Maybe, sort of, not really…
Planet of the Apes beat EFNY by 15 years or so.
ETA: OK, 13 years 68/81
This is how I draw the distinction between scifi and SF. This movie seems to be scifi, and is target towards an audience who won’t really care. Forbidden Planet and 2001 are SF.
In the movie Fantastic Voyage the people are shrunk without any real explanation. In Asimov’s novelization, he tries to make this obey the laws of physics by saying that extra mass was shunted off to hyperspace somehow. Asimov was trying to turn scifi into sf.
Not always : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjqBnun0YXs
I have to concur with the “own” rules theory.
I love The Wire and from what I read it is one of the most accurate shows out there. If I noticed something about the show, even something minor, that I knew to be inaccurate it would hurt my enjoyment of the show. My expectation is that I am watching a world that has rules that match how I would expect Baltimore to actually be. To be drawn out of that by an inaccuracy would be very jarring.
On the other hand, I also loved Shoot 'Em Up. This was probably one of the most ridiculous movies I have ever seen, with practically everything in it being completely inaccurate. Yet it worked beautifully. Any attempts to be more consistent and accurate in plot or physics would have been irritating, especially if they took something away from the spectacle. When more middle of the road movies make mistakes it feels like they are insulting the audience’s intelligence with lazy script writing. With Shoot 'Em Up, it felt like I was in on the joke.
That’s action movie physics, which isn’t that much difference in principle than toon physics, satirized in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. The Roadrunner cartoons had very strict rules about what the characters could do, and they work because they (mostly) followed them.
The Last Action Hero (much better than I ever thought it would be ) satirized this also, as Arnold’s character finds that in this world he can get hurt.
Someone, possibly Heinlein, in one of the early collections of essays by SF writers from Advent said that you are allowed on impossible thing. In Star Trek that is the 200 year from now technology. In really old SF it was one invention - invisibility, a faster than light drive, etc. But I find a world where all the advances have gotten into the culture far more believable. We’d find a world done 20 years ago with microprocessors in PCs but not cars unbelievable. Swords on spaceships are another example, unless you have a damn good explanation.
Many writers have a failure of nerve in working out how their technology affects the entire world, not just a tiny bit of it. Star Trek actually did this fairly well - transporters imply food synthesizers. What it didn’t do well was discover great new technology each episode, then lose it. With the exception of cloaking, that is.
Has anyone ever explained why the battledroids in Phantom Menace don’t carry around regular old rifles? If objects can pass through the energy shield created by the Gungans and energy beam weapons can’t penetrate them, shouldn’t one battledroid with a regular old metal projectile rifle be able to do some serious damage? I guess that is my example of a movie not following its own rules: a society would have come up with any number of weapons to defeat the shields. Heck even SPEARS would be effective against such shields.
I don’t object to all of the above, so I’ll put N/A for the things I don’t object to.
-If you are going to object to the film unrealistically portraying the structural integrity of the SoL, are you also going to object to the fact that the giant monster would likely be unable to support its own weight, or move in the manner that it does? N/A
**-What portion of the potential viewing audience for this monster flick do you think has a firm understanding of the SoL’s construction?
** N/A
-How technically “incorrect” does a movie have to be for you to cease to enjoy it? That is a tough one. I was just watching Shoot 'em Up which I enjoyed, but the one thing I found interesting was that they consistently went too far over the top. It was a fun ride right from the start, all action. But the pattern for me was: Impossible shot, impossible shot, impossible shot, ooo - now you just went too far. More impossible action, more impossible action, oops, there it is again, you just went too far. I can’t really say why/where it was too far, I can only say that had they reigned it in just a little, I would have enjoyed the movie much more. Another such movie was the latest Die Hard. The technology was atrocious, but I could let it slide for the fun ride, but every once in a while they would just push too far. Even in the first one I had some problems with this. I remember watching John McClane do some super-human stuff and having no problem with it, but then he jumps down an elevator shaft and grabs hold of a ledge with just his fingertips and it bothered me. It was just a shade too much.
