# When you don’t mind suspending disbelief **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 25, 2023, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-don-t-mind-suspending-disbelief/983151 "2023-04-25T07:24:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2023, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-don-t-mind-suspending-disbelief/983151/41 "2023-04-25T19:13:04Z")
> [@alovem](#): > > When everyone speaks English, even foreigners conversing among themselves. I know, I can hear Harrison Ford, “Kid, it ain’t that kinda show!”, but over time Hogan’s Heroes bugs me. Do all the heroes speak fluent German, or do all the Germans really speak German-accented English? Because episodes seem to have it both ways. I’d rather suspend my disbelief and think everyone in Hogan’s team was recruited because they already spoke German (even leBeau!) and we’re just seeing it in English for convenience sake, rather than the lowliest grunt German private speaks like ein Englander mit der aggzent. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2023, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-don-t-mind-suspending-disbelief/983151/42 "2023-04-25T21:40:17Z")
> [@solost](#): > > You don’t want to watch a half hour of someone driving across town. When our local channels added digital sub-channels, our rabbit ears antenna could get a number of “vintage TV” channels (MeTV, Comet, AntennaTV etc). So I tried to watch some shows that I remember watching “back in the day”… … But the cop shows were almost unwatchable. So many hour-long shows that could’ve been half-hour episodes. In one overly-long scene, _O’Hara, (…U.S. Treasury)_ pulls up in front of an old courthouse-looking building, and we have to watch him get out of the car, slam his door, walk around the trunk (pausing to get his briefcase out), lock the trunk, walk up the many stairs to the front door. He enters, and we follow him as he waits for, enters, then exits the elevator, says good morning to everyone and finally gets to his desk. He picks up a note, it’s a phone message. Someone wants O’Hara to meet him downtown, so O’Hara puts his coat back on, takes the elevator back down and walks back out the door he came in, down the long steps, around the car, puts his briefcase in the trunk, unlocks his door, gets in, starts the car, looks over his shoulder and waits for a lonnnng Cadillac to pass by, then revs the engine and pulls out of his parking space. I’d love to tell you who he was meeting downtown, but I couldn’t take it any more. My attention span had given out halfway through that scene, and I couldn’t take another marathon of “driving downtown, stuck in traffic, yelling at a little kid who ran a red light on his Sting-ray™, finding a parking spot, getting out, slamming his door, unlocking the trunk…” ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2023, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-don-t-mind-suspending-disbelief/983151/43 "2023-04-25T21:43:06Z")
I suspend my disbelief that after the first Harry Potter book, no one pulled Harry aside and said, “Why did you even try to get the stone? You almost got us all killed!” Dumbledore had enchanted the stone to only come out of the Mirror of Erised if the user wanted the stone, but intended to never use it. Voldemort could have never gotten the stone since all he wanted was to use it. It…was safe. ---
**Author:** ![zbuzz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e19b73/32.png) [@zbuzz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zbuzz)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2023, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-don-t-mind-suspending-disbelief/983151/44 "2023-04-25T23:41:18Z")
> [@Leo\_Krupe](#): > > > [@alovem](#): > > > > [T]hey start speaking in their own language and end up speaking in English for the rest of the film. > > They did it in The Hunt for Red October when (I think) they zoomed in on Connery’s face as he spoke Russian, then, in the same shot, he changed to English. It may have (probably was) done in other movies, but I’m certain of that one at least. In THFRO, it’s the political officer who switches languages after the word “Armageddon.” Pretty effective. Another one is from Judgment at Nuremberg. The defense attorney is giving his opening statement in German, it’s a POV shot from inside the translator’s booth, the camera dollies above the glass partition, zooms in to a head shot and he continues in English. Another excellent moment. ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2023, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-don-t-mind-suspending-disbelief/983151/45 "2023-04-26T00:16:01Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > Doctors performing tests on patients. I’m watching a show to see the cast. _House_ would have bee 5 minutes of House and crew and the rest would have been multiple different technicians doing their job undramatically. I want to see House not Bob the on call MRI tech. The problem I had with _House_ was more about what they did and the order they did things in rather than who was doing the tests. They would order things like technetium-99 scans, lumbar punctures, and even do exploratory surgery, brain biopsies, and / or breaking into the patient’s house to search for drugs, and finally at the end they would do a routine urinalysis or blood count and get the diagnosis from a test that would have been ordered in the first 30 minutes in real life. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2023, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-don-t-mind-suspending-disbelief/983151/46 "2023-04-26T02:10:52Z")
> [@House: Do we love this show in spite of its flaws?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-do-we-love-this-show-in-spite-of-its-flaws/435127/15): > > Good well-acted series with one humongous fatal flaw: a) these folks are supposed to be phenomenally good at what they do, which is diagnostic medicine b) but we never, ever, see them being good at what they do Hmm, lowered blood pressure in combo with racing heart, no white blood cell count rise and blood volume is higher than normal. And green skin. And sudden growth of long toenails. Folks, this is obviously Hidgekin’s OsteoFreakonoma. Start infusion of myeloquasibloopothome, STAT! An… ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2023, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-don-t-mind-suspending-disbelief/983151/47 "2023-04-26T02:14:43Z")
I view Jason Statham movies as live action anime, sit back, and relax. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2023, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-don-t-mind-suspending-disbelief/983151/48 "2023-04-26T02:48:32Z")
I don’t always succeed, but I can shrug at plenty of dubious skill-usage: someone waves their arms onto a stuntman who obligingly falls down, meh, okay, I’ll accept that, if I’m into the movie. Or: someone is touching a paintbrush to a canvas and moving it around? That’s all I need to suspend disbelief. But one thing that takes me out of a scene is sleight-of-hand stuff where the actor doesn’t _do_ anything. Like, we’ll see the character pickpocket a guy — except it’s obvious that the actor simply had the wallet before he walked past the guy, is all. Or we’ll see the character doing a magic trick — only it’s just the actor saying Is This Your Card while producing an eight of spades that he _didn’t_ actually palm or whatever. It’s a little thing, but it jars. ---
