The 5 Most Easily Avoidable Movie Deaths
There are a few things in movies that we totally get: gratuitous violence, unwarranted nudity and scientifically impossible explosions -- we understand why all of that happens.
What we don't get is when a movie decides that a character is going to die but then has to jump through mind-boggling hoops to make it happen, against all logic and common sense. Here are some prime examples.
P.S.: Don't you dare read this article and then complain about spoilers.
#5.
Darth Maul - The Phantom Menace
As we neared the end of The Phantom Menace, we all knew what was coming: the inevitable drawn-out lightsaber battle involving Qui-Gon Jinn, his apprentice, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Darth Maul, aka the one guy who almost made this big bucket of CGI turd worthwhile.
What evolutionary purpose do those horns serve?
Three Force practitioners battled around the palace on Naboo at a furious pace until Maul managed to get Jinn by himself and kill his ass. Then, Maul fights Obi-Wan until he has him dangling over an abyss, unarmed, clinging by his fingertips.
Which goes to show just what being a Jedi "Master" is really worth.
But before Maul can kill him, Obi-Wan pulls some elaborate Jedi shit and cuts the Sith Lord in two as he, not Obi, falls into the pit.
Why it's baffling:
It's like at the last minute Maul completely lost his mind, or maybe had some kind of seizure. After managing to handle both Jedi at the same time without even a scratch, and getting Obi-Wan into that precarious position over the pit, what does he do?
He stands at the edge and starts mindlessly slashing his blade at the floor, like a kid who just got his first lightsaber. We're not kidding. This happens. He seriously just starts slapping the floor with it, to make sparks shoot up.
"Whee!"
So he winds up standing there on the lip of the chasm for a long time. This whole time, he has Obi-Wan at his mercy. He knows Obi-Wan is a Jedi and thus can do some superhuman somersaulting tricks, and to do him in all he needs to do is lean down and knock Obi-Wan off his perch with his lightsaber. Really, just kind of reach down and poke his hands with it. Or just pick up something nearby and drop it on his fingers.
Anything.
Come on, guy.
Instead, he just stands up there while Obi-Wan sloooowly looks over and notices Jinn's lightsaber lying on the floor, then slooooooowly figures out what he's going to do. Then he ponders it for a few seconds more. Then, finally, when Obi-Wan begins to make his move, this confused looked glazes over Maul's face. What did he think was going to happen?
Obi-Wan somersaults over Maul's head, retrieves the lightsaber and then lands behind the Sith. Maul has time to turn and look, standing perfectly still for a full second ...
... before Obi-Wan finishes him off for good.
Honestly, now. The guy had been flipping around like he was on fast-forward the whole fight, and he just freezes up when the fight is basically over? Was he coming down off his meth high?
It's a hell of a crash.
Still, in terms of "standing still and waiting for death to arrive," he doesn't hold a candle to...
#4.
The Witch-king of Angmar - The Return of the King
It's the last movie in the Lord of the Rings trilogy and features the last stand of Men and their allies against the forces of the Dark Lord Sauron. Nazgul soaring, elves killing elephants, dwarfs axing orcs, ghosts flying around being all green and shit. Everything you'd ever want in a Middle-earth battle is right there. On top of all that, the witch-king fights Eowyn, although we use "fight" liberally here, as he sort of just pirouettes around with a mace while she clumsily side-steps.
As the witch-king is about to strike the final blow, he commits the cardinal movie villain sin and decides to open his gaping hole for one last "You're so dead" line. Enter the hobbit Merry from left field to stab the bad guy in the leg, all but sealing his fate to take a sword to whatever it is he has under that hood.
Seriously, man, what do you even need those eyeholes for?
Why it's baffling:
The witch-king had so much time to do Eowyn in. And he just didn't bother.
Even after he's been Tonya Harding-ed by Merry, why does he just sit there and wait for his comeuppance? In the 10-plus seconds it took for Eowyn to remove her helmet, deliver her obligatory "Hear me roar, bitch" line and then stab him, why didn't he just cut her in half instead of waiting on his knees and watching as the sword entered his head?
