This weekend I watched the movie "Pacific Rim" (2013) and I thought it was an awesome mega monster flick. The strange thing is that after a while there were small things I just wasn't ok with. I was totally buying into that there were aliens controlling an inter-dimensional portal in the middle of the ocean and sending gigantic monster clones to destroy us so they could colonize the Earth. I was ok that humans were mind melding with one another in order to control massive robots to combat these creatures. I was even ok with that the clone monsters' biology had a high ammonia content and thus their secondary brain could be kept functioning in a huge vat of it.
What I wasn't ok with was that a toilet had fallen to ground and landed in upright in China (where toilets are very different from American commodes, but there was one in the middle of the street) conveniently just a foot away from where one of the characters needed it. I was also not ok that Ron Perlman survived being ingested by one of the clone monsters despite the fact that ammonia is highly toxic to people. He didn't even suffer chemical burns. It was ridiculous, but why would that bother me so much in an already far fetched fantasy?
I theorize that when watching a scifi, fantasy, or horror flick that is way beyond the norms of our reality our brains can only take so much before we freak the F out. The fantasy gets so out there that when simple scientific or logic driven things that are tiny in comparison happen we just can't deal. We are not ok with that. We are not ok what guy's hat changes position mid scene, but are down that vampires exist. We are not ok that a guy fell five stories and didn't sustain any broken bones, but are totally ok with alien robots that transform into cars.
The human brain is a wondrous thing; however, it can only take so much before it squees. Imagination and the minds ability to absorb a reality constructed by an outside source has it's limitations.
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