Is it right to criticize scenes in movies for lack of realism?

Yes, but they're using defenseless animals as bait. Try to take a guess at what happens to surplus puppies and kittens or when the stupid end consumers get tired of being a pet owner.

Animals are not mere accessories which should just be thrown away and forgotten though many many many people certainly do so.

Since I'm being overly critical, I'll provide an example of how animal representation was done (imho) with great care in a recent film.

The Drop had the main protag rescue a battered pit bull puppy.

Positive Points:

1) Pit Bulls are being killed because of their "ferocious dog" rep, so this film helps.
2) Not brought from a pet breeder. It's a rescue. This helps because a lot of abandoned animals need good homes.

Negative Point:

1) Purebreeds are prone to be overbreed, but since it's a pit bull "rescue", this negative point is balanced by above two positive points.

edited 15th Jan '15 8:02:40 PM by probablyinsane

And animals, of course, can still be in media, but better care must be done on how they are represented.

Yet:

Even warm-hearted movies realistically showing off the pains and joys of pet ownership can be criticized though mainly due to the still so very much so inadequately regulated pet breeding industry.

I think you're asking too much for just a simple matter of animals in movies. A movie that just wanted to show protagonist Josh with a dog shouldn't have to go in depth about its breeding and buying technicalities unless the movie is specifically about or relies on that subject. Sometimes a movie wants a tiger or something to be a brief obstacle for the heroes. That doesn't make it the movie's fault that some guy decided to shoot a tiger later.

We're getting really off topic.

That's the usual Trends subject. If there were enough documentaries and fictional films about the subject of animal mills, those places would fall apart from boycotts and the occasional violent raid by overzealous animal rights people.

On-topic: Reality Is Unrealistic. Unless a stunt could only be performed by a Mary Sue with Plot Armor, the only reason to attack a movie scene for Unrealism is if it breaks the rules set forth by the movie.

The lack of Realism cuts both ways. There's times when movie makers have to tone down what you could REALLY do because if they don't you'll get bitching from people who don't believe it. "Yeah right, like anti-tank missiles actually pull into a steep climb midway through flight and hit tanks from above. Everybody knows they just fly straight."

"No, Johnny, you're a square. Now go to Youtube and watch how a real missile flies. It ain't fucking straight anymore."

Two factors are also excitement and audience feasibility. No one wants to see a fighter plane dogfight where the planes are miles way and aiming is done by instruments. And if you make a movie about hacking the CIA or something and it reveals an actual way to do so, chances are you're going to end up in a huge amount of trouble.

Considering that tigers are (still) very endangered species, I will be critical about such.

FYI, there is a Pet section in The Red Stapler page. Depressing read.

Wow, 30 responses! Did not see that coming!

For the record, here are the scenes I had a problem with from The Hobbit: Botf A. Spoiler tag is needed:

Legolas on the falling bridge - but he is an Elf, ok, I'll give him that. Bard launching himself at the troll from the cart - he is a human, so no excuse, his arms should have been shattered entirely from the force of that impact. Kinetic energy doesn't just disappear... People keep having conversations on loud battlefields - that's impossible. Bilbo getting whacked in the face - hobbit or not, a blow like that means you're dead now. Sorry. The back of his head even hit a rock rhe way down, so if the blow did not kill him, the landing surely did. Of course blows to heads are so common in movies this moment is barely worth mentioning. Only noticed it because it was clearly a really huge smack, harder than similar ones in other movies. Thorin and the orc on the ice - ok, so I discussed this already but the ice platform should have leaned into the direction of the orc the whole time, since he is obviously heavier than Thorin. But after that the orc launched himself from underneath - but how? He didn't have anything down there to get momentum from... If you grab 60 golden coins and stuff your chest with them, you need to be Arnold Schwarzenegger to even be able to crawl, let alone walk nicely upright. Gold is heavy, folks, and the comic relief guy (Alfrid, I think was his name) clearly doesn't have the build to carry those coins in a bag, let alone the way it was shown in the movie. Mountain goats are cute, but the speed they were jumping up and down on the rocks was absolutely ridiculous - but hey, maybe they were magic goats! And they were cute, so all is forgiven.

So from this list, I think Legolas can be explained away with the comment that he is an Elf. The Bard cart launch can't be explained anyhow, since Middle Earth has the same gravity and physics as Earth - Like Reality, Unless Noted.

