7 Movies That Ignored World Changing Discoveries
Writing movies is hard. We're guessing it is, anyway, because there seems to be a lot that can go wrong. For instance, occasionally in a movie the characters will wind up in a jam where they can be rescued only by some new science, device or technology. Then, once they're out of trouble, the tech is usually immediately forgotten.
The problem is, sometimes the device or technology itself should have been far more important than what the heroes were trying to accomplish in the movie. Consider ...
Before teenager Peter Parker becomes Spider-Man, his class goes on a field trip to a genetics laboratory. A tour guide explains that they've genetically engineered 15 superpowered spiders. When one gets out and bites Peter, the venom rewrites his DNA to give him all sorts of weird spiderlike abilities. He stoically accepts the ramifications of being part-spider for the rest of his life.
"I have seen my future, and it involves a pian- oh what the fuck, Sam?"
Hang on a second ...
Uh, Peter, you don't think somebody needs to know about the spiders? You know, the fact that scientists have accidentally created something that can completely and irreversibly rewrite DNA with one bite? That would make them pretty much the most dangerous creatures on the planet. Think about it: At best, the results are unpredictable -- who's to say the next victim won't just turn into a deformed horror instead, or die -- but at worst, the bite victims will gain superpowers and maybe also become deranged or violent. These spiders could easily transform any person into a weapon of mass destruction.
Who wouldn't let this thing bite them?
And clearly the scientists didn't know the spiders could do it -- when Mary Jane pointed out that one had escaped, the lab didn't exactly go into lockdown.
No, only Peter knows, and he doesn't bother to tell anyone. And it's not out of ignorance; it's clear that Peter is some kind of science prodigy, so when he suddenly develops spider-powers immediately after being bitten by a genetically altered spider, it's unlikely he chalks it up to coincidence. It's not like he just developed a rash; a single spider bite rewired his genome. Yet the rest of the film is devoted to Peter's efforts to impress a girl.
You could say that Peter is afraid of getting turned into a human guinea pig or is afraid of divulging his secret identity. But nobody knows Peter got bitten; he can make the announcement as Spider-Man. He can write a letter to the lab on Spider-Man letterhead saying, "Guys, look at the venom of those spiders under a microscope. It's serious shit. And wear gloves when you handle them. Also, enjoy your Nobel Prize."
"For outstanding achievements in giving absolutely everyone superpowers."
#6.
Star Trek (2009 version) Has Eliminated the Need for Starships
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After young Kirk gets marooned on an ice planet, he enlists the help of Spock Classic and young Scotty (who are there for no adequately explored reason) to teleport aboard the Enterprise.
Hang on a second ...
For about 40 years, smartasses have been saying, "If the transporters have the ability to teleport people from place to place, why do they need ships?" And, through every episode and every film since the 1960s, the show explained it away as the transporters having some basic limitations: namely that they have a relatively short range -- only 40,000 kilometers, max. Essentially, it's useful only for getting on and off the Enterprise without the producers having to acquire the kind of budget they would need to animate the ship actually landing.
Above: Roddenberry's gift to screenwriters.
Now, the 2009 film has a major plot point where Kirk needs to be teleported onto the Enterprise, but the Enterprise is moving at warp speed at the time. Scotty figures out a way to do it, and the movie celebrates this achievement as being the first time anyone has ever been transported to an object moving that fast. But that isn't the point.
The Enterprise is shooting off at Warp 3 just before Scotty and Kirk beam aboard. Warp 3, by the way, is 27 times the speed of light. Or 5 million miles a second. That means that by the time Kirk has finished saying, "I really liked you in Shaun of the Dead," the Enterprise would be out of the solar system. A distance Scotty has no trouble overcoming with his transporter.
So, uh, why do we need spaceships again?
For the same reason we need classic cars and the Beastie Boys.
