What breaks your immersion?

[Clement Rage]

In all the things you've read/watched/played etc, what can you accept as part of the story, and what breaks your suspension of disbelief? What can you roll with for the sake of a story, and what is impossible to?

Just because this came up in the 'what should be left out of FF7' thread?

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

1. Characters acting out of character.
2. Anachronisms, particularly in historical fiction. There's quite a famous historical novel called "The Physician" set in 10th century England and the middle east. The hero, an Anglo-Saxon, is called Rob C. Cole, anticipating American naming habits by one thousand years. In real life, he'd probably have been called Aethelfred or Osburg. This was just one of the many anachronisms that made me hate that stupid book with a passion.
3. Putting stuff in their world that doesn't belong there. I guess you could call this failed world-building. There was a guy who used to post on this forum sometimes, who was writing an "improved" novelisation of Crisis Core. He gave them all kinds of stuff that didn't belong in their world like Cliff Bars and Red Bull. That was annoying. For another example, I've just been watching Kingsglaive, and there are billboards for Japan Airlines all over Insomnia. Thanks, Square Enix, for reminding me that the entire film is just a big marketing exercise. At least "Texas Tyger" wasn't a real brand.

 

[Joe]

Outdated graphics in games and black&white movies.

 

[Shademp]

The last of us actually was immersion breaking for me when I was slaughtering half the population of Pittsburgh.

I continuously experienced this as I watched movie versions of Uncharted and The Last of Us.

In God of War, I buy into the idea that Kratos is a cold-blooded, merciless killer who can leave a trail of thousands of dead behind him without caring. The story sets this up to work and makes me buy into the concept. But in realistic games like Uncharted and The Last of Us? Something just feels...off. Very, very off. In fact it makes my skin crawl if I think about it for more than a few seconds.

It's not just the eeriness of how indifferent Nathan Drake is to the number of people that he's killed along the way, albeit in self-defense. But the fact that these main characters are one-man-armies able to plow through hordes and hordes of enemies feels like an unrealistic contrast compared to the relative realism of the presentation.

It would be totally different if the game was presented in such a way that our main leads were supposed to be Arnold Schwarzenegger-like action heroes, or if I knew that I was meant to view the leads as "typical" video game characters. But I can't view them that way in Uncharted and The Last of Us.

 

[Roger]

Last of Us mean exactly that, the last of humanity going into a final sudden death every man for himself round for resources. Joel's rejection of any hope that civilisation can be restored is what the game is all about. It's an as unrealistic a gameworld as any but it does not break my immersion that a game sticks to it's core premise.

 

[Shademp]

I agree that the concept works way better in The Last of Us. It is more congruent with the overall theme that humanity has been lost and so therefore life no longer holds the same value. While I have my gripes with The Last of Us, my previous post should mostly be applied to Uncharted.

 

[fancy]

3. Putting stuff in their world that doesn't belong there. I guess you could call this failed world-building. There was a guy who used to post on this forum sometimes, who was writing an "improved" novelisation of Crisis Core. He gave them all kinds of stuff that didn't belong in their world like Cliff Bars and Red Bull. That was annoying. For another example, I've just been watching Kingsglaive, and there are billboards for Japan Airlines all over Insomnia. Thanks, Square Enix, for reminding me that the entire film is just a big marketing exercise. At least "Texas Tyger" wasn't a real brand.

^^ GOODNESS GRACIOUS THIS!! This is one of my BIGGEST pet peeves!! Reminds me of this fic I read forever ago. I can't even tell you what the name of it is. All I can remember is that I had a moment of rage because the author mentioned the name of a real life band and song that was "playing" on Cloud's (wait for it...) iPOD. Since when are iPods FFVII canon?! It wasn't even an AU (which can still get annoying, but it's more excusable). Like, just make something up. The silliest made up "thing" trumps an out-of-world "thing" any day.


K, to add my own list of immersion grievances.

1. In all media, the awkward pause that you feel after the failed delivery of a poor joke.
2. Very, very crappy special effects in a film that clearly wants to be taken seriously.
3. When a conflict or disagreement can be resolved BY SIMPLY TALKING THINGS OUT but the characters are either being painfully obtuse and/or being unreasonably angry. This is especially painful to read/watch/play when you're dealing with ADULTS.
   
   

   Character A: Oh, you seem to be doing this very hurtful thing that makes me very angry at you. Instead of confronting you about it like the mf adult that I am, I'm just gonna willfully misunderstand you for the sake of creating melodrama.
   
