[TraineeHuman]

I've done serious courses in film writing and read some of the "textbooks" for professionals. One of the first things they say is that a story (a movie) always has to be a type of emotional workout. Like going to the gym, but on an emotional/feeling level.

Another of the most basic points is that every movie must be very entertaining from start to finish. That doesn't mean it has to be a comedy. What it means is, the audience has to be able to enjoy playing at being, e.g., scared if it's a horror movie, or playing at whatever the main emotion is. The point is, it's meant to be fun, and good quality fun at that. It's not meant to be taken seriously, as some of the posters above may be implying.

Yes, there are subliminal messages etc. But I go to elaborate lengths to set up psychic protection before I see a movie, and also to clean up any leftover psychic rubbish that might be inside me after the movie.

Another point is that the primary characters, and particularly the central character, must be heroic, and go on a heroic journey. The public tends to assume that fictional characters are ordinary people. No. The public simply won't watch or read a story with ordinary characters. The main satisfaction that people get from a story lies in their empathising and identifying with a heroic character, who has the courage to make the tough but right choices, in the face of unlikely odds. The heroic character somehow always intuitively knows that she/he is capable of extraordinary things, and even proves this before our eyes. In other words, such a character shows us how to be and to manifest the liberated light-being that we all have buried somewhere inside us. It may not be what a traditional religion regards as spirituality, but what it is is genuine spirituality.