Season 1 of ‘Duster': Not Quite a True Crime Thriller
TV-MA | 8 episodes | Drama, Crime, Mystery, Thriller | 2025
Set in 1972, 'Duster,' the latest venture from producers J.J. Abrams and LaToya Morgan, covers a lot of narrative ground and reminds people of a certain age what life in America was like over a half-century ago.
Although 'Duster' is fictional, the six writers of the eight episodes weave in nonfictional events to such a heavy degree that it plays out like a true crime series. For instance, within the first 15 minutes, references to Watergate and the recent death of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover are made.
Nonfictional characters are also brought into the mix. In the fifth episode, President Richard Nixon becomes an on-screen character. In another, it's Howard Hughes. In yet another, it's Elvis Presley's manager Col. Tom Parker talking to then-unknown actress Adrienne Barbeau (young version played by Mikaela Hoover). In the same episode, the real Barbeau has an extended cameo as someone else. The level of self-awareness here is off the charts, but in the best way possible.
FBI agent Nina Hayes (Rachel Hilson) and Jim Ellis (Josh Holloway) under the hood of the Duster, in "Duster."
HBO Max
Needle Drops and Polyester
The musical 'needle drops' of early 1970s rock, soul, and folk songs are bountiful. There are also glimpses of citizens band radios, cigarette vending machines, 8-track tapes, mini Hot Wheels cars, and signs advertising $0.34 per gallon gas. All of the characters are adorned in clothing most of us would rather forget. You can practically smell the rayon, polyester, and assorted ozone-killing hair care products.
Not quite a police procedural, the entire season focuses on the FBI trying to gather enough evidence to arrest Phoenix crime lord Ezra Saxton (Keith David). It becomes clear early on that veteran agents (read: white guys) are petrified of Saxton. Whether it's out of fear of reprisal, death, or widespread corruption, none of them are keen to pursue him.
Related Stories
9/7/2023
7/11/2024
This isn't the case for new hire Nina Hayes (Rachel Hilson). Bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and loaded for bear, Hayes is ready for action. Because Hoover was both racist and sexist, blacks and women were never considered for field agent positions, and Hayes is both.
Muscle Car
The only hope Hayes has to nail Saxton is Jim Ellis (Josh Holloway of 'Lost'), one of Saxton's employees. Ellis is the second owner of a 1970 cherry red Plymouth Duster 340. He feels that he owes Saxton and is loyal almost to a fault. Once Hayes offers Ellis definitive proof of a previous crime that cuts deep personally, he reluctantly agrees to be a confidential informant against Saxton.
Jim Ellis (Josh Holloway, L) and Ezra Saxton (Keith David), in "Duster."
HBO Max
The producers, along with alternating directors Steph Green and Darren Grant, aren't shy when it comes to 'borrowing' the intellectual property (IP) of HBO Max's parent company (Warner Bros. Discovery). Adjacent to product placement, IP essentially does the same thing: It lends the fictional production a tad more realism.
On one of the character's bedroom walls are theatrical posters for '2001: A Space Odyssey' and 'The Omega Man,' both Warner movies. One episode starts with a Warner 'Road Runner' cartoon that quickly morphs into another cartoon where Ellis imagines his own murder. Had 'Duster' been produced by Netflix, we would have seen none of this.
Flash Forward
Although not exactly original, the writers and directors incorporate something akin to 'flash forward' at the start of at least three episodes. All begin with what looks like something we'd see in the last 10 or so minutes. Just before the payoff, the actual chronological start of the episode kicks in accompanied by on-screen text reading '12 (or 13, or 8) hours earlier.' It's a clever way to keep viewers on their toes.
Jim Ellis (Josh Holloway), in "Duster."
HBO Max
There is such strong emphasis on the period props, costume design, time-appropriate music, the tipping of caps to pop culture of the day, and the unorthodox storytelling choices for a reason. Great writing, acting, and direction in period pieces will only take a film so far.
It seems easy to make a movie set 200 (or even 2,000) years ago. But for 50 or 60 years ago, that's a challenge. It could be because many Americans lived through the 1970s, and those that didn't have seen images (moving and still) of that time. Winging it is not an option. Everyone involved with the look, sound, and feel of 'Duster' recognizes this and completely nailed it.
