# SF movies and suspension of disbelief **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 12, 2004, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-movies-and-suspension-of-disbelief/233988 "2004-03-12T23:54:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Gartog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/22d042/32.png) [@Gartog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gartog)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2004, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-movies-and-suspension-of-disbelief/233988/21 "2004-03-14T17:58:56Z")
And regarding the original question…Why is it so hard? My own theory is that it’s often a case of too many cooks spoil the broth. In a Hollywood production the number of people who actually influence what you seen on the screen is amazing. You being with a screenplay (possibly adapted) this is then often doctored by people employed by the studio, often for artistic reasons, often for commercial, the actors if ‘Star Names’ often have influence over the dialogue, and the studio execs, and investors often have the right to change anything at will. The director then gets a cut, which is then approved by the studio. Remember as well they’re usually working under a deadline and tight budget. Personally I have a bigger gripe with Studios, that is that they refuse to take risks when funding films. Because of the way the industry works, an exec can ruin his career if he greenlights a production which flops, which is why frequently when offered the choice between an unknown writer with an amazing (but risky) script, and a know writer with a direct to video record and a mundane script, the second gets chosen because its a ‘safe’ option. Also the view that if we like one film, then we’ll like every damn copy of it, irks me a little. ---
**Author:** ![DevilDan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e495f1/32.png) [@DevilDan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DevilDan)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2004, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-movies-and-suspension-of-disbelief/233988/22 "2004-03-14T19:38:49Z")
Why do they get some details wrong, even basic phsyics? Frankly, my dears, they don’t give a flying f\*ck. I consider myself a stickler for detail, but when I watch a movie like LXG that is: (1) based on a comic book (albeit a masterful one), and (2) that posits so many odd things (mixing any number of supernatural and sci fi mcguffins), I don’t worry about a few odds and ends like the geography of Venice. Here’s my solution: LXG obviously takes place in an alternate timeline, one were the layout of Venice is different. And where the requisite technology is available for the bullet-proof vest. And Sawyer can drive a car so well because he’s Extraordinary. So there. I thought LXG was mediocre. But I enjoyed it. There are plenty of bad movies, sci fi or otherwise. As much as possible, i choose not to watch those that have that unmistakeable stench of execrableness. I pity those who can’t enjoy a “fantasy” movie because of a few nitpicks. (And there are certainly more than a few in LXG, not just those that were brought up.) ---
**Author:** ![Spudo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbce88/32.png) [@Spudo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spudo)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2004, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-movies-and-suspension-of-disbelief/233988/23 "2004-03-14T19:44:22Z")
There are a couple scenes in _Minority Report_ that bug me. The whole redball thing for one. Why the hell would they make a machine that makes these little red balls, engraves them with names and then sends them down this great big track. The whole idea is that there’s very little time to react to a crime of passion. Jeez. Also the gun things the fed’s had when they were chasing Anderton. The “Spin It Around 5 Times and Fire” things with the great big, slow moving shock wave thing. Who thought that was a good idea for a weapon? It’s rare that a movie bugs me like that, usually I’m good at suspending disbelief, but those two really annoy me for some reason. ---
**Author:** ![Windwalker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/5e9695/32.png) [@Windwalker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Windwalker)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2004, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-movies-and-suspension-of-disbelief/233988/24 "2004-03-14T20:04:29Z")
> [@Spudo](#): > > There are a couple scenes in _Minority Report_ that bug me. The whole redball thing for one. Why the hell would they make a machine that makes these little red balls, engraves them with names and then sends them down this great big track. The whole idea is that there’s very little time to react to a crime of passion. Jeez. Also the gun things the fed’s had when they were chasing Anderton. The “Spin It Around 5 Times and Fire” things with the great big, slow moving shock wave thing. Who thought that was a good idea for a weapon? > It’s rare that a movie bugs me like that, usually I’m good at suspending disbelief, but those two really annoy me for some reason. I’d guess that they bug you because a lot of things in the movie were very believable and realistic (I loved the aggressive subway ads!), which set up a higher standard for you. The little red balls thing just seems like a stylistic (or even artistic) choice, so I had no problem with it. As for the OP, I agree that it bugs me when things are not internally consistent, or when movies that try to be realistic make serious logical gaffes (The Jackal starring Bruce Willis is probably the most heinous movie I’ve seen with respect to this). ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2004, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-movies-and-suspension-of-disbelief/233988/25 "2004-03-14T22:01:58Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > **Alien** began to lose me when they were shown smoking on a spaceship (if that were the only complaint, I would have overlooked it, but the utter stupidity of the crew made me detest them all, and the film they were in). > . I think that was a stylish choice. The whole point is that the crew was supposed to be the future equivilent of truck drivers. And most of the decisions of the crew made sense, given what they knew. ---
