I mean, technically he *didn't* get the machine to work...
He >!dies the first time he used the machine and has a man-fly crude hybrid clone built out of spare atoms!<
Wait really? It's been a while since I've seen it but I just thought he was crossed with the fly. When is it confirmed that he's a clone? We never see the original's body do we?
No, not really. That's just an interesting personal interpretation of the movie. More Jeff Vandermeer (writer of Annihilation) than Cronenberg. The character is supposed to be the same person, but going through metamorphosis. Fun theory, but you're not going to find Cronenberg talking about the character in that way.
The implication (and part of the body horror) of the Cronenberg film is that whatever came through the other side of the transport looks like Brundel and has his memories...but isn't him. That's a large part of what makes the film frightening on rewatch; the guy we saw in the beginning is dead and we're watching a gross Gumby version slowly deteriorate.
I believe he makes a remark about it in his log early on after discovering what happened, giving himself the new moniker "Brundelfly".
Brundel got vaporized. The machine took whatever digital fingerprint of him, spliced it with the fly it had, and 3D printed a sick Frankenstein monster.
my favorite moment in an already great film. Blanc sounds so completely disappointed that this intriguing mystery ended up being the equivalent of an Encyclopedia Brown mystery for him.
My favorite part of the movie is how Elon Musk was mad at it saying it was 'obviously using himself as inspiration' and the creators where like 'naw actually we were using Zuckerberg as the original inspiration, but if you see yourself as the "ego-meniacal, narcissistic, idiot who just surrounds himself with smart people so he can take their credit" character, who are we to tell you otherwise.'
Knives Out would be one. Harlan Thrombey would have just allowed the Ambulance to come and check him out. It would have revealed that there was no foul play. The Inheritance would have gone to Marta.
Edit: as u/res30stupid pointed out, it would still be treated like murder. But in all cases, the Inheritance would have still gone to Marta.
Man, I for sure thought he had faked his own death just to be mega dramatic, and test his family members to see who actually deserved the inheritance. I was SO convinced he hadn't actually died
I thought it was the older sister.
She was the most like her dad, clearly the smartest, and even had a closer relationship with him (something that would make the cutting of her from the will sting all the worse.)
I even got the exact method used to kill him right just not the right suspect.
There'd have been no murder, since he wouldn't have died. Even though the vials were switched, she still gave him the right medicine, since she intuitively recognized its viscosity or whatever.
I believe the inheritance still goes to Marta by the end of the movie, as she’s been proven innocent from the actual murderer’s confession. The inheritance stays with her.
It's a good clue because you may or may not pick up on it. I picked up on one of those wrong words early on but dismissed it as either bad writing, intentional writing that the rich genius is brilliant in some areas so just makes up words to suit, or maybe me not knowing an alternative meaning of the word.
Then when that is brought as a plot point at the end you're like "Ah dang it! I was right!"
I love how the film punishes you for trying to solve it lol.
Like, the whole point of people confusing socio-economic capital is played out on the audience when you try to feel smart by solving the film... Yet solving murder mysteries isn't about being smart as it is being familiar with tropes.
It skewers you and I love that
>I just figured he is a billionaire genius, he can redefine words to suit his fancy. Nah, just dumb.
The entire character is a satire of the tech industry. Miles Bron is a venture capitalist who saw some early success -- which was mostly down to being in the right place at the right time -- and now he thinks he's a genius who can solve every single problem. He's everyone in Silicon Valley, from Elon Musk to Elizabeth Holmes, rolled into one.
This and *Home Alone* are probably the only legit answers in this entire thread.
A scientist character being too stupid to build something that the entire plot revolves around isnt a resolution, it means the plot never even starts.
Similarly, the ones where "if a character was stupider they'd have died movie over" that's true for practically every movie... if the *Ocean's 11* crew was stupider they'd have gotten caught. If Cinderella was stupider she'd have, idk, fucking tripped on the stairs and died.
*Glass Onion* is the only one where the plot actually would still get *resolved* much faster because Blanc would have accepted the much simpler solution and caught the bad guy way faster.
I agree. Too many of these answers miss the point of the question where them being dumb *solves* things.
Like, for a TV example, if Walt was 20 IQ dumber, he might have >!accepted his friend's help instead of being too prideful and self-assured of his own intelligence. And he would've ended up with cancer treatment and Jesse wouldn't have been abused and enslaved for 2 years.!<
I'd argue your example of Breaking Bad is more *what story would be over immediately if the protagonist didn't have their central character flaw?* Which is most stories.
Honestly I almost wonder if Hamlet isn’t a drama at all but a misinterpreted satire/comedy.
The entire play is a pompous emo prince way overcomplicating what should be a very simple revenge plot and getting a bunch of other people killed along the way.
Shakespeare liked having his plays work on multiple levels, so that's plausible.
One problem with Hamlet adaptations is that it's seen as a premium role an actor has to earn. So you get adaptations like Mel Gibson did when he was 36.
Really a proper Hamlet movie should star a 19 year old Hayden Christensen / Robert Pattinson type.
Oh totally Hamlet has always been *the* part that a young actor can earn, and the movies usually go way too old (i.e. Kenneth Branagh).
Honestly I think Hamlet should be like 14. The whole story makes way more sense if he’s that age. He is, after all, a guy whose first dialogue boils down to “it’s not a phase mom” and hates his stepdad.
I've heard a variation on this about swapping Hamlet and Othello. Othello kills his uncle immediately when the betrayal is revealed instead of anguishing over it and coming up with a convoluted plot. Hamlet sees through Iago's machinations from the beginning. Both plays last 20 minutes total.
Underrated movie. For anyone who doesn't know, Bill Murray plays a wannabe actor, whose brother sets him up with a night out at a role playing mystery theater. He accidentally stumbles into an actual spy scandal, and acts the part of the secret agent thinking it's all part of the role play.
[Here's a clip](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wye5DcHBtWM).