Going beyond the above nuts-and-bolts description of the premise and key characters probably isn't a good idea. Every episode further unspools a dozen or so plot threads, most of which take the entire season to fully play out. Trying to figure out what comes next each time is what makes the show so addictive.
I'm afraid I have some bad news for those who prefer to binge-watch their premium cable shows. Beginning May 15 and continuing through July 3, a new 45-to-55-minute episode will drop every Thursday.
In the last 20 minutes of the eighth episode, I was on the edge of my seat trying to figure out which characters would live or die, and only got about half of them right. I also wanted to see if there would be a hint of a possible second season, and I'm happy to say it appears more than likely.
The series begins streaming May 15 on HBO Max.
'Duster'
Directors: Steph Green and Darren Grant
Starring: Josh Holloway, Rachel Hilson, Keith David, Corbin Bernsen
Episodes: 8
TV Parental Guidance: TV-MA
Release Date: May 15, 2025
Rating: 4 1/2 stars out of 5
What arts and culture topics would you like us to cover? Please email ideas or feedback to
[for featured image caption, suggest a tweak: Nina Hayes stars as Rachel Hilson in the TV series 'Duster.' (HBO Max)]
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
‘The Last of Us' Creator Neil Druckmann on Directing Pedro Pascal's Last Episode, That Pearl Jam Song and Catherine O'Hara's ‘Beautiful' Improvisation
SPOILER ALERT: This story discusses major plot developments from Season 2, Episode 6 of 'The Last of Us,' airing on HBO and streaming on Max (soon to be HBO Max again), as well as the video game 'The Last of Us Part II,' available on Playstation 4, Playstation 5 and PC. 'The Last of Us' co-creator and executive producer Neil Druckmann wasn't sure which episode of the show's second season that he wanted to direct. For Season 1, he helmed the action-packed Episode 2, which was written by co-creator Craig Mazin, so he at least knew that this time, it should be an episode he had a part in writing. That limited Druckmann either to the season finale or the penultimate episode, both of which he co-wrote with Mazin and Halley Gross, his co-writer on Naughty Dog's 2020 video game 'The Last of Us Part II.' Each episode had strong selling points. The finale is, well, the finale, while Episode 6 is a flashback that covers how Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) became so estranged from each other between the events of Season 1 and Season 2. More from Variety 'The Last of Us' Guest Star Joe Pantoliano on Filming That Heartbreaking Final Scene and Forgetting Pedro Pascal Pedro Pascal Says 'F-- the People That Try to Make You Scared' When Asked About U.S. Political Chaos: 'Fight Back. Don't Let Them Win' 'Eddington' Review: Joaquin Phoenix and Pedro Pascal Square Off in Ari Aster's Brazenly Provocative Western Thriller, Set During the Pandemic the Film Says Made America Lose Its Mind Ultimately, it was Pascal who kind of made the decision for Druckmann. Since Episode 6 constitutes his final full episode of the series, the actor requested that Druckmann direct it. 'It just made sense,' Druckmann says. 'I'm excited about doing an episode that had no action, which is almost the inverse of what I did last time. So I just felt like, this will be a good challenge.' More crucially for Druckmann, he realized that Episode 6 'is what the story is all about.' Taking place on Ellie's birthday over successive years, the episode depicts how she and Joel, now fully a part of the tight-knit community of Jackson, Wyoming, have fallen into a new, uneasy rhythm as adoptive father and daughter. For her 15th birthday, Joel makes Ellie a cake and builds her a new guitar, only to have his plans turned upside down after Ellie deliberately burns her arm where she'd been bitten by an infected, so she could finally wear short sleeve shirts again. For her 16th birthday, Joel takes her to a long forgotten natural history museum that still has many of its exhibits more-or-less intact, including the space capsule from the Apollo 15 moon landing — almost exactly like the fan-favorite scene from the video game. Things between them begin to sour, however, on Ellie's 17th birthday, when Joel walks in on her smoking weed while getting a tattoo from another girl, Kat (Noah Lamanna), over the burn scarring on her arm. Joel is furious. 'So all the teenage shit all at once,' he says. 'Drugs and tattoos and sex and experimenting — with girls?' 'It wasn't sex,' Ellie retorts, equally incensed. 