a secret is beyond this troper but when they do go they show several common mistakes
- Firstly they do a scan that isn't an MRI but ends up with exactly the same type of image. In TV, nearly every scan whether a CAT scan or PET will look like the stock images of MRI brain sections.
- When they actually go to the MRI they just wheel the body in on a regular trolley, with a steel frame, when in reality MRI rooms have their own plastic ones. Going into the room is a bit like going into Magneto's plastic prison in the X-Men movies. Few would have noticed this due to the belief that ...
- They can just turn the scanner and its magnet on and off. In fact the magnets of the scanner, since they are based on superconductors only take an initial voltage and then the current can just continuously flow around and generate a magnetic field without external input. Turning it off requires slowly drawing down the current, dealing with the liquid helium that cools the superconductors and takes several engineers several days and around £30,000 to turn back on. Not something that can be done secretly.
- The show averted the common "everything metals gets stuck to the magnet" with characters pointing out that the lead bullet fragment that were looking for was non-ferromagnetic.

Beerwulf: Correction needed to Film: Eagle-Eye entry. Martin-Baker Ejection seats are not used in the F-16, not even in any of the many export versions. The F-16 has an ACES II seat.

Kinitawowi: Just to make sure I'm reading this right.

Dan Browned: I looked it up, honest!
Critical Research Failure: I looked it up in a rubbish encyclopaedia, and now my story's ruined.
Did Not Do The Research: The dog ate my encyclopaedia and I couldn't look it up. I didn't have time to look it up. I forgot to look it up. I ran out of gas. I had a flat tire. I didn't have enough money for cab fare. My tux didn't come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from out of town. Someone stole my car. There was an earthquake! A terrible flood! Locusts! IT WASN'T MY FAULT, I SWEAR TO GOD!
They Just Didnt Care: I have far more important things to do and couldn't be arsed to look it up.
Complaining About Shows You Dont Like: Look it up for fuck's sake, you stupid show!

How far off?

Dick Richardson - Moar like...

Dan Browned - BAWWWWWWWW THE AUTHOR IS STUPID
Critical Research Failure - BAWWWWWWW THIS STORY SUCKS BECAUSE IT DOESN'T CONFORM TO REAL LIFE NEVER MIND FICTION =/= REAL LIFE HURF DURF
Did Not Do The Research - BAWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!! WRITERS ARE STUPID!!!!

Madrugada: No, Dick is wrong and you are basically right, Kinitawowi. The real difference between Did Not Do The Research and They Just Didn'tCare is DNDTR is "I didn't bother to look it up" and TJDC is "Who the hell cares?"

Tzetze: Natter/non-example chainsaw! Far too much natter and too many bad examples here...

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