6 Movie Plots That Could Have Been Solved In Minutes
Writing movies is hard. Especially when audiences stubbornly demand you entertain them for at least 90 minutes. This is why, in movie-land, characters are so often forced to drag problems out for an hour when, in reality, the situation could have been solved during the opening credits.
#6.
Raiders of the Lost Ark
What Happened:
Archaeologist Indiana Jones is briefed by Army intelligence that the Nazis are looking for the fabled Ark of the Covenant because, through some ass-backward logic, they think that the best way to kill the Jews is by invoking the God of the Jews. Sure enough, Indy agrees to "get a hold of the Ark before the Nazis do," and kick as much Nazi ass as he can along the way.
Archaeology!
The Nazi's logic seems airtight. In the Bible, the Ark tends to make the armies that carry it invincible. Sure those armies tended to be made up mostly of Jews, God's chosen people and the Nazi's chosen extinction target, but the God of the Old Testament wasn't one to get bent out of shape over a minor technicality. Of course, as we find out in the climactic scene, Indy knows a secret about the Ark the Nazis don't: It has a habit of melting faces right the hell off their skull.
What Would Have Made More Sense:
The most sensible response for the Army to this whole Ark business is coincidentally the easiest: Do absolutely nothing.
The Fuhrer's army, lacking Indy's superior archaeology skills, misunderstood the location of the Ark to begin with. Without Indy's meddling, the Nazis would have blown millions of dollars from their 1936 budget digging in the wrong place.
But lets say the Army doesn't know the Nazis are geographically challenged. All the more reason not to do shit. Instead of stealing and re-stealing the Ark from the Nazis, Indiana Jones and the U.S. Army should have been rooting for them to find it. Their best case scenario is that the Nazis mission goes exactly according to plan: find it, ship it off to Germany and open it in a lavish pageant in Berlin with the whole Nazi high command in attendance. That was what they had planned to do all along. All the top Nazis in Berlin, including Hitler, front and center at the grand opening of a device that has a reputation for melting the faces of anyone in its vicinity.
"OK, now open it!"
It'd not only be the end of the movie, but of the whole damned war.
#5.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
What Happened:
For the fourth consecutive year at Hogwarts, Harry finds himself caught in the middle of a massive conspiracy that the entire wizarding community is powerless to fight against.
"I'm thinking about transferring to another school."
In this case, Harry's name is drawn to become the fourth competitor in the TriWizard Tournament. This seems highly suspect, considering that Harry is too young to enter, too dumb in the ways of magic to possibly survive it and most importantly, it is called the TriWizard Tournament. In the Harry Potter universe, the New York Yankees would be forced to bring a wheelchair-bound cripple on field as their 10th man, if a typo landed his name on the team list.
Even though the wizarding community is willing for some reason to bite the bullet and let Harry compete, there is one important factor afoot: he doesn't want to. Harry confides in Ron Weasley: "I didn't put my name in that cup! I don't want eternal glory!"
Pansy
Predictably, the obviously-rigged competitor selection fiasco was orchestrated by Voldemort, who needed Harry in the game in order to bring himself back from the dead. And there was absolutely nothing that Harry could do about it, unless...
What would have made more sense:
He could have, you know, just not competed.
If Harry decided to do nothing, nothing, after his name was picked from the Goblet of Fire, there's really no way anyone could have forced him to compete. Even if the judges insisted upon obeying a magic cup and entering Harry into every event, he could have stayed home and watched the whole thing on Pay-Per-View, scoring a solid zero points at each tally. Seriously, what was the cup going to do to him if he didn't participate? Kill him? Apparently not, since he shows up late for one event and the cup wasn't coming after him with a dagger or anything.
Hell, Hogwarts wouldn't even have had to lose their chance at the title, since they would still have had Edward Cullen competing in the game. Who, incidentally, would also not have been killed if Harry had backed out of the tournament.
He's a vampire because of Harry Potter.
We can also probably assume that any reprimand that Harry might have received for brazenly defying the orders of magical kitchenware would likely have been revoked after it was revealed that his competing would have led inevitably to the release of a powerful supervillain, and to Snape killing Dumbled-
Spoilers, you asshole!!
#4.
The Da Vinci Code / I, Robot
What Happened:
The Da Vinci Code and I, Robot both revolve around a very complicated suicide note that the main character must decipher before it's too late.
In the former, a gut-shot Frenchman named Jacques Sauniere apparently spends his last moments going on a tour de force through the Louvre hiding a series of complicated clues and ciphers that can only be decrypted by a world-renowned expert in language, religion and history. Luckily, Tom Hanks is that man, by proxy of Dan Brown.
