> Once she had these splotches, they jumped pretty quickly from “OK, that’s how they communicate a concept” to “I’ve now got a mini-dictionary of a bunch of con

> Once she had these splotches, they jumped pretty quickly from “OK, that’s how they communicate a concept” to “I’ve now got a mini-dictionary of a bunch of concepts.” ...they don’t really show the process of how she got from there to understand what chunks mean what. I think the film makers made the right choice artistically. There's a certain potential, a sort of superpositional value in only filling in the details of a plot device that are absolutely necessary to further the plot (i.e. the flux capacitor). So long as you don't fill in the answer it could be anything, but as soon as you provide a concrete answer all that sense of wonder and curiosity is paved over with a simple matter of fact answer that may or may not be fully thought out. And in practical terms the plot becomes more restricted and the odds of creating a continuity error are increased. I suspect, in short that had they filled in that gap in the movie we'd be reading a rant about how the film maker's answer doesn't hold upon closer examination.