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Reading comments on films and TV here in Geek Media, I often see complaints about plot holes, or the lack of realism of casting a black actor in a role traditionally protrayed by a white actor, or of showing an SF show where no-one has mobile phones, or whatever.

Have we become too concerned with realism (or what we think is realistic) at the expense of actually enjoying a good dramatic production?

Could this be partly a result of the rise of "reality TV", which purports to portray realistic scenarios but of course actually is highly "produced"?

My own view is that dramatic or comedic productions do not pretend to portray historical reality and should primarily be entertaining and engaging rather than pragmatic.

I think us gamer sorts tend to over-think plot contrivances, my current peeve is 'hackers' essentially being Wizards able to pull plot development out of 30 seconds of random keyboard mashing

Otherwise I tend to let it go, although casting tall pretty people in Poldark suggest the casting team have wisely never been to Cornwall

oh and the sonic wand

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Reading comments on films and TV here in Geek Media, I often see complaints about plot holes, or the lack of realism of casting a black actor in a role traditionally protrayed by a white actor, or of showing an SF show where no-one has mobile phones, or whatever.

Have we become too concerned with realism (or what we think is realistic) at the expense of actually enjoying a good dramatic production?

Could this be partly a result of the rise of "reality TV", which purports to portray realistic scenarios but of course actually is highly "produced"?

My own view is that dramatic or comedic productions do not pretend to portray historical reality and should primarily be entertaining and engaging rather than pragmatic.

I watch filsm adn tv primarily to be entertained.

Personally I (and friends) am happy with "unlikely" events if they are at least internally consistant. Not bothered by race or gender as long as the character is portrayed well.

Examples that broke my concentration:

The sheer unbrideled stupidity of the entire crew in Promethius

or made me want to vomit:
75% of the Last Jedi.
Any moment Lex Luthor is on screen in Batman vs Supermen

We all have different tastes and tollerences however.

In short, yes. Yes we have.

There’s a gulf of difference between ‘that’s just patently silly’ and ‘that’s not terribly realistic’.

Imagine how utterly dull cinema would be if it was obsessed with realism.

I am horrified that my fantasy viewing doesn't meet up with my view of reality, I mean if you are going to make stuff up why call it fantasy or science fantasy or let alone fiction?

Yeah but you can't help but think that the battle of five armies or the last Jedi would have been more entertaining and interesting with a more realistic battle, with a degree of tactical competence or common sense.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
It sorta undermines the entertainment when you are suddenly caught in a "What in hell was that?" moment.

Like elves jumping over dwarves into a charging tide of orcs.

Or an admiral having a cry about who the general is to some random lone rebel fighter.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
while it is clearly a diversion, and besides why not just waste the rebel scum?

 OldMate wrote:
Yeah but you can't help but think that the battle of five armies or the last Jedi would have been more entertaining and interesting with a more realistic battle, with a degree of tactical competence or common sense.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
It sorta undermines the entertainment when you are suddenly caught in a "What in hell was that?" moment.

Like elves jumping over dwarves into a charging tide of orcs.

Or an admiral having a cry about who the general is to some random lone rebel fighter.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
while it is clearly a diversion, and besides why not just waste the rebel scum?

See, I don't see that as a problem with realism as a problem with gak cinematography. Might just be me though.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Reading comments on films and TV here in Geek Media, I often see complaints about plot holes, or the lack of realism of casting a black actor in a role traditionally protrayed by a white actor, or of showing an SF show where no-one has mobile phones, or whatever.

Have we become too concerned with realism (or what we think is realistic) at the expense of actually enjoying a good dramatic production?

Could this be partly a result of the rise of "reality TV", which purports to portray realistic scenarios but of course actually is highly "produced"?

My own view is that dramatic or comedic productions do not pretend to portray historical reality and should primarily be entertaining and engaging rather than pragmatic.

Like most folk who take your view, you're creating a false choice.

