# 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:** 3
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2004, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-movies-and-suspension-of-disbelief/233988/41 "2004-03-16T14:28:40Z")
All movies, let’s face it, screw up in their depictions of reality. Whether it’s due to the ignorance of the writer/director/actors, or limitations of time and budget, or artistic choices, virtually all genres have these problems. I’ve read enough comments from policemen or military people complaining about their depiction in the cinema. Historians and history buffs relish in tearing apart films like **Braveheart**. But I think there are more complaints from Science Fictions fans. And I think they’re justified. Why? Because, I think, people are much more willing to let SF films get away with sloppiness of fact, plotting, and character that they wouldn’t stand for in, say, a historical epic. I suspect that most people think of SF as “wish fulfillment” stuff – it’s all fantasy and not-really-adult make-believe, so you can have characters acting in thoroughly irrational ways, and you can violate the rules of dramatic structure or of physics with equal ease. This attitude drives those of us who are hard-core SF fans _nuts_. I was on a panel at a recent SF Convention where this sort of thing was discussed, and I’m afraid to say that most of the people there didn’t have a problem with common violations of the laws of physics. But it’s the violation of the laws of common sense and human interaction that really bug me. At the end of the run of the show **Quantum Leap** (not exactly hard-core SF, but stilll… ), Scott Bakula’s character voluntarily returns to that cycle of rebirths because he’s needed. _and his wife agrees with this_. Say whatever you will about the series and its “science”, but this bit of human reaction doesn’t ring true. But you can get away with it, I suppose, “because it’s fantasy”. Gene Roddenbery, not always the best friend of SF (but a big fan himself), once railed against this sort of thing, pointing out in his instructions for writers of “Star Trek” that it’s inappropriate to have the Captain hug a Yeoman on the Bridge in a state of anxiety when the ship was attacked, because you couldn’t see a modern military commander doing something like that. When SF is well done, it is a great exercise in imagination. **Forbidden Planet** still sends chills down my spine. Most SF films, though, seem to have taken vacations from real thought and human interaction. ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2004, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-movies-and-suspension-of-disbelief/233988/42 "2004-03-16T16:04:26Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > 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. What? There are always obvious alternatives to any action both in fiction and in life. For example, I could be looking for a job … > [@RealityChuck](#): > > For example, in **Alien** , the characters could have blown the hatch of the Nostromo and let the Alien suffocate. They didn’t. When could they have blown the hatch without suffocating themselves? Now, I would design a space truck with lots of airlocks, but I agree with BoringDad(?) that poor design is allowable. In fact, given the ethics of The Company, it is perfectly credible that cost-corncerns could have over-ridden safety-concerns. > [@RealityChuck](#): > > 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. The crew was wiped out pretty quickly, AND evacuation was a very dangerous option, not to be taken lightly; Ripley drifted for 57 years. But I don’t think the movie was SF as much as horror, and one of the view good horror movies in several decades. ---
**Author:** ![Shade](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2bfe46/32.png) [@Shade](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shade)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2004, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-movies-and-suspension-of-disbelief/233988/43 "2004-03-16T16:26:31Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > 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? Most of the time, no, it doesn’t matter. But sometimes it can destroy the whole film - if you no longer know what’s possible and what’s not, then there’s less suspense. Say the heros are trapped, you think they must die, and one of them comes up with a clever plan and they escape. But if they can ‘one bound and they’re free’ then you don’t care as much. Small point, but there. ---
**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, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-movies-and-suspension-of-disbelief/233988/44 "2004-03-16T22:38:23Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > 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**. In reality there is no way he will catch up? Sure there is. If he is 30% faster than every other horse, he can make up 5 lengths in the course of the race. It is not probable that he will be this much faster, but it is possible. My example of a horse covering 100 yards before the lead horse covers 10 would require that the lead horse stop and eat some flowers (which we would notice), or that the trailing horse needs to go 200 miles per hour. A horse cannot go 200 mph. It is physically impossible. And improbable feat, overcoming tremendous odds, is exciting. “Looky! I won by magical teleportation! Why, the whole race was pointless!” is not exciting. Unlikely decisions (not blowing the hatch) and odd design choices (why would his hat be 12 feet tall?) do not bother me at all. Historical inaccuracies only bother me a little. