6 Things Movie Characters Always Seem to Forget
The one thing you always have to remember about characters in a movie is that they don't know they're characters in a movie. But sometimes they seem to forget things from one episode or scene to the next that makes us think they have some kind of brain injury that has ruined their short-term memory.
Not sure what we mean? Well, we're talking about things like...
#6.
Insisting That The Paranormal Doesn't Exist (Despite Dealing With It Daily)
The victims: Ghostbusters II, Stargate SG-1, Star Trek, Indiana Jones, X-Files, Fringe
It makes perfect sense for the characters in a vampire or zombie movie to need some time to adjust to the idea that they're being attacked by vampires or zombies. We don't even mind that there's always that one character who remains in denial until the second act (aka Carl Weathers in Predator insisting their nemesis was "just some guys in camouflage").
Death, courtesy of your local Army/Navy store.
But then you have a character in a series that deals exclusively with the supernatural, who completely forgets from one episode to the next that they are in fact characters in a series dealing with the supernatural. Take Indiana Jones, so quickly dismissing the idea of psychic alien skulls in the fourth movie, in spite of having witnessed firsthand the supernatural powers of the Ark of the Covenant, the Holy Grail and Indian spirit rocks. Pretty much every artifact the man digs up has magical powers, this should not be new territory for him.
"Swamp gas."
But that's nothing compared to the X-files and Fringe, two shows with skeptical characters who seem to never manage to learn anything from their numerous encounters with Halloween beasts. Here's how basically every episode goes:
Agent 1: Wow! A thing/creature/occurrence/artifact from beyond the realm of science and nature!
Agent 2: No, that's probably just a weather balloon.
"That, or Duchovny's ego has finally assumed physical form."
How many aliens and lizard people did Agent Scully run across before she stopped rolling her eyes whenever Mulder suggested "monsters" as the solution to the next case? Fifty? A hundred? Scully, you get a nice paycheck and a robust government benefits plan to fight werewolves and vampires. Why are you embarrassed to have our dream job?
"SWAAAAAAMP GAAAAAAS!"
But nobody got screwed by this as badly as the Ghostbusters. As we've mentioned before in exhaustive detail, the entire city of New York sues the Ghostbusters for supposedly staging the ghost attack that destroyed several city blocks in the previous film, despite the fact that tens of thousands of witnesses saw it first hand. And where the hell did they think those hundreds of tons of melted marshmallow came from?
From left to right: swamp gas, LSD in the water supply, solar flare.
Then you have the selective skeptics, like in the show Medium, where everyone accepts the psychic detective's ability, but somehow still manages to second-guess her tips. Just to be clear, they believe she is communicating with ghosts but they question the reliability of the ghosts' testimony. That's like watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and believing everything but the "ninja" part.
"Karate? Isn't that the spicy shit Japanese people put on everything?"
This brings us to our next point...
#5.
Forgetting That The Main Character Is Always Right
The victims: House, X-files, Fringe, Monk, Psych, Medium
OK, so maybe we can forgive Scully for shaking her finger at Mulder every time he pins a murder on a banshee. Maybe it's just that she always hopes it's something mundane, so the goddamned report will be easy to fill out this time.
But then you have House, where even though Dr. House's co-workers and superiors give lip service to how brilliant he is, at least once an episode we need to hear him suggest some radical new and risky treatment for this week's patient only to have someone else (usually Foreman) say, "But that'll kill him!"
Maybe he'd be right more often he'd grow a real fucking goatee.
No, no it won't. House is right approximately 100 percent of the time. He may need multiple guesses but in the end he will be right and you will always, always be wrong.
Cuddy is usually wrong too, but her chest is infinitely more fun to stare at.
Likewise for the show Monk, which stars the comically depressed guy from Wings as an obsessive compulsive yet impossibly brilliant detective. The man could literally find a moldy pancake in a dumpster and use it to solve the Kennedy assassination, but for some reason a perfect prosecution record on the cases he handles doesn't stop the San Francisco PD from continually dismissing him (you know, because he's weird).
