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But I didn't care, and what's more, I haven't even heard of anyone caring. Instead of nitpicking the problem, they're coming up with crazy fan theories that help these issues make sense. Sure, that "Max is the Feral Kid all grown up!" idea is really dumb, since we know what happens to the Feral Kid and it's not this, but that's not the point. These people were still thinking about the movie when they got home. They wanted to talk about it more. They wanted to fill in the blanks.

It turns out that making all the little pieces fit together into a complete puzzle is less important than telling a really cool story. Movies are lies, after all. Actors are lying about who they are, set directors are lying about how the world works, and every cut is lying about the passage of time and our sense of space. Storytelling can work exactly the way Detective Holdaway describes jokes in Reservoir Dogs: You hit the important parts hard, and the rest is filler.

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This is why Age Of Ultron probably could've skipped most of the weird stuff that derailed the plot and obviously only existed to set up a sequel. We don't need sequels to be set up. We're actually pretty smart and can figure it out on our own. Remember how everyone went to see Guardians Of The Galaxy despite the fact that no one managed to cram one of Groot's parents into the background of Captain America: The Winter Soldier?

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Sure, not every cinematic universe has to work like the Mad Max one -- there's definitely a place for rigid continuity -- but you don't need to sacrifice the plot of an individual movie to make the bigger plot make sense. You can have your cake and eat it too. You just have to be smart about it. You have to be smart about your cake.