when you can't "suspend disbelief" any longer... (1 Viewer)

[Kevin M]

While not correct in every situation I agree with this in some cases, I have a friend who refuses to watch The Dark Crystal because it is "unrealistic, it could never happen"....yet he loves Temple Of Doom...right, right...

 

[EricCrane]

My favorite one is when someone wants to destroy a computer in a movie they shoot the monitor or keyboard and instantly the computer is destroyed.

 

[RickER]

The magic cars in T3 was kinda hard for me to swallow. I will buy into most anything as long as it doesn't violate its own rules.

 

[Cees Alons]

No, I think the point of the "willing suspension" is the fact that you still don't believe it for a bit, but are willing to accept that other reality for the duration of the film (or the story).
That's also the reason why one cannot accept blatant discrepancies inside the same story/film.

People, who believe it's actually possible may indeed be a bit stupid (and I think that even most children don't really believe that a lion can talk).
Some of the examples given in the above posts, seem to suggest limited intelligence, e.g. when a science-fiction story is not accepted, because "it cannot be real", while a soap story is (or vice versa): that "real" reality is really not important for one's acceptance of the film.


Cees

 

[EricW]

how about the phone calls that the guy "stays on just long enough to not get traced"? CALL DISPLAY, PEOPLE. it's only been around for like 15 years.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Call Display, or "Caller ID" as it is known down here, can be disabled by hitting a couple of keys. And, of course, it doesn't tell you where the call originates. You need a criss-cross directory to get the address.

But you're right in a way, technology has destroyed whole plot twists that used to be standard. A screenwriter really has to work to put a character in a situation where he can't make or receive a phone call, for instance. Having to find a payphone or needing change for one (Stranglove, anyone?) are out, too. And you have to explain to young people why common technology isn't used in old films. (They don't understand that hit hadn't been invented yet.)

I just read a book on the early days of the FBI and its pursuit of midwestern bandits like Dillinger, "Pretty Boy" Floyd and Alvin "Kreepy" Karpis, and was struck by how many times the G-men lost their quarry because they had no radios and could not get to a phone - or had to break off a pursuit to do so.

Regards,

Joe

 

[Kevin L McCorry]

When people acquire the ability to survive underwater for several minutes, that's where my willing suspension of disbelief goes out the window.

 

[Lucy Ash]

Although it's a muddier issue, I find my willing suspension of disbelief is often destroyed by cliched emotional events in films; more so than the more physical and technical aspects you've described above. One thing that can often ruin a film for me is something that crops up in TV and particularly soaps all the time and is really a sign of lazy writing.
It's that moment when one character has something terribly important and life-changing to tell the other character; for example that their mother who they haven't seen for twenty years is in the front room. Yet the other character, for some lazily invented reason, chooses not to listen and storms into the front room thus creating the essential shot of their horrified face at seeing their guest sitting there.
A variation on this is the 'we've both got something terribly important to say' moment, whereby a character approaches the other to say 'I'm leaving you' or whatever but the other person doesn't let them finish and says something like,
'No, no, let me tell you MY news! I've just bought you a new car! Now, what was that thing you wanted to tell me?'
'Oh. Nothing'.

When would you ever, ever be approached by your partner who says gravely, 'there's something we really need to talk about' and just ignore that? Or someone has said to you 'don't go in that room' and you don't just straight out stop and say, 'why not?' It's such a lazy way of giving a protagonist obstacles and getting a reaction shot and completely emotionally untrue for most characters. That's one thing that completely shatters my willing suspension of disbelief and replaces it with a large, neon, flashing arrow in the direction of the creators and their shortcomings.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Er, pretty much all the time, since 9 times out of 10 the something we "needed" to talk about turned out to be trivial until blown out of all proportion by the woman who so urgently needed to communicate it to me. I suppose that could be one reason I'm still single...



Anyway, I don't find these moments nearly as unrealistic as you do, assuming that one of the two characters is a man and the other a woman. No man has ever been happy to hear the words, "We need to talk" and most of us will zone out as soon as we determine that nobody has to go to the hospital.

Later,

Joe

 

[DanielKellmii]

Triple X did it for me. I am willing to participate in James Bonds movies, but Triple X just went nutty. I don't think the stupid story or bad acting helped.

 

[MatthewLouwrens]

Actually, that reminds me. There are a couple of cliches that I always scoffed at - until they happened to me.

The first one is a variation on the 'we've both got something terribly important to say' moment, but where both parties had the exact same thing to say. (In my case, there was a girl in one of my classes at high school that I really hated. One day I just decided that I should call a truce with them, walked into class, said "I have something I need to talk to you about". She said "I also have something to talk to you about". I let her go first, and se said that she was wanting to call a truce and start being friends. OK, it wasn't quite the talking-in-unison thing in movies, but it was close enough.)

The second cliche is the school-dance everyone-forms-a-circle-around-the-main-characters-dancing thing. Again, always hated it untl my high school ball, where I was dancing with a girl and suddenly realised I was in the middle of a circle with pretty much everyone in the near vcinity standing watching. Never understood why - we weren't doing anything terribly spectacular - but it happened. So now I can't criticise movies that do that, either, because apparently it happens.

Please forgive me for my journey down memory lane.

 

[Haggai]

Matthew, were you actually dancing with the girl who pre-empted your call for a truce? Maybe that's why they all formed a circle! Now that would be straight out of a movie.

 

[Todd Terwilliger]

For me, the disbelief issue kicks in where a film breaks its own rules. I think it's important that one a film sets up its own laws and dynamics that it sticks to them and doesn't bend or break them when it becomes convenient to do so.

 

[Ted Lee]

matthew, have you been involved in a slow-clap (where one guy starts to slowly clap, then everyone else joins in) moment?

if so, then you can claim a cliche trifecta!

 

[Matt^Brown]

This is a great topic. I find that many movies that I watch are really good except they have that one moment where I am left thinking "How in the heck is that possible". I find this is especially true of action flicks. A good example is the Run Down with the Rock. I could buy into the fact that he was a super tough guy that could kick anyones butt. However by the end of the movie he was bullet proof and was tearing down parts of buildings with just his arms and shoulders. The building part is what ruined the movie for me.

 

[MatthewLouwrens]

That would have been great! Unfortunately, no.

And no slow clap, either, that I can think of. Sorry Ted.

 

[Lou Sytsma]

That is one of two instances for me.

The other is when people do not behave realistically. Horror movies are probably the biggest constant offenders.

 

[Greg_C_T]

There are two movies that always get me. Instances where they're playing by the rules of normal physics, and then they pull this mess:

Mission: Impossible
A flying helicopter is pulled through a train tunnel by a steel cable attached to a bullet train.

True Lies
Bad guy is dangling off the nose cone of a hovering Harrier jet. Just inches from the engine air intakes, and yet he doesn't get sucked through. You couldn't stand 10 feet in front of those without getting minced...

 

[MikeEn]

I think I caught the clap once from a girl after a school dance. Neither one of us said anything about it, though. Probably because we were so well brought up -- we had been told not to talk when our mouths were full...

 

[Dome Vongvises]

The worst thing I hate is the freak out. Makes me want to bitch slap the offender and yell, "GET A HOLD OF YOURSELF!!!"

Otherwise, I don't know why it's a pet peeve of mine, but I can't stand it when people aren't willing to accept any anthropomorphism at all. Again, it worries me that there are people out there with no sense of imagination. People that just do not dig music, movies, or even literature at all.