The End of Reality (Good Riddance!)

[The Wooster]

I've never been a big fan of realism (though some 'realistic' films count amongst my favourites) but I am however a fan of the rules. Forgive me if I sound like the crazy ***** from 'Misery' but a universe should have a defined set of rules which characters have to obey. That's one reason why although I count myself as a comic fan, I consider the vast majority of the DC/Marvel/Dark Horse, stables to be unrepentant junk, where consequence is rarely expored in any meaningful fashion (there are of course, exceptions to this rule).
But really I think there has to be a middle ground. I'm a big fan of the hard sci fi genre but, my absolute favourite series/books/games could be said to exist somewhere between hard and pulp sci fi. The Battle Star Galactica (newer) series is a great example of this. The series is ridiculous, human looking robots, bizzare divine intervention and all, but there are enough solid ground rules to give the series a realistic feel.

 

[UtopiaV1]

The End of Reality (Good Riddance!)

Movie critics' desire for realism is, well, unrealistic.

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While I agree with your sentiment, if war films (as in, Brotherhood, Passchendaele, The Beast, and Zulu) ever completely adopt this whole "why bother making it realistic" attitude, I will shit my brain and hang myself from a tree.

Some films (the so-called 'true story' ones) deserve to stick as closely to the original story (and therefore, real life) as much as possible. It's the only way to do the characters and narrative justice, without just trying to make it entertaining by throwing in a few dinosaurs firing lasers. Know what I mean?

 

[Necromancer1991]

I totally agree, in retrospect, the guy is probably going to get flamed by Fan-boys. Also, as he said people survive stuff in movie that would normally be lethal in real-life (I.E. Gunshot wounds, fall, crashes, and other injuries) due to writer's convenience, and Deus Ex Machina always kicks in to save the day or whatever. Movies are a way for us to ESCAPE reality (not int the "crazed gunman" sort of way), a great movie just the right blend of realism and fantasy. I also want to counter the whole "A twelve year year old can't beat up an adult" thing, getting shot in the face or stabbed is going to be the same regardless of whether or not it is a girl or a freakin' dead fish delivering the blow.

 

[RebelRising]

Bob, you're point is well taken. I do, however, have to argue on the position of realism.

What realism gives us who enjoy it is a level of earnestness and immersion that the unrealistic and fantastic can't give us. This is why the Bourne movies were so popular, as the self-parody stagnation of the Bond series had opened a void for another espionage thriller series to fill it in. Thus the Bourne series came into being. It gave us fast, fluid, bone-crushing action all realistic and all really kick-ass. We could belive this kind of thing could and would happen in today's post 9/11 government surveillance world. This provided us a level of immersion that few other films could.

I could go on about how my realism taste also spills over in sci-fi. Sci-fi likes to be realistic because it in effect is speculative fiction, and is thus making a bold prediction of the future. Cyberpunk was and still is wildly popular because that future wasn't too far off back in the 80's and now Japan is looking more and more like Gibson's Chiba City from Neuromancer.

Hell, this kind of thing spills over into anime as well. Cowboy Bebop, my favorite anime series of all-time, is grounded enough in reality so that my level of disbelief can take the absurdity of space bounty hunters. Ghost in the Shell is a straight-up love letter to Gibson and the rest of the Cyberpunk pioneers with the twist that the heroes are working for the man as opposed to against them. BECK: Mongolian Chop Squad is an earnest, true-to-life look at a wimpy kid with serious rock talents juggling the band and school with all the charm and relate-ability of The Wonder Years.

Heck even the Batman Animated series was a breath of fresh air as it didn't play down to us as kids: it was dramatic, gritty, and realistic. They knew we were smarter than other series let on and we loved it for it.

I guess my point is that it's all a matter of how willing our suspension of disbelief is. Some of us just have a lower tolerance than others, like me and my fellow realism lovers. You just have a greater tolerance for the absurd.

That' not to say that I'm completly all for total realism: there's a reason why I play Team Fortres 2 as opposed to Modern Warfare and it's ilk. Too much realism can suck the fun out of any good story. Give me a sniper who chucks pee in a jar any day: it's a lot more fun than waiting in not-Afghanistan for my health to regen while trading bullets with other brown and grey troops.

I'm sort of on the same page here; sure, it's promising that certain genres may not have as much of a certain pretense towards realism, but I also think, Bob, that part of the nostalgia for the supposed "realism era" isn't so much for realism as it is for certain universally central elements of cinema, believability notwithstanding, such as acting. Sure, in the past 3-4 decades that have past, we've had untold quantities of excellent acting and characters, but the departure from the 70's, especially the early half, has certainly yielded a lot of crap, realistic or otherwise, in large part because of the devaluing of acting.

I'm all for the the most ludicrous, shameless, and ball-to-the wall concepts, premises, or whatever, but without quality filmmaking behind it, it's probably not to hold together very well for me or at the very least make little impression on me.

 

[pearcinator]

100% approval from me! Well, when it comes to action movies...

