1 The Blue Hand Rule

You know those stupid laws you come up with when you're with friends, and something someone says just becomes legend? Well, I have one of those with my dad, and it's called the Blue Hand Rule. Here's some back-story; we watch a lot of films together, its something we bond over and usually we agree on the quality of a film. Sometimes one of us will choose a film so bad, the other has to watch it just so they can complain about it legitimately. One of these films was I Am Number Four.

My dad chose this one because we both love sci-fi and he loves checking out anything that might be a bit cheesy. The second we saw the Dreamworks logo I knew we were in for a treat.

Personally, I didn't find the film too bad; it was your standard boy meets girl, girl has douchey boyfriend, boy is alien hunted by other aliens, boy saves girl and world film. He had glowing blue hands, which is not the worst superpower I've ever seen, but doesn't exactly rank high. My problem didn't lie with the mechanics of his powers though, but with a rather simple bit of the film that riled me so much we had to pause the film and talk it out.

Towards the end the alien boy (James Pettyfer - not really an alien) is being chased by other aliens who want him dead. He's in love with a girl (Dianna Agron) who loves photography, so he presents her with a reel of film he's filled with photos for and of her. Meanwhile, the douchey boyfriend (Jake Abel and his beautiful eyes) has been kidnapped by the evil aliens and is willingly helping them find their prey, along with his girlfriend.

Now, I don't remember his exact words, but there was definitely an  indication given that since the alien and girl were at the high school, they were close - something like fifteen minutes away. The film then switches back to the runaway duo who are in the high school film lab, hanging up processed pictures from his roll of film.

Hold up.

It takes at least ten minutes just to wash and develop film, then you have to leave it to dry for a good fifteen minutes or so. Then you have to develop the actual photos, which even an expert couldn't do in less than ten minutes. For a full roll of film and multiple photos we're looking at around an hour of development time.

This is where I had to intervene; I can accept that the main character is an alien from another planet with glowing blue hands, but I refuse to accept they developed the photo film so quickly - it breaks canon, and also the laws of time.

Thus, the Blue Hands Rule was born - when one can accept the full situation of the film, but refuses to accept a seemingly innocent yet impossible moment (even if the whole film is ridiculous). I'd love to hear about your Blue Hand Rule moments if you have any, you'll only be backing me up for future arguments.