The sex scene in The Terminator serves a narrative purpose.
It advances the plot.
It directly causes future events in the story of the film.
Plus it tells us things about the characters involved & who they are & their developing worldviews; it reveals things about what's going on inside the characters' heads.
The (little bit of a) sex scene in Howard's End serves a narrative purpose.
It sets the events of the film in motion, the various tragic complications of the human connections & the tangle of the human lives of those human characters in that rigidly- and mercilessly-enforced class system.
Ya know - LITERALLY the entire fucking point of the story that's being told in that movie.
The nudity in Starship Troopers (1997) [the shower scene] serves a narrative purpose because it communicates several things.
The biggest one being that these characters are teenagers just out of high school. They are surrounded by these fine naked male & female specimens (so there should be some body for everybody [I presume ace people don't exist in the world of this movie]) and they should be incredibly horny for each other.
But they are so thoroughly indoctrinated by their education and the system they live in that the only thing they are horny for is war. It's the only possible thing they can be horny for. Even the one who talks about wanting a child. There's no "WELL I'D BE HAPPY TO HELP YOU OUT WITH THAT!" catcall-y jeers.
They're just talking about why they want to go to war because it's the most important thing in their world. It's their world's most important thing.
The sex scenes in Annihilation (2018) serve a ... narrative(???) thematic(???) story(???) self-referential(???) emotional(???) ... the entire goddamn point of the entire fucking movie and set the entirety of the events of the film in motion? purpose.
I ... Alex Garland is a visionary. This is one of the most incredible films I've seen.
I just... Yes, the sex scenes in this movie are ABSOLUTELY FUCKING NECESSARY.
I don't know how to explain it without spoiling and explaining the entire goddamn film. Nothing that we saw happen in the movie would have happened if the sex scenes didn't happen - and they are integral parts of the emotion of the film AND to the... 😮💨
The 2nd title card smashing into the sex scene is supposed to throw you off and unsettle you and maybe confuse you. By basically lying to you about what you're about to see and then showing you something entirely different. TO PUT YOU IN THE FUCKING HEADSPACE OF THE CHARACTERS WHO ARE UNSETTLED & THROWN OFF & CONFUSED.
Annihilation would not work and would be a foundationally & fundamentally different movie if it weren't for the sex scenes.
