Difficulty following movies/TV shows???

Post Reply New Topic

This problem is the reason I started researching in the first place. I have always had a really hard time following movies. I actually avoided them for the longest time because I would never understand what was going on and ask questions constantly, and end up making people around me upset! You don't know HOW many times I have heard, "Just WATCH the movie!! !! !". But I think the characters look too much alike, they play the background music way too loud so you can't hear what people are saying! When I would say this to people, they thought I was weird - they could still hear the talking even with all that loud orchestra music (crime dramas are the worst!).
I remember one night a few years ago, my boyfriend and I got into a big argument because of me trying to watch a movie with him, and I was SO frustrated - I remember thinking "Why can't I undertand movies and everyone else can!! !" That was when I started looking up other quirky things about me, and viola -I discovered I am Aspie and there ARE others who see the world the way I do!
The movies with the most talking are the ones I CAN watch though, and now that I know the reason I am like this, i can TELL people why, it has made things easier so far!

Yes I do have a lot of trouble following the plots of movies etc. Similar reasons - can't recognise faces, can't follow dialogue when background noise is loud. Also the plot can be too socially complicated, with too many characters. They often talk too quickly for me to follow. I also have trouble holding my attention onto anything that I'm not naturally interested in, and frankly I don't find many movies or TV shows all that interesting. When I was very young, children's programmes weren't originally a problem, but I was noticing the difficulty by the time I was 12. I don't think I got any worse at following plots. I think the material got more complicated and I got more aware that I wasn't following it.

My ability to follow lessons at school followed the same pattern, though facial recognition and socially complicated plots can't have had much to do with that.

That's why I like watching movies alone, with loudness on 2-3 in scale of 100 and with subtitles if possible. Less distractions, voice is easier to separate from background sounds (the louder a movie is the less I understand of what characters say) and if I miss something I can read what was being said.
I never found a way to help me distinguish similarly looking characters but usually I manage to figure out "the blond girl he is talking with is not his girlfriend but some other blond girl" after a while by understanding what they are talking about.

I MUST have subtitles turned on. otherwise I have trouble following the mumbling dialogue of most movies made nowadays.

Oh Heck yeah!! To be quite honest... I never knew what a plot WAS until I was in my 30's! SERIOUS! I thought that TV shows and films were jumbles of things happening... I sensed that there were beginnings, middles and endings, but I never knew that the end was related to the beginning! Or that the middle was the way the characters were getting to an ending. The usual description of a plot is "Boy meets girl - boy loses girl - Boy gets girl" To me it was Boy does this or that, girl shows up, people wander around, someone gets mad, someone says something funny, boy shows up again and everyone applauds. Maybe there's a dog running around."

I don't think linearly. To me a book, a film, a TV show is a collection of interesting vignettes. I had to watch the first Star Wars film (New Hope) five or six times before I worked out the story arc! "Wait! Why is Luke Skywalker suddenly really old? He isn't? Who is Obi-Wan and why is he wearing that funny helmet and breathing so loud? And who's the guy with all the hair and no pants on?"

Some people hate spoilers... I LOVE them because I need to have the plot explained BEFOREHAND so I can figure it out while it's happening.

Tell the characters apart? HA! I liked Star Trek TOS because mostly I could tell who was who... Spock didn't look like Kirk, so I knew who they were... and Uhura and Nurse chapel were different enough, black and white... but I could NEVER tell Scotty from McCoy until they spoke. Then the accent made Scotty recognizable. Ditto Chekhov from Mr Sulu. I liked shows where you could instantly tell who was who. Addams Family, Man From U.N.C.L.E. (who could mistake Solo for Kuryakin?) and cartoons... but shows like Gunsmoke or Bonanza or Mission Impossible? Everyone looked alike! The only way I could tell the difference between I Dream of Jeannie and Bewitched was they were on different nights and the theme song of each was different. The Untouchables, Twilight Zone or any show that featured more than two leads, was not watchable.

My comprehension of TV and movies also increased a lot when I started using closed captioning/subtitles.

I think I have a similar problem but I don't know exactly what's causing it. It's probably a combination of problems - processing, listening, getting the implied message, understanding jokes etc. In my case even if it's just talking without loud music, I may still not be able to follow the movie/whatever. For example, I cannot follow what's being discussed in a meeting or in a simple group conversation.