**Author:** ![Galactus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/galactus/32/3581_2.png) [@Galactus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Galactus)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2023, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-don-t-mind-suspending-disbelief/983151/49 "2023-04-26T03:13:28Z")
I love Law and Order and a lot of other catch-the-criminal dramas. The one that I could not suspend disbelief for was BONES. The Star Trek level crime-fighting tech was just ridiculous. ---
**Author:** ![Chingon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chingon/32/17645_2.png) [@Chingon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chingon)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2023, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-don-t-mind-suspending-disbelief/983151/50 "2023-04-26T03:22:39Z")
It’s pretty easy to suspend disbelief. I know it’s entertainment and not a secret test to show everybody around me how smart I think I am. ---
**Author:** ![snfaulkner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snfaulkner/32/433_2.png) [@snfaulkner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snfaulkner)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2023, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-don-t-mind-suspending-disbelief/983151/51 "2023-04-26T03:48:36Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > I will always be bugged by Hollywood writers that just can’t be bothered to read a map! It’s not that they can’t read a map (though I’m sure some can’t.) These weird and/impossible routes movies take are usually hamstrung by what permits they can get for the days they need vs. the money/time they can spend shooting/editing. ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2023, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-don-t-mind-suspending-disbelief/983151/52 "2023-04-26T12:20:34Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > I guess Luke trained with Yoda for like, you know, a few days. Training goes faster if you sing a catchy song in the process: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/U9t-slLl30E/maxresdefault.jpg ""SEAGULLS! (Stop It Now)" -- A Bad Lip Reading of The Empire Strikes Back") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9t-slLl30E) ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2023, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-don-t-mind-suspending-disbelief/983151/53 "2023-04-26T12:34:52Z")
(Separate post since I can’t edit the previous one with a YT vid embedded) > [@Galactus](#): > > The one that I could not suspend disbelief for was BONES. The Star Trek level crime-fighting tech was just ridiculous. My favorite “beyond belief” moment on Bones was during a season arc where they were battling this ‘supervillian’ type who kept outguessing them at every turn. He introduced a virus into their computer system by leaving some evidence at one of his kills that had the virus encoded onto some of the evidence like a bar code. When they took pictures and scanned the pics into the computer, it introduced the virus. ---
**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:** [April 26, 2023, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-don-t-mind-suspending-disbelief/983151/54 "2023-04-26T17:17:19Z")
When the author tells a compelling story. I often see something and say “That’s historically inaccurate” but file it away and keep watching. For example, “The Adventure of the Speckled Band” has a snake that drinks milk as a treat. Snakes don’t drink milk and, if forced to due to lack of water, it can kill them. Nonetheless, this is still one of the top Holmes stories. ---
**Author:** ![veryfrank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/87869e/32.png) [@veryfrank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/veryfrank)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2023, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-don-t-mind-suspending-disbelief/983151/55 "2023-04-26T17:44:53Z")
> [@Leo\_Krupe](#): > > They did it in The Hunt for Red October when (I think) they zoomed in on Connery’s face as he spoke Russian, then, in the same shot, he changed to English. It may have (probably was) done in other movies, but I’m certain of that one at least. They also did it for Spanish to English in _Clear and Present Danger_. Another Jack Ryan film, but interestingly, a different director and star. For the “why are they speaking English?” question, I always found _The Last Emperor_ handled it awkwardly. When everyone on screen was Chinese, all the characters spoke completely proper English, accented but more or less RP. Whenever a non-Chinese actor entered the frame, all the Chinese dialogue became a rough pidgin. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2023, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-don-t-mind-suspending-disbelief/983151/56 "2023-04-26T17:57:11Z")
> [@veryfrank](#): > > They also did it for Spanish to English in _Clear and Present Danger_. Another Jack Ryan film, but interestingly, a different director and star. The Antonia Banderas historical action film _The 13th Warrior_ didn’t have a ton to recommend it, but it does this really well. Banderas is a Moor who falls in with a band of Scandinavians, with whom he does not share any language. They spend a couple months traveling together, and there’s a montage of the trip where, as Banderas’ character learns their language, more and more of their dialogue is rendered in English, until by the end of the trip, he’s fully fluent, and the rest of the movie is done in English. ---
**Author:** ![sciurophobic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cab0a1/32.png) [@sciurophobic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sciurophobic)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2023, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-don-t-mind-suspending-disbelief/983151/57 "2023-04-26T18:17:55Z")
> [@carrps](#): > > Doctor Strange and Mister Norrell Jonathan Strange ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2023, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-don-t-mind-suspending-disbelief/983151/58 "2023-04-26T18:19:13Z")
Damn! Ha, those comic book movies are invading my brain. ---
**Author:** ![TwoCarrotSnowman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/twocarrotsnowman/32/15879_2.png) [@TwoCarrotSnowman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TwoCarrotSnowman)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2023, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-don-t-mind-suspending-disbelief/983151/59 "2023-04-26T18:24:03Z")
I assumed that @carrps was deliberately conflating the two things for comic effect. 😀 ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2023, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-don-t-mind-suspending-disbelief/983151/60 "2023-04-26T18:27:05Z")
Wish I’d been that smart. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-don-t-mind-suspending-disbelief/983151.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-don-t-mind-suspending-disbelief/983151.md?page=4)