And the willing suspension bridge of disbelief came crashing down....

[Xanadu84]

snip
Also, when something is on the lens, like a splatter of blood or a hunk of mud, my brain says, "Oh yes, that is right. There is a camera there, because this is all filmed on a stage/designed on a computer, and I am in a fictitious fantasy world, where my perspective if that of a passive observer" It is the very definition of breaking suspension of disbelief. Ill give tongue-in-cheek flicks like Tarentino a pass because weird embellishments fit, and video games that take place from a first person perspective that use it to signify the characters perspective at least have a logical reason, but for most other situations, I interpret gunk on a lens as attempt to be artsy by purposefully making an amateurish mistake in failing to keep the damn lens clean.

agree with you on the first one but what if the in FPS the character is wearing goggles/sunglass/or glass?

Most games get a pass. FPS, for example, and even TPS. That on the lens effect can make logical sense within the world, and more importantly, communicates meaningful information in a logical way. If you need to communicate the concept of distraction and impeded vision, something on the lens succeeds at that nicely, especially when communication is already being done in abstract ways like a HUD. Its the best way to interpret certain game states. The fact that it looks like something on an actual lens is a bit jarring, but the underlying mechanic is sound. But in a movie, where you don't want to draw attention to the fact that there is an invisible point of perspective behind a piece of glass, gunk on the lens communicates no meaningful information. You want the enviornment itself to communicate the necessary data, not the filming equipment that's not actually there. Ill grant some exceptions. Documentaries. Films where distinctive gimmicks and breaking the fourth wall works. Cloverfield, Paranormal Activity, and other movies where a Camera IS a part of the movie world. And maybe shots meant to be from the first perspective that are highly stylized enough that gunk on a lens ceases to be an unusual embellishment. But most of the time, it seems like a cheap gimmick.

 

[Nergy]

It does happen a lot, the most recent or prominent one was a comedian during his stand-up show made a lengthy joke about how Richard Dawkins was making a book debunking fairy tales. Dawkins of course, wasn't. The comedian was either told crap or just made it up.

It completely through me for the rest of the show.

 

[curlycrouton]

I have an entire series of articles based around my unwillingness to suspend my belief. Look up Probing The Inaccuracies in the search bar for more details.

Every time I see somebody die of strangulation within about 5 seconds in any film/book/game. It takes about 20 minutes of continuous airway blockage to cause somebody to die of strangulation. 10 minutes or so would cause brain damage. But the strangling "deaths" in films would, in reality, just be a momentary loss of consciousness.

What would be the case if the strangulation occurred because of blockage of the carotid arteries? I imagine that death would occur more quickly using a blood choke than using an air choke.

Vertebral arteries still transport oxygen to the brain, so although blocking of the carotid arteries would impede blood flow and therefore oxygen supply, it wouldn't cut it off completely. It's still a slow death, I believe.

 

[curlycrouton]

It does happen a lot, the most recent or prominent one was a comedian during his stand-up show made a lengthy joke about how Richard Dawkins was making a book debunking fairy tales. Dawkins of course, wasn't. The comedian was either told crap or just made it up.

It completely through me for the rest of the show.

That sounds to me as though he was utilising irony.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

I'll just leave this here and say it relates to the movie 2012 and let you watch for yourself.

What is this guys name. Please so funny.

Dara o'Briain.

 

[TheVioletBandit]

The Neverending story...once I read the book, the movies were forever ruined for me.

Why? I've seen the movies (well the first 2 anyway) and read the book and it didn't ruin them for me.

I read the book and loved it up until Bastian's half of the book. I wish a book had been written where Atreyu was the main character throughout.

You do know that the book came before the movie, right? Personally I found the book had a much deeper message than the movie(s).

Yeah, I know the book came out first, and overall I liked the book and the message I just thought Bastian was kind of a jerk. Atreyu on the other hand I really identified with and would have liked to read more about.

Yeah maybe, but he came out of it a better person though.

How funny would it have been if he had came out a worse person forcing Atreyu to kill him and intern kill himself because he's a figment of Bastian's imagination?

Not very funny at all really, in fact that would suck.

As a dark satirical spoof of the original book I think it could be funny, but maybe I have a weird sense of humor.

Maybe. I just don't like making things dark and gritty that weren't originally intended to be so.

I understand, there are somethings I would like to remain untouched by the dark and gritty too. Like the Super Mario Brothers games for example. I like to retreat into the colourful fun filled world that the games present and wouldn't want it to get dark and gritty.

