by zebra2

So I should start with a disclaimer that I'm not trying to dog anyone for critically analyzing fiction. Analysis is it's own form of enjoyment and I like it in places such as #shouldiwatchthis, reviews, literary analysis, or whatnot. Analysis is valuable and has it's place, but just not during the experience. If anything, I'd like to make a rant-ish argument for correcting a tendency I see in some people.

One day I overheard a conversation where Some Guy says:

"so did you see it? It wasn't a very good movie because, like, no one recovers from a broken back that quickly."

Ugh. Why sabotage your own enjoyment like that? Are you really going to tell me that, of all reasons, the movie wasn't good because you didn't find a wound recovery convincing?

At the beginning of Fargo, the Coen brothers put "based on a true story". If Fargo is based on a true story then Starbursts are an organic fruit product. But they said it was anyway. So why say it? When you put that up front, at least Some Guy throw his hands up and say "no one could walk away with a jaw injury that bad". When you just accept it, you experience the movie the way it was meant to be experienced. Reality is stranger than fiction, after all, so why should anyone have to dismiss fiction at the slightest improbability?

I didn't feel like throwing the remote at the TV when Starbuck held a gun sideways in Battlestar Galactica--hell, I didn't even notice until people complained about it later. One of the things from which I extract enjoyment from fiction is immersion, so I suppose I don't find myself trying to escape that deliberately. And I'd hate to be next to that guy who blurts out "oh come on" and ruins the mood for me.

Sure, sometimes it can be made hard to suspend your disbelief at which some point it becomes the fault of the fiction; but that point isn't so easy to reach if you just give it a chance. Admittedly, it did get kinda hard to ignore the central character being conveniently snatched from danger when I read Metro 2033, and the book did catch criticism for those plot conveniences (which is a bit ironic considering that in the first version by the author, the main character catches a stray bullet part-way through his journey and dies meaninglessly). Nonetheless it didn't stop me from enjoying the book.

So at the beginning of The Dark Knight Rises they should have said "based off a true story". Someone out there would have believed it; and they would have enjoyed the movie more for it.