I don’t think those are “mistaken criticisms”. Those are elements that took me (and apparently some others) out of the movie and broke my suspension of disbelief. They didn’t break yours, which is fine, we can have different reactions. That doesn’t make me “mistaken”.
In the first movie, there’s a fictional long-range bomber that none of the characters have ever seen before. Steve Trevor jumps in and flies it without any problem. That’s not really realistic, but it fits in with standard comic book hyper-competence, and didn’t break my suspension of disbelief. It’s fully fueled and flight ready because that’s the entire point of that scene - it’s moments from take-off.
The situation in WW84 was very different. If he had had a crash course in modern avionics, or had been studying flight manuals, or, as suggested upthread, if the body he had occupied had been a pilot and Steve retained some of its skills, or, y’know, just literally anything to justify the scene, I probably would have bought it.
Same with what pretty clearly seemed to be display aircraft at a Smithsonian annex for no apparent reason being flight ready and fully fueled. And a plane that size flying all the way from Washington, D.C. to Cairo and back, without refueling. It was beyond comic book logic. And I say that as a long-time comic book aficionado. It took me out of the movie, and broke my suspension of disbelief.
Again, it’s fine that it didn’t break yours, and it’s fine that it didn’t bother you, and it’s fine that you liked the movie more than I did. But that doesn’t make my criticisms “mistaken”.
To me, what you’re saying comes across as rejecting genre rules, a bit like watching Harry Potter and saying, “Come on, broomsticks can’t fly, that takes me out of the movie.” While it might have taken you out of the movie for a comic-book pilot to be able to fly any aircraft, I think that’s rejecting the genre assumptions.
It’s not bad or lazy writing for writers to use conventions like these.
I thought Birds of Prey was entertaining as opposed to suicide squad that was pretty bad.
I liked Shazam, I would place it #2 on the DC list, maybe #1.
Wonder Woman, Capt. American redux but done well.
Shazam, Big but with Supers.
Birds of Prey, Wow, that was entertaining. It worked.
Suicide Squad, another weak DC movie.
Wonder Woman 1984, Terrible movie, terrible writing, why didn’t they use the prior director? What do you mean its the same director?
Man of Steel, terrible
Batman Vs Superman, terrible, but Wonder Woman was a highlight.
Justice League, I watched it and the Flash was pretty good, the rest was forgettable dreck.
Aquaman, gave up after a long grueling horrible terrible 45 minutes. Argh, friggin DC.
Steve did fiddle with the controls a bit, and looked bewildered at first, so if that was the worst ‘practical’ credulity-strain the movie had to offer, I could let it slide.
But he did it in a fully-fueled-and-ready-to-fly display plane (!) at the Smithsonian Archives’ built-in airport (?), after which he marvelled at the strange and unfamiliar modern-invention ‘fireworks’ (?!) through which they flew on their way to Cairo (and back) (…), etc etc - at some point the suspension of disbelief is broken, especially when you’re dealing with the supposedly-mundane real-world aspects of the movie plot.
A few fudges here and there are okay. Constant disregard for real-world practicalities - especially when you’re trying to position the movie universe as a ‘grounded’ version of what superheroes would be like in the real world - are not.
I didn’t get that they were trying for a grounded version at all. Certainly if that’s what they’re trying for, they didn’t succeed. This was one of the most comic-booky of comic-book movies that I’ve seen.
Do you understand that your explanation works for a comic book thread but not a movie thread?
Warner Brothers (HBO(AT&T)) wants to have a broad appeal like Disney(Marvel) has. Not just make DC fans happy.
This is the fundamental problem with your post above. This isn’t just about DC Comic book fans. This is about movie franchises appeal to a wide audience.
Never having been much of a comic book fan, and not having opened a comic book in at least a decade, I’m afraid I don’t understand that at all. My understanding of comic-book genre tropes comes almost entirely from comic-book movies, and a little bit from comic-book RPGs.
If you think yer average Marvel/DC comic movie pilot would take more than five seconds to figure out how to power up and fly an alien spacecraft, you understand the genre very differently from me :).