**
-Do you actually “suspend disbelief” when watching fantastic films, or do you just enjoy going along for a fun - tho unbelievable - ride?** I suppose the latter, although I’m not sure I totally appreciate the difference between the two.
**-What are some instances where you were willing to suspend disbelief, but then objected to a relatively minor point saying, “Now I don’t buy THAT!”
** I guess see above…
The fact that there are whole books dedicated to this subject (not least the nitpickers guide to star trek/TNG/DS9) shows this is a big issue for people. Personally I’m in the camp that says as long as rules are consistent within a made up context, I don’t really mind who bizarre or far fetched that context is. I’m not a great fan of action movies anyway, so I’m not particularly jarred by unrealistic or over the top elements in them because it’s just dressing on the salad as far as I’m concerned.
I can take a lot, as long as a movie is internally consistent. There are several movies I like that, logically, don’t make a lick of sense (like Planet of the Apes, which is absurd logically, but works as a cinematic fable).
The Statue of liberty is made of a steel skeleton with copper sheet riveted to it. I guess, if you could launch the statue’s head on an arc of several miles from New York Harbor into downtown, it would probably pretty much disintegrate when it hit the street; maybe they could have done the shot more realistically, but have it hit in such a way that the statue’s face remained intact enough to recognize what it was. Anyway, it’s a damn effective opening. (And not nearly as problematic as showing a huge monster frantically trying to have sex with the Statue of Liberty, which I immediately thought of because I’m a pervert.)
For me, suspension of disbelief is granted when:
-The implausible things are done to foster a surreal, magical or otherworldly effect (the aerobatics in House of Flying Daggers, for example, or loads of bits in LoTR)
-The movie just isn’t taking itself too seriously, and that’s OK (Men In Black, or Bruce Almighty)
Where I have trouble suspending disbelief is with things like The Core - where there’s all the lip-trembling heroism and the whole thing just tries to be too monumental.
So I’m not sure about this one. I’d have to see it.
Y’know, nobody ever makes movies with the really good scenes…
The Day After Tomorrow is an excellent example of just how to suspend my suspension of disbelief.
Two days until the ice age happens. Uh, ok. Instantaneous freezing of pilots in a helicopter which works fine until you open the little window. Uh, no, not so much, but I’ll try it. Our hero survives these conditions and walks to New York. Ok, I gotta go, have fun.
However, I heard later that they burned books to keep warm while the MAN walked the rest of the way. That has a certain philosophic symmetry! I think books on thermodynamics would be best.
Tris
I wonder…do you think people nitpick continuity or believability errors in favorite movie/TV shows because these things bother them, or because it allows them to (however fleetingly) inject themselves into the work or demonstrate a certain kind of superior fandom?
I’m sure that depends on the quality of the original work, but in most cases I suspect the latter. If so, it seems like some fans live for finding these errors, as it gives them a chance to prove their devotion.
Maybe, but the statue still has her head in PotA.
I hate hate hate when someone drops 50 feet in the air and hangs on to a cliff by their fingers tips.
i think we pretty much settled this in the other thread, where i pointed out much earlier that the image was probably inspired by the Escape from New York poster, and someone chimed in that the director owned up to that being the case in an interview.
Well speaking about the books I’ve mentioned (which I’ve read) I’d say it was a little of both, they’re quite snarky in their pulling apart of some of the dumber ideas in Trek. They also pick on things like the actual production of the programmes (i.e. when some moves due to a cue in a way that’s a bit too obvious etc) but I find that less interesting because that’s straying into comic book guy territory.
Chronology does it for me. I was with National Treasure 2 up until the point where they implied that 1876 happened before 1865. (I’m being intentionally vague here to avoid spoilers.) If you’re going to violate the linear nature of time as we experience it, there better be a TARDIS around.
Personally, I do it because it bothers me. If I get engrossed in a movie and lose myself in its world, an error glaring enough to blow me completely out of it is annoying.