Critical Research Failure: Difference between revisions

{{noreallife|take them to [[Media Research Failure]].}}

{{examples}}

* A [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWWo96by_qI&feature=related TV spot] for the film ''Gamer'' became an Internet hit when it claimed that "the last time Gerard Butler kicked this much ass was 300 years ago." Yeah, we're pretty sure ''[[300]]'' did not take place in the early 18th century.

* A commercial for Oscar Meyer Franks has a father come home sees his three kids on those electronic gizmos kids use these days. Wanting to spend Quality Family Time he trips the circuit breaker of his house knocking the power out and shutting off the older brother's computer, the younger brother's game console, and the sister's '''cell phone'''.

 

 

* The Mexican cartoonist [[Rius]] has made several books against the food industry, in one of them he lists as "dangerous food preservatives" [[wikipedia:Vitamin C|Ascorbic acid]] and [[wikipedia:Calcium carbonate|Calcium carbonate]]. Also: ''"Jazz is not an American product; it's 100% African. And by extension, the same thing can be said about Rock"''.

* ''[[Calvin and Hobbes]]'' [[In-Universe]] example: Calvin's report on bats, which has exactly one "fact" ([[Artistic License: Biology|bats are bugs]]) that Calvin himself made up. He's called out on the Critical Research Failure by everyone and his tiger.

 

* "At the next intersection, [[Supernatural (TV series)|Dean]] turns left, [http://community.livejournal.com/fanficrants/9652102.html heading south into the setting sun."]

* The author of ''[[Naruto Veangance Revelaitons]]'', claiming to know Japanese history, declares that he knows that Japan had nukes dropped on it in World War ''One''.

'''Phoenix:''' I said I was sorry! }}

 

* [[In-Universe]] example: Bluto's speech in ''[[Animal House]]'':

{{quote|"Over? Did you say "over"? Nothing is over until we decide it is! [[Artistic License History|Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?]] Hell no!"

* ''[[Tae Guk Gi: The Brotherhood of War]]'' while otherwise a reasonably accurate portrayal of the [[Korean War]] includes a scene where the main characters share a chocolate bar. Unfortunately, the chocolate's modern packaging is ''very'' visible. While the average viewer might not realize the "king sized" variant of Hershey bar wasn't introduced till decades later, they'd certainly notice the visible nutritional information (especially if viewing the film when it came out a mere 10 years after the introduction), and ''barcode''.

 

* Examples from the ''[[Twilight (novel)|Twilight]]'' series, whose author, Stephenie Meyer, has infamously bragged about doing as little research as possible. Garbled half-remembrances from high school abound:

** In ''[[Twilight (novel)|Breaking Dawn]]'', Edward and Bella's honeymoon takes place on an island off of the west coast of Brazil.<ref>10 seconds with a map reveals that the west coast of Brazil consists of [[Artistic License Geography|the "islands" of ''Argentina'', ''Bolivia'', ''Colombia'', ''Paraguay'', ''Peru'', and ''Uruguay''.]]</ref>

* Near the end of the last book of [[Gregory Benford]]'s ''[[Galactic Center]]'' series a hyper-intelligent alien entity gives a lecture... and fails entry-level information theory by getting the concept of entropy backwards. It's worth mentioning that Benford is a physicist and an extreme stickler to scientific accuracy.

 

* ''[[Boston Legal]]'' frequently makes errors obvious to even non-lawyers. Lawyers routinely meet with judges without the presence of opposing counsel, evidence that has nothing to do with the case is introduced at the last minute, and the same firm occasionally represents ''both'' sides in a case.

* ''[[Ally McBeal]]'' (''[[Boston Legal]]'' creator [[David E. Kelley]]'s earlier legal show) makes many of the same errors, but the law firm is shown to be "functionally corrupt" and ethically questionable in many ways. Why every single other person in the entire bloody legal system plays by the same rules, on the other hand, is an open question.

* ''[[The Weakest Link]]'' research team has proved itself to be the weakest link on occasion:

** The question "In which century did the First World War take place, the 19th or the 20th?" and gave the right answer as "the 19th". Perhaps excusable if you're rattling off dates and forget momentarily that the 1900s is not the same as the 19th century, but not for a high-profile, heavily fact-checked game show.

