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What!?!? aka Missing Exposition

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SPOILER ALERT FOR "Underworld" (2003)

So, the movie "Underworld" has vampires fighting werewolves. Two huge plot points hinge on understanding the following bits of the films mythology.

  • Werewolves, like vampires, are immortal.
  • Vampires generally don't kill people.

Neither of these points are explained in the movie, except after the fact when a big revelation occurs. Something like this:

"You know that rule where vampires aren't allowed to kill people? Well I don't follow it and I killed your family!"

and

"You know that one werewolf that supposedly died a thousand years ago? Well, not only did he not die, he's actually this guy here,  because werewolfs in this movie are immortal! But we characters all already knew that."

It's not a brilliant movie in the first place, but I find this sloppy storytelling to really knock it into pure schlock territory.

So it just got me thinking, what other movies just seem to forget to tell you, the audience, any important info?

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 (Edited)

Hmm... I misread the title as "missing explosion" which this post is indeed missing.

The first thing that comes to mind is Harry Potter 3, which probably isn't quite what you're looking for.

Any fan of the book (or someone who's read it recently, at least) can tell you that the film is missing a few bits of info that make the ending all make sense.

 

 

KAAAAAABBBBBBBBBBBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMM!

IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!

"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005

"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM

"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.

Rewrite the Prequels!

 

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 (Edited)

Any David Lynch movie.

I'm assuming, based on his reputation and the only one of his movies I've seen, Mullholand Drive

And I don't even care if it's the point of his movies.  Screw you, Lynch!

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xhonzi said:

The first thing that comes to mind is Harry Potter 3, which probably isn't quite what you're looking for.

Any fan of the book (or someone who's read it recently, at least) can tell you that the film is missing a few bits of info that make the ending all make sense.

It's been awhile for me. What's the film missing? (the films and the books all blur together for me)

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ray_afraid said:

TV's Frink said:

 

Screw you, Lynch!

Best post eva! /Internets!

I'm not even slightly kidding.  I hate that movie with Gump-like passion.  I think it's a pile of carp, and I don't care about the explanations of what it all means (I've heard plenty of those).  It's still carp!

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 (Edited)

TV's Frink said:

ray_afraid said:

TV's Frink said:

 

Screw you, Lynch!

Best post eva! /Internets!

I'm not even slightly kidding.  I hate that movie with Gump-like passion.  I think it's a pile of carp, and I don't care about the explanations of what it all means (I've heard plenty of those).  It's still carp!

I'm with ya! All of his films are pretentious pieces of crap. Eraserhead has some interesting qualities, but in the end it's less a film and more an endurance contest.

*EDIT: And not a fun endurance contest like John Waters 'Pink Flamingos'. It's a boring one that gives you a headache.

Ray’s Lounge
Biggs in ANH edit idea
ROTJ opening edit idea

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There are a few problems with Underworld but exposition isn't one of them.

I thought the point with the vampires wasn't that they didn't kill people but they rarely killed other vampires, unless they really stepped out of line.

And seeing as it was highly telegraphed that vampires diddling werewolves was their highest taboo there was no surprise there.

Personally I find excessive exposition to be the bane of films like this specifically and films pretty much in general.

It's worse on television shows where the assumption is made that new viewers are so stupid that people will either not figure out enough of what has happened before in the 'previously on' bit at the beginning (which is usually unnecessary anyway) or seek out previously shown storylines using modern technology.

So every episode we have to have a good quarter of the show taken up by characters unrealistically recapping every pertinent event like they are recovering head trauma victims (an often used plot device to squeeze this sort of expositional dialogue by coincidence).

The worst form of info dump is when you have a nice atmospheric movie that has a great big exposition explosion right at the very end blowing all enigma and mystery out of the water.

Silent Hill the movie I'm looking right at you with my eyes.

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TheBoost said:

xhonzi said:

The first thing that comes to mind is Harry Potter 3, which probably isn't quite what you're looking for.