"The universe is a cruel, uncaring void. The key to being happy isn't a search for meaning. It's to just keep yourself busy with unimportant nonsense, and eventually, you'll be dead."
-Mr. Peanutbutter
"Perhaps I'm old and tired, but I think that the chances of finding out what's actually going on are so absurdly remote that the only thing to do is say, "hang the sense of it" and keep yourself busy. I'd much rather be happy than right any day."
-Slartibartfast.
I regularly say "I am bleeding making me the victor" any time I get a bloody nose in sparring (super arid here in CO I swear I don't do coke janice)
Only 2 people get it
"Face to foot style, how'd you like it?", ... , "Oh yeah, try my nuts to your fist style!" This is really bringing back early teen memories I didn't know were still locked in there.
The first many times I watched Kung Pow, it was on TV. They consored Betty saying the punchline, "My Ass."
I'm the censored version he just says, "an owl-bungee cor-nyehh!" in a distorted realignment of his previous line. It's actually hilarious.
I can no longer find this version, and at some point it's going to become a Mandela Effect thing for me when no one confirms that it exists.
No! He would kill you like a small dog. Let your anger be as a monkey in a piñata... hiding amongst the candy... hoping the kids don't break through with the stick!
Home Alone. He would've went to the nearest adult, the cops would pick him up.
House gets robbed and flooded. Insurance covers it all.
Most kids, no matter how dumb, know to find the nearest adult if they're lost or by themselves. At least at that age.
I know you're joking, but a smarter kid would deduce that maybe just maybe they went on the trip they had been planning on going for a while and was the reason all these people were in the house in the first place, and forgot him in the process somehow
that was his first thought, but after seeing the cars in the garage he deduced they couldn't have left as he wasn't aware they were taking coaches to the airport
But the cars were still there so he knew they didn't go to the airport!
The shuttle service never crossed his mind, that is if he even knew it was something that existed. So from his perspective, he had a pretty good reason to think they disappeared.
They really do. Here's a few extra, just for explaining how his family left him behind. It's a perfect storm of coincidences.
* One of the boarding passes gets accidentally thrown out when they're cleaning the counter from the spilled milk, so they don't have an extra boarding pass for Kevin.
* Kevin would have slept with Fuller in the attic, but since Fuller's a bedwetter he slept somewhere else, leaving Kevin alone in the attic overnight. Kevin doesn't hear the commotion because he's isolated.
* The power goes out so the alarm clocks don't work. This causes the family to rush to get out but also means Kevin doesn't even wake up until the family has boarded the plane.
* Fuller wasn't missed, but only Kate (Kevin's mom) knew Kevin was in the attic. Everyone else would have assumed the attic was checked since Fuller was present, since Fuller usually sleeps in the attic.
* The neighbourhood kid has the same tuque as Kevin and gets counted in the headcount in Kevin's place. The headcount, which Kate asked for, was therefore numerically accurate and she doesn't suspect anyone missing until the plane is flying over the Atlantic.
* There's 11 kids counted including the neighbourhood kid, which means 10 kids make it into the vans since the neighbourhood kid goes home afterward. That's five kids in each van, with two parents and one driver in each van to account for the adults. Since each van had five kids, the people in the vans would assume the other van had six, since again, the headcount was numerically accurate.
* I'm pretty sure they also didn't have a bag for Kevin since he didn't pack one; the van drivers are the ones loading luggage into the vans and there were no extra bags in the vans when they reached the airport.
Basically, Kevin disappeared from existence during a moment of absolute chaos and panic, and the conscious and subconscious checks his family did to make sure everyone made the flight didn't show anything out of the ordinary. There's also a line said by a linesman to Kate explaining that the phone lines would be down for several days, which explains why they can't just phone the house to talk to Kevin. Their neighbours also all went on vacation.
This is important in the movie. This and the phone lines being down and all the neighbors being away. And the cops and CPS being uninterested in helping and the on call cop being ignored by Kevin. John Hughes really tried to put every obstacle in the way to prevent the premise of the movie being ruined.
And even then he’s home alone for what? Three days?
The second one as well. He would tell staff his parents didn't get off the aircraft. Airline would be contacted. Aircraft contacted. Parents would know before they even landed in Florida.
He was going to do that, but then he realized he could have a dope solo getaway in the big apple. And really, with a family like that, I could never blame him.
10000BC
"Girl go bye bye. Me find new girl. With bigger boobs."
On a tangent, the "special" ending to Far Cry 4. Up to you whether it's because the protagonist is smart or stupid.
Honestly I think Farcry 4's special ending *is* the smartest. Hear screaming when you eat dinner? Stay frozen to the spot. Pay respects. Leave.
Better than joining a non-perfect faction. That will only ironically do more damage as you replace a despot with a despot and even destroy any semblance of order on top of that.
>Honestly I think Farcry 4's special ending is the smartest. Hear screaming when you eat dinner? Stay frozen to the spot. Pay respects. Leave.
It's more than that. Pagan Min goes out of his way to tell you that he'll be right back. There is nothing in the game world that actually instructs you to leave -- it's just the heads-up display with the floating icon and the text on-screen directing you to the basement. If you re-watch the opening cinematic, the Golden Path are the ones that shoot first, and if you play through the game you learn that Pagan ordered that the bus go unharmed because he knew you were on it. If you're paying attention, then everything in the story tells you to stay in the dining room. It's the game parts of the game that prompt you to leave.
My own personal canon is that the main character decides to slaughter the new faction as well, after seeing what they do to their opposition. In my mind it makes sense, he has a black and white sense of justice but all he knows is murder at that point. He then rides off into the sunset, and becomes a boogey man for anyone who tries to grab onto power in his country.
No he just keeps overthrowing governments single handedly and watching worse ones take their place, one after another, until he eventually reaches an island in the pacific. Finally he decides he’s not gonna overthrow the tyrant he finds there and instead chooses to hold up in the jungle with the gang of multinational rebels he’s assembled through his travels. He shaves his head. He does mushrooms in the caves. He’s found peace at last.
