Bad reception….

Updated on October 2, 2009 By Ken Begg 5 Comments

Pity the poor screenwriter, faced with the whole cell phone thing. I imagine each and every one of us has noticed this cliche, but this compilation video really brings it home. Sadly, the technology isn’t going to get any less effective, and soon scripters will have to start coming up with Star Trek-ish technobabble to explain why people can’t call for help.

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  • JazzyJ

    This is just great! In at least some of those movies, there was an actual REASON for there to be no signal (The Mist was blocking reception, etc.), but most others appear to be very lazy. Funny!

  • I will defend The Signal, which openly states that all forms of over-air broadcast have been compromised. It’s the point of the movie.

    I also don’t object to plots in which cell phones are destroyed by bad guys. It’s no more a cliche than the serial killer slicing the phone lines outside your house, which they always did in movies.

    But yeah it’s lazy.

  • John Nowak

    Yeah, it really is a problem for scripts. I think we’re stuck with “No signal” and “No charge.” Except maybe imply that the bad guys either have jammers or deliberately choose a place with bad reception. Or the bad guys can track the cell phones.

    Or, establish that the heroes can’t call the police or anyone else because they’re doing something illegal.

    Heh. Remember how Kolchak always had to go to museum people or academics to find stuff out?

  • Matt B

    Sigh. I really don’t like doing this, but I’ll defend One Missed Call. The plot of the film is basically, “It’s like The Ring, but instead of people watching a VHS tape, they get calls from an evil cellphone. Then they die.” And despite the lack of quality of the film, you can’t really call people out for wrecking cell phones in a film where the cells are the vehicle of evil.

  • You know… one of these days, the idiots writing these things are going to realize.

    It doesn’t matter if you can get a signal or not if nobody can get to you.

    Though I have to give the guy who wrote some of these a little credit. They didn’t have a mysterious lack of signal, they had folks who didn’t charge them. And who hasn’t had that happen to them?Alternately, you can just have folks not always using the latest model of “reception everywhere” phone that you can get product placement for, and give them a phone that’s a little more susceptible to your ominous thunderstorms knocking them out, like the cheapie TracFone models….