Though the issue is not helped by the word, which has come to have an additional and not very intuitive meaning. "Realism" as in "realistic" as in "like real life" is not important in a fiction unless it purports to portray real life, or uses elements of real life(or history) as a shorthand. "Realism" as in "consistent" as in "obeys its own rules" is vital. If you establish that something in your fictional world works in a certain way or that your works have a certain tone, and then you contradict that later because the established way was inconvenient, or because you'd written yourself into a corner, or because you've changed your mind/come in to an existing IP and decided you want to "subvert expectations" because fnar look at these plebians enjoying a thing for what it is don't they know the only value is an endless cycle of futile novelty fnar, then you have written bad fiction.

Some people choose to ignore that because they like other aspects of the work, but that doesn't mean the problem isn't there, any more than an individual deriving ironic enjoyment from really really terribly acted shlock movies means the acting is actually good. The fact that some people choose to ignore it also doesn't mean that people who don't or can't are somehow being unfair, or have had their minds addled by watching too many episodes of Dragon's Den or whatever.

Films are generally set with a real world setting or a fantasy one, but both have a set of rules that govern reality. Fantasy films have more latitude for the absurd but they still need to play within a system of reality they have defined. This means that things that happen are credible within the parameters defined. Real world films rather have to reflect some sense of reality.

Films that break these by having the character do things absurd lose the respect of the viewer because it breaks the illusion and disbelief can’t be suspended, the writer has done something that smacks of thoughtlessness or laziness in order to drive the plot along or get out of some corner they’ve painted themselves into.

Generally an ass-pull isn’t going to win over the audience even if you hang a lampshade on it.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Asspull

With programmes set in the real world or depicting historical events, there’s a struggle to buy into something that claims to be something it isn’t. For a start, things where you break the laws of physics with people doing the absurd, lots of films seem to have people performing like they’re in the Matrix, which was fine in the Matrix but not in something supposedly set in reality.

Some films clearly are marketed at a particular audience but don’t show the respect to that audience to write things that reflect common knowledge. Most driving/racing films are like this, clearly marketed at a crowd knowledgeable about driving but then have absurdities in the way driving is depicted. Always being able to drive flat out and then change down a gear for a boost in speed to outrun an opponent is seemly ubiquitous among such films despite everyone knowing you can’t do this.

Sometimes it claims to be real, but it’s just fantasy, and usually for needless reasons. Most historical inaccuracies are avoidable and just betray a lack of knowledge on the part of writers. And then there’s the downright disrespectful, films like U-571 or The Imitation Game, which are offensive in their wrongness.

TLDR: films need to respect reality to have credibility, even fantasy films which should define their limitations and stick to them. Films aimed at particular markets of knowledgeable people, like car or war films, should at least get those bits mostly right because the writer will struggle to have credibility if he breaks the reality of the subject he’s specifically chosen.

 OldMate wrote:
Yeah but you can't help but think that the battle of five armies or the last Jedi would have been more entertaining and interesting with a more realistic battle, with a degree of tactical competence or common sense.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
It sorta undermines the entertainment when you are suddenly caught in a "What in hell was that?" moment.

Like elves jumping over dwarves into a charging tide of orcs.

Or an admiral having a cry about who the general is to some random lone rebel fighter.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
while it is clearly a diversion, and besides why not just waste the rebel scum?

You see, that's exactly where I disagree. I like elves surfing down castle walls while shooting off loads of arrows with 100% accuracy, or a lone star pilot buying time against an invasion by a prank call to the enemy admiral.

I think it's cool and fun entertainment.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 OldMate wrote:
Yeah but you can't help but think that the battle of five armies or the last Jedi would have been more entertaining and interesting with a more realistic battle, with a degree of tactical competence or common sense.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
It sorta undermines the entertainment when you are suddenly caught in a "What in hell was that?" moment.

Like elves jumping over dwarves into a charging tide of orcs.

Or an admiral having a cry about who the general is to some random lone rebel fighter.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
while it is clearly a diversion, and besides why not just waste the rebel scum?

