Mann, however, decided to make the scene less realistic because it was already unbelievable enough with three hostages. Johnny Depp tricking a bunch of guards with some ridiculous ploy that ends up working seems like something out of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, not a biopic based on reality. There's just no way to put Depp on screen tricking more cops than the number of bullets they thought he had into locking themselves in a jail cell without it looking silly.

Then again, maybe we shouldn't be so surprised that the stunt worked, because the wooden gun apparently still exists, and it turns out that Dillinger cleverly wrote "Colt 38" on one side.

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And "Actual Gun, Not a Piece of Wood" on the other.

The scene sets the tone of the movie pretty nicely: No matter where you're from, odds are you're familiar with the Statue of Liberty. By now, we've all seen Lady Liberty's face from a hundred different angles in movies and on postcards and patriotic underwear. It's one of the best known and most iconic monuments in the world, and that's why they chose it for the movie -- if the monster had punched out the top of the U.N. building, no one would give a shit.

The Reality:

Of course, the irony is that the filmmakers chose the Statue of Liberty because we all know it so well ... when in fact we really don't. When the special effects people were working on that scene, they tried to make the statue's head as accurate as possible, but they ran into a little problem: People thought the head's actual size was too small and unrealistic. So they had to make it 50 percent larger than it really is.

Here's the head as we see it in the teaser trailer, before the special effects were finished:

"Heads up!"

And here's what we see in the actual movie:

"Inaccurately larger heads up!"

Immediately after the teaser was released, people on the Internet started complaining that the head looked too small. Sure, we're used to seeing the statue by itself on the coast of New York, but bear in mind that for most of us, our only point of reference for its size relative to people is things like this poster for Escape from New York (where the head is about 500 percent too big).

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And the streets are about 500 percent too clean.

So in order to decrease the number of people on the Internet bitching about how this space monster movie is inaccurate, the filmmakers had to make it more so. Good job, Internet.

The Scene:

In Valkyrie, Tom Cruise plays Claus von Stauffenberg, a Nazi colonel who tries to assassinate Adolf Hitler and ends up getting executed for his trouble. The movie starts with von Stauffenberg's troops being ambushed by Allied fighter planes, and then we see his wife visiting him at the hospital and learning that he has lost one eye, one hand and two fingers in the explosion.

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So at least his obsession with only showing one side of his face is justified.

Von Stauffenberg doesn't let his injuries stop him from doing stuff like planting bombs, shooting guns and trying to overthrow the Nazi government. Hell, just the fact that he learned to dress himself all alone with only three fingers was impressive enough. But movies merge historical figures all the time -- all the badass stuff Tom Cruise does in the movie was probably done by von Stauffenberg and a bunch of other (presumably fully limbed) guys, right?

The Reality:

Nope, the real von Stauffenberg did all the stuff that's in the movie ... and more. Director Bryan Singer had to tone down some of his more badass moments because people wouldn't buy them. For example, we've mentioned before that when von Stauffenberg was being operated on after his injury (that is, when they were amputating 70 percent of his hands), he refused to take any kind of painkiller because he needed to be on top of his game, since orchestrating the assassination of one of the most paranoid dictators in world history is significantly more difficult when you're giggling at the elephant-men humping at the foot of your bed.

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"I know you're just an actor, Mr. Chaplin, but would you like to help me kill Hitler?"

Another bit they cut -- presumably for the same reason -- was after von Stauffenberg was released from the hospital and his friends and family saw that he had lost most of his fingers. In the movie, Cruise's kids just sort of look at him with sadness. In real life, however, von Stauffenberg actually joked that he had never known what to do with so many fingers in the first place.

Imagine those words coming out of Tom Cruise's mouth, and how you'd immediately lose all ability to take the film seriously as a true story ever again.

We've previously talked about how falls from higher than the third floor are rarely survivable ... the key word being "rarely," meaning that it does happen. In fact, people have survived falls from as high as a 47th floor or even a freaking airplane. Simon claims that he met other people who confirmed real-life Omar's story, so he wanted to include it in the show. When they were shooting the episode, however, they realized that the building they had only went up to the fifth floor, so Simon decided that "The fourth is fine. They're not gonna believe it anyway."

Oh, and by the way, if you're wondering what a guy who makes sixth-floor jumps and survives looks like in real life, just look at that scene again: Donnie Andrews actually plays Omar's friend, who gets shot in the head during the confrontation.

The producers eventually decided to cut all aspects of Maximus' stardom because it would've looked too much like parody, despite the fact that it also would have made the movie more historically accurate. Real gladiators did sponsor products and had their likenesses plastered all over the Roman equivalent of today's billboards. Here's a Roman mosaic depicting popular gladiators in combat, names and all:

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They even had their own freaking action figures: Here's a gladiator figurine from that era that still survives, though sadly someone misplaced all the accessories and the file card.

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This one originally came with a little spring-loaded rocket launcher, but had no kung fu grip.

In the end, they cut all that stuff, because to most people, it would look as realistic as the Genie from Aladdin putting on a Goofy hat and a Hawaiian shirt. Hey, maybe when they do movies about Jersey Shore 1,500 years from now, no one will believe that shit was real either.

J.F. Sargent is too unrealistic to ever be made into a movie, and you can read all about why on his Tumblr and Twitter.

For more outlandish Hollywood scenes that played out in real life, check out 5 Real Bank Heists Ripped Right Out of the Movies. Or discover 5 Things That Are Way Easier Than They Look in Movies.

If you're pressed for time and just looking for a quick fix, then check out 6 Terrifying Spiders That Will Haunt Your Dreams.

And stop by LinkSTORM to discover which aspect of Star Wars didn't make the final cut for "not being CGI'y enough."

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