Friends who knock movies for not being realistic

Kermit.de.frog

We all have them. Friends that will say through every movie what is realistic or not.

Look, if you are watching an action movie it's gonna be full of bull**** as regards realism, same with sci-fi and pretty much every genre these days.

So why keep pointing it out? If every movie was realistic they would surely be boring?

It's bull, we all know, no need to tell us. Just enjoy it? Every movie has it's unrealistic parts but it's entertainment.

I would LOVE to see real factual movies based on history but little appetite unfortunately (I wish there was more interest) so we are stuck with the sh!t superhero movies and the like. That's what the masses want and pay for.

Think of it as just entertainment not to be taken seriously. It's easier.

Your Face

So Mel Gibson isnt really Scottish?

There are varying degrees of things being unrealistic.. Sci-Fi etc. or the director taking liberties is fine but once characters' actions and feelings stop being in any way relatable, it's awful.

Samaris

I'm a divil for it when it comes to poor science. 2012 was a special one, and probably my top standard for "wow, this movie was talking complete bollocks". Day After Tomorrow at least made some references to things that nearly made sense (although the speed was ridiculous, but I grant that was for heightening tension). 2012 grabbed a goodie-bag of apocolyptic scenarios, made all of them bat**** crazy, forgot a couple halfway through and generally was a mess. In the end, was it the Mayan prophecy, the poles reversing, the EVOLVING NEUTRINOS, the planets suddenly aligning or Earth Crust Displacement Theory that kept causing runways to vanish from under John Cusack? The film completely abandons the planets aligning and never bothers to explain the EVOLVING NEUTRINOS (which deserves capital letters), and never quite manages to figure out what the hell is going on.

But there is good explosions.

Also, never watch a historical epic with a bunch of re-enactors. They are worse than me for it taken en masse.

Shenshen

I'm happy enough to suspend disbelief for a clear-cut fantasy movie. Any of the superhero films, for example. Or things like Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, etc.

I tend to be a little more critical of Sci-Fi. It's fine if they take the liberty to imagine, of course, but if what they imagine is utter rubbish I get annoyed. I'm happy to accept, for example, that there's an engine that can make things go faster than the speed of light, but I get annoyed if people walk around empty space with just a surgical mask in front of their faces.

A film that is trying to portray reality, though, or history, had better actually do that!

Noddyholder

First die hard was watchable, after that Mr bullet bomb kill them all and come back alone Mcclane was ridiculous.

fergiesfolly

Even with Sci-Fi, there'll be aspects to a story line that just don't make sense, but you'll be happy to let it go, if it doesn't impact the film too much.
However, watched Passengers recently( look away now....Spoilers) and there is only one android\robot on board this massive space craft. And he's a waiter in a bar, on a craft full of sleeping people. And he cant leave the bar apparently. In the cargo hold, there is a spare part of everything on board....except the one thing they need... the pods that keep them alive( all 5000 sleeping people and no spares)
Its just lazy writing.
Also, this had great scope to be a good film, but its crap.

topper75

Your Face wrote: »

So Mel Gibson isnt really Scottish?

No that movie was real.

Some of the blood hit the camera FFS.

Wibbs

fergiesfolly wrote: »

Also, this had great scope to be a good film, but its crap.

Yeah and maybe it's me, but I also found it a bit creepy too. Spoiler alert

yer man basically stalks his hibernating love interest, sabotages her pod to wake her up and romance her and she stays with him? I'd have decompressed the bastard myself.

brevity

Samaris wrote: »

I'm a divil for it when it comes to poor science. 2012 was a special one, and probably my top standard for "wow, this movie was talking complete bollocks". Day After Tomorrow at least made some references to things that nearly made sense (although the speed was ridiculous, but I grant that was for heightening tension). 2012 grabbed a goodie-bag of apocolyptic scenarios, made all of them bat**** crazy, forgot a couple halfway through and generally was a mess. In the end, was it the Mayan prophecy, the poles reversing, the EVOLVING NEUTRINOS, the planets suddenly aligning or Earth Crust Displacement Theory that kept causing runways to vanish from under John Cusack? The film completely abandons the planets aligning and never bothers to explain the EVOLVING NEUTRINOS (which deserves capital letters), and never quite manages to figure out what the hell is going on.

