As I've noted before, I have no interest in seeing King Kong. One of the reasons was that I was afraid that it would be just like this:

Take the battle with the T-Rexes. (Three!) Kong saves whatsername from a T-Rex, who’s just abandoned a nice big freshly-killed fellow-saur to run after what would, in Rex dining terms, be a breadstick. He chases her down through the forest, which she nimbly negotiates, but just as he’s about to eat her – he pauses, of course, to roar, one of those little ticks that evolution finely honed in their predatory instincts – Kong comes flying from the County of God-Knows-Where and picks her up, violently whipping her around, snapping her neck and pureeing several internal organs . . . no, strike that, she’s okay. So he battles the T-Rex, and then another one shows up, and everyone’s Kong Fu Fighting, his moves are fast as lightning, et cetera, until ANOTHER T-Rex shows up.

Kong pretty much dusts the guys, even though he takes a couple of bites on the arm – he shakes it off! He’s okay, folks! T-Rex teeth, which are capable of cutting through a fresh battleship, have no power over monkey skin. Then he pushes them down a slope and they go falling off a cliff, but he falls too, with Faye Rae screaming her head off, but vines cushion the blow. Yes, vines! Special lost-world vines capable of holding twenty tons of ape. Did I say 20? Make that 60, because two T-Rexes are also caught in the vines, and then there’s another fight for, oh, sixteen minutes or so. Eventually everyone falls to the ground and there’s another 48 minute battle, and at the end that’s when the blonde realizes that Kong has saved her, and she loves him.

As Lileks notes, there's only so much ability to suspend disbelief. I had the same problem with the thermodynamics of Godzilla, and its apparently ability to tear chunks of concrete off the sides of skyscrapers as it ran through the streets of New York, with no apparent damage to its meaty haunches and shoulders. And then there was Spiderman, in which we're supposed to believe that not only does Spidey have superhuman strength (which is OK, because he was, you know, bit by a radioactive spider), but so do Mary Jane and Aunt May, as they're whipped around on cables.

I have to say that this kind of thing bothered me about Serenity as well, though I still enjoyed the movie.

They're going to this planet in the middle of Reaverland, which turns out to be a floating junkyard of ghouls, ships so close that you can barely squeeze through them, right? This completely ignores the issue that space is, as the late Douglas Adams noted, big. Really big. So why didn't they just go around? Or was it like this in a huge, continuous sphere all around the planet? Where did they come up with enough derelict ships and Reavers to do that? And how did they stay there when they'd be in continuously intersecting orbits? Or was the part that wasn't chockfullareavers mined somehow?

Joss doesn't explain, and it makes no sense. Instead of being frightened by the scene, on the edge of my seat in suspense about whether or not they'll be spotted and skinned alive, I'm sitting there wondering why they're doing this.

As Lileks says, at least be consistent, and if there's something that seems incongruous, at least come up with an explanation for it. It's not that hard.

For many people in hollywood, it might be that hard. They probably have no background in physics, not to mention space travel, whatsoever. Their specialty is theater, myth, and narratives.

Of course, they could try looking up someone with a background in physics, if they're doing a space travel movie for example.

It's not too hard. As you say, they could hire someone to review it. For the most part, they just don't care.

For that part, I assumed that they went through the "front door" on the assumption that trying to approach the planet from any other direction would look suspicious and have them attacked before they hit atmo.

Basically, they couldn't sneak in, so they had to bluff in.

For that part, I assumed that they went through the "front door" on the assumption that trying to approach the planet from any other direction would look suspicious and have them attacked before they hit atmo.

Not just the "front door", but right past enemy ships. But yeah, you've got the right idea: if you don't go right past any of their ships, then one of their ships is going to want to burn fuel to come fly past you, and it's probably harder to sneak past someone who just made a deliberate maneuver to make sure nobody was sneaking past.

Oddly enough, stuff like King Kong and Lord of the Rings never bothers me, since I consider it fantasy and check scientific knowledge and reality at the door.

Films like "The Core", and "Armageddon", and TV shows like "Battlestar Galactica" unfortunately are held to a higher standard (by me), since they purport to be 'Science Fiction' and I hope to see a little science, or at least expect them not to throw basic physics or realism out the door. It's exceeding hard for me to watch those without frequently rolling my eyes.

I definitely agree that in Hollywood, drama comes first, and realism is barely on the list.

-S

The thing that always bothered me about SpiderMan is the implausibility of his behaviour. If I got super powers I'd go home and shut the hell up about it. I might help a person here or there, just the way I do now with my other skills.

I would probably not put on a skintight set of pajamas and go fight crime.

It's really galling to see superheroes "catch" falling people, like Superman flying up to catch a falling Lois Lane--that's worse than getting smashed by the pavement.

Serenity is trying to graft 18th century sailing tactics onto a 26th century technology. I agree that it's not hard for a 3-D thinker to come up with plot points that are not too implausible. Mined would be good. Overhaul and board (or shoot down) all blockade runners who are not following protocol would be good.

It's really galling to see superheroes "catch" falling people, like Superman flying up to catch a falling Lois Lane--that's worse than getting smashed by the pavement.

At least in Spiderman, they do allow plenty of distance to decelerate folks when he catches them, using the web as a bungee cord.

