Ohh the things we believe

[dsvick]

Why is it that we readily accept the clearly impossible/unlikely/fantastic while immediately calling out the faults as soon as they touch on reality?

Warning, spoiler below....

My family all watched Night at the Museum 2: Battle for the Smithsonian over the weekend. Through the entire movie we watched and laughed as the previously inanimate museum exhibits were brought to life by the ancient Egyptian artifact. We were quite happy when the 50 foot tall, marble Abraham Lincoln statue saved the day from the evil, wanna be pharaoh's undead army rescued from some other plain of existence. We never gave those things a second thought...

However, at the end of the movie, the main character looks at his watch and says they have an hour until sunrise, the next scene is them all arriving safe and sound in New York, (it is still dark) and the first thing my wife and I do is ask each other how they fly from Washington DC to New York in an hour. Nothing about it being Emelia Earheart, or that the plane they flew in had been sitting in a museum with no fuel for years, simply "how did they get there so fast? And how is she going to get back before sunrise?"

I just find it funny that we are so willing to suspend our belief for some things but not others.

[happy_terd]

Very interesting observation. I am not really certain.

I often question things like how action stars like Rambo can shoot 2000 times without reloading and not pay attention to the fact that he just killed 5000 people with 2000 bullets.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

I remember having a similar thought watching Night At The Museum 1: In the climatic chase scene, two of the diorama characters (the Cowboy and the Roman) jump into a radio-controlled car to chase the bad guy... and I remember thinking, "Those cars don't have tiny cockpit controls for drivers in them..."

[toomanybooks]

I googled the flight time between Washington DC and New York and it is 25 minutes according to the internet. If you take away all of the baggage and security check in, waiting for clearance from the tower and the airline getting its act together, the flight itself isn't very long.

[dsvick]

Originally Posted by toomanybooks

I googled the flight time between Washington DC and New York and it is 25 minutes according to the internet. If you take away all of the baggage and security check in, waiting for clearance from the tower and the airline getting its act together, the flight itself isn't very long.

Really? I thought it would be much longer, but you're right, I was probably thinking of the all the other stuff that goes with it.

Would one of the moderators please close this thread....

[ardeegee]

It is all about willing suspension of disbelief, and which untruths are necessary for the setting and premise of the story, and which aren't. One example that came to mind when I saw this thread is the Disney movie Dinosaur-- okay, I'll accept for the premise of the movie talking, intelligent dinosaurs-- but it annoyed the hell out of me for there to be freaking lemurs in the move, because lemurs and dinosaurs (talking or otherwise) are separated by millions of years, and there was NO reason to toss that anachronism into the mix.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Something a little more conventional: Automobiles that jump safely across chasms, broken bridges, viaducts, etc... always landing on their wheels and moving on, without serious injury to the passengers.

(Unless of course the car is filled with bad guys, in which it not only crashes spectacularly, but immediately blows up with a resultant fireball that would scare Oppenheimer into ducking and covering.)

[happy_terd]

I am a huge 007 film fan (I got every film). The stuff I have to put aside there is amazing.

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Something a little more conventional: Automobiles that jump safely across chasms, broken bridges, viaducts, etc... always landing on their wheels and moving on, without serious injury to the passengers.

Then on the other hand, we have the Instant Death Bullet (I say, dooming people to wasting their day clicking around on TVTropes (I say, dooming people to wasting their day on XKCD.))

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by ardeegee

Then on the other hand, we have the Instant Death Bullet (I say, dooming people to wasting their day clicking around on TVTropes (I say, dooming people to wasting their day on XKCD.))

Ha! I looked, then I walked away! Ha!!

(Hmm... my hands seem to be getting sweaty, all of a sudden...)

[Nakor]

In anything with fantasy elements, whatever 'untruths' are established early are generally accepted, whereas anything that is never implied early as being any different than normal causes a reaction of non-belief. In the movie the ability of things to come to life is established early, and the rules for doing so, but at no point is any rule for plane travel being really fast implied at all.

[GraceKrispy]

It really distracts me when they show 10 seconds left in top chef, and somehow, they get an entire extra meal cooked in those 10 seconds.

I also get super distracted by funny things with distances in movies. I forget which movie, but they are at Hoover Dam or something, and suddenly they show Monument Valley like they just walked over. Uh, walked over with giantʻs feet, as they are a good 4-5 hours away by car....

[Reyben]

I once heard a writer say that you can do whatever you want in the first ten minutes of a story, because at that point the audience is still willing to accept premises; but after that time is up you have to sit down and work with whatever you've established. Of course, some stories- some of the best stories- throw that out completely and just have strange things constantly and relentlessly happening. But then, in that case, Strange Things Will Happen becomes basically one of the premises.

Additionally, I think all fiction has a bunch of standard-background Premises You Sort Of Accept (I bet Tvtropes has a list, possibly partly IS a list) from the get-go, like Shoulder Wounds Are Probably Non Threatening, Unfeasibly Clever Conversations Will Happen and, of course, assuming Things Will Somehow Work Out In The End. Or at least END- I'm looking at you, Lord of the Rings.

The interesting part is when we get so used to accepting certain movie conventions that we begin expecting real life to follow them. For instance, expecting your automobile to land safely across after a big leap, or guns to be easy to fire, or CPR to work like it does in the films... or dinosaurs that can talk...

...Actually, they were real.

You've uncovered the secret message!

[Solitaire1]

For me, it's time travel in stories that often requires a leap of faith in the basic premise since there are so many time paradox issues that tend to be glossed over or ignored. For me, it isn't an issue as long as time travel is only in one direction, forward. It's when you have time travel into the past that paradoxes become a big problem.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Solitaire1

For me, it's time travel in stories that often requires a leap of faith in the basic premise since there are so many time paradox issues that tend to be glossed over or ignored. For me, it isn't an issue as long as time travel is only in one direction, forward. It's when you have time travel into the past that paradoxes become a big problem.

Agreed. To paraphrase Captain Cathryn Janeway: "I hate time travel stories." I've never bought them, and view them simply as another SF-related convention, however realistic, that is used so often that it is simply accepted as possible. Like "warp drive," in fact. Moving organized mass faster than the speed of light? Yeah.

(I should talk: Three of my most popular novels use warp drive, to my continual chagrin.)