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2004, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-movies-and-suspension-of-disbelief/233988/45 "2004-03-17T00:12:09Z")
> [@HPL](#): > > 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. I like soft science fiction also. However, these days, you can avoid plot elements that are stupid. Most of the New Wavers knew very little about science, but their plots did not depend on it, and like them or hate them, you can’t hate them for getting the science wrong. That’s a tradition today - 50 years ago things were a lot looser. The Martian Chronicles is full of logical holes, but if someone can write like Bradbury a lot can be excused. I’m not saying you can’t handwave - even Stephen Baxter does that. But there is a big difference between postulating a way of going faster than light and postulating an element between hydrogen and helium. Of course you can be like Johnny Depp’s Ed Wood and say “they’ll never notice!” ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2004, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-movies-and-suspension-of-disbelief/233988/46 "2004-03-17T00:24:49Z")
> [@Izzybella](#): > > 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 perspective of the viewer is different from that of the writer. The noises in Star Wars, and the very first few episodes of Star Trek, never bothered me. Neither did the swooping spaceships (which Alan Dean Foster at least tried to explain away in the book.) But it did bother some people. Now, if you are a writer, why turn off a segment of your audience if you can devote a bit of effort and do it right? I would say it is arrogant, but I rather suspect it is because the writer doesn’t know any better. And sure it is annoying to the writer some times. I had a great scene thought out with a spaceship hiding in the rings of Saturn - until I did some research, and discovered that they are about 100 meters thick. There went my homage to Raiders of the Rings. ---
**Author:** ![Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac8455/32.png) [@Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bippy_the_Beardless)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2004, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-movies-and-suspension-of-disbelief/233988/47 "2004-03-17T00:54:33Z")
I just realized that this situation is like perfect pitch. Some people (not me) suffer from this ability. Suffer I say, because when they hear music that is at the wrong pitch it jars and annoys them. My own almost tone-deaf self enjoys and sings atonally allong. In a similar way some of us are very sensitive to internal logic, and as such when something breaks its own internal logic we get jarred and annoyed by it. I susspect a large numbe of people with a highly developed sense for internal logic will gravitate to computing jobs (where such a sense is very helpful), though I am aware of many succesfull computer people who don’t posses much sensitivity to internal logic structures. ---
**Author:** ![SPOOFE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@SPOOFE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SPOOFE)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2004, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-movies-and-suspension-of-disbelief/233988/48 "2004-03-17T02:32:49Z")
> [@](#): > > A horse cannot go 200 mph. … Without a little help. Anyone got a spare JATO unit? 😃 Anyway… a lot of nitpicks and such actually turn out to be people noticing a better way for the characters to solve a problem, as if they expect all characters in a movie to be able to view their events with impassionate objectivity and make the most logical, rational choices. Not Realitychuck’s criticisms of _Alien_… who cares if they didn’t make the most “obvious” choice? That doesn’t make it a plothole, that makes 'em characters that made dumb choices. You’ve never made a dumb choice? ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2004, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-movies-and-suspension-of-disbelief/233988/49 "2004-03-17T02:46:00Z")
> [@Bippy the Beardless](#): > > I just realized that this situation is like perfect pitch. Some people (not me) suffer from this ability. Suffer I say, because when they hear music that is at the wrong pitch it jars and annoys them. My own almost tone-deaf self enjoys and sings atonally allong. > In a similar way some of us are very sensitive to internal logic, and as such when something breaks its own internal logic we get jarred and annoyed by it. I susspect a large numbe of people with a highly developed sense for internal logic will gravitate to computing jobs (where such a sense is very helpful), though I am aware of many succesfull computer people who don’t posses much sensitivity to internal logic structures. This may be true. I’m always reading movie stuff on the Internet (reviews, message boards, etc.), and the experience has taught me that some people just don’t seem to have any sense for internal consistency. This isn’t limited to people who don’t notice plot holes; there are also plenty of people who can’t follow a plot that actually _is_ consistent. I’ve seen plenty of “nitpicks” and questions/complains about movies where the writers actually _did_ explain things perfectly well but the viewer missed it. Actually, this may be less a problem with “logic sense” than just paying attention. If people don’t pay much attention they won’t notice logic flaws, but they won’t notice any explanation that isn’t both simple and repetitive either. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen posters here and elsewhere react to having the in-movie explanation pointed out to them by saying something like “Sue me, I blinked and I missed it!” or “You can’t expect me to listen to every single line of dialogue!” No wonder some writers don’t try all that hard. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Elvis\_Rojo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@El\_Elvis\_Rojo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Elvis_Rojo)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2004, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-movies-and-suspension-of-disbelief/233988/50 "2004-03-17T03:26:36Z")
I think a big part of it comes from the fact that when people go to see a movie, they go to escape reality. What you’re watching up on screen isn’t the world outside the theater/tv, it’s a whole different world where anything can happen. A hero can hit home with every shot; the wayward ballplayer with no depth perception can hit the game winning home run; a kid can run the Minesotta Twins; buses can make impossible jumps, and it doesn’t fucking matter because what you’re watching isn’t real. By the time the bus made the jump in **Speed** , I’d already given up on any chance of this film connecting at all to reality. When it hit the other side of the highway, it wasn’t “My GOD, that’s so unbelievable, that just ruined everything for me,” it was “Man, this movie sucks!” But it was an enjoyable kinda sucks, so that’s okay. It’s called “Fantasy” for a reason. A lot of it’s done to help make the moment more impactful, a lot of it’s done to help drive the plot along, but what’s the use of arguing it? I’m one of those people that can accept things like a bus being able to make an obviously fatal jump, or my hero being able to leap across a fifty foot chasm while being chased by a big ball of fire. I can accept it because I know the movie isn’t real. I won’t deny that there haven’t been times where the physicality of something hasn’t bothered me, but it’s never been enough to ruin a movie for me (if it is something detrimental, I already have reason enough to hate the movie without it). As a slight hijack about **Alien** , I believe they do contemplate just opening up the airlocks, but they weren’t sure if that would kill the thing. That’s why they developed the idea of luring it into an airdock and blasting it out that way…if it can survive in a vaccuum, at least it would be off the ship. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2004, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-movies-and-suspension-of-disbelief/233988/51 "2004-03-17T03:31:45Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > the climax of the film has the hero defeating the villain because the villain is distracted by a sudden change to the timeline – a change that the movie has already told us no one but the hero should be aware of! Gah! Until the climax, the hero was the only one who used the radio. I thought it was obvious that the villain became aware that he was occupying different timelines when he heard himself on the radio. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2004, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-movies-and-suspension-of-disbelief/233988/52 "2004-03-17T03:39:29Z")
> [@Jeff Olsen](#): > > Until the climax, the hero was the only one who used the radio. I thought it was obvious that the villain became aware that he was occupying different timelines when he heard himself on the radio. Okay, I guess I can buy that. But there’s still the larger problem of when the changes to the timeline manifest themselves – an issue crucial to the latter part of the movie, and that contradicts the first part. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2004, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-movies-and-suspension-of-disbelief/233988/53 "2004-03-17T03:59:09Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > But there’s still the larger problem of when the changes to the timeline manifest themselves – an issue crucial to the latter part of the movie, and that contradicts the first part. I’ve seen it at least twice and never noticed the discrepancy. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2004, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-movies-and-suspension-of-disbelief/233988/54 "2004-03-17T06:56:38Z")
