Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2024 May 28

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May 28

Violating the suspension of disbelief

I'm curious at what point writers and filmmakers say "that won't work" or "we can't do it that way" to allow the suspension of disbelief to function. I just watched The Killer (2023), and the only problem I had with the entire film was when The Killer travels to Florida to take out "The Brute" who tried to kill him in his absence and beat his girlfriend instead. This scene makes no sense to me, and I'm surprised the writers and the filmmakers wrote and shot it this way. What's even stranger to me is that fans are saying its the best part of the film. I don't get it, as I see it as the worst scene of the entire production. The Killer is much smaller than The Brute, doesn't know the layout of his place, and yet manages to take out this guy in his own home because The Brute has a limp. The Brute has the upper hand in almost ever aspect of the fight, yet The Killer somehow manages to kill the guy. What is the calculus the writer and director use here? It doesn't work for me at all, yet the fans seem to dig it simply because of the extended, gratuitous fight scene, a fight that makes no sense at all, and in reality, The Killer should have lost. Viriditas (talk) 21:50, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

You have clearly not yet suspended your disbelief. As this was a requirement incumbent upon you as a consumer of this production, you have failed to uphold your end of the deal, and the producers are entitled to sue you for breach of contract. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:40, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

I mean, at least in something like The Matrix, we are allowed to suspend disbelief because the characters can get away with whatever they want in the computer simulated world (but the consequences remain just as deadly). I just did a marathon rewatch of all The Matrix films, and this idea was executed flawlessly (although I quibble with the notion of free will and determinism that is implicit in the story, as it it's quite confusing for the audience). But I don't see that happening at a scriptural level in the writing with The Killer. Why am I supposed to believe that The Killer, who is clearly suffering from sleep deprivation and anxiety, is able to defeat another killer who is twice his size and is fighting on his home turf? It doesn't work for me, but yet, it seems to work for others. My question is why do most people accept this? Viriditas (talk) 22:47, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

The hero prevails against seemingly impossible odds. It's a very old device. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:03, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Indeed. Vintage Hollywood westerns have the bad guys firing off hundreds of rounds without hitting anything, but the good guy can hit a man hiding behind a rock 200 yards away with one shot from his revolver. Alansplodge (talk) 11:01, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Or going further back, in a one battle, King Arthur managed to kill 470 Saxons with his own sword and emerge unscathed. [1] Alansplodge (talk) 11:08, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

No, no, nothing so moderate. Geoffrey of Monmouth reduced that figure from the 960 men he found in his source, or more likely the numeral D (500) got left out and an extra X got added somewhere in the manuscript transmission. Roman numerals normally seem to get corrupted in that sort of way after a chain of tired monks have copied them. --Antiquary (talk) 12:29, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Now that you mention it, I wonder if the limp of The Brute was a mythological reference to the Achilles' heel. Viriditas (talk) 23:09, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

See our article on overthinking :-) Alansplodge (talk) 10:58, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

When I watched The Matrix I couldn't believe that humans work as electric generators. The bullet time and such effects were good but it seemed a big plot hole. I didn't watch the following sequels. --Error (talk) 01:13, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

It wasn't a documentary. It was entertainment. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:52, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Nevertheless, entertainment that jolts the viewers out of their suspension of disbelief by an obvious absurdity is not well written. I too noticed this at the time, thought it silly, and have not bothered to watch the sequels.

I have a theory that makers of Hollywood-level 'Sci-Fi' films (and TV) have read Science Fiction in their teens, when it was less well developed as a literary form, but not subsequently because they were too busy with their general careers: consequently, when they come to make science-fiction films, they model them on the older, inferior standards they remember. If their competitors are doing the same, they all form a 'bubble of unsophistication'. To my perception (as an aged written SF & Fantasy fan), film and TV SF&F usually (though not invariably) lag a few decades behind the written forms in quality of (screen)writing. This even applies to many film versions of literarily successful novels and stories, which get unnecessarily 'disimproved' by screenwriters who overestimate their own abilities. [/rant]. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.2.67.173 (talk) 12:58, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Could well be. And I recall Siskel and Ebert talking about what they called the "idiot plot", in which the premise is so absurd that the audience can't fully buy into it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:43, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

I've never read a word of Agatha Christie's novels, but I'm told the resolution often depends on some information that no reader could possibly have anticipated from the foregoing plot, and which is revealed only by the detective (Poirot, Marple, whomever) at the end. Yet Christie is the best-selling fiction writer of all time, her novels having sold more than two billion copies, so readers show no sign of having been put off by her approach. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:45, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

That was also the deal with the old "Perry Mason" TV series. There was no way to figure it out. So you could turn the show on during the last 5 minutes and still get the full gist of it. This is in contrast to modern TV cop shows, where the perp often turns out to be someone who briefly appeared on-screen early in the show. So then the guessing game becomes, which early character will it turn out to be. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:18, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

My ex proposed the rule of "murder by most famous": the villain is the juiciest part, so it commonly goes to the most prominent guest actor. —Tamfang (talk) 19:13, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Although it's a few decades since I read (quite a few of) Christie's novels, this is not how I remember them. As I recall, they sometimes hinged on fairly obscure knowledge, but never produced anything 'out of thin air': there was always some deliberately unemphasised clue to the mystery earlier in the story, so that when the answer was revealed one was annoyed for not having spotted it.

Christie was a prominent member of the Detection Club, whose (loosely adhered-to) principles discouraged impossible-to-guess solutions. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.2.67.173 (talk) 01:25, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

I have been misinformed. It was them wot dun it, m'lud. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 01:42, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

In my experience "idiot plot" usually means a plot that requires the protagonist to do something implausibly foolish. —Tamfang (talk) 19:13, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, the battery thing was ridiculous, but Lana Wachowski cleared this up a while ago, saying the original story didn't use humans as batteries, they were used as a kind of neural network or CPU, but the bean counters in suits didn't understand it and asked the Wachowskis to change it to batteries, which of course makes no sense. Viriditas (talk) 02:27, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

That premise is almost as absurd. Could you imagine the performance of someone like Trump or his MAGA supporters? One flop per day, tops. Clarityfiend (talk) 00:18, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

It's not the processors, it's the malware. —Tamfang (talk) 19:14, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

A related concept to the OP's query is Jumping the shark. Alansplodge (talk) 16:07, 4 June 2024 (UTC)