Spoilers Marvel Cinematic Universe spoiler-heavy speculation thread

[Mage]

I pray their depiction of courtroom procedure is not as profoundly nonsensical as that in the trial of Frank Castle in DD season 2.

Considering it's about a blind super-martial artist that can see thanks through some sort of sonar thing (I mean he's more BATman then Batman really) I doubt a lot of people will care about how realistic court scenes are.
And yes, I know you feel that hyperrealism is important but for give or take 90% of the viewers it really isn't.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

I'm in the middle on this one. On the one hand, it would be nice to have "proper" trial scenes and I agree Matt's scenes in season 2 weren't that great.

But on the other hand, I don't think it's a big deal, especially when 99% of all trial scenes in shows and films are highly fictional anyways because reality is very boring.

 

[theenglish]

At least the She-Hulk writers flat-out admitted they weren't great at writing courtroom scenes and kept them to a minimum.

I read that before. Considering how much money is invested in the series is it that much to ask to pay a few more thousand to somebody to read through the scripts and provide the writers and directors with comments. It shouldn't even be a hard thing to do.

 

[Christopher]

Considering it's about a blind super-martial artist that can see thanks through some sort of sonar thing (I mean he's more BATman then Batman really) I doubt a lot of people will care about how realistic court scenes are.

I believe it was Richard Matheson who said that if you want the audience to suspend disbelief about a fantasy element, you need to strive to make everything around it as realistic as possible. That realism lends verisimilitude to the whole and makes the fantastic part feel more believable. This was also Richard Donner's thinking behind the naturalistic presentation of Metropolis in Superman: The Movie, whose slogan was "You will believe a man can fly." He believed that for the audience to take the fantasy of Superman seriously, it needed to be told with as much verisimilitude as possible. This was also a key part of the reason why Star Trek was so much more successful with audiences than its contemporary shows: because its makers cared about making the show's universe feel grounded and naturalistic on the level of character, which made the audience more ready to invest in the reality of the universe despite its fanciful elements. They made the 23rd century feel like a world we could imagine actually living in, which made it more immersive and potent than the shows that were obvious nonsense on every level.

So don't give me that crap about how one fanciful element is license for everything else to be nonsensical. That's the mentality of bad, lazy writers and filmmakers. It's a mentality that insults and condescends to the fantasy audience by assuming they "don't care," that they're easy and will swallow anything. Good fantasy storytellers respect their audience and make the effort to earn their suspension of disbelief rather than arrogantly assuming it's a given.

In any case, Daredevil did strive for verisimilitude in most respects. It downplayed Matt's radar sense and treated it more as just heightened hearing and other senses. It even used the aftermath of the Battle of New York in The Avengers to justify its comics-based version of Hell's Kitchen being more crime-ridden and less gentrified than the real Clinton neighborhood has become in the decades since DD's portrayal of it was codified. Clearly its makers did believe that credibility mattered to the audience. So the sloppiness of its courtroom procedure clashed with the show's own realism in other respects.

 

[fireproof78]

Yeah, I'm not usually one to hold realism over a fantasy show. Not for lack of caring but because if the show is entertaining in it's own right then the verisimilitude will hold better. But, Daredevil set the premise of this very gritty, very realistic, blood, sweat and tears, type approach that made the court room reasons stand out. Same thing with the Punisher. It all stands out in very strange ways against the backdrop already created.

I'm willing to suspend disbelief pretty easily I also expect the premise to bear out in the way that the showrunners set. So, if it's a weakness of the writers then I would honestly expect them to make an effort to strengthen that, to "punch up" the script with support, consultants or technical advisers. I don't see it as a respect thing so much as paying off on the premise the writers set up.

 

[JD]

Apparently there's just something about comic book shows and courtroom scene, because Arrow had the same problem when they did a trial storyline. At least in that case it was just a handful of episodes, so it was a little more forgiveable.
You'd think shows where the main character is a lawyer would put a little more effort into getting trail scenes as accurate as possible.