Eventually he solves the puzzles which lead him to a safety deposit box, in which Jacques has stored a map to the location of the holy grail. Just kidding, it actually just contains more puzzles.
Will Smith's 2004 vehicle I, Robot turns out to be basically the same exact movie with more robots and product placement.
Exactly as Isaac Asimov wrote it!
The dead scientist in that film uses a holographic projector to issue a series of cryptic clues to Will Smith.
What Would Have Made More Sense:
Both The Da Vinci Code and I, Robot share a common thread in which the most convoluted story-knots could have easily been undone with one gentle pull. Instead of sending the people who you want to reach on a scavenger hunt that could last days if not years, how about using those fancy black-light pens/ digital recorders to leave a message that might actually be useful in the short-term?
"Hey. I was shot in the stomach at 10:46 P.M. by a giant albino monk who I am sure you guys won't have any trouble finding. He wasn't wearing gloves and was actually bleeding a bit at the leg, so I am confident your lab boys will have some DNA and possibly even fingerprints to work with on the shell-casing I circled. Tell my granddaughter I love her, and that I'm sorry about that whole sex-party thing. Take care. Hope you find the guy. P.S. Jesus had kids."
Image by FrogC4
We understand that the idea behind the Europe-wide scavenger hunt is to protect a secret that Jacques supposes could bring down Christianity and create worldwide despair and violence. But the fear is probably groundless when you consider that a bunch of guys already "revealed" this secret to the world a couple of decades earlier, and they're now remembered only as the guys who sued Dan Brown for ripping off their conspiracy theory.
They wrote a book and everything!
@ShalonPaulsen (to lazy to scoll down and find your comment I'm responding to- cracked really should do something about this) I did say that they had a way of authenticating the age, but now that I think about it the age line was a failure because Harry was STILL underage when he (polyjucie Harry) put is name in the cup, and if it (the cup) was going by the age of the person that took the polyjuice it's still a fail because if it could tell that the person who put Harry name in the cup was of age then it also should have been smart enough to tell that Harry wasn't really.
ReplyIn Twilight, Edward does call Bella. Jacob answers the phone and Edward asks him where Charlie (Bella's father) is. Jacob responds with, "He's at the funeral," causing Edward to believe Bella has died. In reality, Charlie is at his friend Harry's funeral. Without any further inquiry, Edward crushes his phone and flounces off to Italy to end his life. Not a plot hole as it is explained. I do however think that it would've been better that Edward died, bringing this horrid saga to an end.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesThey already explained that idiot.
ITT: defending Twilight.
Didn't it strike Edward as odd that Jacob wasn't at the funeral, I haven't read the books, but I do know that pedowolf was in love with Bella so wouldn't he have gone to the funeral? Why not say hey man why aren't you at Bella's funeral? Or at the very least go to her funeral yourself? At least Romeo saw Juliette dead body.
In Harry Potter, Dumbledore specifically says , "The Goblet of Fire. Anyone wishing to submit themselves to the tournament need only write their name upon a piece of parchment and throw it in the flame before this hour on Thursday night. Do not do so lightly. If chosen, there's no turning back. As from this moment, the Triwizard Tournament has begun." NO TURNING BACK. That is pretty darn clear to me. The Goblet of Fire has a binding magical contract on it. One can assume that the consequences for breaking that contract are severe. If they weren't, they would have pulled Harry out of the competition. That quote up there is directly from THE MOVIE. Not the book. Do not try to outsmart a Potterhead in anything concerning our beloved series.
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesWell, his point stands that he was late to an event and nothing happened. So when does this magical contract kick in exactly? Chill out dude, you just make yourself look like an idiot. Beloved series? Its an entertaining enough series of books/films, but its really nothing special.
He still could have showed up and done nothing. Dragon task: stand there and do nothing until it falls asleep, grab the egg and get a crappy score. Water task: dive in, scream "CRAMP" and jump out (Fleur was disqualified for having to leave, he could be too). Maze task: go in and sit down. Like the author said, the cup's not going to go stab him if he does nothing.
I too am a Potterhead, but I have to disagree, why didn't the goblet of fire have a way of authenticating the handwriting? I mean they had a way of authenticating the age because Fred and George didn't get to put their name in, if the tasks were as dangerous as they say they were you'd think they'd have a way of checking to see that person who wrote their name on the paper was actually the person who put their name into the goblet.
The age was authenticated by Dumbledore's age line. If he'd done nothing in the dragon task he would have died. and the guy who put the name in already HAD polyjuice potion. Which makes you look, sound, and WRITE like the person you're impersonating. What kind of a dick lets his two best friends drown just to stay out of a competition either? remember, he actually thought that the part of the poem that said he'd never get them back was real.