* In the recent season of the American ''[[Big Brother]]'', Julie Chen says that that's probably the first time Jordan won Head of Household. Actually; she won Head of Household ''twice'' the previous time she was on. Even if you don't count the first time (Which Jeff threw for her), she still won the final one by herself.

* Parodied in [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUyK_J_W4BI this sketch] from ''[[That Mitchell and Webb Look]]''. Many faults are pure and simple [[Gretzky Has the Ball]] issues, but not all:

** Steel is very impossible to "mine". "West Germany, famously a bunch of cheats" references ''East'' Germany's history with performance-enhancing drugs. And "Cricket? 'Ere in Yorkshire?" makes no sense as cricket is really popular in Yorkshire.

** Michell and Webb have a whole series of skits based on two screenwriters who never, ever, do any research. The medical drama in particular is hilarious.

** There's also the archaeologist who makes the incredible find of an ancient Roman...videotape. It appears to show several people having a toga party, but he and other researchers talk about the incredible discoveries they're making, while [[Only Sane Man|one]] stares at them in disbelief, and eventually brings up the obvious. He's then guilt-tripped into going along with it.

* In the "killer gamers" episode of ''[[CSI: Miami]]'', the bad guys are basing their crimes on the plot of a video game. The only way the team can find out what happens next is to play the game. Anyone who has ever set foot in a video game store has seen shelves full of [[Strategy Guide|Official Strategy Guides]] proclaiming "All Secrets Revealed!" on their covers. (And [[GameFAQs]] and other online sites, which will reveal those secrets for free!)

* An episode of ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]'' has a character describe Picard as being "two metres tall". That's over 6&nbsp;ft 6in! Patrick Stewart is no more than 5&nbsp;ft 10in, and the remarkably tall Jonathan Frakes (Riker) and Michael Dorn (Worf) are significantly shorter than that, even factoring in Worf's Klingon forehead. The writer clearly didn't know the metric system. [[Retcon]]ned in Picard's last appearance, ''[[Star Trek: Nemesis]]''- Picard and his clone both lament not having reached two meters tall.

* In the 2000 TV series ''[[The Invisible Man (TV series)|The Invisible Man]]'', Darien's surface temperature drops below freezing when he turns invisible. The reason given is that no light is hitting him. Clearly, we must all be freezing to death in our sleep every night.

* ''[[Mighty Morphin Power Rangers]]'', in "Return of the Green Ranger," features the Rangers going back in time to the late 1700s, where Angel Grove is a colonial town filled with British soldiers. Angel Grove is in ''[[Artistic License History|California]]'', which was originally ruled by Spain, and wasn't inhabited by Americans until the mid-1800s. Though considering the key demographic of the show, it may be a case of [[They Just Didn't Care]]. ''Another'' time travel episode more plausibly portrayed Angel Grove as a dusty [[Wild West]] town.

* The Taiwanese adaptation of ''[[Million Dollar Money Drop|The Million Pound Drop]]'' does this often enough to lead to suspicions that the show is rigged. Frequently, a blatantly false "correct" answer is given for an answer that happens to be one that the contestants left empty. One particularly obvious incident was when they claimed the correct answer to "Which of these animals is warm-blooded?" was ''salmon''.

* In one episode of ''[[QI]]'', Stephen claims marsupials aren't mammals.

** [[wikipedia:Stellar classification#Class O|Blue stars]] are real, but if one of them was going to hit the Earth by the end of the year, it would probably be brighter than the Sun. Kinda hard to miss something like that.

* On an episode of ''[[Tales from the Crypt]]'', a woman marries an ugly, abusive man because a fortune teller had told her that he would soon inherit a million dollars then die. Her life with him is completely miserable, so after she wins the lottery she decides to divorce him. When she tells him her decision, he strangles her in a jealous rage and is soon executed for her murder. The implication is that he inherited his million dollars from '''her''' and then died. The problem with this is that, as everyone knows, a murderer cannot inherit from his victim.

* In Disney's ''[[Willow (2022 TV Series)|Willow]]'' a magic breastplate is made of pure chromium and the official subtitles spell as though it were a fantasy metal. Either the writer or subtitler didn't realize chromium ''is a real element''. If the subtitler was the one at fault, it also means the writer didn't realize chromium is brittle and only used because it lowers maintenance requirements.

