6 Magical Movie Items They Wasted on Bullshit
What would you do if you found a magical object that could instantly create anything you asked for? Or a clock that could stop time?
This is the type of thing that comes up in movies all the time. And for the most part, what the characters choose to do makes no freaking sense. Just look at how they used...
#6.
Tesla's Anything Copier (The Prestige)
The Item:
In the surprisingly awesome non- Batman Nolan movie, The Prestige, David Bowie invents a teleportation machine for Wolverine because he thinks Batman killed his wife. In a shocking twist, it turns out the Teslaporter works sort of like a fax machine: It doesn't send the user from one place to another, but rather makes copies of him. The bonus here is that you have no way of telling who the original is.
Gollum, Bowie and Wolverine demonstrate what a good idea looks like visually.
The Usage:
Jackman's idea was quite simple. Use the machine to perform a magic trick, and sell tickets to make a nice living. Of course the Jackman copies had to be killed by rigging a water tank under the receiving end of the machine so that a clone would appear into the world, presumably with all of the original's memories, and immediately die a horrifying, drowning death.
His plan was to repeat this existential nightmare a couple dozen times in hopes of luring Christian Bale backstage, frame him for murder and possibly molest his daughter in the future.
"Hocus pocus? More like Hocus poke-her! And by her I mean Christian Bale's daughter. And by poke, I mean euphemist-"
"Just shut up."
"Yeah."
What It Should Have Been Used For:
Hey, how about putting a slab of gold in that machine and becoming an instant billionaire? Yes, it can clone inanimate objects--the first thing we see it copy is hats. Then he could bribe the right people and wham, Bale will be having his bat-anus stretched in prison before dinner.
Good lord, this is the early 1900s we're talking about. In those days, magicians were below dung collecting pedophiles in the social hierarchy. There just had to be better uses for the teleporter besides (possibly) committing clone homo/suicide on stage every night and leaving huge vats of floating evidence behind.
Due to that, Jackman actually plans to destroy the "ungodly" teleporter. No, Hugh, it's a machine that can instantly manufacture anything, using nothing but electricity. It's only "ungodly" when you use it in the most retarded and sadistic way possible, you psychopath.
Use it to multiply food supplies, end the social disparity of 20th century England, fuel the industrial revolution and save the lives of millions of children. If you're not the altruistic type, create a 10-million man army to take over the world. Create your own harem made up of a single woman who loves you thiiiiiiiis much and is very open about 12-somes.
Come on, man, just exhibit SOME thought process beyond that of a boiled carrot.
#5.
The Tablet of Akmenrah (Night at the Museum)
The Item:
Used by Ben Stiller in Night at the Museum, the Tablet of Akmenrah is an ancient Egyptian artifact at the Museum of Natural History which grants life to all of the exhibits during the night, with the added bonus of turning them into dust if they venture outside when the Sun comes up. So, basically it's an artifact that turns statues into vampires. Awesome.
The Usage:
With the power of resurrection in his hands, Stiller harnesses the magic of the Vampire Tablet to... hang around and talk to the exhibits? Granted, Teddy Roosevelt was among them and we would all sacrifice our left ball to be in farting distance of the man but... why did they have Robin Williams play him?
You ruined the best president ever, you monster!
What It Should Have Been Used For:
Well, seeing as the Tablet also endows the resurrected exhibits with the personality and memories of the person depicted, it could solve pretty much all of the mysteries of history. Oh, and there's the minor point of being able to resurrect all of the planet's greatest geniuses and putting them to work on today's problems ("Global warming?" asked Roosevelt. "Have you tried ripping its heart out with your bare hands?")
One is left to wonder, what are the limitations here? What about a statue of Jesus? Would it be able to tell us if there's a God? Could we make a new statue, like a hot chick and label it "Hot skank for Internet comedy writers"? Maybe if Stiller stopped playing fetch with the skeleton of a T-Rex we could find out.
We are all about bringing this statue to life.
Stiller's misuse shines even brighter when you consider that the Tablet apparently lets you "walk into" any painting you want, also making it a Time Machine/Teleporter. The possibilities with such a set up are literally endless...
#4.
Hypertime Watch (Clockstoppers)
The Item:
Making an appearance in the Nickelodeon movie, Clockstoppers, the hypertime watch is a device which speeds up the molecules of your body to the point where the world around you seems to be standing still. We're pretty sure that would cause you to burst into flames, but, it's a Nickelodeon movie.
The Usage:
Terminator's Kyle Reese plans to use it to usurp the U.S. government. For some reason, Jesse Bradford and that chick from Harold & Kumar think that's a bad thing and try to stop him. Not by using the watch. No, that's reserved for important things, like helping a friend win a DJ competition:
What It Should Have Been Used For:
If you want to take over the U.S., you don't need the hypertime watch to barge into the Oval Office and repaint it with the president's brain matter. Simply pimp it out for commercial gain.
