This last weekend my family sat down to watch Journey 2: The Mysterious Island. It was not a spectacular movie, but it was entertaining. We were worried about my son Tigger. I often call him an omniphob (afraid of everything) and I knew that there would be large animals and bugs that he might find scary. He actually did really well. I think this was with because the creatures that normally terrify him when they are less than an inch across were huge. As in unrealistically huge. Of course they weren't real!
What's interesting is that at one point my wife and I both when, "Yeah, right!" at an action performed by the characters. I think it was when they jump-started 140 year old batteries with a large electric eel. Right after I said it I thought, "We're watching a movie that says that Jules Vern wrote non-fiction, giant animals are real, and popping your pecks is the best way to attract a girl and were complaining about this?" Like Nick from Schlock Mercenary says, "You can't make up rules about X because I already know those rules."
This is a prime example of an inability to suspend disbelief. It's amazing what we allow ourselves to accept but what we throw out. I'm not going to talk about how to do this well - I'll leave that to Writing Excuses. What I find myself musing over the ease I accept and reject things in my entertainment. Journey 2 is just one example. Howard Tayler in his review of the movie The A-team wrote, "I'm not entirely sure what the Pants of Realisty are for, but if you don't have good Suspenders of Disbelief then The A-team will leave those pants around your ankles..." The physics in that movie are just plain broken, not just bent. Granted, as the director pointed out, if you have a problem with exploding cars and helicopters avoiding missiles by turning off their engines then you shouldn't be watching an A-team movie. I find other things entertaining that have big gaping problems with physics, history, logic, and a few other things. 10,000 BC is another one. Every time I watch it I rant and rave about the inconsistency in geography, yet I find it really entertaining.
I think the key word is entertaining. If you have a fun story with fun visual effects and good characters who I care about I am a lot more likely to allow you to break physics wide open. You can't go too far, of course, or it will pull me out of the story, but if you want cars to explode because someone shot the engine, I'm cool with it. You'll notice though that I gave several criteria for me to enjoy something. You'll notice that "fun visual effects" is one, but the others are fun story and good characters which I care about. Don't expect fun visual effects to be able to sway me all on its own. Sadly I think many movies try to get by on visuals alone.
What's interesting is that at one point my wife and I both when, "Yeah, right!" at an action performed by the characters. I think it was when they jump-started 140 year old batteries with a large electric eel. Right after I said it I thought, "We're watching a movie that says that Jules Vern wrote non-fiction, giant animals are real, and popping your pecks is the best way to attract a girl and were complaining about this?" Like Nick from Schlock Mercenary says, "You can't make up rules about X because I already know those rules."
This is a prime example of an inability to suspend disbelief. It's amazing what we allow ourselves to accept but what we throw out. I'm not going to talk about how to do this well - I'll leave that to Writing Excuses. What I find myself musing over the ease I accept and reject things in my entertainment. Journey 2 is just one example. Howard Tayler in his review of the movie The A-team wrote, "I'm not entirely sure what the Pants of Realisty are for, but if you don't have good Suspenders of Disbelief then The A-team will leave those pants around your ankles..." The physics in that movie are just plain broken, not just bent. Granted, as the director pointed out, if you have a problem with exploding cars and helicopters avoiding missiles by turning off their engines then you shouldn't be watching an A-team movie. I find other things entertaining that have big gaping problems with physics, history, logic, and a few other things. 10,000 BC is another one. Every time I watch it I rant and rave about the inconsistency in geography, yet I find it really entertaining.
I think the key word is entertaining. If you have a fun story with fun visual effects and good characters who I care about I am a lot more likely to allow you to break physics wide open. You can't go too far, of course, or it will pull me out of the story, but if you want cars to explode because someone shot the engine, I'm cool with it. You'll notice though that I gave several criteria for me to enjoy something. You'll notice that "fun visual effects" is one, but the others are fun story and good characters which I care about. Don't expect fun visual effects to be able to sway me all on its own. Sadly I think many movies try to get by on visuals alone.
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