 

* [[Analogy Backfire|Any song that uses "Romeo and Juliet" to say their love is perfect]]. It's not as if the source material is that hard to find (and it's required reading in a vast majority of high schools). Romeo and Juliet's love wasn't perfect, it was hasty, shallow, and blind. The whole point of the play is that kids make incredibly stupid decisions when it comes to romance, and that parents embroiled in their own issues to the detriment of their children only push the kids into even stupider, more dangerous ones. Shakespeare, you sardonic bard you. The idea that the two teenagers were perfect and their parents were stupid probably originates from high-school readers.

** Another interpretation of the play is that Romeo and Juliet really are deeply in love - they are just also quite rash and get involved in a series of tragic events. So songs comparing one's depth of commitment to that of Romeo and Juliet don't necessarily backfire on the analogy, only those which imply that the result will be a happy ending.

* "Don’t Stop Believin’" by Journey includes the line "just a city boy, born and raised in South Detroit." Good trick, unless they were saying he's from Windsor, Ontario, [[Canada]]...

 

 

 

* [[The Zeroth Law of Trope Examples]] - [[William Shakespeare]] did it - applies to Critical Research Failures:

** In ''[[The Winter's Tale]]'', [[William Shakespeare]] committed a Critical Research Failure and was called out on it by his contemporary, Ben Jonson. Shakespeare had his characters shipwrecked on the coast of Bohemia (''i.e.'', Czechia) "where there is no sea near by one hundred miles."<ref>Shakespeare might have an out, if the play took place during the rule of King Ottokar II (1233-1278), who conquered Hungary and added it (including its Adriatic coastal provinces) to the Bohemian realm. Or King Rudolf II, a contemporary of Shakespeare, who was simultaneously King of Bohemia and King of Hungary and Croatia. Even so, nobody really considered Croatia to be "part of" Bohemia at the time.</ref> Shakespeare's mistake was likely [[The Artifact|an artifact]] from his original source, which took place in Sicily, not Bohemia.

** ''[[Julius Caesar (theatre)|Julius Caesar]]'' is the play where we get the phrase "it's Greek to me". In Caesar's day, Greek was the language of learning, and anyone with any education would understand it.

 

* In ''Koudelka'', the first part of the ''[[Shadow Hearts]]'' series, the action takes place in an old abbey in Wales. Which, the manual cheerfully tells everyone, including people living there, is a "small country in the north of England".

* In the PSP game ''[[Def Jam Series]]: [[Colon Cancer|Fight for NY: Takeover]]'', there is plenty of cringe-inducing trash-talk that gets tossed back and forth before almost every fight in the main storyline. One of the opponents you can fight for money in the Dragon House is named Prodigy. All trash talk pertaining to this opponent makes reference to him claiming to be a prophet. Prodigy, prophecy, what's the difference?

* Weirdly enough, this gets [[Played for Drama]] thanks to an in-universe example in ''[[Tales of the Abyss]]''. [[Stalker with a Crush|Dist]] spends much of the game trying ([[Harmless Villain|"try" being the key word]]) to manipulate the real [[Big Bad]]s into gaining the knowledge and resources to {{spoiler|resurrect Professor Nebilim: his and [[The Atoner|Ja]][[The Smart Guy|de]]'s [[Hot Teacher]] through cloning}}. A noble goal, but {{spoiler|clones are separate existences}} so it would never work. It stands out as being egregious because, while Dist may be [[Always Second Best]] to Jade, he is (oddly enough) ''way'' more of an [[Omnidisciplinary Scientist]] than his rival {{spoiler|''and'' was there when the first cloning attempt failed and produced an [[Ax Crazy]] replica}}. Jade regards the whole thing as a tragic dream that can never be.

* A Gamespot review attracted a lot of ridicule when it claimed ''[[BlazBlue]]'''s Arakune was "a colony of bacteria that really wanted into the tournament so it put on a mask and got in and started fighting". The split second the reviewer said this, Arakune's Arcade Mode profile showed up and [[Eldritch Abomination|revealed]] [[The Worm That Walks|his]] [[Was Once a Man|story]] [[With Great Power Comes Great Insanity|in]] [[Ax Crazy|full]]. ''[[Blazen]]'' had a barrel of fun with that one.

 

* [https://web.archive.org/web/20160305000111/http://www.closetgamers.com/comic.php?id=6 This panel] of ''Closet Gamers'' contains an [[In-Universe]], and literal, example, when a [[Dungeons & Dragons]] character informs the party that a "Purple Worm" is a tiny creature eaten by harmless, flightless birds, as opposed to the giant, nasty [[Sand Worm]] monster it actually is.

