Five Unlikely Movie Choices

Sometimes it’s refreshing to have discussions and share opinions about things that don’t matter. 

Debating the life and death and future-of-the-country stuff constantly can get wearisome. Sometimes we need some dessert after a heavy meal.

How Biff Tannen got to Marty and Doc in 2015?

Fun and certainly less stressful than COVID-19!

The key is to remember the “does not matter” part. When you forget that, when I start thinking people who disagree with me on Tron are objectively wrong, you end up with toxic fandoms, gatekeepers and other abhorrent things.

😂

Just wait until we start arguing about Star Trek movies.

I was talking about the movies at work (the "even number theory," which just seems so obvious you don't have to argue for it), and my co-worker tells me the next day that he and his wife were dying laughing, because the same conversation was happening on Big Bang that night.

😳

Illegal activity by a cop, kidnapping a baby, aiding escaped convicts, the Devil himself...

Quite dark and done oh so right!

1) PCU
2) Shrek
3) Flight of the Navigator
4) The Increasingly Poor Choices of Todd Margaret (not a movie, but my God it is so funny)
5) Airline Disaster (but only because it is so bad that it is epic! EPIC!)

That’s a perfectly benign hobby if one remembers my earlier admonition that it doesn’t really matter.

Just about every movie or story has a plot hole, error or something that requires a suspension of disbelief. Finding a way to paper over those as an intellectual exercise can be a fun, entertaining activity and is even a good way to stretch your creative muscles. My wife and I are big Star Trek fans. When watching, we hit the pause button a lot because we frequently come across things that don’t make sense (“too much photonic energy” to use the transporters is probably our all-time favorite example). Sometimes we laugh it off, sometimes we try to rationalize it, sometimes we admit that the mistakes might ruin that particular episode for us, but regardless, we’re having fun with it. It’s a game.

Sometimes after watching other movies, we’ll discuss things we had issues with or that seemed to be plot holes and we’ll see if we can make them work.

But again, it all comes down to remembering that it doesn’t matter and we all have different tolerances for plot holes. Coming back to Star Wars, it doesn’t bother me that Obi Wan doesn’t remember “owning” R2D2 in ANH. I can rationalize that pretty easily. I do have an issue with Leía having memories of her “real mother,” something I can’t make work without destroying the emotional impact of Luke’s question to her in ROTJ.
 
But, in the end, it’s just a story. If you feel differently about those “holes,” it would be ridiculous for me to get upset about it.

To me, betraying the established rules of the universe is frustrating. "Papering over" what (to me) is essentially bad writing is just special pleading. There are ways to create unexpected surprise that actually makes sense--like, I thought there was a rule in this universe, but apparently it isn't a rule...but it actually is consistent and makes sense from the beginning (like, with adequate subtle foreshadowing and stuff). Like, for example, in Sixth Sense.

Keep in mind, underrated doesn't mean "great."

When I get time, I'll post my thoughts on this in more detail. I'm on a break between classes at the moment.

So, movies that are a waste of time to watch?

I suppose to me it depends on the intent of the papering, or choosing not to. If I'm papering to help myself enjoy something, there's no harm done and "special pleading" doesn't really come into it.

If I'm refusing to paper because I simply don't like what the plot hole in question is, that's OK too.

And it's OK to stick up for your view.

But if I'm fighting battles with people and causing dissension and drawing lines between "true fans" and "posers" or whatever, then I've lost my way.