Silly rabbits! Artists don't follow physics because you get a bigger emotional response when they don't, when you turn up the volume to "11" so to speak. It's like a painter finding a new, more vibrant yellow.

If it breaks some of the audience's willing suspension of believe, then tough. There aren't many of those pre-postmodern scientist and engineering types to worry about and they're not artistically inclined anyway. The rest of the audience is ignorant enough not to notice and foolish enough not to care. Bottom line: sc*ew
reality, go for the glitz.

Strangely enough, the same "enhanced reality" effect goes for political messages as well. Funny how that works out.

Ironic for me that Jim focuses in on the Kong/T-Rex battle. I was interested in seeing the King Kong remake purely for nostalgic reasons (which is odd because I didn't see the original King Kong, and I did see some of the original Godzilla but never the newer movies). I decided not to see the movie when the trailer showed the T-Rex.

I read enough King Kong stories to get the idea that in some mystic jungle, the "king of the jungle" was an Ape that grew to epic proportions. However, regardless of physics, I have to suspend reality quite a bit to believe that this jungle was able to have an Ape grow to 20 tons and still support dinosaurs for millions of years.

When I saw T-Rex, I know longer imagined the fantasy story, but rather the story among the movie producers:
Producer1: "We need some plot that gets the girl to fall in love with Kong"
Producer2: "How about we have him save her from a lion?"
Screenwriter: "I could do that"
Director: "How boring. A 20 ton Ape against a 500 lbs lion... the battle would be over in 10 seconds..."
Producer1: "Yeah, that won't work... 10 seconds of fright won't get her to fall in love with him."
Producer2: "How about a raptor, like Jurassic Park?"
Director: "Too Spielberg technical, but I like the idea... make it a T-Rex... no, make it 3 of them"
Screenwriter: "Huh?"

BTW, I don't think it should be difficult for Hollywood to find people to help with the physics. After all, most of the stunts are done by stuntmen who have no desire to commit suicide. Those guys know physics pretty well and could help out.

In the original King Kong the ape does fight with a single T-Rex, and it is an amazing bit of stop motion animation. I haven't seen the new one, because while I respect Peter Jackson, I don't see how you can stretch the story out to nearly 3 hours (without too many or overly long action sequences), and this whole "love story" angle annoys me. In the original, while she may have pitied Kong in the end, she was always fearful of him. Kong certainly fell in love with the girl, but she did not fall in love with him, IMO part of the tragedy. I'll likely end up renting it, just to satisfy my curiosity.

What's funny is that just the other night I saw what I believe to be the worst movie ever made - "The day after tommorrow". It was like watching a trainwreck of bad physics, bad game theory, bad everything (although the acting itself wasn't too bad).

When the Serenity went through that bunch of clustered ships, wasn't the Serenity be towed or tractor-beamed or something? That's how I remember it, anyway. I'll ask my geeky teen to watch for that next time he rewatches it.

I actually enjoy and seek out bad SF movies, especially old ones, but I think it is really hard to beat "The Core" for bad physics and worse, inconsistency within their own rules. At least they had enough humor to call the hull material "Unobtainium". On second thought, maybe the humor was unintentional.

And at the end of "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," Harry obviously should have used Priori Incantatem on Voldemort, not Expelliarmus. This has been bothering me for weeks.

And at the end of "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," Harry obviously should have used Priori Incantatem on Voldemort, not Expelliarmus.

Why?

It's obvious, you are over-educated.

You need to return to public skool.

And at the end of "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," Harry obviously should have used Priori Incantatem on Voldemort, not Expelliarmus. This has been bothering me for weeks.

Except that isn't a castable spell--it's the result of two wands with identical cores casting the same spell (any spell) on each other's holder at the same time. Harry, of course, had never heard of it.

wasn't the Serenity be towed or tractor-beamed or something

No, it was scanned. I still feel that it was impossible to sneak past a fleet of ships crewed by maniacs with unknown disposition and resources, and bluffing through the front door was the only reasonable option.

Me personally, I always liked how in all the Star Wars movies someone always stood right behind the exhaust from the engines of a spacecraft as they were watching someone take off into space. Like, in Episode III when Yoda gets into his little egg spaceship and says goodbye to Chewbacca and takes off. Chewbacca is literally standing 3 feet away while he watches Yoda fly off and the soft glow of the engine exhaust reflects off his face. Now I'd laughed my ass off if Chewbacca was instantly immolated by the rocket blast off and started flailing his arms, running in circles, and screaming as his body haired burned away.

I just couldn't watch this movie. Enough was enough. I looked at my wife and said : " There is way too much "NO" in this."
Headed to the garage and did things.

I just want to know how a bunch of flesh eating zombies that growel and bang into doors and screens are supposed to be able to pilot and maintain space ships...only thing that really bugged me about Serenity...

The thing that gets me about Spider MAn is he can supposedly lift ten tons.

I don't care how strong your muscles are, unless you have a spine made of tool steel, forget it.

Since the Reavers began as humans, they must have maintained their human intelligence and learning after their "mutation."

That's more believable than the Serentiy crew repairing the ship on their own after the heavy battering it took when it crash-landed near the end of the film.

Why not? It's been established in the series that Firefly ships are made out of junk, the crew has the tools, and there was lots of junk around courtesy of the ex Reavers. Actually I remember a line about the Alliance heavy helping Serenity out as partial payback.