But there is good explosions.

Also, never watch a historical epic with a bunch of re-enactors. They are worse than me for it taken en masse.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXdBzpRDR5I

brevity

I have a particular bugbear with scenes involving computers and people trying to break into systems* but I generally don't make a big deal of it.

*Hackers & Jurassic Park being the obvious exceptions

Wibbs

Shenshen wrote: »

A film that is trying to portray reality, though, or history, had better actually do that!

I just switch off TBH. Historical stuff can be just as fantastical and wrong on the details as science fiction. Flaming torches in castles and town streets? G'way outa that.

Shenshen

Wibbs wrote: »

I just switch off TBH. Historical stuff can be just as fantastical and wrong on the details as science fiction. Flaming torches in castles and town streets? G'way outa that.

So would I, but sometimes the husband likes the look of the main actress spilling out of her bodice...

But yes, the last scene in The Name of the Rose with the upset townspeople saving the witch and killing the bishop had me roaring at the telly.

Sofiztikated

fergiesfolly wrote: »

Even with Sci-Fi, there'll be aspects to a story line that just don't make sense, but you'll be happy to let it go, if it doesn't impact the film too much.
However, watched Passengers recently( look away now....Spoilers) and there is only one android\robot on board this massive space craft. And he's a waiter in a bar, on a craft full of sleeping people. And he cant leave the bar apparently. In the cargo hold, there is a spare part of everything on board....except the one thing they need... the pods that keep them alive( all 5000 sleeping people and no spares)
Its just lazy writing.
Also, this had great scope to be a good film, but its crap.

Em, I think you missed the bit where they had the pods repaired, but they needed someone on the outside to put them back to sleep.

And he couldn't leave the bar because he was on a track.

myshirt

I always knew they weren't using real dinosaurs in those movies, they thought they could fool people, but not me my friend. No way Jose.

razorblunt

I remember watching Gladiator one hungover morning during college. Some lad in the room commented that "those helmets are actually not representative of what was in use at the time". He was quickly shot down with "ah fúck off there was a guy wearing a pair of jeans in the opening battle and you didn't pass any comment".

check_six

Crazy scenarios being played out in a movie are perfectly acceptable as long as they have their own internal logic. If you set up in a galaxy far far away and have loads of aliens, and robots, and intergalactic travel it's obvious things are not going to keep to the same rules you'd experience in real life (here on Earth anyway!). However, if you set a movie on Planet Earth in the present day and have it full of scientists and engineers you immediately reset your bar for the level of realism you expect.

The prime example of a 'sci-fi possibility' type story descending into utter utter nonsense is "The Core". This movie set the high bar for the amount of guff that you could fit into a single movie and dress it up like it's supposed to be science fact.

It's about the core of the Earth slowing down and a mission being launched for a team of scientists to drill through the planet in a train shaped vehicle thing to set off some nukes to get it going again. Okay, so the premise is a little bonkers to start off with, but it attempts to take it's pseudo-science seriously, and then changes the rules at every twist in the plot. Internal consistency goes out the window and it's just an avalanche of stupid building momentum throughout. Even the most open of minds would be thrown by some of the daftness that occurs.

Sample of action 1: They have to drill maybe 1500-2000 kilometres through the crust and magma, etc. to get to where they want to go. They decide the best place to start drilling is at the bottom of the Marianas Trench in the Pacific Ocean. Why? Because they are at the closest point to the core of the earth if they start there. Closer by about 10 kilometres that is, never mind the several days trip to the middle of the ocean.

