WildHoneyAlways said:
I read this thread. I am quite sure many people know exactly what they are disagreeing with. I believe the problem might be that they find your definition of what is "plausible" and what is an acceptable version of "reality" to be a bit hypocritical.
I'm not sure they do, or they wouldn't keep saying stuff like "Well how do you like transformers or Terminator, because aliens and cyborgs aren't very likely?"
It seems like a lot of people here are under the impression I only appreciate gritty realism. That's just not true. My problem with cetain action films, the one major issue I've been addressing here the whole time, is what events occur that completely break with the specific precedent of "reality" or "plausibility" or "believability" or whatever you want to call it set by the film.
For (yet another) example, look at the Back to the Future films. I damn well know time travel into the past is physically impossible. So I should hate these movies right? Hell no, they're extremely well done. All the time travel-related antics are enjoyable and "believeable" because the film set the precedents that Doc Brown created this device that allows for time travel under this set of rules.
As for the Terminator films, the films set te precedent that time travel is possible under certain circumstances, and that this fairly detailed series of events let to the state of the world in the future when John Conner is leading humanity. But all the actions still obeys the laws of physics and such outside of the previously set concepts of reality. So you don't see Ahnuld leaping over a building for dramatic effect, or the T-1000 suddenly able to teleport somewhere, because those actions wouldn't be grounded in the "rules" of their specific film world, so therefore, there isn't really anything that pull the audience out of the "illusion" of the film.
An example of a film breaking this idea would be in Armageddon, where just about all the action that takes place on the astreroid contradicts itself. The motion of the land rover thing, the mobility of the shuttles in the air over the asteroid and the actions of the men on the surface...none of it really meshes. The filmmakers there (Mr. Bay, hehe) just crated their own rules to create whatever ridiculous scene they wanted to occur. And that's why the part of the movie is pretty much unwatchable. (That's far from the only reason Armageddon is a terrible film, however.)
