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I often see this "argument" thrown into discussions where the writing of a "speculative fiction" story (aren't we geeky today?) is excused as "It's sci-fi, so who the frag cares about logic and plausibility?" It happened in the ROTF discussions, and despite enjoying the movie as a whole, I agree with the critics here: The writing could have been better.

There's two points I'd like to make concerning the writing of sci-fi stories:

1) Just because the general setting, or at least some elements of it, is/are not firmly grounded in reality does not automatically make it an excuse to throw any plausibility out of the window. In other words, just because the story features aliens and/or humans with superhuman abilities and/or highly advanced machines and/or intergalactic space travel does not mean the characters can behave in extremely implausible ways. The mere fact that Clark Kent is a humanoid alien with superpowers does not excuse Lana Lang's erratic behavior towards him (at least not from a writing standpoint). The rule for writers should be "assuming this and that premise were to happen in real life, how would real humans reasonably (re)act", not "So I have this unrealistic premise, now I can make the characters act whichever way I want just so long as it serves the plot". Likewise, even when there's advanced technology or superhuman abilities involved, this shouldn't be an excuse to ignore the basic laws of physics. Just because the story features giant robots, the laws of gravity should still apply (unless those robots explicity use some sort of "zero gravity" technology). Just because some characters have superpowers, ordinary humans still shouldn't be able to survive a non-braked fall from a tall building without so much of a scratch (or at least an explanation). And just because the story uses sci-fi elements, computers shouldn't be treated as magical gadgets that can do anything the plot demands, especially when a major portion of the audience is fairly familiar with how computers work and what they can or can't do in real life.

2) Aside from the above, fictional stories should always adhere to what is known as "internal logic". A writer can't just rewrite facts he has previously established as he likes just because he feels it serves the plot. A specific variant of this is known as "Magic A is Magic A": When you have explicitly established a rule for how things in the story work, the writer can't just ignore those rules just because adhering to them would make his current plot work less well. When you have established that Clark Kent was weakened by the mere presence of Kryptonite before he even know what it was (or before he even knew that it was supposed to have an effect on him), you can't just suddenly establish that Clark's reaction to Kryptonite is purely psychosomatic and he could get over it if he just convinced himself that it has no real physical effect on him. Sure, sometimes there's a story that might work well in its own way, but if you retcon a previous story just because it poses problems for the new story you want to tell now, the readers might feel betrayed.

So, to sum it up: A sci-fi story should only contain as many fictional elements as are necessary to make the story work, but remain grounded in "reality", or at least remain plausible within the aforementioned necessary fictional constraints, as much as possible to allow for the reader to identify with the protagonists and relate to the setting. And a sci-fi story should adhere to its own established rules and respect its continuity rather than using the "fiction" part of the genre as an excuse to throw any sense of internal consistency out of the window.

Thoughts?

RotF is perfection. Well, has enough perfection that I can basically ignore the rest of it... Though to be honest I didn't find much, if any, of it implausible on its' own terms there were problems with the thing, but nothing I'd really put down to being implausible.

I did, however, find a lot of recent Doctor Who fails this rule - just because, say, a (relatively plausible) excuse can be found to move a bunch of planets into a timeloop or something is no reason to get out of it by applying a load of bollocks about a mobile phone network to the story.

ROTF implies that the Pyramids of Giza and Petra are in close proximity to each other, even within in visual range, when they're actually hundreds of miles apart in real life. Also, the movie implies that Egypt and Jordan share a common border, which is known as "Israel" in real life. (I suspect the latter may have done one purpose, though. Still kinda bugs me.)

Also, Jetfire walking out of the museum (which is located within the city of Washington DC) onto an airfield (which is located in Arizona), surrounded by a large desert.

Sure it makes storytelling more convenient, but with a little extra effort, it's possible to avoid those "conveniences" altogether.

Not seeing a big problem with either, TBH. Fictional geography happens in films all the time - the fact the Smithsonian/Boneyard sequence is purposefully composited means it's a feature of the Transformers movie universe (as is the existence of Mission City, Bobby Bolivia's car yard, Cybertron). It's entirely possible Israel isn't there in this fictional universe either.

Plus I wonder how many people had to look at a map before working out the Jordan/Egypt one (or have it pointed out to them by those who had). Not that many will admit it...

I can't remember anything of the ilk in RotF, but a bit that struck me as implausible (i.e. jerked me out of the fiction for a second) in the first one is the bit where Sam and Mikaela fall off Prime in the first one, when they're hiding under the bridge - first Prime basically kicks one of them on the way down, and then they're caught by something (i.e. Bumblebee) of about the same hardness and close to the same height as the concrete they'd have splatted on.