Loud conversations on battlefields - unrealistic, yes, but the filmmakers have no way to introduce new plot points, perspectives, events during battles, unless the characters talk to each other. Not really a mistake.

Whacks to the head... well, a common occurrence, as I have described above. Still, witnessing the filmmakers going overboard with this provoked a reaction. OK, we don't know hobbit physiology at all, but there is no indication in the movie that they are tougher than humans (if anything, just the opposite) so I think this stands.

Thorin and the orc on the ice - now that is a prime example of poor filmmaking. In order for the scene to work, Thorin exploits the characteristics of the physics of standing on an ice platform. This time they really should have made sure that the physics is correct, but no. The platform should not have behaved that way, so that makes the whole scene pointless. And when the orc launches himself out from under the ice, that is wholly unrealistic too. We have no reason to assume ice and water works differently in Middle Earth than on Earth and no wizard was involved in the scene.

Golden coins - ok, that was a humorous scene, but still. Gold is gold. And it should be heavy. It was a character-defining moment though, so maybe I'll let it slide (holy subjectivity, Batman!).

Mountain goats - they are cute. Subjectivity strikes again: all is forgiven.

A heartfelt sorry is going out to the people who have not seen The Hobbit 3, I think this analysis was not too helpful for them, but I have other examples I'll use in the thread in the future

All in all, I think the laws of physics should apply in any fantasy setting where internal logic doesn't overrule it. Of course that doesn't mean that it is always right to criticize a scene for poor physics, or that a scene is bad only because it has poor physics. But I think we are in agreement with most of you in the thread about that.

edited 16th Jan '15 12:23:44 AM by Sati1984

I think it also makes a difference if you like a movie or not. You're more likely to be forgiving to a movie you enjoyed (for example, your goat example in the post above this one) than one you didn't like in the first place.

Yes, indeed as I said it can be subjective. But criticism itself is always subjective - at least partly.

edited 16th Jan '15 7:33:39 AM by Sati1984

The mountain goats (I don't think this even needs to be spoiled though) are handwaved by the fact they're clearly fantastical animals. Normal mountain goats are not that size and don't look like that.

Not sure about how fast real goats are in climbing, but there are goats with crazy climbing skills in real life. So I wasn't surprised when those goats just hopped-skipped their way up the cliff.

I pretty much expect fantasy stories to speed up horses and make goats super climbers.

I've noticed for me I generally have less trouble with improbable stunts than I do with depictions of places that are wholly inaccurate.

I know Friends gets a lot of flack for it's let's say....demographically inaccurate depiction of New York, but I've begun to notice an astounding number of shows and movies where it's very clear the writers have never actually been to the place where it's set. Or if they have They Just Didn't Care about accurately reflecting it.

For one, almost anytime you see a decent sized apartment that's presumably "middle class" or something, chances are your average apartment size for that price in NYC is gonna be half that.

edited 17th Jan '15 9:42:29 AM by comicwriter

Forks, Washington is totally dreary you guys.

In a realistic movie: yes.

In an unrealistic movie: no.

It's that simple.

Now whether a given unrealistic scene is tonally appropriate to everything else that's already in the movie... that's a different question altogether. There are different degrees of realism and non-realism, so it's always a case-per-case thing.

But in general? The general "rule" isn't that complicated...

To me it depends on just what kind of movie it is. For example let's take a world war 2 movie. Now if it's supposed to be a 100 hundred percent bling blingin' historically accurate right down to the cunt hairs documentary well then you can't very well have stuff like the 101st Airborne comprised of ninjas, werewolves, hobbits, cats, and cyborgs. On the other hand if it's supposed to be a big dumb actioner, Hell yeah!!! Let's blow shit up!!!

It also depends on the universe a movie is set in. In the real world not too many women are dating werewolves and vampires. On the other hand if we've established that magic exists in that universe well then you can't really complain too much about realism or the lack thereof.

Finally sometimes you just gotta love the movie for what it is. You know, MST 3 K mantra and all that.

As I've said before in other threads, "realism" is a bad word for it. It creates the idea that people are complaining about the fantastic elements themselves, resulting in the ever-popular non-answer, "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know you were expecting realism in a movie about a superhero/magic space wizards/fantasy elves/etc.!" A better term for it would be believability.