I go see movies to be taken away from reality! I dont care how good the actors are (as long as they aren't so bad that it wrecks the movie) and I dont care about 'real-story' movies at all.

Whats better...'real-life' story movies (such as Defiance) or over-the-top action movies (such as Die Hard)?

Die Hard ALL THE WAY!!! I cant wait until Hollywood finally gives the greenlight to make a Matthew Reilly movie (Its only a matter of time...) because his books read like a Die Hard or Indiana Jones movie.

The movies have to be directed well too! I hate shakycam (see: Bouurne Ultimatum) and any action scenes where I dont know whats going on (see: Transformers 2). Story is also important but only to give the movie a sense of depth. If I dont understand wtf is happening and all of a sudden an action scene comes out of nowhere I just get bored.

 

[Deacon Cole]

Then you are going to be disappointed with Thor, Bob. Last I heard, they were not going for the mythological angle on that character, but something more sciencey.

As for this Avengers project, I'm not thrilled about it. I should say that I had a similar idea only with DC characters because that's how I roll. But I now realize it was a stupid idea and it was a stupid idea even back in the winter of 1940.

What you are talking about here is a pervasive world populated by many character. I think few things have harmed the super hero genre quite like this idea. It's a crackerjack marketing ploy. But it muddies the stories of the individual heroes. Why have Manhunter or Blue Beetle when you already have Batman? Why should Mr Terrific try to save the day when Superman can do it in five minutes? It becomes unwieldy, hence why DC had the whole Crisis of Infinite Earths, which probably hasn't been sorted out still, despite calling an event Final Crisis.

I understand the appeal of it, but I also recognize it as being a huge liability. Only the most devout geek will bother keeping up with the huge soap opera of plots for an entire world because less devout geeks know it is a waste of time and focus only on their favorite characters and pay no attention to the rest until there's a cross over issue that interrupts the flow of their character's arch.

This sort of thing can work in comics because that is essentially a disposable entertainment. You can simply throw a comic book away after you read it. (Try this sometime. It's liberating) Movies, not so much. They cost a heck of a lot more to produce and the actual length of a film is relatively short. So it can't fart around with irrelevant side plots involving inconsequential characters along with retcons and reboots. It needs to be focused. If it isn't, the audience will shrink because they don't want to have to untangle that bullshit.

At best, for a film series, I could see this working as a large project. For the DC idea I had above involved overlapping trilogies for all the characters with a final Justice League trilogy which would then end the series. A finite project like this could be done and take a lifetime to produce, but it is possible and then end with a final bang to tie the whole mess together to sell overpriced collectors DVD boxed sets. Somehow, I don't think that is what Marvel is doing. They want to make ongoing series, several in fact. If they can pull it off, good for them. I'm just glad I'm not involved in what will inevitably become a major cluster fuck.

On a side note, from what I understand, the change in Fantastic Four 2 of Galactus from giant guy in purple armor to a cloud was not from the movie makers but from the Ultimates comics line. All the marvel movies take the Ultimates line as their inspiration, I guess. Hence why Sam Jackson and not David Hasselhoff is Nick Fury. I have not read these comics but the more I hear about it, the less I want to. I understand the "I'm a geek" speech Reed Richards gives in that movie is taken verbatim from the comic. I hated that speech because I have not seen such transparent pandering to the target audience like that outside of pornography or christian entertainment. They should be ashamed of themselves for committing that to film and anyone who thought that speech was good in any way should feel even more shame.

 

[CaptainLudicrous]

Realism? How can any movie maker promote realism when it misrepresents explosions in the way that they do? There is no shockwave in movie 'splosions, only a push. Props to Hurt Locker for being an example of how to do it right.

On a side note, I thought that Galactus was supposed to be a swarm of nanites, or a bunch of planet-eating locusts. While the "weather" criticism is valid, I don't think that it rings true.

 

[Alex_P]

I wonder if people realize how significant this is. The potential of an idea like The Avengers as a universe-fusing movie is nothing less than the potential of a movieverse wholly decoupled from "rules." Think about it: Once audiences worldwide have digested the idea that Iron Man - "hard" sci-fi or not - is best buddies with irradiated ogres, Viking gods and time-displaced war Heroes, what's to stop him from tussling with the odd warlock or alien invader in his own series? This is the potential: Movies where anything can happen. It's bold, it's exciting... and it's completely unrealistic.

...

And this is why The Avengers - at least, the idea of The Avengers - has me so cautiously hopeful. Maybe this will be the one that smashes down all the walls, tears up the book and declares that the New Rule is that movies and moviemakers get to make their own rules. No more artificial boundaries, no more "you can't do that," no more "wrong genre."

Imagine a world where the only explanation anyone would ever need for the most bizarre, out of left field thing to unfold onscreen in any given movie were the words: "Feature Presentation." That would be a reality I just might be able to stand.

Is a superhero team movie going to redefine the concept of "genre" as we know it? Of course not.