The characters don't seem to realize that what Scotty has actually done for space travel here is what e-mail did for the envelope industry. Any means of transportation that has more than zero mass and moves slower than literally instantaneously has suddenly become obsolete. We're only halfway through the first film of a new Star Trek franchise, and already we don't need the Enterprise anymore. By the time Picard is born, spaceships will be a relic of an older era.
Basically, they'll be the Star Trek equivalent of Betamax.
After getting turned down by both the girl and the roller coaster of his dreams on account of his size, 13-year-old Josh Baskin finds a lame mechanical sideshow called the Zoltar machine, which promises to grant wishes. After wishing to be "big," the kid discovers that he is now multiple Academy Award-winner Tom Hanks.
This leads to a sequence of events that led us to write an entire other article on why the movie is so unintentionally disturbing.
Is Zoltar hinting at something?
Hang on a second ...
The whole "child in the body of an adult" plot is actually kind of its own genre since Freaky Friday set the bar. In the vast majority of these movies, the writers explain away the body-switching shenanigans as some kind of one-off magic trick of God that you're not supposed to think too much about.
But in Big, it's all because of this carnival machine. A machine that somebody built, deliberately, with the express and stated purpose of being able to grant wishes. It doesn't even try to hide that fact. It's an actual, concrete object with the reality-fucking powers of a genie, and it's just sitting there.
Thankfully, the smell of funnel cake provokes amnesia in small children.
So after the initial shock of Hanksification wears off, surely he puts two and two together, right? Well, actually, he forgets about the Zoltar machine altogether, shrugs his shoulders and decides to settle into his new life as an adult by getting a job to pay his bills. After all, shit happens. When life gives you Tom Hanks, you make Hanksinade.
The Zoltar machine doesn't even come back into the story until near the end, when Hanks decides he wants to be a normal kid again and suddenly remembers it exists. Of course, the most powerful device ever created is still just sitting there, waiting patiently for absolutely anyone to give a shit.
Considering that the entire plot of man-child Hanks' adventures as a toymaker rests upon the premise that his boundless imagination and childlike sense of wonder make him the perfect toy designer, it's downright bizarre that he never realizes the potential of a machine that can grant him literally anything he desires. Even when he finally tracks the Zoltar machine down, he just wishes to be small again without adding "with a working lightsaber" to the end of his request.
Making him unlike any other kid on the planet.
So, just to get this straight: There's a machine that grants multiple wishes exactly as you intend them, whose existence and powers have been verified by several people ... and everyone just ignores it. This thing could end world hunger or make you the richest man in the world. Instead, it's just going to get thrown out once the carnival acquires a Pepsi machine.
#4.
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Introduces Terminators
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In the middle of a movie about giant robots punching each other, it's easy to forget one scene not involving giant robots that, oh by the way, should have changed the entire fictional universe.
At one point, Alice, a sexy blonde with no personality who has been trying to get into Shia LaBeouf's pants for most of the movie, suddenly transforms into a marauding killbot. Megan Fox kills it in order to give her something to do in this film, and everyone forgets about the whole "making out with a robot" thing, probably by mutual consent.
Who doesn't love this charming hunk of orange peels and Brillo pads?
Hang on a second ...
Michael Bay is too busy trying to wedge more explosions into the film at this point to notice that this just became an entirely different kind of movie, because holy shit the robots can look like us now.
Seriously. Fuck everything else. Up until this point, the Transformers were all giant, lumbering golems hitting each other over the head with steel beams. As soon as they learn to convincingly pass off as human, the whole tone of the conflict changes from blunt-force trauma and explosions to paranoia and suspicion, and a movie about giant robots punching each other takes a one-way trip into The Thing territory.
"Wow, Shia, you look a lot less gross right now!"
Worse yet, the Decepticons have figured out that LaBeouf's greatest weakness is T&A, so now he has to be suspicious of any incredibly attractive women who are desperately gagging for his junk, for the rest of his life. Like LaBeouf shouldn't already have been suspicious of that.