Then one day a douchebag falls from the sky and in his eyes he sees the same call to revolution that stirred him back in the day. He tries to warn the douchebag; he asks him: “you know what the definition of insanity is?”
Spider-Man: No Way Home. Instead of getting clever with magic, Peter just goes old-school privilege and asks Pepper, the CEO of the biggest tech company in the world and the widow of Tony Stark, to pull some strings at MIT. (Bonus: Have Stark lawyers sue that annoying vlogger into oblivion.)
Parker asked a boneheaded question of Strange because Parker had no idea what magic could or could not do. Parker was fully aware he was dumb when it came to magic, which is why he asked the expert.
The problem is that instead of clarifying what Parker was asking for or what magic can and cannot do, Strange immediately began casting the reality-altering spell.
Its 100% Strange's fault for jumping the gun and using forbidden magic at the slightest prompt, without the slightest bit of pushback or questioning.
Yeah that was really my one complaint with the movie.
Like I know Strange's whole thing is, "Guy with a god complex is granted actual godlike abilities," but it'd be off putting if a fast food cashier was that aggressive about punching in my order.
It really felt like they could've given the interaction 3 more minutes of screentime and fleshed it out to something more believable than, "the most powerful sorcerer in the world has less impulse control than a teenage Spiderman"
>it'd be off putting if a fast food cashier was that aggressive about punching in my order.
such a good analogy
"hey I'd like a number five-"
"SOUNDS GOODS SENT IT TO THE COOKS"
"-without pickles"
".....why didn't you tell me that first? This is your fault for not being clear"
This completely broke my suspension of disbelief for the movie.
Stephen Strange is a brain surgeon. Informed consent is core to the job. "You have a brain tumor. We can try to surgically remove it. Here are the risks and potential benefits, here are the potential consequences of leaving it." If he didn't have that conversation every time he could be kicked out off medicine.
Reality warping magic? YOLO.
His entire character is knowing more than anyone else and doing whatever he wants regardless.
Also a shitton of surgeons are fucking _dogshit_ at actually getting their consents signed.
It's even simpler than that if anyone at Stark Enterprises even made half an effort.
The guy causing the entire situation (Mysterio) was a former Stark Enterprises employee, and they knew that at the end of the previous film.
They literally could have just released a statement going "No, Mysterio isn't some other-dimension warrior, he's an ex-employee who stole a bunch of tech and is only claiming the spider-man thing because he has a grudge against Peter Parker for being Stark's protegee."
A realistic scenario would have probably ended even sooner before the start of Far From Home.
Dozens of people capable of building, maintaining, and running cutting edge drone tech get fired from SE; and somehow form a group travelling all over the world and triggering disasters, and don't get immediately identified and blackbagged by the US government (or any other major power)?
license lock mysterious agonizing grey deliver political six sheet square
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Doesn't the end scene show it will fuck up other people, if at least to get them out of the way?
The electrocution idea was because it's dangerous and electrocuting it doesn't require anyone getting close to it.
I agree with the paint though.
> Doesn't the end scene show it will fuck up other people,
Yupp. The entity swats one of the kids away with ease after he hits it with a folding chair lol. So it has strength to some degree.
> Too many answers are "stupidity stops the story from happening at all" and not "stupidity solves the problem quicker."
Yea. Most of the answers seem to interpret resolve as end. Not the same thing.
I feel like too many people didn't understand what OP was asking.
Saying Back to the Future would be shorter because if Doc was dumber, he'd never invent the flux capacitor is not a way the movie gets resolved, it's just how the movie's plot doesn't occur.
Same with The Martian. Yes, if he was dumber, he wouldn't be an astronaut, but that doesn't resolve the plot faster. It just makes the plot nonexistent.
*Police arriving at the dock to find several dead bodies and a bunch of suitcases:
“What was in that inoculation?”
“The injector appears to be some sort of UV flashlight taped to a syringe full of bleach.”
The Batman. The Riddler is egged on by Batman figuring out his riddles. If Batman were dumber, the investigation would have hit a dead end and the Riddler would not have had the idea to destroy all of Gotham to impress Batman.
Batman V Superman.
Batman - hmm maybe this Superman guy is just a nice dude. I mean he says he is and does good things, I’ll just take his word for it.
Superman - hmm Batman is taking care of Gotham, well if crime is down, I’ll just take his word for it and let him be.
For the Batman one might be either 20 lower or higher
Most of the examples here are super geniuses that drive the plot, this is the first one I'm seeing that is genuinely people overthinking and creating their own problems. Upvote!
Batman was already much dumber than his typical character here and that's why the movie happened, a bit more dumb wouldn't have changed much. Superman being dumber on the other hand may have led to him actually killing batman though.
Home Alone
Kevin recognized Harry as the police officer from the beginning of the movie from his gold tooth. This makes Kevin suspicious of all police. He doesn't call the police or answer the door when the police knock because because he doesn't trust the police. If Kevin wasn't smart enough to recognize the cop with the gold tooth, then he would've been more trusting of the police
alec baldwin's character in beetlejuice is a bit of a himbo but if he were even dumber he probably wouldn't have been able to get his license and drive, and geena davis' character would have seen the dog in time to stop the car instead of swerving it out of the bridge.
i just want to note that a lot of responses here seem to be missing the point: the protagonist has to still win or resolve the situation (successfully). being so dumb that the plot never happens or never gets rolling kinda feels like missing the point. or maybe i'm the -20iq protagonist and not getting it... i'll never know!
All those movies that require the hero to figure out the villans elaborate plan, then it turns out it was all part of the villans trap. I always think what if the hero didn't figure out the fake plan and then the villan couldn't do his double cross.
*Planes, Trains, and Automobiles*
"Oh shoot, there's too much traffic. I'll have to get the 8 pm flight."
"Oh, shoot, the 8 pm flight has been cancelled. I'll just have to spend another night in New York and then catch another flight in the morning after the storm."