Yeah, I have some trouble following movies, but it isn't as bad, I think, as some other people here. I can do kid's movies just fine, usually. Give me a Disney (especially classic Disney, before they had to be 'cool') movie, and I can understand. Bad guys are always bad, good guys are always good. You know who everybody is supposed to be, and the movie makes everything very clear.

Adult movies (no, I don't mean XXX movies) have way too many implied meanings to things. SO MANY things are implied without being stated directly, either through dialogue or through camera shots; how am I supposed to know that you showing me the outside of a building is supposed to mean that the characters have moved locations and are in that building now?

I can hear the characters ok usually, but I don't have a clue what they're talking about unless I watch the movie a few times. I prefer to watch something the first time or first few times at home alone, where I can control the sound (quieter is better), I can subtitle if I need to, and I can rewind if I miss something.
Dramas are the worst; I have no idea why anybody does anything and nothing of interest happens in the entire thing. Action or sci-fi are also terrible for understanding anything, but at least I can watch stuff blowing up or cool-looking gadgets. Comedy is usually the best for understanding what is happening because the plots are not that intricate. (Ok, this guy likes that girl so he's going to try to date her, funny stuff happens. Got it, plot over.)

I hate going to the theater to see anything; it's WAY too loud, it's too dark, I can't figure out what is going on AT ALL, and I'm there with friends who expect me to react to whatever I'm supposed to be seeing. Mostly, when I watch a movie with people around, I just turn off my 'figure out what's happening' mode and just look at the moving picture until the end credits roll.

Has anyone else noticed that if you miss one word of dialogue, all the rest of whatever the character is saying just sounds like indecipherable noises?

I read Lord of the Rings in high school, but even so, when I watched the movie for the first time, the plot looked like this to me: People talking, people eating, landscape, landscape, pretty people talking, ugly people talking, landscape, landscape, fighting, landscape, fighting, fighting, people talking, landscape, fighting, landscape, end credits.

I dont always understand people's motives. once a character on tv washed her hair, and I didnt know it was her and didnt understand why she was talking to a man who's married to another character. of course, it was her own husband.

I dont always understand what people say, and I mistook a grimace for a smile an wondered why the character was laughing, what she found so amusing when she was going to jail for life for her crimes, until she started crying and I realized it was actually a grimace.

I dont always understand what the movies are trying to say, and it's hard to read facial expression. they show someone's eyes, so i realize there's some kind of emotion in his/her eyes, because the camera zooms in on them. but what is that expression, that look? what are they feeling? I have no idea.

and they keep talking about loneliness and love. I'm an introverted kind of aspie who likes to be alone and couldnt have it any other way. cant sympathize when i dont know what they're talking about.

and I dont always hear the words right, sensory processing disorder, and dont always know what i saw. was that a gun? takes a few seconds to realize what it is.

i usually dont like movies very much. it's hard to keep me interested in a movie.

I sat through the Godfather trilogy and all I noticed was a load of Italians who always seemed depressed, and the occasional horrific murder. I figured it must be something to do with rival gangs fighting it out, and towards the end I think one of them was expressing some regret at his lifestyle. That's it. As for who killed who and why, I couldn't say. Judging by its critical acclaim, I must have missed a lot.

I think I take longer to figure out who each of the characters are, recognise all their faces, and then figure out how they're all related than most people. I first started really noticing when I started getting into anime, but I assumed it was because everyone's names were Japanese and it was a bit hard to distinguish one Japanese voice from another (I watch subbed). Then I recently watched Twin Peaks and had the same problem. Eventually, I get it worked out, but it takes a good while.

I've also noticed for a while that I always get confused with subplots and other things that happen that aren't a part of the main plot. (For anyone else who has seen Twin Peaks, I still have absolutely no idea what Josie and the saw mill had to do with anything.)

Yeah, I have trouble following movies. Like some of you, I have a hard time understanding what people are saying, and prefer watching with subtitles. I also have difficulty telling the characters apart. Action movies are the worst for me--I can never follow the action, it's just one big blur of noise and light and rushing. I have trouble understanding complicated plots. I prefer cartoons because they're easier for me to understand.

my experience watching most movies and reading most books, is akin to woody allen's description of reading war and peace after taking a speed-reading course- "it has something to do with Russia."

I have alot of trouble paying attention to movies. I almost always think there is no plot to follow and the characters are not saying anything that I can follow, almost like they're trying to trick me. If I use subtitles it helps a little but I mostly have to repeat the movie also

reading a spoiler immeasurably helps me comprehend the ongoing plot of movies. thank GOD for spoilers!