It is generally assumed that all settings are Like Reality, Unless Noted - frankly, I'm convinced that trope is People Sit In Chairs, but I digress - because even though some settings have a lot more notation on them, it's still assumed that people will behave in a reasonable fashion, that fundamental physics such as gravity or conservation of momentum still function except where undermined by fantastic elements, etc.

When people complain about "realism", they aren't complaining that, say, a magical space Lionsaurus exists. They're complaining that the Lionsaurus roaring at its intended prey to inform them of its presence and give them a chance to flee is utter nonsense for a predatory animal, magic space beast or not, for exactly the reasons the Lionsaurus ultimately does not get to munch on our protagonists. Or that the Lionsaurus abandoning a freshly-killed Antelopephant in order to chase our much smaller human protagonists is silly because it had a perfectly good meal right there - and no, after eating half its body weight in meat, it's probably NOT still hungry for a couple spindly humans.

Because even though there is no such thing as a Lionsaurus and it is a creature of pure fantasy, if we are expected to believe it is a dominant predator of the region, we expect it to behave in a fashion suitable for a predatory animal. Otherwise it damages suspension of disbelief. The hard part of suspending disbelief for the Lionsaurus is NOT that nature could somehow have produced a Lionsaurus, but that it didn't die out a long time ago from its own goddamn stupidity.

edited 19th Jan '15 7:28:52 AM by TobiasDrake

Well I'm sorry, but those protagonists unknowingly picked up the Kill Me Now stone thinking it was a pretty paperweight. and now all the predators have glowing red eyes and the Terminator's persistence.

It's consistency, plain and simple. The ability to work out a logic and stick to it, and to be able to explain just why something doesn't seem to fit in just right.

I didn't realize there was a trope, "Friends" Rent Control to describe part of my complaint.

It's worse in serial action-dramas. I see a lot of They Fight Crime! stories about guys with no noticeable source of income helping the helpless and doing good deeds pro-bono because they're good guys with good hearts and how the f*ck do you afford to make a living, run an office, and pay employees when you're fighting crime pro-bono?

At least when Angel did it, this issue actually came up and Cordelia made him start invoicing folks. Most just Hand Wave it if they don't ignore the financial logistics entirely, creating an unpleasant Broken Aesop: only assholes charge desperate people for services rendered! Pull the money out of your ass instead!

Or alternately, "True heroes are independently wealthy."

edited 19th Jan '15 8:08:31 AM by TobiasDrake

Like Batman?

Batman actually is wealthy. His source of income isn't mysterious, just endless.

Anyway, what Tobias said. A universe lays out some ground rules. Sometimes those ground rules are "This is the real world," sometimes they're "Werewolves and vampires, but otherwise it's mostly real," or sometimes they're just the MST3K Mantra. Whatever the story offers, that's what it has to stick by. Sometimes that groundwork really is, "Fuck it, whatever," but usually it isn't, to really get the audience invested.

There are also some ground rules that are more implied or assumed than established outright. In Pulp Fiction and most Grand Theft Auto games, for example, police presence aren't much of a thing; it's meant to be taken on faith that the protagonists will always be able to stay ahead of the law, and that conflict will come from elsewhere.

Complaining about the Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy trope kind of annoys me for similar reasons; if protagonists get seriously handicapped or killed anywhere other than the end of a story, they're not really protagonists.

While true, there is still an art to masking the Plot Armor. Protagonists who walk unharmed through impossible onslaughts, shimmering Plot Armor on full display for audience to see, break the tension and make the story less engaging as a result.

Eh, I can attribute Legolas's stunts to elven speed and strength. Similarly with the dwarves surviving falls in the other movies. Different anatomy plus race perks.

When they did the truck flip in The Dark Knight, it was both awesome and somewhat plausible-looking. When they flipped a bus in the Terminator: Genisys trailer, I immediately called bullshit on it, because (unless the footage was cut weirdly or whatever) there's no way it would have flown into the air and flipped in those circumstances.

I feel that if you're going to defy physics in a movie that's set in 'our' world (and it's still a movie, so by all means), do it in a way that at least looks like it could plausibly happen.

The problem with Legolas is less if his abilities are realistic or not, it is more that he is a little bit too perfect overall.