[HN Gopher] Are you stuck in movie logic?
___________________________________________________________________
Are you stuck in movie logic?
Author : eatitraw
Score : 156 points
Date : 2025-11-17 12:06 UTC (10 hours ago)
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| gota wrote:
| > Or: Good Will Hunting. The entire movie feels like it could've
| been skipped if literally any emotionally intelligent person said
| to Matt Damon's character: "I feel like you have a tremendous
| amount of intellectual potential that you're wasting here -- why
| are you getting in fights rather than trying to do something
| interesting?"
|
| This person did not watch Good Will Hunting. I'm not a fan of the
| film, I just know for a fact several characters do this at
| several times. That is, y'know, _the plot_.
|
| I haven't read further enough to discern whether this is AI slop,
| but it doesn't look promising.
| phyzix5761 wrote:
| With the amount of em dash usage it probably could be AI slop.
| scott_w wrote:
| Even if it's not, it's still total garbage. It reads like the
| Critical Drinker screaming "if only these people put their
| emotions and flaws to one side and behaved like completely
| rational beings with perfect information!"
| stray wrote:
| I heard the Critical Drinker's voice while reading that.
| tailspin2019 wrote:
| FWIW I don't get the "AI slop" spidey-sense when reading this,
| despite the liberal use of em dashes. I thought it was well
| written and makes some interesting points.
| corry wrote:
| In fact, the entire movie's point is that simply HEARING others
| tell you those things doesn't do anything! The inner journey of
| the character getting to a place where he believes it himself
| -- or rather believes himself to be worthy of a greater path --
| is THE crucial part.
|
| So the example is exactly opposite the author's intent.
|
| That said, I liked the article and agree with its point. In
| fact, I'd guess that effective leaders all have learned
| techniques and ability to remain calm/comfortable in having
| these blunt conversations that cut to the chase (but still
| value and hear people).
| techblueberry wrote:
| Ultimately I think it's not really about going to far in one
| way or the other. I tend to be very blunt in my dealings with
| people to a fault. I wouldn't say I'm mean, but like, in
| order for blunt truths to be effective I think they have to
| be somewhat rare, so I'm trying to adapt to be more strategic
| in my bluntness, but most of the time, let things go and
| maybe subtly steer rather than just calling things out all
| the time.
| kykat wrote:
| People always ask for feedback, but I haven't met anybody that
| can actually take it.
|
| Most people just don't want to hear, don't want to know. And
| people know it, so people don't say what they think.
| Razengan wrote:
| It's about "investment": People spend a lot of time,
| consciously on purpose or implicitly as a matter of
| consequence, on making up their plans & preferences.
|
| They've been building up mental velocity to whatever they're
| going to do.
|
| When you give them a contradictory opinion or advice, you're
| asking them to discard that investment and abruptly switch
| directions.
|
| Instead of asking them to drive off their mental road and into
| the dirt or turn around, offer them something akin to a rail
| track that they can gradually/subtly switch onto.
|
| Figure out the right "prompt" for them :)
| vunderba wrote:
| To put it a bit more succinctly - the sunk cost fallacy.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost#Fallacy_effect
| NebulaStorm456 wrote:
| I gave an advice to my friend who is doing a startup. I told
| him it probably won't work out. But we continue with our own
| line of thinking because the outcome totally depends on
| reality. Also, my friend can tack on lot of ifs later on (if
| only this and this and this had happened, I would be
| successful) to "prove" himself right. It might be possible
| that with no decisive outcome favoured by reality, we would
| both continue to be right in our heads.
| Razengan wrote:
| In situations like that, sometimes people just want to TRY,
| whether or not they succeed, even if they expect it to
| fail.
|
| The act of trying is what matters to them.
|
| Pursuing potential romantic partners or starting software
| projects are some prime examples :')
| arjie wrote:
| A decade or so ago, after an interview that didn't go that
| well, a candidate reached out asking for feedback. I gave him
| some algorithms and data structures advice and where to read
| what and stuff like that and he responded really positively
| then reached out to me months later to tell me he went and
| learned all the stuff and got a job at some now-famous startup
| (Airbnb? I don't remember). I was early in my career back then
| and was happy for him. Now, if I were to do that I'd be like
| "Damn, this guy is capable of taking the feedback and actioning
| on it. I should have somehow found a way to hire him!"
|
| Haha, I hope he's doing well wherever he is :)
| xd1936 wrote:
| This article should be included in every Professional Development
| program. This is excellent advice.
|
| I live in an area of the midwest United States where nearly
| _everybody_ is kind, but severely conflict averse... To the point
| where it becomes difficult to gauge true intentions. Lack of
| clarity on everybody's priorities make work far more difficult
| than it needs to be because everyone here are people pleasers who
| don't know how to say "no" or "I don't like that".
| dfxm12 wrote:
| I tell my managers "no". I tell them why: this process doesn't
| scale with the team, the security policy forbids it, this is
| the fifth project you've given top priority to this week, etc.
|
| They say, don't worry, just do it. I'm at a point where saying
| no doesn't matter, so I have to consider if I should even
| bother.
| coldtea wrote:
| In software companies priorities mean nothing, they're there
| to check a checkmark that "we also have prioritization".
| Anything they want to have will be "top priority" even if
| they have 50 "top priority" deliverables this release.
|
| What actually prioritizes things is actual friction: from
| stuff actually taking time to make, to things falling apart
| and needing time to repair, to employees unionizing and
| refusing endless overtime.
