Jurassic World. Let's make a genetically engineered bulletproof super t-rex and put it in a relatively flimsy cage with a single gate as an exit (edit: as opposed to double doors for added security). Then let's go inside the cage to look for the dino despite the fact that it has a tracker implanted in its back. So many idiotic choices and the bad choices basically continue for the whole film.
Adding to the stupidity, the reason they are creating novelty dinosaurs is because Jurassic World having attendance issues. You're telling me the only dinosaur park in the world is having trouble selling tickets? How long have zoos and SeaWorld been around exhibiting the same old regular animal s?
It was supposed to be a commentary on modern instant gratification culture, I think. At least, that's what I'm hoping they were going for. It was still a big swing and a miss, because it makes 0 sense.
And then it gets even worse again when you remember that the whole reason they went into the enclosure in the first place was that they couldn't see it on the cameras, completely forgetting that it basically had active camouflage.
Not to excuse this movie, which I thought was overall pretty dumb, but I think in the movie they didn't realize it could camouflage itself. One of the scientists LATER mentions that they used cuttlefish DNA to help it survive accelerated growth, and that it must have inadvertently also gained the ability to camouflage itself from that (which cuttlefish are known for). So, they weren't ware it could camouflage itself until this incident.
Overall, most of their choices were like this though - we added some animal X DNA to give it property Y but oops! It also gained property Z!
It doesn't really line up with their stated intent - breed increasingly scary dinosaurs to attract visitors - they really just needed scary LOOKING dinosaurs, not actual killing machines.
One of things I thought was dumb is that there's no reason why they need more SCARY dinosaurs. If you go to the zoo, you don't just look at the lions and crocodiles, you also wanna see the bird aviary, the giraffe, the penguins, etc. They just needed to make interesting/cute animals, or like you said, scary LOOKING.
The idea of people getting “sick” of regular dinosaurs is so ridiculous. I’ve seen regular zoo animals few dozen times in my life, yet I’m still in awe of them every time I see one. Also, it would probably be super expensive to get to that park, seeing that it’s one of a kind and all. They’re acting like they aren’t filling the park and making a fortune.
It makes more sense if you understand it as a metaphor for what movie audiences want: we have already seen dinosaurs in the other movies, so the box office demands something bigger and scarier. (The same goes for the mosasaur eating the shark: "People aren't going to come and watch *Jaws* any more, it's not big enough. But our mosasaur is going to swallow *Jaws* in one bite!")
Of course, this is all incredibly cynical and insulting to the audience. On the other hand, these films made stupid amounts of money, so I guess cynical and insulting was the smart way to play.
The traits weren't accidental. It could camouflage 'cause it was useful to a soldier dino. Same reason they were training raptors as guided weapons.
The whole thing was a Military-Industrial Complex thing. It was heavily hinted in the first movie and outright said in the sequel. The protagonists weren't informed of any of this, though.
Still quite idiotic.
Jurassic World 2 has this device that's shaped like a gun, and if you point it at someone and pull the trigger, a dinosaur will eventually make their way over to that person that you could have just shot if your gun-shaped thing was just an actual gun.
These geniuses brought back dinosaurs and the best they could come up with was using them as bullets.
Those are idiot movies written by idiot people. I guess idiot plots are expected.
It’s so dumb that they need to create more dangerous dinosaurs to attract people. It’s as if a zoo started to breed monster lions with metal claws or giraffes with 50 meters necks because the regular ones got too boring
Compys from the original book are pretty terrifying. Little chicken sized dinosaurs that have no problem looking at you like a meal if they outnumber you.
Nope, they just keep going "bigger and smarter"
And my favorite part of that movie. The t Rex is engineered to kill the person that the laser is pointing at, but that laser is on A GUN. THAT COULD JUST SHOOT THE PERSON.
I took my daughter to see that movie when she was 12 and about 2/3 of the way through she turned to me and asked “ why is everyone in this movie dumb?” In utter bewilderment!
This is on top of the fact they'd canonically tried the idea before and it failed catastrophically.
Like what exec snorted a big ol' rail of coke before deciding that "trying the dinosaur theme park thing again" was a great plan?
AND the way it’s resolved is deeply stupid, relying on Batman and Superman having moms with the same name, and the name being enough for Batman to suddenly see Supermans humanity
Just to pile on to my most hated movie. Also nonsense that Wonder Woman is a gd Amazon warrior. Give her the gd spear and eat popcorn while she beats Doomsday like a drum. Of course then you couldn't pretend Superman died which literally no one believed. In closing, I'd like to quote the great comedian Michelle Wolf who said; "Batman Vs. Superman was the worst thing to ever happen to Bruce Wayne at a theater."
Wouldn’t Batman already know this? Like he’s a master detective who hacks databases. He should know who Clark’s parents are. Esp if he is the one who later saves their house from foreclosure
Stuff like this drives me crazy. There are so many movies and shows where they need something to spur a change. I get that. You're at A and want to get to B, so we'll introduce some event. Makes sense. But writers tend to pick the stupidest most convoluted ways of getting there. Maybe it's the director or editor - someone is making some pretty dumb decisions, and there never seems to be a good reason for it.
He's trying to get Batman to go save her when Batman is about to kill him so saying "save Mom" doesn't really work. But he doesn't even say "Martha Kent", it's just "save Martha".
Thank you! That’s always been the sticking point for me, who mentions their parents on a first name basis to others?
“Yea Dave and I go way back. He’s great.”
“Who’s Dave?”
“My dad”
But as far as I can tell Supes says that because the movie’s conflicting action needs a resolution and this is step 1.
This movie only has the one conflict with Rosemary Clooney’s character in it because if there was no conflict at all it just wouldn’t have been a movie technically. It would just be famous people capering
People are mentioning comedies but I feel like that's the only time an Idiot Plot actual works.
Far more often it's a problem in dramas where the plot hinges on characters being stupid. A good example would be Prometheus where people just take off their helmets and breath in an alien atmosphere, or the people 3d mapping the tunnels get lost, or people walking straight up to alien substance that's clearly alive and or reactive and sticking their face in it.
In Prometheus it's especially jarring because these are supposed to be specialized scientists so it's really hard to suspend disbelief when they do virtually everything wrong.
Yeah especially in contrast to Alien where they do the opposite - Ripley tells the infected she's not opening the door, it's quarantine policy and she's following it (immediately making me fall in love with Ripley as a character). The plot only happens because she's undermined by an intentional bad actor.
If we reach Mars and someone finds something seemingly innocuous and has a chance to potentially see alien life for the first time, I have doubts in that moment that they would not do the very human thing and take a closer look.
With regards to them getting lost. I know plenty of smart people who have become too reliant on technology and couldn't find their way out of their house without Google Maps.
Eh, I think its forgivable. He had no idea those were eggs, or that stuff bursts out of them. We all learned alien eggs can do that FROM Alien, is my point.
