Sometimes I feel the need to justify why I talk about certain topics. Well, today is another day. You may have noticed that I've spoken frequently about a lot of television and movies, but not so much about the average novel. That's because I'm addressing popular, mass consumed media. People, I'm noticing, don't have much time for books anymore. This is depressing, mainly because one day I hope to publish a novel of my own, but I also completely understand why. After becoming a parent I found myself with precious little time to read anything that didn't have hard-cardboard pages or wasn't a book made entirely out of fabric. I sincerely don't think anyone wants me giving a critique on "Hop on Pop" any time soon. If you do, you may want to re-evaluate your priorities.
As it is, the times when I do have an opportunity to read, well, anything, is when I am out of town for a work trip, which admittedly isn't that often. So, I watch a lot more than I read, and I've watched a lot. A lot of television, a lot of web reviews, a lot of short comedy videos and a lot of major studio movies.
In doing so, I've also nitpicked a lot of little issues. I've watched procedural cop shows like "Blue Bloods", "CSI", and "Castle". Working in law enforcement I've openly balked at how little procedure is followed in procedural cop shows. Either they've gotten so out of the realm of possibility with their forensic science that it might as well be science fiction, or their procedures are so poorly adhered to that they should have a conviction rate of approximately 0%. These issues, however, can fall under the category "creative license", or as I've come to understand it "rushed research".
Three factors plague the cop show. 1) Studio expectations: The studio needs the production company to bang out a product in as short as time possible. That said, writers can't spend a lot of their time looking up laws and studying criminal justice text books to get every aspect right. "Law and Order" has had to take short cuts and they are considered the high mark of the procedural show. "CSI" in it's various incarnations has to talk about forensic science, but the writers aren't forensic scientists themselves. They are paid writers and as such have to focus on telling a good story without bogging the audience down in the science. Which leads to the next problem:
2) Assumed education level of the audience: The writers can't know if the person watching their show at home has an associates in criminal law, heck most people working the rank and file of civilian jobs in law enforcement don't have an associates in criminal law. They need to write to the lowest common denominator, and so throw in some techno jargon, flash some stuff over a computer screen, call it science and move on with their story. The science is a tool within the story, but not the story itself. They can't let the science or the procedure out shine the story and tone of the work. This brings us to:
3) The tone of the piece: I don't think anyone looking is looking to "Castle" for hard hitting crime drama, that's not the tone of the show. The show is lighter, happier, and more hopeful than say "Law and Order". Actions don't necessarily have consequences that carry over into the next episode. Much like Kenny from the early days of "South Park", next episode we will be back to status quo. In that regards, the show feels more like a cartoon than anything else. The line "We'll send it to tech for clean up..." sounds a lot more fun than "That's the best resolution we can get because of the pixel ratio and the software that powers the camera itself."
Having reality interrupt your escapist fiction is jarring, especially if it doesn't fit in the tone of the piece. You watch the news or documentaries for reality, everything else is to escape from that reality, with varying levels of departure.
Its no secret, I love Superman. My sister professes that I've loved the character since before I was born, which is entirely possible I guess. Some years ago, around the time "Superman Returns" came around, the History Channel presented a piece called "The Science of Superman". I watched it, and I kept coming back around to one simple response to every complaint they had about Superman's impossible powers..."Its not suppose to be real. Its a comic book." They were trying to invade Superman's world with reality, and there's really no place for it. It doesn't fit, and no amount of hammering will make it fit.
However, as I said earlier, there are various levels of departure from reality. A good measuring stick for this would be the Batman film franchise. In Tim Burton's "Batman" from 1989, it clearly took place in it's own world, like it was lifted from the pages of a 1940's comic book. Stepping into that world, you could believe everything they told you, because nothing stood out as weird. As the movies progressed, the world got weirder and weirder, and regardless of how you actually felt about the movies themselves, you can honestly say that each Batman belonged in that world. Then you move to Christopher Nolan's Batman.