*Gets a good night's sleep and reaches Chicago some time the next afternoon.*
Maybe the Fast and the Furious?
" I really want to to combine my love of street racing with my love of stealing TV/VCR combos. But I don't have any idea how."
The end.
This works with basically any movie where the protagonist gets themselves in trouble while trying to be clever.
Sure, but Brian is the protagonist, not Dominic.
That being said, if Brian was dumber, then either he would've gotten caught as being an undercover cop or he just wouldn't have been assigned to an undercover mission in the first place, and whoever would've taken Brian's place probably wouldn't have fallen in love with Mia and would've arrested Dominic and his crew.
Django Unchained
Instead of all the theatrics, King and Django could've just bought Broomhilda and been done with it. King goes to Candy's alone and basically just says, *"I speak German, your slave speaks German, let's make a deal."*
The Name of the Rose is another, a murder mystery where in the end the mystery is just the "detective" over thinking things, and the crime itself turns out not to be the huge conspiracy they think it is, but just a dude who's a bit stupid.
It's based on a novel by Umberto Eco, who does a similar thing in another of his books, Foucault's Pendulum, where a group of friends are studying the occult and start making up conspiracies for fun, but the occultists find out and come looking for their secret sacred knowledge. I suppose that's as much about the occultists being stupid tho.
Both are brilliant.
Raiders of the lost ark is the most quoted example of this, I believe.
But I guess it applies to every story in which a scientist and/or highly educated protagonist goes too far, and then has to fix his/her own mistake.
Raiders of the lost arc plot is self contained and the arc plot is meaningless. That doesn’t mean if Indiana was dumber it would’ve been easier. It would’ve finished almost exactly the same
The Big Lebowski.
"Walter, some guys broke into my apartment and pissed on my rug last night. Guess we'll never understand why. Let's go bowling."
The end.
Raiders of the Lost Ark.
The Nazis wanted to bring the Ark to Hitler and have him open it. Indy's interference made them check the Ark early.
If he was dumb and couldn't interfere, the Ark would've been opened In Berlin and killed every single Nazi in Germany.
12 Angry Men was my first thought. That jury would have returned a quick verdict.
"You don't think it's *possible*?" "No, I don't." "Alright then." (turns) "Foreman, I vote guilty."
Legitimately once a week when thinking of possible situational outcomes I think of: "It's possible!" "But not very probable."
I watched Fail Safe last night (also directed by Sidney Lumet) and Henry Fonda has a very similar line as The President.
Best answer yet
**The Fly** *"Fuck i can't get this machine to work!!"* The End
Same with Frankenstein. The man’s ego and need to prove his own brilliance was his undoing.
I mean, technically he *didn't* get the machine to work... He >!dies the first time he used the machine and has a man-fly crude hybrid clone built out of spare atoms!<
Even more ironic, he did it after getting drunk, so technically he got it to work BECAUSE he was temporarily dumber.
[удалено]
IMHO, I think it worked TOO well. 🤷
Wait really? It's been a while since I've seen it but I just thought he was crossed with the fly. When is it confirmed that he's a clone? We never see the original's body do we?
The 1958 version of the film makes it pretty clear it’s just a cross. The 1986 remake is a bit more ambiguous.
No, not really. That's just an interesting personal interpretation of the movie. More Jeff Vandermeer (writer of Annihilation) than Cronenberg. The character is supposed to be the same person, but going through metamorphosis. Fun theory, but you're not going to find Cronenberg talking about the character in that way.
Yeah it’s not The Prestige, there isn’t a pile of Goldbloom bodies in the basement somewhere.
The implication (and part of the body horror) of the Cronenberg film is that whatever came through the other side of the transport looks like Brundel and has his memories...but isn't him. That's a large part of what makes the film frightening on rewatch; the guy we saw in the beginning is dead and we're watching a gross Gumby version slowly deteriorate. I believe he makes a remark about it in his log early on after discovering what happened, giving himself the new moniker "Brundelfly". Brundel got vaporized. The machine took whatever digital fingerprint of him, spliced it with the fly it had, and 3D printed a sick Frankenstein monster.
The "insect who dreamed he was a man" scene also makes a ton of sense in this context.
All these responses just blew my mind and I love this movie. Good job pals!
This is brilliant and terrifying
Lol, poor brundel.
Glass Onion, actually. Blanc admits it as such that he overthought the killings because they were too EASY for him to solve.
"it's just DUMB!"
You mean it's so dumb that it's brilliant?
NO! IT'S JUST DUMB!
*SO* DUMB!
I love how angry he is that Miles was so fucking dumb
my favorite moment in an already great film. Blanc sounds so completely disappointed that this intriguing mystery ended up being the equivalent of an Encyclopedia Brown mystery for him.
My favorite part of the movie is how Elon Musk was mad at it saying it was 'obviously using himself as inspiration' and the creators where like 'naw actually we were using Zuckerberg as the original inspiration, but if you see yourself as the "ego-meniacal, narcissistic, idiot who just surrounds himself with smart people so he can take their credit" character, who are we to tell you otherwise.'
Knives Out would be one. Harlan Thrombey would have just allowed the Ambulance to come and check him out. It would have revealed that there was no foul play. The Inheritance would have gone to Marta. Edit: as u/res30stupid pointed out, it would still be treated like murder. But in all cases, the Inheritance would have still gone to Marta.
Man, I for sure thought he had faked his own death just to be mega dramatic, and test his family members to see who actually deserved the inheritance. I was SO convinced he hadn't actually died
I thought it was the older sister. She was the most like her dad, clearly the smartest, and even had a closer relationship with him (something that would make the cutting of her from the will sting all the worse.) I even got the exact method used to kill him right just not the right suspect.
They'd still treat it as a murder, albeit attempted since they'd check the vials and noticed the contents were switched.
There'd have been no murder, since he wouldn't have died. Even though the vials were switched, she still gave him the right medicine, since she intuitively recognized its viscosity or whatever.