|
| And anything else (scalability, policy, etc) is also
| irrelevant, when it comes to "the customer/CEO/higher manager
| wants this". People are not actually hired to make the
| product better, or to follow policies. They work to do what
| the company higher ups want them to do - the rest is up to
| them to try to fit under those contraints.
| freehorse wrote:
| Not just in software companies ime.
| memfd wrote:
| Sometimes it is not conflict aversion as much as, and maybe i
| am speaking for myself here, being unsure if the
| opinion/judgement you have and are about to express is valid or
| if this is a real bad misread. Maybe conflict aversion is a
| form of short-sighted kindness
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| I've often been the only person in the room willing to
| confront things directly. (I don't like doing it but
| unresolved issues just get worse.)
|
| What a person says about people who are not there is telling.
|
| When it's not outright malicious, it's usually fear. It's
| something they don't want to happen that stops them from
| saying it. (Depending on the situation it may be entirely
| justified.)
|
| Kindness does exist. There's plenty of times you don't want
| to upset somebody else for their sake.
|
| There's nothing wrong with conflict avoidance being the
| default. It only becomes a problem when it stops you from
| conflict where it's necessary.
| lachlan_gray wrote:
| I think what you're describing is a form of conflict
| aversion, where the (tiny) conflict is what would clear up
| your read, or the group's attitude on something, for going
| forward. Short sighted kindness is a nice way to put it
| packetlost wrote:
| I'm also in a Midwestern city and see similar things. I once
| saw a project manager at a Fortune 500 that literally
| fabricated statistics about an ongoing project I was on to
| please management.
|
| I've found that not being afraid to say no or opine on things
| has been very effective in my career.
| sys32768 wrote:
| My mother's side of the family was from the Midwest.
|
| Super polite, agreeable, but almost impossible to nail down
| with clear communication as to how they felt or what they
| wanted.
|
| During reunions with that family, it was nearly impossible to
| get them to say where they wanted to go out to eat.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| > it was nearly impossible to get them to say where they
| wanted to go out to eat.
|
| Some people just don't care, like me, and can find something
| to eat just about anywhere. I also dislike choosing where to
| eat, so my rule is that the pickiest eater gets to choose,
| and I'm _never_ the pickiest in a group.
| tuna74 wrote:
| If you clearly state what you want you end up taking
| responsibility for that. Say you want to go to X which is a
| 40 minute drive away and when you get there it is full. Then
| you will here "Well, you wanted to go here!" and it will be
| your fault.
| everdrive wrote:
| 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.
| eslaught wrote:
| 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.
| everdrive wrote:
| Yep, I totally get it, and my initial observation was made
| when I was maybe 17 or so. Sometimes these topics do get put
| into movies, such as the sequence in Shazam where they test
| his newly-found powers -- but even that was played more for
| laughs and was really just an entertaining way to acknowledge
| that much of the audience probably never heard of Shazam.
| ashtakeaway wrote:
| If we succumbed to everyone's complaints we'd have a much
| more dumbed down version of everything. Consider if you had a
| concussion on the right temporal lobe and had hypergraphia as
| a symptom of the resultant temporal lobe epilepsy. I'd write
| everything I'd want to write regardless of who complains.
| Philip K. Dick was one such person.
| eslaught wrote:
| It depends on what you care about. If you're writing purely
| for yourself, then by all means, go ahead and do so.
|
| I've found there's a balance to be found in listening to
| others vs yourself. Usually, if multiple people give you
| the same feedback, there is _some_ underlying symptom they
| are correctly diagnosing. But they may not have the correct
| diagnosis, or even be able to articulate the symptoms
| clearly. The real skill of an author /editor is in figuring
| out the true diagnosis and what to do about it.
|
| In the communication example, this means rooting conflicts
| in the true personalities of the characters and/or their
| context, so that even if they sat down to have a deep chat,
| they still wouldn't agree. E.g., character A has an
| ulterior motive to see character B fail. Now you hint at
| that motive in a subtle way that telegraphs to readers that
| something is going on, without stopping the action for what
| would turn into a pedantic conversation. At least, that's
| what I'd do.
| DoomDestroyer wrote:
| 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.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Current movies have Reed-Solomon error correction
| (repetition of concepts, names and explanations) built in
| so the stream receiver (human watching movie while still
| holding smartphone in hand) can recover from missed data
| (scenes).
| everdrive wrote:
| It's interesting, because old comic books have this as
| well. For decades (I'm not sure if they still do it)
| every issue of Wolverine would have some silly bit where
| Wolverine is talking to himself to remind the reader that
| the has an adamantium skeleton, razor-sharp claws,
| enhanced animal senses and an advanced healing factor
| which can heal from almost any wound. Every single issue,
| nearly without fail.
|
| It's silly to the reader (and especially to an adult
| reader) but it's also obvious why this was present: the
| comic was meant for kids, and also Marvel never know when
| they might be getting a brand new reader who is totally
| unfamiliar with the character.
| boznz wrote:
| TV series really annoy me on this with the "Previously
| on.." 3 minute time killer at the start recapping the
| major points of the plot
| stavros wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MFtl2XXnUc
| troupo wrote:
| > People expect an info dump and everything explained to
| them. I remember watching Captain America
|
| People don't have an expectation of that. The number one
| rule of movie making _used to be_ "Show, don't tell".