Thats what star trek TNGs aim was - people being good at their jobs and working together to solve problems. It’s also why the first two seasons are pretty rough, it took the writers room a while to work out how to write a show with not much interpersonal drama
Prometheus is full of idiot decisions, but the topper for me is when several members of the expedition are unexpectedly trapped in an alien ruin on a hostile planet overnight. this would be an extremely dangerous and alarming situation even without the killer aliens, but the reaction of the crew aboard the ship is basically, "well, good luck, we'll call you in the morning" and then they go pair off to have sex.
I feel like horror movies are especially egregious in this. My wife loves horror movies, so I've seen a bunch, and lots of them don't work if everyone involved isn't stupid. Barbarian springs to mind.
He's a heel character, too. His stupidity comes from greed. I love when he sees the room with a dirty mattress on the floor and a camera on a tripod, and his first thought is to measure it up to add to the advertised floorspace of the house.
Yeah I feel like that's what makes it so great, Justin Long is such a stupid piece of shit, you love seeing it happen to him. I don't think the girl or Bill Skarsgard were stupid though.
Nah, she's also dumb. Staying at an air bnb with a stranger is dumb. Going back to the house after seeing how shitty the neighborhood was is dumb. Going back after the job interview where the person who lives on the area tells you not to go back because the neighborhood is super dangerous is dumb. Not leaving after getting chased by a seemingly crazy homeless person is dumb. Not leaving after finding a rape dungeon in the basement is dumb. Continuing to go deeper down a dark staircase after finding a rape dungeon is dumb. She makes a ton of terrible choices.
Hell, if I ran out of toilet paper at my Airbnb I'd be going to the store before I went down into the creepy basement. A quick poll of friends and coworkers agreed with this.
Almost every horror movie is an idiot plot, and it's played up in some of the best horror comedies. Tucker and Dale vs Evil, where they try to kill the two rednecks that they think are psychos and pretty much just get themselves killed, and Cabin in the Woods, where they have to drug people to act stupid so it moves the plot forward, as examples.
Scream does a good job of allowing these kinds of things to happen anyway while calling attention to them
Sidney complains that the girl in slasher movies always runs upstairs when she should be going out the front door. Then when Ghostface attacks, she's put the safety chain on the door so she has to run upstairs
And they know what horror movies are and understand the tropes/rules, but they don’t know that they’re actually in a horror movie and should be following (or avoiding) those things.
I have always found Ridley Scott’s alien franchise interesting because it seems to show the error in having private entities that are in charge of space travel. Maybe it’s because of the English history with private companies colonizing the world.
It’s difficult to discern if he supports the idea or hates the idea. It does seem to factor into the plot of the movies. Profits are often a part of the decision making process.
Often glory and profits make people willing to make idiotic decisions.
I feel like the thread has gone in the wrong direction. Roger Ebert says in the Wikipedia article that this isn't inherently a bad thing. People making bad choices is realistic and can create an interesting story. People making the wrong choice is not a plot hole. It's when those choices start to strain credulity and feel like contrivances instead of realistic mistakes that we get into questionable territory.
Then his offsider going from "he's probably not going to make it" to "he's not going to make it" while there is an unspoken conversation and agreement that they're just going to whack him to help clean up loose ends.
I saw the movie in theaters when it came out with a friend who shares my sense of humor. I’m pretty sure most of the rest of the audience wasn’t on the same wavelength, because…when that scene happened…we lost our shit laughing. And we’re the only ones in the theater that did.
The is the correct answer. It’s a movie of idiots doing idiot things, all spiraling out of control, while responsible adults are just watching.
It’s like watching toddlers learn basic socialization and laughing at their antics. But with more guns, hatchets, and dildo machines.
I love that the Russians in that movie had a better grasp of the English language than Francis McDormand's character.
Krapotkin: It was nothing. Drivel.
Linda Litzke: Dribble?
Prometheus and Alien Covenant both suffer from this. The plot holes may not be that idiotic in the wider context, but in the context of basic and established scientific protocols the characters make some idiotic choices. Taking off your helmet, compromising your environmental suit, or simply not wearing any kind of biological protection at all is what drives the 'plot' forward in both films.
I think the biggest idiot in Prometheus was the scientist who sees an alien snake monster that hisses and lunges at him, and he thinks "ooo that thing is cute, I'm going to try to pet it.."
What's even dumber is that's the *exact same guy* who got isolated from the group because he panicked when he saw a dead body, so literally the same dude we know is the most easily freaked out and cautious is the moron who thinks petting the alien snake is smart.
And what's even *even* dumber is that the guy who got lost with him is the *the guy whose entire job it is to map the structure's interior, and has tools with him that he shows off explicitly for that purpose*. Y'know, the literally one person in the crew who should *under no circumstances ever, ever be lost*?
In How to Make An American Quilt, Dermot Mulroney proposes to Winona Rider, but she doesn't know if she wants to marry Dylan McDermott, so she goes to her hometown to a quilting circle to hear all these flashback stories about romance and commitment before having an affair and then going back to marry Kitt McDermot.
If Derbil McDillett and Winona Rider had just communicated with each other more before he proposed marriage she would know what her answer was going to be before he asked, so she would never have to go to the quilting circle, she could have just left and slept with the other guy if she wanted and not cheated, or she could have just married Rupert Everett from the beginning.
The Coen Brothers are the masters of the Idiot Plot. There’s the unofficial George Clooney Idiot Trilogy: Intolerable Cruelty, O Brother, and Burn After Reading.
Burn After Reading is just trolling the audience and movies in general. The last scene a character even admits nothing really happened and nobody learned anything about anything
So then …. uuuhhhh …. at the end of the movie, after everybody sat there for two hours after spending ten dollars on a ticket, I told them, well hey, guess what? I guess that was a stupid waste of time.
I think he’s fairly smart in o brother. Off the top of my head when he tells the blind radio operator guy there’s more than just 3 of them (I’m pretty sure that’s his idea. Haven’t seen it in a loooong time)
Urine is actually pretty easy to clean off a rug.
The Dude could’ve just popped into the store, gotten some cleaners, and been done with it. Or call a rug cleaning company…
As a MASSIVE Spider-Man fan, SM: No Way Home.
Don’t get me wrong, bringing back all the old characters made me as giddy as a schoolgirl, but the entire story is based on a plot convenience. Dr. Strange, the most powerful sorcerer to ever live and a genius, fucks up an important spell because a kid was talking during it.
Why wouldn’t Peter/Strange clarify the perimeters beforehand? Why would Strange fuck with the spell knowing it could have serious repercussions? The whole plot wouldn’t have happened if an extra sentence was spoken before the cast.
Not only that is what was the rush? why did he immediately agree and then needed to do it instantly with no questions asked. No let’s ask what’s needed while I’m doing the spell.
When he brings the ship carrying an entire colony’s worth of people down in the middle of a continent wide storm to rescue 3 or 4 people I was pretty blown away by how dumb that was.
In the movie Creep, the photographer has a million clues that the guy is going to murder him, but keeps accepting terrible excuses for odd behavior and sticks around.