"Internal logic"

I myself love watching efforts in fandom to compose harmony between flatly incompatible aspects of different versions of the same franchise ... not that we ever see any of that around here.

I dunno, did Bumblebee's arm flex a bit when he caught Sam & Michaela? Like when you catch a cricket ball and pull your hand back as you catch it to take the sting out of the force.

Maybe that's how Chip ended up in the wheelchair. But yeah, kicking them should've broken a few things.

"Freedom is the right of all sentient beings" *punt*

I love Prime's barely concealed badassness. I hope in the next film he giggles with schoolgirlish glee as he rips another robot's eye sockets out with a blunt spoon because he heard you could do it in Robin Hood.

Rurudyne; it sounds like you're mocking people for wanting to find a consistency in something they love. I don't see anything wrong with it, and in some instances it's been achieved fantastically well. James Robert's 'Eugenesis' novel is available for free on this site. It knits together Marvel G1, G2 and elements of the cartoon (I think) superbly. You should give it a try and then donate huge amounts of money or your first born or whatever to him. I'm re-reading it now, and it's better the second time around.

I feel like I'm getting a bit touchy about things these days, but I really appreciate people like James putting incredible effort into their work. It more than offsets the dodgier aspects of the fandom.

Mmm, despite the Bonecrusher spanking I was a bit let down by Prime in the first one. After the second one, I'm full-on gay for Movie Prime, he's the hero we always should have had. I mean, he's killed halfway through the film (SPOILERS!) and yet he's still more awesome than you can imagine. I'm not so sure Megatron and Starscream surviving means they'll be in the third one - after the repeated beatings both take in RotF they'll probably be hiding somewhere...

Ah, I have Blue Whale bucket-fulls of fanwank for the first film and then some. It's playful like an Andrex puppy and I thought Prime was fantastic in it. It felt like a natural progression to go from brutually killing Bonecrusher to such wonderousness as "I'll take you all on" in the biggest schoolyard ruck you imagined yourself being in and winning.

Where does he go from here? As much as I enjoyed the second film it really felt like an epic rollercoaster at Alton Towers or something. Yeah it was good, but I was glad when it finished (which should be the last thing I'm thinking at a Transformer movie). By comparison the first film left me sugared up like I'd eaten a mountain of pick n' mix (especially loads of those green apple string things with the sugar icing filling).

Jolt interests me for no particular reason, but if it's just Prime & Bumblebee versus the world I'll be more than happy. Particularly if Prime develops his playful side whilst fully incorporating a Nixon in Futurama persona when on the job.

And please god make the parent's more normal. Enforced wackiness is fine if you're Rik Mayall. Mom & Dad were so much better in the first.

Christ, I can't type for toffee tonight!

I dunno, I like the second one, partially due to its' "EVERYTHING UP TO 11!!!" attitude. It drags a little in the middle quest section, but pulls it back at the end with the balls-to-the-wall desert fight (I'm loving Bumblebee being a tough guy; I thought he was for it when Ravage jumped him, but no, he just uses the thing as a weapon) where everyone gets a tiny little bit. But then I've seen it about 30 times now, and know which bits to sort-of tune out. The first one's the better film, but the second one has better good bits, I find.

I also have arbitrary love for Jolt. He's kinda a throwback to the G1 cartoon in the way he's somehow more interesting because he just does basically nothing the entire film - it's like the way you'd scan the group shots in Metroplex in the post-TF:TM episodes looking for a glimpse of Warpath or Bumblebee, or those random Jose Delbo group shots onboard the Ark where he'd just pulled pages of character models out of a drawer at random. With his weird alt mode, blue hue and lack of lines, he's the spritual successor to my boy Skids

I loved the Skids & Charlene story, especially when she was soaping him down. Very touching. And he was willing to not bother shooting Megatron for her.

I like robot/human buddy strips. They really work for me, even the more pointless stuff like the Jetfire/Buster christmas story and Streetwise & the bus full of old age pensioners.

Jolt was excellent at having Optimus reviving lasso's on his person at just the right moment. Sideswipe was just Jazz v.2 for me, bit dull.