'And it wasn't a fucking experiment.' Joel is incredulous, which only fuels Ellie's anger further. She demands to move into the garage, and eventually he relents and tries to make amends. Two years later, on her 19th birthday, Ellie tries to psych herself up to confront Joel about what really happened five years earlier at the end of Season 1, when Joel murdered almost all of the Fireflies in a Salt Lake City hospital to keep them from killing Ellie to find the cure for the cordyceps infection — and then lied to Ellie about all of it. Before Ellie can say anything, however, Joel arrives and takes Ellie on her first patrol, where they encounter Eugene (Joe Pantoliano), the weed-growing husband of Jackson's resident therapist, Gail (Catherine O'Hara). Eugene has been bitten by an infected, and the rules dictate that Joel must kill him on the spot, but Eugene pleads that he has enough time to make it back to town so he and Gail can say a proper goodbye to each other. Ellie forces Joel to agree to Eugene's request, and when she leaves to get their horses, he promises her that he won't kill Eugene before they get back. Once again, Joel's lied. He knew there was little chance Eugene was going to make it back in time, so to protect Ellie, Gail, and the rest of Jackson, he leads Eugene to a beautiful lake and kills him. When they bring Eugene's body back to Gail, Joel lies to her as well. 'He wished he could say goodbye to you in person,' he says. 'He wasn't scared — he was brave, and he ended it himself.' Ellie, seething, can't take it anymore. 'That's not what happened,' she announces, and tells the truth to a devastated Gail, who slaps Joel and begs him to leave. Joel looks at Ellie, shocked by what she's done. She stares daggers at him: 'You swore.' Nine months later, the show returns to Joel's porch on the night before he died, after Ellie kisses Dina (Isabela Merced) at Jackson's New Year's Eve party and, to Ellie's dismay, Joel defends them from the town's resident homophobe, as seen in the season premiere. In this episode, after Ellie arrives home from the party, the two finally have it out about what really happened at that hospital in Salt Lake City. 'I'm going to give you once last chance,' Ellie says. 'If you lie to me again, we're done.' Joel can barely speak at first, but he confesses his crimes. 'Making a cure would have killed you,' he says in tears. 'Then I was supposed to die!' Ellie says, crying too. 'That was my purpose! My life would have fucking mattered, but you took that from me!' Joel, sobbing now, is resigned to the consequences of his choices, but he doesn't regret them. 'If somehow I had a second chance at that moment, I would do it all over again,' he says. 'Because I love you. In a way you can't understand.' There's a long silence. 'I don't think I can forgive you for this,' Ellie says. 'But I would like to try.' For anyone who has played 'The Last of Us Part II,' the timing of this breathtaking scene between Joel and Ellie is shocking, since it comes at the very end of the game, after far more has transpired for all of the characters. Druckmann explained to Variety why he, Mazin and Gross chose to move that scene so far up for the show. He also discussed what guided their thinking about the new scenes between Joel and Ellie on her birthdays, his emotional reaction to seeing locations from the game created in real life — and what happened when O'Hara disagreed with his direction for the scene in which Gail slaps Joel. We wanted this episode for Ellie to find out definitively that Joel lied. In the game, we did in a very different way, where she traveled all the way back to the hospital and found documentation. It felt like we would be stretching the reality of the world and how dangerous it is on the show compared to the game. But also, looking at documents and exploring that space, I don't know if that makes as compelling of a drama for a TV show. The engine for the show is a little different than the engine for an interactive experience. So that ultimately led to the whole Eugene sequence. Because we were spending more time in Jackson than we were in the game, we came up with way more ideas than what ended up in the show. But each one of those was vetted through this lens of the arc we wanted, where they start out in this much better place. They know there's a lie, but they're trying to move past it, and then this thing just weighs on them and their relationship. Each step you feel like it's pushing them apart. That was the most important thing that we needed out every sequence, to drill that home. It started with conversation in the game, which was, Joel is oblivious, and mistakes Ellie's friendship with Jesse for something more. I believe that's something Halley wrote — it's so long ago now, I forget. We really wanted to keep that here, and then take it a step further. He finds out [Ellie is gay] in the game when she kisses Dina on the dance floor. Here, it felt like there's an opportunity to show more of Ellie's evolution of becoming a teenager in Jackson, and for that misunderstanding to create more of a rift between them. But also show evolution, forgiveness, movement — you could feel how much Joel is trying. He gets things wrong. It's the first time he's [parenting] a teenager at this age, but he's trying to accommodate all the things that Ellie wants. She wants to move to the garage, and even though he doesn't want her to, he gives it to her. She gets this tattoo, and she does