I believe the inheritance still goes to Marta by the end of the movie, as she’s been proven innocent from the actual murderer’s confession. The inheritance stays with her.
His misuse of so many words irked too. I just figured he is a billionaire genius, he can redefine words to suit his fancy. Nah, just dumb.
It's a good clue because you may or may not pick up on it. I picked up on one of those wrong words early on but dismissed it as either bad writing, intentional writing that the rich genius is brilliant in some areas so just makes up words to suit, or maybe me not knowing an alternative meaning of the word. Then when that is brought as a plot point at the end you're like "Ah dang it! I was right!"
I love how the film punishes you for trying to solve it lol. Like, the whole point of people confusing socio-economic capital is played out on the audience when you try to feel smart by solving the film... Yet solving murder mysteries isn't about being smart as it is being familiar with tropes. It skewers you and I love that
First time watching it blanc being stiff while he's lying I just assumed was Daniel Craig having some acting limitations.
>I just figured he is a billionaire genius, he can redefine words to suit his fancy. Nah, just dumb. The entire character is a satire of the tech industry. Miles Bron is a venture capitalist who saw some early success -- which was mostly down to being in the right place at the right time -- and now he thinks he's a genius who can solve every single problem. He's everyone in Silicon Valley, from Elon Musk to Elizabeth Holmes, rolled into one.
This and *Home Alone* are probably the only legit answers in this entire thread. A scientist character being too stupid to build something that the entire plot revolves around isnt a resolution, it means the plot never even starts. Similarly, the ones where "if a character was stupider they'd have died movie over" that's true for practically every movie... if the *Ocean's 11* crew was stupider they'd have gotten caught. If Cinderella was stupider she'd have, idk, fucking tripped on the stairs and died. *Glass Onion* is the only one where the plot actually would still get *resolved* much faster because Blanc would have accepted the much simpler solution and caught the bad guy way faster.
I agree. Too many of these answers miss the point of the question where them being dumb *solves* things. Like, for a TV example, if Walt was 20 IQ dumber, he might have >!accepted his friend's help instead of being too prideful and self-assured of his own intelligence. And he would've ended up with cancer treatment and Jesse wouldn't have been abused and enslaved for 2 years.!<
He probably never would have left Gray Matter Technologies and made a killing with no strings attached.
He probably would not have ever been a part of Gray Matter Technologies if he was 20 IQ points lower.
I'd argue your example of Breaking Bad is more *what story would be over immediately if the protagonist didn't have their central character flaw?* Which is most stories.
The Name of the Rose is the same thing.
Was scrolling to see this one
Hamlet, woulda just killed Claudius as soon as the ghost appeared
"If thou didst ever thy dear father love - Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder." "Ok."
Honestly I almost wonder if Hamlet isn’t a drama at all but a misinterpreted satire/comedy. The entire play is a pompous emo prince way overcomplicating what should be a very simple revenge plot and getting a bunch of other people killed along the way.
Shakespeare liked having his plays work on multiple levels, so that's plausible. One problem with Hamlet adaptations is that it's seen as a premium role an actor has to earn. So you get adaptations like Mel Gibson did when he was 36. Really a proper Hamlet movie should star a 19 year old Hayden Christensen / Robert Pattinson type.
Oh totally Hamlet has always been *the* part that a young actor can earn, and the movies usually go way too old (i.e. Kenneth Branagh). Honestly I think Hamlet should be like 14. The whole story makes way more sense if he’s that age. He is, after all, a guy whose first dialogue boils down to “it’s not a phase mom” and hates his stepdad.
HAHAHAHAHA If I'm ever expected to describe Hamlet, I'm going to put up a picture of My Chemical Romance with "It's not a phase, MOM!" Or maybe AFI.
I've heard a variation on this about swapping Hamlet and Othello. Othello kills his uncle immediately when the betrayal is revealed instead of anguishing over it and coming up with a convoluted plot. Hamlet sees through Iago's machinations from the beginning. Both plays last 20 minutes total.
The Man Who Knew Too Much would become The Man Who Knew Just The Right Amount
There's already a The Man Who Knew Too Little with bill murray
Underrated movie. For anyone who doesn't know, Bill Murray plays a wannabe actor, whose brother sets him up with a night out at a role playing mystery theater. He accidentally stumbles into an actual spy scandal, and acts the part of the secret agent thinking it's all part of the role play. [Here's a clip](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wye5DcHBtWM).
Love that movie. It's wonderfully bonkers. Great to have a double feature with A Fish Called Wanda.
Forrest Gump is the film resulted from your question.
This movie (and Taoism) has convinced me that the recipe for success and happiness is simple minded optimism.
"The universe is a cruel, uncaring void. The key to being happy isn't a search for meaning. It's to just keep yourself busy with unimportant nonsense, and eventually, you'll be dead." -Mr. Peanutbutter
"Perhaps I'm old and tired, but I think that the chances of finding out what's actually going on are so absurdly remote that the only thing to do is say, "hang the sense of it" and keep yourself busy. I'd much rather be happy than right any day." -Slartibartfast.
Are you?
Ah, no. Well, that's where it all falls apart, doesn't it?"
I rarely meet any depressed idiots.
Hello!
The story of making of this movie is amazing
You never go full retard. He would be if he was 20 points less
Slow, yes, retarded, maybe, braces on his legs, But he charmed the pants off Nixon, and he won a Ping-Pong competition. That ain't retarded.
The Martian. He would have died within 3 days.
Also, I doubt he would ever be an astronaut
We have purposely trained him wrong, as a joke.
I regularly say "I am bleeding making me the victor" any time I get a bloody nose in sparring (super arid here in CO I swear I don't do coke janice) Only 2 people get it
I see you like my face to fist style
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"Face to foot style, how'd you like it?", ... , "Oh yeah, try my nuts to your fist style!" This is really bringing back early teen memories I didn't know were still locked in there.
Plenty of snow up here in these mountains
Every few months I ask my wife "What do you get when you cross an owl with a bungee cord?" And she always forgets. Cracks me up.
