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I went to the movies today to see the opening of "Hobbs & Shaw", a Fast & Furious production. I'm not going to go into details about the movie itself, just about the way some of its action scenes are cut.

In one of the scenes, the actors are preparing for a battle over the course of a day, late into the night. Finally, the battle starts, at night, with it being totally clear that it is in fact night (fireworks, car lights, ...).

All of a sudden, a cut: day. It is now day, out of nowhere at all. There is no time jump, no wait, nothing. So we're in bright daylight now.

The battle continues, and there's a helicopter coming in. After a long battle-scene in daylight with blue skies, the helicopter crashes off a cliff. The scene cuts to the wreck, with people climbing out of it.

It is now a thunderstorm. Lightning, rain, dark cloudy skies all over the place.

So my question is: Did they

  • not notice those logical flaws (hard to believe for such a big production) or
  • simply not care. Why would they not fix such rather simple logical issues when filming? or
  • is there any other explanation for this change of scene?
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    Not that it's my own question (because it is :-) ), but the answer supplied here, and specifically the link in the answer, should give you a good idea as to why this happened. The F&F franchise is rife with examples of reality not being adhered to. It's merely entertainment, and so far it's working well.
    – Johnny Bones
    Aug 2, 2019 at 15:28
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    Not that it helps, but there was a 30 minute ticking clock in the finale. Clearly the night to day change seen in the film would have needed more than 30 minutes, but we just have to accept it as an audience.
    – Longshanks
    Aug 3, 2019 at 5:58

2 Answers 2

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When the "good guy" team is preparing, they mention that they'll start the battle at the crack of dawn. Strategically it's good, because the bad guys will have morning sunlight in their faces, making it harder for them to see. IIRC they also mention that a storm will be rolling in early in the morning.

So the battle starts just before sunrise, when it's dark and looks like night. During the battle, the sun rises. The scene is then much better lit. Soon after that, the sky is blue, as should be expected. (The transition of night-sunrise-day all happens pretty quickly, but at least it was explained earlier.) A few minutes later, when the helicopter and everybody crashes at the bottom of the waterfall, apparently that's when the aforementioned storm begins.

(I'm not saying it's great film making, but I'll give them credit for writing dialog that at least talks about what's coming.)

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    Apart from the ticking clock that @Longshanks mentioned, I'll take this as a form of "as real as it gets". It's Fast & Furious after all.
    – NikxDa
    Aug 3, 2019 at 6:14
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    It's worth noting that these scenes were set in Samoa (though they were actually filmed in Hawaii). Samoa is only about 14° south of the equator, well within the tropics. The tropics are noted for quick sunrises and sunsets. So it isn't a crazy idea that it could go from dark to light that quickly. It might be the most realistic part of the movie. :D
    – Kyralessa
    Aug 6, 2019 at 8:17
  • They fall into the waterfall and suddenly there's lightning?! The rain being river water makes sense but a blue sky doesn't turn to lightning in literally one second...
    – apraetor
    Oct 28, 2019 at 1:32
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It's not really about bad editing/scripting, it's more about keeping the action moving and the audience entertained without having to get bogged down in explaining everything. If, after an action scene at night, our cuddly protagonists erect a tent and cook beans over an open fire before continuing more action scenes in daytime, audiences would get bored and the momentum of the film would stall. Pacing for action films is important.

Audiences know that these kinds of films aren't real (everyone knows that runways aren't 20 miles long). Action film producers know that their films don't live or die on their adherence to reality.

There's probably an arm's length of TVTrope links that can be supplied that will adequately explain the oddities and unreal situations in the F&F films, but that doesn't stop people from paying to watch and enjoy them.

Personally, I'm a kid inside and I enjoy these films. I know they're trash, and I'm ok with that.

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  • So why not just have the fight at night? I don't get why a writer would intentionally make their film less realistic without the need to do so. The runway example is a good one, it's necessary to have lots of stuff going on. But day/night? They could've just stuck with one, no?
    – NikxDa
    Aug 2, 2019 at 9:33
  • Regardless of your feelings about the movie, this is a bad answer, because this is explained in the movie. See BrettFromLA's answer above (which I can confirm from my own viewing of the movie).
    – Kyralessa
    Aug 4, 2019 at 8:44
  • Nah. The night-into-day is explained, and the rain from the waterfall makes sense... But it also instantly becomes a thunderstorm from a clear blue sky in the second it takes to fall into the waterfall. That's a bit unrealistic ;)
    – apraetor
    Oct 28, 2019 at 1:29

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