drugs, and it infuriates him. And then he's looking at her tattoo, and he says, This looks better than the one I've done on the guitar. He's trying. She wants to go on patrols, and eventually he yields on that. Almost everything she wants, he gives it to her, and it's never enough, because ultimately their friction is not about any one of those things. Well, I'm not sure when it was written. You'd have to ask Eddie Vedder that. However, it did come out to the public in 2013, and it is anachronistic in that it should not exist in our timeline. Initially, when we were making this episode, there would have been a different song. As we were exploring it, just felt like we were prioritizing the wrong thing, this timeline of events and when things would be available. Clearly, we're not in the same timeline as our universe, so we have some leeway. And that song felt so important. Because it was in the game, because it has so much association, not only for fans, but even for myself, we changed course. The thing that we thought we cared about, we ultimately didn't care about, and the emotional truth of the song was more important than the timeline truth of the world that we live in. No. When we were making the game, I knew that scene should exist. I didn't know where it goes. That was true for all the flashbacks. Even pretty late in production of the game, we were moving those flashbacks around. In talking about it with Craig, it's the first time I really thought about the time between seasons. So much of writing is set ups and payoffs, and we would have set certain things up that get paid off years later. That felt too long, especially because this season focuses so much on Ellie's journey and this emotional truth of what did she know? What didn't she know? To wait additional years until Season 3 will come out — or maybe even Season 4, it depends where all the events land and how many seasons we have — I was easily convinced by Craig that that would be too long. It was a day's worth of conversation of us wrestling with it. The way I work is, when a suggestion like that is made, I say, 'Let's play it through.' I just assume that it's correct, and then we play it through and not only talk about this season, but talk about the future seasons, and then say, does it make sense? If the answer is yes, we go with it. If the answer is no, we either keep wrestling with it until we find another solution, or we just go back to how it was in the game. [Long pause] That's right. We knew we had this Eugene mystery, and we had so many iterations on it of just what that sequence should be about. There were versions that had all this action and fighting and shooting infected, and much smaller versions. It went from me to Hallie to Craig, from me to Hallie to Craig. It just didn't feel right for a long time, until we landed on him lying to her about killing Eugene. and then everything just fell into place, as far as, like, Oh, this is how she'll know. It felt like such a dramatic way for her to figure things out. As far as shooting that scene, if no one knew the lie, what I like about that scene is he's being very considerate. Would you want to tell Gail that he wanted to see her, almost in this pitiful way, and I still had to put him down, because those are the rules, and that's the way to keep you safe? Sometimes you could buy the argument that the lie is better than the truth, right? But for Ellie, it wasn't, because of everything else that has come before, because she saw that he betrayed her trust. That meant more than just this moment, it meant that everything that Ellie was worried about, the survival guilt that she's felt all the way back to Season 1 of needing to justify Riley's death and Tessa's death and Henry and Sam and all these people who died along the way so that something good can come of it at the end. It's almost in that moment she realizes nothing good came out of it. That's not entirely true, but that's how she feels about it. So it was just important that all the actors knew the truth they're going into it, and for it to be genuinely shocking. If I may, I just want to sing Catherine O'Hara's praises. It was one of my favorite directing moments. In the scene, she slaps Joel, and then in his shame, he's supposed to take a few steps back. We were struggling with it. It just felt artificial. It felt rehearsed. Initially, there were no lines of dialogue for that little moment. I went to Catherine, and said, 'I think we need to do something else here. I don't know what. What if, like, his proximity to this body is somehow desecrating it now that you know the truth, and if you want, you could yell at him to get away?' And she's like, 'Oh, I'm not so sure. I like the beauty of there being no dialogue.' And I'm like, 'Please, just try it. If it doesn't work, we'll go back to the other version. But I always like experimenting, just shaking it up in some way.' So I asked her to yell to get away. I thought that would motivate Pedro [to step back]. Instead, she almost did the opposite. It was so beautiful. She goes inside [herself] and starts sobbing, and begs him to please get away in this very soft spoken voice. I'm like, Oh, my God, that's so much better than what I asked for. It's one of those beautiful moments of collaboration, where I asked for something, she internalized it, made it something else, and it's better because of it. That's the take you see in the episode. We didn't. Pretty early on, we talked about the tragedy of that. We had a conversation about Episode 1 where, like, 'Should there be a picture of the two of them in their home?' 