"That would never happen"

[Noeland]

So, anybody else get really annoyed when you're watching a movie or TV show with someone and they scoff in the middle of a cool action scene and say "That would never happen" or "That's not real" or my favorite "That wouldn't happen that way in real life"?

I was watching, of all things, Lord of The Rings with a friend who makes swords. As you can imagine he had a lot to say about the swords in the movie and what it would actually take to shatter, break, bend, and otherwise destroy a well made sword.

He got mad at me when I pointed out that the books and the movies have magic, dragons, orcs, monsters, hobbits, all manner of things that are not real. It's a fantasy film. So, fantastical moments happen in every single frame of the movie. If they wanted to, the swords could have souls, and talk to their owners, and if they really wanted to get crazy the sword could have replaceable blades that shoot out of the hilt with compressed air. He missed the reference, BTW.

To which he replied "Compressed air? They wouldn't have compressed air tanks back then! And what would they do, carry the air tanks on their back?"

"Well, maybe they have magic air tanks in the hilt of the sword, with super compressed air that . . ."

"What? The hilt of the sword? No way. That would never happen. It's not possible."

"But . . . it's magic."

"That's not real."

The conversation went downhill from there, but eventually he and I agreed to disagree on what could happen in real life, if there was really magic. Which was a bizarre discussion. It was one of the funniest and most frustrating arguments I've ever had.

I never got to call him on the "back then" comment until later on, and he wasn't interested in talking about when the lord of the rings happened.

Just thought I'd share it here for a laugh.

 

[terryr]

Maybe he was just yanking your chain.

We know a movies not real, but it has to stick to it's own reality. If James Bond suddenly shot laser beams out of his eyes, or Indiana Jones could fly, then I'd have to call it.

The big one that bugs me is when bad guys get shot they jump up in the air and fly backwards before dying. DOESN'T HAPPEN LIKE THAT!!!
Or the cool hero who walks away from an explosion without batting an eye. Hey the blast wave would stop their heart at that range!
Or a hero who can jump ten times farther than an Olympic athlete.
Or when they move to cgi the hero is about 6 inches taller.

 

[jcoffman99]

My wife and I had a similar discussion while watching the Greatest American Hero. Ralph takes off from a helipad with one of the landing lights in his hand and it stays lit. She argued it shouldn't stay lit. I asked her if she was okay with the aliens, magic jammies, etc., why did she have a problem with the landing light. She just glared at me.

 

[Treadwell]

what it would actually take to shatter, break, bend, and otherwise destroy a well made sword.

My line would've been "how do we know they're well made?" The Middle Earth Hattori Hanzō has only so many hours in a day. :lol

 

[sycor]

I usually only do it in shows that are supposed to be somewhat realistic. Like ER or other drama shows based in reality. My wife does it more than me on medical shows though since she works in an OR.

 

[vt357]

I usually only do it in shows that are supposed to be somewhat realistic. Like ER or other drama shows based in reality. My wife does it more than me on medical shows though since she works in an OR.

Don't forget crime shows like CSI, they are so beyond reality they should be considered science fiction not crime drama.

But when it comes to obvious fantasy you have to just let it go and enjoy it. How many times have we heard the "but there isn't any sound in space" comment when people watch Star Wars or Star Trek. Have you actually watched 2001 A Space Odyssey with 5 minute scenes of no sound but the guy breathing?

 

[Lear60man]

Sycor took the words out of my mouth. I had a GF (former ER nurse) that used to do it while watching ER and it bugged the hell out of me. Turns out, I do it when I see blaring mistakes with private jets.:lol My favorite is when they hop into one type of jet and the next scene is of another jet. BTW if you guys ever see the Enron episode of American Greed, thats the plane I work on.

 

[SSgt Burton]

Have you actually watched 2001 A Space Odyssey with 5 minute scenes of no sound but the guy breathing?

Did it ever occur to you that the breathing might be coming over the communications device? Which is why "we" can hear it.

So when he "stops" breathing it is what alerts Bowman that there is a serious problem?

There certainly wasn't any sounds of frantic breathing/choking when Poole struggles with his airhose.



Kevin

 

[MrGzilla]

Did it ever occur to you that the breathing might be coming over the communications device? Which is why "we" can hear it.

So when he "stops" breathing it is what alerts Bowman that there is a serious problem?

There certainly wasn't any sounds of frantic breathing/choking when Poole struggles with his airhose.