 

[Christopher]

I'm willing to suspend disbelief pretty easily I also expect the premise to bear out in the way that the showrunners set. So, if it's a weakness of the writers then I would honestly expect them to make an effort to strengthen that, to "punch up" the script with support, consultants or technical advisers. I don't see it as a respect thing so much as paying off on the premise the writers set up.

For me, as a writer, getting the technicalities right is a matter of my own pride as a creator. I want to get it right and not cheat or fake it. But it's also a matter of recognizing that the audience is not monolithic. It doesn't matter if the average reader or viewer won't care or notice if something is inaccurate, because some of them will, and their satisfaction matters as much as anyone else's. I want to try to satisfy my entire audience as much as possible. I have no sympathy for the mindset that if the majority is satisfied, it doesn't matter what the minority thinks. Because I'm in that minority that cares about the details most people wouldn't notice. And I know that there are other audience members who will care about things that I didn't know about, so it's incumbent on me to do the research and try to make it convincing for them.

Hal Clement saw hard science fiction as a friendly competition between the science-savvy audience trying to poke holes in the writer's premise and the writer trying to make it convincing enough for them. There will always be audience members who'll protest when a field they know well, whether it's science or law or dance or gardening or whatever, is portrayed in an egregiously inaccurate way, so it's a matter of respect for the audience to try not to pull them out of the story by being too absurdly unrealistic.

Apparently there's just something about comic book shows and courtroom scene, because Arrow had the same problem when they did a trial storyline. At least in that case it was just a handful of episodes, so it was a little more forgiveable.

It's hardly unique to comic book shows; it's been a common thing in fiction for generations, even in courtroom dramas. Even a classic TV play/movie like Twelve Angry Men treats jury procedure in a way that's completely illegitimate. It's poetic license for the sake of the narrative and the drama, and it is sometimes necessary. The goal is not to be absolutely realistic, but to make the poetic license subtle enough that it doesn't destroy suspension of disbelief.

 

[Set Harth]

Even in Better Call Saul I'm sometimes sitting there going "ehh, does it really work that way?" ( not that I would really know )

 

[JD]

Yeah, I guess you guys are right, even Perry Mason and Matlock, two of the most famous lawyer shows, probably aren't the most realistic depictions of how trials work.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Even in Better Call Saul I'm sometimes sitting there going "ehh, does it really work that way?" ( not that I would really know )

And yet we love it because "that's not how it actually works" is beside the point.

 

[Christopher]

Yeah, I guess you guys are right, even Perry Mason and Matlock, two of the most famous lawyer shows, probably aren't the most realistic depictions of how trials work.

Perry Mason gets a bit of leeway on that, because Perry's cases hardly ever went to trial. He almost invariably exposed the real killer at the preliminary hearing, before things ever got before a jury. (At least on TV -- I've never read the books.)

Which is both very inaccurate and very accurate. In reality, the majority of cases are resolved before the trial. But they're usually resolved by the attorneys making a plea bargain or a settlement, rather than by the defense attorney exposing the real criminal in the courtroom.

And yet we love it because "that's not how it actually works" is beside the point.

It's not that automatic. We love it despite it not working that way if the story is good enough to earn our love, and thus our tolerance for its faults. It's not beside the point, it's just a lower priority. But if the faults are too egregious, if it's evident that the creators are sloppy and just not trying, then that can make it harder to love the story.

 

[JD]

To be clear, I still enjoy these shows, even with their inaccuracies.

 

[fireproof78]

I love shoes with inaccuracies. I know accuracy is hard so I'm more forgiving if the show sets up other facets in satisfactory ways. Technical accuracy is great but can make a work feel sterile.

 

[Mage]

I believe it was Richard Matheson who said that if you want the audience to suspend disbelief about a fantasy element, you need to strive to make everything around it as realistic as possible. That realism lends verisimilitude to the whole and makes the fantastic part feel more believable. This was also Richard Donner's thinking behind the naturalistic presentation of Metropolis in Superman: The Movie, whose slogan was "You will believe a man can fly." He believed that for the audience to take the fantasy of Superman seriously, it needed to be told with as much verisimilitude as possible. This was also a key part of the reason why Star Trek was so much more successful with audiences than its contemporary shows: because its makers cared about making the show's universe feel grounded and naturalistic on the level of character, which made the audience more ready to invest in the reality of the universe despite its fanciful elements. They made the 23rd century feel like a world we could imagine actually living in, which made it more immersive and potent than the shows that were obvious nonsense on every level.

