Of course, each writer must accept or reject critiques as they see fit.

But there are some details, small though they may seem in the writer's eyes, that are deal-breakers to me. When a story glosses over known fact, or presents a solution that isn't logical or realistic, I'm outta there. My ability to suspend disbelief is lost, and I chuck the book aside in disgust.

My question is, how tolerent are YOU for missing and wrong details?

Here's one example:
Years ago I was watching one of the "new" Twilight Zone episodes on TV. Keep in mind this was before most people had computers or color printers at home. (Yes, I AM that old!). Anyhow, I worked in a print shop (with real printing presses!) at the time. So, I'm watching this episode and there is a neighborhood alert gone out for a scary individual who has been lurking there. The neighborhood activists put up posters warning neighbors about this person. The problem for ME was they were printed using a 4-color process, which would have cost them about $1200-$1500. No one does that for 50 street flyers! You use a photocopy machine, which runs you about 10 cents a page. It wasn't realistic. It completely pulled me out of the story, and obviously I still haven't forgotten the show's faux-paux, even 20 years later.

One thing to keep in mind is that different details will bother different people. My guess is that there are very few perfect stories. It's not even a matter of doing homework. Sometimes it's a matter of thinking you know how the world works when you dn't, and never managing to talk to the right person to get the information. How many people know about the costs associated with 4-color printing? Well, I do now and will endeavor not to make that mistake but a month ago I might have made it. Who would care? People like you, Elan, who know better.

Now I do have a question about how much you let it bother you. Did that completely ruin an otherwise perfectly good movie or was it insult on top of injury? I can't count the number of movies with laughable computer technobabble. It's like, didn't they hire someone who knows anything to check this stuff out?

I was watching a movie with a PhD chemist a couple of months ago, one I happened to find amusing and still do, but he was twitching over the completely unrealistic chemistry in the movie.

In Hollywood in particular, I often go with dumb blinders on or I'll end up wasting my money. I just want to be entertained.

That said, in my personal writing I strive for the best. It's entirely possible that between now and publication I miss pertinent facts, but if I handed a story over to a critiquer who happened to know something about the subject and could point out an error I would not turn a deaf ear. I'm not sure why anyone would.

Movies are a lost cause. Reality is always going to lose out to story and spectacle. I can't even mutter "Gosh, isn't it noisy in space?" these days without being told to lighten up. It's only a movie.

In the Mammoth Book of Best SF 17, there is one story I will never read again because I awarded it my prize for The Worst Story Premise. I resented having my time wasted.

In the case of the 4-color process posters, the reason the director chose color was to enhance the visual aspect of the scene. Which makes sense, considering television is a highly visual medium. Had it been written in a book that they were hanging colored posters, and I knew what you know about the process, I would be less forgiving because nothing is added by including something so unreasonable.

The most important consideration is whether or not the wrong detail shows that there will be more of the same--and whether or not they will be predictable. That's what it's all about--predictability!! If people are falling out of planes on rafts and living, then I expect the guy who leaps out later in the movie with, say, a sheet like a parachute to survive as well. If he dies, I feel cheated. Set the rules--as absurd as they may be--and stick with them!

Anyway, it was the last good part of that movie. If you watch ToD as just a short adventure, and only watch till they get to the river, then it's not such a bad movie.

That said, I've nearly lost my sanity with poor Steve of Blue's Clues. He signs fairly often, but then most of the time when they sing their clue-song and say "Three", Steve holds up his hand, thumb and little finger touching to leave the three middle fingers up (which most people do). But in sign language, that's six, not three! I'd get huffy every time, but Eden loves that show. Eventually, someone must have told him, because in more current episodes he signs it correctly.

But that's the kind of detail I can look past. They needed the water vaporizor idea for the plot to work, and it's just a detail, must like having sound in space. On the other hand, when I do watch something that makes scientific sense (a favorite example of mine is in Serenity / the Firefly series, they specifically exclude ALL sound effects for space battles. There's only music and visuals, becuase no sound propagates in space) it just makes the story that much better in my eyes.

When the premise is so weak that 30 seconds is too much for logic to bear, someone needs to take writing classes.

Speaking of weak premises and unbelievable movies...I got dragged (and I do mean dragged) to see "The Day After Tomorrow."

I am reminded of how horrified I was when I saw the first "Dune" movie made. The entire premise of the book was built around the importance of water for survival. And the movie execs had the freman running round with no facial coverings, no hand coverings. Yes, it would have made it difficult to convey facial expressions, showing them all in full stil-suits. But it destroyed the movie for me to simply blow over that central plot line. Oh, that, and the hysterical Bene Gesserit.

It was the movie with Tommy Lee Jones and Nick Cage, they were Apache pilots.

Anyhow, I worked on them in the military, and I can tell you I HATED IT. The apache's were nice, but they had to change the configuration of the cockpits and all for security sake, but MY GOD.

Don't get me started on it, but let me tell you, I knew a few pilots like Cage's character, they were nice guys.

Unfortunately, my unit lost a few guys to a OH-58 crash. (The new helicopter type).

Sorry got off track.

I finished watching the movie. (Sucked by the way) And I haven't watched it since.

That's my two cents on that.

-Monolith-

[ Edited to rename the same lame movie]

-Monolith-

King Arthur was the worst. That movie got it all wrong. And they had the audacity to use the word "historians" when explaining what a good movie they had at the start.

Horrible.

Producer: "We've spent so many million dollars on this script. Whaddya think?"

Scientific advisor: "It's nonsense from beginning to end."

Examples:

-Lord of the Rings; the end of the trilogy, with the Shire being untouched by the influence of Sauron. The whole point was that even the most incorruptible place in the realm was influenced by the evil of Sauron's reign.

-The Andromeda Strain; they made Burton a woman in the movie, which negated the whole Odd-Man Hypothesis that Crighton came up with.

-The Harry Potter movies; just because there's too much information in the books to put it all in a movie, it doesn't mean that it should be dumbed down. Make two movies!

-A Sound of Thunder (upcoming); Aliens? What?!! You're destroying my favorite short story!!!

Et cetera. I won't bore you with all of my opinions. Suffice to say that I can suspend disbelief with even the silliest of scientific mistakes and oversights for the sake of a story. If I wanted a scientifically accurate form of entertainment, I'd read the journals. But when there's already a full story, and it's mangled for the purpose of putting it into a movie...well, I think they should just not make the movie. If you have to destroy a story to fit it onto the big screen, then maybe it shouldn't be there in the first place.

I try not to let it phase me but have stopped reading too many stories because of it.

With books, I control the manner and speed in which the information is inputted. I can read the book fast or slow or somewhere in between. I can stop on a sentence or word. I can close the book. I make the calls.

*****

Oh, and sometimes it's not errors, but just the way it's presented. I recently watched "No Direction Home," Scorsese's documentary of Bob Dylan's early years. A lot of fun stuff, really (I recommend it), but I had problems with it.