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

When I started playing Assassin's Creed 2, I wondered why the hell Renaissance-era Florentine aristocracy knew free-running. I barely thought about the whole Animus thingy the first time around and how, if it's merely observing Ezio's memories, can Lucy ask him to take a closer look at things? Either Ezio is being mind controlled from the future or Ezio wasn't questioning taking random instructions from a voice inside his head.

 

[Dags90]

Vertebral arteries still transport oxygen to the brain, so although blocking of the carotid arteries would impede blood flow and therefore oxygen supply, it wouldn't cut it off completely. It's still a slow death, I believe.

With enough force, you can collapse the arteries. The person will lose consciousness within seconds, and then die, even after the choke hold is released. It's still pretty quick, there are all sorts of accidental deaths from improper blood chokes.

Recently on Fringe some woman said that an injection of restriction enzymes would cause "massive hemorrhage", but that's not how they work. It's nice that they name dropped restriction enzymes, but it's mostly an in vitro tool.

There have been others, but I just saw the episode yesterday and went "that's not how those work".

 

[Nergy]

It does happen a lot, the most recent or prominent one was a comedian during his stand-up show made a lengthy joke about how Richard Dawkins was making a book debunking fairy tales. Dawkins of course, wasn't. The comedian was either told crap or just made it up.

It completely through me for the rest of the show.

That sounds to me as though he was utilising irony.

He presented it as as a news story, Saying how ridiculous it was for him to be writing it. I would have found it funny if he was using irony.

 

[Delock]

I never completed Valkyria Chronicles.

I was promised a War time epic.

What I got was a bunch of angsty kids playing dress up.

I got to a cutscene where there was a pig with wings and just said, "That's it. I'm done".


I just couldn't take the game seriously.

Funnily enough, I actually slogged through the light hearted first half and began to wonder if it wasn't done that way just to hammer home the darker second half. If I remember correctly, the dark half begins with a mission where you must escort a wound main character through a battlefield that's under artillery fire with only the two of you and no enemies being displayed on the minimap, which ends with a cutscene where you watch an enemy soldier slowly die in front of you despite the efforts of the characters to save him. It's also worth noting that this is around the point when they start to kill off characters and where you're probably leveling up enough to unlock the darker weapons of the war like flamethrowers and such. I also don't remember ever seeing the pig again...
That being said, it almost did the same thing for me. It felt out of place even for the first half.

As for me, Kingdom Hearts 2's retcons needed Birth By Sleep for me to ever even start to accept them. Especially when it came to the subject of "Ansem" (hell the first "True" report comes off less like a natural report and more like "Ok, I know what we said last time, but here's how we now want to tell it"). Not to mention that Nobodies didn't really get looked into until another game, despite the fact that they were supposed to be the focus here. It made it that much harder to buy anything you were told about them.

Also, while it didn't ruin it, the fact that I could get up and run in a moment after falling over 100 feet in Shadow of the Colossus, but a tap from the bull boss took forever to recover from was just bullshit.

I've also encountered this in the two Uncharted games I've played, both of them have moments where they do this (both of them involve supernatural enemies), but they always end up turning things around in a later scene, and they are working the same niche as Indiana Jones so I really can't say this is all that bad.

The only game that ever really ruined itself for me still remains Chaos Legion. This is partly how crappily it handles story, partly how bad gameplay cannot work with the story, and partly the fact that it railroads you so damn hard (you WILL use the strategy it wants, or it will just sit there until you do, not even bothering to kill you. Just having an invincible enemy block the way because you didn't want to put up with its bullshit summon respawn time by using the walking bombs on that particular level).
Well, ok, Lost Planet 2 did this as well, but I don't like to admit that Lost Planet actually had a sequel.

 

[MidnightSt]

Fringe is pretty ridiculous now. I was struggling with it but once Leonard Nimoy possessed the main character that was it for me I couldn't watch it anymore.

fringe is pretty ridiculous right from the first episode, isn't it? although i'm not so sure because i never got past the first... 20 minutes of it, i guess... i just finished watching all the X Files episodes, and i was expecting something like that, a show artfully balancing on the edge of sci-fi/conspiration theories, and reality/debunking them, not letting you to breathe properly in anticipation, until the last moment and even after that.

and what i got was "OMGZ GENETICALLY ENGINEERED MUTANTZ", or what... it was just so silly and cheap compared to X-Files that i wasn't even willing to watch more

 

[The Artificially Prolonged]

I never really could get passed why in Fallout 3 when exploring a bombed out building there would still working computers in there. Where are they getting the power from?

