When I'm editing something I often make it slightly off (by a few seconds or so) just to piss off people like you :P but yeah I agree it can be annoying if the device is abused too much.

Why are you timing the movie?

That scene in Independence day is is a good example of time-scenes.

You want the most out of the exciting parts in a movie.. saying you have 5 minutes on the clock doesn't really seem to thrilling...

So in the scenes as they are flying away, (before the bomb goes off) you see them talking then you see them flying.

Now that is the same scene of time.  They are showing you while they are talking they have aliens chasing them.

Now they can't make the movie split screen, were there is a bar in the center of the scene and they are talking on one side and it shows them getting chased on the other side.

That takes away from the excitement because people want to focus on one thing at a time, not move their heads from one side to the other to see whats going on.

Something just didn't seem quite right.

That's kinda what I meant. So yeah, I think we agree on that one. ^_^

Even if they were to account for a full thirty seconds of flying, and a full thirty seconds of cabin time, that stills leaves approximately 30 seconds they were over by. I'm not talking about when the timers are off by mere seconds. I mean when there is a huge lapse in time that cannot be explained away. Also, I like the split screen theory you came up with, and I would also think it would be exciting to have the timer on screen the entire time, because nothing would be more thrilling for an audience than to actually see the timer countdown in real time as shit is flying all over and special effects budgets are ballooning.

Yeah I think it's just horrible writing and horrible editing. They want us to be on the edge of our seats and forget about the time and get reminded every time they show us. It's pretty insulting.

I'd be really down for some split screens with a timer.

I've never seen any 24. Is it good? How often does it show the time or a timer? If it's in real time, after each commercial break have a few minutes passed, and if so, do they try to give you some boring minutes to miss? Like say... does he go to the bathroom for each commercial break or something?

24 doesn't have commercial breaks. I believe a single sponsor does the entire sponsoring for the episode and it plays in it's entirety for exactly one hour. Each season lasts exactly 24 hours and that is 24 hours in real time and in time in the show. Scenes occasionally play out in split screen I believe, and when scenes do change you never get to make up what was happening elsewhere that you couldn't witness. I've never religiously watched any of the seasons(which is the only way to watch them) but it's pretty good from what I've seen. It's basically about stopping terrorists inside the U.S. but maybe someone more versed in the show could give a better and more detailed explanation.

The timer runs perfectly on 24, takes breaks into consideration. The only fault is, i guess, the characters dont do anything during the break time, i.e they resume doing what they were doing after the break,as if they were frozen for the 3 minutes taken for the break.

There are commercial breaks now? When did that happen?