Do anything that isn't this.
How about strapping the watch to the fastest rocket we can come up with and achieve faster than light travel? It'd work, right? The molecules of the ship and astronauts are accelerated while people back home feel time pass normally. You make a 10-year round trip and they think you've only been gone five minutes. Wait, do you age faster under the influence of the watch? Fine, apply it to crops, grow them to harvest in seconds, end world hunger.
The hypertime watch would be to scientists what a fully functioning Batsuit would be to us: Our wildest wet dream dipped in chocolate cocaine. And they use it at the end of the movie to lose a patrol car...
Who said the queen in Snow White didn't already use the magic mirror for all those purposes? Maybe she had already mined all the gold and built up an army and conquered lands. Maybe that's how she got to be queen? She probably started out scrubbing floors like Cinderella. There was probably nothing left for her but egocentrism. And it got her killed.
ReplyThat magic mirror was a dick.
I live in london, and I am proud of our Dildo Tower!
ReplyUnfortunately, if you used the teleporter to duplicate anything valuable like gold or diamonds, you'd only succeed in collapsing the economy due to simple supply and demand: with more gold, each piece would be worth less. And if you tried, say, dollar bills, they'd all be caught as forgeries immediately due to having identical serial numbers.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesBut still, there's gotta be a better use than repeated first-degree murder to perform a simple magic trick.
Unfortunately, this is what our government already does with our paper money. So, if they are already destabilizing our money by merely printing more, why not make Gold?
You would be billionaire before the diamond economy collapsed...
It's only going to alter the supply/demand model if you were to push trucks of gold into the streets and gave it away all day every day.
does the magic mirror get porn?
Reply"mirror mirror on the wall, show me a hot s***k licking balls"
"magic" mirror on the wall...
Any time travel or manipulation device is always grossly misused in any movie. If I could stop time, I could do damn near anything. Stop time on a crowded street, take the money out of every single person's wallet. Win any fight due to your ability to stop time, walk behind someone, start it up again. With time travel, I could unravel every great mystery ever, perfect any scheme by going back a few minutes before I made any kind of mistake, then doing it the right way, or head back in time a while and grab a few priceless artifacts.
Reply Hide All See All 5 RepliesBut in movies, they always have to use it to impress their high school's hottest cheerleader.
so you go back in time to prevent yourself from making a mistake, what do you do to the original version of yourself from that point in time? You talk about how they grossly misuse time manipulation yet all youve said you'd do is beat people up and rob people. 1000 internets for originality
well in all logic any devise designed to alter time would in itself not work even if you could travel back intime and alter a mistake in your past you would actually alter your present and therefore when you use the machinet o go back to your normal time frame you would be going to a time frame in which you had never made said mistake and in doing so you would have infact not used said time travel devise to alter time and therefor time would slip int temperary caos until time fixed itself to its original stream.
ie you cant alter the past or change the future
I'd go into board meetings with a cosmetic pencil, stop time, and write 666 on the CEO's forehead. Then, I would set time free for a couple minutes, stop time, and then wash it off. Then, off we go to the next board meeting.
Let's see... if I had a machine to stop time I'd steal a million bucks. Then what? Two chicks at once. I'd think, "Chicks dig dudes with money." You probably would say, "Well, not all chicks," but if you think about it, the type of chicks that'd double up on a dude like me do.
Wenonly have paradoxes because the brain cannot comprehend an extra dimension for all we know there's a solution like the many worlds theory where you end up in an alternate time line meaning even if you didn't have a time machine there is a reality where you are king of the universe
Wolverine: I will make man out of my own DNA!
ReplyBatman: I will make my twin look like me, and I look like my twin! Oh wait, we're identical... Oh well, we'll disguise one and take turns and tell no one!
Alfred: I'll help Wolverine prove Batman is a fraud!
Tesla: I have not been to Oxford Town... But I'm F***ING DAVID BOWIE! Hell yeah!
This seriously would make a great plot for a movie!
hmm... my comment got messed up... I'll repost.
Reply"If you want to take over the U.S., you don't need the hypertime watch to barge into the Oval Office and repaint it with the president's brain matter."
ReplyI think the only reason the villains wanted to do that was because they thought that it's fun practice(aside the paranoid belief of world domination). Adventure movie characters tend to think like that.
Luckily, the Japanese Porn industry came up with a more likely time stopper scenario. At least more likely if you are a perverted salary man.
Replyand a chick with a machine gun in her ass.
The only thing that bothered me about the Prestige was that he kept making clones of himself and killing them for a magic trick that could have been easily accomplished by reusing one clone over and over. Maybe make just one clone and try not to shoot it in the face or drown it within the first 2 seconds.