You've hit the nail on the head with Delbo. I knew there was something I liked about him (despite his ability to draw transformer hands very well. Jeff Anderson made them look like girls hands in tight gloves all too often, matron!). It was always weirdly interesting to see Mirage taking a pot shot at Blaster in the um... Autobots X-men danger room thingy, or Buzzsaw coming from ABSOLUTELY NOWHERE to slice up a bit of Omega Supreme. It's a shame it was 'character models at random' because it represented exactly what I wanted Transformers to be. Huffer should fight Iguanus in the corner of a panel rather than his 'released the same year' counterparts.

Beachcomber and Air Raid legging it down the corridoor was nice too. They seemed to be good pals despite the year's age gap between them and the fact that Air Raid should only ever talk to and be pictured with his Arialbot comrades.

I don't suppose you know the reason for Skid's faceplate from issues 217 onwards do you? Had someone cigarette butted the reference pic by that point?

Oh yeah, and internal logic I'm all for. If both Prime & Megatron could be brought back from the dead (one with the Matrix's power and one by that little robot german doctor guy), I have no problem with the Autobots not reviving Jazz if they reasoned that they work better without him. No redundancy, no awkward performance appraisal etc.

Star Trek used to wind me up with it's busted internal logic, particularly when the actors admitted the script would contain large blank bits where a technical guy would insert gobbledeygook for them to spout e.g.

Geordi: "Captain, if I re-route the phase inverters on a ten-point eight-five scale around the warp core, it could create a reverse-neg tachyon pulse emitting trans-hole just big big enough for us to squeeze the ship through. And it'll be a solution we never refer to again in any future episode"
Picard: "Make it so, Mr. La Forge"
Chewy: "Graaaaarh"

Megatron pulled the same crap in reverse for all the cartoon episodes. Beast Wars is infinetly more fun.

Auntie Slag wrote:Rurudyne; it sounds like you're mocking people for wanting to find a consistency in something they love. I don't see anything wrong with it, and in some instances it's been achieved fantastically well. James Robert's 'Eugenesis' novel is available for free on this site. It knits together Marvel G1, G2 and elements of the cartoon (I think) superbly. You should give it a try and then donate huge amounts of money or your first born or whatever to him. I'm re-reading it now, and it's better the second time around.

I feel like I'm getting a bit touchy about things these days, but I really appreciate people like James putting incredible effort into their work. It more than offsets the dodgier aspects of the fandom.

Not at all. I only said "flatly incompatible" (like trying to meld early Marvel with aspects of Victory from Manga or Kiss Players) — I just don't do what may be deemed as call out post ... which is why the language was circumspect and likey too general. Sorry you thought I was being critical of all such efforts as I'm not.

As for Eugenesis, yes I've read it and it is good. There are others I would recommend too besides those on this site: such as (for example) Straya's Second Chances (link); or Shinju Tetsuya's still not fully recovered Metatistic (link, she wrote it years ago and the handwritten original has proven difficult because of problems with the ink used). I've written some too but every time I mention it, it seems someone (in the generic sense, not "some one" but "someone") seems takes umbrage like I was only about self-promotion, so I tend no to mention it much.

EDIT:

Star Trek used to wind me up with it's busted internal logic, particularly when the actors admitted the script would contain large blank bits where a technical guy would insert gobbledeygook for them to spout e.g.

Geordi: "Captain, if I re-route the phase inverters on a ten-point eight-five scale around the warp core, it could create a reverse-neg tachyon pulse emitting trans-hole just big big enough for us to squeeze the ship through. And it'll be a solution we never refer to again in any future episode"
Picard: "Make it so, Mr. La Forge"
Chewy: "Graaaaarh"

Priceless!

Auntie Slag wrote: I don't suppose you know the reason for Skid's faceplate from issues 217 onwards do you? Had someone cigarette butted the reference pic by that point?

It's exactly like the head of the other Diaclone version of the toy (which I want to say without bothering to look got a Transformers release years later via EHobby... Crosscut?). But it's hard to say if Dan Reed (who's art I generally didn't mind but really doesn't work in black and white) accidentally used some anachronistic reference material or he just drew Skids wrong and it's an amazing coincidence. My main memory of those issues is getting porridge all over one of them.

I really, really hate it when anyone involved with a film or TV show goes "It's Sci Fi/fantasy/horror! Anything can happen!" (usually said by actors who've just had their character killed off in a very permanent way). Like Nevermore said, it's all about creating fictional worlds that don't have to conform to our real world convention but do have to play by their own rules.

Of course, it's not just SF but all fiction full stop. Most cop shows for example only bare a superficial resemblance to real police work (they never work more than one case at a time, suspects are never brought in for questioning but instead quizzed about horrible murders as they trim the hedge or do the decorating) simply to focus the drama and make it more structured than real life.