Any fan of the book (or someone who's read it recently, at least) can tell you that the film is missing a few bits of info that make the ending all make sense.

It's been awhile for me. What's the film missing? (the films and the books all blur together for me)

 I can't tell you with the razor like accuracy I could have several years ago, but IIRC, it has to do with Harry's Dad's friends and their relationship to the maurader's map and that Harry's dad's patronus was a stag.  Some part of that or all of it.  I just remember being shocked that they left maybe a sentence of exposition out that sort of tied it all up in a neat cherry on top.  Not to mix metaphors.

IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!

"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005

"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM

"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.

Rewrite the Prequels!

 

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Other than that, your question is ringing a very dull bell perhaps 10 feet behind my skull.  If I can figure out what it is, I'll let you know.

Oh wait, it's Transformers 2.  And Probably 3.  1 even, with the All Spark and the end.  They probably don't/can't make sense with any amount of expo, but it's not like they even tried.

IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!

"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005

"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM

"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.

Rewrite the Prequels!

 

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 (Edited)

It may be a very inappropriate example.
But The Matrix Online suffered immensely from both problems.

Basically, there were three human player organizations, Zion, Machines, and Merovingian, and you only got to play inside the Matrix.
Important things like where their respective real world bases were, weren't included in the exposition, but then some character in some quest or live event dropped some "as you know" line about how something worked, and, well, it was lame.

It remained a rather obscure game and all that's left of it in terms of documentation, are various collections of fansite material, and I don't remember it quite well myself.
So I'm not gonna beat this for any longer, but it was just something that came to mind.

Can't think of any movies right now...

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Probably because you're in a different country. :-/

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twooffour said:

I can't see the rabbit...

U R a LAIR!  if u cudn't c t3h rabbit, den u wudn't no der wuz a rabbit!  but sins u sed der wuz a rabbit, u oviosli new der wuz a rabbit! b cuz u saw it!!!!! U R SOOOOO bust3d!

IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!

"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005

"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM

"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.

Rewrite the Prequels!

 

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I'm just relieved the rabbit wasn't in drag...have I mentioned I'm middle aged?

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There was a rabbit-shaped black whole of nothing flipping around :D

Ha, what you gonna say now??

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twooffour said:

There was a rabbit-shaped black whole of nothing flipping around :D

Ha, what you gonna say now??

Oh well, maybe I can shine it up and use it as an ashtray.

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^This. Fact is without skimming through the novel, it's 100.99% impossible to figure out what the hell the movie's about.

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ray_afraid said:

TV's Frink said:

 

Screw you, Lynch!

Best post eva! /Internets!

You beat me to it!

Can we seriously turn this into the "We hate David Lynch"s films" thread? I haven't yet seen a Lynch film I didn't loathe. I don't usually loathe movies unless they are completely mindless or terrible. But I can't help it. Mullholland Drive is one of the worst films I have ever seen. I really don't get it's reputation. People must like Lynch's work for simply being weird or uneasy to understand.

At least with 2001 it makes sense at some point. You make up your own interpretation. It's meant to be non-committal. Reading the book gives some more background information and what could be construed as a partial answer maybe.

Oddly though, I like David Lynch as a person. He seems like a pretty cool out there sort of guy.

VADER!? WHERE THE HELL IS MY MOCHA LATTE? -Palpy on a very bad day.
“George didn’t think there was any future in dead Han toys.”-Harrison Ford
YT channel:
https://www.youtube.com/c/DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader

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captainsolo said:

People must like Lynch's work for simply being weird or uneasy to understand.


This sums up the reason why I like him pretty much. Incomprehensible artistic weirdness appeals to me very much.

Lost Highway did kind of grate on my nerves, though. The parts without Bill Pullman or the weird camera guy were incredibly tedious IMO.

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David Lynch made the worst Naomi Watts lesbian movie possible.  Amazing.