TMD's Creatively Named Blog

The funny thing I find about suspension of disbelief is that the bigger lies are often easier to shallow. Take two examples from your rant essay for instance; Harry Potter and Iron Man 2. In Harry Potter you have a secret society of wizards, magic is everywhere, and we don't know it. It's completely crazy, but we accept it because it's a story, we're willing to suspend disbelief.

 

Then take Iron Man 2's cut scene of the jet flying into the upper atmosphere. The science behind that isn't quite right (to explain briefly, 'zero gravity' in space is infact not zero gravity but rather falling so fast that you outrace the curvature of the earth), but speaking from a technological point of view it is quite possible for that to happen. Admittedly, space planes aren't quite in style yet, and the design of the Stark Jet is an unlikely one for upper atmosphere travel, but ignoring the schematics it could work. Even as we speak private space companies are working on designs that could allow us to fly into space (or the upper atmosphere; space and the upper atmosphere kinda blend together. Long science-y explanation can be wiki'd) within the next five years.

 

Now, what's the difference between a scene that, while admittedly gets some details wrong but can be explained away with some tweaking, and a plot that involves wizards? Wizards are fanastic and not of this world; the Stark Jet could be something we might have, to some degree, in the next five years. As you already stated, the world of Iron Man has many advanced technologies; free clean energy produced from a generator the size of a small dinner plate capable of powering a suit of powered armor. Or maybe the intelligent AI, capable of sorting through vast amounts of information quickly and still making a few quips while doing so. These things are impressive, quite possible inventions of the future, and we accept them.

 

I suppose I just defeated my own point and raised a new one; why some big lies and some small lies? Wizards and sentient AI are big and small respective, yet a space plane, a small lie, or perhaps... hmm, I can't think of many big lies that fell flat in fiction. It'll come to me in an hour.

 

So I ask, why does the rule of fun work sometimes and not others? Why is wizards and flying powered armor acceptable, but a plane with some questionable science is not?

I believe the quote goes something along the lines of: "You can ask an audience to believe the impossible, but not the improbable."

 

But to the rule of fun: you've got me. I think when the science gets just too hard we start to lose the thread. The tone of the story also comes into play (Hot Rod is fun enough that we accept Rod surviving an overly long fall down a mountainside, but it wouldn't fly in Zombieland).

 

Think of the Helicarrier in The Avengers. We wouldn't believe it if it weren't for the giant rotors, yeah? If it was just those jets on the aft we'd call bull. With the rotors, impossible as it is, our response is "Oh yeah, that makes enough sense, I guess".

And in Superman you could believe that a man could fly. You missed the mot important one.

 

Well, I suppose that you could call the basic pitch of this "suspension of disbelief helped by establishing things important to the high concept pitch early on".

 

Not mutch to add here, since explaining the concept is pretty simple and you certainly used a lot of examples (although in the future I hope you use some older films instead of just the current crazes, but I accept where your interests lie).

 

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