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The Minority Report posts remind me of discussions with friends picking apart a movie for its logical flaws.Take Predator for example. People like to point out that Arnold cannot "outrun" a nuclear explosion, which he does at the end when the Predator activates a self-detonating bomb.
And they point out that laser guns would not cause bleeding -- a laser would cauterize the cut upon impact. Spaceships make no sound in space. You can't trace a cell phone call the way they do in the movies. Romans don't wear those types of helmets into war, only for ceremonies. Doctor friends cannot watch a resucitation scene without commenting on the "fake-looking" CPR. Lawyer friends cannot watch a trial scene without picking apart the cross-examination. And so it goes, these tiny details making the entire movie something "I just cannot believe" (eyes rolling).
At this point, I say (on Predator), "Hold up! This movie is about an ALIEN being that visits earth to hunt down humans for sport. This is an ALIEN with a devise that makes him INVISIBLE. Hell, if you buy the premise of the movie, you can surely allow Arnold to run away from the explosion." I say the same when we watch something involving time travel, psychic future-predicting beings, you name it.
My point is, why are we so picky about small "illogical" points of any movie when the whole movie is based on ideas that are just plain UNBELIEVABLE!! Why do the big logic holes escape criticism?
The best resonse I've heard is, "Hey, I only criticize that stuff that I can understand. The stuff that I can objectively say is 'wrong'." They are basically saying, "Okay, I accept that Predator beings do exist. But that watch Arnold wears is definitely not standard-issue Army gear. I therefore CANNOT believe the movie."
Suspension of disbelief is one thing and there's nothing wrong with kiddies films like Predator if you have trouble escaping adolescence and you haven't quite worked out why you like seing Arnie's body so much.When a "serious" film like Minority Report has pretensions to being a "serious" film which adults can enjoy, then there is no reason to expect you have to suspend logic as well as disbelief.
As usual, a gunshot resolves the film, and they all lived happily ever after.
while I don't quite consider Predator a kiddie film (i.e., I prefer to think of action films like Predator as popcorn movies), you are dead-on about Minority Report being promoted as a more serious "think" film. Think films are designed to be analyzed and dissected for content and that's why the Director has to be much more meticulous about continuity, accuracy of science, feasability of the premise, believability of characters, and logic of the actions undertaken. IMHO, the suspension of disbelief is PARAMOUNT ...okay, in this case, Dreamworks! :o)AuPh
Logical holes may make a story less entertaining to watch, but adding a serious message doesn't mean that the movie should be held to a more rigorous standard than a popcorn film. That is, you wouldn't dissect the Minority Report storyboard in a serious discussion about whether it's good public policy to prevent crime before it happens.I think that for a film like Minority Report, the message is serious, but the story is a fairy tale through which we draw that message. Popular adult entertainment is still fairy tales. It's just a launching pad for our thinking about the issues, and the storyteller can bend the rules to get to that goal. Else you'd just go to an academic lecture instead.
Recently A Beautiful Mind has been criticized for its historical inaccuracies, but learning the changes and omissions does not make it a lesser film.
On Law and Order the defendant takes the witness stand in every episode. This is apparently very, very rare in real-life trials. Does knowing this make the show worse for you the next time you watch? Yet that unrealistic plot point (the "gunshot" as you call it) is required to complete the confrontation in the story, to complete the moral point of the story.
What differentiates a good storyteller from a bad one may be the way they can slip these things by you in telling the fairy tale. A film like Dancer in the Dark, for example, bends the rules of logic as far as possible without becoming comedy, yet the director manages to make you feel strongly for the characters in the process.
... it doesn't alter the fact that suspension of disbelief requires an active diligence on the part of the Director to make his story "bulletproof." The best crafted movies, regardless of philosophical content, respect the audiences intelligence by not pandering to emotions to cover weak plot points. This is why I feel that Spielberg is all too frequently a sloppy Director; that doesn't mean that I don't love many of his films, but there is a frustrating tendency on his part to rely on gut level suspense to carry the day in most of the films he directs.BTW, don't get me started on Ron Howard; his willingness to play it safe compromises his artistry. A Beautiful Mind is an excellent film that effectively captures for the average viewer what it must be like to suffer with severe pschizophrenia, but it could've been so much better and so much RICHER with a little less political correctness and a lot more historical/biographical accuracy. Unfortunately, Ron Howard isn't a very visionary Director, he has always been politely mainstream and will apparently always be a solely commercially motivated filmmaker. The problem with treating bigraphical material as fodder for political correctness is that it can become an exercise in revisionism that's no better than propaganda.
AuPh
www.quantonics.com - AH
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