"We're sorry Mr. Monk, but your hilarious quirks clearly outweigh your years of experience and flawless investigative record."
Ironically, in one episode when he tried to persuade San Francisco's finest that an apparent traffic accident was actually an elaborately staged murder, they ignored the years of savant-like assistance he'd given them in the past because his theory didn't match up with... the testimony of a psychic. Dammit, these people need to trade detectives with Medium.
Honestly, the fact that they trust a blonde to solve cases strains our suspension of disbelief more than the whole "psychic" thing.
Which only takes us to the opposite problem, which is...
#4.
Forgetting That The Stupid Character is Stupid
The victims: TMNT, Gilligan's Island, Lost in Space, any comedy with a wacky bumbling character.
Anyone who has ever sat through an episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has probably wondered why the Shredder keeps Bebop and Rocksteady around. By all accounts it doesn't make sense. Bebop and Rocksteady manage to thoroughly botch every single task they're given, yet the Shredder still insists on including them in his evil schemes episode after episode. It's almost like he hates success more than the Turtles.
We're pretty sure pigs are more intelligent than turtles, but we could be wrong.
But, hey, he's evil. Villains are known for relying on demonstrably unreliable henchmen. Hell, we're still baffled at how Megatron could go an entire series trusting Starscream, despite the latter arguably being the most treacherous and unreliable of all henchmen.
But decades earlier on Gilligan's Island, the band of castaways suffered from the same mental omission and allowed Gilligan to continually damn any chance they have of ever getting rescued. Crucial task after crucial task was placed in his hands--during the course of the show, Gilligan failed to signal a Navy vessel while flying a fucking jetpack; managed to find and lose a submarine in a single day; and wasted a magic wishing stone on goddamned ice cream.
Can we all just agree that no one wearing bell-bottoms should, under any circumstances, be allowed to man a jetpack?
After so many incidents, why didn't anyone remember to lock Gilligan in a cave whenever a chance to escape the island appeared? Their freaking lives were at stake.
Just hold him underwater until his eyes go dead.
Likewise on Lost in Space, what stopped the Robinson family from ganging up on Dr. Smith and jettisoning his stupid ass right out the airlock? Not counting the numerous times he endangered the entire crew with his cowardice, he had all the instinct of a monkey with a coke bottle lodged in its brain (as demonstrated when he once used their scarce water supply to take a fucking shower). Someone should've busted his head open with a moon rock.
Anyone with this as a Facebook profile picture would be reported to the FBI in a matter of seconds.
I don't remember immortality pills in stargate sg1. Of course there are like a bajillion episodes, so maybe that's why. Are you talking about episode set in the future where everyone had a longer lifespan because of some "friendly aliens", but it turned out the medicine they were being given also made everyone sterile? Cause I think that might be why they didn't use them again.
ReplyConcerning bulletproof vests and Lethal Weapon 2. The story says: "His partner, Murtaugh, nearly dies at the end of the second film from a gunshot because he wasn't wearing one."
ReplyIt's been awhile since I've seen LW2, but isn't it Riggs who's all shot up and not wearing a vest? Murtaugh takes out the bad guy at the end, after Riggs is lying there, full of bullets.
You'd think the castaways would've eaten Giligan to ensure his stupidity would never threaten any plan of escaping. I would've killed him after the first week.
ReplyAll-round good article, but... Memento disease? Really? You mean BRAIN DAMAGE?
ReplyLoss of short term memory, in all likelihood. Actually that should read: loss of short term memory except from when the doctor explained how his loss of short term memory works. I doubt the doc was holding a tattoo gun.
To be fair, Ironman did try to use that little forearm missile on the bad guy, but he caught and tossed it away.
Reply Hide All See All 3 Replieshe should've tried it on Vanko. Ah well.