* On one page of ''[[The First Daughter]]'', an alien takes Tash to the top of the Washington Monument, with a top-down view, and the tip is solid stone. A quick look on a sunny day will show you the problem with that.

* [http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/02/24 This panel] of ''[[Penny Arcade]]'' features Tycho admonishing Gabe for not realizing that the X in ''[[Mega Man X]]'' means ''ten'' (it doesn't). Readers [https://web.archive.org/web/20120810082423/http://penny-arcade.com/2006/02/24 were quick to point this out, and a war of words soon followed.] Looks even worse since the release of the actual ''[[Mega Man 10]]''.

 

* [[The Irate Gamer]] is guilty of this in almost every video he makes. There used to be a page at [[TV Tropes]] dedicated to them.

* [[YouTube]] countdown user Fawful's Minion made a glaring one in his ''Top Ten Video Game Killjoys'' video. Specifically, he puts [[Goldeneye 007|The Aztec Complex]] on the list ([[That One Level|which is perfectly understandable]]), and then says he hopes he didn't offend any "Aztecan Viewers". If he pay attention to any history class, he would have that the Aztecs were wiped out centuries ago.<!--This could possibly just be a subpar joke, have to double check the example-->

{{quote|"Lala the Koala Plushie pays tribute to the noble koala bear, which is now just returning from hibernation to resume it's [sic] voracious consumption of eucalyptus".}}

** While regular bears hibernate, koalas (which are not bears, or even placentals) live in Australia, which even in its temperate zones doesn't get cold enough to necessitate hibernation.

* The [[Memetic Mutation|now-memetic]] "Jimmy McPerson" essay includes, among others:

** Having Jimmy grow up in Illinois while living in Harlem.

** Jimmy kills Hitler in a suicidal charge. [[Sarcasm Mode|Just like Hitler died]] [[Driven to Suicide|in real life]].

** The most glaring issue: If, as the essay says, [[Undead Author|Jimmy was forgotten by history, how does the author know him?]]

 

* In the ''[[X-Men (animation)|X-Men]]'' animated series episode "Days of Future Past, Part 2", Gambit travels to [[Washington DC]], but the monitor shows the ''state'' of Washington (with Washington, D.C. captioned right below).

* A terrible offender is ''The Mummy: The Animated Series'' in the episode "The Cloud People". Lake Titicaca is described as both puma-head shaped and as being found below the ruins of Macchu Picchu.

* On ''[[King of the Hill]]'', Hank attempts to invoke this on a number of archaeology students who are digging up his lawn because Peggy told their professor that she found a Native American artifact there. His efforts (chicken bones strung on a piece of fishing line like a necklace) fail miserably: the haughty professor asks Peggy to identify the 'artifact', and after she declares that it's a warrior's trophy made from the "finger bones of his enemies", he hands it to his students who immediately state what it really is.

{{quote|"It was baling twine, ha!"}}

{{quote|"What was it, mud powered?"}}

* An episode of ''[[House of Mouse]]'' starring Professor Ludwig von Drake was actually all about this. Throughout the whole episode, [[Mickey Mouse]] and the gang are constantly trying to find ways to outsmart von Drake. At the end of the episode, they make von Drake [[List Song|sing a song about every single animated Disney character]] [[Atlantis: The Lost Empire|as of June 15, 2001]]. When the song is over, von Drake tells Mickey that he names all the characters, and Mickey's response? "Actually, you left out only one person in your song: yourself!" Apparantly, Mickey and the gang thinks that von Drake is actually stupid, but to the viewers, he's actually even more so: Aside from leaving out himself from his song, von Drake actually also left out a ''huge'' number of animated Disney characters as well, such as [[Hercules (1997 film)||Megara]], [[Mulan|Mulan's family,]] and ''[[The Emperor's New Groove|Kuzco]]'' of all characters! He even referred the prince from ''[[Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Disney film)|Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs]]'' as "[[Prince Charming]]" (the ''real'' Prince Charming is from ''[[Cinderella (Disney film)|Cinderella]]'') as well. Said characters were probably left out as Ludwig was naming everyone who was inside the House at the time

* ''[[Zula Patrol]]'': On average, for every one thing they get right, there is one thing they got wrong.