'No, just the shoes.' That's the only sense you see, his shoes next to her shoes. Sometimes those are my favorite moments in storytelling, those gaps where we trust you as a viewer to fill in that relationship. You can picture them smoking weed together and doing all this stuff, but we felt like for this story, we didn't need to show. I haven't found the words to describe this feeling. It's so surreal. I can't even tell you why I get so emotional when I'm on these sets. The first time I walked on set, I was in Joel's house with Hallie, my co-writer on the game and was the other co-writer on the show on this episode as well. We're like, look at this dining room! This is where in the game, Maria talks to Ellie and Dina, and it looks exactly the same. Every set felt like that. This [museum] set in particular, the day we're shooting this, I had two visitors from Naughty Dog, Arne Meyer, who is our heads of communication, and Alison Mori, who is my partner in running the studio. They got to see a part that we end up cutting from the episode, more in the dinosaur museum. I'm like, come with me, and we walk through this dark hallway with stars, and we got to the space capsule, and I'm like, 'Look at this.' I'm emotional, but I've been seeing it as it's been built. I look at them, and they both have tears in their eyes. This thing that we worked so hard to perfect in digital forms with pixels on a flat screen, now you could stand in it, you could go into it, you could touch it. All the buttons are working. The seats are real. They creak when you sit in them. It felt like we went into the game. It's this really wonderful feeling to know that this incredible crew that I worked with treated the source material with such reverence. It literally moved us to tears. This interview has been edited and condensed. Best of Variety New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week Emmy Predictions: Talk/Scripted Variety Series - The Variety Categories Are Still a Mess; Netflix, Dropout, and 'Hot Ones' Stir Up Buzz Oscars Predictions 2026: 'Sinners' Becomes Early Contender Ahead of Cannes Film Festival
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Yahoo
HBO and CNN owner Warner Bros Discovery to split in two
The owner of CNN and HBO Max, Warner Bros Discovery, says it will split into two companies by the middle of next year. The US media giant plans to separate its studio and streaming business away from its more traditional cable television networks. The move comes as streaming services attract hundreds of millions of users around the world but cable TV has seen audiences decline in recent years. HBO Max has enjoyed success with shows including Succession, The White Lotus and The Last of Us - while channels like CNN have been losing viewers. These hit shows will soon come under a new Streaming & Studios business, along with the company's film division and be headed by Mr Zaslav. The other new company will be called Global Networks - with CNN, Discovery and TNT Sports amongst its brands. This business will be led by Warner Bros Discovery's chief financial officer, Gunnar Wiedenfels. "We are empowering these iconic brands with the sharper focus and strategic flexibility they need to compete most effectively in today's evolving media landscape", said David Zaslav, Warner Bros Discovery president and chief executive. The splitting of the media conglomerate follows the 2022 merger that created Warner Bros Discovery. News of the split did little to improve Warner Bros Discovery's stock market performance. Shares were down nearly 3% in trading on Monday, with the stock down more than 10% this year. Peter Jankovskis, an analyst at Arbor Financial Services, said the split would help investors get a better understanding of each new company's value. "When you make the business less complicated, analysts can go in and do a better job of determining what the business is actually worth," he told the BBC. Warner Bros Discovery's flagship news channel, CNN, has seen its ratings decline. It averaged 558,000 viewers during primetime hours in the first three months of this year, 6% lower than the same period in 2024. In January, the network announced that it was laying off more than 200 employees as it looks to focus on its digital offerings. The outlook is brighter for Warner Bros Discovery's streaming platforms, which ended the first quarter of this year with more than 122 million subscribers. Monday's breakup announcement came after rival media giant Comcast announced last year that it would spin off its NBCUniversal cable television arm. That breakup is currently underway, with channels such as MSNBC and CNBC being separated from Comcast's other brands, including its Peacock streaming service. "It's a very competitive market right now, so many firms are trying to segregate out the streaming portion or the content portion of their businesses so that the remaining business can be valued separately", said Mr Jankovskis. Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Yahoo