|
| With the rise of streaming this changed. People "watch"
| movies while chatting on their phones, doing home chores
| etc. A lot of movies in the streaming era spell everything
| out because people no longer watch the screens.
| ep103 wrote:
| This is my wife starting up a 20 minute conversation the
| moment the first actor shows up on the screen xD
|
| Don't worry, I love her anyway. But yes, we're restarting
| the movie because no, I don't have any idea what happened
| either, you were talking. ahahaha
| recursive wrote:
| Maybe some people like that. I have no idea how common this
| is, but if everything makes sense, I find that kind of
| boring. I like to have at least a little bit of ambiguity
| or mystery to chew on.
| bitwize wrote:
| 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."
| GeoAtreides wrote:
| you weren't kidding one bit:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqKCkk8qWxs
| RichardCA wrote:
| If you go back and watch the first two seasons of HBO's
| Westworld, you will see Anthony Hopkins' character
| repeatedly doing exposition dumps out of his mouth. The
| difference is in how he does it, that he is in such
| complete command of his craft that he can work out exactly
| what the screenwriters intended without drawing any
| attention to it.
|
| And Trekkies will remember the time Larry Niven wrote a
| screenplay for TAS and gave all the exposition dumps to
| Leonard Nimoy. See how nicely he handles it?
|
| https://youtu.be/B65HEhBR-1s
| stavros wrote:
| That's very interesting, would you happen to have any
| example videos of Hopkins in the show?
| scott_w wrote:
| > 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.
|
| That's because you're seeing the rule of cool in action.
| The explanation itself makes the item interesting enough
| that the (2 seconds) setup gets the audience excited up
| watch a grenade blow a vampire's head off.
| hammock wrote:
| That doesn't answer why we don't do it in real life, for
| people like parent commmenter who actually are interested in
| it
| closewith wrote:
| No, you need to be able to potray humans well enough to
| convey their motivations, goals, emotions, etc without
| explaining it. Anybody can explain a character, but that's
| not interesting to read.
| lelanthran wrote:
| > 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.
|
| The whole _" The audience wants to know, but they don't want
| to hear it"_ problem.
|
| Usually solved by having characters do something that shows
| their character. If it's from the past, have a flashback,
| don't have a narration.
|
| Like real life, people hate sermons.
| amundskm wrote:
| Answering questions fully and honestly means being vulnerable,
| and depending on a lot of societal norms, being vulnerable is
| frowned upon. Most people don't let themselves be vulnerable
| with anyone, or if they do, its only a few very close people
| that trust absolutely.
| everdrive wrote:
| >and depending on a lot of societal norms,
|
| I'm not sure I can accept that it's just social norms. It
| feels like a human universal. I really like honestly, and I
| often bend to social norms and avoid these kinds of topics.
| But for years, I falsely assumed that other people were like
| me: if we could just be past the initial fear everyone would
| be so happy to be able to speak so openly and honestly.
|
| And unfortunately, this just is not the case. From what I can
| tell, for many, many people they just don't want to go there;
| they don't want to offer real answers to questions; they want
| the questions un-asked, or they want to answer with a
| socially-please lie, or a joke, or anything that changes the
| topic. I don't think we've been taught to be this way. I
| think we are this way.
| amundskm wrote:
| I said societal norms because I do think it depends culture
| to culture. Danes are famous for being incredible
| forthright and blunt while the Japanese are often seen as
| being circumspect.
|
| In the US there is an incredible difference in what is
| allowed to be talked about in the midwest vs the west
| coast. I don't know about other regions as I have only
| lived in the two, but I would assume they differ as well.
|
| Like many things different societies can be graded on a
| gradient.
| roxolotl wrote:
| East Coast and Midwest also differ. As someone from a
| WASPy east coast family with a partner from a working
| class Midwest family, a literal union steel mill family,
| I can attest to the challenges of navigating situations
| like this. I had a realization like this article through
| spending time with my partner and now I basically cannot
| interact with my family without changing modes of
| interaction.
| phantasmish wrote:
| The opening chapters of _A Passage to India_ include an
| Indian man thinking about how irritating it is that these
| uncultured Brits don't understand a polite lie as a
| refusal, and always want to try to solve the "problem" to
| get around the refusal. How unrefined!
| rubicon33 wrote:
| A share a similar frustration as you, that it seems
| "people" don't care about / never question things, but for
| me it's really about one big question:
|
| Why the f*ck are we here? Why does ANYTHING exist? What IS
| this reality?
|
| How "nobody" (very very few) people are trying to figure
| this out or are bothered by the question and open to
| talking about it blows my mind mind.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Your questions have been the focus of religion since the
| dawn of humanity. I don't see how you can think nobody
| tries to figure this out or considers the question.
| card_zero wrote:
| Go ahead, begin. What do you say about it? I could find
| the Wikipedia page, and put a name on the question I
| guess, some philosopher must have written some discussion
| of the matter. I kind of doubt it went anywhere.
|
| Oh, the article is just called "Why is there anything at
| all?" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_is_there_anything
| _at_all%3...
| Dilettante_ wrote:
| You are commiting category error. "Why are we here/why
| does anything exist" implicitly assumes an impetus, a do-
| er with motivations. And "what IS this reality" contains
| it's own answer(and the refusal to accept it): It is
| 'this reality'. It is IS-ness itself. It's like saying
| "Perfectly describe the entirety of Moby Dick, leaving
| out not a single word or punctuation", and refusing when
| someone hands you the book.