**Author:** ![Shade](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2bfe46/32.png) [@Shade](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shade)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2004, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-movies-and-suspension-of-disbelief/233988/26 "2004-03-14T22:02:55Z")
The reason the bus jump from speed annoys me SO much is: (1) It’s so OBVIOUSLY wrong. There bus is going along a flat road. Then it rears up and jumps 10ft in the air. I mean, things fall DOWN. It’s not a hard concept. It’s not like they didn’t spend 30 seconds googling for “Does a bus fall up or down”, you should spot that as soon as you see it. (2) It’d be so easy to fix that. They could fiddle the camera so it looks like a slope down, or a hump back. They could say they built a ramp. They could say they did a wheelie. All stupid ideas, but hey, it’s a pretty good action movie, you accept that 🙂 Is there anything people WON’T susped disbelief for? Anything at all? ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2004, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-movies-and-suspension-of-disbelief/233988/27 "2004-03-14T22:08:49Z")
Err, I meant “Stylistic” choice. ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2004, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-movies-and-suspension-of-disbelief/233988/28 "2004-03-14T22:15:00Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > I belong to a writing group, of which only two of us know anything about sf. I mentioned at one point how the races in my galaxy were oxgen breathers and methane breathers. This got a comment, from a lady of a certain age, that this was boring, and that I should have beings based on other things. I began to explain about energy bonds, and how not every element would do, when she said I should just make up an element. :eek: > > She never got why I considered this suggestion obscene. Especially when she said it was just science fiction, so who would care. :eek: :eek: People like that are the market these clowns are going after, and they outnumber us. Well, there’s Hard Sci-fi and Soft Sci-fi(Often Space Opera). If you are writing soft sci-fi, this isn’t really a problem, as long as the story really dosen’t depend too much on it. ---
**Author:** ![BoringDad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ad7895/32.png) [@BoringDad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BoringDad)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2004, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-movies-and-suspension-of-disbelief/233988/29 "2004-03-14T22:51:27Z")
> [@Spudo](#): > > There are a couple scenes in _Minority Report_ that bug me. The whole redball thing for one. Why the hell would they make a machine that makes these little red balls, engraves them with names and then sends them down this great big track. The whole idea is that there’s very little time to react to a crime of passion. Jeez. Also the gun things the fed’s had when they were chasing Anderton. The “Spin It Around 5 Times and Fire” things with the great big, slow moving shock wave thing. Who thought that was a good idea for a weapon? > It’s rare that a movie bugs me like that, usually I’m good at suspending disbelief, but those two really annoy me for some reason. Actually, _Minority Report_ did explain the why of the balls. It was something along the lines of they were carved in wood so each one would be unique and unduplicatable or something. And even if they hadn’t expained it, it would not have bothered me. Why? Because it was physically possible. If they tell me that is how it is done, then fine, that is how it is done. Same with the guns. They are a bizzare and apparently not very useful design, but I have accepted the fact that this future world has advanced technology. The guns are part of this advanced technology, so I have not reason to say that they would not work like that. I thought that _Minority Report_ was very well done. Quite enjoyable even if all the suspense ended 25 minutes from the end of the movie. ---
**Author:** ![Lobelia\_Overhill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/54ee81/32.png) [@Lobelia\_Overhill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobelia_Overhill)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2004, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-movies-and-suspension-of-disbelief/233988/30 "2004-03-15T21:42:35Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Yeah, God forbid anyone actually _think_ about what they watch. Horrors! > > Here’s a hint: not everyone finds mindless entertainment entertaining. Really? well I don’t care 😛 ---
**Author:** ![MacTech](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@MacTech](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacTech)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2004, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-movies-and-suspension-of-disbelief/233988/31 "2004-03-15T22:30:09Z")
> [@j66](#): > > The very first time I saw it used the bomb was a stolen bomb, so the wire colors \*\*could \*\* have been know. anytime i see the cliche of “blue wire vs red wire” i think back to a clip from Family Guy, where Meg is attempting to disarm a bomb, she’s told to “Cut the blue wire” the camera pans out as she says “what do you mean, cut the blue wire, they’re _ALL_ blue wires!” as we can see, every wire in the bomb is blue… why can’t they use that idea, it’d make it a lot more difficult to disarm the bad guy’s bomb 