"OK, so you don't like kissing."
But in the film, nobody ever mentions the fact that the Decepticons now have access to Terminators, except for an offhand remark by LaBeouf that she tasted like diesel. And though LaBeouf seems willing to trust everyone he sees (including his college roommate, and an actual retired Decepticon) to help him in his quest, the bad guys never see the benefit in perhaps dropping another fake human or two into his merry band of adventurers.
Instead, the giant robots just go straight back to punching each other, and Megatron gets his shit wrecked when the humans bring Optimus Prime to the fight. Good work, buddy -- maybe this is why Starscream keeps trying to steal your job.
Yep. Plot holes are the cure for everything.
ReplyStar Trek TNG. One episode has Starfleet out to take Data off of The Enterprise for whatever reason that stems from there only being one working android in existence. In another episode, a woman is cured of a alien mutating disorder by using an old transporter pattern to set her DNA back to normal. They also have shown that they have replicators capable of making food and other household items. Why could they not combine the two technologies and simply replicate a new Data for every single friggin' starship? Also, why are the 'Borg immune to every weapon know to mankind (at least after the first shot or two because they can adapt) yet Worf can plow through them like they were nothing? And he's just using a knife. You would think that the dumb@$$ aliens would have adapted to stones first, then pointed sticks and sharp rocks and knives before moving on to being immune to phasers.
ReplyStar Trek XI is also pretty quick to point out that Scotty's transporter can only carry a tiny number of people at a time - the ship's transporter can fit five, but Scotty's model, the one that actually does the long-distance beaming, can only take two, which is why Keenser has to stay behind on that shithole of a planet and isn't seen again until the end of the movie. When you consider how many people Starfleet employs and how many people live on the Enterprise, you can see it basically just wouldn't be viable to transport people everywhere all the time, since if you had to transport the Enterprise's entire crew (which I'm pretty sure numbers in the hundreds or something) two at a time, it would just seem easier to stick them on a huge ship and be done with it.
ReplyBut most of those people are there because it's a ship. If you don't have a ship, you don't need a captain, navigator, engineer, pilot, etc. Starfleet could cut its payroll budget by about 75 percent (or more) if it got rid of the ships. Also, if you built a million friggin' transporters like Scotty's, you could still move 2 million troops at a time anywhere you want. Basically, all Starfleet would have to do to take over the known universe is clone Kirk and send him to all of the planets to woo the alien women. Since women pretty much rule every culture (either in secret or in open, domineering fact), once they fall in love with Kirk, the planet it ours!
A little tidbit of info... watched Jingle All the Way awhile ago as part of an Ahnold drinking marathon... apparently it was ok for a child to say "we hate you, fag" to Sinbad back then... had to back it up to make sure we had heard it right... Oh, political correctness...
ReplyHate to nitpick but future Spock told Scotty how to beam on to a warp ship, something he wouldn't have figured out for years
Reply"When life gives you Tom Hanks, you make Hanksinade."
ReplyBeautiful!
Nitpick time. 5 seconds at Warp 3 doesn't allow a space ship to leave the solar system. Unless the ship was flying parpendicular to the orbits or the ship was already sitting around Pluto.
ReplyThis isn't a movie, but it's the same situation: In the show Eureka (on SciFi), time travel is invented and they ignore it (that part was understandable because they'd be killed if they came clean or something) but then one of the scientists who traveled in time got back to the present and used the broken machine to invent faster-than-light travel. Afterwards, he shows all the other scientists and proceeds to zap a woman across the Earth, and they're like, "cool story, bro". Later they use it to take a spaceship to Titan, but still, the show shows that the space mission is in the news, but apparently no one gives a damn about the most important discovery in the history of ever. It's always bugged me.
ReplyLove that show! Anyone know what episode this is ?
Also Deep Space Nine's orb of time. Accurate time travel in a box, based on just thinking where you want to go, and it's an in-universe set decoration in a Bajoran church.