BTW, while pondering implausible writing and Star Trek I was reminded of the old staid truism of Trek universes: after having been exposed to a horrific mutagen the crew's own (normally non-mutagenic) DNA always causes their bodies to revert (and even their minds restored) ... in time for the next episode.

inflatable dalek wrote:My main memory of those issues is getting porridge all over one of them.

Oh you filthy beast. I love Transformers too, but really;)... (prefer Transformers wun though).

inflatable dalek wrote:accidentally used some anachronistic reference material or he just drew Skids wrong and it's an amazing coincidence.

Think i'll go with your second one on that. Apart from the head, the body is spot on. So there was a Crosscut reference in 1989! To my protracted mind that's like finding a spaceship buried in ancient coral. It would be interesting to know just how much refernce material the artists had to draw on in those days. Were they sent the story plus reference pics with which to work? In which case I guess Springer was always referenced with some '86 movie frames, seeing as the toy only really resembles him in colour and helmet design.

Rurudyne wrote:Not at all. I only said "flatly incompatible" (like trying to meld early Marvel with aspects of Victory from Manga or Kiss Players)...

As for Eugenesis... There are others I would recommend too besides those on this site: such as (for example) Straya's Second Chances (link); or Shinju Tetsuya's still not fully recovered Metatistic (link.
I've written some too.

Ah, my apologies Rurudyne. I was being a bit crabby. I'm dead happy you've read Eugenesis too, and I love links to fanfic so many thanks for those too. I know nothing about 'Kiss players', I've seen them occasionally on TF Wiki but I've always blipped past them, apart from a picture of a more effeminate Ravage with a... baby's bottle!?! I dunno, it doesn't have the same appeal for me as Mirage squaring off against Sixshot or Wheelie trying to recite the whatsitcalled code whilst the Quint jailer rattles the bars.

Kiss Players can go **** itself. FACT.

I seem to remember (it's been a while) that the instructions for Skids' toy used the Crosscut head, so Bendy Dan probably used those as a reference - unless he was one of the nine people in the world who actually bought Diaclones before about 2000. The toy manuals probably gave a fairly good set of views of a character without having to get a toy from somewhere (especially as Skids had been out of production for five years; much easier to see if the instructions were on file somewhere).

The weird bit is that he didn't just copy the face from Skids' appearance in Time Wars a couple of months before. When you think about it, Furman really fluked out on the Skids thing - I know he could see into the future a little due to the UK reprints lagging behind the US stuff at the time, but considering Skids actually got a storyline to himself he was taking a bit of a chance that Budiansky wouldn't use him for anything at some random juncture...

Halfshell wrote:Kiss Players can go **** itself. FACT.

I take it Kiss Players are right up there with 'Denver the Last Dinosaur' and 'Captain Planet'?

God, so many lame kids shows from our era. I wish we had 'Hey Arnold', 'Spongebob' and Dr. Katz when I was little.

Yeah Dr. Katz, bitches!

Auntie Slag wrote:I take it Kiss Players are right up there with 'Denver the Last Dinosaur' and 'Captain Planet'?

It's right up there with Gary Glitter and paying for the privelage of being slapped about the face by a stegosaur's scrotum.

Cliffjumper wrote:The weird bit is that he didn't just copy the face from Skids' appearance in Time Wars a couple of months before. When you think about it, Furman really fluked out on the Skids thing - I know he could see into the future a little due to the UK reprints lagging behind the US stuff at the time, but considering Skids actually got a storyline to himself he was taking a bit of a chance that Budiansky wouldn't use him for anything at some random juncture...

I guess if you're an Autobot car that survived the Underbase saga then you've really reached the pinnacle of obscurity. Skids was in Time Wars? wow, you've got me there! I don't remember seeing him as he wasn't part of The Wrecker's unit at that time (I guess he never was eh? 'Survivors' was the new name by the time he raised his fists for the group shot). Was Skids running the burger van to the side, serving up bits of Venom whilst Fortress Maximus charged in for his pivotal scene?

Still, must've been quite the thing seeing Sandstorm being blown to kingdome come so utterly spectacularly. If I was there I'd have shat my robot pants and signed up with the Decepticons then and there, shooting every Autobot heroically in the back as I went.

I've just tried to find Skids in Titan's TPB of Time Wars, but I got about halfway through and no sign of the actual titular story so I've given up.

Forgot how cool Highbrow ripping off Scorponok's head was.