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Izzybella](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e56c9b/32.png) [@Izzybella](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Izzybella)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2004, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-movies-and-suspension-of-disbelief/233988/32 "2004-03-15T23:00:52Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > I belong to a writing group, of which only two of us know anything about sf. I mentioned at one point how the races in my galaxy were oxgen breathers and methane breathers. This got a comment, from a lady of a certain age, that this was boring, and that I should have beings based on other things. I began to explain about energy bonds, and how not every element would do, when she said I should just make up an element. :eek: > > She never got why I considered this suggestion obscene. Especially when she said it was just science fiction, so who would care. :eek: :eek: People like that are the market these clowns are going after, and they outnumber us. I’m posting this knowing that many of you will think I’m an idiot. When it’s something like science, which is not my best subject, I can be sold on just about anything. Now if it’s a subject I know bunches about then I can be hyper-critical. So I think this is just a matter of perspective. The willing suspension of disbelief is much easier when ignorance comes into play. My major beef with League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is that it’s just flat-out a crappy movie. Give me a well-crafted product and I’ll believe pretty much whatever you tell me about that fictional world. (i.e., I totally bought into the created mythology of the television series, BtVS) ---
**Author:** ![FilmGeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@FilmGeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FilmGeek)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2004, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-movies-and-suspension-of-disbelief/233988/33 "2004-03-15T23:17:28Z")
I loved the Core. However, I can never watch it again. Why, you ask? Well, one of the leads played by Aaron Eckhart, who is supposedly a scientist, says Nuculur. Can’t watch the damn movie. I can suspend disbelief for pretty much ANYTHING but that. Oh, and Pitch Black. Piece of crap. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2004, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-movies-and-suspension-of-disbelief/233988/34 "2004-03-15T23:31:44Z")
I think if you can’t get it right, leave it out. Want an alien to breath something else and don’t know any chemistry? Call it ‘poisonous’. Want a psysiology completely unlike any that has developed on earth? Call it ‘non-carbon based’; don’t just pick an element out of table, because some-one will know molybdenum just isn’t possible. (THERE’S a challenge for you.) But I can take the giant insect premise; I can take the Crimanal Wire Code; I can take the horror movie monster coming back time after time after time. (Although I can NOT take someone throwing a gun away because it’s empty; this isn’t a Pez dispenser here.) But the OP is right, if it’s not internally consistent, it insulting to everyone. ---
**Author:** ![Ave\_Minerva](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f0a364/32.png) [@Ave\_Minerva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ave_Minerva)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2004, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-movies-and-suspension-of-disbelief/233988/35 "2004-03-16T00:11:47Z")
> [@Morgyn](#): > > Haven’t seen the movie yet, but I’m curious–did they have the sub turn corners from one canal into another? Are the canals really wide enough to permit that? The Grand Canal is fairly wide but not all that deep, and the Academia bridge right near the beginning of the canal is very low. Most of the other canals are very narrow and not too deep. There’s a ship channel in the lagoon and I have seen big cruise ships pretty close to Piazza San Marco, but there’s no way a large vessel could cruise around in the canals. ---
**Author:** ![owlofcreamcheese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/97f17d/32.png) [@owlofcreamcheese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/owlofcreamcheese)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2004, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-movies-and-suspension-of-disbelief/233988/36 "2004-03-16T02:02:51Z")
here is a trick: if something that happens doesn’t make sense, assume there is an explanation. the tricky part of the trick is: “don’t try and figure what it is”! if there is an explanation of science that sounds wrong, maybe the charactor is wrong, or maybe the physics is something we don’t yet know, or maybe there is a giant coverup and the scientists are lieing, who knows? don’t think about it! if a technology is stupid, assume there is a good reason why its that way, and the people in the movie wish it lacked the shortcomeings too but the advantages outweigh the bad design. who knows! movies get better that way, when you accept that not every single thing is in the movie and needs to be shown to us in a big 5 minute explanation. the bus on speed jumps because it hit a bump maybe… did they show that? they didn’t, but showing everything is insulting to our inteligence. the matrix is run on human electricity because it is, there is a perfectly good explanation known the people in the movie’s world, or at least the machines, and it just happens that it wasn’t in the movie. thats how I take it, a movie universe is a whole universe, we only see parts… if something doesn’t make sense to us its because we just haven’t seen the explanation… we don’t need every single thing spoon fed to us, you don’t even have to use your imagination and make up with the explanation yourself, just accept that there is one, that if something happened then it is possible and if some technology is some way or some strange science sounds stupid… its only our point of view that makes it seem that way. ---
