the ill-tempered cavalier ([info]gillen) wrote,
@ 2009-04-25 11:59:00
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So odd, the things my brain will object to
Re Smallville:

A human-looking alien child grows up on Earth with fantastic powers attributed to effects of the color of sunlight that he's exposed to. These powers can be negated by exposure to radioactive rocks from his home planet, which are potentially lethal to him.

Okay. It could happen.

A newspaper reporter crashes through a skylight, falling 20' to a concrete floor in stiletto-heeled boots - and not only takes no damage from the fall but manages to kick someone in the head on the way down?

Oh, come on now!

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[info]colubra
2009-04-25 07:30 pm UTC (link)
Heheheh. I find the homoerotic subtext to break my suspension of disbelief.

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[info]aurienne
2009-04-25 08:13 pm UTC (link)
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CombatStilettos

(better than http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BrokenHeel )

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[info]gillen
2009-04-25 08:32 pm UTC (link)
AAAAAHHHHHGGGGGHHHH!!! Sucked into reading tvtropes!

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[info]cscottd
2009-04-26 12:43 am UTC (link)
I don't know why, but the thing that bugs me most about Smallville is the lack of glasses.

Even with all of the other changes they've made to the mythology, it's still possible for the story to "end up" more-or-less the same as the traditional version, except... it's getting increasingly difficult to see any logical way that Clark could end up wearing glasses.

Admittedly, glasses are a bit of a rubbish disguise to start with, but it's even harder to suspend disbelief if everyone is used to seeing Clark without them.

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[info]gillen
2009-04-26 01:16 am UTC (link)
They kind of acknowledged the rubbish disguise issue with Clark's, "Lois, you could have a bag over your head and I'd still know it's you." Not that I have any idea how they'll address the Clark Kent / Superman issues once Clark gets himself into tights-and-cape and stops being "the red-blue blur". As far as I can tell, they're just going to have to go with everyone close to him knowing his "secret", but how they'd explain folks at the Daily Planet or back in Smallville not recognizing him, I have no idea.

Or they could just erase the last few seasons with another Legion-based "what if?" story that leaves Clark in glasses back at the beginning of his Metropolis career, realizing how much more in cognito he needs to be - but that would be terribly unsatisfying.

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[info]stevenglassman
2009-05-03 07:16 pm UTC (link)
The showrunner people have been quoted as saying that they basically consider Smallville to be an "Elseworlds" storyline.

You know, so they can ignore the little things, like canon and continuity.

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[info]jenlight
2009-04-26 05:44 am UTC (link)
Aliens are not subject to the same logic as humans, damn it!

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[info]gwyd
2009-04-26 05:54 am UTC (link)
I remember reading in Asimov's back in the '80's... I think it was Asimov himself, a thing about how you can really only have one or at most two non realistic elements in a story. I've kept this in mind for years, and i think he's essentially right. The thing can be huge, like the entire start Trek universe, or medium sized like zombies, or small like a medieval woman black smith, but the thing must be of a piece and self consistent. I'm okay with a book where there are a variety of supernatural beings living among humans as in Charles DeLint, because those beings are self consistent and part of one unified idea. I can't swallow the "historical" novel, "Pillars of the Earth" because it piles at least one big unbelievable thing (Medieval people in England wouldn't know big news like a new Cathedral being built in England), with several small and medium sized things (Woman black smith; characters get married in the first scene, yet most of the plot hinges on them not being married; etc..) You can have aliens in a story, but the aliens must be self consistent and the humans dealing with them must be realistic. You can have a whole fantasy world, like middle earth, but the characters have to behave in understandable human ways.

You are willing to swallow the big fantasy element on Smallville (Superheroes exist), but you can't swallow that the ordinary humans in it aren't subject to physics and human limitations. They have asked you to believe one too many impossible thing.

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