Warp wrote:
>   Every time a sci-fi movie comes out, somebody will complain and point
> out how ludicrous some detail about it is, 

Well, actually, thinking on this, I think part of it is that sci-fi has a 
relatively unique place in art.

For example, if there's some ludicrous event in a romantic comedy, like the 
same couple running into each other in the airport every time they go on a 
trip, that's just "part of the story."  Sure, it's ludicrously unlikely, but 
that's part of the story.  In a magic story, if the sorcerer can't get five 
fireballs off in a row and there's no explanation for why he's limited to 
four, people just accept that.  But if someone has a blaster and it only 
shoots four times and then needs to be dipped in water, people will say 
"that's stupid - why would anyone build a gun that only fires four times?"

People make fun of westerns where the cowboys fire dozens of times from one 
revolver without reloading, but it doesn't really spoil the movie, because 
the focus of a western isn't the wonders of the gunplay per se. (At least, 
not usually.)

But I think in a SF movie, people are going to examine every tiny aspect of 
the science and find something that they'd let pass in any other genre. 
Nobody complains that Clouseau outrageous accent, so strong that *nobody* he 
lives near can understand him, wouldn't disappear and normalize in a few 
weeks. But everybody complains when aliens speak english, and then complain 
more when they have an accent (or don't use contractions, or don't 
understand slang, or whatever).

Another place this nit-picking happens is mysteries, especially murder 
mysteries. You wouldn't accept a murder  mystery where the murderer set up 
some long convoluted rube goldberg series of events to kill someone, unless 
the point of the mystery is how awesomely intelligent the murderer is.

The whole point of Ocean's Eleven (at least, the new version) was how 
awesome everyone was to be able to pull off something like that, not that it 
was a normal and expected heist. So the fact that the victims responded in 
exactly the predicted way needed to make it all come together doesn't ruin 
the film.

You don't give the potential murderer an alibi, but then in the last chapter 
point out how, while he was at the restaurant with friends all evening, he 
was actually in the restroom at the restaurant for over an hour and nobody 
noticed. (Unless it's a French murder mystery, I guess.)


Most genres people will go with the flow for the sake of the story. Nobody 
really cares if a slapstick comedy's participants would really be seriously 
injured by falling off a roof. Nobody cares if a ghost in a ghost movie can 
sometimes move things and sometimes can't.

A handful of genres (like, comic book remakes) will expect the movie to 
match the book closely, because that's how the fans are. (Cue complaints of 
movie-Spiderman not needing technological web shooters.)

Another handful of genres (SF, mystery, to name the two I can think of 
offhand) tell stories where the accuracy and believability of every detail 
is important to the enjoyment of the story itself. It's a matter of "how 
clever was the author" and not just "tell me an entertaining story."

So maybe that's what I'm actually interested in in my more intellectual 
reading: something clever and detailed, beyond just the flow of the story. 
Not necessarily technology, but something that falls apart if the author has 
to ham-hand the story to make it turn out.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
    Eiffel - The language that lets you specify exactly
    that the code does what you think it does, even if
    it doesn't do what you wanted.

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