Sample of action 2: Everything has gone wrong and something needs to be fixed on the outside of the drilling machine.

"You can't go out there, it's 10,000 degrees. You won't last more than 60 seconds!" (...in your flimsy tinfoil environment suit).

Cut to heroic sacrifice guy toughing it out and lasting maybe 90 seconds before melting, and saving the day, etc.

There is such a current of nonsense built up in this movie that it is impossible to ignore. It some respects the entertainment value of this film is more for calling it on it's inconsistencies than the actual drama itself. That's a kind of victory I suppose!

Riddle101

I'm willing to suspend my disbelief in regards to some things, but I have my limit. I remember in the last season of Game of Thrones, in one episode, Arya Stark get fatally stabbed and falls into a river. Somehow she manages survive, and gets help from a friend who heals her wounds. Yet in the next episode, while Arya is still recovering from her injuries, the person who stabbed her comes back to finish the job. A big chase scene occurs and Arya is sprinting for miles, jumping over things like a long jumper, and doing all these crazy stunts. Remember Arya just got seriously hurt in the last episode and was not completely healed. Yet she was able to do all that despite it. Plus the other assassin who was better trained and had more experience, and was perfectly healthy, was unable to catch her.

The whole Arya sequence really annoyed me at the time, because while it's just a tv show, and a fantasy show at that. The whole thing was silly to me. It's one of the reasons why I hated Arya's story arc in Season 6. It's like the film producers just decided to say "F*ck it, we'll just ignore all logic, and make a cool action movie scene instead".

razorblunt

Riddle101 wrote: »

I'm willing to suspend my disbelief in regards to some things, but I have my limit. I remember in the last season of Game of Thrones, in one episode, Arya Stark get fatally stabbed and falls into a river. Somehow she manages survive, and gets help from a friend who heals her wounds. Yet in the next episode, while Arya is still recovering from her injuries, the person who stabbed her comes back to finish the job. A big chase scene occurs and Arya is sprinting for miles, jumping over things like a long jumper, and doing all these crazy stunts. Remember Arya just got seriously hurt in the last episode and was not completely healed. Yet she was able to do all that despite it. Plus the other assassin who was better trained and had more experience, and was perfectly healthy, was unable to catch her.

The whole Arya sequence really annoyed me at the time, because while it's just a tv show, and a fantasy show at that. The whole thing was silly to me. It's one of the reasons why I hated Arya's story arc in Season 6. It's like the film producers just decided to say "F*ck it, we'll just ignore all logic, and make a cool action movie scene instead".

Yep I agree with this, it's the inconsistencies that annoy me more. Also I really dislike last minute saves, I think it was The Following with Kevin Bacon that started promisingly but then soon every episode had a scene where one of the "good guys" was cornered only for a colleague to appear out of nowhere and save them.

Walking Dead is going down this route, their constantly surrounded by walkers but end up pushing them away without a scrape and getting into a car, it's just lazy, don't put them in the situation in the first place.

fizzypish

brevity wrote: »

I have a particular bugbear with scenes involving computers and people trying to break into systems* but I generally don't make a big deal of it.

*Hackers & Jurassic Park being the obvious exceptions

"Its a unix system". Why the **** did it have that clunky GUI?!?!?! Terminal that ****!

Birneybau

The whole basis of 'The Martian' was a fallacy.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/oct/06/how-scientifically-accurate-is-the-martian

The storm
This is the only thing I noticed that was completely impossible, as opposed to improbable or sub-optimal. The Martian atmosphere is only 1% as thick as Earth’s, so a Mars wind of 100mph, which is possible although quite rare on the surface, would only have the same dynamic force as a 10mph wind on Earth. You could fly a kite in it, but it wouldn’t knock you down.

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/the-fact-and-fiction-of-martian-dust-storms

I mean, come on.

Irish Guitarist

What bugs me is watching people eat or drink in a film.