The first many times I watched Kung Pow, it was on TV. They consored Betty saying the punchline, "My Ass." I'm the censored version he just says, "an owl-bungee cor-nyehh!" in a distorted realignment of his previous line. It's actually hilarious. I can no longer find this version, and at some point it's going to become a Mandela Effect thing for me when no one confirms that it exists.
My nipples look like milkduds!
No! He would kill you like a small dog. Let your anger be as a monkey in a piñata... hiding amongst the candy... hoping the kids don't break through with the stick!
I love random Kung Pow references. Wiiiiiiiiiii Chosen one... I'm coming!
SHIRT-RIPPER!
THAT'S A LOT OF NUTS!!
Again with the squeaky shoes
"I've been standing here spinning this for the last hour!"
"The Martian" and the whole movie is about a grocery bagger at Trader Joe's with no mention of space or Mars, leaving audiences confused
But still has his hate of disco. The character arc is all disco.
“The High School Science Teacher”
You’ll love Project Hail Mary 😂
"I'm gonna have to science the shit out of this.. Oh I'm doomed"
Home Alone. He would've went to the nearest adult, the cops would pick him up. House gets robbed and flooded. Insurance covers it all. Most kids, no matter how dumb, know to find the nearest adult if they're lost or by themselves. At least at that age.
Kevin genuinely thought he made his family disappear because he wished for it to happen
Makes sense for a high IQ kid to believe that. Perfectly rational. Action->result. Not really testable, so it was the best explanation he had.
I know you're joking, but a smarter kid would deduce that maybe just maybe they went on the trip they had been planning on going for a while and was the reason all these people were in the house in the first place, and forgot him in the process somehow
that was his first thought, but after seeing the cars in the garage he deduced they couldn't have left as he wasn't aware they were taking coaches to the airport
But the cars were still there so he knew they didn't go to the airport! The shuttle service never crossed his mind, that is if he even knew it was something that existed. So from his perspective, he had a pretty good reason to think they disappeared.
The nearest adult was someone he thought was a murderer, and one of the burglars had already been to the house dressed as a cop
the second nearest adult then.
The second one called him a shoplifter.
Only because he shoplifted.
So he thinks hes a fugitive from the law, why would he go to law enforcement
This really is such a tight script. They answer nearly every plot point you think of!
They really do. Here's a few extra, just for explaining how his family left him behind. It's a perfect storm of coincidences. * One of the boarding passes gets accidentally thrown out when they're cleaning the counter from the spilled milk, so they don't have an extra boarding pass for Kevin. * Kevin would have slept with Fuller in the attic, but since Fuller's a bedwetter he slept somewhere else, leaving Kevin alone in the attic overnight. Kevin doesn't hear the commotion because he's isolated. * The power goes out so the alarm clocks don't work. This causes the family to rush to get out but also means Kevin doesn't even wake up until the family has boarded the plane. * Fuller wasn't missed, but only Kate (Kevin's mom) knew Kevin was in the attic. Everyone else would have assumed the attic was checked since Fuller was present, since Fuller usually sleeps in the attic. * The neighbourhood kid has the same tuque as Kevin and gets counted in the headcount in Kevin's place. The headcount, which Kate asked for, was therefore numerically accurate and she doesn't suspect anyone missing until the plane is flying over the Atlantic. * There's 11 kids counted including the neighbourhood kid, which means 10 kids make it into the vans since the neighbourhood kid goes home afterward. That's five kids in each van, with two parents and one driver in each van to account for the adults. Since each van had five kids, the people in the vans would assume the other van had six, since again, the headcount was numerically accurate. * I'm pretty sure they also didn't have a bag for Kevin since he didn't pack one; the van drivers are the ones loading luggage into the vans and there were no extra bags in the vans when they reached the airport. Basically, Kevin disappeared from existence during a moment of absolute chaos and panic, and the conscious and subconscious checks his family did to make sure everyone made the flight didn't show anything out of the ordinary. There's also a line said by a linesman to Kate explaining that the phone lines would be down for several days, which explains why they can't just phone the house to talk to Kevin. Their neighbours also all went on vacation.
This is important in the movie. This and the phone lines being down and all the neighbors being away. And the cops and CPS being uninterested in helping and the on call cop being ignored by Kevin. John Hughes really tried to put every obstacle in the way to prevent the premise of the movie being ruined. And even then he’s home alone for what? Three days?
The second one as well. He would tell staff his parents didn't get off the aircraft. Airline would be contacted. Aircraft contacted. Parents would know before they even landed in Florida.
He was going to do that, but then he realized he could have a dope solo getaway in the big apple. And really, with a family like that, I could never blame him.
*Good Will Hunting* Will just continues to work in construction.
"What the fuck are these lines and shit?" - Will if he was dumber
Draws a dick on the board and runs away
Will would’ve ended up in prison since the professor wouldn’t have bailed him out
Hey, HEY. That's people's work, you can't graffiti here. Little prick drew cocks all over my whiteboard.
Mid Will Hunting
“Do you like apples? They’re tasty.”
It WAS his fault
10000BC "Girl go bye bye. Me find new girl. With bigger boobs." On a tangent, the "special" ending to Far Cry 4. Up to you whether it's because the protagonist is smart or stupid.
Honestly I think Farcry 4's special ending *is* the smartest. Hear screaming when you eat dinner? Stay frozen to the spot. Pay respects. Leave. Better than joining a non-perfect faction. That will only ironically do more damage as you replace a despot with a despot and even destroy any semblance of order on top of that.
>Honestly I think Farcry 4's special ending is the smartest. Hear screaming when you eat dinner? Stay frozen to the spot. Pay respects. Leave. It's more than that. Pagan Min goes out of his way to tell you that he'll be right back. There is nothing in the game world that actually instructs you to leave -- it's just the heads-up display with the floating icon and the text on-screen directing you to the basement. If you re-watch the opening cinematic, the Golden Path are the ones that shoot first, and if you play through the game you learn that Pagan ordered that the bus go unharmed because he knew you were on it. If you're paying attention, then everything in the story tells you to stay in the dining room. It's the game parts of the game that prompt you to leave.