   Character B: Cool! Meanwhile, I'm going to withhold some information that I know would probably be useful to you. Not because I dislike you or anything. Rather, because if you knew this piece of information, then you would avoid some serious trouble and, thus, melodrama. And as we all know, Melodrama is King.

4. Characters falling "in love" way too quickly/are totally dedicated to each other with no meaningful interaction to justify it.
   
5. Whenever abusive/possessive relationships are treated as ideal in general.
   
6. Awkward sex scenes (that weren't trying to be awkward).
   
7. Stiff/bad acting.
   
8. Very, very poor grammar.
   
9. This isn't always an "immersion breaker" but occasionally, I get distracted by an actor's face and I can't focus on anything until I know who they are and where I've seen them.
   

Fun question!

 

[X-SOLDIER]

Obvious or Effect-y scene transitions.

98% of the time, I hate being able to tell when a scene transitions and can tell that there's an edit, or that I'm watching a movie. There are a limited number of times when using something like a slow wipe or a blur into a flashback or something works, but that's because it matches the storytelling and editing.

The one that ALWAYS sticks in my mind is when rippling water effect that they use to cut to a scene at the docks in Spider-Man 2. It INSTANTLY reminded me I was watching a movie and pulled me out of the immersion of the experience.

And example of one where it's borderline, but I still think it works well is the MRI scan slow wipe into a memory in the second episode of Legion.


I think it's because early on in a film, you establish your relationship with the editor. Either the editor exists as a medium of the storytelling, or they're invisible. When you have an experience where the editor is functionally invisible and then they suddenly poke up, it breaks the storytelling from experience into dictation and that's the sort of cinema-snob explanation for why it grinds my gears.







X

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Like anything else, X, it's all in how they're used -- look at the opening to "Finding Nemo" (part 1, part 2). Works better for having it there.

 

[Claymore]

There is an almost unspoken agreement between the writer and the audience, one that states that we will open our minds and accept whatever world or vision that you personally want to create ... but in return, you have to provide us with some modicum of respect. The moment in which the writer stops respecting the audience is the moment that immersion, and acceptance, is immediately shattered.

For me personally, this is the ultimate sin.

I can freely accept all kinds of worlds, characters and scenarios without batting an eye - for someone who gobbles up anime, fantasy and sci fi in equal measures, I crave it - but there is nothing more distinct at shattering the illusion of a world than when a writer suddenly breaks and ignores their own rules. They usually do it in order to either create additional tension, spin a phantom 'twist' without any foreshadowing whatsoever, or to write themselves from out of a tricky corner. Whatever the reason, there is never a good enough reason to break your own worldbuilding and rules. That is exactly what breaks immersion and it is something that really annoys me. I absolutely despise it.

FancySycamoreTree also raises a great point in the manufactured melodrama category. It is something prevalent in a heck of a lot of media, and it really shouldn't be. It has its place in society - moreso in ongoing soaps and teen dramas - but when you see respected pieces of work also continually falling into the trap? Oh boy. When a simple discussion between two characters or sides could tear down an entire plot scenario (or three books / episodes worth of manufactured drama) then you know that something is seriously wrong. Yeah, that is definitely another major immersion breaking factor for me.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

That should be taught in writing classes or be present in industry standard handbooks (if those exist): "If a dramatic situation exists where a simple conversation would resolve it, there must be outside forces preventing said conversation from taking place. Otherwise, you have failed."

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

You know what I like, though? When it's done well? When the two parties have that conversation, and one of them just isn't listening or is hearing something different from what the other is trying to say. They're communicating, but as human beings they're just not very good at it.

I agree with you, Sycamore, about the grammar. The other day I was trying to read a fic in which the author had put her dialogue in quotations and had also italicised it, as if she didn't trust me, the reader, to understand that the lines between the speech marks were spoken word unless she hit me over the head with a hammer. I couldn't read the damn thing.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

Like anything else, X, it's all in how they're used -- look at the opening to "Finding Nemo" (part 1, part 2). Works better for having it there.

I did already explicitly mention how, when the context in which they're used fits they don't bother me, Tres.

That being said, I have no idea which transition you're referring to in those clips.

The other day I was trying to read a fic in which the author had put her dialogue in quotations and had also italicised it, as if she didn't trust me, the reader, to understand that the lines between the speech marks were spoken word unless she hit me over the head with a hammer. I couldn't read the damn thing.

Really? I actually appreciate italicizing dialogue (which should always be in quotes), because it helps to break it out from the surrounding text and other descriptions, and makes it easy to scan for when looking back over things. :/




X

 

[Ghost X]

I can't remember examples of stuff that ruins my immersion, but I certainly encounter it frequently. Anything that doesn't fit, is jarring, etc, basically.