Here's something I've seen in countless films. Two people drive across America for days. They then go into a diner and get a burger and chips. Instead of eating they put the burger up to their mouth then put it down again to say something without taking a bite, while the person they're with picks up a chip and waves it around while talking to emphasise a point. They spend ten five or ten minutes doing this then walk out leaving a massive plate of food on the table.

There's an episode of The Twilight Zone where a man travels 25 years into the past and meets himself as a child as well as his parents. I can suspend disbelief for all of this but what I think is ridiculous is a scene where he goes into a diner, orders some kind of milkshake or soda, comments on how he hasn't tasted anything so 'good' since he was a child and that he can't believe it only costs a dime, but only takes a tiny sip of it before walking out. He spends about five minutes marvelling over this drink and the memories it brings back but barely touches the thing.

Samaris

Samaris wrote: »

2012 was a special one, and probably my top standard for "wow, this movie was talking complete bollocks".

Not to mention, worst last line of a movie ever!

"No more pull-ups" ... WTF?! :mad:

myshirt wrote: »

I always knew they weren't using real dinosaurs in those movies, they thought they could fool people, but not me my friend. No way Jose.

Yep. And that time Gary Sinise had his legs amputated for Forrest Gump and then re-attached afterwards. :eek: Now that's dedication to your craft!! :pac:

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

Think of it as just entertainment not to be taken seriously. It's easier.

Oh you're gonna hate me Kermit. I categorise Pixar movies as "possible" and "unpossible".

For example ... "Toy Story" ... yeah, I can totally see that happening. But "Ratatouille"? A rat controlling a guy by pulling his hair?! No way. :pac:

Yourself isit

I can't watch star trek without thinking they don't make enough use of their AI technology.

They have the technology to have a human intelligent hologram doctor but the ship's computer is basically Siri, a voice activation used primarily so you don't have to twiddle with controls on the replicator.

check_six

Irish Guitarist wrote: »

What bugs me is watching people eat or drink in a film.

There is a good practical reason for this. There may be multiple takes of a particular scene and if the actors have to keep eating burger after burger you can run into problems pretty soon. The continuity with the condition of the food props can be a headache to keep track of too.

Yourself isit

Birneybau wrote: »

The whole basis of 'The Martian' was a fallacy.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/oct/06/how-scientifically-accurate-is-the-martian




https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/the-fact-and-fiction-of-martian-dust-storms

I mean, come on.

The original writer admitted the storm was false. For dramatic effect.


I notice that the more a science fiction movie is realistic (and the Martian is pretty good) the more nit picking goes on.

NIMAN

Once had a friend who gave up on the LOTR films.
He said it got stupid for him once the talking trees arrived.

Yeah cos everything else up to that point was totally believable?

check_six

Yourself isit wrote: »

I can't watch star trek without thinking they don't make enough use of their AI technology.

They have the technology to have a human intelligent hologram doctor but the ship's computer is basically Siri, a voice activation used primarily so you don't have to twiddle with controls on the replicator.

AI? Pah, they didn't even have pockets in that show!
No pockets in space with artificial gravity likely to give up the ghost at any time? Good luck!

drake70

fergiesfolly wrote: »

Even with Sci-Fi, there'll be aspects to a story line that just don't make sense, but you'll be happy to let it go, if it doesn't impact the film too much.
However, watched Passengers recently( look away now....Spoilers) and there is only one android\robot on board this massive space craft. And he's a waiter in a bar, on a craft full of sleeping people. And he cant leave the bar apparently. In the cargo hold, there is a spare part of everything on board....except the one thing they need... the pods that keep them alive( all 5000 sleeping people and no spares)
Its just lazy writing.
Also, this had great scope to be a good film, but its crap.

I thought it was mentioned that the technology used to place people into hibernation was not available on the ship and that the pods were only used to keep people in that state.

Osmosis Jones

I'm happy for a film to construct its own reality and it's own laws, it's when it breaks its own physics and rules that it gets a bit ridiculous.