So don't give me that crap about how one fanciful element is license for everything else to be nonsensical. That's the mentality of bad, lazy writers and filmmakers. It's a mentality that insults and condescends to the fantasy audience by assuming they "don't care," that they're easy and will swallow anything. Good fantasy storytellers respect their audience and make the effort to earn their suspension of disbelief rather than arrogantly assuming it's a given.

In any case, Daredevil did strive for verisimilitude in most respects. It downplayed Matt's radar sense and treated it more as just heightened hearing and other senses. It even used the aftermath of the Battle of New York in The Avengers to justify its comics-based version of Hell's Kitchen being more crime-ridden and less gentrified than the real Clinton neighborhood has become in the decades since DD's portrayal of it was codified. Clearly its makers did believe that credibility mattered to the audience. So the sloppiness of its courtroom procedure clashed with the show's own realism in other respects.

And what you're saying here is all your own feelings and opinions about it. Richard Matheson also had personal thoughts about the subject. They are not law.
Yes, it will matter to some, but I think you'll find that most people really don't care about correct representation of anything in a fantasy- or scifi show. They want entertainment. Sure, if it goes to far out of the realm of realism it might be upsetting.

 

[FPAlpha]

Wow, there is really nothing there except speculation from "anonymous sources", and some of it can be traced back to what we already know. Yes, he fought for script changes and wanted the story to remain closer to the books. That has been mentioned in interviews with other cast members. The actor who plays Ciri talked about how he coached about her character more than anyone else on set. Not wanting to do nudity or kissing scenes-- I wonder what those scenes were? None of the article sounds like misogynist behaviour, but rather someone who disagreed deeply with the direction of the series. Even the anonymous witnesses deny he did anything overt, and rather just say he acts like a gamer. It is also possible for people to stereotype someone based on something like "they play video games" or "they read comic books" that biases how they see and interpret that person's behavior.

Oh absolutely. In the UK there is a usually fantastic talk show host called Graham Norton, he regularly has A listers on his couch. Once he had Cavill there for something he promoted at the time and he asked him directly about his hobbies in a way that was really condescending as in "grown men who play with toys" and you could see Cavill was uncomfortable with the tone of the question because it was not hard to read between the lines.

This is what gamers of all kinds experience on a daily basis when they are adults - it still is not socially acceptable to some that people like to play games, especially "nerdy" games but it is better than 10 or 20 years ago.

 

[FPAlpha]

I love shoes with inaccuracies. I know accuracy is hard so I'm more forgiving if the show sets up other facets in satisfactory ways. Technical accuracy is great but can make a work feel sterile.

Exactly - even during the most high stakes criminal cases the participants are calm and are doing their job. There is no shouting in the courtroom "A few good men" style or last minute Gotcha! moments. While in school we went to court one day to observe - it was a simple theft case and very boring by comparison but that's how most cases are so writers spice it up.

If lucky they will try to go for realism during the writing and shooting process and have an advisor but in the end if they need drama they will write it even if it would never happen like that in a real court.

I'm ok with that, in fact i love reaction videos of professionals watching movie and show scenes and giving their 2 cents how professional or close to reality something is, it is really entertaining to me and you also learn something along the way.

 

[Dar70]

All this talk of courtroom realism is giving me a chuckle.
Especially since many here accept the fact that She Hulk has the power to walk out of the Disney plus screen, into the offices of the creators and change the storyline...or that Deadpool talks to the audience, or that there is a pork dumpling in a spoon that's a god. MCU has gone well beyond the point of suspending disbelief. It's gone into the completely stupid. Just because it was in the comics doesn't mean it has to be in the movies or series. General audiences who don't read the comics won't put up with that kind of silliness very long.
Inaccurate courtroom scenes are the least of the MCU'S problems....

 

[Christopher]

And what you're saying here is all your own feelings and opinions about it.