43 Laughably Fake Movie And TV Moments That Completely Took People Out Of It
Recently, Reddit user Behind_Th3_8_Ball asked about props that ruined a movie, and a bunch of people chimed in with the wildly fake movie moments that always bother them. Here are 43 fake-looking things from movies that I can't believe made it onto the screen. We also used some examples from r/MovieMistakes. garbage can from Independence Day, which literally says "art department" on it: Suggested by u/Namtab666 extremely obvious fake baby from American Sniper: Suggested by u/Behind_Th3_8_Ball "I don't understand this shot. Why they didn't just shoot at an angle where you can only see the prop from the back? That way, you can still capture Bradley's emotions and not disclose that it was a prop." —u/raizo11 "A blanket around the baby's shoulders would have gone a long, long way. What were they thinking??!?!" —u/dae_giovanni the baby that appears on the ceiling in Mark's dream in Trainpotting (yes, it's supposed to be creepy, but STILL): Suggested by u/Significant_Fuel5944 the fake baby in this Malcolm in the Middle scene: Suggested by u/plainandawesome characters in post apocalyptic movies and shows, especially women, have perfect Dina in The Last Of Us: "Movies about struggling characters who have freshly cut, coloured and blow-dried/styled hair. Your hair is probably the first thing you neglect as a struggling woman, especially." —u/bibijoe Karen from The Grudge 2: "When the woman in The Grudge 2 has perfectly curled hair while in the hospital." —u/Sweaty_Chard_6250 an FBI agent uses Excel to hack a nuclear weapon in Unthinkable — and you can also see a movie script pulled up: Suggested by u/HalfACupkake you can see that a character's not actually on the phone, like in this scene from The Boys...: "Whenever people talk on phones, and you can clearly see the lock screen or the homepage of the phone not being in a call." —u/Coffmad1 worse, when the character's on a different app, like Abby in this NCIS scene. Suggested by u/Foxterriers when characters text using a non-messaging app, like in School of Rock, when an audience member "texts" someone using a blank document: Suggested by [deleted] fake video game-playing moments, like this one from Rumble in the Bronx...: "Rumble in the Bronx had a kid playing a Sega Game Gear, and it is very obvious that there is no game cartridge plugged in." —u/CaptainBloodface12 this one from Malcolm in the Middle...: "Reese from Malcolm in the Middle has a scene where he is playing a Game Boy THAT LITERALLY DOESN'T HAVE A CARTRIDGE IN IT." —u/bariztizg the "controller acting" from Anora, where this character just mashes buttons indiscriminately: "Anora (which I otherwise loved) had some of the worst controller acting I've ever seen; it's straight out of a made-for-TV movie. The actor is 23 as well, surely he's held a controller???" —u/wills_b costume from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles scene, where you can clearly see the person inside: Suggested by u/SlipTheSlime actors drink from clearly empty coffee cups, like during the stakeout scenes of Law & Order...: "I can't stand when actors drink from empty coffee cups!!! Totally takes me out of the moment, and then it's all I can notice. Of course I can't think of any movies that do this now though..." —u/mudmilkshake "Not a movie, but almost every stakeout scene from every iteration of Law & Order. To me, adding some weight so they feel a bit more real to the actors and so the cup doesn't sound empty when it's put down seems like such a simple thing, but I'm sure there's more to it." —u/RedCorundum on Gilmore Girls, where the characers keep gesturing while holding cups that are clearly empty: "Gilmore Girls was the worst at this, to the point where it seemed like the cast was treating it as a running gag. They'd be gesturing wildly with supposedly full cups in their hands." —u/mbklein "Comes back from the bar at Luke's with two 'freshly filled' coffee cups. Can't see the coffee. Every time." —u/y3llowed communicator from The Phantom Menace, which is obviously a Gillette Razor: "The Gillette Ladyshave that Qui-Gon uses as his communicator in Star Wars: Episode 1 always gets me." —u/PauPau86 "My girlfriend and I both noticed that opening night in the theater because she used that exact razor." —u/Ralph--Hinkley Anakin's backpack from the same film, which looked like the backpack every other kid had at the time: "Anakin's backpack in The Phantom Menace. I just remember kids having one like that at the time, and it just seemed out of place in the movie." —u/tr1ckyf1sh of The Phantom Menace — when you could tell this guy in the background was DEFINITELY not Samuel L. Jackson: Suggested by u/colinaclark obvious mannequin used in this stunt from Wonder Woman 1984: "Wonder Woman 1984. She saves a kid during the highway scene, I think it was. She ends up holding the kid close and rolling on the ground. It was clearly a mannequin." —u/FubarioFromSicario the wildly fake dummy from the car explosion in Casino: "Casino is still a great movie, but the opening shot of DeNiro's car blowing up with the dummy inside always makes me laugh." —u/Global-Discussion-41 "I wonder at what point would he realise 'Holy shit, this looks ridiculous.'And at what point is it no longer worth it to go back and reshoot a car blowing up?I think we can all agree, Scorsese probably misjudged where that point was in this instance." —u/GimmeSomeSugar Here it is in a slowed-down GIF, so you can see how bad it is. badly photoshopped family photo in Twin Peaks: The Return: "I FUCKING HATE SHITTY PHOTOSHOPPED FAMILY PHOTOS! If you can't make it look half real, why even do it?" —u/Efficient-Editor-242 "Twin Peaks: The Return features my favourite example of this ever. If you haven't seen it, check out the photo of Andy, Lucy, and their 'kid' played by Michael Cera." —u/Hipyeti obviously fake stalactite from The Lord of the Rings: Suggested by u/IljaMaran from The Lord of the Rings, when this extra is clearly using imaginary arrows: Suggested by u/AnalysisMoney stunt from The Fugitive, where it's clearly a dummy and not Harrison Ford: "When Kimble jumps off the dam in The Fugitive. Worst dummy shot in cinema history." —u/EpicWheezes Check it out in GIF format here: toilet seat from Liar Liar, which you can tell is made out of foam: Suggested by u/heidismiles game of hackey sack going on with no hackey sack in this scene from Twilight: Suggested by u/Charlie4774 about Bond making espresso in this scene from Live and Let Die: "The shitty espresso that James Bond serves M in Live and Let Die." —u/seleucus_nicator way Steven Seagal holds a gun in Sniper Special Ops: "Not so much the prop itself. But the way he holds the gun, lmao." —u/Ghostman_Jack a character fits through the air ducts, like this scene from Die Hard: "Clean, accessible air ducts that are always big enough to crawl through. Just once, I want to see a hero get stuck in a duct and have to be cut out by the fire department." —u/colores_a_mano "The size of the things always fuckin' slays me. Never mind the fact that any tinbanger knows — even if you could fit, you ain't moving silently through thin galvanized steel tunnel that was probably installed by the lowest bidder in the most slapdash, cost-efficient way they if you're really lucky, it's connected like the building diagram actually says it is as opposed to dead-ending at a wall." —u/l_rufus_californicus eggs from Batman V Superman: "The plastic eggs Cavill is cooking Batman V Superman. Fisher-Price looking ass eggs." —u/lazlo871 uncanny valley CGI Renesmee from Breaking Dawn: "The CGI baby in Twilight. Might as well call it a prop." —u/ProAnalCyst "It's soooo uncanny valley! How did they think anyone would be okay with that fake ass baby?" —u/zaforocks fake prop toilet from Boondock Saints: "Boondock Saints is one of my guilty pleasure movies, but the clearly fake prop toilet that gets dropped on the Russian mobster…" —u/underground4077 Wash wasn't even holding onto the wheel in Firefly: "What about the very first episode of Firefly where the shot was slightly too wide and you could see Wash wasn't actually holding on to the steering and just had his hands in position? Or did I imagine it?" —u/StrictlyMarzipanOwl when Brian pulls at a brake that isn't there in 2 Fast 2 Furious: Suggested by [deleted] also Antonio Banderas just miming moving imaginary controls in this scene from Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams: Suggested by u/Chair_Last moment in D2: The Mighty Ducks when you can tell the background extras are actually just cardboard cutouts: Suggested by u/LisleSwanson of cardboard cutouts — these fake books behind Indy in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: Suggested by u/Oldspice_DentalFloss scene from Men in Black where Zed and K are only pretending to type in the background: Suggested by u/MyNameGifOreilly bending scabbard from One Piece: Suggested by u/MikeFleezy "metal" rod from the show Dark, which moves: Suggested by u/AjemMirumilovny man's photo in Smallville, which is very obviously glued/taped on rather than printed as a part of the newspaper: Suggested by u/ArtisanGerard coffee cup in Game of Thrones: "The Starbucks cup marked the end of anything good out of GoT." —u/Voluntary_Perry What wildly fake or unrealistic moment or item took you out of a film or TV show? Let us know in the comments. Submissions have been edited for length/clarity.
