[Clutch]

We all know how important good editing is to a movie. And we've all seen this statement across IMFDB before:

"[insert actor here] fires more rounds out of [insert gun here] than the gun can carry."

Now I won't dispute most of those claims, because more often than not, they're right. But in some cases, have you ever felt that, were it not for the often dramatic editing that comes with these scenes, the round count would have been accurate? Let me give an example.

Hero corners bad guy on roof, armed with a M1911A1 .45 and a fully-loaded seven round magazine (with an extra round in the chamber). Bad guy surrenders his primary weapon, but draws another gun from the small of his back. Big mistake, hero opens fire. We see the first two shots, and then the camera cuts to the bad guy, who now catches the first two shots. Even though we still hear firing. In fact, we hear shooting all the way through the scene, even when it cuts back to the hero, who we see expend the rest of his mag to slide lock, and then back to the bad guy, who we see take all of the remaining rounds. Even though we see hero shoot eight rounds and bad guy get hit eight times, the sounds make us think that hero fired twice that, if not more. See what I'm saying?

It's kind of the same thing with explosions. Ever notice in some movies that the house seems to blow up three or four times before the scene's over, because the editor included in every possible angle?

What are your thoughts on this?