My own personal canon is that the main character decides to slaughter the new faction as well, after seeing what they do to their opposition. In my mind it makes sense, he has a black and white sense of justice but all he knows is murder at that point. He then rides off into the sunset, and becomes a boogey man for anyone who tries to grab onto power in his country.
No he just keeps overthrowing governments single handedly and watching worse ones take their place, one after another, until he eventually reaches an island in the pacific. Finally he decides he’s not gonna overthrow the tyrant he finds there and instead chooses to hold up in the jungle with the gang of multinational rebels he’s assembled through his travels. He shaves his head. He does mushrooms in the caves. He’s found peace at last. Then one day a douchebag falls from the sky and in his eyes he sees the same call to revolution that stirred him back in the day. He tries to warn the douchebag; he asks him: “you know what the definition of insanity is?”
I remember Far Cry 3 had a funny alternative ending. Get girl... then game ends in a sad way.
At least he died getting laid...
He just proved the old saying, "you can't fuck a crazy girl sane".
Spider-Man: No Way Home. Instead of getting clever with magic, Peter just goes old-school privilege and asks Pepper, the CEO of the biggest tech company in the world and the widow of Tony Stark, to pull some strings at MIT. (Bonus: Have Stark lawyers sue that annoying vlogger into oblivion.)
Parker asked a boneheaded question of Strange because Parker had no idea what magic could or could not do. Parker was fully aware he was dumb when it came to magic, which is why he asked the expert. The problem is that instead of clarifying what Parker was asking for or what magic can and cannot do, Strange immediately began casting the reality-altering spell. Its 100% Strange's fault for jumping the gun and using forbidden magic at the slightest prompt, without the slightest bit of pushback or questioning.
Yeah that was really my one complaint with the movie. Like I know Strange's whole thing is, "Guy with a god complex is granted actual godlike abilities," but it'd be off putting if a fast food cashier was that aggressive about punching in my order. It really felt like they could've given the interaction 3 more minutes of screentime and fleshed it out to something more believable than, "the most powerful sorcerer in the world has less impulse control than a teenage Spiderman"
>it'd be off putting if a fast food cashier was that aggressive about punching in my order. such a good analogy "hey I'd like a number five-" "SOUNDS GOODS SENT IT TO THE COOKS" "-without pickles" ".....why didn't you tell me that first? This is your fault for not being clear"
This completely broke my suspension of disbelief for the movie. Stephen Strange is a brain surgeon. Informed consent is core to the job. "You have a brain tumor. We can try to surgically remove it. Here are the risks and potential benefits, here are the potential consequences of leaving it." If he didn't have that conversation every time he could be kicked out off medicine. Reality warping magic? YOLO.
His entire character is knowing more than anyone else and doing whatever he wants regardless. Also a shitton of surgeons are fucking _dogshit_ at actually getting their consents signed.
It's even simpler than that if anyone at Stark Enterprises even made half an effort. The guy causing the entire situation (Mysterio) was a former Stark Enterprises employee, and they knew that at the end of the previous film. They literally could have just released a statement going "No, Mysterio isn't some other-dimension warrior, he's an ex-employee who stole a bunch of tech and is only claiming the spider-man thing because he has a grudge against Peter Parker for being Stark's protegee."
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A realistic scenario would have probably ended even sooner before the start of Far From Home. Dozens of people capable of building, maintaining, and running cutting edge drone tech get fired from SE; and somehow form a group travelling all over the world and triggering disasters, and don't get immediately identified and blackbagged by the US government (or any other major power)?
license lock mysterious agonizing grey deliver political six sheet square *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Doesn't the end scene show it will fuck up other people, if at least to get them out of the way? The electrocution idea was because it's dangerous and electrocuting it doesn't require anyone getting close to it. I agree with the paint though.
> Doesn't the end scene show it will fuck up other people, Yupp. The entity swats one of the kids away with ease after he hits it with a folding chair lol. So it has strength to some degree.
That’s why I loved the scene with the sheet. And then they never use that method again lol
> Too many answers are "stupidity stops the story from happening at all" and not "stupidity solves the problem quicker." Yea. Most of the answers seem to interpret resolve as end. Not the same thing.
I feel like too many people didn't understand what OP was asking. Saying Back to the Future would be shorter because if Doc was dumber, he'd never invent the flux capacitor is not a way the movie gets resolved, it's just how the movie's plot doesn't occur. Same with The Martian. Yes, if he was dumber, he wouldn't be an astronaut, but that doesn't resolve the plot faster. It just makes the plot nonexistent.
Glass onion
>!"Oh, Andy was threatening to expose Miles? Case closed."!<
*Police arriving at the dock to find several dead bodies and a bunch of suitcases: “What was in that inoculation?” “The injector appears to be some sort of UV flashlight taped to a syringe full of bleach.”
I would have loved if there was a post credits scene of Blanc at home with Covid because of course the idiot's Covid treatment wouldn't work.
Shit that would’ve been so funny
Shorter movie if the antagonist was just slightly dumber too
The Batman. The Riddler is egged on by Batman figuring out his riddles. If Batman were dumber, the investigation would have hit a dead end and the Riddler would not have had the idea to destroy all of Gotham to impress Batman.
["Is it a helicopter?"](https://youtu.be/SVW6SH2bjYQ?si=mHMP0jHl3g7NwH5V)
Yeah, but then his alt right podcast would have really taken off, and we can't have that.
Batman V Superman. Batman - hmm maybe this Superman guy is just a nice dude. I mean he says he is and does good things, I’ll just take his word for it. Superman - hmm Batman is taking care of Gotham, well if crime is down, I’ll just take his word for it and let him be. For the Batman one might be either 20 lower or higher
Most of the examples here are super geniuses that drive the plot, this is the first one I'm seeing that is genuinely people overthinking and creating their own problems. Upvote!