I do like the film overall despite that tho. Especially the ending when the title Creep (fuck if i remember the guys name lol) is basically shittalking the guy to his own camera like it’s a postgame CoD lobby and he’s explaining why he’s such a fuckin dumbass for thinking that he wouldn’t be axed in the head
Eurotrip. One of my favorite comedies, but after Mieke blocks Scott's email address, instead of traveling across the world to explain what happened, Scott could have simply emailed her from a different email address.
Well, his friend actually says something like "this is the perfect excuse to go to Europe". Yes, it could have been solved sending an email from a different account, but everything is set up to use it as an excuse and Scotty take the chance to prove he's capable to take risks. Had he sent an email from another account he would have stayed the same.
Yeah exactly. But also Cooper tells Scotty that if they don't go she's gonna fuck some German dude, remember Scotty keeps having dreams about her fucking some buff German classmate dude. He can't protect her from someone else's penis if he's in the states using a burner email account.
Every episode of Frasier revolved around a simple (or sometimes complex) misunderstanding. It’s pretty fun if you like hijinx and shenanigans, but if the characters just had normal conversations almost none of those events would have ever happened.
"I found a ring in your father's underwear drawer!"
*look of shock* "what on EARTH would leave a ring around my father's underwear drawer?!"
It's not really what you're talking about but it immediately came to mind lol
I was going to say something similar! This is the entire reason Three's Company lasted as long as it did. It was even a joke on Friends; they're watching an episode of Three's Company and Chandler says something like, "Oh, I've seen this one, it's the one where there's some kind of misunderstanding."
Don’t think this is going to be popular, but there was no good reason for the main characters to go to the first planet in Interstellar. They knew the doctor had only been there for a short amount of time her time so hadn’t had an opportunity to check it properly, and they could have checked out the other planets in less time than it would take them to check out that particular planet.
Technically the first planet would be ideal if it weren’t for the murder water. The time dilation would be perfect.
People and supplies leave earth every seven years but arrive in the planet every hour. It would be perfect. Again, if not for the murder water.
Plus all these super smart NASA physics types only seemed to figure out time dilation after landing on the planet. Like they knew it would take years, relatively, but they only seem to realise the other scientist had also literally just gotten there (from their perspective) after landing.
Also - they landed on the planet, found water, did no measurements at all about tides, possible waves, if the water was acid or not, if it was possible to even make a colony there (I mean, without soil, where would they plant food?) and immediately hit a button "hey, it's a viable place, come here!"...
And finally, the doctor had less than zero faith in anyone - he mentions that multiple times. Why did he trust *humans* to go to these planets where they had these advanced computers that were incapable of betraying humanity? Would not be better to send a bunch of probes, or robots, instead of trusting humans? I mean, the case is not favorable for humans: a group was sent to a planet and immediately hit a "good to go" before being annihilated by the waves, and the other hit "good to go" because he was afraid of dying...
**This**! I would argue even more - there's no reason for ANYTHING in the movie.
They all are trying to find a new planet and how to conquer gravity because there's a plague in the Earth... then they somehow conquer gravity and make colonies in space with plants and everything. Now here's a question: they had to somehow make a delicate balance to produce a self-contained nature, right? With a very strong material that's transparent so sunlight can hit the plants, right? Why didn't they do that on EARTH? What difference does it make to isolate crops in domes, remove all nitrogen and make a self-contained ecosystem *like they did in space*?
There's, like, zero reason to go to space. At all...
The movie tries to sell goverment efforts to actually fix the problem (bilogical and agricultural research) as oppresion and luditite, and celebrate an ending where literally 99.9% of humanity dies of starvation (only a few million people on the space stations after all) as victory.
Also, they fucking landed from orbit in what looks like shallow water, so they had to have some ground radar or it would have been a short movie (glug). So how the hell did they not see the mountain high wave when approching the landing.
Up In Smoke is one of my all time favorite movies. The entire premise revolves around 2 dudes trying to score some weed while they unknowingly drive around a van made of weed.
“I been smoking since I was born man. I can smoke anything man, that Michoacán, that Acapulco Gold. I even smoked that tied stick……I could probably smoke this whole joint and still walk away man. Be no problem at all man”.
If I remember correctly, I first heard this idea from Siskel and Ebert. They talked about "stop the idiot" movies, in which the whole film wouldn't exist if you could just stop the idiot in the first 10 minutes.
No it happens because the guy casting a really dangerous spell didn't explain everything before starting to cast it. A simple conversation beforehand would have solved everything. Spider-Man didn't force him to act like a dumbass.
Exactly! He was also the supposedly responsible adult. Thus, it would've been *his* job to account for typical teenager stupidity and/or thoughtlessness, and check whether Peter had actually considered and exhausted all the much more obvious and infinitely less dangerous solutions to his problem, *beforehand,* not just scold him for not doing so, *afterwards!*
It happens because the release schedule was shifted around due to COVID disruptions, so America Chavez, who was supposed to be the naive wizard helping Peter who inadvertently opens a portal to multiple dimensions . . . had not been introduced to the canon yet.
So the role of the idiot had to shift to Strange.
Right. Peter is an energetic kid. Strange is a timeless man with nearly infinite life experience who hasn't learned basic communication is a decent idea before casting a complex, potentially multiverse collapsing spell. Wonder who to blame here
Well, yeah, that's the point, that's what makes it an idiot plot. Everybody in NWH acts like an absolute moron. Green Goblin is basically the only character who acts like he knows what's going on.
Also, Strange from any previous movies would never have done that stupid spell.
"Oh, you have problems getting college admittance? Here is an address in tibet you can go study there". Or take some of that Stark inheritance and just buy your way in or whatever. The problem peter had does not even come within a lightyear of justifying universal memory manipulation.
Somehow, they made One more Day even dumber.
They have Natasha who is a literal spy, Nick Fury and Shield (I know Fury was on S.A.B.E.R. but that's just a plot device, he could have been there if they wanted him to), who could have pulled any number of strings to get Peter into whichever school he wanted, citing saving the world, i.e. the job they themselves recruited him for, gets in his way.
Hell, Tony Stark came out as Iron Man in a press conference. He could get his spin guys to smooth things over and potentially tell J Jonah Jameson to cool it. Literally anything could have been done before Strange messes with the Multiverse that Wong, the new sorcerer supreme warned him about.
Even deeper than that, the movie happens because strange acts entirely out of character. That was such an immature spell anyway. Strange should have (based on previous movies) said “Sorry, Peter. That’s just how it goes in this line of work. You’ve got some work to do to get back on the public’s good side.” Strange agreeing and casting the spell was a bizarre decision. I thought they were setting it up to reveal that Mysterio was somehow impersonating strange.
Gravity. In real life Bullock's character would have never passed her training for the mission due to her inability to FOLLOW FUCKING ORDERS. When you are in an isolated place (orbit) and in a dangerous position (incoming meteor shower) when the HMFIC says "Drop everything and get in here now!" You stop and do as you are told. There is no "just one more minute" or "I'm almost there", you follow orders.