ScumLord

I can barely watch films anymore, especially sci-fi because I can't help doing stuff like this. My main gripe is that it's just laziness, it's giving the customer what they expect rather than developing out and idea and speculating on what the future might be.

My childhood love of star trek is one of the worst. It's stuck in a 1960s outlook, the only modern twist there is to it was doubling down on the militaristic side of the crew make up. I think it's basically dying a flash gorden death where it just become irrelevant.

Star trek has no AI bar the one mainframe computer, it has no robots or automation bar one data, star trek communications are already out of date. There's basically no background culture to star trek, it's a bunch of scientists on a ship that for some reason have military ranks, lieutenant science officer. And over the course of hundreds of years nothing new happened. Replicators where just about the only new thing invented between dozens of species.


Sci-fi has become extremely lazy, even something like the expanse is today with see through phones. But again, no AI, no robots, no automation (because automation would basically eradicate the worker issues of the show).

humanity is heading towards a very weird and different reality, The world I'll live in by the time I'm an OAP will probably make most sci-fi around today look like it was written in the 1960s. It's like the writers are sticking their head in the sand when it comes to current technology because they just can't imagine what the future will be like. They'd rather stay in that fantastical flash gorden age.

Atoms for Peace

Was watching the Running Man the other night, they seem to have got their predictions of the future spot on spot on. Well maybe they underestimated how awful reality TV would become.

whoopsadoodles

The first thing that came to mind was that movie evolution, which I actually really enjoyed but there's a bit in it where they go "we need to delete the jpeg files" and it's instant cringe but funny because of it

I agree with the OP though.

I'm watching "The Strain" at the moment and just finished "Stranger Things" and jaysus you'd watch none of them if you didn't like unrealistic!

Birneybau

whoopsadoodles wrote: »

The first thing that came to mind was that movie evolution, which I actually really enjoyed but there's a bit in it where they go "we need to delete the jpeg files" and it's instant cringe but funny because of it

I agree with the OP though.

I'm watching "The Strain" at the moment and just finished "Stranger Things" and jaysus you'd watch none of them if you didn't like unrealistic!

Especially the main guy in 'The Strain's hair:

https://www.google.ie/search?q=corey+stoll&safe=strict&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiqmdbc3aHSAhWEK8AKHR-IDpAQ_AUICCgB&biw=1280&bih=909

Junkyard Tom

Leonardo DiCaprio is clearly riding the hole off a rubber doll and not Kate Winslet in Titanic.

fergiesfolly

Sofiztikated wrote: »

Em, I think you missed the bit where they had the pods repaired, but they needed someone on the outside to put them back to sleep.

And he couldn't leave the bar because he was on a track.

Ya, but no spares??!?!! And no android available should someone wake up.
And the one there is, is on a track. They're walking on their own now, but in the future they need a track.
G'way ourra dat.

Zillah

It's nothing to do with realistic, even if someone complains that it's not realistic. What they mean is that the movie works on certain rules, established by the genre and what we've seen so far, and then it breaks those rules and we find it very unsatisfying. They're right to find it annoying and you should try to see past the fact that they use the word "unrealistic" to describe their complaint.

Samaris

Lol, brevity! Not seen that sketch and yeah, I'd watch his version before I'd watch that festering heap of lunacy again

Zillah

Zillah wrote: »

It's nothing to do with realistic, even if someone complains that it's not realistic. What they mean is that the movie works on certain rules, established by the genre and what we've seen so far, and then it breaks those rules and we find it very unsatisfying. They're right to find it annoying and you should try to see past the fact that they use the word "unrealistic" to describe their complaint.

Yeah it's internal consistency we care about

Outlaw Pete

check_six wrote: »

There is a good practical reason for this. There may be multiple takes of a particular scene and if the actors have to keep eating burger after burger you can run into problems pretty soon.

