Does the detail make or break a movie for you?

Comments

• The Cabl3 Guy Elite Ranger

  September 2005

  Defineatly SPR has so much detail I dont even feel as if Im watching a movie. Im actually there fighting alongside the 101st.
  
  The more detail the better not necessarily realism though. That can be a bit boring. ;)
• Arethusa Universal Cathode

  September 2005

  Er, Saving Private Ryan never involved the 101st.
• Data Crystal Pencil Artist

  September 2005

  When I go out to see a movie, I expect to be transported to some other place and time for a few hours, where I can completely forget everything that troubles me at the time, at least most of the time. I don't want to break the illusion for me by nitpicking or paying attention to pointless details, and my mind seems to work the same course: The little flaws and mistakes go unnoticed, but the good and realistic bits stick a needle in my eye which makes me go "Whoa, this is a good movie". :)
  
  It's the moment's illusion that I'm after. So, maybe not 'make' but maybe 'improve' would be a better way to put it. :p
• Freejack Jake the Not-so-Wise

  September 2005

  I think you’re right, the detail doesn’t always make the movie for me, but it does add to the experience and the “authenticity”, as if it’s really happening somewhere, someplace. There are some movies that the detail makes it stand out from all other, of which 2001 comes to mind. This movie has a level of authenticity that has yet to be replicated in most Sci-Fi movies.
  
  On the other hand, the omission of a specific detail can really put me off on a movie. I can live with such things as gravity in a spacecraft for the sake of putting on a film that is cost effective, but when details are left out because the writer/director could not figure out a better way to tell the scene, it drives me nuts. A good example, the scene at Helm’s Deep in LOTR, in which Aragon tosses Gimli. I assume the span was as wide as it was to give the toss/leap a heroic feel, but all that registered in my head was a “Yeah Right”. Don’t get me wrong, I love the LOTR movies and have no problem suspending disbelief. In this case I felt like they stretched the truth to make sure that we learned a truth that was pretty much self evident, that Aragon and Gimli were heroic figures.
  
  Jake
• Sanfam I like clocks.

  September 2005

  For me, it's all about how the movie itself sets it up. It it tried to establish it as an honest-to-cheesus factual epic, then it damned better stick to it. However, were a zucker bros. movie to produced to the same standards, it would fail on the grounds that it's just not going to work in such an atmosphere of seriousness.
  
  Details can work both to the benefit and detriment of a movie for the same movie. Using the above examples, a Zucker movie is less likely to be successful if it repeatedly tried to delve into the details and build a coherent universe, but a movie like Minority Report almost mandates a huge number of subtle details, pieces to construct a coherent world in which our minds can comfortably experience without the pain of having to adapt to such a different-than-normal environment.
  
  I can easily accept bending of physics and natural laws *if and only if* the movie tried to allow for it. Otherwise, I offer little leighway.