I really couldn’t think of a more elegant title for this thread.
Inspired by my suspension of disbelief being shattered yet again by a minor aspect of a movie, I was watching a movie a couple of days ago which had a character who wore glasses. Except the actor obviously doesn’t wear glasses in real life because when the light caught the lens it was obvious that they were merely frames containing flat glass.
I understand why directors etc do this, after all the actor has to be able to see comfortably and curved lenses would be distracting for someone without an appropriate prescription. But as an ex long-term spectacles wearer when I notice that in a movie it gives my suspension of disbelief a knock.
Another example, engine noises which don’t match the obvious physical speed of cars in chase scenes, again its obvious why they don’t really want to drive cars at 100 mph+ through heavy traffic on public roads, but unless the editing and production is well done its obvious the cars aren’t really driving that fast. Speeding up footage also falls under this category. I believe that the chase scenes in ‘Ronin’ were pretty much the real deal, but thats an exception.
Underwater scenes filmed in beautiful crystal clear water, for example a character falls into a river in the middle of a city but somehow its like a beautiful clear Bahama’s sea beneath the water. Again, they do this because (a) the audience needs to see whats actually going on and (b) it wouldn’t be healthy to use actual rivers etc given what’s in most of them, but it still takes me out of a movie.
I personally have never paid that much attention to notice that kind of thing. I wear glasses too by the way. I can’t see anything (not with clarity, clearly not blind) without it.
I can’t think of a single thing. I may note something like that, but I don’t care – I go to see the movie, not ruin my own enjoyment of it by nitpicking that something isn’t real.
Nothing about a movie is real. It’s just light shining on a wall. If little things like that bother you, then you probably should stay away from movies, since you’re going to be disappointed every time.
It’s a strange line for me. Everyone walking around with coffee cups that are clearly empty - no problem. Super hackers typing code faster than I can type plain text without using the mouse - mildly irritated. Characters that are getting cell reception underground in a parking garage or in the middle of nowhere - more irritated. “Zoom in and enhance!” - c’mon.
I certainly don’t go looking for it, but I do tend to notice it.
btw I wore glasses for almost twenty years, had laser eye-surgery for employment purposes (as glasses never really bothered me) and I highly recommend it, best money I ever spent.
Did you really need to spend time typing that out? To basically come in and do a dump on what is obviously intended to be a light-hearted thread?
The characters are sitting around drinking coffee, but you can tell from the way they hold their cups that there’s nothing in them. Or a character is holding a box that’s supposed to contain a gift, or files, or whatever, but it’s obvious that the box is far too light to contain what the actors are pretending it does. (I see this one’s already been mentioned, but it can sometimes bug me.)
2) Wrong wildlife
If the setting of a movie is, say, North Carolina, but the soundtrack is full of bird calls from South America, it’s hard to suspend my disbelief.
Similarly, I understand that directors sometimes need to have particularly scary creepy crawlies for some scenes. Those critters should at least be things you might see in the setting of the film. If I see a New York apartment with a Madagascar hissing roach infestation or a Louisiana swamp with giant African millipedes, it takes me right out of the movie.
3) Scientific or technological nonsense
Impossibly great resolution on security cameras, miraculous password hacking, totally terrible handling of tissue samples, etc.
Any kind of game at which 2 players are supposed to be expert (chess, bridge, poker etc.) They have to make it relatable to the viewer, but that generally means that to further the result they want they have to make one of the players make a journeyman error that anyone with some knowledge of the game would never make. Whenever I see that, it always seems a bit off.
One more that I couldn’t get in before my 5-minute edit window expired:
Women looking put together after disaster strikes. If you’ve actually just been in a bomb blast or a car wreck, you’re probably not going to emerge with torn clothing, artistically mussed hair, and perfect makeup.
Great post. You can’t think of a single thing that, “You understand why they do it but it takes you out of the movie anyway,” however you do note when things like that happen.
Well thought out. Isn’t that exactly what the title you refute says?
The constant makeup annoys me in other scenarios, too - a woman wakes up in the middle of the night with artistically messy hair (not frizzy or tangled, of course!), half an inch of foundation, obvious mascara, and “natural” lipstick.
Related to that: all the goddamn beautiful people in American television. Seriously - when I watch British shows, the first thing that strikes me is that not everyone could be a model. It’s amazing how much having a few ugly (or even just average!) actors increases the realism.
That slapped me in the face in Casino Royale. They’re in Venice – some of the dirtiest water in the world! – and inside a house that is collapsing into the water – with all the roiling of dust and dirt and broken plaster and so on that should attend such a collapse.
And the water is, as you say, as clear as a coral reef in the Bahamas.
Another thing I see a lot is how very quickly the hero gets over mourning for lost loved ones. Luke Skywalker is shaken to the core of his soul by the horrible deaths of Owen and Beru…and then, in minutes, “Okay, I’m over it,” and never mentions them again. Even face-to-face with Darth Vader, he never says, “You killed my aunt and uncle!” (“Prepare to die…”)
Same with LOTS of movies where minor characters are killed in order to stir audience hatred for the bad guys. The good guys grieve…for a few seconds. Then, tra-la, it’s all in the past, let’s have a victory celebration and eat cake, without even a passing word for those who were lost.
Yeah, it would drag the emotional tone. But it’s what real people do in the real world. “While we’re all celebrating, I think we should take a moment to remember…” Anybody who doesn’t do that is a callous fish-hearted reptilian son-of-a-zombie.
The clarity of the water bothers you? Really? Are you Jacques Cousteau?
The only thing that is bothersome is when the plot demands that someone do something or fail at something that they should not logically, or that they never would be in the position anyway if they had been thinking 10 minutes before.
When the plot rests on unbelievable premises it ruins it, even though I know it is pretend. It means the writer wasn’t doing his job. Or that the movie can’t sustain a suspension of disbelief enough to justify it’s existence.
Chase scenes with ridiculous twists and turns that are navigated faster than anyone could possibly react to. Pod racing nonsense in one of the Star Wars prequels, for example - in fact, chases through caves/tunnels are the worst - the protagonist is unerringly lucky in not happening to choose a tunnel that is too narrow, or a dead end.
Cool guys walking away from explosions, in slow mot1on. Such a cliche that it pulls me out of the movie, but in a sort of good way, because thisvideo starts playing in my head.