Kevin

i think he was just giving an example of how boring starwars or startrek would have been if there were no sounds or explosions.


and i do this sometimes just for the pure fun of it, especiually in movies that arent vary good or just boring, but im just kidding most of the time and know that its just a fantasy movie or whatever and didnt actually mean to be as realistic as posible.

 

[AdamNightmare]

<-- Power Systems Engineer. No one in any movie ever has really understood how the power grid works. They all think they do, though.

It's not nearly as easy to black a city out as they make it seem.

 

[Noeland]

Well, sure, I do it on bad films too, I'm not really talking about that. That's fun to do. I'm talking about people who just can't enjoy something because they have some kind of psychological gut reaction to what they think it would play like in "reality".

My friend wasn't yanking my chain, he was honestly upset with me when I started in on the compressed air thing. He's a mechanic professionally and enjoys renfest and D&D and the like. He has an imagination. He understood what I meant an all, he was just having a gut reaction because he knows swords.

I know guns pretty well. I know breaching and personal defense tactics. I'm familiar with ballistics and gravity and physics and the like. But I can watch a flick like Swordfish, or Lethal Weapon and not once scoff at the movie and think "That's crap. That's not real." I guess I don't ever expect any movie or TV show to be all that realistic.

I kind of like it when people get hit with a shotgun and fly through plate glass windows. It's silly, but it makes me smile.

 

[Treadwell]

I can see a bit of the counter argument, though. Okay, say the movie is in a fantasy world. Well, unless every single little thing is some Dali/Seussian Bizarro World, most physical laws in that universe are going to be common with ours. And for those that aren't, it must be made obvious that it's due to a fantasy element (magic, etc). I don't care if this is Middle Earth, if, say, they show a Hobbit pick up a ten-ton boulder, there better be an elixir or a spell or SOMETHING established to explain that a small person heretofore shown to have the strength we'd expect from a small person to have to suddenly have this ability.

So I kinda see the "wouldn't happen" thing. Not that it people should allow it to ruin their enjoyment of a film, or ruin it for others complaining about it during the show.

 

[Treadwell]

(on the other side of the coin)
A friend of mine complained about the ending of Star Trek IV; he said it wasn't feasible that the Bird of Prey would have enough power to beam up the whales and the water.

A fictional technology. :confused

 

[Too Much Garlic]

The sword that gets broken is an elvish sword. We see throughout the movie that elven things have different characteristics than normal, human made things. Such as the fact that they glow when other species are near or something really lightweight is strong enough to protect a person from being run through. That's magic for you. It enhances the items and you have no way of actually saying ANYTHING about whether that would happen in real life, as those are beyond reality.

I take it he got annoyed with Elendil's sword... how did he react when it was shown how it was forged back together again? A feat that would NOT work in real life with a normal made sword.

Hence: magic.

 

[Noeland]

Treadwell, I get that too. I can see that, and often feel that way too about any story that needs internal established logic and "rules".

What started the discussion was the shards of the sword the Elves put back together. He hates that scene, and in a way it ruins the film for him. But even sting, we were looking at the replica I have on the wall, and he picked it up, saw the blade was plastic and just chuckled when it turned on. He said he would rather have the real sword that doesn't glow like a cell phone.

 

[Treadwell]

Oh, we're talking about Narsil? It was forged by a Dwarf. Just a regular (albeit well-made and famous) non-magic sword.

(Not that the average viewer of the film should be expected to know either way. As far as they're concerned, a sword is a sword unless specified otherwise. No one ever says the sword was magic.)

As for the re-forging, I can understand his reaction. I'm no sword expert, and even I wondered if that's really how that would be done. But I'm sure the Weta guys informed Jackson about that but he made a creative decision...

 

[Qui-Gonzalez]

An Imperial Star Destroyer would totally wipe out ANY USS Enterprise!*pushes his glasses up his nose*

 

[HAL9000]

The mechanics of storytelling require that when you set up your
universe or 'world' you must define it's 'reality'.

If you set up a certain framework then the audience will pretty much buy anything.

Roger Rabit - a case in point.

But writers have to get it in real, real early. And unfortunately, many fail.

 

[nickytea]

The mechanics of storytelling require that when you set up your
universe or 'world' you must define it's 'reality'.

The "mechanics of storytelling" require only what each invidual story structure requires. There is no single set of rules or structures that can be held true when compared against all stories. If the effectiveness of the drama is best served by revealing certain details in the third act, then they should absolutley NOT be established prior. "Deus Ex Machina" wasn't always a derogatory term.

 

[Raza Crew]

I remember watching Jericho with one of my friends and he says, "This is lame, like the government wouldn't just swoop in and solve things in a few days"

........ :confused