# Suspending disbelief at the movies

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suspending-disbelief-at-the-movies/432998>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [January 10, 2008, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suspending-disbelief-at-the-movies/432998 "2008-01-10T17:13:51Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 4

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**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\
**Post date:** [January 12, 2008, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suspending-disbelief-at-the-movies/432998/61 "2008-01-12T23:16:31Z")

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[QUOTE=cochrane]  
That occurred for me in “Star Trek: Insurrection” when Data blew some circuits and went berserk. Picard and Worf flew in a shuttle in pursuit of him, and Picard’s plan was to distract him by singing some light opera at him. Now, I can buy a story with a berserk android and a human and alien flying through space while singing Gilbert and Sullivan. What’s unusual about that? But the WTF moment for me occurred when Picard asked:

“Mr. Worf, are you familiar with Gilbert and Sullivan?”

and Worf replied,

“No sir, I have not had a chance to meet all the new crew members since I have been back.”  
[/quote]

_That’s_ your objection? Mine was that the damaged Data had some kind of previously unseen “Boy Scout” subroutine that, were he damaged in a particular way, would instantly make him become a super-good avenger of moral rectitude in case somebody had damaged him in an effort to manipulate him.

Data had been damaged in various ways over the course of _TNG_ and nothing like this occurred. It only served to instantly and unmistakably remove all moral ambiguity from the film:  
[ul][li]Damaged-Data is fighting some guys[/li][li]Damaged-Data will automatically fight on the side of the good guys[/li][li]Therefore, some guys are bad guys. QED.[/ul][/li]  
And this was in the first ten minutes of the movie. It was downhill from there.  
It wouldn’t surprise me if a significant percentage of the film’s _audience_ didn’t know who G & S were. That a character 400 years from now who, it is well-established, has chosen to immerse himself in Klingon rather than human culture hasn’t heard of them isn’t shocking in the least. Actually, I find the level of familiarity with 20th-century culture shown by various _TNG_ characters to be disbelief-shattering in itself.

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