> [@Jeff Olsen](#): > > I’ve seen it at least twice and never noticed the discrepancy. I’ll explain in a little more detail in the spoiler box: When the hero first saves his father’s life by warning him about which path to take in the burning building, the new timeline does not take effect immediately. It only happens on the exact anniversary of his father’s original death. However, the changes to the timeline cause the hero’s mother to be murdered by the serial killer. But this manifests itself in 1999 several days _before_ the anniversary of her murder. So the hero still has plenty of time to communicate with dad and track down the killer so they can prevent mom’s murder before it happens. But by the rules established in the first act, mom should still be alive in 1999 until the precise anniversary of her 1969 death in the altered timeline, leaving the hero no chance to undo things. I’d like to believe there’s something I’m missing here, because I was very impressed by the first act of _Frequency_ and the rest would be good too if not marred (for me) by this contradiction. I’ve asked for explanations before but no one could come up with anything. However, it is possible that I’m making the same mistake I made with the climax of the film until you pointed out an alternate interpretation. I hadn’t previously considered the villain’s having learned of cross-time communication as an explanation for how he could be aware of the change to the timeline. I’d already assumed in the first act that only the person causing the changes (the hero) could notice them. But it’s just as reasonable to assume that only people who know that such changes are possible can notice them. If that’s the case then the ending is consistent with the rest of the film. Or it could even be that everyone is momentarily aware that “something weird just happened”, which would be enough to distract the villain, while leaving only the person causing the changes really knowing what’s going on. I shouldn’t have made the mistake of expecing the film to be consistent not only with its own events but with my interpretation of them. ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2004, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-movies-and-suspension-of-disbelief/233988/55 "2004-03-17T20:33:53Z")
> [@BoringDad](#): > > Unlikely decisions (not blowing the hatch) and odd design choices (why would his hat be 12 feet tall?) do not bother me at all. Historical inaccuracies only bother me a little. There is an almost universal historical inaccuracy that is ‘555’ [the non-telephone exxhange that just must be accepted]. Teeth; complete sets of beautiful straight white teeth. One of things I loved about LOTR was the dirty cuticles. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2004, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-movies-and-suspension-of-disbelief/233988/56 "2004-03-17T23:59:54Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > I’d like to believe there’s something I’m missing here, because I was very impressed by the first act of _Frequency_ and the rest would be good too if not marred (for me) by this contradiction. I’ve asked for explanations before but no one could come up with anything. Okay, I see now. Having the hero try to call Mom twice and not get an answer may have sped the process up a bit. ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2004, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-movies-and-suspension-of-disbelief/233988/57 "2004-03-18T04:39:28Z")
> [@j66](#): > > There is an almost universal historical inaccuracy that is ‘555’ [the non-telephone exxhange that just must be accepted]. > > . I thought the whole point to the 555 thing was to keep people from getting bothered by the idiots who think it’s a good idea to prank call any number they see in a movie. Kind of like the infamous 867-0309(sure it’s a song, but the same idea still holds). ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2004, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-movies-and-suspension-of-disbelief/233988/58 "2004-03-18T14:01:34Z")
Oh, yes; the point is that there are just some inaccuracies we have to accept; no-one thinks, ‘Oh, that’s wrong, no-one could have that phone number’. ---
**Author:** ![Weird\_AL\_Einstein](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c67d28/32.png) [@Weird\_AL\_Einstein](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weird_AL_Einstein)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2004, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-movies-and-suspension-of-disbelief/233988/59 "2004-03-18T14:15:49Z")
> [@j66](#): > > Oh, yes; the point is that there are just some inaccuracies we have to accept; no-one thinks, ‘Oh, that’s wrong, no-one could have that phone number’. _ **AHEM** _ I do, and always have. Hearing a “555” number can completely ruin a movie for me. I absolutely _hate_ that. ---
**Author:** ![Ilsa\_Lund](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/a6a055/32.png) [@Ilsa\_Lund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ilsa_Lund)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2004, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-movies-and-suspension-of-disbelief/233988/60 "2004-03-18T16:54:29Z")
> [@Weird\_AL\_Einstein](#): > > _ **AHEM** _ I do, and always have. Hearing a “555” number can completely ruin a movie for me. I absolutely _hate_ that. I agree. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-movies-and-suspension-of-disbelief/233988.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-movies-and-suspension-of-disbelief/233988.md?page=4)