too much sometimes IS enough
May. 10th, 2007 02:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
adelaideseanTwo reviews of Danny Boyle's new movie "Sunshine" (by Grant Watson and Marcus Chown) and Lucius Shepard's recent rant have convinced me to commit to something I've been inching up on for a while now.
From this moment henceforth, I refuse to see a serious science fiction movie (i.e. one we're supposed to take seriously, rather than, say, Fantastic Four) in which scientific knowledge and the people employed in the pursuit thereof are needlessly treated badly.
In other words, I'm boycotting science fiction movies that contain overtly crap science unless there's some kind of pay-off for putting up with it.
I don't think I'm being unreasonable. Is it so wrong to want movie-physics (say) to bear at least a passing resemblance to the physics surrounding us in our everyday lives? Or to wish that scientists were rounded characters, with the same depth of being that other characters in the movie enjoy? Failing both of these, could we at least have something else in exchange? Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind explored powerful and thought-provoking themes through extraordinary direction and performances. Armageddon (like so many others in its league) did not.
I'm amazed that we settle for anything else. No one would watch a thriller that wasn't thrilling or a romantic comedy with unlikeable leads. A movie set in post-war Italy wouldn't include the Grand Canyon and icebergs just because the director felt like it. Why should the relationship between science and science fiction be any different? There's enough sense-of-wonder to be had out there without getting things so terribly, terribly wrong--and good special effects are the standard now, not the major drawcard they used to be.
Movies that let me down this way drive me mad. Since I don't want to be mad, I'm going to stop supporting the Big Dumb SF Blockbuster industry. No one in Hollywood will notice, I'm sure, but I'll feel better for it.
From this moment henceforth, I refuse to see a serious science fiction movie (i.e. one we're supposed to take seriously, rather than, say, Fantastic Four) in which scientific knowledge and the people employed in the pursuit thereof are needlessly treated badly.
In other words, I'm boycotting science fiction movies that contain overtly crap science unless there's some kind of pay-off for putting up with it.
I don't think I'm being unreasonable. Is it so wrong to want movie-physics (say) to bear at least a passing resemblance to the physics surrounding us in our everyday lives? Or to wish that scientists were rounded characters, with the same depth of being that other characters in the movie enjoy? Failing both of these, could we at least have something else in exchange? Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind explored powerful and thought-provoking themes through extraordinary direction and performances. Armageddon (like so many others in its league) did not.
I'm amazed that we settle for anything else. No one would watch a thriller that wasn't thrilling or a romantic comedy with unlikeable leads. A movie set in post-war Italy wouldn't include the Grand Canyon and icebergs just because the director felt like it. Why should the relationship between science and science fiction be any different? There's enough sense-of-wonder to be had out there without getting things so terribly, terribly wrong--and good special effects are the standard now, not the major drawcard they used to be.
Movies that let me down this way drive me mad. Since I don't want to be mad, I'm going to stop supporting the Big Dumb SF Blockbuster industry. No one in Hollywood will notice, I'm sure, but I'll feel better for it.
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no subject
Date: 2007-05-10 08:01 am (UTC)But having said that I think you probably divide sci-fi movies into at least two groups - sci-fi and sci-fantasy.
In sci-fi, you should expect at least some grounding in science, at least enough to cover up things we don't know and gloss over those we're not sure about. I'm thinking movies like 2001 and its descendants, anything involving Earth and some oncoming cataclysm and anything remotely attempting to have some relationship to science. I'd be tempted to include space programs that include faster than light travel, for example. Even though science currently determines such speeds to be highly unlikely, if a story is structured correctly and assumptions are made discreetly, disbelief can be suspended quite easily. (man, were there a few too many adverbs in that sentence or what?)
What really ticks me off is when you take a sound scientific principle well known and proven and assume that the audience is going to be quite happy when you break it. Even I know you need a runway to land a shuttle and last time I looked there wasn't one on any silly asteroid, heading for Earth or not ::glares at stupid movie::
The other category I'd use for your truly fantasy sci-fi like your superheroes and comic books where some basic prinicples are either extrapolated wildly or ignored completely simply for fun. You know this going into the movie. Afterall who can climb walls after being bitten by a spider, radioactive or genetically engineered (Hell, if it worked, market it, we'll save on stairs). At least then you know what you're in for and not being treated like an idiot.
I swear some of those movie people think their audiences are morons.
Nutty
(who is a real pain in the butt to watch TV with)
/end rant
no subject
Date: 2007-05-10 08:25 am (UTC)Me too. :-)
Sci-fantasy is a good term, one I've used plenty of times wrt things like Star Wars (I get to continue this rant at the Sydney Writer's Festival--hurrah!) and I can accept it as a sub-genre. Spider-man, say, wouldn't exist if you couldn't be lax every now and again. What I guess I object to is the *needless* and *wanton* breaking of laws that don't have anything to do with the movie's premise. Some of the problems in Sunshine probably could've been easily fixed or at least pasted over. Why not make the effort, when you're spending millions getting just the right shine on the spaceship's hull? Or whatever. Writers are cheap, and some actually know what they're doing.
Unlike everyone else in the movie business, apparently. :-)
no subject
Date: 2007-05-10 12:05 pm (UTC)It's when the movie becomes something other than the story. When it becomes a special effect ::lets blow up the White House:: or a computer game ::insert Star Wars one thru three here:: or merchandise ::Jar-Jar must die:: or a target audience ::young Anakin Skywalker with the doofy haircut please step up to the podium:: is when the movie drifts and plotholes are allowed and logic goes out the window.
I'm sorry Lucas is getting chewed on here, but he lines up so nicely to be shot down in this category.
I can see the discussion now...studio execs on one side writers on the other, one saying that the explosion would be just cool, the other screaming that liquid nitrogen doesn't react that way.
Who is going to get the vote? Unfortunately the movie business works just like any other, on dollar signs.
And now I've just trashed Star Wars (only the first three :D) after having babbled about sci-fantasy, but then scientific laws or no, you can't disguise bad writing.
And I am so babbling all over your journal. Apologies. You picked on something that really bugs me about television and movie writing in general. I have been known to yell at the TV.
Hmm, I think I'll shut up now and go and find some dinner. ::wanders off::
Nutty
(who was glad to finally see you in three-dimensions at the meeting tonight. You are definitely an entertaining speaker, young man ::grin::)
no subject
Date: 2007-05-11 01:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-11 01:55 am (UTC)Oh yeah. Shane Dix and I laughed our way through that movie, and actually offended people nearby who were busy being moved and excited by it all. Which just goes to show: some people really are, well, not morons, but see the world in *very* different ways.
The art of suspending disbelief seems to be one Hollywood has forgotten. You're absolutely right on that point. Sigh.