You see, that's exactly where I disagree. I like elves surfing down castle walls while shooting off loads of arrows with 100% accuracy, or a lone star pilot buying time against an invasion by a prank call to the enemy admiral.

I think it's cool and fun entertainment.

And again, you're free to think that, just like you're free to think Chudmonster XVII - The Second Enchudening or whatever garbage shlock film is great fun. It doesn't mean the criticisms levelled against those things are wrong.

The "prank call" thing is a perfect example - in what way does that fit with the rest of Star Wars? The rest of the movie? The rest of even just that scene? It's complete tonal whiplash, it makes no sense in the context of either character's supposed character, and there's no reason it should have worked in the context of that setting. You can overlook all of that because hurr hurr man made a funny if you like, that other people are not willing to accept rubbish doesn't make them unreasonable or addled by reality television.

Real life realism and entertainment realism are quite different. Ex #1: tv show “the last ship”, the ship’s captain goes on missions meant for marines all the damn time; in real life the captain would be on the ship 100% of the time.
Ex #2: tv show “TWD”, I believe it was first half of aweful S8, where bunny Rosita shoots a RPG at a single guy about 20 ft away inside a warehouse, no backlash, not much damage outside of the disappearing guy. There would be hell if a lot more damage in real life, for entertainment purposes we expect somewhere in between the two.
Ex #3: aweful straight to dvd movie called ‘Mercenaries’, so dumb it was memorable, it became funny when the actor was trying to be serious; 4 mercs sleeping overnight right next to each other in sleeping bag with no rotation of watch duty, this done in supposed hostile territory. I think even us regular joes think that’s absurd if done in real life situation.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Reading comments on films and TV here in Geek Media, I often see complaints about plot holes, or the lack of realism of casting a black actor in a role traditionally protrayed by a white actor, or of showing an SF show where no-one has mobile phones, or whatever.

Have we become too concerned with realism (or what we think is realistic) at the expense of actually enjoying a good dramatic production?
.

I think it's exactly the opposite. Movies in particular are far too much about jamming in excessive over the top action (especially CGI) that they don't even bother to -try- to make good dramatic productions.

If they calmed down and aimed for realism (or at the very least, verisimilitude and consistency with their own setting), they'd make better movies rather than incoherent gibberish masquerading as narratives, which are then almost completely obscured by explosions and cut-cornered CGI.

I think this is part of the nebulous and virtually indescribable aspects of suspension of disbelief and different members of the audience will find different things are jarring.

I didn't care about the prank call at the start of TLJ. I thought it was mildly amusing.

I did care about the bizarre "we're not going to tell anyone we have a plan, we're just going to tell people to HOPE" and that just had me rolling my eyes and groaning. Other people haven't had that issue with that scene.

I would say that in the internet age, we are far more aware of the aspects of reality than layman would have been. If I so desired, I could find out if Leatherface's chainsaw ran for a reasonable amount of time given the make and model of his chainsaw.

I could google appropriate arms for a Macedonian soldier, a Roman Centurion, and find an article on chariot tactics while going to the bathroom midfilm. Back before the internet was so accessible, such specialist knowledge was incredibly limited- if you had swords and the right helmets, bang you made a historical drama. Now heaven help you if you have plate when you ought to have chain, or if your brigandine plates are on the outside.

Of course, filmmakers and prop makers can too- so it just comes down to how much care is put into a film. If you are doing a historical piece, be accurate to the time. If you aren't, cool, just roll with it.

Basically anything that takes you out of the moment of a movie is bad. Same thing as a car in the shot, music that doesn't match the mood you're going for, or bad acting.

For me it depends on the attitude of the work itself. If a movie/book/show doesn't take itself too seriously then I'm willing to forgive it for its oversights and contrivances, but if it presents itself as serious business then it had better produce the goods. I can easily enjoy a b movie for what it is but I can't stand unearned gravitas and pretentiousness.