|
| Buddhism, Yoga, the more esoteric parts of the Abrahamic
| religions and many more all have you covered with an
| extensive corpus if you want people who are asking the
| same questions you are.
| card_zero wrote:
| Well, yeah. We don't have to field criticism all the time.
| It wouldn't do any good. That's why there's a concept of
| privacy.
| erikerikson wrote:
| You're not alone in your preference
| Joker_vD wrote:
| Eh, that's actually pretty realistic. Remember that scene with
| Luke trying to lift X-Wing from the swamp? He applies the
| Force, the ship actually starts going up, and then he just
| straight up stops and says, "Nah, that's impossible, I give
| up". Totally baffling when you think about it, and yet totally
| realistic.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > 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.
|
| Its a rather important part of the plot of the film that Neo
| neither understands, nor thinks he understands, not even
| _believes in_ his powers until fairly late in the film where
| there are rather urgent pressing concerns that prevent casual
| hours-long conversations.
|
| Morpheus believes and has at least a fuzzy understanding, and
| there is an important conversation the whole crew watches
| between him and Neo where he tried to communicate that
| understanding so that Neo will understand and believe, but
| (being an action movie), the conversation is set within a
| sparring session, not sitting around a conference table.
| coldtea wrote:
| The problem is being told those things (e.g. the examples in TFA
| from Lala Land, Good Will Hunting, etc) often accomplishes
| nothing. If anything, being told about such issues, even softly
| and subtly, will make people recoil, be offended, double down, or
| deny them.
|
| It's only when push comes to shove, or when you get a bitter
| reality lesson, that you can understand them, or that you can
| accept and benefit from being told such advice.
| techblueberry wrote:
| Yeah, I think the point this article is trying to make is
| somewhat interesting, and I do try to do this in my life, but
| the analogy their trying to make is actually I think the
| opposite of what they present. The point of Good Will Hunting
| is how hard what they're trying to do is, that despite being
| confronted with "the problem" repeatedly Will needed some other
| life experience to snap him out of himself. And actually by the
| end of Good Will Hunting, I think what you realize is that
| everyone was wrong. That what Will was looking for was someone
| who could look past the surface conflict and love him for
| something deeper, and really simpler. I don't think she needed
| him to be a genius the way his teacher tried to use him for
| that, and neither really did Robin Williams.
|
| And in this I think movie logic is in some ways correct, that
| people often have to have experiences to make real change
| happen.
|
| Maybe this is about deep truths vs shallow truths. "Hey it
| seems like there's beef between us, is a shallow truth (for a
| relationship without years of history, if it's father/son after
| 30 years of beefing, same applies?) Just addressing it is fine.
| "Hey, I think you're not achieving your life purpose" is a deep
| truth. You can't just tell someone what their purpose is.
| andrewflnr wrote:
| Yeah, while it can be a cheap plot device, it's also largely an
| accurate depiction of what it takes for real humans to change.
|
| Lots of teachers have told their students that they have lots
| of potential and shouldn't be getting fights. But if that
| student is getting in fights, it's not because no one ever told
| them it's dumb and this one line will be the great revelation
| they need, it's because they have deeper problems in their
| life.
| dominicrose wrote:
| Well you are only responsible for your side of a 2-person
| relationship, no matter what kind of relationship it is. If the
| other person doesn't react in the best way, at least you tried
| and maybe that was the best thing to do based on the
| information that you had.
|
| I guess most people think that it takes two persons to end a
| relationship but that's not true. It only takes one. If you're
| not that person, then maybe it's enough to know that it wasn't
| you because you tried.
|
| Being stuck or being at the end is pretty much the same thing
| if you never get unstuck.
| trgn wrote:
| most of her examples are incredibly patronizing and prying.
| these are tactless overbearing comments, and they can -if ever
| - only come from a place where there's already a mutual
| admiration or respectful bond.
| closewith wrote:
| Just evidences a lack of emotional intelligence on the part
| of the author, ironically.
| phito wrote:
| Yes especially the one asking a colleague if their are scared
| of them...
| mlsu wrote:
| I agree. Good movie characters are good because they act like
| real people.
| ghusto wrote:
| Fully behind his argument, but boy did he pick a bad example with
| Good Will Hunting:
|
| > "I feel like you have a tremendous amount of intellectual
| potential that you're wasting here -- why are you getting in
| fights rather than trying to do something interesting?"
|
| Nobody said that because that was his whole problem, that he
| _couldn't_ go there. That was his entire character!
| raldi wrote:
| I think Roger Ebert had a quote about movies where the problem
| could be resolved if the audience could shout one sentence to the
| characters.
| wmeredith wrote:
| Ebert called this "Idiot Plot"
| acephal wrote:
| The famous French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan claimed that if
| everyone said exactly what needs be said, language wouldn't exist
| or something like that. I'd wager movies are a reflection of how
| our psyche works, including 'main character syndrome', omissions
| of causality for narrative coherency, etc.
| saghm wrote:
| I'm not sure I understand that quote. Doesn't language exist
| because there _isn 't_ any other way to say some things? How
| else would one say most things?
| amirhirsch wrote:
| The phenomenon described in movies has a name called "Idiot Plot"
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiot_plot) an older term which
| Roger Ebert popularized. Feels missing from blogpost.
