Realistic fantasies

Justice League: War is one of the best superhero movies I've seen in a while. Definitely the best from the DC universe. If you don’t know what I’m talking about you should check it out. Clever, character-informing dialogue, a constant stream of twists and turnarounds, and a well balanced distribution of attention between the players.

Why couldn't ANY of the other recent superhero movies be like this?

Well, for one, it’s a cartoon.

People expect real life superheroes to be treated ‘seriously’. And by seriously, I mean they get treated as if they could be dropped into the real world. I’ve always thought that any superhero story should, on some level, acknowledge that it is metaphorical. Same goes for fantasy. Superhero stories should never treat themselves like they are our exact reality. By trying to fit our reality, fantasy films merely expose their own inconsistencies as invented worlds. Films like this often aim for realism, when all they need to be is believable.

This is true of all films. Believability is far more important than realism; firstly, because making something believable is easier than making it reality; and secondly because stories aren't about reality. They’re about perspective. And when movies create their own reality, parallel but separate to ours, with their own standards of what’s possible and probable, they give their stories the legitimacy of their own universe because they’re not trying to pretend our reality is the same as theirs.

It’s an unpopular opinion, but none of the Bale Batman films resonated with me. I like Bale as an actor and Nolan as a director, and Batman is one of the coolest characters out there - but these films were highfalutin soap operas with two dimensional characters in unbelievable scenarios with bloated themes. And Batman had a lisp. More specifically, what’s known as a ‘sibilant s’. I don’t mean to be petty, but I can’t see how someone so studious and disciplined wouldn't work that out of his speech. Especially considering how many people could use it to connect his two identities. It doesn't matter how gravelly Bat’s voice is if he has the same lisp as a certain local playboy. To me, that’s not believable.

It’s also not believable for a human man to survive a forty storey fall onto a car, to talk like he knows his own story themes, and to support a hang-gliding wing structure with human arm strength. My basic opinion is that Batman could not exist in real life. Not like that. The idea of a human being so kick ass is great - and Batman is certainly one of the more realistic superheroes - but he would not fit any better into our real world than Superman or Wonder Woman. And near enough isn't good enough when it comes to connecting with an audience.

This is why Batman works so much better in cartoon, comic and video games. These forms acknowledge his fantastical elements without trying to wedge him into our world. They put Batman firmly in his own reality, where plant women and crocodile men are possible – and so is a dude who can hold a criminal above his head with one arm. If Batman existed in our world he would be more like Bourne or Bond. Smart, but fallible. He would be believable instead of a cartoon hero pretending to be real life.

This leads me to another reason fantasy can be tiresome if handled too ‘seriously’. Something which Justice League: War handled very well. A little thing called incredulity.

It doesn't matter how dangerous a situation is, how many times they've seen it, or how scared or brave they are, police officers, firemen, ambulance officers, rock climbers, and any other human who regularly engages in ‘serious’ situations will still be shocked when something incredible happens in front of them. They might joke about it, or swear, or gasp, they’ll probably leap into action to fix it - but they will always take a moment to go, “Holy crap, this is my life right now?” That’s the human thing to do.

But many current fantasy characters never do that. Bale’s Batman is one such offender. Cavill’s Superman is another. Affleck’s Daredevil is probably the worst for it. Even Harry Potter never really manages.

Filmmakers tend to think that having a character make fun of themselves will undermine the legitimacy of their peril, when it actually does the complete opposite. A character who shows incredulity in the face of extreme danger identifies themselves immediately as human, because human’s need to process what they experience, usually as they are experiencing it. Trained professionals know how to do it quickly, or keep it hidden, but they still experience an emotional response (that includes incredulity) in every situation, and the human audience knows that. So a character that is never incredulous doesn't read as human.

Did anybody else find Man of Steel’s Superman to be a little robotic? Henry Cavill is a good actor, but the script didn't have him respond to the fantasy elements of his own situation with anything other than “Hmm, this is serious.” Christopher Reeve’s Superman was far more believable, despite clunkier effects and 70s hair styles, because he had moments of ‘Oh crap’ and ‘How is this happening right now?’

Even Mr Incredible was more believably human than the Man of Steel. The way he cringed before stopping that train, or the way he clapped his hands to encourage himself to keep looking for the escaped robot on the island that first time. This is what real people do. What believable characters do. Fantasy or not. They sigh and cringe and shake their heads at the ridiculousness of their situations – and then they get on with it anyway.

This brings me to my final point – emotional believability. Nothing is as important in a film as emotional believability. The laws of physics, the rules of war, the vocal abilities of monkeys – none of them matter as much as the emotional reality of a story. Because there is nothing humans know better than emotions. We can accept breaks in number logic, or physics logic, or monkey logic, but we cannot accept breaks in emotional logic.

Which is why character incredulity has so much power in fantasy. In a story where nothing is familiar to us – not the setting or the slang or the physics – the one thing that will cement the reality of a world in our minds is its inhabitants and their feelings. If we are watching Star Wars with its X-wings and confederacies and wookies and droids, and we try to explain all of that stuff to the audience, our story is going to die on its arse (Episodes 1 to 3). If we throw in Han Solo with a bit of ‘Fly casual’, all of a sudden we have a reason to accept the foreign, ‘ridiculous’ elements of the story because the characters do and the experience improves dramatically (Episodes 4 to 6). Because, in stories, emotional logic trumps all other types of logic every time.

Some filmmakers seem to think that an audience will only take a fantasy seriously if all the characters in that world do the same. Ridiculous. People only have time to respond to serious situations in two ways – by laughing about it, or by getting on with it. They almost never say, “This serious situation is serious.” Which is why, without incredulity, a character is completely unbelievable.

Filmmakers know they are pretending. We know we are pretending. So why do they feel the need to convince us their fantasy is real? Do they think their emotional logic lacks the power to hold our interest? Typically, the answer is yes. If an audience refuses to accept the other types of logic running through your story, it’s because they haven’t been swayed by the emotional logic. Whereas if the filmmaker is able to show even the smallest acknowledgement that they are presenting us with a reality outside or our own, we will relax into their capable hands to see what they have to say.

So if you’re like me and have had trouble with the new Spider-mans or Man of Steel or all of the new Batmans, take consolation in this: that movies aren't supposed to be real. We all know that. But that doesn't make them any less special. Their specialness comes from what they tell us about our reality, not what they tell us about theirs. We have no use for the lessons of an ewok, or polymath millionaire, or an alien demi-god. But we do have a use for the lessons of a human being.

Even if that human being isn't real.