 

[fancy]

That should be taught in writing classes or be present in industry standard handbooks (if those exist): "If a dramatic situation exists where a simple conversation would resolve it, there must be outside forces preventing said conversation from taking place. Otherwise, you have failed."

It's funny, cause the "conversation that could save them all" that's stopped by outside forces is actually one of my favourite tools of drama! Something that immediately comes to mind is something like Sweeney Todd

Spoiler: Spoiley

where the whole bloodshed might of been avoided had the mad woman been able to convey who she was to Todd in time or had Mrs. Lovett been honest from the beginning

.

I do love me some believable miscommunication as well though (as Licorice said )

Just thought of another that I was struggling to put into words (else I would've put it in with my first post). Another thing that plucks me out of immersion is when the line between good and evil is too rigidly drawn. This is a special complaint because this will often work for a lot of media and there are, indeed, whole franchises where this idea is central (Star Wars immediately comes to mind. Lord of the Rings, too, I reckon). But the sort of "good-n-evil" dichotomy that takes me out of the immersion is when a character is almost cartoonishly villainous for the sole purpose of making the protagonist look "good". It has nothing to do with a misunderstanding or clashing personalities or whatever. They're just mean-spirited at the author's convenience. Their maliciousness is their one defining trait. And it would be different if this character treated everyone poorly. Nope. Just our snowflake protagonist for no particular reason at all.

The reason why "evil for evil's sake" works in stuff like Lord of the Rings, methinks, is because you have whole leagues of these baddies (such as the orcs) and so you buy into the idea that it's just an inherent trait of a certain group of beings. If, say, there was only one orc who wanted to destroy the entire Fellowship, the whole time I'd be thinking, "WTF is this orc's deal?" But because every orc (and Uruk-hai) that the Fellowship encounters wants to kill them, I'm like, "Oh, orcs just suck." Yeah...

'Course, one could argue about the fact that these orcs were just following the orders of higher masters but meh meh meh. I digress.

Another minor immersion breaker of mine when I'm reading something (particularly in fanfiction) is when a character shows a ridiculous amount of sexual prowess when they have no reason to. Now, I personally don't mind an occasional bout of sex/smut/whatever popping up every now and then in whatever I'm reading if it feels natural, but if I suddenly feel like I'm reading a play by play of a bad porno, I'm taken right out of the story.

Lol, this isn't to shame any folks who get their rocks off to that sort of thing. By all means, enjoy (life's too short not to)! It just personally breaks my immersion

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

I did already explicitly mention how, when the context in which they're used fits they don't bother me, Tres.

You did, but you were also kind of vague about what you meant. I wanted to get us a concrete example on the board.

That being said, I have no idea which transition you're referring to in those clips.

At the title card. Do ... do you not know "Finding Nemo" ...? D=

 

[Clement Rage]

I can roll with almost anything, except zombie apocalypses that aren't Resident Evil games. (That and Divergent's worldbuilding, which to be fair was intended to not make sense) They tend to be used for badly thought out social commentary. And if I smell a political message in a story, my sceptical goggles come on.

Re the Last of Us, it wasn't the moral dissonance so much as the practicality of it. How can this hundreds strong gang support themselves by raiding travellers, and why are they willing to spend so many lives for one guy with some rags, alcohol, and one pet brick?

The stories of those kind of games tend to be written as though there are only thirty or forty enemies total. When there are actually hundreds, all kind of things stop making sense.

Honourable exceptions: Dirge of Cerberus and Metal Gear Rising.

 

[Shademp]

black&white movies.

With black-and-white movies, be they silent movies or not, my deal is that it just takes me a few extra minutes to "adapt" to the format and get lost in it. I spend minutes thinking "Oh, I'm watching this old-timey movie" before it turns into "just another movie" in my mind. Once I'm over that hurdle, I'm good.

 

[Roger]

I can roll with almost anything, except zombie apocalypses that aren't Resident Evil games. (That and Divergent's worldbuilding, which to be fair was intended to not make sense) They tend to be used for badly thought out social commentary. And if I smell a political message in a story, my sceptical goggles come on.

Re the Last of Us, it wasn't the moral dissonance so much as the practicality of it. How can this hundreds strong gang support themselves by raiding travellers, and why are they willing to spend so many lives for one guy with some rags, alcohol, and one pet brick?

