This sort of thing just drives me crazy. So they have this thing on heroes where people will abilities are kept under control by some sort of wire device that is up their noses. I have no problem with this. Great! Do it! BOOM! Win!
But as it turns out, the prop they used for this amazing technology, is nothing more than a phone cable with a normal RJ11 connector on the end. Sound stupid? It’s even worse in practice. (As seen in the latest episode. The screen cap above is taken right when it is yanked out.)
You can’t find another household item that might look a bit more convincing? Ugh. Not sure what’s worse. Stuff like this, or the fact that stuff like this bugs me so much in movies and TV.
Any other good examples of this sort of thing?
Well it looked more like a medical hose with some other stuff in the tip… not a phone cable :S
In that pic it does look like a phone connector :º/
Watch it again…it is indeed a phone connector.
Every once in a while, Battlestar rubs me this way. I think a computer mouse was used as a conference room pointing device of some sort. I totally get that there’s a connection between our tech and theirs, and I appreciate the familiarity of it all. Sometimes it just doesn’t quite work.
Actually, looks to me like a standard medical gas tube with nose plug.
It kinda looks like a phone conector, but I think the cable is way too thick to be a phone line.
Sorry but this is not a phone connector. If you watch it again, look at it when its resting on the dude’s chest. Its clearly an air hose with a flanged end to keep it in the person’s nose. Watch it again…
Dr. McCoy’s medical scanners on Star Trek (TOS) were salt shakers. Would sure like to have some. Wonder if any survived from the 60s.
At least they put a little twirly motor thing in them.
I think they still haven’t gotten used to the whole HD thing yet. They used to be able to get away with crappy props.
I spotted a pair of Wham-O Trackball scoops on the wall of … I think it was Anakin’s home, or maybe Watto’s workshop in The Phantom Menace. It’s a couple scoops that look like these: http://i11.ebayimg.com/01/i/03/a4/64/fa_1_b.JPG
Hollywood does this all the time. Take anything off the shelf, glue something to it or spraypaint it, hold it backwards and you’ve got your prop.
What irritates me is on TV when people handle guns you hear a gun cocking all the time, and normally the chambered round would fly out, but people cokck and recock their guns, even witout touching them. Aim left: Kachick! Aim right: Kachick! Stand still doing noting: Kachick!
Dramatisation fail.
I didn’t notice this when I watched it. I don’t see why anyone would bother noticing it. If you’re willing to take yourself out of the story like that, stop watching the show.
It kinda resembles an RJ-11 plug, but I don’t think it actually is one. That would be really stupid en illogical.
crazy. everyone knows firewire up the butt is way better for data transfers
That’s definitely Tygon(tm) tubing, so it’s logical that the plug end is the standard flexible (round) earbud-like nasal plug (which you can pick up from any medical supply house).
I agree, Firewire up the butt would definitely delver the message better: “You do what I tell you, or I’ll plug this sucker into a 120v AC outlet!”
Great, even in the fantastical world of Heroes, I can only get a lousy 56k modem connection to my head.
And the tube doesn’t keep the person’s powers in check. It’s to sedate the person.
This kind of stuff goes way back. Like that scene when Julia Roberts farts on Richard Geere’s desk. That is definitely not a real fart…lame!
First off who still watches Heroes, I feel dumber every time I see it. Also in Speed Racer they use a Saitek X52 as the Throttle or something in one of the cars. Can’t be more exact I have only seen previews.
Considering how bad Heroes has become, it doesn’t suprise me.
I bet if it hadnt come out like this, nobody would have noticed it at all (and make any lame “omg that sux why dont they use proper stuff!!!!” comments. :p)
Finding things wrong with Heroes is one of my favorite games! It’s so easy, ANYONE CAN WIN!
Scott… jamming a phone connector up your nose WILL make you drop into a come-like state. Try it.
@ CDRaff,
Actually this season has got me hooked again. The last two seasons were rather lame, but I am digging this season and hope it continues to keep me entertained.
Erm- you guys lose. Have any of you ever been in a hospital? Under sedation? That is the same prop they used in the previous episodes, and yes, it is actually the medical tubing, from a side angle (which is what that is) in a single still frame I suppose it could look like a phone cord, but it isn’t.
*sigh*
And they don’t stop the powers, it delivers a sedative.
If you want to be so picky that you find faults where there aren’t any- well, why watch the show? Yes, there are plot wholes, blah-freakin-blah, I actually like this new plot ark, and it works for some fun entertainment. No other show out there offers people with superpowers, except for crappy saturday morning cartoons.
Maybe if something genuinely better came out in the same genera I would watch that. But until them I’m watching heroes.
And you still fail at being picky, that is not a phone jack.
There’s a great Simpsons gag about that. The episode “She of Little Faith” includes a 50′s made-for-tv movie about space (The Planet from Outer Space), and the crew wears goggles over their eyes to keep the space air out of the lungs, and they communicate through a telephone receiver flipped over. It was hilarious.