Good strategy there, King of Evil.
And we can already hear you hollering from the comment section: "You fools! In the book, Merry was using an enchanted sword made by the Dunedain of Arnor specifically to slay a Nazgul!" That's great knowledge to have ... for anyone who has read the books.
Unfortunately, there is no point where Peter Jackson includes this tidbit in the movie. Merry's just using a laughable little midget-sword. Maybe he could have included a short exchange between Merry and whoever gave him the sword along the lines of: "Here you go, hobbit. This sword will really ruin a Nazgul's day," but then you'd have to ask why they couldn't get some of those swords for other people getting slaughtered by the Nazgul on the same battlefield.
"I would use it myself, but I figured, meh, might as well give it to someone who'll be totally useless on the field of battle."
Instead, we have a villain built up to be the most second-most-badass being in Middle-earth who is inexplicably paralyzed by a cut to the back of the leg.
#3.
Wicked Witch of the West - The Wizard of Oz
Dorothy's quest to get home takes her all over the Land of Oz, leading her and her crew of freaks to the Emerald City to meet the actual Wizard of Oz. He offers to return her to Kansas if she can get him the broom of the Wicked Witch of the West -- the same vengeful witch whose sister was killed by Dorothy at the beginning of the film. The same one the party has spent the better part of the film trying to escape from.
Dorothy and her friends find their way to the witch's castle, and the malevolent woman sets the most flammable guy in the room, Scarecrow, on fire.
In an attempt to save her friend, Dorothy grabs a nearby bucket of water and throws it on him. Unfortunately for the witch, she was standing right behind Scarecrow as he was splashed, taking on some water herself. In a twist that would be stolen and subsequently ruined by M. Night Shyamalan, the witch melts in her clothes -- much to everyone's astonishment.
Why it's baffling:
No one foresaw the witch's weakness being water. Except, you know, perhaps the witch herself. She had to know, right? Having lived with that weakness her whole life?
So why exactly does she have random buckets of it lying around her castle?
A little clean-up saves a lot of trouble.
It'd be like you keeping big, open buckets of hydrochloric acid sitting around your living room. Yes, there are uses for a bucket of water around a castle, true, but how clean do one's floors need to be when one is a) a witch, and b) deathly allergic to water?
And even if she absolutely had to have water in the building somewhere for whatever reason, why did she decide to fight Dorothy and company in the presence of it -- especially when her plan involves setting fire to a walking sack of straw?
The woman has the mentality of a video game level boss, leaving a bunch of ammo and power-ups lying around her fortress, right in the path of the hero. Is it all just an elaborate way to commit suicide?
"Sweet, sweet death."
Storm: "You know what happens to a toad when it gets struck by lightning? The same thing that happens to everything else."
ReplyThat was a pretty stupid line LOL
"What evolutionary purpose do those horns serve?"
ReplyEasy. Zabrak are their own hat racks.
That Granny Ruth entry had me laughing at 10:00 at night, waking up my entire family. It was totally worth it, though.
ReplyOkay, Maul had to slice at the ground or HANG FROM HIS TOES IN ORDER TO REACH OBI-WAN'S HANDS. Come on, admit that that would have been stupider.
ReplyAs for the horns... Who knows? Maybe you can, like, headbut someone with them and they die. It's possible, isn't it?
actually the witch would not know it was her weakness, unless she had already died and came back to life then knowing her weakness is totally possible.
ReplyWell, when she was younger she totally could've tried to go swimming and when she put her toe in to see how the water feels realize that it was burning her toe off.
or she could have idk at one point tried to was her hands or something. Think about how many times a day you come into contact with good ol H2O
I would have nominated the yautja hunter from Predator 2 for this article. After the brief knife fight in the ship in rips Danny Glover's shirt, knocks him to his knees...and promptly forgets that his opponent is still armed with his throwing disk. It stands there and gloats over an enemy it has yet to finish off, and sets itself up to have a razor-Frisbee jammed into it's chest. Surely it must have noticed its prey was tensing up and positioning itself to strike if given half a chance?
