Rou

It’s not too much to ask. At least, I don’t think so. I know Hollywood loves to stretch the limits of reality in order to keep the drooling masses enthralled, but every new movie I see goes a little further into bizarro land.

Yes, it’s a movie. Yes, I need to suspend disbelief when possible. Yes, not every movie adheres to the same rules as reality and those mythos should be accounted for.

But the stuff I’m talking about isn’t the Matrix moves effects. They had an explanation for it, so I can suspend disbelief in the interest of enjoying the movie.

No, what annoys me is every time a car explodes into a fireball for no apparent reason. News flash: cars do no inherently have an explosive charge built in. And gas tanks are not that volatile. Or every time a computer terminal explodes with a pyrotechnic blast of sparks. News flash: despite the urge for sys admins to punish lusers with such devices, we don’t install them to explode every time a power surge occurs. Ditto for light bulbs. When you shoot someone, they don’t generally fall down dead. There are only a handful of locations on the body that cause instantaneous death, though you’d never know that looking at most action movies. Pistols do not have hundreds of shots, and generally they are only accurate out to a few dozen meters. A little tiny pistol will not actually cause a guy to go flying 10 feet through the air when he’s hit. Once again, action movies to the contrary. Cigarettes… are not actually a good ignition source. Even when smoked by burly testosterone hero types and dropped onto a pool of gasoline. Amazingly, a hero can be hit by a train, shot, clubbed by a nuns, kicked by a mule, and tossed of a cliff, but somehow still be man enough to take the bad guy down. Lasers are not generally visible. To make them visible, you generally reduce effectiveness.

Even worse then the special effects bullshit are the complete failings of logic. Especially true in the romantic dramas where someone decides to get really pissed off at some minor infraction and storm out of the relationship despite them being the perfect couple. How a movie robot can suddenly decide to do something totally illogical. Hackers can always get the right login info within 3 tries. And better yet, can run amazing programs to take over computer networks with simple command line commands like “access network / reroute power” Or better yet, bring up incredibly complex 3D CAD drawings of a building with just the touch of a button. Large groups of bad guys will always attack in singles to make the fight even instead of pummeling the guy with overwhelming force. The dreaded “alien computer taken down by a apple”. Apparently Steve Jobs is an alien and built his systems to be compatible. Speaking of the mac, if you believe Hollywood, the entire fucking world uses Apple. Once again on computers… if you believe the movies, we possess amazing Photoshop filters that allow you to zoom in on a nanite sitting on the eyelash of a guy that is only a tiny background blur in the original Polaroid

I could go one for days. It’s just hundreds and hundreds of little things that take me out of movies. Not so much that I don’t really enjoy them, but the little guy inside my head rolls his eyes every time this type of BS happens. I know you want your movie to be spectacular, but a little realism goes a long way sometimes.