**Author:** ![BoringDad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ad7895/32.png) [@BoringDad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BoringDad)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2004, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-movies-and-suspension-of-disbelief/233988/37 "2004-03-16T02:31:40Z")
> [@owlofcreamcheese](#): > > here is a trick: if something that happens doesn’t make sense, assume there is an explanation. > > the tricky part of the trick is: “don’t try and figure what it is”! > … > > who knows! movies get better that way, when you accept that not every single thing is in the movie and needs to be shown to us in a big 5 minute explanation. the bus on speed jumps because it hit a bump maybe… did they show that? they didn’t, but showing everything is insulting to our inteligence. As stated before… willing to accept odd things, within the bounds the movie sets for itself. In your example of The Matrix, I can easily accept that the humans power the machines, because they tell me that is what is happening. But in Speed… nope. In fact, if I recall correctly, they specifically show us the end of the road and it is flat. Cannot accept it if it is impossible for the world we are shown, and ruins the movie for me (see Instant Horse Race Win explanation above.) It insults our intelligence to recognize that we would find something impossible and they show us how it is possible? Wouldn’t it be more insulting if they figure we won’t notice the impossibility? And most of these things wouldn’t take 5 minutes to explain, they could just be staged slightly differently and they wouldn’t be impossible at all. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2004, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-movies-and-suspension-of-disbelief/233988/38 "2004-03-16T07:41:46Z")
> [@owlofcreamcheese](#): > > here is a trick: if something that happens doesn’t make sense, assume there is an explanation. > > the tricky part of the trick is: “don’t try and figure what it is”! It would be nice if more movies with poorly thought out plot holes and contradictions would leave the audience more room to assume there’s some logical explanation. I’m usually happy to think “Within the story world, this is reasonable.” In the aforementioned _Frequency_, the reason the radio could communicate across time had something to do with sunspot activity. Hey, why not? They didn’t explain how it worked, but it didn’t matter – the important thing was that the radio could communicate across time, but only under certain temporary conditions. But when a movie presents us with an explanation for important events, stresses that this explanation is “true” within the story world, and then throws its own rules out the window, I find it harder to suspend my disbelief. If they can’t follow their own rules, they shouldn’t lay down the rules in the first place. I am more forgiving when the “rules” are explained by a character who could be mistaken, but sometimes they are illustrated by plot events and are clearly meant to be factual rather than hypothetical. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2004, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-movies-and-suspension-of-disbelief/233988/39 "2004-03-16T13:46:36Z")
> [@BoringDad](#): > > And then… BOING! The hero is over the finish line, the winner. No explanation how he travelled 100 ft before the evil horse could travel 10 ft. Just…BOING! I win! Are you telling me that makes for a good movie? Are you telling me that you judge how good a movie is by **one short scene**? You can be entertained by 119 minutes of the film, but if there’s one small thing that upsets your preconceived notions, the entire film is worthless? As a direct answer: It could be. Take **Seabiscuit**. There’s one scene where the horse is last out of the gate; there’s a shot of the entire field about five lengths in front of him. In reality, there’s no way the horse is going to make up that distance; it’ll burn out trying to catch up. But the horse wins the race. Why do they show it that way? _Because it makes it more exciting_. It’s known as **dramatic license**. It is not the purpose of fiction to be accurate; it’s the purpose of fiction to be _true_. The two are not the same, and if you refuse to accept the concept that an author can take liberties for the sake of a story, you’re life is all the poorer for it. If you prefer you films dull, that’s fine. I prefer them to be interesting, and if the director wants to take liberties to do that, it’s fine with me. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2004, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-movies-and-suspension-of-disbelief/233988/40 "2004-03-16T13:54:42Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > But when a movie presents us with an explanation for important events, stresses that this explanation is “true” within the story world, and then throws its own rules out the window, I find it harder to suspend my disbelief. If they can’t follow their own rules, they shouldn’t lay down the rules in the first place. I am more forgiving when the “rules” are explained by a character who could be mistaken, but sometimes they are illustrated by plot events and are clearly meant to be factual rather than hypothetical. This is where there is a problem: a story has to be internally consistent. In addition, there should be no obvious alternatives to what the protagonist does. For example, in **Alien** , the characters could have blown the hatch of the Nostromo and let the Alien suffocate. They didn’t. And they didn’t follow the obvious solution (“Let’s get outta here!”) until over half the crew was dead. These are major plot holes. The screenplay failed to cover them (“If we blow the hatch, we can’t get back to Earth.”), so it fails. A bad movie leaves these questions unanswered. A good movie covers them. And in a great movie, the questions never come up. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-movies-and-suspension-of-disbelief/233988.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-movies-and-suspension-of-disbelief/233988.md?page=3)