Yeah, famously John Mills ended up paralytic filming the bar scene in Ice Cold in Alex.

I don't really mind the unrealistic stuff tbh (being raised on films such as War Games and Weird Science will do that to ya) but it does bother me when films / TV shows are purporting to be factual and based on real events.

Neil Jordan's Michael Collins for example had so bloody many. I like him as a director but the reasons he gave for some of the crap he put in that film were a nonsense. I know it's difficult to make a film about the events of that time given that there are at least three different sides but the least he could have done was stick to the facts and just been ambiguous about that which he didn't want to lean one way or the other on.

I'm not really referring to the Croke Park scene or even the car bomb one.

A lot of stuff in Stone's JFK is nonsense too.

So yeah, don't mind unrealistic stuff too much once it's not being presented as being factual.

Atoms for Peace

Atoms for Peace wrote: »

Was watching the Running Man the other night, they seem to have got their predictions of the future spot on spot on. Well maybe they underestimated how awful reality TV would become.

I love old Arnie flicks, don't care how unrealistic they are they're just escapism.

Arnie is now in the reality tv business himself. He's taken over from Trump and is hosting The Celebrity Apprentice.

He doesn't say "You're fired!"

He says "You're Terminated!"

It's very hard not to burst out laughing when he does.

I've a friend who graduated college in California during his term as The Governator, his degree is signed off by Schwartzenegger. I would love a degree with The Terminators signature on it tbf.

Irish Guitarist

check_six wrote: »

There is a good practical reason for this. There may be multiple takes of a particular scene and if the actors have to keep eating burger after burger you can run into problems pretty soon. The continuity with the condition of the food props can be a headache to keep track of too.

I'm sure they could work around that. Make it look like the character is about to bite into the burger then cut across to the other person, then go back to show the first person and show a bite taken out of their burger and a few less chips on their plate.

If they can't do that I'd prefer they just edited out the scene of them eating. Have them walking into a diner, then cut to them walking out. It's rarely vital to the story that the conversation takes place in a diner. Maybe it's just me but I find it distracting to see someone waving food around and not eating it.

Conall Cernach

What annoys me in historical or fantasy movies is the lead character charging into a major battle with little to no armour and no helmet or shield. The TV show The Last Kingdom is a bugger for doing this. It is based on Bernard Cornwell novels where he goes into great detail about the exact gear the lead character is wearing but the lead actor doesn't wear any of it, particularly the full face helmet, because then we wouldn't get to see his handsome face. He wouldn't last 2 seconds against a big, hairy, fully armed Viking.

Another one is where if you get shot by one arrow, even in the belly, you are dead straight away unless you have something vital to the plot to say as last words or if you a major character. No bleeding to death over a prolonged period or dying of infections.

storker

I'm probably one of those PITA people when it comes to historical movies, being a military history buff, which is actually a curse when it comes to watching, not just Hollywood efforts, but some documentaries, for crying out loud. For example, a narrator talks about the blitzkrieg in 1940, over footage of a Tiger tank, that didn't appear until late 1942. After watching at least five different documentaries about Waterloo, I'm still waiting for one that actually does a decent job of it.

You also have the cringe through stuff like tracers flying at the wrong angle in Saving Private Ryan (which also included daft urban fighting tactics by the Germans and Germans who obligingly run out from cover to be shot), Star Wars-style tracers in "Fury", Roman soldiers with the wrong spears and swords on the wrong side (umpteen times). Horse-and-musket period movies rarely show correct infantry formations and cavalry charges always go hell-for-leather from the outset, when in fact they started at a walk and built up speed gradually...and so on. In the movie "Waterloo" you even see British soldiers advancing and firing from the hip - a real WTF moment. But I do make an effort to keep it to myself and I do realise that for the vast majority of viewers, these things are not an issue, and you just have to go with the flow.