Replythat wouldnt work with only one clone the entire idea is that the machine teleports the real one away and creates a clone everytime its used ie he cant have a couple dozen clones walking around
so make a fake one that just looks fancy and doesn't really clone anything and keep the original cloning machine for emergencies or something :) I absolutely love that movie to death but I just always thought he didn't REALLY have to keep killing the clones!
A mixtape of Julio Iglesias? How old is the dude that wrote this article. Because if he's as old as that line suggests, he really shouldn't be seducing high school floozys
ReplyMy thoughts exactly
Too much dildo and pedophile-related humour around here!
ReplyThere is just so much that is funny about dildos and pedophiles.
However they cancel each other. It ain't funny when you encounter a paedophile using a dildo.
Forgot to add the sphere, from the movie Sphere, which was based on the novel Sphere. Unlimited physical manifestations with a thought would "win".
ReplyAdam Sandler farting in Hasselhoff's face DID balanced it out. It should have been removed.
Reply#5 was great. The possibilities are endless! But what about busts? Would they just be like the talking busts in the Haunted Mansion with Eddie Murphy? They talk but they can't move around... But I guess a talking bust of a famous person is better than nothing...
ReplyIt's actually said in the sequel to Night At The Museum that busts cannot move, as evidenced when Teddy Roosevelt's bust in the second museum could only talk to them and not move around.
they'd scream, squeal, shout for mercy while bleeding to their torturous death, of course.
This article reminds me of Deathnote (where the main character can kill anyone by writing down their name) and Code Geass (mind control). If they were American shows the main characters would have had wacky shenanigans and improved their high-school life. But since its an anime their first thought is to take over the world.
ReplyCompare that to "Ghost Town" where the main character can see ghosts. My first thought was international spy ring and Paparazzi. His first though is to, um, ignore them.
Death Note and Code Geass are awesome shows.
@ The Prestige, I think it's quite clearly implied that Wolverine DID clone lots and lots of gold bars, since we see him as a ridiculously rich guy near the end of the film, complete with estates and top hat. The point was that he was obsessed with magic and getting revenge on Batman.
Reply Hide All See All 3 Replieshe was always rich, just slumming it as a magician because he he liked it and wanted to be the best. thats what i red into it anyway
if i had that ticket from last action hero i would make my own movies withgadgets and stuff i dreamt up, then just go take it
Wolverine: I would make Man out of my own DNA!
Batman: I would make my twin look like me, and I look like my twin! Oh, wait we're identical... Well, we'll put on a disguise and tell no one we're twins!
Tesla: I'm F***ING DAVID BOWIE! Hell yeah!
eff the starving kids.....Do you know how many 20 dollar bills I would duplicate................ *dreams*
Replylol #3 statue is the Tart With The Cart in Dublin
ReplyMolly Malone
nice tits, though.
"Of course the Jackman copies had to be killed by rigging a water tank under the receiving end of the machine so that a clone would appear into the world, presumably with all of the original's memories, and immediately die a horrifying, drowning death."
Reply Hide All See All 6 RepliesI think u misunderstood the movie. The trick was that, on each performance, the previous Jackman would clone and kill himself, and a new Jackman would take his place, and not that Jackman would clone himself and kill the clone, as u seem to be stating.
It's not specifically explained whether it's the clone or the original who dies. Where does it say that the clone appears somewhere else and the original stays in the same place? That sounds more likely for sure, but the film never makes it clear. As both versions believe themselves to be the original, it could easily be that the original is transported and the clone appears in his place. I don't think it really matters in the context of the film.
RhysThomas is correct in saying that the movie didn't make clear which one died. The point was that they had IDENTICAL experiences and memories up until the cloning, so basically he made the decision time and time again to kill the "other guy". He was a psycho, the clone was a psycho, the twins were psychos, and I'm pretty sure Christian Bale may be a psycho in real life.
....probably.....
It was the original who died. Jackman stepped onto the machine and turned it on, knowing that a duplicate would be created elsewhere while he was dumped into a vat of water to drown. Somebody who almost died by drowning told him it was a peaceful, painless way to die so it didn't scare him. But that guy lied so each night Jackman dumped himself into a vat of water and died an agonizing death.
Christian Bale is Batman in real life.
...duh...
karas on the dvd special features they said that it is actually the clones who are dieing
it doesn't MATTER which one is technically dying because they have identical memories and consciousness. Isn't the point that both magicians gave up half of their lives to practice the craft--Borden doing so consciously, with no illusions about it, and Angier justifying to himself why literally killing another version of himself every night was okay? In Angier's closing monologue, when he mentions being terrified every night because he didn't know whether he'd end up in the balcony or the tank--I always thought that was faulty logic, because every night, he DID end up in the tank.