| stackedinserter wrote:
| But people still love movies where everyone is an idiot, like
| Jurrasic Park or Interstellar. I wonder if it then translates
| in their real life decisions.
| saghm wrote:
| I haven't seen Interstellar, but to be fair to Jurassic Park,
| there's literally a character who tells everyone else that
| the park is a terrible idea, even if his "scientific" basis
| for it isn't very coherent. (He might still be an idiot in
| other ways; I haven't seen it in a while, but I think it's an
| overstatement to say it's about _everyone_ being an idiot
| rather than some specific people with enough money to find
| enough other idiots to execute their vision).
| ufmace wrote:
| Reminds me of the Oceangate disaster as proof that things
| at least that dumb can happen in real live involving
| substantial amounts of money. Including everyone who is
| actually an expert in the field telling them that this is
| idiotic and usually quitting.
| JohnMakin wrote:
| Not sure how good of an example good will hunting is or if the
| author has seen that film - at least half of the movie and
| basically every supporting character is constantly telling him he
| can do better. It's one of the central themes!
| cestith wrote:
| There are also only certain ways each character can tell him
| those things without him shooting them down and shutting them
| out. Chuckie is a lot more free to talk to him about where he's
| coming from and a lot more free to be blunt than his new math
| mentor. If we over-apply logic to human relationships and human
| experience without consideration for the depth and breadth of
| those in people's lives, then we're not actually being that
| logical in the end.
| wmeredith wrote:
| > Good Will Hunting. The entire movie feels like it could've been
| skipped if literally any emotionally intelligent person said to
| Matt Damon's character: "I feel like you have a tremendous amount
| of intellectual potential that you're wasting here -- why are you
| getting in fights rather than trying to do something
| interesting?"
|
| Maybe I'm missing something but that's literally what everyone in
| the movie is telling Will. HIs best friend, his mentor, his
| girlfriend, his therapist. They all literally say this in some
| form during the movie. His character growth is believing it
| himself.
| mock-possum wrote:
| Yeah I'm pretty sure his girlfriend, best friend, and therapist
| all pretty much explicitly tell him that.
| gilleain wrote:
| "It's not your fault"
|
| (also the graph theory examples in the beginning are really
| simple. Good Will Hunting is not really great as a math movie.
| I preferred 'Proof' with Paltrow, Hopkins, etc)
| mrkiouak wrote:
| Yeah, not only are people doing this, but this is possibly one
| of the most common problems int he real world with real people.
| The blog post may have some helpful suggestions, but these
| descriptions seem to signal a really large "human people
| understanding" blind spot. The author's circle of friends may
| all be high EQ, well adjusted people, but this just isn't
| representative of the real world. (Which its fine to ignore,
| but don't pretend thats not the case!)
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| they probably missed that little bit of the movie with the
| psychologist giving Will treatment to try to keep him from
| wasting his potential. Easy mistake to make.
| mcv wrote:
| You know, I've been wondering why the Rebels in Star Wars
| don't just shoot down that Death Star, if that thing is such
| a problem.
| Groxx wrote:
| I try not to judge other cultures, but that seems like a
| strange name for a moon.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| It's not a moon. It's a space station.
| Jensson wrote:
| Moon Wars doesn't have the same ring to it.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| if only the Eagles hadn't carried Sam and Frodo to Mt. Doom
| to throw away the ring that short story would have been a
| really epic series of books.
| 0xdeadbeefbabe wrote:
| If only the CIA had given that guy in Sneakers a
| Winnebago then the movie could have been longer.
| J_Shelby_J wrote:
| Ok buddy cinephile has gone cross platform!
| AllegedAlec wrote:
| INdeed. The entire point of Chuckie's "If you're still here in
| 20 years I'll kill you" was just that.
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| > It's the cheapest way to build effective drama, but if you
| don't fully dissolve yourself in the movie logic, the whole time
| you want to scream, "can't anyone just talk about what's
| happening directly?!"
|
| Yup it's insane. At the end of a very long series of three movies
| I told my father: _" OK so this all basically happened because
| the person who sent the letter considered the (snail) mail
| service to be flawless and didn't bother to make sure the
| recipient got the letter in the first place"_.
|
| Doesn't matter which (french) movies: some dumb plot where
| relatives don't know they're relatives because the only person
| who knew didn't bother to make sure the letter explaining they
| were relatives arrived.
|
| Not naming the movies otherwise we'll get nitpicking.
|
| TFA is right: it happens all the time in movie plots and really
| doesn't help with the suspension of disbelief.
| JackFr wrote:
| What the author ignores is speaking from the point of view of the
| omniscient observer these things seem obvious. But the
| characters, even if they were purely rational happiness
| optimizers, lack all the information the movie viewer has.
| keiferski wrote:
| _Reading these examples, you might have noticed that it's rare to
| hear people talk like this. I think there are a couple of reasons
| for that..._
|
| I think it's even simpler: very few people actually have
| communication skills. Being _able to_ formulate thoughts and
| communicate clearly is itself a difficult skill, and in the era
| of generating instantaneous ChatGPT articles and online-first
| social lives, no one is developing said skill - nor do they
| realize they 're terrible at it. Or at least, they don't want
| admit it.
|
| Part of the reason movie logic seems illogical ("just say this
| and the problem is solved!") yet realistic is because we are
| looking externally at someone else's problems, and not our own.