The Expanse is a really good example of a sci fi show that takes itself seriously, but earns my respect by actually putting effort into getting things right. In contrast, I love Star Trek but pretty much all of it is ridiculous and I can't take it seriously. DS9 took a different track and while it had a darker, more serious tone, it didn't overextend itself with an insistence on nonsense junk science and moralizing and stayed focused on story and character.

TL;DR: as long as a work of fiction is honest with itself about its quality and tone and doesn't try to be something it hasn't earned I'm willing to forgive a lack of realism or seriousness.

Question for OP - would you be surprised to see Hobbits spontaneously fly in lord of the Rings?
After all, why not - it's a fantasy story with wizards, right?

It entirely depends on the rules set by the media in front of you itself.

I've got no problem whatsoever with a show like BoJack Horseman, that is partly-realistic and partly-not, because the realistic parts stay realistic and the not-realistic bits stay obviously fantastical.

What annoys me is when a film/show presents itself as super-cereal/gritty/realistic then throws it all out for the sake of a spectacle or because of terrible writing, or both.

If the Dark Knight movies had said, from the beginning, here's some (more) stupidly contrived superhero movies, they'd have been a lot more enjoyable than the pseudo super-cereal insult to your intelligence that they were.

The "prank call" thing is a perfect example - in what way does that fit with the rest of Star Wars? The rest of the movie? The rest of even just that scene?

Boring conversation anyway.

The word most of the posters here should be using is not realism, it's verisimilitude. The feeling or appearance of being real within the context of what's going on.

When established characters act out of character, that goes against verisimilitude. When you establish that something takes lots of specialized training to do, and then a new character can do it 'just because' that goes against verisimilitude. When smart characters do dumb things that goes against verisimilitude. When characters lose resources they had earlier in the story with no explanation as to how or why they were expended, that goes against verisimilitude. When you portray something as being from a specific historical period and they have resources not available in that historical period, that goes against verisimilitude.

(And my pet peeve - when two people are supposed to be fighting with swords and spend the entire fight swinging not to hit the other guy, but to always pointedly hit the other guy's sword, that really goes against verisimilitude...)

 Azreal13 wrote:

The "prank call" thing is a perfect example - in what way does that fit with the rest of Star Wars? The rest of the movie? The rest of even just that scene?

Boring conversation anyway.

And Threepio and Artoo delivering themselves as slaves to Jabba the Hutt. Pranked!

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Reading comments on films and TV here in Geek Media, I often see complaints about plot holes, or the lack of realism of casting a black actor in a role traditionally protrayed by a white actor, or of showing an SF show where no-one has mobile phones, or whatever.

Have we become too concerned with realism (or what we think is realistic) at the expense of actually enjoying a good dramatic production?

Could this be partly a result of the rise of "reality TV", which purports to portray realistic scenarios but of course actually is highly "produced"?

No, I think it's much more things like a revolver shooting 30 times continuously without reloading, heroes walking away from clearly fatal car crashes without even mussing their hair, plots erupting into action while clearly major unresolved plot issues remain that otherwise narratively undermine the rest of the story, etc.

Entertainment should be entertaining, but if the suspension of disbelief cannot be maintained, then the entertainment value is relegated to much cheaper thrills that don't lend themselves well to re-experience.

EDIT: mostly what Vulcan said about verisimilitude.

 Yodhrin wrote:
The "prank call" thing is a perfect example - in what way does that fit with the rest of Star Wars? The rest of the movie? The rest of even just that scene? It's complete tonal whiplash, it makes no sense in the context of either character's supposed character, and there's no reason it should have worked in the context of that setting. You can overlook all of that because hurr hurr man made a funny if you like, that other people are not willing to accept rubbish doesn't make them unreasonable or addled by reality television.

Exactly. That scene would make perfect sense, in a comedy movie. But Star Wars is not a comedy movie, so the scene feels completely out of place.

 Azreal13 wrote:

The "prank call" thing is a perfect example - in what way does that fit with the rest of Star Wars? The rest of the movie? The rest of even just that scene?

