Exposition in Movies. Your Thoughts?

[Orby]

One of the biggest complaints I see with critics almost all the time is when movies have have too much exposition, that its like a major gripe that can really bring a movie down for them.

I have never been bothered by too much exposition in movies... It flies completely over my head. But for most its a major crux.

What are you opinions on movie exposition be it little or too much?

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Like all tropes, exposition is not inherently bad. It's how it's executed is what matters.

When people talk about "exposition", they are usually talking about overt direct-exposition, where the characters describe something about their world that they should already know. To make it feel natural, an audience surrogate is unfamiliar with the something can be used to justify the direct exposition.

A lot of people think that there should be no direct exposition at all, and that it should all be indirect exposition (where we learn things by seeing them in action). While natural for the characters in the story, this can harm the entertainment value of the work. If the author tries to show you everything, then the story can be bogged down in long winded scenes showing the thing, when it'd be far more efficient to simply straight up describe it to the audience. Indirect exposition can also be very confusing. Personally, I'd rather they just tell me the thing rather than waste my time getting sidetracked.

[Sialina]

It all depends on how it is delivered, I'll give you two examples

Character 1: "Crap, the beam turned red!" Character 2: "I didn't think he would get the secondary power device working so soon"
This is a natural conversation, 2 people could have it, it's exposition, in that we just got told that the secondary power device is now working.

Example 2
Character 1: "The beam turned red, and as you know this means he activated the secondary power device!"
This is the type of exposition most people hate. People relaying information to another character that they both know, in a clumsy way, just
to let the audience know.

In general people are fine with the first one, because it's baked into the dialogue in a natural way, but the second one flows about as well as a river of bricks.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Two great examples of exposition done well in movies are Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. In both movies, you have a storied world with a lot of background to the current conflict, a lot of character motivations, and magic that needs to be explained to the audience. In both movies, the author straight tells you in the prologue the state of the world (the opening crawl in Star Wars, Galadriel's narration over flashbacks in LotR). There are mentor characters like Obi-Wan and Gandalf who explain the magic to the fish out of water protagonist. A lot things are just shown to us (we see landspeeders working, we see spaceships just flying, we see that the Death Star blows up planets, Gandalf using his staff to light the way, etc), but intangible concepts like the Force or Sauron's power over the One Ring have to be explained to the audience so it is clear what is going on. Obi-Wan and Gandalf exposit a lot of the backstory (Obi-Wan talking about the Jedi, the Clone Wars, Anakin, the importance of Alderan to the Rebel Alliance; Gandalf talking about what's going on outside of the Shire, the important forces of the world, their opposition, etc).

[Ivanstone]

Narration can be good if done unreliably.

Laundromat was a decent movie with really good unreliable narrators brought to us by Gary Oldman and Antonio Bandaras.

[Nefarious Tea]

Like all tropes, exposition is not inherently bad. It's how it's executed is what matters.

When people talk about "exposition", they are usually talking about overt direct-exposition, where the characters describe something about their world that they should already know. To make it feel natural, an audience surrogate is unfamiliar with the something can be used to justify the direct exposition.

A lot of people think that there should be no direct exposition at all, and that it should all be indirect exposition (where we learn things by seeing them in action). While natural for the characters in the story, this can harm the entertainment value of the work. If the author tries to show you everything, then the story can be bogged down in long winded scenes showing the thing, when it'd be far more efficient to simply straight up describe it to the audience. Indirect exposition can also be very confusing. Personally, I'd rather they just tell me the thing rather than waste my time getting sidetracked.

Indeed. I think some of the best exposition in film is when old man Obi Wan is explaining how the galaxy used to be in his day to Luke. It’s obviously exposition, but at the same time it’s also a political system’s downfall that he would have no familiarity with, so it makes sense that Obi Wan is explaining how the empire came to be.

[Luxeley]

Depends on the message and whether or not it's forced and/or fits the story.

[callipygoustp]

Like any other aspect of a movie: if it's done well, I enjoy it.

[StillMcfuu]

This is a really good comparison on how good exposition elevates scenes and a movie versus the exact same scene in a remake is handled and how it's a poor example of exposition.

[Eapoe]

One of the biggest complaints I see with critics almost all the time is when movies have have too much exposition, that its like a major gripe that can really bring a movie down for them.

I have never been bothered by too much exposition in movies... It flies completely over my head. But for most its a major crux.

What are you opinions on movie exposition be it little or too much?

Exposition isn’t bad, but most critics (at least the ones I am familiar with, so about 8) all discuss the “show don’t tell” idea. To critics, and I would assume even most fans, it’s much more interesting to show us what is being discussed and figuring it out ourselves. Instead it’s close to treating us like we aren’t smart enough to figure something out and having it read/told to us.
Simple google searches, or even watching some critic reviews with these examples, and you can really see the difference between them.
I used to not care and was fine with either as I was ignorant of the comparison; however, since i have been exposed to it more watching critic reviews of movies (after I have seen them myself) I prefer the show, don’t tell method as well. It’s more visually entertaining and don’t have something being explained to me as I figure it out myself.

[Kokolums]

Its like real life. When someone tells you something, it has less impact than showing you something.