Derren Brown Live: Hero at 30,000 feet, C4 10pm

I am glad he responded too although he didn't convince me that the show was legit at all. If it was then it was awfully done to make it seem plausable.


Keelboots: You really need to get over yourself talking about smugness and abuse. I have been reading from the start of the thread and whilst there has been some rudeness towarRAB you, both you and Ginger Geek have been 2 of the rudest posters in this thread.


Portable: That would be funny if it was all trolling from keelboots. He did refuse to agree to disagree after a long discussion last night which I thought was odd as most people would realise that opinions can differ and leave it at that amicably. Then again he probably just wanted to carry on until we have come around as he is superior to us and any other opinion is ludicrous right?
 
There's no reverse logic!

My position is that

(i) it's not possible to genuinely make people do things against their will by hypnosis, and forget about it.
(ii) when Derren tells us (i) is happening, I don't believe him.

You appear to have reached the conclusion in part (ii), but not by following (i), since you linked to a page suggesting it was all part and parcel of hypnotism. So I'm wondering how you got there?
 
No, they do those things for other reasons, not copying what they see on TV. Otherwise we could see actors do lots of selfless things on TV, and presume people would copy them.
 
Nope. But neither am I sticking my head in the sand and deluding myself that this was anything other than a new kind of direction from Derren - and a piss poor one at that - in which it's mainly all about the editing and creating a cheeseball feelgood factor. Much like one would expect from the conclusion of the uplifting sob stories on the X factor, y'know when the music plays and the stereotypical downtrodden contestant opens their mouths to sing and changes their life forever.

As his self-styled number one fan in the world, the only true believer who really understanRAB him and his act, you may not consider this to be of any great importance.

But while you continue to fool only yourself that this is the sort of thing one should expect from an entertainer of the style and quality of Derren Brownwe, I'll continue to stress - like 99% of all other posters commenting on it - how utterly mind bogglingly ridiculous it all was.

And this from someone who's shelled out a few quid to go see Derren live on more than one occasion.
 
I resent being called an idiot, especially as I usually like the stuff Derren does. But I'm afraid the 15 minutes I watched were just cringeworthy.

I'm happy that he's using psychology to do good things, allegedly.

I respect your right to enjoy the show and believe everything he does. Please respect my right to switch off, and don't call me an idiot.
 
Heres my 2p worth:

To me the show seemed like a strange mix of "Donnie Darko", "Inception" and "Faking It" at times.

I think my overall opinion is, they totally over did it. They took a simple theme and just over did it.

I mean I get the idea of the show, take a chap with no confidence, no get up and go.. and show him that life is short and it's worth taking risks. I get it. But Derren could have done it by being upfront right from the get go. He could have picked the guy out, told him what he plans to do, taught him some hand magic and have him perform to people in a pub.. set him some tests using actors.. and I think I would have enjoyed it a lot more.

Instead it just felt like it was enshrouded in all this mystery.. dream like states.. breaking into a coppers house.. it just seemed too far fetched.

At the start of the show I was looking forward to it. I see a lot of myself in the guy, I'm shy, don't take many risks etc.. routine based life. I thought "Brilliant!" and I really liked the idea of the chapters, it seemed well put together.

But I kept finding myself questioning a lot of what was going on. For example, when Matt was stood with that man and his white van, there was a camera in a car just across the road and he could have turned at any moment and seen them filming him. And he must have been mic'ed up at that point too because we could hear the conversation he had with his Mum when he went back to the house to suggest they throw a party and the conversation with his neighbours, who all happened to be in.

And why was it even "live", the final scene with the simulator and the crowd watching him wasn't live and they didn't even suggest it was live. So why was DB stood next to a noisy plane?

Now that's not to say Matt wasn't a real person and an actor, I've no clue, but I think DB just seems to be going way too far with these shows. Perhaps he has to in order to make them interesting and part of his genre?

And at times Matt just didn't seem to fit the profile either. Confident clothing with big logos, a live in girlfriend.. hmm.

Who knows, maybe we're just expecting too much from these shows. But if I watch "The Heist" I don't find myself questioning everything like I did with this.. and that was a very similar formula and plot. Convince people to rob a bank van. Maybe we're just too critical of the guy these days or he is a victim of his own success.

I'll still go see him live tho.
 
This might work for some people but not for others. Some people have a particularly high pain threshold to start with.

Also, it wouldn't be surprise me if this scene was actually misleading in some way, as with the infamous open-heart-surgery-acupuncture scene from the same series. In that scene the programme makers implied that a patient undergoing open heart surgery received no pain relief other then acupuncture, which was not case as they also used sedatives and local anaesthetic. A complaint was upheld by the BBC trust.

I saw this show when it aired. At the time I was impressed and bought it all so I was disappointed to learn years later that there were numerous inaccuracies and lots of misleading information.
 
When I said "awesome, any proof?" to a long post discussing what hypnosis was and how it worked, you responded along the lines of "interesting, so how do you think it works then?". I'd say there's a pretty clear implication there that you did think it worked along those lines. If you don't, do forgive me, but I might also suggest you express yourself more clearly in future.

I'm still amused by the parallel between this discussion and ones that I've seen you have in atheism threaRAB. I'm sad you can't share that amusement.

My claim is that there are no magic powers going on on stage, and that people just play along from a combination of a) why not it's a bit of fun b) peer pressure c) not being able to stop for fear of looking like a dick and ruining everyone's entertainment. This surely is the default position? (akin to "there is no god") If there really is some other force in play, isn't the onus on you to prove it?

Do you believe it's possible to make somebody eat an onion while genuinely believing they are eating an apple?
 
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