Suspension of disbelief

[dalekboy]

Films and tv shows usually rely on suspension of disbelief.

To me, if one is going to maintain the suspension of disbelief, you have to obey all the ordinary everyday rules that people know and understand. One can believe an massive alien invasion with giant biomechanoid floating death cannons, so long as the world rules beyond that are consistent. But if a human character, in avoiding one of these cannons, jumps off a ten storey building without any sort of aid, or interruptions to their fall, and land unharmed and run off - that's the deal breaker. One knows that's not possible, and suddenly one is left questioning that moment, and by default, the rest of the film.

I mentioned in a post yesterday that I hate it in films and tv when medics use the defibrillator paddles on a woman to try and restart her heart, and they are using them through material - bras, tank tops, etc. - rather than on bare skin. It pulls me right out of the moment, because I know it's not right.

I also mentioned hating when people can just break passwords when they have no information on the person, which has become really common in shows. Any computer whizz can break any password, within a relatively short time.

Another one I hate is when someone who is driving spends time looking at the their passenger rather than paying attention to the road. Quick glances are fine, but when they're maintaining eye contact for whole big chunks of conversation it annoys me. If you regularly did it in real life there's no way you wouldn't crash.

king_espresso mentioned that he hates when people don't wear ear protection on board military helicopters, which is a great one. Well, except now I'll be looking for it and getting annoyed by it.

kaths brought up the way people type madly on computer keyboards to do things that the rest of us would do with a mouse. We're in the internet age, everyone uses computers, we know they don't work this way.

kaths also mentioned the way they can zoom in on a small section of a photo, blow up that section, sharpen/clean it up, and suddenly have a incredibly clear and detailed picture. It's the equivalent of being able to blow up my icon for this post to read all the book titles.

So what about you? What regularly used, unrealistic film and tv conceits pull you out of the moment?

Comments

[waylanderpk.livejournal.com]

A few of my unfavorite things -
Outrunning explosions, the ONLY time this is OK is if your in the Millennium Falcon (though i suppose a movie with the Flash in it would
also be ok). A quick Google will tell you that even the lowest energy explosion is going to be tens of meters per second, even an olympic sprinter isn't going to outrun one of those without, say a 100m head start.

I also hate the zoom in, presto clear image, thats some pretty advanced software that can guess what information is missing.

Exploding cars, unless they have been shot with some incendiary weapon or bazooka type thingey.

Barbarians other Fantasy characters with Californian accents and tan lines.

[dalekboy.livejournal.com]

I quite forgot exploding cars!

The funny thing is, I've become so used to it that when a car doesn't explode, I'm a bit thrown.

[kaelajael.livejournal.com]

Many, many years ago in...The Flying Doctors, I think it was...there was a storyline of two brothers who were a little like Dumb and Dumber, and they were involved in something that required they ditch their car. They pushed it over the edge steep hill and when it landed at the bottom and nothing happened, the comment was along the lines of "But they ALWAYS blow up in the movies."

mild spoiler for Three Kings

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

There is that awseome scene in Three Kings where the rocket hits the tanker, and you are so expecting it to be a massive explosion - and the tanker is full of milk, not petrol, and everyone just ends up knee deep in milk. A really nice bit of playing with your expectations, and an incredible image.

[angriest.livejournal.com]

The barbarian and fantasy accent thing always interests me, because how do you determine what accent they have in the first place? It's fantasy!

If we wanted total realism in medieval-setting fantasy, everyone should be talking like Grendel in the CGI Beowulf anyway. : )

I think it comes down to a taste thing - we readily accept English accents as the generic "this is a long time ago" accent.

[waylanderpk.livejournal.com]

I prefer when they all speak in a thick Austrian accented English myself :) . I find it a little jarring when the accents differ amongst the actors ,and the characters should have similar ones, Like Frodo's being so different to everyone else in the village. And damn right, everyone spoke in olde English in the past, you should know that :)

Of course I'm prepared to believe in flying men that can bounce bullets, so its weird what jars each persons sense of disbelief.

[angriest.livejournal.com]

I always found Frodo's accent served to make him seem frailer and weaker than the other hobbits. The others looked like farmers and labourers, Frodo looked like a scholarly type who was the last person you'd imagine taking the ring all the way to Mordor.