Replymy understanding with the witch king was that he says "no man can kill me" as in human and thus a women and a hobbit could damage him because his super hax powers couldnt protect him but it still was pretty funny.
ReplyFunny, two of the charctors on this list, Darth Maul and Toad were both played by the same actor, Ray Park. Wonder if this is forshadowing that Snake Eyes is going die in some stupid way in the upcoming Joe movie.
ReplyAbout Darth Maul's death. First, how was he supposed to knock Obi-wan down? It was too far for his lightsaber, and there was nothing else there that can be used. Second, Obi-Wan specialized (at the time) in Ataru lightsaber form (the same one that Yoda used). That form specializes in acrobatics and speed. The REASON it looks like Maul just stood there was because Obi-Wan was using Ataru Form (and probably also used Force Speed), so to show what Obi-Wan did, it was done in normal speed (from Obi-Wan's perspective). If they did it from Maul's perspective (or from someone viewing the fight), it would have been nothing but a blur.
Reply Hide All See All 5 RepliesI will take your lunch money now
Let me try to respond.
1. Darth maul could have done force push on obi-wan.
2. Darth maul could have done force lightning on obi-wan.
3. Darth maul could have picked up the lightsaber and force decapitated obi-wan.
4. Darth maul could have waited for obi-wans only obvious move - which was to leap out of the hole - and cut the b***h in half
I am sure there are others out there but those are the ones that immediately come to mind.
@SeanMcDonough That will be my lunch money that you are taking, Pellaeon1981 made a mistake, Obi-Wan was practitioner of Soresu, not Ataru. It was Qui-Gon Jinn who was the practitioner of Ataru.
@lordastral 1. Every person who practices the Force learns how to create a barrier to protect them from direct Force attacks, otherwise you could just pull the other guys lightsaber from his hand in the first few seconds, and Force push would be more common. The barrier can be breached, but it isn't easy, and Maul's talent lies in lightsaber combat, not using the Force.
2. What makes you think Maul knew how to do that? It wasn't taught to every user of the dark side, and Sidious would definitely never have taught it to Maul.
3. Obi-Wan could've stopped any object from coming towards him, just like Yoda did against Count Dooku in episode 2. Maul wouldn't have been able to overpower him because, again, Maul strength lies in lightsaber combat.
4. This is the most plausible thing he could have done, but if you read through Pellaeon1981's paragraph again, it's possible that Obi-Wan used Force Speed to attack,(though technically he should have done that when he was running to help Qui-Gon.) which would have been too fast even for Force reflexes. Force Speed is a tricky power to use though.....but now I'm just rambling.
If you somehow haven't figured it out yet, I'm a Star Wars nerd.
Star Wars apologists are like Juggalos and Ravers. I see them and think, "Christ, they STILL exist?"
Well, one apologist asserted that the new trilogy was for kids or a new audience. So let's assume that means it's for those who aren't aware of the fighting styles and other expanded universe crap, who just went to see the movie and find out what this "Star Wars" stuff is all about. To them, Obi-Wan appears to be leaping at what we call "real-time," during which Darth Maul appears to have forgotten what the force is.
But that's a moot point, because the movie already established how "force speed" would be portrayed: the Jedi moving in a blur while everything else moves in real-time. It happens once in the beginning, then never again. Why would it make sense to then say, "okay, from now on the camera stays with the Jedi, while the world moves imperceptibly more slowly"?
By that rationale, Obi-Wan HADN'T conveniently forgotten he could "force speed" run through the forcefields and catch up in time to save his master, in yet another well-known inconsistency... but he actually WAS the whole time and the film was slowed down? See, that doesn't work either, because we see Qui-Gon and Maul fighting in the distance, at the same speed. And I believe you guys said Maul wasn't that good with that kind of force stuff.
looool thats blatent excuses, we saw force speed used earlier in the movie so its true they could but probably so could darth maul but we didnt see at all any point obi wan go into force speed and the reflexes of darth maul would have to be pretty damn fast to even fight on par with both of them and over power them at points, so it just dont make sense why he would be slow then .