 

[MoNKeyYy]

So Escapists, has your own knowledge ever broken your willing suspension of disbelief?

It may not be a deal breaker, you can still enjoy the game, movie, show, book whatever but something just niggles at the back of your mind? Has something ever been so wrong that you just couldn't enjoy the subject matter anymore?

Recently I learned that the LD-50 (lethal dose for 50 percent of a population) for ionizing radiation for humans is 4 Gray or 400 rads. Playing Fallout 3 and my character is suffering radiation poisoning at 600rads. so either she is very very lucky or she is Dead!
Like I said not a deal breaker it just bothers me.

From wikipedia:

"A dose of under 100 rems is subclinical and will produce nothing other than blood changes. 100 to 200 rems will cause illness, but will rarely be fatal. Doses of 200 to 1,000 rems will probably cause serious illness with poor outlook at the upper end of the range. Doses of more than 1,000 rems are almost invariably fatal"

Radiation sickness gets bad at 200 rads, gets worse, then gets fatal at around a thousand.

They did their research bro.

 

[WolfThomas]

Vertebral arteries still transport oxygen to the brain, so although blocking of the carotid arteries would impede blood flow and therefore oxygen supply, it wouldn't cut it off completely. It's still a slow death, I believe.

Strangulation involves the carotid arteries and the jugular veins, the mechanism of injury is cerebral ischaemia, not aphyxia, yes the vertebral arteries still supply the brain but in much smaller amounts. Combined with the carotid sinus reflex, where pressure on the cartoid can cause hypotension and bradycardia, it's a lot faster. It's still probably a minute or two to make sure they're dead, but loss of consciousness occurs quite quickly.

 

[CJMacM]

I usually count how many times someone shoots a gun in movies/tv and if it goes on too long, I shake my head sadly.

And a weird one was when I was reading one of the "A Song of Ice and Fire" books. Some people said 'parley' a few times, which came from from the French word 'parler' so I started to wonder how they got that word, seeing as how French doesn't seem to be a language in that series. It seemed out of place to me, but it didn't bother me too much.

 

[Innegativeion]

The Neverending story...once I read the book, the movies were forever ruined for me.

Also Assassin's Creed for some reason. It just makes me give funny looks to my monitor even though I like the game and think it's pretty good.

Well, the shit ubisoft made up about genetic memory is pretty laughable.

Given the grand quality of the games, though I personally suspend that disbelief by just telling myself genes work completely differently on Planet Assassins' Creed-ia.

Also the animus has shown us scenes where Ezio/Altair were not present. The fuck's up with that?

I wondered why the hell Renaissance-era Florentine aristocracy knew free-running.

Well, the assassins (presumably Ezio's brother too) have the blood of the pre-humanity alien peeps, making them much stronger and more coordinated.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

The Neverending story...once I read the book, the movies were forever ruined for me.

Why? I've seen the movies (well the first 2 anyway) and read the book and it didn't ruin them for me.

I read the book and loved it up until Bastian's half of the book. I wish a book had been written where Atreyu was the main character throughout.

You do know that the book came before the movie, right? Personally I found the book had a much deeper message than the movie(s).

Yeah, I know the book came out first, and overall I liked the book and the message I just thought Bastian was kind of a jerk. Atreyu on the other hand I really identified with and would have liked to read more about.

Yeah maybe, but he came out of it a better person though.

How funny would it have been if he had came out a worse person forcing Atreyu to kill him and intern kill himself because he's a figment of Bastian's imagination?

Not very funny at all really, in fact that would suck.

As a dark satirical spoof of the original book I think it could be funny, but maybe I have a weird sense of humor.

Maybe. I just don't like making things dark and gritty that weren't originally intended to be so.

I understand, there are somethings I would like to remain untouched by the dark and gritty too. Like the Super Mario Brothers games for example. I like to retreat into the colourful fun filled world that the games present and wouldn't want it to get dark and gritty.

Yeah like that or Kirby or Pokemon.

 

[WolfThomas]

I hate in a WW2 game when someone with an (unscoped) bolt action rifle takes forever to work the bolt. An experienced soldier could fire multiple rounds rapidly with one.