Y’ever see the movie US Navy Seals? I lived in Tidewater VA for a moderately long time, lived with a Seal as well. Not only is the map all over the place, they have totally impossible behaviors - nobody marrying anybody in the military in a military chapel would get a passel of beeper pages and then not take the 5 minute fast tracked wedding vows. Since they were all there, the same version mrAru and I had, a classic Justice of the Peace [more or less literally Do you? turn to the other Do you? I now pronounce you man and wife, you may now kiss the bride] with 4 signatures. [I saw it on base in the base theater of the Joint Operations Base in Norfolk =)
Then we have Hunt for Red October, my husband was on the Miami [well he ended up finishing after 20 years with 3 submarines, at least a couple dozen various Schools, and then 8 or 9 different shore commands] and since the Soviet sailors were US Submariners, we actually knew several of them.
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. Maybe other people don’t mind or can’t pick them out as well as I do since I was in the CGI business for some time and I followed the evolution of the technology. But more than that I don’t see the animation being done well. This is not the same as with fully animated features, this is when attempting to blend CGI into the real world. Little details that would breathe life into the creatures are lacking while there’s an abundance of using computer produced motion and angles that only CGI can produce but do little to convey the characters as real. Maybe I’m just an old cranky boomer who is nostalgic for the style of animation I grew up watching, but that’s how it comes across to me.
Superhero physics are fine. I don’t care if he would have been smushed inside his battle suit or if her robot arms would have been torn off when grabbing a truck. I’m already watching a movie about someone with goose DNA giving them powers so time to stop worrying. I suppose the exception is wild inconsistency: If it’s established that it takes a day to regrow your head but then you do it in five minutes, I’ll probably hold it against you.
All the usual dramatic shortcuts (turning on a TV to the news story, finding close parking, etc) are fine. I don’t wanna watch someone drive around the block for sake of verisimilitude.
I don’t notice or care about empty cups. Some people care about this deeply and it comes up on every “complain about TV/movies” thread. Swing away wildly with your dry coffee cups, actors! I don’t care!
This triggers my “sloppiness” complaint, but not to any great degree. Every prop company on the planet sells weighted cups. Use them, or make your own. Not doing so is sloppy work.
Musicals can be real. See the most recent from Master_Wang-Ka.
This is similar to me except that I like fantasy and supernatural themed shows and movies. I especially like anything with a time travel theme or stories where there’s a “magic” world hidden/apart from the “real” world – like Doctor Strange and Mister Norrell (not a fan of comic book movies though). I’m not a believer, but I believe in the internal world of these works and surrender to the story.
IRL I mock my sister for watching all those ghost hunter shows and thinking “well, maybe…”.
They used to annoy me when I was younger, but I have come to accept unrealistic looking computer interfaces in movies and TV shows. I realize their purpose is to show the viewers what’s happening, not to portray a realistic user interface.
Oh, yeah, I was in the computer field before PCs and their descendants were in everybody’s house/pocket so I knew what it should look like and how it worked. It used to bother me, too, but I also came to accept it.
I’ll echo what was already said: engaging characters, fascinating plots, and masterful direction go a long way in minimizing flaws of believability. I’d offer Snowpiercer as an example. For me, at least, the sets, the direction, etc., were so interesting that I largely ignored the implausible elements of the plot (there were lots). It made me a Bong Joon-ho fan, and I went on a tear watching his other films. None of them disappointed me.
I’ll just add, as others have, that plot holes that make the premise incoherent take me out of the film. I’ll excuse these only if they’re minor and ISTM that it could have been corrected by just adding a sentence or two of dialogue at some prior point. I make the edit in my head and all is forgiven.
The first thing that came to mind for me was time compression as well, but at an even deeper level. I’m fine with, say, the 5 minute class. I can accept that the “real” class was longer, but they showed only the important parts, even if they didn’t cut.
I find this is often how I process media that is unrealistic. I accept that it’s a retelling of something that “really” happened that has been modified for the convenience of the audience.
That isn’t however, how I handle the second thing I thought of, which is everyone speaking the same language, even when they shouldn’t. That has just never bugged me in, say, the Stargate universe. And I don’t get hung up on the Universal Translator in Star Trek. As long as they don’t make it relevant for plot reasons, I’ll just ignore it.
I live in the Chicago area; there were, in fact, a fair number of bars here which built or improved on their outdoor areas/beer gardens, including adding heaters and semi-enclosed areas, in hopes of keeping their businesses going during the winter months, at a time when congregating indoors, unmasked, was discouraged (if not entirely banned).
I can usually suspend disbelief (with fictional ghost stories, for example – I don’t believe in ghosts or any part of the supernatural), so the story stands or falls on its own merits. Is it a good story? Do I relate to the characters? Do I ask, “What’s going to happen next?” If I can say yes, then I suspend disbelief. But I can’t say yes about Ancient Aliens or the other paranormal shows (The Alaska Triangle, Ghost Hunters, Paranormal Caught on Camera, etc. etc. etc.) that are purported fact.
I can forgive quite a bit if the movie works well and is gripping.
Look at the timing of Empire Strikes Back. The time Luke spends on Dagobah does not line up with time the rest of the gang spends getting caught on Cloud City and so forth.
But…well, who cares. Story works fine. I guess Luke trained with Yoda for like, you know, a few days.
Yup. I’ve seen post-hoc explanations that, with the hyperdrive on the Millenium Falcon broken, it took Han, Leia, and Chewie weeks or months, limping along on a backup hyperdrive (or whatever), before they made it to Bespin. It helps explain why Luke had the time to train with Yoda, but it probably doesn’t make for good cinema.
I can agree with that. On the other hand, I love it when foreigners do speak their native language (the German officers in Patton and the Japanese officers in Tora! Tora! Tora! ) come to mind.
Yeah, I’d rather see all their lines subtitled. I also think it’s very cool when there’s a brief transition scene in which they start speaking in their own language and end up speaking in English for the rest of the film. But it also seems unnecessary. Not sure where I’ve seen that or in how many films. The authenticity is nice, but I don’t mind movie shorthand.
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.
