According to some folklore I read, waterfall was discounted early by the guy who first described it, but it was too late, managment types had latched on to it, seeing it as a way to transfer the discipline of production line manufacturing to software development.
Its also interesting that one thing borrowed from another field into software development is "patterns", which comes from Christopher Alexander's 'A Pattern Language', he is an architect. In its original form its very much concerned with the human element, saying basically that patterns develop over time, and come to be commonly recognised as such, because they work well for humans, not because some specific designer thought they should work. So, they became the 'repetoire' of the builders who were the designers too, that helped to ensure success in new projects.
The reason I like the film analogy is that it is focused on the human element first and the considerable technical details are subsurvient to this. To be successful films have connect with humans, we have to empathise with the characters. This is sadly why crime drama is such a common thing, they are cheap to make and guarantee a connection to the audience. How often have you found yourself thinking "this is crap" but cannot turn it off (thinking Midsomer Murders).