One would at least think that, after the kid with the world-changing technology is witnessed by thousands, in an event whose repercussions made the front-page news everywhere and became like the biggest news story of that decade, at least someone in that world might have been inspired to try and copy that technology (or, say, steal it), even if the kid, for whatever reason, decides he doesn't want to share.
Replyisnt the fact that syndrome doesnt share like part of the plot, I mean in the movie they actually tell us that he could change the world but chooses not to (I saw this movie ages ago and I never thought of this point, so Im pretty much talking out of my ass)
ReplyThe thing about Buddy is that when he invents the rocket boots, he's too young to understand the impact they could have on world technology. the movie also goes to lengths to show us, that his entire life is fixated on heroes and becomming one - not changing the world. And at this age, when he's constantly rejected as Mr. Incredible's sidekick, a spite against all supers take hold, rather than a calm recollection of how to use his inventions for the greater good. Syndrome never really sought to help the world or to make money - all he wanted to do was to destroy the very concept of a unique hero. I don't really see how this article twists that into a quest for attention. In my book, the final part of the article somewhat misses the point.
And if we learn anything from crazy ass fundamentalists around the world, logical reflection of your possessions in relation to everybody else outthere isn't always present.
At the start of the movie Buddy just wants to be Mr. Incredible's sidekick, and he creates all that gear to keep up. He literally says after the timeskip that during the intervening period he sold some of his inventions (the less awesome ones) to become rich and finance his really high-tech stuff, but kept the best stuff for himself.
His whole plot is to become a superhero by use of his gadgets (and the setup with the robot), reveal that he doesn't have powers and that it's just his inventions that gave him an advantage, and give the tech to everyone, so "everyone can be super, everyone can be special," and in doing so eliminate what makes superheroes better than us. Sure, his reasons for doing so (revenge on a man who didn't want to put him in harms way) suck, but Syndrome was going to do something awesome. He was going to give everyone superpowers in a way the genetic scientists from Spider-Man could only dream of.
Either way, I have to wonder if these guys really watched the movie, or did it from memory.
"It's like if the guy who invented the printing press died broke and alone while everyone else continued to chisel out memos on stone tablets with a woodpecker."
ReplyThat's almost what happened- Gutenberg's debt was called in by his investor Johannes Fust, who claimed that the printer had used the 20.000 Guilders for other purposes than Fust had planned. In November 1455 the court decided in favor of Fust, giving him control over the Bible printing workshop and half of all printed Bibles. The Mainz Psalter, the first printed book in Europe, came out of the Fust–Schöffer workshop in August 1457, with no mention of Gutenberg. Gutenberg was later exiled and died penniless, his grave now lost to history.
I'm glad I wasn't the only one to wonder about why the Decepticons never used humanlike robots and instead started using real humans.
ReplyYou guys do realize that half of the movies on this list were adaptations of comic books, right?
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesSo?
So, there's a reason for that. The world of comics is a scary, scary place and almost every technological discovery is either unreproducible or kept secret by the inventor. I remember one short-lived comic about a teenage girl superhero whose power came from being a paralyzed gymnast with a cyber-suit that made her an un-paralyzed superhero. Her dad invented a cure for full-body paralysis but kept it secret so his daughter could risk her life fighting aliens and mutants. Comics are weird.
blaming the creator of the comic book is more appropriate than the movie makers.
Transporting in Star Trek is not limited by nature, but by the current technology. Gary Seven in "Assignment: Earth" was using alien transporter technology to travel across the galaxy. His technology was greater than that of the Federation. There are other instances of transporters being used at greater distances in the Star Trek universe. Also, Scotty's achievement are often not repeatable, due to his intuitive and scientifically undisiplined nature.
ReplyTo quote CollegeHumor, "That sounded poetic but made no sense!"