But lols Ataru lightsaber form what the hell is that! never heard of it thus dont think it considering wasnt mentioned had any merit as an excuse
When I first read it I thought it said
Reply"The witch-king had so much time to do Eowyn"
And I thought to myself, yeah, even if I was on the middle of a battlefield, I'd tap that.
evolutionary purpose: mating
ReplyThose aren't horns.
Nudge nudge.
Also....Toad and Sabretooth were both supposed to return for the X-Men sequel. When they didn't reappear, it was retconned that Sabes survived because of his healing factor, while Toad in fact was killed.
Reply1. Toad was electrocuted. So he was probably dead before he hit the water anyway.
2. If he wasn't dead, consider the height from which he fell. Storm lifted him up into the air and dropped him. Hitting the surface of the water would have had the same effect as hitting concrete. It's why so many people jump off bridges to commit suicide.
3. Even had he survived both the lightning blast and the hit to the water, he would have still gone into shock from all the trauma and died by drowning.
toad can climb walls he could have run down the wall and escaped.
Actually, getting hit by lightning is suprisingly survivable especially if you're not hit with a direct blast which Toad wasn't (it hit the railing first and then kinda just made its way to him). And yeah, he was knocked into the water, but since he had been electrocuted first all of his muscles was probably tensed up and he would not have been breathing so drowning is out of the question. And his mutation includes a strong overall constitution (you can't really jump around that high and so effortlessly without some seriously strong musculature, bones and stamina) so his survival chances are much greater than a humans by default by hitting the water as hard as he did.
Not to mention that there have been badguys in movies that have survived much, much worse and made us all think "That dick is dead" only to show up in the sequel with some illogical loophole explanation to why they survived. Sabretooth surely survived because of his healing factor and Toad could definatly have survived due to his strong constitution.
The Wizard of Oz takes place in the Alien universe. That wasn't water...the guards switched the bucket with a vat of acid blood.
ReplyPhantom Menace is the weakest film, but it had a few good points: Kwi Gon Jin, Darth Maul, and Mace Windu, a.k.a., three of the coolest f****n characters in the series. If they had all seen more screen time in episode 1, or hell, just survived for episodes 2 and 3, the prequels could have been a lot better.
Replyum, Mace DID survive for eps 2 and 3
@kidwithoneshoe
I said if they had ALL survived, as in Mace, Kwi Gon, and Darth Maul, not just Mace. Besides, Mace was barely in episode 3 anyway.
skull horns...take that darwin! mwuahaha
ReplyI should point out that toads live on land, not water. Frogs live in water, but never toads. Most toads will die in water as most of their respiration is done through their skin. So Toad had ample reason not to want to fall in the water (though he WAS mostly human, so I'm not sure how that works).
Reply Hide All See All 4 Repliesi agree, the line ..."as if the Atlantic Ocean is full of acid instead of the stuff toads live in." is totally wrong. also, her sassy catchphrase is one of the stupidest "i'm gonna kill you now" catchprashes of all time.
"You know what happens when a toad get hits by lightning? The same thing that happens to everyone else,"
I'm not even an x-men fanboy, and that line is f*****g amazeballs! f**k you kidwithoneshoe, you've no taste in amazing death lines.
What happened to Storm's accent in X2 and X3?
Most frogs don't live in water. Also, toads are just ugly frogs--biologically, they're still frogs.
Obi=Wan is hanging onto the edge of the floor,meaning his line of sight would logically be below the floor line,follow me? So how could he see the light-saber that was above his line of sight? I always wondered about that.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesTHE FORCE. Or something.
Lucky guess?
Because George Lucas says so. He'd like your money now.
In fairness, the Witch-king fight wasn't written Hollywood-style, they talked before fighting, not during.
Replylast sentence is gold.
ReplyI don't know whether mentioning the Wicked Witch is fair, because it turns out that everything (in the movie) happened [SPOILER ALERT] in Dorothy's mind, while she'd been knocked unconscious. Convenient buckets of water do suddenly pop up in dreams like that. Dreams don't have to make sense.
Reply