They can if the screenwriter says they can.
A movie is an abstraction from reality that only appears to be such, as are thought experiments, mathematics, logic, words. Easy to get caught up but they’re all forms of fiction that merely resemble reality, some better than others.
-Captain Obvious Udut
I know 😛
It’s just on my mind – I just finished reading: https://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/scenario/analogy.htm again, which is a fantastic article on the dangers / limitations of analogy in teaching physics and has a wonderful set of sentences reminding fellow professors that mathematics is an analogy and students must be reminded of that otherwise they can form faulty ideas about infinities and such that they carry with them into their careers.
[I of course, an analogizing mathematics to the Matrix [or rather, a screenplay / movie – so all caveats included within]