Are you stuck in movie logic?

This really interesting, and I first observed this with the movie the Matrix. Not so much that the conflict couldn't be resolved. (although the Oracle's entire character is based on this idea) But instead, if I were really on the Nebuchadnezzar I would have wanted to have hours-long conversations with Neo about the nature and limitations of his powers. The crew is faced with a deistic and perhaps apocalyptic super hero on their crew. They might be witnessing the end times!

And NO ONE digs into this for more details? When I was younger this frustrated me, but as I got older I realized this was a reflection of normal human psychology. People avoid interesting topics all the time. "Why did you cheat on your husband?" "How come you're depressed all the time?" "What do you do when no one is watching?" "Do you like your job?" etc ... all of these questions have pretty direct answers, but it seems like people will do almost anything to avoid speaking about uncomfortable topics directly.

It's still not something I fully understand, but it's something I've at least made some peace with. It's human nature, for better or (usually) for worse.

It's because if you explain what's going on, you stop the action. And viewers/readers don't like that.

In fiction it's called an info dump. As an aspiring science fiction author, virtually every beta reader I've had has told me they don't like them. I want my fiction to make sense, but you have to be subtle about it. To avoid readers complaining, you have to figure out how to explain things to the reader without it being obvious that you're explaining things to the reader, or stopping the action to do it.

Movies are such a streamlined medium that usually this gets cut entirely. At least in books you can have appendices and such for readers who care.

I would argue that it is the opposite. People expect an info dump and everything explained to them. I remember watching Captain America: The Winter Soldier (I think it was the last movie I watched in theatre) and pretty much everything was explained to the audience. Guy Richie has character intro screens like Street Fighter in his movies.

Even in movies where everything is explained e.g. in Blade where they will have a scene where someone explains how a weapon works, I've noticed in a recent viewing of the movie that people forgot the explanations of the gadgets he has. In Blade they have a James Bond / Q like conversation between the characters to say "this weapons does X against vampires" and sets the weapon for later on in the movie and people forgot about it.

I watched "The Mothman Prophecies" and quite a lot of the movie was up to interpretation and there was many small things in the film that you might overlook e.g. there is a scene in a mirror where the reflection in the mirror is out of sync with his movements, suggesting something supernatural is occurring and he hasn't realised it yet. While I love the movie, there is very few movies like that.

If you watch movies before the 90s. A huge number of movies will have characters communicate efficiently and often realistically.

My favorite is Con Air (1997). As they're marching the prisoners onto the plane, a warden explains to a colleague who everyone is so we know just what a dangerous crowd the protag is in with/up against.

"That's So-and-so. Drug and weapons charges. Took out a squad of cops before he was finally arrested."

"That's Such-and-such. They call him The Butcher. He eats his victims after he murders them."

"That's the ringleader. Runs the whole drug trade along the entire west coast. Anybody crossing him has a death wish."

Then Nicolas Cage's character, the hero, comes out. He gives a toss of his luxurious hair (must've been smuggling Pantene in his "prison pocket"), everything goes slo-mo, and I swear to you, a beam of holy light falls on him like he's Simba from The Lion King.

"Who's that?"

"Oh, him? He's nobody."

> Then Nicolas Cage's character, the hero, comes out. He gives a toss of his luxurious hair (must've been smuggling Pantene in his "prison pocket"), everything goes slo-mo, and I swear to you, a beam of holy light falls on him like he's Simba from The Lion King.

Don't forget the scene near the end where he says to Bubba (I think at least that is his name), "I will show you that God exists", and in almost every other movie it is left upto interpretation whether God is really protecting/guiding the hero.

However in Conair, Cyrus shoots at him at point blank range and I think every bullet misses and/or grazes him. As he is walking through the plane to finally confront Cyrus there is a number of events that should kill him e.g a propeller flies through the fuselage and narrowly misses him and kills Jonny 23. There is really no other way to interpret it other than Nicolas Cage is very literally demonstrating that God exists.

The movie is not subtle about anything. It was the last "All American" action movie, where the hero beats everyone by just punching them harder and believing in Jesus. I quite like it.