In Harry Potter he was forced to compete, because once you enter the competition, you can't back out. You've basically signed a magical contract and you can't get out of it. Not sure how that works but...hey, it's magic, use your imagination. Point is, it is addressed and explained.
ReplyThat's the explanation given in the books, but in the FILM (which this article is addressing), Prof. McGonagall makes the case for not allowing Harry to compete at all, and Dumbledore actually stands there deliberating before deciding that yeah, he'll allow it, because Harry is the ultimate bait. It is a choice the adults make. "Binding magical contract" doesn't seem to be part of their equation, nor should it be, as Harry is obviously too young and didn't enter of his own free will. So while I would agree with you if the article were talking about the book, when it comes to the film I'm going to have to agree with Cracked on this one.
The issues in both Goblet of Fire and New Moon were addressed in the books, so the real crime was leaving out or at least glossing over the answers in the movies. 1. In Goblet Dumbledore warns the students not to put their names in lightly because if they are chosen they must compete (we are later told about the existence of the Unbreakable Oath which would kill the person if they broke it so the implication is that by putting their name in the cup they are enacting such an Oath. And in Twilight they flat say that for some reason Edward can't read Bella mind.
ReplySomeone needs to calm down with the fanboy crap. First, sorry there is no implication at ALL that the oath was involved in the goblet. As for the twilight umm......you dont have to read minds to send an email dumbass
Not to mention he could have read the minds of ANYONE ELSE who knew Bella.
Actually, Goblet of Fire's plot could have happened even quicker, literally in minutes. The fake Mad-Eye turned the goblet into a port key to transport Harry to that cemetery. But the port key could have been anything. He could have made it out of some object in his classroom. "Harry, could you hand me that object?" Boom, cut to the climax, the end.
ReplyThat's pretty good. I think that Voldemort needed more time, maybe, to get the potion ready? For his rebirth?
um. No one can use transportation spells inside Hogwarts. The only reason they could do it at the trial is because Dumbledore had opened Hogwarts to the public pretty much. No portkeys, no apparation, None of that. I feel like Hermione here. She harps on that point like a million times in both book AND flick.
I'll give you Lord Of The Rings: How about if Elrond, instead of pissing and moaning about how "the hearts of men were ever easily swayed" when Isildur decides to keep the ring, just PUSHED ISILDUR INTO THE HEART OF MOUNT DOOM? He was standing right next to him! No three thousand years of worry, no second war, and a whole bunch of men, elves, and assorted others would not be dead.
Replybecause the ring would have taken Him too. it's more explicit in the books, but even in the movie, merely OFFERING the ring to these people causes them to instantly have a massive evil moment. as evidenced by the crazy thing that happens to Galadriel.
The whole Police Academy series could've been avoided if Commandant Lasard had just failed those incompetent losers to begin with. But then we wouldn't have had such enduring celebrities as Steve Guttenburg and that guy who played Tackleberry, so I'm glad he didn't.
ReplyIf Indiana Jones had not stopped them the Nazi group sent to retrieve the medallion would have taken it and not just gotten a bruned in impression of the one side on the Gestapo dork's hand, moron.
ReplyRight. . . followed by the marching and the procession and the opening of the box in the middle of Berlin and the melting of every single Nazi in attendance. Moron.
Actually after Edward 'finds out' Bella is dead he crushed his cell phone with his bare hands, a fact I would not be aware of if the movie hadn't been on tonight (and god, that's two hours of my life I'm never getting back D:)
Replyand that was the only phone in existence? the super-rich pale stalker couldn't take his 100,000 dollar car over to an AT&T store and buy a new one?
Asherdelampyr... If he thought she was dead, why would he WANT to buy a new phone?
Actually, if you read the book, you'd know that the reason Harry competed in the TriWizard Tournament is because if he didn't, he would die. The magic that bound him to the competition would have killed him for backing out of a magical contract.
Reply Hide All See All 6 Repliespretty sure the book doesn't say that anywhere...
its very heavily implied he will die though
doesn't mean that he couldn't have just done a s****y job.
though pretty boy probably would have still died (Voldemort not really being known for not killing people)
no it is NOT heavily implied lol! and yeah he could have just showed up and sat there. been like "yup i got no chance......bummer"
It doesn't say he'd die if he didn't compete, but it did say he was bound by a magical contract. The point is that you make up your own idea of what would happen. So him dying is a pretty good theory.