More a different sense of what genre rules are. Mine are that the rules of the world make consistent sense within the world. WW being able to swing from lightning by her magical rope? Okay she’s the daughter of Zeus, and within the world that can be just a little eye rolly. I can even look away from his figuring out how to fly the jet. Not being a pilot I can imagine that the basics are not so different (get speed and then up down right left). I’d likely be wrong but most of us are ignorant enough that it could work. Could be entertaining as he (unrealistically) figured it out. Flying that plane to Cairo and back? No.
Mind you I experience an inverse relationship on these things - a good movie can have a fair amount of stupid without taking me out of it as the action and characters and plot and clever dialogue or chemistry of the relationships keep me from noticing the dumb, while even marginal stupid sticks out when the characters plot and action are all bad.
When there is both big stupid coupled with real bad acting of what is badly written horribly directed? Complete fail. Other than something to have fun complaining about!
In the real world, not a chance. In a comic book world? Sure.
Just like pilots can fly anything, scientists can invent anything, and librarians can find any book, planes can fly anywhere, and are always fueled up and fully operative. They’re cartoonish versions of the real-world item/profession. This is internally consistent within the genre.
Comic book movies are inherently nonsensical. If it’s done well, you ignore that because you’re caught up in it. Done poorly and the nonsense just stands out brightly. People pointing out the sudden jet flying skills doesn’t represent a failure on the audience’s part, it represents a failure on the filmmakers’ part to keep us interested. “But comic books!” isn’t an excuse for poor film making that leaves us bored enough to question this stuff in the moment.
Agree to disagree, I guess. To me, Steve Trevor flying a WWI bomber he’s never even seen before falls into genre conventions of a hyper-competent pilot. Flying an F-111, flawlessly, after a fiddling with a couple of controls, falls well outside those conventions. As does having a display aircraft flight ready and fully fueled, and flying to Cairo and back without refueling.
Again, I actually am a fan of the genre, and I like movies that are aware of genre conventions and make use of them. But those didn’t feel like genre conventions to me. They felt like the results of bad and lazy writing.
This may be the crux of the disagreement. I had problems with the movie, but the problems are orthogonal to the realism of the technology. I expect those to be completely unrealistic, and their unrealism neither helps nor hinders my enjoyment.
Bad dialogue, feeble MacGuffins, characters acting out of character, gross stereotypes? Those will take me out of the story. But the unrealistic technology doesn’t.
The writer/director did a terrible job in this movie. You’re trying to defend a miserable effort with “You don’t understand, comic book logic” but better movies don’t require that much suspension of disbelief. Marvel really doesn’t fall into this trap. The first WW movie avoided it. WW84 was dismal in writing and asked too much of its audience.
That’s fine. A lot more people would have probably given it a pass as well had the movie been good. Instead, apparently a bunch of disinterested people were feeling “Well, this is stupid” when it happened because the film makers weren’t doing their job. Again, not the audience’s fault for noticing it or for being distracted by it.
On that last point, an examination of the literature suggests that upwards of 75% of planes do not have enough fuel to reach their destination, a fact that will not be obvious prior to take off. They also have N-1 parachutes, where N equals the number of passengers on the plane.
Yeah, if anything, the fact that they had enough fuel to go from the middle of the Atlantic to Egypt is way more implausible in-genre than the fact that they had enough fuel to go from DC to the middle of the Atlantic.
Well, up to a point, right? Like, if they’d taken a car, non-stop, from DC to Cairo, that would have thrown you out of the movie some?
What breaks suspension of disbelief is going to be different for different people, and is even going to be different for the same person from one work to the other. If I watch Indiana Jones in a fist fight, I expect him to be able to punch multiple people in the head without breaking his hand. If he punches someone so hard they fly through a brick wall, I’m going to be pulled out of the movie. If I watch Jet Li in a fist fight, and he punches someone through a brick wall, I’m probably into it.
It’s not “mistaken” to be bothered by Steve Trevor knowing how to fly a modern jet, and that jet taking him halfway around the world on a single tank of gas. You’ve just got a different line on where your suspension of disbelief breaks than some other people.