Movies and television shows are full of blunders, some more noticeable than others, and each with their specific guild of victims. Ornithologists fume when British period dramas are overdubbed with American birdsongs. Government employees will tell you that the supposed main White House staffer in Contact has a nonexistent job. Archeologists hate movie shipwrecks, and marine biologists are already mad about the zombie sharks in the upcoming Pirates of the Caribbean installment, which, as cartilaginous fishes, should not have ribs—even ghostly ones.
But these are merely occasional grievances. There's one group of experts who can barely flip on the television without being exposed to egregious, head-on-desk mistakes: chess players.
"There are a ton of chess mistakes in TV and in film," says Mike Klein, a writer and videographer for Chess.com. While different experts cite different error ratios, from "20 percent" to "much more often than not," all agree: Hollywood is terrible at chess, even though they really don't have to be. "There are so many [errors], it's hard to keep track," says Grandmaster Ilja Zaragatski, of chess24. "And there are constantly [new ones] coming out."
[...] Peter Doggers of Chess.com notes another Dramatic Checkmate move: the felled king. "Tipping over your king as a way of resigning the game is only done in movies," he says. (See Mr. Holland's Opus, in which Jay Thomas slaps his king down after being owned by Richard Dreyfuss).A normal chess player will just go in for a good-game-style handshake. "This falling king thing has somehow become a strong image in cinematography," he says, "But chess players always think: 'Oh no, there we go again...'"
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Thursday March 23 2017, @12:01AM (14 children)
Let's start a list of the things that Hollywood doesn't take liberties with...
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Thursday March 23 2017, @12:02AM (4 children)
... starting with the way movies are made.
Hollywood doesn't even depict itself accurately in movies.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 23 2017, @12:05AM (2 children)
Not enough of the casting couch for your taste I reckon.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 23 2017, @12:22AM (1 child)
... there are specialty sires for that.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Thursday March 23 2017, @12:27AM
To sire: procreate as the male parent of (Merriam-Webster)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 23 2017, @10:17AM
Well, given that their portrayal is that wrong, quite obviously they have no clue of how film making works. ;-)
Or maybe they actively mislead in order to keep competition away? :-)
(Score: 2, Funny) by Ethanol-fueled on Thursday March 23 2017, @12:41AM (7 children)
Real people are bad enough. I had to beat the shit out of a person I was playing chess with because they tried to switch their king and rook around toward each other. He insisted that it was a real move but he also insisted that you can switch out a pawn when it reaches the other side -- chess isn't fucking checkers.
Good jokes are fun every now and then, but people who make up the rules as they go along and are just assholes. Chess also isn't fucking Dungeons and Dragons, there's a strict set of rules that apply regardless who's playing.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday March 23 2017, @12:53AM (1 child)
I've been advised to play a special version where you can't rip people's arms off when you lose.
Makes hyperspace travel quite boring.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Bogsnoticus on Thursday March 23 2017, @05:58AM
I'll just stick to Chessboxing [wikipedia.org].
Genius by birth. Evil by choice.
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 23 2017, @01:00AM
I especially enjoy the episode where Ethanol-fueled gets raped up the ass and gives birth to an alien shit monster.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 23 2017, @04:33AM (3 children)
Chess also isn't fucking Dungeons and Dragons
I can add rules to it that'll fix that. Chess with spellcasting and player combat is much more fun than your boring move-the-pieces around version.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Thursday March 23 2017, @01:54PM (1 child)
Pieces gain experience and level up? A pawn with two kills can be knighted?
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 3, Informative) by bob_super on Thursday March 23 2017, @04:07PM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knightmare_Chess [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday March 23 2017, @02:58PM
If you're bored with regular chess, you should check out Baroque/Ultima. It's kind of an inversion of regular chess and requires more concentration IMO.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Thursday March 23 2017, @06:20PM
Better, yet. Let's worry about the whole "it's OK to violate the Constitution, Due Process, and the Geneva Convention 'cause you're really sure that's the bad guy" trope, first.
Normalizing that abuse is a bit more of a concern that a miss-aligned chessboard.