Which is basically my point -- that you can't generalize about what the audience wants. You have your preferences, I have mine, and they're different -- but we're both members of the larger audience. The audience is not a monolith, so there will always be some people who do care when something they know well is egregiously inaccurate, even if most of them don't. So a good writer will try to consider the entire audience with all its diversity of viewpoints, not just some imaginary uniform average. It's not about choosing just one perspective and ignoring the others. It's about trying to encompass everyone to the best of your ability.

I love shoes with inaccuracies. I know accuracy is hard so I'm more forgiving if the show sets up other facets in satisfactory ways. Technical accuracy is great but can make a work feel sterile.

But that's why TV shows and movies have whole teams of creators (and why solo authors and novelists have consultants) -- different people can focus on different aspects at the same time, so it doesn't have to be a zero-sum choice where more care put into one aspect means less put into another. The more care everyone puts into their respective parts of the whole, the better the whole. It's about the overall mentality behind the production. I believe that the creators who put the most care into the believability of the characters and the substance of the story will put the same care into making everything as credible as possible, even if it's something most viewers will never notice like the instruction signage on a spaceship airlock or the label on a wine bottle. Whereas a production that tolerates laziness or carelessness in one aspect may well tolerate it in others. The parts aren't in competition with each other, they're all supporting the same structure. So it's best if they're all as strong as they can be.

Granted, there are many writers who do see it as a choice between focusing on characters and drama or focusing on the technicalities of worldbuilding. But I agree with my first editor Stanley Schmidt that this is a false dichotomy, a blind spot on the part of creators who think that way. In one of his editorials in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Stan argued that characterization and worldbuilding are not opposed but interconnected. The world the characters inhabit informs their choices and actions. It defines the possibilities available to them, the limitations they're under, and the worldview and attitudes that shape them. For instance, a story about characters in the age of smartphones and the Internet would have to be told extremely differently than a story about identical characters in the 1970s, because the difference in technology has a profound effect on the characters' knowledge, options, and interactions. So the setting is a "character" in the story as much as the people are, and thus needs just as much care and thought put into its development, into the way it works and the way its rules affect the characters' options and perspectives.

Yes, poetic license is a thing, but my English teachers always stressed to me that you need to learn the rules before you start to break them. Savvy audience members can tell the difference between an inaccuracy resulting from informed poetic license and one resulting from ignorance of the subject.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

MCU has gone well beyond the point of suspending disbelief. It's gone into the completely stupid. Just because it was in the comics doesn't mean it has to be in the movies or series. General audiences who don't read the comics won't put up with that kind of silliness very long.

Breaking the fourth wall pulls the "tight universe" rug out from under the MCU--which (for a time) was supposed to be their own, "real" universe mirroring that of the audience (in general trappings) . Employing the old comedy gag of breaking the fourth wall--as you point out--goes beyond, or prevents the suspension if disbelief, because its existence is applicable to the rest of the franchise's stories. That kind of comedic trope worked in MAD magazine (its creators, subject of satires or Alfred E. Neuman interacting with the readers), Warren's Creepy & Eerie, or Archie comics (very routine in that line), but it failed in superhero comics (generally found in the Silver Age more than any other), where a character addressed the readers when they were supposed to be invested in the superhero universe as "real".

Inaccurate courtroom scenes are the least of the MCU'S problems....

Don't be surprised if you receive pushback on that, but the average viewer is not expecting technical accuracy in most filmed courtroom scenes, unless the antics are so unbelievable, that the layman knows the act / statement, ect., would never be seen in a courtroom (e.g., an attorney mooning the jury)

 

[Reverend]

Courtroom scenes in just about any piece of entertainment are almost always inaccurate. Yes even the legal dramas. Yes, even the ones with technical consultants. Yes even the ones that tout how accurate their legalese and court proceedings are. Real court proceedings are fairly dull, dry, bureaucratic affairs, which makes for terrible entertainment.

I think some people (mostly those of the pedantic persuasion) I've found get the wrong idea about realism as a grounding element in drama in general, and fantasy in particular. It's not important for *anything* to be a technically accurate representation of real life. At most, all it has to do is *feel* real enough so the story can be told without drawing focus where it doesn't need to be.