They support themselves because by looting the city. If Pennsylvania was abandoned overnight what's left behind can sustain a hundred odd gang for many years. They attack travellers cause they can't be trusted. Joel isn't gonna strip down and show he hasn't been bitten, nor anyone else. That they chased him so far out of the city is pretty dumb yeah.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

Tres, did you not read my post? I wasn't vague. I listed and described two specific examples — one bad, one forgiveable (even if I didn't hunt them down and link them, because finding brief clips from long movies & shows online legally is rather difficult), and also explained when and why the mechanism bothers me based on the initial editing role established in the film as experience vs. storytelling to the audience.

Also, yes I fucking know Finding Nemo, but ya linked two different clips and didn't mention which had the transition you meant or when it occurred in which of them (and I still don't know why you linked two if only one has it). C'mon, man!

It SEEMS like you're referring to the bit in the second clip (from 1:25 - 1:44) where they use a match cut from Nemo's egg to the moon, and then to the sun to show the passage of time specific to the character. — If so, that's a match cut using a fade, which is both a well-established film technique as a storytelling mechanism for passage of time, AND done specifically to be as visually subtle a transition as possible by visually linking between the two scenes, AND is done in the opening when the relationship between the editor and audience is being established. This is the complete opposite of what bothers me, because it isn't obvious or effects-heavy and matches the storytelling and editing.


I can't find footage of the Spider-Man 2 "water-ripple-effect-and-cut-to-Doc-Oc's-ocean-side-shack" one that really grinds my gears (I'm not a huge fan of the original Spidey films so I haven't watched them in ages), but I'm also pretty sure that one of those movies also does a scene transition that zooms into the spider on his costume's chest and fades out the background to change scenes, which is equally egregious, and might as well just be a goddamn star wipe. They suck because they pop up, stand out, don't serve the storytelling, and don't match the subtlety of the editing used in the rest of the film, where the editor's presence is otherwise unnoticeable.

Unlike Scott Pilgrim or something that has a SHITTON of heavy, obvious edits — those're used consistently throughout the film as that's a part of it's comic book narrative structure. Hell, every episode of Sherlock is a clusterfuck of obvious edits, but both of those match the editor as a part of the storytelling that's consistent throughout the movie/show, AND both of them are done really well and established early on, so they don't stand out, but just exist as the structure. Likewise, my type of immersion in those films is different than ones with editing that is functionally invisible. Storytelling vs. experience.


I DID manage to hunt down the one from the second episode of Legion (which is one of the few examples where it's obviously a scene moving to a new scene, but forgiveable because of the way it's used), which is from 4:05 - 4:22

Spoiler

X

 

[ForceStealer]

Frankly, I'm pretty easy to please. If I'm being told a good story with enjoyable characters, I don't necessarily feel the need to be "absorbed." I've never been fooled into thinking a piece of media WASN'T fictional. The constant pretentious references to "ludonarrative dissonance" about the Uncharted games were incredibly eyeroll-y to me. In video games, we have been the sole hero winning an entire war and single-handedly killing hundreds for decades. Why was this suddenly an issue in Uncharted? At no point was I ever under an illusion that I wasn't playing a video game. We need gameplay obstacles, it's a shooter game, so we need people to shoot. What is the big deal? If we made them all magical monsters you would all suddenly be okay with it? Stupid, sorry.

Product placement in the style of Kingsglaive does not bother me. All it really sserved to do to me is to make it feel like real Tokyo. Yes, if a character is blatantly holding a coke/beer in front of the screen (or if it's namedropped in a fic I guess, but I don't read those), yes that's distracting. But Japan Airlines or Uniqlo being in the background of Kingsglaive establishing shots? *shrug*

The only thing that really takes me out of a story is characters acting willfully stupid purely in service of the plot. I'm currently playing The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky on several people's recommendations. The gameplay is a lot of fun and the localization is excellent. However, At least 5 times now, at the end of every dungeon, after you beat a group of bad guys, the heroes allow the bad guys to throw a smoke bomb and escape. EVERY. TIME. It's infuriating. How many times would you let this happen before you disarm them and hold them down instead of standing on the opposite side of the room after kicking the crap out of them? Utterly maddening. Another example is Irvine just failing to mention remembering everyone else in the party, despite it being the EXACT reason why their first mission together fails.

 

[null]

I can't get into The Walking Dead because the fundamental concept is so lazy, yet Mass Effect is my gold standard for immersion.

Product placement? I absolutely loved that stupid Cup Noodle commercial in XV but can't stand The Ranch facing every single Budweiser label straight at the camera.

I'm a complete hypocrite. Immersion is subjective and so is what breaks it.

