True. There comes a point where the endless pursuit of realism starts getting in the way of a certain kind of narrative creativity. And in the process, we lose what should be the very essence of the word entertainment: to entertain.

The other day, I watched Emmerich’s latest film, Moonfall. A proper disaster movie, with all the necessary tropes. In short, that was real cinema, I had a great time. And yet, a large number of reviews on IMDb kept pointing out how “unrealistic” the film was. But if I’m watching an Emmerich movie, the very last thing I want is realism.

I think this is part of the current zeitgeist. The great inversion of real and virtual, as described by Guy Debord in The Society of the Spectacle, seems to make people believe that what happens on screen is reality, and then has to reflect their own conception of reality. The slightest deviation from that conception reminds them that it is only fake, and that they must, at all costs, "return to the matrix" in order to escape the real and the existential dread that follows.

Also: you cannot pretend to be "physically realistic" on a computer screen. The simplest thing: if there is more ambient light, your pupils decrease and your sight is different. You cannot simulate "true light" unless you also simulate that.

You can either do it where the safe areas are just super dark, raytracing be damned, or you can do it where even if there is light, and you're clearly "visible" as long as you stay below a certain light level, everything is fine (Minecraft style, perhaps).