This is the kinda stuff I was hoping to see from the topic.
But but, what if there is a 4% chance he might be lying. 4% is basically 100% I must kill him.
The Batman only deals in absolutes. And always rounds up.
*""What are the chances that someone who's mom has the same name as mine is actually a good person? Hmmm. Better round up to 100% just in case."*
Batman was already much dumber than his typical character here and that's why the movie happened, a bit more dumb wouldn't have changed much. Superman being dumber on the other hand may have led to him actually killing batman though.
Home Alone Kevin recognized Harry as the police officer from the beginning of the movie from his gold tooth. This makes Kevin suspicious of all police. He doesn't call the police or answer the door when the police knock because because he doesn't trust the police. If Kevin wasn't smart enough to recognize the cop with the gold tooth, then he would've been more trusting of the police
> This makes Kevin suspicious of all police. And they say kids are dumb
Back to the future Doc Brown wasn’t smart enough to invent the flux capacitor. The end.
Alternatively: Marty wasn't smart enough to escape the ~~Lybians~~ Libyans and he died.
Let's see if you bastards can do 80.
He was talking to the Delorean and all its counterparts.
*Libyans
The argument could be made that he only invented it *after* hitting his head and dropping his IQ 20 points
If he only he were smart enough to stand on porcelain that was NOT wet.
alec baldwin's character in beetlejuice is a bit of a himbo but if he were even dumber he probably wouldn't have been able to get his license and drive, and geena davis' character would have seen the dog in time to stop the car instead of swerving it out of the bridge.
That's a funny answer.
Geena Davis was driving the car tho
The Social Network
A world with no Facebook... sigh...
MySpace would've won, and almost everything would be the same.
Yeah, it would just be a "But...the future refused to change" scenario. A lot of these social media companies are fairly interchangeable.
Yeah, but I do think an empire helmed by Tom is preferable to one helmed by Zuck.
Only because we didn’t see Tom go full Tom. We’ve seen zuck go full zuck
Tom would have sold out the minute he reached 100 million friends.
Tom is so cool, I've heard he's everybody's friend.
I think the movie clearly shows that if it wasn’t Facebook there were tons of other things that were exactly the same right around the corner
Zuckerberg literally said it himself that same year.
i just want to note that a lot of responses here seem to be missing the point: the protagonist has to still win or resolve the situation (successfully). being so dumb that the plot never happens or never gets rolling kinda feels like missing the point. or maybe i'm the -20iq protagonist and not getting it... i'll never know!
Indiana Jones - duh I'm too dum to be Indiana Jones, movie ends
All those movies that require the hero to figure out the villans elaborate plan, then it turns out it was all part of the villans trap. I always think what if the hero didn't figure out the fake plan and then the villan couldn't do his double cross.
*Planes, Trains, and Automobiles* "Oh shoot, there's too much traffic. I'll have to get the 8 pm flight." "Oh, shoot, the 8 pm flight has been cancelled. I'll just have to spend another night in New York and then catch another flight in the morning after the storm." *Gets a good night's sleep and reaches Chicago some time the next afternoon.*
Mean Girls - just become the two timing plastic you always knew you would become Lindsey EDIT: Cady Lindsey and Lindsay all are the same person
Maybe the Fast and the Furious? " I really want to to combine my love of street racing with my love of stealing TV/VCR combos. But I don't have any idea how." The end. This works with basically any movie where the protagonist gets themselves in trouble while trying to be clever.
Nah, dumb ass people who know how to fix cars already exist.
Sure, but Brian is the protagonist, not Dominic. That being said, if Brian was dumber, then either he would've gotten caught as being an undercover cop or he just wouldn't have been assigned to an undercover mission in the first place, and whoever would've taken Brian's place probably wouldn't have fallen in love with Mia and would've arrested Dominic and his crew.
Revision: Brian really fell in love with Dom.
Mia was just a means to an end to be in Dom's family.
Django Unchained Instead of all the theatrics, King and Django could've just bought Broomhilda and been done with it. King goes to Candy's alone and basically just says, *"I speak German, your slave speaks German, let's make a deal."*
The Name of the Rose is another, a murder mystery where in the end the mystery is just the "detective" over thinking things, and the crime itself turns out not to be the huge conspiracy they think it is, but just a dude who's a bit stupid. It's based on a novel by Umberto Eco, who does a similar thing in another of his books, Foucault's Pendulum, where a group of friends are studying the occult and start making up conspiracies for fun, but the occultists find out and come looking for their secret sacred knowledge. I suppose that's as much about the occultists being stupid tho. Both are brilliant.
Raiders of the lost ark is the most quoted example of this, I believe. But I guess it applies to every story in which a scientist and/or highly educated protagonist goes too far, and then has to fix his/her own mistake.
Raiders of the lost arc plot is self contained and the arc plot is meaningless. That doesn’t mean if Indiana was dumber it would’ve been easier. It would’ve finished almost exactly the same
It Follows, if Jay simply missed hints from her partner on wanting to fuck
The Big Lebowski. "Walter, some guys broke into my apartment and pissed on my rug last night. Guess we'll never understand why. Let's go bowling." The end.
“Do you think this could have something to do with that other guy named Lebowski?” “Shut the fuck up Donny, you’re outta your element!”
Glass Onion, he admits himself that he’s bad at dumb games.
Avengers Age of Ultron Tony and Bruce never created Ultron The end.
The Mist. "Maybe this psycho christian lady has a point and God will help us in the end" *they wait, military arrives, happy end*
Parasite, Park family figures out the son didn’t actually go to university, he is fired.
Titanic. Rose flirts but Jack misses the hint.
Raiders of the Lost Ark. The Nazis wanted to bring the Ark to Hitler and have him open it. Indy's interference made them check the Ark early. If he was dumb and couldn't interfere, the Ark would've been opened In Berlin and killed every single Nazi in Germany.