(The following is tongue-in-cheek.)
So, I saw Turning Red a few days ago. A good film. Probably not the top tier of Pixar, but it’s up there.
However, there is a horrible and grievous error made by the filmmakers. One that is inexcusable to someone who writes a baseball blog:
A major plot point is that there is a gigantic boy band concert scheduled at the Skydome for the night of May 25, 2002. We’re talking an all-out production with giant posters of the band members, special spotlights flashing the band logo in the sky, and the appropriate level of pyrotechnics and stage set-up for a big concert.
However, there is a major issue: The Blue Jays had a game there that day. So, Pixar is asking us to believe that the Blue Jays lost to Cleveland 3-0 in just over two-and-a-half hours, and then they put up all of the boy band stuff, from the giant posters to the elaborate stagecraft and presumably countless other logistical things?
Yeah, right. I can believe a teenage Chinese-Canadian girl can turn into a red panda as a metaphor for entering puberty, but this? This goes too far. This breaks the suspension of disbelief.
And it can’t be considered just some oversight. This is Pixar. They go insanely into detail in their research for their movies. The Incredibles referenced the quantum mechanical concept of zero-point energy to explain one of the villain’s devices. They consult psychologists for films regularly. One of the filmmakers of Finding Nemo outright admits in the audio commentary that they briefly included a lobster that isn’t native to Australia in the film simply so that someone could use a Boston accent, but that they made sure every other species featured was authentic.
They’ve done all of that in the past, but nobody working on Domee Shi’s (literal) period piece couldn’t check to see what the Blue Jays schedule that year was? I mean, they get so much
For shame, Pixar. For shame.
(I actually believe the real reason for this is that in the movie another important plot point requires there to be a red moon, which only occurs naturally during times of lunar eclipse. The only lunar eclipses in the Northern Hemisphere in 2002 were in late May and late November, and the weather in Toronto in November would likely have required the Skydome roof to be closed for the climax of the film, which would have ruined some of the visuals of the film’s final act. Setting the film in a different year would have likely required other changes that may have ruined Domee Shi’s use of the film as a metaphor for her own childhood in Toronto, so they went with what they went with. It should also be noted that the May eclipse wasn’t visible in Toronto, so they similarly fudged that a bit for dramatic purposes as well. I’d love to hear if I’m right about this so on the long-shot chance that you work for Pixar, let me know.)
The Baseball Continuum 