| There was a good HN comment yesterday making this exact point:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45945216
|
| The good news is: if you manage to develop communication skills,
| you'll be a step ahead of everyone else, especially as people
| become more reliant on AI chatbots to formulate their thoughts.
| collinmcnulty wrote:
| That comment is on a post by this same author, whose beat is
| that you can decide to make changes in your life whenever you
| want to. So definitely a lot of connection between the two
| ideas
| keiferski wrote:
| That's funny, good catch. I didn't even notice.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| The _Good Will Hunting_ example is terrible, since it 's clear
| that Will has been told this before the movie and was told this
| by at least 2 of the 5 therapists he saw before Sean...
| catapart wrote:
| The thing I love most about the "why am I not just saying the
| boring, clumsy thing I'm actually thinking, instead of assuming
| everyone already understands it" rabbit hole is that once you
| actually commit to it, everything becomes simpler and easier. It
| takes away the pretense of religion, or anything supernatural,
| and it relieves you of ever having to feel "smart" because you're
| always one saying the dumbest things, it's just that no one else
| was daring to say them (which, ironically, doesn't make people
| think you're dumb, it just makes them introspect about why you
| would "just SAY that").
|
| Of course, once you circle around to realizing that most human
| interaction is dependent upon insinuation and assumption (and how
| that often helps), and that most movies (media, in general) is
| made for people who haven't figured out how to be a person yet
| _by_ people who haven 't figured out the kind of person they
| really want to be yet, it lessens the overall takeaways from it.
| But things are a lot simpler!
| phantasmish wrote:
| > it relieves you of ever having to feel "smart" because you're
| always one saying the dumbest things, it's just that no one
| else was daring to say them
|
| It's actually had the opposite effect for me, of making
| everyone think I'm smarter.
|
| It turns out that a lot of the time when nobody was mentioning
| the "obvious" solution or how we would avoid the "obvious"
| problem, it wasn't because _I_ was too dumb or inexperienced to
| know the implicit answer... but because actually nobody else in
| the room found those obvious. They'd not noticed at all.
|
| You have to be careful with this, though. Nobody in management
| wants to hear why their process for collecting and/or analyzing
| "metrics" is flawed and renders the whole thing totally
| meaningless in ways that a slightly-bright high schooler who
| halfway paid attention is their science classes should be able
| to spot--in fact, the point was only to _pretend_ to be "data
| driven", not to do passable science (that's way too expensive,
| companies are interested in doing it approximately never), in
| practically every case. All that stuff's fake, and everyone's
| just pretending it's not, so pointing it out is gauche. Just
| nod along and don't mention the blatant confounders that
| plausibly allow that the real trend line goes the _other_ way.
| Or that to get a useful dataset they'll need minimum two years
| of gathering data to even begin to draw conclusions... and we
| have not been collecting those data, so the timer starts _now_
| at best. Nobody cares, you've missed the point, which has
| nothing to do with actually learning things to guide decisions.
| rdtsc wrote:
| This can work on a feedback loop as well -- popular media is
| where young people learn how communication works. If they all
| watch the same "movie logic" scenarios, those scenarios are the
| only examples they have of how to behave.
|
| So while Hollywood writers may have just needed a mechanism to
| make the plot interesting, that pattern can become reality as
| well.
|
| It's a bit like people talking reading ChatGPT crap, will start
| talking and writing like ChatGPT.
| tracker1 wrote:
| A better example might be The Acolyte, though it isn't a movie.
| The entire plot is based on a lack of communication. Not to
| mention being a pretty bad show all around.
| Rastonbury wrote:
| The fact that we had Andor and that garbage utterly baffles me
| karmakaze wrote:
| I'd like this to be a Reddit post, and people reply with their
| successes and failures using the method(s).
|
| Might sound simple in theory, reality might get messy.
| Syntonicles wrote:
| I feel this inner conflict of yours could be resolved by
| posting to Reddit and asking for anecdotes.
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _It's the cheapest way to build effective drama, but if you
| don't fully dissolve yourself in the movie logic, the whole time
| you want to scream, "can't anyone just talk about what's
| happening directly?!"_
|
| > _It's my experience that movie logic is endemic in
| dysfunctional organizations, friendships, and marriages._
|
| This is why it's not the "cheapest" way to build drama -- as the
| author quickly admits, it's _how most people actually are_. We
| watch drama precisely because it _teaches_ us how we can improve.
| We see a character who needs to grow, and either they don 't and
| is a cautionary tale (and shows us what might happen to _us_ if
| _we_ don 't), or they do (and shows us how we might improve our
| own lives if we learn the same lesson).
|
| Nothing about this post is _wrong_ , exactly, but the problem of
| "walking around in a haze of denial" isn't something that you're
| going to fix with a blog post. This is a huge part of therapy --
| talking about the issues you're facing, so your therapist can
| start to put together the patterns of what you're in denial
| about, and surface them to you so you can actually address them.
| But the whole point is, you generally can't do this yourself,
| because you're not seeing the patterns to begin with. You're so
| used to them, they're invisible. You can't do it by yourself,
| almost by definition. How can _you_ fix the things _your_ brain
| is hiding from you it just not seeing to begin with?
|
| So this post is on the right track, but the idea of trying to
| distill it down into three "tips" is about as simplistic as "Step
| 2: Draw the rest of the f***ing owl". They're not wrong, but
| learning to apply them properly can take years of work.