"If you read the book" arguments always bother me for one reason: if the movie's logic can't be understood without the audience reading the book first, then the screenwriter/producer/director didn't do their jobs properly. Adaptation is a difficult job, but it IS the job, and it needs to be done right. As much as I enjoy the HP movies, this issue has been a consistent fault for ten damn years.
I know this is off topic, but what is that thing on that fake facebook page saying 'Add as a Friend'?
ReplyI'm not positive, but I think it's Nosferatu. Whom Edward Cullen could friend request all he wanted, Nosferatu would just laugh, then poof away in a puff of blue and sepia tinted film.
Count Chocula would kick Edward's ass
The Twilight plot could have been resolved by the characters in it having two brain cells to rub together, the whole plot is driven by characters making obvious bad decisions for reasons that are ether really convoluted or just plain nonsensical (even if the only logic you're judging by is the internal logic of the story itself.)
ReplyJeesh, people. Read the Harry Potter books. Nit pick at the movies all you want, but there are actual reasons for the happenings in the book. C'mon. In Goblet a Fire, the goblet binds you to a magical contract. It forces you to compete. It's not pride, or peer pressure, it's goddamn binding.
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesIts hardly a contract if it can force anyone to enter is it?
@Syn It didn't force Harry to enter it, the *SPOILER ALERT* imposter managed to bewitch it so it thought that four champions could compete in the tournament instead of three. They simply registered Harry Potter under some random school and, since he was the only person in the running for said school, he got picked.
Still, he could show up and just sit there and do nothing. The contract couldn't force him to actually move.
Movies are not books.
This was just baaaaad:
Reply6.)Raiders of the Lost Ark: Sure, if Indy was sure the WHOLE TIME that the Ark was going to kill the peeps who openned it...which he wasn't. He translated it near the end, and being human, then tried to warn them, and when the didn't listen they wrote their own funeral. An analogy of sorts.
But the thing is that Indy was already waste deep in nazis by the time he figured out where this might be going. He didn't have the ability by that point to know how everything else was going to go. Damn Indy for not being Omniscient.
5.)Goblet of Fire: Look, this is pretty similar to the above. Once Harry IS let in, then this little thing called "peer pressure" is backing that he will continue. This is also clearly meant to be a "victory for the badguy" twist. Being upset that the badguy's plan actually WORKS for once seems a little off putting.
4.)Da Vinci Code/I, Robot: Both these movies suck. However, they both suck for a lot more reasons then "OMG COMPLICATED!!" that this a******n is writing about.
3.)Saw and 2.)New Moon: sigh...I could state to read the last mention, but okay, lets go with this. So people never get confused in the mist of high emotion? Because that's basically the situation in both cases. They are both based on situations that were highly psychological for the characters involved, and while that's a stretch saying that New Moon involves anything complicated, when you realize the vapidity of the characters, it was at at least complicated to them.
1.) Other commenters have already torn this one apart. A group of guerillas having a hard time getting around the superior defenses of a more advanced enemy, and having to sneak inside in a desperate, almost assuredly suicidal, attempt to blow down those defenses? Well I couldn't think of ANY real life situation that are almost exactly like this...
I wish I could downvote this more than once.
It's cool, Beau, I downvoted it for you.
The air raid would have never worked in Return of the Jedi. The entire moon of Endor was surrounded by the deflector shield, hence the rebels having to "sneek" in with a stolen shuttle and an old passcode (not sure why the hologram doesn't reflect that in the battle room scene). Not trying to screw with the laughs, but I had to mention that...! ;)
ReplyThats doesnt work. All they need to do is sneak in the shuttle and then 9/11 the tower.
Want to make serious mo-ney working from home, only a few hours a day and make a nice extra in-come doing what you already do, here is the site to setup your ac count, makecash25 dot com
ReplyWW2 started in 1939.
ReplyAnd the Nazi Party came to power because Germany was incredibly broke paying WW1 reparations in 1936.
"Ah'm nae listening to them; they've got warts."
Reply- the Short Comedy of Macbeth, by Arthur J Nightingale
Ok but here's just it: These solutions are...more or less realistic solutions. In most cases they wouldn't make a better movie. Can you imagine 90 minutes of Nazis digging around in the desert with flashes back to Indy teaching at his college? Or Bella just logging into Facebook or getting a text from Edward? Harry telling tradition to eat a dick even earlier in the series? I know this isn't presented as a way to improve said films but all I can do is imagine the guy or girl who nitpicks movies to death for stupid, suspension of belief bullshit.
ReplyHalf of these go beyond suspension of disbelief. It's just lazy writing. Why can't people hold writers to a high standard since they're, you know, paid to do it!