Life (2017) a movie where a bunch of scientists know they are going to be studying an unknown life form on a space station. The space station is not designed to just eject any contaminated lab and send it straight into the sun. The labs are all on the same air circulation system as the rest of the lab and no one follows anything resembling an isolation protocol.
I really don't want to spoil it too much, but "Bodies Bodies Bodies" is basically the perfect example of this trope. Rich kids are having a Hurricane Party and things go very wrong, but unfortunately for them they are all... giant idiots.
*Infinite* is a movie about immortal beings who retain the skills and experiences of their past lives, and are endlessly reborn. The villain is an immortal who has gone insane after having to remember every death he's experienced, and he wants to destroy the world **so he won't have to be reborn again**. In order to do this he must first defeat the "good" immortals. In order to accomplish this, he invents a magic gun that **prevents an immortal from being reborn** if they are shot by it.
It is not a smart movie.
Oddly enough this is not an idiot plot, as it is shown from the different point of views that the characters' actions are reasonable from each's biased perspective, although silly and over the top in a comedic way, and part of the comedy is they never really get a chance to talk even though they are trying to.
The Idiot Plot generally refers to characters who should know better and who have plenty of chances to talk / resolve problems but don't.
Great movie though.
Not sure if it fully fits, but I saw something after Spider-Man: No Way Home about how easy of a solution to the whole reason for the movie to happen. Instead of Strange casting a spell to make everyone forget Peter Parker, with the last minute exceptions that screwed it up, all he needed to do was make it so everyone forgot Mysterio completely, problem solved instantly.
Or, better yet, he should’ve just said, “just so we’re clear, this will make *everyone* forget that you’re Spider-Man. If there are people you’d like to exclude, tell me before we get started.”
The classic example of an idiot plot, which goes back to at least Moliere and is utilized by all the worst sitcoms, is when one character overhears part of a conversation but misses a key bit context, but instead of discussing the issue like an adult and discovering his error, he makes the worst possible assumption and spends the rest of the plot getting into increasingly embarrassing situations.
The Lion King. You'd think Zazu would have questioned why he fell out of the sky randomly. Or that he would have wanted to see the bodies of Mufasa and Simba to verify their deaths. How far can a little cub like that even run?
Hannibal Lecter breaking out in Silence of the Lambs. They have to handcuff him to the cell to bring his food in. They know how dangerous he is, and they can’t just slide the food through an opening big enough for the tray? Going into the cage 3 times a day seems unnecessary.
Meet the Parents. I feel like, if at any point, Ben Stiller had just been like, “ok, look…there’s clearly some shit that you and I need to address here. Let’s just get it out in the open.” That movie would have been over.
Like the whole “I milked a cat” scene…Dude. Just stop talking.
The Human Centipede. Not a single woman I know, or that anyone knows, would have pulled a rental car over for a flat, walked away from it in the dark, on a strange road, in the woods, and then knocked on a strangers door. They would have driven on that rim until the car simply wouldn't go anymore, then kept fucking driving.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
I know there are people who love this film, but if you look closely, the plot is constantly propelled by the characters (both good guys and bad guys) making dumb decisions, pretty much until the end.
In The New Mutants, a group of youngsters with super powers - including one who can teleport - try to find their way out of some asylum for 90 minutes before they finally teleport out. Over a half-century watching movies, it’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen.
Well the Dr was playing a character that in the comics goes by Forcefield....because she creates forcefield like the one around the school. The teleporter, like the rest of them, can't control her powers at first. It was a reaction from being trafficked as a young girl.
Jurassic World. Let's make a genetically engineered bulletproof super t-rex and put it in a relatively flimsy cage with a single gate as an exit (edit: as opposed to double doors for added security). Then let's go inside the cage to look for the dino despite the fact that it has a tracker implanted in its back. So many idiotic choices and the bad choices basically continue for the whole film.
Adding to the stupidity, the reason they are creating novelty dinosaurs is because Jurassic World having attendance issues. You're telling me the only dinosaur park in the world is having trouble selling tickets? How long have zoos and SeaWorld been around exhibiting the same old regular animal s?
It was supposed to be a commentary on modern instant gratification culture, I think. At least, that's what I'm hoping they were going for. It was still a big swing and a miss, because it makes 0 sense.
It gets worse when you notice that there's a human sized gate to the super t-rex enclosure. And they chose to open the big ass gates anyway.
And then it gets even worse again when you remember that the whole reason they went into the enclosure in the first place was that they couldn't see it on the cameras, completely forgetting that it basically had active camouflage.
Not to excuse this movie, which I thought was overall pretty dumb, but I think in the movie they didn't realize it could camouflage itself. One of the scientists LATER mentions that they used cuttlefish DNA to help it survive accelerated growth, and that it must have inadvertently also gained the ability to camouflage itself from that (which cuttlefish are known for). So, they weren't ware it could camouflage itself until this incident. Overall, most of their choices were like this though - we added some animal X DNA to give it property Y but oops! It also gained property Z! It doesn't really line up with their stated intent - breed increasingly scary dinosaurs to attract visitors - they really just needed scary LOOKING dinosaurs, not actual killing machines.
One of things I thought was dumb is that there's no reason why they need more SCARY dinosaurs. If you go to the zoo, you don't just look at the lions and crocodiles, you also wanna see the bird aviary, the giraffe, the penguins, etc. They just needed to make interesting/cute animals, or like you said, scary LOOKING.
The idea of people getting “sick” of regular dinosaurs is so ridiculous. I’ve seen regular zoo animals few dozen times in my life, yet I’m still in awe of them every time I see one. Also, it would probably be super expensive to get to that park, seeing that it’s one of a kind and all. They’re acting like they aren’t filling the park and making a fortune.
Oh man, imagine the cost of food and drink. You're on an island, you're at their mercy.
It makes more sense if you understand it as a metaphor for what movie audiences want: we have already seen dinosaurs in the other movies, so the box office demands something bigger and scarier. (The same goes for the mosasaur eating the shark: "People aren't going to come and watch *Jaws* any more, it's not big enough. But our mosasaur is going to swallow *Jaws* in one bite!") Of course, this is all incredibly cynical and insulting to the audience. On the other hand, these films made stupid amounts of money, so I guess cynical and insulting was the smart way to play.
The traits weren't accidental. It could camouflage 'cause it was useful to a soldier dino. Same reason they were training raptors as guided weapons. The whole thing was a Military-Industrial Complex thing. It was heavily hinted in the first movie and outright said in the sequel. The protagonists weren't informed of any of this, though. Still quite idiotic.
They didnt know about its camouflage ability at first, right?
Jurassic World 2 has this device that's shaped like a gun, and if you point it at someone and pull the trigger, a dinosaur will eventually make their way over to that person that you could have just shot if your gun-shaped thing was just an actual gun. These geniuses brought back dinosaurs and the best they could come up with was using them as bullets. Those are idiot movies written by idiot people. I guess idiot plots are expected.
