nav[aria-label="Primary Navigation"] { padding: 0; & ul { list-style: none; width: 100%; display: flex; flex-direction: row; justify-content: start; align-items: start; gap: 30px; padding: 0; & li { margin: 0; } & ul li { list-style: none; } } }

Child Item

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.

Find more posts tagged with

Quick Links

Comments

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

[Deleted User]

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.

[Deleted User]

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.

[Deleted User]

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

Arghus

It depends on the film. It's the movies; it's all lies anyway. It isn't real. However, A film should obey it's own kind of internal logic. If a clearly OTT actioner like, well, any action movie, is in parts preposterous than I can usually forgive it. If something that wants to be a gritty hard hitting drama has elements that stretch credibility, then that's much harder to accept. It's a hard thing to get just right and how much the realism tap should be turned off or on is a fluid thing from one movie to the next.

I knew a fella who wouldn't watch any sci-fi or fantasy movie set in Space because they were unrealistic. That was his arbitrary cut off point. So no 2001, Star Wars or Aliens for him. Looking back, that guy was an idiot.

pappyodaniel

I hate it when someone says something funny in a sitcom and the other characters never laugh at the joke or even crack a smile.

__Alex__

I can suspend my disbelief a lot of time but have very little tolerance for deus ex machina contrivances. They're so lazy.

ScumLord

RDM_83 again wrote: »

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.

The problem I have with hollywood violence is that it's easy and without consequences. The good guy shoots someone and they just fall down dead, everybody moves on. The reality of shooting someone doesn't go like that. It's not surprising US soldiers end up in shock when they've been brought up thinking the other person is going to just instantly fall asleep when their shot. In reality they die slowly and it's a horrifying thing to witness.

Arghus wrote: »

It depends on the film. It's the movies; it's all lies anyway. It isn't real. However, A film should obey it's own kind of internal logic.

I agree totally with that. Starship troopers is a stupid film, but it works perfectly. It lives in its' own little world and moves along at a pace that doesn't give you time to think it out.

RDM_83 again

ScumLord wrote: »

I agree totally with that. Starship troopers is a stupid film, but it works perfectly. It lives in its' own little world and moves along at a pace that doesn't give you time to think it out.

Starship troopers isn't stupid though, it simply works so well as fist pumping bad ass escapism that the satire of propaganda films and militarism is overlooked.

fizzypish

RDM_83 again wrote: »

Starship troopers isn't stupid though, it simply works so well as fist pumping bad ass escapism that the satire of propaganda films and militarism is overlooked.

Yup. Book dives a bit more into the political stuff. Good read.

Chain Smoker

When i hear someone praising a sci fi for being "scientifically accurate", I usually take that as a bit of a warning sign that it has its priorities wrong.

Billy86

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

You watched Hackers and that was your biggest issue? Not the fact that rather than a bunch of code, the virus they were all uppity about literally had a human face and the company's security system was literally a VR city!?!?

Loved that movie when I was a kid, but it really is one of the most fantastical pieces of sh*te to come out of the 90s... pretty good job on the casting though (Angelina Jolie, Johnny Lee Miller, Lorraine Bracco, Fisher Stevens, Matthew Lillard).

Sofiztikated

Billy86 wrote: »

Loved that movie when I was a kid, but it really is one of the most fantastical pieces of sh*te to come out of the 90s... pretty good job on the casting though (Angelina Jolie, Johnny Lee Miller, Lorraine Bracco, Fisher Stevens, Matthew Lillard).

I really couldn't think of a better Cereal Killer than Lillard, to be honest.

ScumLord

Chain Smoker wrote: »

When i hear someone praising a sci fi for being "scientifically accurate", I usually take that as a bit of a warning sign that it has its priorities wrong.

I understand story should come first and I'm not against pure flights of fancy but, if you're going to do sci-fi you should have some understanding of the subject, that understanding actually leads to better sci-fi. There needs to be science in there, otherwise you're just making a flight of fancy that only appeals to the people who like that style of fancy.

A proper sci-fi should be showing how technology will affect society and culture. It should show us a type of person that is sort of alien to us. These days they just put normal everyday people doing normal every day things just as they do today just with some FX thrown in.