 

[Flare]

I'd say characters who act out of character can do this (though this is usually only prevalent in fanfics, it's why I don't read them as much anymore )

Another thing is what Force just mentioned above, how sometimes games and whatnot will force characters to, frankly, behave like idiots, and sometimes multiple times in a row, in order to make the plot do something. Quick example, at the end of

Spoiler: FFXIV's patch 2.2,

when the sahagin are attempting to summon Leviathan and one mentions first how he's gonna be immortal. Merlwyb lets him finish his immortality granting chant before shooting him. Cue me eyerolling. Of couuuurrrse she has to wait when she's perfectly able to shoot him, and then ooh surprise when she tries it afterwards, he doesn't die, and is able to finish his Leviathan chant or whatever.

I'm also annoyed if a game, movie, whatever, does frequent flashbacks of events that literally just happened or that you already witnessed while playing the game. Showing a flashback of an event that happened before your character was born, or showing something you didn't already witness, is fine (though I still don't like too many). Showing me the same events over and over is not. Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World had a maddening amount of flashbacks (5 or 6?) in the first 2-3 hours of the game, and these flashbacks showed the events you literally just played through.
Like the game makers didn't trust players to remember what the fuck they just played through the past couple hours.

That's all I can think of right now.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Tres, did you not read my post?

Si.

I wasn't vague. I listed and described two specific examples — one bad, one forgiveable (even if I didn't hunt them down and link them, because finding brief clips from long movies & shows online legally is rather difficult) ...

Thus my explanation that "I wanted to get us a concrete example on the board."

Your one bad example is something I recognize, of course, as do most of us probably, but your forgiveable example (which was the more important one anyway for the sake of the point you were making) is probably less familiar if the number of us posting in the "Legion" thread is any indication. =P

... and also explained when and why the mechanism bothers me based on the initial editing role established in the film as experience vs. storytelling to the audience.

And this is what I meant when I said "kind of vague about what you meant." Even more so than what you originally said: "There are a limited number of times when using something like a slow wipe or a blur into a flashback or something works, but that's because it matches the storytelling and editing."

I really didn't know what this meant until I got to the end of your most recent post, and until I read your more immediate analysis a couple of paragraphs below, I also wasn't sure whether the example I brought up from "Finding Nemo" fit this exception you were describing or if it was just something that I found worked for me Because Reasons.

Also, yes I fucking know Finding Nemo, but ya linked two different clips and didn't mention which had the transition you meant or when it occurred in which of them (and I still don't know why you linked two if only one has it). C'mon, man!

There isn't a single clip on YouTube with the whole opening, and I wasn't going to highlight the transition for a scene -- especially one that starts such a great movie -- without having the whole scene.

It SEEMS like you're referring to the bit in the second clip (from 1:25 - 1:44) where they use a match cut from Nemo's egg to the moon, and then to the sun to show the passage of time specific to the character. — If so, that's a match cut using a fade, which is both a well-established film technique as a storytelling mechanism for passage of time, AND done specifically to be as visually subtle a transition as possible by visually linking between the two scenes, AND is done in the opening when the relationship between the editor and audience is being established. This is the complete opposite of what bothers me, because it isn't obvious or effects-heavy and matches the storytelling and editing.

I think it's the "matches the storytelling" bit that I found most confusing in your initial descriptions. You explain it very well toward the end of your post (and I appreciate the observations), but at first, I found this too vague.

I DID manage to hunt down the one from the second episode of Legion (which is one of the few examples where it's obviously a scene moving to a new scene, but forgiveable because of the way it's used), which is from 4:05 - 4:22

Spoiler

That was neat.

 

[lithiumkatana17]

I'm not super hard to please, but there are some things I just can't suspend my disbelief for. And you guys will probably roll your eyes at me for how winded this is gonna be.

Example: in most action heavy films, one of the Fast and Furious films immediately comes to mind, someone (usually the protagonist) is holding a fucking mini gun, and it cuts to a shot of a bunch of shells flying, usually .50 cal (when it real life it's probably firing blanks or .22s), but we're under the assumption that some large caliber shit in flying around.



First of all, this is physically impossible. I've actually gotten into arguments with people in college about this. .50 cal rounds are hyuge. They are almost 6 inches long. If a sniper fired a single round even 2-3 feet away from your body, you are still very likely going to die from the wounds you'll sustain of just the sheer force of this round going past you.

The .50 cal machine guns are on tripods for because of sheer recoil. There's no way you could hold that thing and not be blown off your ass while it fires 600+ rounds per minute (and also because you have to use both of your thumbs to depress the trigger but meh). But the studio wants me to believe that Dwayne Johnson can. I know he's The Rock but come on. It's just not gonna happen.

So yeah, other than me being particular about shit like that, it's not really hard to break immersion for me. Also I don't go into most films expecting realism anyway, so that's a part of it.