WHICH the missile should exploded! Missiles like those have promximity fuses, and even if it doesn't the sudden stop of forward momentum should create enough of an impact to trigger the missile's impact fuse, especially if the bad guy crushes the missile!
^Proximity fuses? Let me grab my ACR and heartbeat sensor and we'll take down that entire airbase together.
Splinter taught them to be ninja teens, he's a radical rat, leonardo leads, donatello does machines, raphael is cool but rude, give me a break, michealangelo is a party dude. teenage mutant ninja turtles, teenage mutant ninja turtles, teenage mutant ninja turtles, turtles in a half shell, turtle power.
ReplyI never thought of it like that.
I'm pretty sure you got that only after watching Cracked After Hours
At least Harry Potter's universe has a reason as to why time turners aren't in regular use. Hermione explains (to Harry) that in order for her to use one she had to fill out a ton of paperwork and be vouched for by two trusted wizards. And that was just to be considered to be eligible. Later while Harry and his friends are roaming around the ministry they wander into the room where the time-turners are kept and accidentally smash all of them. So while they are ignored as a solution to the whole Dark Lord issue, (the authorities consider them to dangerous, yet allow a 14 year old girl to use one)at least they aren't simply forgotten.
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesBut that's worse than forgetting them: they kept ALL of their time-turners in the same place, with no protection around these incredibly fragile items and that's supposed to leave us satisfied?
panther, one of the reasons the 14-year-old girl got that very rare piece of equipement, is because Dumbledore needed her to have it. And who denies the greatest Wizard alive his tinker toy?
I agree, but will go even furher. The only reason they used a Time-Turner in PoA was because they happened to have one at the time and the event in question had only happened a few hours previously. A key point that is stressed in the book is how tricky time travel is and how disastrous it can be.
That still doesn't explain why the Ministry of Magic couldn't use one to stop Voldemort. Plus Voldemort had connections everywhere, how could he not get a hold of one and use it to kill Harry's parents when they were kids? That's a pretty enormous plot hole.
The disappearance of the laser in Doctor Who was explained in like the first or second episode of Torchwood and again when Captain Jack rejoins the Doctor and explains why he's working for Torchwood.
Reply#6: In defense of X-Files, Scully approaches all of the cases she and Mulder go out on like a scientist. Most of the time the things they encounter aren't supernatural, but things that can actually be the result of some different evolution. There are a number of episodes where the "monster" they are chasing turns out to be a freak of nature, giving a scientific explanation for an old superstition. Mulder, on the other hand, leaps to the assumption anything they're chasing must be supernatural, paranormal, or aliens, often in the face of evidence to the contrary. That was the whole reason she was partnered with him: to give the FBI reports that weren't tin-foil hat crazy.
ReplyAs for Fringe, which character are you referring to? I think Peter, maybe 3 episodes in, was still a little skeptical, but other than that I am drawing a blank.
#5: It's worth pointing out House doesn't keep people who think like him around. In the episode where he's shopping for a team, he eliminates a highly skilled doctor who comes up with the same ideas he does. It's also worth pointing out that past performance is no indicator of future performance, and someone who has always (eventually) been right won't always (eventually) be right before the patient dies.
#4 - 2: Totally on the money.
#1: The villains in Robocop figure out guns won't work very early on, and they upgrade to anti-tank weapons that work very, very well. Overall, though, this section was accurate. I think part of the problem is the villains we see in movies aren't expecting the superhero, and sometimes only encounter the superhero once before they're taken out of action.
Serious question: I wonder if, according to show lore, a lot of Mulder & Scully's cases turned out to be lies, or crazy witnesses making s**t up. And that the episodes on the show were "highlights." Like, on Auction Hunters or Pawn Stars -- 99% of your times is ordinary run of the mill stuff, but 1% makes for good tv. Or did M & S have the most eventful FBI careers ever?
that is why X-files always bugged me! Why are they even going through the X-files and trying to solve them if when they solve it they do nothing about it? The found a real monster in the first freaking episode
ReplyHe made the Prime Minister who ordered the gun to be fired lose her job, despite that changing time and costing humanity the "Golden Ages", I cannot think of a time when that gun would ever have been useful in any future series. Remember, most of the episodes are in a different time or on another planet, one or two outside time.