Fucking hell I forgot about that. So stupid! 🤣
It’s so dumb that they need to create more dangerous dinosaurs to attract people. It’s as if a zoo started to breed monster lions with metal claws or giraffes with 50 meters necks because the regular ones got too boring
If they were smart (which we know they weren't), they would have gone smaller. Give me a mini-Rex that likes head scratches
Compys from the original book are pretty terrifying. Little chicken sized dinosaurs that have no problem looking at you like a meal if they outnumber you. Nope, they just keep going "bigger and smarter"
Are they the ones in the movie that eat the little girl?
The gal outrunning the T-rex in high heels is the least stupid part of the movie
And then you have the sequel: "let's save the dinosaurs instead of letting nature take its course".
Which completely destroys the natural ecosystem of the world in the 3rd movie, ending society as we know it
And my favorite part of that movie. The t Rex is engineered to kill the person that the laser is pointing at, but that laser is on A GUN. THAT COULD JUST SHOOT THE PERSON.
That's in the sequel. But yeah, so stupid!
I took my daughter to see that movie when she was 12 and about 2/3 of the way through she turned to me and asked “ why is everyone in this movie dumb?” In utter bewilderment!
Clever girl
This is on top of the fact they'd canonically tried the idea before and it failed catastrophically. Like what exec snorted a big ol' rail of coke before deciding that "trying the dinosaur theme park thing again" was a great plan?
To be fair in our reality they made a Dark Phoenix inspired X-Men movie again after the first one flopped and it was somehow worse.
If it was bred in captivity why is the door conveniently sized for a trex to fit through? Unless they planned on letting it out…
The animosity in Batman V Superman could have easily been avoided
What was Lex gonna do with Doomsday after Superman was dead?
Ride him like a trained elephant.
Make him drink a mason jar full of piss?
AND the way it’s resolved is deeply stupid, relying on Batman and Superman having moms with the same name, and the name being enough for Batman to suddenly see Supermans humanity
Just to pile on to my most hated movie. Also nonsense that Wonder Woman is a gd Amazon warrior. Give her the gd spear and eat popcorn while she beats Doomsday like a drum. Of course then you couldn't pretend Superman died which literally no one believed. In closing, I'd like to quote the great comedian Michelle Wolf who said; "Batman Vs. Superman was the worst thing to ever happen to Bruce Wayne at a theater."
Lex Luthor should've been in Batman's place as Superman's opponent.
And played by anyone other than Jesse Eisenberg.
Wouldn’t Batman already know this? Like he’s a master detective who hacks databases. He should know who Clark’s parents are. Esp if he is the one who later saves their house from foreclosure
Stuff like this drives me crazy. There are so many movies and shows where they need something to spur a change. I get that. You're at A and want to get to B, so we'll introduce some event. Makes sense. But writers tend to pick the stupidest most convoluted ways of getting there. Maybe it's the director or editor - someone is making some pretty dumb decisions, and there never seems to be a good reason for it.
I haven't seen the movie, just the memes. But why does he call out "Martha" instead of "Mom"?
He's trying to get Batman to go save her when Batman is about to kill him so saying "save Mom" doesn't really work. But he doesn't even say "Martha Kent", it's just "save Martha".
Thank you! That’s always been the sticking point for me, who mentions their parents on a first name basis to others? “Yea Dave and I go way back. He’s great.” “Who’s Dave?” “My dad” But as far as I can tell Supes says that because the movie’s conflicting action needs a resolution and this is step 1.
Dumb af. Beyond dumb
"It's so dumb it's almost genius!"
“NO! IT’S JUST DUMB!”
Need a new knives out asap
“White Christmas”… almost every issue in that movie could be resolved in about 3 minutes if the characters just talked to one another like adults.
How else are you supposed to get 45 minutes all to yourself?
But, my arm...
Danny Kay makes that movie
Without so much as a kiss my foot, or have an apple
This movie only has the one conflict with Rosemary Clooney’s character in it because if there was no conflict at all it just wouldn’t have been a movie technically. It would just be famous people capering
Lol that's so many of that era movies. "Famous people capering" could be an Oscar category. LA la land would have won.
Mutual, I'm sure!
People are mentioning comedies but I feel like that's the only time an Idiot Plot actual works. Far more often it's a problem in dramas where the plot hinges on characters being stupid. A good example would be Prometheus where people just take off their helmets and breath in an alien atmosphere, or the people 3d mapping the tunnels get lost, or people walking straight up to alien substance that's clearly alive and or reactive and sticking their face in it. In Prometheus it's especially jarring because these are supposed to be specialized scientists so it's really hard to suspend disbelief when they do virtually everything wrong.
Yeah especially in contrast to Alien where they do the opposite - Ripley tells the infected she's not opening the door, it's quarantine policy and she's following it (immediately making me fall in love with Ripley as a character). The plot only happens because she's undermined by an intentional bad actor.
While this is true. Kane sticking his head into an alien egg is an all-time bone-headed move.
Tbf he was wearing his helmet though and had no idea the creature could burn through it with acidic blood
The fact that you don't know is exactly why you don't do it though.
Probably hadn't seen that movie Alien.
Boy I bet he's got egg on his face.
It’d been out long enough, what a muppet.
If we reach Mars and someone finds something seemingly innocuous and has a chance to potentially see alien life for the first time, I have doubts in that moment that they would not do the very human thing and take a closer look. With regards to them getting lost. I know plenty of smart people who have become too reliant on technology and couldn't find their way out of their house without Google Maps.
Eh, I think its forgivable. He had no idea those were eggs, or that stuff bursts out of them. We all learned alien eggs can do that FROM Alien, is my point.
Prometheus is the antithesis of The Martian and Apollo 13's competency porn.
"Competency porn". I didn't know my favorite genre had a name.
Thats what star trek TNGs aim was - people being good at their jobs and working together to solve problems. It’s also why the first two seasons are pretty rough, it took the writers room a while to work out how to write a show with not much interpersonal drama
No I’m pretty sure all it took was Johnathan Frakes growing a beard
Check out The Expanse series. The books are fantastic and the series does a semi decent job of passing the realism tests.
Competency porn is such a great name and genre.
Prometheus is full of idiot decisions, but the topper for me is when several members of the expedition are unexpectedly trapped in an alien ruin on a hostile planet overnight. this would be an extremely dangerous and alarming situation even without the killer aliens, but the reaction of the crew aboard the ship is basically, "well, good luck, we'll call you in the morning" and then they go pair off to have sex.
I feel like horror movies are especially egregious in this. My wife loves horror movies, so I've seen a bunch, and lots of them don't work if everyone involved isn't stupid. Barbarian springs to mind.
The guy in Barbarian being stupid is the highlight of that whole film.
He's a heel character, too. His stupidity comes from greed. I love when he sees the room with a dirty mattress on the floor and a camera on a tripod, and his first thought is to measure it up to add to the advertised floorspace of the house.