Went back and watched it again. After it is pulled out and Syler drops it on his chest it is easy to see that the end of it is shaped like an ear plug and not a phone cable.
you guys smoke crack. That thing is an RJ11 connector, I am 100% sure, plus or minus 3% for human error.
Watch it again and look REALLY close!
He- roh phone home
RJ11 FTW or, rather… FTL
sorry scott but thats not a rj11 connector its medical tubing with a plug on the end of it at first it resembles one but i studied it and you can see the curviture at the end of the plug
Actually, it is not a phone cable with a rj11 connector on it. It is a surgical tube with a multi-strand wire running the length to a silicone ear plug. Silicone ear plugs were used so they could be replaced. I know for a fact… We know who made these.
Did you know that in episode 2 Attack of the Clones of Star Wars, during the big fight in the colusseum-type place, not enough light saber props were built for all the Jedi, so one of them actually had a novelty over-sized Pez dispenser painted silver with a thin wrapping paper tube painted white duct-taped to the top? In fact, if you look closely at that scene, you can actually see that one of the Jedi in the background has a slightly thicker light saber “blade” than the others.
Woops, I actually meant taller, NOT thicker. I have no clue how I managed that one…
its definitely a phone cable. its the way the light is hitting it that is making it look hollow like a tube.
LOL. Actually, it is NOT a phone cord. LOL. OMG. this is so stupid to argue this but here is a picture of one of the ends. Please let this discussion die in peace….LOL.
http://www.sci-fire.com/images/nosething.jpg
that thing is not what he uses. Dont use the photo as your ultimate reference. Go watch it.
Scott, seriously… goto hulu load up the HD episode and watch it again.
Skip watch as he pulls it out and then watch it as it rests on his chest. Its clearly what Postmortem01 has pointed out.
Wow Scott you fail, getting all worked up over something like this, when it is obviously the thing that Postmortem01 showed.
Bob, I’ve noticed plenty of things like that over the years. In The Phantom Menace, the Jedi communicators are modified lady’s razors. (I forget the brand)
One of my favorites, though, was in Star Trek: Generations. One of the Christmas gifts Picard’s Nexus-kids get is an Aliens Evac Fighter. They didn’t even repaint the thing.
As for the tubing, yeah, that’s definitely medical tubing.
i just watched it again scott, and i have to agree that its not a phone cord. Sorry Scott but we’re all wrong once inna while…
Postmortem cheats though, i’ll leave it at that.
The one thing that’s always bothered me (and I can’t believe it hasn’t been mentioned yet) is when they show computers being used on…well, just about everything. This is what I learned about computers by watching TV and movies:
*Computers rarely require a mouse; almost everything from opening a folder to hacking the DoD can be doing by typing what sounds like roughly the same amount of characters very fast.
*Computer programs sound like R2-D2; the number of beeps and boops that come out of programs on TV and in the movies is staggeringly large.
*If a computer isn’t beeping and booping, it’s talking to you. Who knew they’d have a sound bite for “system meltdown in 5…”
*Everything has a lovely GUI that shows wireframe models of houses, faces, business complexes…everything, really.
*When hacking, invariably one will type a command that results in endless scrolling of strings of code and random numbers.
*Hacking can be doing through a GUI.
*The pointer (if any) moves at one steady speed in a straight line, and takes up about a quarter of the screen.
I’m sure there are more things, but that’s all I can think of. I know the reason for this probably has to do with copyright and a general lack of interest in paying royalties to Microsoft or Apple every time they show a computer screen, but sometimes it really brings me out of the false reality a movie has caught me up in.
That’s like the Humvee and other 20th century américan devices we see in the alien human civilisation of the 12 colonies in BSG.
Postmortem01 obliviously photoshoped that picture! He doesn’t have any proof that that’s what they used! I’m siding with the phone cord theory!
And another thing the people making these so called “props” need to wake up! Were in the world of HD now! Make your stuff better!
nerd overload
X-files was pretty good about this kind of thing. I remember a first or second season episode where the “bad guys” had bugged Scully’s pen, which turned out to be a bunch of resistors soldered on to a stick. The next one was a late-series episode featuring the Lone Gunmen and a VR simulation game. Being the “experts” that the Gunmen were, they had managed to force the molex power connector into the 40-pin PATA connector on the hard drive in the computer they were “working” on. You can even see how badly mangled the pins are in there. Not only that, it’s the only thing “plugged” in.
Oh, also, great second or third season episode where Scully decides to point something out to Mulder by circling text on the computer screen by drawing (yes, you read that right) with a red Sharpie pen. Ahh, good stuff.
I was amused once watching the USA Network series “La Femme Nikita” with my wife. One of the chracters snuck up behind a guy and stuck a “air hypo” against his neck and, with the help of a pithy little sound effect, instantly rendered him unconscious.
The “air hypo” that was used was the same battery-operated keyboard vaccuum that I used… they hadn’t even filed off the brand name, and you could see it peeking out from under the guy’s hand as he held it.
@samlin
you forgot. to destory a computer and completely erase all data, just shoot the monitor.