Boring conversation anyway.

Not a good comparison. There's a huge difference between occasional moments of comic relief and one-liners and extended comedy scenes. Han makes a joke, but it's a momentary joke that you could imagine someone doing in a real situation as they grab their gun and prepare for a fight. And the person Han is talking to doesn't buy the bluff at all, it's portrayed as a failed act of desperation rather than a viable plan. Having Han make a final parting joke doesn't take away from the flow of the scene, or expect us to suspend disbelief about how such a ridiculous idea could actually work. Contrast that with Poe's prank call scene, where it's a drawn-out mess of awkwardness that you have to focus 100% on because it's the only thing going on for an entire scene and where the plot depends on the joke actually accomplishing something instead of being a throwaway line.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Could this be partly a result of the rise of "reality TV", which purports to portray realistic scenarios but of course actually is highly "produced"?

No, because nobody believes that reality tv is realistic.

The Poe prank call felt like it was fished out of rejected Iron Man script bin

 Kaiyanwang wrote:
Question for OP - would you be surprised to see Hobbits spontaneously fly in lord of the Rings?
After all, why not - it's a fantasy story with wizards, right?

Yes. It isn't part of the background.

I wasn't surprising to see characters flying in Harry Potter, or Kiki's Delivery Service, but to be fair it wasn't spontaneous. Flying is part of the background in both of them.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 Kaiyanwang wrote:
Question for OP - would you be surprised to see Hobbits spontaneously fly in lord of the Rings?
After all, why not - it's a fantasy story with wizards, right?

Yes. It isn't part of the background.

I wasn't surprising to see characters flying in Harry Potter, or Kiki's Delivery Service, but to be fair it wasn't spontaneous. Flying is part of the background in both of them.

Same thing.
I acknowledge that there is a component of "geek culture" that is made of pointless nitpickers that even cash-in their shallow approach to media (Cinemasins, as an example). These people are despicable and add nothing to discourse, fandom, and for sure they are not entertaining.
But sometimes, people want consistency in their story. Not realism, but that the story follows the established rules in THAT universe, and that the characters behave like how such rules made us expect people in THAT universe would behave.
This is why IMHO Yodhrin's complaints above are completely sound and logical, BTW.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Peregrine wrote:

Not a good comparison. There's a huge difference between occasional moments of comic relief and one-liners and extended comedy scenes. Han makes a joke, but it's a momentary joke that you could imagine someone doing in a real situation as they grab their gun and prepare for a fight. And the person Han is talking to doesn't buy the bluff at all, it's portrayed as a failed act of desperation rather than a viable plan. Having Han make a final parting joke doesn't take away from the flow of the scene, or expect us to suspend disbelief about how such a ridiculous idea could actually work. Contrast that with Poe's prank call scene, where it's a drawn-out mess of awkwardness that you have to focus 100% on because it's the only thing going on for an entire scene and where the plot depends on the joke actually accomplishing something instead of being a throwaway line.

Very well put. Especially the part concerning the FLOW. That prank is bad writing not only from the standpoint of a SW movie (tone, type of story etc) but as comedic scene in general because the timing is all off, and in comedy timing is EVERYTHING. Is bad even if confined within itself.

I do not expect scifi-movies to have Carl Sagan-level scientific accuracy. Lots of the things in Star Wars, for example, make absolutely no sense physics-wise: sounds in space and how the spacecraft fly around like aerodynamic aircraft, super-dense asteroid fields and so on.

However, one thing which does annoy me is if the distances are completely treated as out of whack. One of the worst offenders there are new Star Trek movies, and in fact I call the phenomenon as "JJAbrams distances". Lets start with Star Trek:
-Spock witnesses death of Vulcan from another planet. Vulcan shows up bigger than Earths moon on the sky. Even if the planet was in same system, it would have shown up a little dot, or at very best, tiny disc.
-whole 'supernova threatening the Galaxy' feels really fishy. But I guess that if a supernova was blowing up somewhere really close to many habitated worlds it would be a catastrophe so I'll give them a pass.

