# 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:** 4
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2023, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-don-t-mind-suspending-disbelief/983151/61 "2023-04-26T18:43:39Z")
> [@Grrr](#): > > I mean, Chicago Fire had their protagonist drinking in an outside bar in the middle of winter so the characters wouldn’t catch covid apparently. > > Ain’t nobody going to be drinking outside in Chicago in the middle of winter. That’s just beyond ridiculous! Never been to the Chicago Saint Patrick’s Day parade, have ya? > [@zbuzz](#): > > I’m thinking anyone who lives in LA or Vancouver or Toronto or Atlanta is going to have to learn to be really forgiving of seeing familiar locations masquerading as being in other cities. And a lot of “They made a left turn and now they are on the other side of town.” I really enjoyed _Ms. Marvel_. But when Kamala Khan rescued the little boy hanging from the minaret of her mosque, I said to myself, “I’ve been in that mosque! That’s where I saw _Hamilton_ and _Kinky Boots_ and _Cats_!” (The producers used the Fox Theater in Atlanta as the exterior of the Khans’ mosque.) > [@Miller](#): > > 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. I came to post that movie. To expand on your description, the montage shows ibn Fadhlan, Banderas’ character, sitting around campfires listening to the others speaking Norse (actually Norwegian) with each other. Gradually, the Norwegian actors start slipping in English words and phrases, until by the end, they’re all speaking English. It’s a very clever way to illustrate ibn Fadhlan picking up their language, and probably the only thing most people remember from the movie. ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2023, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-don-t-mind-suspending-disbelief/983151/62 "2023-04-26T18:46:59Z")
> [@solost](#): > > I can suspend a lot of disbelief. As long as the internal rules of the fictional universe are followed, I’m usually good. Same same. I can let quite a bit slide and still enjoy a program. I’m more bothered by plot holes than unrealistic situations. Even plot holes that are pre-empted by flimsy hand-waving, I can buy. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2023, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-don-t-mind-suspending-disbelief/983151/63 "2023-04-26T18:57:45Z")
> [@veryfrank](#): > > For the “why are they speaking English?” question, I always found _The Last Emperor_ handled it awkwardly. And the latest Predator movie, Prey, handled it beautifully. Most of the cast is Native American, but they’re shown speaking English, so the audience can understand them. But it soon becomes clear that, to the characters, they’re speaking their native language. When they finally meet some Europeans, the Europeans speak really bad French, and the Natives clearly can’t understand a word of it. One of the Europeans knows a bit of their language, and so speaks to them in broken English, clearly conveying that he’s no where near fluent. Having everyone but the Native main cast speak a different language that the main cast clearly cannot understand really drives home the “Aliens invading our land” theme of the movie. ---
**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 26, 2023, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-don-t-mind-suspending-disbelief/983151/64 "2023-04-26T19:02:32Z")
> [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > and probably the only thing most people remember from the movie. Ha! I don’t even remember that part. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2023, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-don-t-mind-suspending-disbelief/983151/65 "2023-04-26T19:24:59Z")
One thing that doesn’t bother me at all is conk-someone-on-the-head-to-knock-them-unconscious-with-no-long-term-ill-effects. Sure, medically inaccurate. But it’s basically a storytelling shortcut at this point. It would only bother me in a show or movie which clearly wanted me to take its level of realism seriously. ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2023, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-don-t-mind-suspending-disbelief/983151/66 "2023-04-26T19:46:26Z")
My pet hate is Kevin Costner as Robin Hood (Prince of Thieves) who is seen arriving on the southern shores of England (depicted by the white cliffs of Dover) seemingly heading for Sherwood Forrest in Nottingham. The scene he is next shown in is shot at Sycamore Gap at Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland which is over 250 miles further north of Nottingham. Apparently a day or so later. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2023, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-don-t-mind-suspending-disbelief/983151/67 "2023-04-26T19:55:00Z")
> [@solost](#): > > I only draw the line at full-on fantasy and magic. Can’t wrap my head around that. Unfortunately that often extends to many superhero movies these days. I’m sort of the opposite - magical stuff is fine as long as it’s being presented as magical stuff; sheer physical impossibility of supposedly non-magical sciency tech is the one that sometimes still sticks out for me - like Tony Stark’s iron man suit unpacking itself out of an unfeasibly small package. Just tell me there’s magical hammerspace and I’m OK with that. Try to convince me all that metal and actuators and motors and weaponry _just folds down really small somehow,_ nah. ---
**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, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-don-t-mind-suspending-disbelief/983151/68 "2023-04-26T19:57:03Z")
Other posters have mentioned unrealistic travel times. The show _24_ was hilarious with this. As a former resident of Los Angeles, episode after episode in which people race all over L.A. County in the space of a commercial break, drive me nuts. _Falling Down_ has this problem as well, as Michael Douglas’ character seems to walk from Pasadena to Venice by way of Echo Park within a workday. I tend to let that stuff slide, because who needs two episodes’ worth of Kiefer Sutherland sitting motionless on the 10? ---
**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 26, 2023, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-don-t-mind-suspending-disbelief/983151/69 "2023-04-26T20:02:19Z")
> [@veryfrank](#): > > because who needs two episodes’ worth of Kiefer Sutherland sitting motionless on the 10? Oh I don’t know. “What is going on! Geeze I can walk faster than this! Are cars moving on the transition. I can’t see.” [ten minutes later] “no! Maybe I should take Sepulveda? How far is the exit? Five miles! Hey buttheads! Millions of people will DIE if all you don’t start moving your cars! Christ, now I gotta pee!” ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2023, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-don-t-mind-suspending-disbelief/983151/70 "2023-04-26T21:27:09Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > What does bother me is when there is something that just is completely implausible and either no effort is made to explain it or minor changes would have made it plausible. I can’t watch that Rob Lowe show about the fire station because there were just too many layers of disbelief. The parent show _9-1-1_ I have no problem with. The storylines are ridiculous but they are mindless entertainment. _9-1-1 Lonestar_ lost me at the beginning. Fire departments don’t work that way. If you need to hire more firefighters you give a test and hire from the applicants. You don’t leave Texas and find a FDNY captain to go around the country to recruit the diversity all-star team. There isn’t a particularly good axe handler in Detroit you just must have. There aren’t fire fighter scouting reports to find that one hose dragger you need in Seattle. I don’t know why not using the civil service system bothers me more than a volcano where there can’t be one but it does. Maybe because its how they started the show.’ ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2023, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-don-t-mind-suspending-disbelief/983151/71 "2023-04-26T22:45:35Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > I don’t know why not using the civil service system bothers me more than a volcano where there can’t be one but it does. That’s what bothered me, too. And what really bothered me is that every government agency I worked for had lots of non-civil service jobs. So you could plausibly bring in Rob Lowe’s character but he couldn’t be a captain - he’d have to be a higher rank. possibly much higher. But the rest of it couldn’t happen. ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2023, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-don-t-mind-suspending-disbelief/983151/72 "2023-04-27T03:01:03Z")
I could never accept an IBM 084 card sorter as a “computer”, though, or several IBM 1620s bolted together as a “supercomputer”. Perhaps the worst, though was they showed an IBM 370/158 with a color video displayed on the operator’s console (which in fact could display nothing but green text). ---
**Author:** ![alovem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@alovem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alovem)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2023, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-don-t-mind-suspending-disbelief/983151/73 "2023-04-27T05:56:28Z")
> [@veryfrank](#): > > …Michael Douglas’ character seems to walk from Pasadena to Venice by way of Echo Park within a workday. It looks to be less than five miles. What’s unrealistic about that? ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2023, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-don-t-mind-suspending-disbelief/983151/74 "2023-04-27T11:52:11Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > For example, “The Adventure of the Speckled Band” There’s a lot that’s herpetologically inaccurate about that story, and a good mystery shouldn’t have a solution that’s scientifically impossible. But that’s a great example of a story that’s so good that I’m willing to suspend disbelief. ---
**Author:** ![veryfrank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/87869e/32.png) [@veryfrank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/veryfrank)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2023, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-don-t-mind-suspending-disbelief/983151/75 "2023-04-27T13:36:32Z")
> [@alovem](#): > > It looks to be less than five miles. What’s unrealistic about that? I just plugged “Pasadena” and “Venice Beach” into google maps and the shortest route between them is 26.7 miles. It gives an estimate of 8 hours 11 minutes on foot, but that’s gotta be at quite a run. ---
**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 27, 2023, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-don-t-mind-suspending-disbelief/983151/76 "2023-04-27T13:42:46Z")
I go on 25 mile walks pretty often and that timeframe isn’t unreasonable, although I usually estimate 10 for myself. Terrain matters, of course. ---
**Author:** ![alovem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@alovem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alovem)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2023, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-don-t-mind-suspending-disbelief/983151/77 "2023-04-27T13:54:26Z")
Thanks for checking that figure. I just eyeballed (estimated) the distance based on a straight line. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2023, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-don-t-mind-suspending-disbelief/983151/78 "2023-04-27T14:00:02Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > I seem to be apart from the majority or at least a sizable vocal minority on the use of computer generated images in movies such as Godzilla and King Kong. I prefer clunky old animation like the original and best version of King Kong from 1933. I can suspend disbelief easily while watching that even though artifacts of using a stop motion model are apparent. With CGI the animation falls into the uncanny valley of monsters where the lesser artifacts of the process bother me. I have a problem with the way CGI is used in a lot of movies these days. There’s a scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade where our hero Indy leaps on top of a German tank and there’s a merry little action sequence. The tank isn’t going that fast, but it looks real and it helps sell the scene. In Indian Jones and the Crystal Skull, there’s a chase scene through the jungle where they’re speeding along in some Jeep-like vehicles complete with CGI monkeys. The whole thing looks like a cartoon and it takes me out of the movie. CGI can be used effectively, just look at Mad Max: Fury Road. I’m sure CGI is often used and I don’t even notice it. But sometimes it just looks bad and takes me out of the moment. ---
**Author:** ![alovem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@alovem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alovem)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2023, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-don-t-mind-suspending-disbelief/983151/79 "2023-04-27T14:10:07Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > But sometimes it just looks bad and takes me out of the moment. In Meet Joe Black, at the beginning, when Brad Pitt’s character gets hit by a car. Looks about as realistic as the characters swept up by the twister in The Wizard of Oz. It’s strange, because I don’t recall any other special effects in that film. The scene could have been shot effectively using traditional means and it wouldn’t have been out of tone with the rest. ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2023, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-don-t-mind-suspending-disbelief/983151/80 "2023-04-27T14:11:49Z")
> [@veryfrank](#): > > > [@alovem](#): > > > > It looks to be less than five miles. What’s unrealistic about that? > > I just plugged “Pasadena” and “Venice Beach” into google maps and the shortest route between them is 26.7 miles. It gives an estimate of 8 hours 11 minutes on foot, but that’s gotta be at quite a run That’s only a half-mile longer than a marathon, and there are plenty of folks who could cover that distance in three to four hours. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-don-t-mind-suspending-disbelief/983151.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-don-t-mind-suspending-disbelief/983151.md?page=5)