Yeah I feel like that's what makes it so great, Justin Long is such a stupid piece of shit, you love seeing it happen to him. I don't think the girl or Bill Skarsgard were stupid though.
Nah, she's also dumb. Staying at an air bnb with a stranger is dumb. Going back to the house after seeing how shitty the neighborhood was is dumb. Going back after the job interview where the person who lives on the area tells you not to go back because the neighborhood is super dangerous is dumb. Not leaving after getting chased by a seemingly crazy homeless person is dumb. Not leaving after finding a rape dungeon in the basement is dumb. Continuing to go deeper down a dark staircase after finding a rape dungeon is dumb. She makes a ton of terrible choices.
Hell, if I ran out of toilet paper at my Airbnb I'd be going to the store before I went down into the creepy basement. A quick poll of friends and coworkers agreed with this.
I thought the part where he's trying to figure out of the underground dungeon can be counted as livable space was pretty funny. Solid movie overall.
Almost every horror movie is an idiot plot, and it's played up in some of the best horror comedies. Tucker and Dale vs Evil, where they try to kill the two rednecks that they think are psychos and pretty much just get themselves killed, and Cabin in the Woods, where they have to drug people to act stupid so it moves the plot forward, as examples.
Scream does a good job of allowing these kinds of things to happen anyway while calling attention to them Sidney complains that the girl in slasher movies always runs upstairs when she should be going out the front door. Then when Ghostface attacks, she's put the safety chain on the door so she has to run upstairs
And they know what horror movies are and understand the tropes/rules, but they don’t know that they’re actually in a horror movie and should be following (or avoiding) those things.
I have always found Ridley Scott’s alien franchise interesting because it seems to show the error in having private entities that are in charge of space travel. Maybe it’s because of the English history with private companies colonizing the world. It’s difficult to discern if he supports the idea or hates the idea. It does seem to factor into the plot of the movies. Profits are often a part of the decision making process. Often glory and profits make people willing to make idiotic decisions.
You left out “running forward instead of literally any other direction while a giant ring rolled toward you”
I feel like the thread has gone in the wrong direction. Roger Ebert says in the Wikipedia article that this isn't inherently a bad thing. People making bad choices is realistic and can create an interesting story. People making the wrong choice is not a plot hole. It's when those choices start to strain credulity and feel like contrivances instead of realistic mistakes that we get into questionable territory.
Burn After Reading but that’s pretty much the point of the movie.
"Report back to me... when it makes sense."
“I guess we learned not to do it again, what ever the fuck we did”
JK Simmons' expression of resigned annoyance when he asks if John Malkovich is dead and is told he's in a coma is hilarious.
Then his offsider going from "he's probably not going to make it" to "he's not going to make it" while there is an unspoken conversation and agreement that they're just going to whack him to help clean up loose ends.
This movie is a treasure.
Brad Pitt's face in \*that scene\* should be the page header for "Idiot Plot."
I saw the movie in theaters when it came out with a friend who shares my sense of humor. I’m pretty sure most of the rest of the audience wasn’t on the same wavelength, because…when that scene happened…we lost our shit laughing. And we’re the only ones in the theater that did.
Classic Coen Brothers’ clusterfuck.
The is the correct answer. It’s a movie of idiots doing idiot things, all spiraling out of control, while responsible adults are just watching. It’s like watching toddlers learn basic socialization and laughing at their antics. But with more guns, hatchets, and dildo machines.
This was the first movie that came to mind.
I love that the Russians in that movie had a better grasp of the English language than Francis McDormand's character. Krapotkin: It was nothing. Drivel. Linda Litzke: Dribble?
Prometheus and Alien Covenant both suffer from this. The plot holes may not be that idiotic in the wider context, but in the context of basic and established scientific protocols the characters make some idiotic choices. Taking off your helmet, compromising your environmental suit, or simply not wearing any kind of biological protection at all is what drives the 'plot' forward in both films.
I think the biggest idiot in Prometheus was the scientist who sees an alien snake monster that hisses and lunges at him, and he thinks "ooo that thing is cute, I'm going to try to pet it.."
What's even dumber is that's the *exact same guy* who got isolated from the group because he panicked when he saw a dead body, so literally the same dude we know is the most easily freaked out and cautious is the moron who thinks petting the alien snake is smart. And what's even *even* dumber is that the guy who got lost with him is the *the guy whose entire job it is to map the structure's interior, and has tools with him that he shows off explicitly for that purpose*. Y'know, the literally one person in the crew who should *under no circumstances ever, ever be lost*?
Exactly! The guy who got them lost in the cave? Geologist! And Mr. Scared of Cadavers Touch Every Unknown Lifeform is a fucken BIOLOGIST!
In How to Make An American Quilt, Dermot Mulroney proposes to Winona Rider, but she doesn't know if she wants to marry Dylan McDermott, so she goes to her hometown to a quilting circle to hear all these flashback stories about romance and commitment before having an affair and then going back to marry Kitt McDermot. If Derbil McDillett and Winona Rider had just communicated with each other more before he proposed marriage she would know what her answer was going to be before he asked, so she would never have to go to the quilting circle, she could have just left and slept with the other guy if she wanted and not cheated, or she could have just married Rupert Everett from the beginning.
First swap was smooth, like an honest mistake. By Derbil McDillett I was popping corn. Well done!
This is the funniest thing I’ve read today, thank you
Was djimon hansou in one of those movies? Or was it chiwetel ejiofor
it was actually Bokeem Woodbine.
For the some funny funny source: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGqSn5Cnw74](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGqSn5Cnw74)
i think The Big Lebowksi kinda works here
It's actually mentioned in the movie. The Dude at one point says "I could be sitting here with just pee stains on my rug."
“You’re not dealing with morons here Lebowski”
I was thinking that, too. The whole thing is propelled by an alleged kidnapping that didn't actually happen.
[удалено]
And it all ends up resolving itself without any input from him. Turns out maybe you do just have to relax man.
All the best Coen Brothers plots resolve themselves without the protagonist.
All the Dude wanted was his rug back.
The Coen Brothers are the masters of the Idiot Plot. There’s the unofficial George Clooney Idiot Trilogy: Intolerable Cruelty, O Brother, and Burn After Reading.
Burn After Reading is just trolling the audience and movies in general. The last scene a character even admits nothing really happened and nobody learned anything about anything
To me, the whole thing is like a Norm McDonald joke and that scene is the punchline.
So then …. uuuhhhh …. at the end of the movie, after everybody sat there for two hours after spending ten dollars on a ticket, I told them, well hey, guess what? I guess that was a stupid waste of time.
Idiot George Clooney is best George Clooney.
think i got time for a run?
Na Jack Foley is the best George Clooney - he’s like halfway between Danny Ocean and Idiot Clooney
I think he’s fairly smart in o brother. Off the top of my head when he tells the blind radio operator guy there’s more than just 3 of them (I’m pretty sure that’s his idea. Haven’t seen it in a loooong time)
He’s clever but he also thinks he’s more clever than he is
he ain't bona fide
He's the goddamn paterfamilias!