Occasionally you'll get a nice surprise when you see something done right, for example the brief battle scene in the opening episode of Rome, where the legionaries have more accurat euniforms than you usually see, adopt a correct-looking formation and system of fighting, and even do the rotate-the-front-rank tactic. Gettysburg, while a few of the details are dodgy, is probably the best movie for leaving you with a pretty good understanding of the battle it portrays. Those beards, though...I always think of Gettysburg when I see full hipster beards.

The point about realism in terms of internal logic is a good one, and applies whatever the genre, and no matter how fantastic the setting. Head on over to the Walking Dead forum for examples , where people do out-of-character and outright daft things all the time, apparently because the writers thinks it's a good idea. But just because a setting might be fantasy, that doesn't mean anything goes. Logic must still apply, even as we accept impossible premises. Likewise that point about Arya's miraculous agility as perviously mentioned, and GoT isn't usually a bad offender with that kind of thing.

P.S. The Gaugamela battle in Alexander wasn't badly done either.

pumpkin4life

How I think it works:

You want the world that you are watching to remain consistent and make sense; that the rules, despite being in a fantasy setting, at the least feel right.

Take an action movie like Die Hard and compare it to xXx. When action movies do something completely stupid (the latter has an example of a missile deflected with a dinner plate ) something clicks in your brain going "wait a minute, you can't use cutlery to defend missiles! Feck off with that now!".

That takes you out of believably of the world. Die Hard's not exactly realistic, but it's far more on that side than most action movies, so that your brain is under the illusion that you're in this action heavy, violent world.

So, the rules have to make sense in a real world context, or if not, need to be shoved in your face enough so your brain takes that into account. Say some of the post magic realism (what a pretentious thing to say lol) scenes in Trainspotting for example. Or this is a superhero lad who can fly or something twatty like that.

Tell you what though, nothing is worse than watching ****ing Interstellar with a bunch of maths nerds.

Star Wars. I know it's a different universe, but, interstellar travel, yet no wifi, huge hard drives for data storage, cabling that has to be hauled out to a socket in the garden?

storker

Deleted User wrote: »

Star Wars. I know it's a different universe, but, interstellar travel, yet no wifi, huge hard drives for data storage, cabling that has to be hauled out to a socket in the garden?

The problem with sci-fi is that it's always constrained even in its imagination by the standards of the time in which it is made, which is why you have women with beehive hairdos wearing miniskirts in Star Trek and why the blueprints for the Death Star couldn't be zipped and e-mailed.

indioblack

I watch old western films.
They aren't realistic - but then, they were never meant to be.
They were basically modern morality plays.

Yourself isit

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Star Wars. I know it's a different universe, but, interstellar travel, yet no wifi, huge hard drives for data storage, cabling that has to be hauled out to a socket in the garden?

Star wars is basically science fantasy. Not fiction.

It's a fairytale told in a land(galaxy) far far away and long long ago. With magic.

So it's exempt. Star trek is different though.

RDM_83 again

Conall Cernach wrote: »

Another one is where if you get shot by one arrow, even in the belly, you are dead straight away unless you have something vital to the plot to say as last words or if you a major character. No bleeding to death over a prolonged period or dying of infections.

I don't know, I don't mind a bit of visceral violence in my entertainment but the idea of watching loads of guys rolling around slowly bleeding out from gut wounds for half an hour isn't that appealing.

I get annoyed by films not being internally consistent within their own "universes" but what really pisses me of is when an inconsistency or stupid "motivation" could be rectified by 20 seconds of dialogue, and don't get me started on films that portray themselves as science fiction but are just magic realism (The Arrival is most recent culprit of this)

Also I'd be very happy if I never see the "explanation" of wormholes involving a folded piece of paper again.

ArnoldJRimmer

Had an argument with a flatmate years ago who was genuinely p!ssed off at how unrealistic Snakes on a Plane was. Ended up switching it off as I couldn't listen to his commentary anymore

https://youtu.be/amYzBQMT4VI