When I saw The Matrix for the first time, in fall 1999, the opening blew my mind: It featured a woman doing impossible stunts, like running on walls, jumping 15-20 meters between two buildings, and disappearing when the phone booth she was in was rammed by a garbage truck—only for her to appear unharmed two scenes later.  As well, the only other characters in the intro who could do what she did were three sinister-looking men in suits, who were playing a game of cat-and-mouse with her.  Though it was a genuinely exciting opening, it was also confusing, since I kept on wondering what was going on, and really wanted an answer to that (which the rest of the movie provided). 

I was reminded of that when I read Daniel Willingham’s summer 2021 article in American Educator titled “Ask the Cognitive Scientist: Why Do Students Remember Everything That’s on Television and Forget Everything I Say?” in which he talked about story structures, why it is that we do a good job of remembering what’s in stories (understanding them is easy, they interest people, and readers / viewers find them easier to remember), and how he thought educators could apply it. 

As I read that, I thought about movies I’d watched and stories I’d read, in particular how a number of them (such as The Dark Knight and Hamlet) opened with a question that made readers and viewers wonder what’s going on, and how they spent the rest of the story answering it.