| imgabe wrote:
| This is one of those things that, for some people, will be simple
| but not easy.
|
| If you grew up with an emotionally erratic parent or caregiver,
| who might suddenly explode with anger at unpredictable times,
| that's probably why you're unwilling to bluntly address what
| should be simple issues. You were conditioned early on to think
| that anything that could possibly be conceived as critical would
| be met with anger and possibly violence. So you avoid exposing
| yourself to that risk.
|
| What you have to learn, and what this post is indirectly trying
| to tell you, is that's not normal, and most people won't react
| like that.
| milesvp wrote:
| What's interesting about this, is there are actually game
| theoretic repercussions to what the author is expressing. By
| making implicit knowledge explicit it changes entire game trees.
| You no longer play the i think that he thinks that I think that
| he thinks... branch, and you are literally changing expected
| payouts as a result.
|
| Once I learned this, it changed how I live. Similar to the
| article, I'm much more likely to say out loud the thing that
| people are only thinking. It removes so many potential problems
| that create prisoners dilemma type payout stuctures that it
| rarely seems useful not to make things explicit.
| _def wrote:
| I think I've sort of come to this conclusion which gives myself
| more inner peace but I haven't exactly gotten better at
| communicating my thoughts, hence it feels like others often
| assume I'd "play" as most do, but in fact I'm not but just a
| bit weird and introverted. Any tips on this?
| csours wrote:
| > By making implicit knowledge explicit ...
|
| I feel like this translation is easier to misunderstand that it
| is to understand in many cases.
|
| I think the effort is still good, but I also feel like people
| give up after a few tries. I know I do - after the third re-
| phrasing or re-framing you have to let things settle.
|
| ----
|
| Once someone is "grown up", no one can raise them again.
| kakacik wrote:
| > Have you ever noticed just how much of the drama in movies is
| generated by an unspoken rule that the characters aren't allowed
| to communicate well? Instead of naming the problem, they're
| forced to skirt around it until the plot makes it impossible to
| ignore.
|
| That's the core of most of real world issues be it at work or
| relationships of any type. I can also personally attest most of
| issues of _any_ type in my megacorp are caused by bad
| communication. How many times you see a barely functional
| marriage where unspoken things hang around and one party is
| afraid to tell them to the other side, and subtle hints are
| ignored. How many folks from older generations had a good talk
| about their true sexual preferences for example. Some
| nationalities have issues speaking frankly, ie British circle
| around issues with too much politeness. Good luck getting any
| Indian (in India) telling you "no" or "I don't know" (spent so
| much time wandering in wrong directions in good ol' times before
| smart phones).
|
| Remove this issue and psychologists lose 95% of their work.
| Perfectly clear communication is an exception in this world.
|
| I'd say movies gradually found this topic since many people will
| find themselves in those movies and identify with struggles of
| protagonists. Then logically frequent ending resolving many if
| not all issues allows people to have a little dream of resolving
| stuff they struggle with (subconsciously or consciously) in their
| lives.
| OutOfHere wrote:
| There is another way to think about things, which is that people
| shouldn't have to talk so much unless say they're a part of a
| family. For people communication outside their family, there
| should be tighter contractual obligations that define
| interactions and expectations.
|
| To say it differently, define the smart contract that details the
| expected behavior! Everything else is then supposed to be
| mechanical. If one doesn't want to abide by the contract, one
| doesn't then get the associated payments or privileges!
| ekjhgkejhgk wrote:
| I completely agree with the point, and I've made the same point
| myself.
|
| However, I think "good will hunting" is a bad example.
|
| > "I feel like you have a tremendous amount of intellectual
| potential that you're wasting here -- why are you getting in
| fights rather than trying to do something interesting?"
|
| There is a scene where they have this conversation without words.
| Robin Williams is asking him without spelling it out and Matt
| Damon understands what the question is and dances around it. They
| both know what they're talking about even if they don't put it
| into words. In the case of this specific movie the problem isn't
| communication, it's just that the main character is incapable of
| dealing with things inside him that he doesn't understand (aka
| "emotionally immature"). (well, that was my interpretation
| anyway).
| ATMLOTTOBEER wrote:
| I came to make this exact comment. While I agree with the
| author in general I think it's not nearly so cut and dry that
| you should always say directly what you mean in order to
| communicate clearly.
| heresie-dabord wrote:
| > I think "good will hunting" is a bad example.
|
| Communication is important. But good, honest discussion is
| possible if people really want it. It's like
| bargaining/negotiation: if you really want to be at the table,
| you will stay at the table and try to understand the other
| people.
|
| Which bring us to the single most pernicious type of "movie
| logic" in real life: when we see people as enemies before
| trying to understand them.
| RaftPeople wrote:
| > _the main character is incapable of dealing with things
| inside him that he doesn 't understand _
|
| Exactly.
|
| To get to the point where he can really believe that the abuse
| was "not his fault" requires time and effort. If the therapist
| had just told him that day 1 it would not have had the same
| effect.