Then 'Into Darkness', oh boy...
Their order is to get 'as close as possible to Kronos without crossing the Neutral Zone' which, as turns out, puts them to weapons range of Kronos! Some 'Neutral Zone'. Then they casually cross the most guarded orbit in the galaxy with few shuttles.

And hey! More JJAbrams space distances in 'Force Awakens'. First Order shoots their planet killer weapon (which is located in Outer Rim) at Republic worlds (which are not) and the rebels and everybody sees the Republic worlds blow up. Thousands of lightyears away...

Backfire wrote:
I do not expect scifi-movies to have Carl Sagan-level scientific accuracy. Lots of the things in Star Wars, for example, make absolutely no sense physics-wise: sounds in space and how the spacecraft fly around like aerodynamic aircraft, super-dense asteroid fields and so on.

And hey! More JJAbrams space distances in 'Force Awakens'. First Order shoots their planet killer weapon (which is located in Outer Rim) at Republic worlds (which are not) and the rebels and everybody sees the Republic worlds blow up. Thousands of lightyears away...

Yeah, this. I expect Star Wars to play fast and loose with science. (Heck, I expect that from Trek). But Abrams and FA had no concept of time and distance at all, with the above just being the most egregious example. Travel time and navigation were established as a big deal in the first film, and carried on in later films (Luke ended up places after everyone else because he went to Dagobah first in 5 and 6, and needed to actually fly the X-wing rather than let R2 take over, etc). In 7, everything just instantaneously goes from not!Tatooine to Han's giant cargo hauler to Frogbar planet to rebel planet to superweapon planet. Unless Rebel Planet was the same place as Frogbar planet and the film doesn't even bother to establish that in a meaningful way. Planets go from important settings to just sets (or more likely, just green-screens).

Where and when things happen doesn't matter at all, which seems a crime against storytelling in a Space Opera.

Voss wrote:

Backfire wrote:
I do not expect scifi-movies to have Carl Sagan-level scientific accuracy. Lots of the things in Star Wars, for example, make absolutely no sense physics-wise: sounds in space and how the spacecraft fly around like aerodynamic aircraft, super-dense asteroid fields and so on.

And hey! More JJAbrams space distances in 'Force Awakens'. First Order shoots their planet killer weapon (which is located in Outer Rim) at Republic worlds (which are not) and the rebels and everybody sees the Republic worlds blow up. Thousands of lightyears away...

Yeah, this. I expect Star Wars to play fast and loose with science. (Heck, I expect that from Trek). But Abrams and FA had no concept of time and distance at all, with the above just being the most egregious example. Travel time and navigation were established as a big deal in the first film, and carried on in later films (Luke ended up places after everyone else because he went to Dagobah first in 5 and 6, and needed to actually fly the X-wing rather than let R2 take over, etc). In 7, everything just instantaneously goes from not!Tatooine to Han's giant cargo hauler to Frogbar planet to rebel planet to superweapon planet. Unless Rebel Planet was the same place as Frogbar planet and the film doesn't even bother to establish that in a meaningful way. Planets go from important settings to just sets (or more likely, just green-screens).

Where and when things happen doesn't matter at all, which seems a crime against storytelling in a Space Opera.

It makes the galaxy feel so small. They did the same with politics, and the size of the rebel alliance (resistance). And how fast the FO took over between TFA and TLJ (days? Minutes?).
It looks more like a squabble than a galactic war.

Definitely minutes, as 7 ends and 8 begins with some staring and the lightsaber passing from one to the other.

Which also hits the travel time (and communication) issue yet again, as Rey's transit (in 7) from Rebel Planet to Luke Planet apparently took exactly as long as the FO finding out their superweapon blew up, finding out -exactly- where the rebel ships had come from (down to the kilometer on the surface), and moving an entire fleet to that planet.

While apparently taking over everything else, even though big boss mutant was out in space...somewhere.