Unless he has the memory of a goldfish, he should have SOME idea of what he did to make those "achievements" work. In that case, all he has to do is fiddle around with the things he doesn't remember so well and bingo.
Yeah, like 90% of technological advancement comes from someone discovering something is possible, then lots of people figuring out how to make it reliable.
Also, I thought the transporter particles moved at the speed of light. How the f**k did they catch something going 27 times faster away from the transporter? Oh...magic. Got it.
I remember watching Big when it was released, and really wishing for a copy of the computer game that Tom Hanks' child character plays at the start, and then again at the end. I only found out a few months ago that it wasn't a real game, and that the ice wizard game segment was only created for the film. It would've been a kick ass game to play on the Commodore 64 at the time... and still now.
ReplySupercoolstorybro
Needsmoredragonsandshit
Nobody likes Booster.
ReplyIn "Big" Tom Hanks' character was looking for the machine the whole time. He went to city hall and they told him it would take 6 weeks to get the list of all carnivals and fairs in the area. He went to arcade game stores and searched for the Zoltar machine. When he got kind of into being an adult he stopped searching so hard, but he was always kind of looking. He didn't spend every waking second looking because he had a few basic needs to fill first. Like food and clothing and shelter. Gaping plot holes galore, I know, but he didn't just say "hey cool, I'm big!" and immediately dive into being an adult. (I know all this because it came on HBO like a week ago.) lol
ReplyYup it shows several times he is looking for it. He had a long wait time so he needed to earn money and live.
I made that comment about the Transformers movie immediately after it happened. There was so little thought put into that whole movie, it was ridiculous.
ReplyAt this point Michael Bay is actively f*****g with audiences. I think he literally thinks "Ha, I bet if I try this really retarded thing, people will still see my movies and nerds will scream and cry on the internet!" And so the Teenage Alien Ninja Turtles were created. He feeds on stupid people's money and geeks' impotent rage.
Is anyone getting nervous at the sudden appearance of TWO "if life gives you x make x-ade" jokes? Cause it was hilarious the first time and kinda funny the second......
ReplyIf life gives you anxiety, make anxiety-ade.
The Incredibles entry really ignores the whole point of the antagonist and the characterization of Mr. Incredible in the beginning. Yes, he COULD give a rat's ass about rocket boots, because he's busy trying to stop an explosive villain, not to mention the fact that he's seen plenty of superheroes who can fly. Buddy tries to explain to him that it's an invention, and he really doesn't care. Beyond that, the entire point is that Syndrome (Buddy) has already sold (presumably mild) technology ready, has spent considerable time on his island testing and creating new technology, and his plan is to make this "superhero" technology available to the general public. But thanks for seriously missing the entire background of a good movie.
Reply Hide All See All 6 Repliesyou basically just described the the X-men Mutant Registration Act. the tension between people born with powers, and those who gain powers through technology is a focus of that. it inspired "the incredibles", aka they stole it as most disney movies do.
welpwelp: Right, because no one else should ever write about superheroes, or at least the obvious and foreseeable social problems between those with superpowers and those without, or else they are totally stealing that revolutionary idea from Stan Lee. Yep. Sure.
Nathan, the point of the entry was that SOCIETY AS A WHOLE didn't give a rat's ass about the boots, which really makes no sense. Mr. Incredible wouldn't benefit from the tech -- society, on the other hand, would gain 100 years of technological progress.
Well yeah, they also sort of "stole" characters from the Fantastic Four, and "stole" plot ideas from Watchmen. Knowing those things actually makes it a better movie for me, not a worse one.
why is it a thing now for people to say "well I/he/she/it could care less" when what they mean is "I/he/she/it could NOT care less"? who thought that was a good idea?
Goes beyond superheroes. The Lion King was a thinly veiled rip off of a Japanese cartoon from the sixties. They've milked the public domain for damn near everything they possibly can. Disney is pretty much "Rip-off and adaption incorporated."