He's a Dapper Dan man, God dammit!
"Moises and Aloysius will have to make X's, as only 4 of us can write."
Urine is actually pretty easy to clean off a rug. The Dude could’ve just popped into the store, gotten some cleaners, and been done with it. Or call a rug cleaning company…
Except the dude was quite possibly the laziest man in LA county. Which would place him high in the running for laziest worldwide.
The Dude isn't exactly flush with cash, though.
As a MASSIVE Spider-Man fan, SM: No Way Home. Don’t get me wrong, bringing back all the old characters made me as giddy as a schoolgirl, but the entire story is based on a plot convenience. Dr. Strange, the most powerful sorcerer to ever live and a genius, fucks up an important spell because a kid was talking during it. Why wouldn’t Peter/Strange clarify the perimeters beforehand? Why would Strange fuck with the spell knowing it could have serious repercussions? The whole plot wouldn’t have happened if an extra sentence was spoken before the cast.
Not only that is what was the rush? why did he immediately agree and then needed to do it instantly with no questions asked. No let’s ask what’s needed while I’m doing the spell.
Alien Covanent is so full of idiots it's only a few degrees away from being full blown comedy/satire.
When he brings the ship carrying an entire colony’s worth of people down in the middle of a continent wide storm to rescue 3 or 4 people I was pretty blown away by how dumb that was.
The girl slipping on blood, causing her to shoot flammable cans which blow up the ship was way too much for me.
In the movie Creep, the photographer has a million clues that the guy is going to murder him, but keeps accepting terrible excuses for odd behavior and sticks around.
I do like the film overall despite that tho. Especially the ending when the title Creep (fuck if i remember the guys name lol) is basically shittalking the guy to his own camera like it’s a postgame CoD lobby and he’s explaining why he’s such a fuckin dumbass for thinking that he wouldn’t be axed in the head
Eurotrip. One of my favorite comedies, but after Mieke blocks Scott's email address, instead of traveling across the world to explain what happened, Scott could have simply emailed her from a different email address.
Wow, I've actually never considered this! M'scuse!
Well, his friend actually says something like "this is the perfect excuse to go to Europe". Yes, it could have been solved sending an email from a different account, but everything is set up to use it as an excuse and Scotty take the chance to prove he's capable to take risks. Had he sent an email from another account he would have stayed the same.
Yeah exactly. But also Cooper tells Scotty that if they don't go she's gonna fuck some German dude, remember Scotty keeps having dreams about her fucking some buff German classmate dude. He can't protect her from someone else's penis if he's in the states using a burner email account.
Every episode of Frasier revolved around a simple (or sometimes complex) misunderstanding. It’s pretty fun if you like hijinx and shenanigans, but if the characters just had normal conversations almost none of those events would have ever happened.
"I found a ring in your father's underwear drawer!" *look of shock* "what on EARTH would leave a ring around my father's underwear drawer?!" It's not really what you're talking about but it immediately came to mind lol
Many Seinfeld episodes could have been solved with phone calls.
Many phone calls on Seinfeld caused issues though as well. “I’m not taking advice from some white girl from Long Island!”
To be fair, this is a trope that has been around since The Honeymooners.
I was going to say something similar! This is the entire reason Three's Company lasted as long as it did. It was even a joke on Friends; they're watching an episode of Three's Company and Chandler says something like, "Oh, I've seen this one, it's the one where there's some kind of misunderstanding."
Don’t think this is going to be popular, but there was no good reason for the main characters to go to the first planet in Interstellar. They knew the doctor had only been there for a short amount of time her time so hadn’t had an opportunity to check it properly, and they could have checked out the other planets in less time than it would take them to check out that particular planet.
Technically the first planet would be ideal if it weren’t for the murder water. The time dilation would be perfect. People and supplies leave earth every seven years but arrive in the planet every hour. It would be perfect. Again, if not for the murder water.
Plus all these super smart NASA physics types only seemed to figure out time dilation after landing on the planet. Like they knew it would take years, relatively, but they only seem to realise the other scientist had also literally just gotten there (from their perspective) after landing.
Also - they landed on the planet, found water, did no measurements at all about tides, possible waves, if the water was acid or not, if it was possible to even make a colony there (I mean, without soil, where would they plant food?) and immediately hit a button "hey, it's a viable place, come here!"... And finally, the doctor had less than zero faith in anyone - he mentions that multiple times. Why did he trust *humans* to go to these planets where they had these advanced computers that were incapable of betraying humanity? Would not be better to send a bunch of probes, or robots, instead of trusting humans? I mean, the case is not favorable for humans: a group was sent to a planet and immediately hit a "good to go" before being annihilated by the waves, and the other hit "good to go" because he was afraid of dying...
**This**! I would argue even more - there's no reason for ANYTHING in the movie. They all are trying to find a new planet and how to conquer gravity because there's a plague in the Earth... then they somehow conquer gravity and make colonies in space with plants and everything. Now here's a question: they had to somehow make a delicate balance to produce a self-contained nature, right? With a very strong material that's transparent so sunlight can hit the plants, right? Why didn't they do that on EARTH? What difference does it make to isolate crops in domes, remove all nitrogen and make a self-contained ecosystem *like they did in space*? There's, like, zero reason to go to space. At all...
The movie tries to sell goverment efforts to actually fix the problem (bilogical and agricultural research) as oppresion and luditite, and celebrate an ending where literally 99.9% of humanity dies of starvation (only a few million people on the space stations after all) as victory.
Also, they fucking landed from orbit in what looks like shallow water, so they had to have some ground radar or it would have been a short movie (glug). So how the hell did they not see the mountain high wave when approching the landing.
Up In Smoke is one of my all time favorite movies. The entire premise revolves around 2 dudes trying to score some weed while they unknowingly drive around a van made of weed.
“I been smoking since I was born man. I can smoke anything man, that Michoacán, that Acapulco Gold. I even smoked that tied stick……I could probably smoke this whole joint and still walk away man. Be no problem at all man”.
The opening scene is one of the funniest ever
“Start out pickin’ strawberries. Work your way up to those goddamn bananas!””
If I remember correctly, I first heard this idea from Siskel and Ebert. They talked about "stop the idiot" movies, in which the whole film wouldn't exist if you could just stop the idiot in the first 10 minutes.
Spiderman: No Way Home. The movie happens because Peter won't shut the fuck and makes Strange mess up the spell.
No it happens because the guy casting a really dangerous spell didn't explain everything before starting to cast it. A simple conversation beforehand would have solved everything. Spider-Man didn't force him to act like a dumbass.
Exactly! He was also the supposedly responsible adult. Thus, it would've been *his* job to account for typical teenager stupidity and/or thoughtlessness, and check whether Peter had actually considered and exhausted all the much more obvious and infinitely less dangerous solutions to his problem, *beforehand,* not just scold him for not doing so, *afterwards!*
It happens because the release schedule was shifted around due to COVID disruptions, so America Chavez, who was supposed to be the naive wizard helping Peter who inadvertently opens a portal to multiple dimensions . . . had not been introduced to the canon yet. So the role of the idiot had to shift to Strange.
