Reexploring Iconic Films: Odd Elements That Don't Quite Align - MovieMaker Magazine

      If you favor fast-paced films over those that are slower, we've hit rewind to revisit some details you might have overlooked. And it turns out, there are several aspects that are quite illogical.

      Rounders: Where's the Dealer?

      In the gripping climax of Rounders (1998), Mike McDermott confronts Teddy KGB in a high-stakes heads-up poker match. The atmosphere is intense, with chips clattering and cards being flipped – yet there’s a notable absence at the table: the dealer. Both players take on the task of dealing the cards themselves, which is an odd decision for an underground game involving tens of thousands of dollars. In actual high-stakes poker, particularly in formal settings or casinos, a professional dealer is almost always present, whether in traditional games or live tournaments for online poker for real money.

      Professional dealers are responsible for handling the deck and overseeing the betting to ensure fairness and prevent any cheating. In fact, many home games today either use a non-playing dealer or rotate a dealer button for this very reason – to maintain honesty and keep the game flowing smoothly. Rounders realistically depicts the gritty world of poker, making the lack of a dealer in its climactic scene stand out. As a poker analyst observed a decade later, the film portrayed most games as self-dealt, even at high stakes – a rarity today. “Teddy KGB would stake you three racks of High Society, but he wouldn’t bother hiring a professional dealer. Nowadays, even home games have a dealer,” the analyst remarked, pointing out that ensuring players like Worm (the film's cunning card mechanic) don't deal is a lesson poker learned well.

      In reality, a high-stakes game without a dealer raises concerns about integrity. A dealer is not merely card flipping; they serve as a crucial referee who upholds the game’s rules and flow, making their absence feel like a magic show without its magician. It’s a minor detail, but for poker enthusiasts, it detracts from the realism of what is generally regarded as a classic poker film.

      The Martian: Could a Martian Storm Actually Blow You Away?

      When The Martian (2015) begins with Mark Watney’s crew facing a violent dust storm on Mars, viewers are thrown into a life-or-death crisis that leaves our protagonist stranded on the Red Planet. It’s an exciting opening – but scientifically, it falters. While Mars does experience dust storms (including planet-wide ones), they lack the ferocity depicted in the film. The movie showcases gale-force winds that topple heavy machinery and threaten to topple a rocket, yet Mars has an atmosphere so thin (only about 1% the density of Earth’s) that such winds would feel more like a gentle breeze. NASA experts point out that a 100-mile-per-hour wind on Mars has about the same force as an 11 mph wind on Earth, insufficient to topple spacecraft or propel astronauts through the air.

      Put simply, the storm in The Martian is exaggerated significantly (both literally and figuratively). Why does this detail matter? Future Mars explorers won’t worry about being swept away by the wind; the primary threats from Martian storms relate to diminished sunlight (due to dust blocking the sun) and technical problems like dust infiltrating equipment. By depicting an overly powerful storm, the film presents a scenario that real Mars mission planners would find implausible.

      So, when you see Mark Watney battling the howling Martian wind, remember: on actual Mars, he’d likely hardly notice that breeze, with the real danger being dust accumulating on his solar panels, not an unexpected Wizard-of-Oz adventure across the landscape.

      Gravity: Can You Really Jet from Hubble to the ISS?

      Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity (2013) captivated audiences with its breathtaking depiction of orbit, following two astronauts as they frantically travel from one space station to another after a satellite collision destroys their shuttle. In the film, Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) and Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) embark on an unplanned space adventure: from the Hubble Space Telescope to the International Space Station, and then towards a Chinese station, all using a handheld jetpack and a Soyuz capsule.

      While it’s a heart-pounding journey, one significant detail doesn’t align with facts: orbital mechanics. In reality, you cannot simply direct your suit towards an object in orbit and reach it in minutes. Satellites and stations orbit the Earth at varying altitudes and inclinations, meaning they follow drastically different paths and speeds. The Hubble orbits approximately 560 km above the Earth at a specific angle, while the ISS operates at about 400 km elevation, on a completely disparate orbital path. The film suggests these platforms are conveniently adjacent, but in reality, “they're so far apart…not only at different altitudes, but on different orbits – making it very unusual for them to even come