Putting Iron Man and Thor together doesn't combine "hard sci-fi" with "mythic fantasy", it just forces both to conform more to the baseline pattern of their genre (superheroes -- everything else is secondary). And that's exactly the spirit of the complaint against the geekishly "unrealistic" -- it's the same stylistic elements repeated over and over; and the usually same thematic elements, too. And that's exactly what the majority of the self-labeled "geek" audience asks for.

For decades now, comic-book superhero cross-overs have just reinforce the constraints of the genre by mushing every "property" owned by a company into a single consistent paste. Why should we expect a "summer blockbuster" superhero movie to be produced with any other goal in mind?

Iron Man Fights Wizards is just as much of a flabby genre-stagnant movie formula as Iron Man Fights Fantasy Terrorists. And that's what you're going to get from superhero movies, because it's what both the fans and investors demand.

-- Alex

 

[Styphax]

First off, great article. I do want to go ahead and play devil's advocate, and talk about this potentially ugly side of this. With a mixed movie universe comes continuity (Potentially), which can result in a lot of the problems comics are having. Now people are relatively used to retcons, the original Batmen movies, Spiderman now, and probably Batman again after Nolan's 3rd movie is up. But if you have a movie universe it can create the unspoken deal to keep the stories going. This is good until you look at the state of the superhero genre in its native home. There are only so many Moores, Morrisons, Johns', Bendis, Ruckas etc...My point is that as directors move on to other projects it can lead to many crappy directors taking over, and ultimately ruining the entire superhero franchise. After people's attention spans collectively are limited. And Studio dollars will only come as long as their attention is captured.

The other issue is of course with continuity. Now part of me would like to see DC's Justice League movie pull a Crisis on Infinite Earths, and roll all of the batman and superman movies, as well as the various live action TV shows over time into one new timeline, then go on with more awesome stories like Blackest Night, Identity Crisis or whatever, but that's not the point. My point is continuity quickly becomes a mess, and one thing that keeps comic books successful is that people are very invested in the characters, and with most casual moviegoers, that is not the case; they're there to kill time or just unwind, so dealing with continuity issues is probably not what they want to do with their time. And since movies take years to make, you can bet there is going to be some mid movie retcons (At least in a shared universe) just for the sake of keeping the characters relevant.

Having said all that, I'm still quite glad that someone is doing a shared universe, I'm just mad Marvel beat DC to the punch (Though Marvel has always have been much better at business). My little rant was more of a cautionary tale.

 

[Arcane Azmadi]

God-damn, Bob, once again you convince me that you are a genius and the one true bearer of the truth! If only the big names of Hollywood had as much sense as you.

But although I know you respect Jeffrey Wells as a fellow professional and wouldn't say anything negative about him, CERTAINLY not in a public forum, I'd definitely like to say that the guy is a complete jackass.

 

[NewGeekPhilosopher]

The End of Reality (Good Riddance!)

Movie critics' desire for realism is, well, unrealistic.

Read Full Article

I watch movies not out of some desire for realism - but that a story is being told at all.

The special effects and use of a soundtrack to create tension is something I see as important in a movie, to go into Yoda mode: "War stories told in sci-fi or historical drama - it matters not. There is only story - yes, pretty pictures are good but they can turn you to the Dark Side of the film."

I don't even pretend to be an expert in cinema, but what I do know already and learn over time about it is fascinating. This article lets me know you're not just an internet loudmouth - you've done your research.

Research is the core of realism in anything - whether it is just to suspend disbelief (the "mythologically accurate" camp) or to build a complex chain reaction of characters and situations (the "scientifically and sociologically accurate" camp). Both terms I made up in five minutes, but feel free to use them in future discussions, because "mythological accuracy" in how certain genre devices are used like mythic creatures can be as deal-making or breaking as scientific realism, see the furore over Twilight vampires for example. The hypocrisy of realism is this: we don't bat an eye over Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett having a messed up relationship because they're humans despite being serial killers - kinda Proto-Dexters. How does this affect their relationship? On the other hand nobody's ever asked if there's ever going to be a movie where a Sadako like onryo ghost from The Ring will ever fall in love in a paranormal romance like Twilight did with vampires.

Who knows? Genre has complex rules and before there were fanboy geeks there were literary critics - the biggest nerds in denial of all - because they spend their time evaluating the cultural merit of pretty much anything whether they like what they see or not!

 

[filmguy450]

That was stunning! One of your best written pieces to date, imo! I couldn't agree any more, by the way! I do hate the "it's got to be real" attitude some people take. Isn't the whole point of a movie to escape from the real for two hours?

 

[Quakester]

I agree with this article wholeheartedly. If you absolutley must have realism, go see a documentary. Hollywood is full of fantasy. Look at some of the action movies of the past. They are ostensibly more realistic than say Iron Man but that's only on the surface. I know more than my fair share of current and former special forces operators and very few look or act like most action stars. If we want our fantasies, let us have them. Besides, reality is overrated.