Nolan and his team sought to ground Batman in something resembling reality. The world was gritty, but not overly so. There was both hope and hopelessness and our hero stumbled and fell along his journey as we all do. Yet nothing about Batman himself stood out in "Batman Begins". He fit into his reality, and we weren't prone to question it since that reality felt a lot like our own. "The Dark Knight" came around and, again, it felt close enough to our world that we didn't waste any part of the movie questioning it. But "The Dark Knight Rises" had the dubious task of upping the ante and bringing the overall story full circle. The problem is that reality doesn't up the ante, so much as it just pushes on and we react accordingly. The world of Nolan's Batman felt so close to ours that our suspension of disbelief wasn't really being used, so when Batman travels halfway around the world into a no-mans land without any conceivable means of conveyance, and accomplished this journey in what seems like a day, we are suddenly jarred. Then he seemingly survives a nuclear blast. Suddenly we have to suspend a lot of disbelief, the distance between our world and the fantasy world has grown to huge lengths with no time to adjust.
That's like having a transformer show up in a Tyler Perry movie. It has no place and our brains aren't ready for it.
The only thing I can think of that Nolan and his team could have used as a bench mark to justify this is a line from an interview with Stephen Speilberg when he was talking about "Jaws". Spoiler alert if you haven't seen this classic. At the climax of the film, the main character shoots an air tank lodged in the shark's mouth and it explodes half the shark. Speilberg knew this wasn't accurate, and his team knew it. When they talked to him about it he addressed the suspension of disbelief as such "If I've had them for this long, at this point in the movie, they'll believe anything I tell them."
This, isn't wrong. But if that was the bench mark, then Nolan and company forgot that prior to the shark blowing up, we were treated to other physical improbabilities, like a giant great white shark, said shark being strong enough to drag barrels below the surface, its ability to pull a very large boat, and destroy a bigger boat with it's shear bodily force. Physics took a back seat to story and that's fine, because it all fit together. We didn't have to suddenly suspend our disbelief for the air tank because it was already suspended for the rest of the movie.
The Nolan-Batman films, however threw us super-speed Batman who can walk on water while sauntering away from a nuclear explosion without giving us anything to build on. Yeah, its a billionaire who dresses as a bat, but they worked so hard to make it make sense. They put it all in context and then threw it out the window.
Now, when I say I don't read a lot, it doesn't mean "I don't read." I do. I'm currently reading a book by my best friend, "Under the Undead Moon" by William Dilbeck. As you may have guessed, I can be very critical, especially when I believe people could do better. That said, there is some police procedure that my friend gets wrong, but I honestly let it slide, because its a supernatural horror story. I can't really nit pick that someone's Miranda warning wasn't read when they were fighting zombies a few pages earlier. Actually I could, but I won't because it doesn't violate the tone of the book. It wouldn't be fair because when you put it into context, its not wrong.
We can be hyper critical, but if there has been one thing I have learned from my kids, its that you will never enjoy a story if you spend all your time standing outside it picking at it.
At the same time, a suspension of disbelief, or as I said in "Batman Begins" a lack there of, can sometimes hinder further story ideas.
Some time ago, I was discussing with a college about the idea of a "Justice League" story, ala Marvel "The Avengers" film franchise, where they could tie it into the Christopher Nolan Batman films. Looking at it now, I can say it would not have worked. You could not have connected "Superman Returns" to "Batman Begins" to "Green Lantern", because all three worlds felt so different in the films. Regardless of what you say about Marvel's franchise, they balance out comic book silly with epic film making. "Superman Returns" could have connected to "Green Lantern", but they could not link up with the final installment of the Batman trilogy because of one character, Bane.
Bane, in the comics, is a super villain who takes a super steroid called "Venom" to grow massive and become super strong. In the film "The Dark Knight Rises", he's a man in exceptional shape who's body is so wracked with injuries he needs a mask constantly pumping anesthetic into his system to stave off crippling agony. His presence in the franchise serves as a blockade of disbelief. If you have a universe where Superman and Green Lantern exist, then why can't Bane use his venom drug?
Now, for me at least, all of these movies work on their own. I can enjoy "Superman Returns" and "The Dark Knight Rises" equally, but that's because their set up requires a unique suspension of disbelief, I don't have to ask a bunch of questions to make it make sense. Put them together, and you open a lot of plot holes. The reason you spot plot holes after repeated viewings sis because you are initially immersed in that world. Its not until your second or third time in that "pool" that you start to notice it.
That's why I'm actually grateful for the new stories coming out with "Man of Steel" and "Batman v. Superman" (though the latter sounds like a court case) leading into their Justice League story...they are establishing a new world where possibilities are open for story telling. Will I nit pick? Probably, but at least I will do it later rather than during the films.
Remember, when it comes to your escapist fiction: Go big, or go home.
Later.
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