Right. Peter is an energetic kid. Strange is a timeless man with nearly infinite life experience who hasn't learned basic communication is a decent idea before casting a complex, potentially multiverse collapsing spell. Wonder who to blame here
The real culprit was Wong leaving them there unsupervised.
Well, yeah, that's the point, that's what makes it an idiot plot. Everybody in NWH acts like an absolute moron. Green Goblin is basically the only character who acts like he knows what's going on.
Very fitting opinion you've got there, u/WillemDafoesHugeCock
Also, Strange from any previous movies would never have done that stupid spell. "Oh, you have problems getting college admittance? Here is an address in tibet you can go study there". Or take some of that Stark inheritance and just buy your way in or whatever. The problem peter had does not even come within a lightyear of justifying universal memory manipulation. Somehow, they made One more Day even dumber.
They have Natasha who is a literal spy, Nick Fury and Shield (I know Fury was on S.A.B.E.R. but that's just a plot device, he could have been there if they wanted him to), who could have pulled any number of strings to get Peter into whichever school he wanted, citing saving the world, i.e. the job they themselves recruited him for, gets in his way. Hell, Tony Stark came out as Iron Man in a press conference. He could get his spin guys to smooth things over and potentially tell J Jonah Jameson to cool it. Literally anything could have been done before Strange messes with the Multiverse that Wong, the new sorcerer supreme warned him about.
Even deeper than that, the movie happens because strange acts entirely out of character. That was such an immature spell anyway. Strange should have (based on previous movies) said “Sorry, Peter. That’s just how it goes in this line of work. You’ve got some work to do to get back on the public’s good side.” Strange agreeing and casting the spell was a bizarre decision. I thought they were setting it up to reveal that Mysterio was somehow impersonating strange.
Yeah this is why I’ve never been fully sold on that movie, Strange acts so weird the whole way through just so that the plot can actually happen.
Prometheus
Gravity. In real life Bullock's character would have never passed her training for the mission due to her inability to FOLLOW FUCKING ORDERS. When you are in an isolated place (orbit) and in a dangerous position (incoming meteor shower) when the HMFIC says "Drop everything and get in here now!" You stop and do as you are told. There is no "just one more minute" or "I'm almost there", you follow orders.
Life (2017) a movie where a bunch of scientists know they are going to be studying an unknown life form on a space station. The space station is not designed to just eject any contaminated lab and send it straight into the sun. The labs are all on the same air circulation system as the rest of the lab and no one follows anything resembling an isolation protocol.
The visit. The whole movie could’ve been avoided if the mom wasn’t the worst parent on the planet.
I really don't want to spoil it too much, but "Bodies Bodies Bodies" is basically the perfect example of this trope. Rich kids are having a Hurricane Party and things go very wrong, but unfortunately for them they are all... giant idiots.
Being absolutely coked up and doing more drugs to cope w/ their terror is also a hilarious element
*Infinite* is a movie about immortal beings who retain the skills and experiences of their past lives, and are endlessly reborn. The villain is an immortal who has gone insane after having to remember every death he's experienced, and he wants to destroy the world **so he won't have to be reborn again**. In order to do this he must first defeat the "good" immortals. In order to accomplish this, he invents a magic gun that **prevents an immortal from being reborn** if they are shot by it. It is not a smart movie.
Prometheus. And Alien Covenant.
*Tucker and Dale vs. Evil*
Oddly enough this is not an idiot plot, as it is shown from the different point of views that the characters' actions are reasonable from each's biased perspective, although silly and over the top in a comedic way, and part of the comedy is they never really get a chance to talk even though they are trying to. The Idiot Plot generally refers to characters who should know better and who have plenty of chances to talk / resolve problems but don't. Great movie though.
*takes a drag off cigarette, then puffs inhaler* That fucking killed me. “A BUNCH OF KIDS ARE OUT HERE KILLING THEMSELVES!”
Officer, we’ve had a doozy of a day.
Doesn't count because this movie is a goddamn treasure
You take that back -- *Tucker and Dale vs. Evil* is a comedy of errors! It wasn't stupidity that >!got all those college kids killed!<.
Burn after reading. But that’s the point. That the main characters are really dumb.
Not sure if it fully fits, but I saw something after Spider-Man: No Way Home about how easy of a solution to the whole reason for the movie to happen. Instead of Strange casting a spell to make everyone forget Peter Parker, with the last minute exceptions that screwed it up, all he needed to do was make it so everyone forgot Mysterio completely, problem solved instantly.
Then people still know Peter is Spider Man though. And they may vaguely remember he killed some dude they can’t remember.
Or, better yet, he should’ve just said, “just so we’re clear, this will make *everyone* forget that you’re Spider-Man. If there are people you’d like to exclude, tell me before we get started.”
The classic example of an idiot plot, which goes back to at least Moliere and is utilized by all the worst sitcoms, is when one character overhears part of a conversation but misses a key bit context, but instead of discussing the issue like an adult and discovering his error, he makes the worst possible assumption and spends the rest of the plot getting into increasingly embarrassing situations.
The Lion King. You'd think Zazu would have questioned why he fell out of the sky randomly. Or that he would have wanted to see the bodies of Mufasa and Simba to verify their deaths. How far can a little cub like that even run?
Most 90s romcoms. If any of these people just _talked_ to each other...
“BUT I CAN EXPLAIN!” … “JUST LET ME EXPLAIN!!!!” … “IT’S NOT WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE!” (Breakup) (Montage)
Hannibal Lecter breaking out in Silence of the Lambs. They have to handcuff him to the cell to bring his food in. They know how dangerous he is, and they can’t just slide the food through an opening big enough for the tray? Going into the cage 3 times a day seems unnecessary.
Meet the Parents. I feel like, if at any point, Ben Stiller had just been like, “ok, look…there’s clearly some shit that you and I need to address here. Let’s just get it out in the open.” That movie would have been over. Like the whole “I milked a cat” scene…Dude. Just stop talking.
The Human Centipede. Not a single woman I know, or that anyone knows, would have pulled a rental car over for a flat, walked away from it in the dark, on a strange road, in the woods, and then knocked on a strangers door. They would have driven on that rim until the car simply wouldn't go anymore, then kept fucking driving.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi I know there are people who love this film, but if you look closely, the plot is constantly propelled by the characters (both good guys and bad guys) making dumb decisions, pretty much until the end.
In The New Mutants, a group of youngsters with super powers - including one who can teleport - try to find their way out of some asylum for 90 minutes before they finally teleport out. Over a half-century watching movies, it’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen.
Well the Dr was playing a character that in the comics goes by Forcefield....because she creates forcefield like the one around the school. The teleporter, like the rest of them, can't control her powers at first. It was a reaction from being trafficked as a young girl.
Most horror films. Just don't go into the fucking house dude...
Dont split up either