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| Doesn't the conversation also happen WITH words? Like Chuckie
| tells him quite directly in one of the best scenes in the film:
| "I mean, you're sittin' on a winnin' lottery ticket. And you're
| too much of a pussy to cash it in, and that's bullshit. 'Cause
| I'd do fuckin' anything to have what you got. So would any of
| these fuckin' guys. It'd be an insult to us if you're still
| here in 20 years. Hangin' around here is a fuckin' waste of
| your time."
| cestith wrote:
| Chuckie is the one who can say that so plainly to his face,
| too. A math professor he's only getting to know saying
| plainly that his life to this point is inferior, that he
| should leave all his friends and compatriots behind, and that
| he's wasting his time with the people he loves is going to
| come off as condescending and arrogant.
|
| Showing him his potential and telling him he can do great
| things is awesome. Crapping all over him for not having the
| background of the average student would just push him away.
| mattmanser wrote:
| Ben Affleck's character says it to him too directly:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0g_1FjDHjBM
|
| Maybe the author's not watched the movie in a while, as it's a
| direct contradiction of his blog post. The entire movie is
| about a bunch of people desperately trying to communicate to
| Will he can live a much fuller life if he drops his pride or
| attitude or fear of failure or whatever you want to call it.
| stavros wrote:
| I agree with your comment, I just wanted to passingly point
| out that the author is female.
|
| EDIT: Damn this movie is so great.
| listenallyall wrote:
| True, however this speech finally comes in the last 15
| minutes of the film, in response to Will saying something
| profoundly stupid, that he'd rather stick around and work
| construction than actually use his enormous talent.
|
| It's also notable that this talk comes after (or near the
| end) of his sessions with therapist Sean and working with the
| professor - so he has come to terms with his past abuse (not
| claiming he is "healed" but he certainly is in a better
| place), learned a bit about structure from the professor,
| started interviewing, and now the final hurdle holding Will
| back is the intense loyalty to his friends. Chuckie not only
| gives him permission to leave them behind but tells him how
| stupid and disappointing Will would be if he didn't. He even
| tells him how to leave - just go, no warning, no message, no
| planning.
|
| It's obvious this is something Chuckie has thought for years,
| but only verbalizes at the very end when Will needs (and is
| able to act upon) that final push.
| jonathaneunice wrote:
| Isn't this called "name it to tame it?" When you engage higher
| level cognitive functions it reportedly helps you escape
| predominantly emotional responses.
| user68858788 wrote:
| I agree with this post, and suspect a lot of us will see the
| logic in approaching problems like this.
|
| However, this approach isn't universal and should be used with
| caution. A head-on approach isn't effective with a person who is
| conflict-avoidant. Any of the given examples, no matter how
| gentle the delivery, will be seen as a personal attack and cause
| to pull away.
| justincarter wrote:
| Interesting to read, but this is where movies are more "real"
| than true life - people can't verbalize their true feelings and
| need to experience or work through them in some way non-verbally.
|
| If you've seen any Kar-wai Wong movies, that's basically his
| whole filmography (In the Mood for Love, Chungking Express,
| etc.).
| morsecodist wrote:
| I see this advice a lot in various forms. I think people are
| probably too conflict averse on average so there is some merit to
| it but there are limits. I feel like there are a lot of times in
| my life where just moving on or being diplomatic has been the
| right call.
|
| The manager example is a good case study. There are a lot of
| examples here where there might be genuine repercussions for
| raising an issue with a manager. I wouldn't give this as blanket
| advice.
|
| Unfortunately, I don't think there's a simple rule about whether
| or not you should raise an issue and it needs to be decided case
| by case.
| havblue wrote:
| There was an anime called Marmalade Boy where I believe every
| plot involved people being unable to communicate. It had the
| central romance that was a "will they or won't they" plot... They
| liked each other but were usually incapable of talking about it.
| Then the subplots involved their friends who were constantly
| scheming to break them up. Which the central couple was also
| incapable of discussing or confronting. It gets worse when they
| mistakenly believe at the end of the series that they were
| siblings. Did they ask for clarification? Nope, not until maximum
| drama was extracted from each misunderstanding.
| narag wrote:
| I agree, but...
|
| Sometimes problems are real. That guy will never be my friend
| because he wants my position. That other guy is scared because he
| thinks my work is a threat to his silo, and he's right: the
| management is after him.
|
| No frank conversation is going to change those situations.
| orblivion wrote:
| I think part of the reason I'm "conflict averse" is that airing
| things out very often doesn't turn out like... well, like the
| movies. Sometimes the issue I have with someone is just "weird"
| and socially unacceptable to air out, or maybe the person doesn't
| turn out to be as reasonable or understanding as I hope they are.
| Or maybe after enough of these, it just becomes overwhelming to
| the other person.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| "It's complicated" is probably the line I hate the most in movies
| for this very reason. It's lazy writing made vocal.
| rayiner wrote:
| > It's the cheapest way to build effective drama, but if you
| don't fully dissolve yourself in the movie logic, the whole time
| you want to scream, "can't anyone just talk about what's
| happening directly?!"
|
| People in real-world situations aren't exactly good at
| recognizing what's really happening, much less talking about it
| directly. Humans spend a lot of energy on self-deception, as well
| as lying to each other to reinforce everyone's respective
| delusions.
| Animats wrote:
| A related problem, which was mentioned somewhere on HN about a
| year ago, is that too many movies have a "chosen one" mindset.
| The entire Marvel Overextended Universe runs on this. They're all
| Chosen Ones. Real life does not work that way. Read biographies
| of famous people. Most of them involve grinding upward.
|
| (Trump is the counterexample. From zero to President. Nobody did
| that before. Every other president in the last century had some
| major public office first. This may be part of his appeal. He
| fits the model Hollywood teaches people to expect.)
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