ReplyTo defend Doctor Who, their entire series is filled with events that, while the Doctor remembers, time itself does not.
ReplyBesides, the Doctors mainly a pacifist. What would he want with a giant ray gun?
my dad told me he always laughed when the bad guys would empty a pistol into Superman and then THROW THE PISTOL at him.
ReplyAfter which, Superman would duck to avoid being hit by the thrown pistol. I think Robert Wuhl had the line "Bullets can't hurt me...but a nasty bruise? That's something to watch out for."
I have just made the Dr. Smith image my profile picture on Facebook.
ReplyAny article of Cracked's that mentions the Time Turner flaw immediately loses any and all credibility in my book. Thank GOD this is a comedy website and doesn't need to be credible anyway.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesYou're clearly on your period. Want some cocoa?
This might be hard to swallow but not everybody cares enough about Harry Potter's little adventures to know every single scene.
Hey, we got ourselves a genuine virgin here.
Bullet-proof vests aren't used on half of the characters from Firefly for a very good reason.
Reply Hide All See All 3 Replies...BOOBS.
Why the dudes don't wear them, I couldn't say.
...there are bulletproof vests for women. There are also unisex bulletproof vests.
Maybe he means that the vests cover up the boobs?
Or the boobs stop the bullets. That would make a vest unnecessary.
Come on, Starscream is just living Decepticon culture. Amongst Decepticons, it is the role of the second in command to constantly attempt to surplant the leader. If he succeeds, it's just proof that the leader was unworthy to begin with. Any other Decepticon promoted to Starscream's place would be much the same.
ReplyThe real question is why Soundwave, who is nearly as powerful as Megatron and Starscream, but also has a series of incredibly stealthy, utterly loyal minions, plus of course, the ability to read everyone's minds, didn't take over.
I kind of got the impression that he was a little bit slow. Besides, if you and your entire office were packing lasers, how long would you put up with a telepathic boss, even if he had a bazooka?
I read somewhere a long time ago that it was because he was reprogramed by Megatron to be ultraloyal. He was to be like a robotic eunuch. This was back when transformers were still just a cartoon.
I remember The X-Files being in like the fourth season and Scully still being skeptical about the existence of alien life, even though she had already been abducted and even held an alien fetus on a glass tube in her hands.
Replyactually, J.K. Rowling DOES address the absence of time-turners...in the 6th book, Hermione says that no more exist as they were smashed in the fight at the Ministry.
ReplyEven if the ministry did make more, they control who gets some and who doesn't, and they don't give them out to anyone.
Her attempts two books later to fill in the major plot hole she created actually make it worse for me.
Every single time turner in the world was stacked up in a single place and smashed by accident? Even if not a single one had been checked out, why did no one use them before the fight in the ministry to stop Harry from touching the Triwizard Cup? You can argue that the ministry didn't believe what he said so they wouldn't have allowed it - except for Diggory's body. Regardless of WHY Diggory died, he was clearly dead, and they didn't bother to save him.
As for the second reason: the ministry loans out timeturners to help kids get around a scheduling conflict with classes they want to take. Saying they wouldn't loan them out to save the life of Diggory is a pretty big stretch.
And then there is no one using a time turner the first time Voldemort showed up. Using a time machine to kill Hitler is a pretty common line of thought that somehow didn't occur to people with actual time machines during a fight with a Hitler analogue.
If she had said "they just don't work that way" it would have been so much better. Half-assed attempts to fill in plot holes fans pointed out to you often make things worse.
Time Turners can only create a stable time loop. They cant rewrite the past. Now let's stop arguing.
THEY WERE NOT ALIENS!!!!!
Reply