5 Movie Characters Who Were Wildly Unqualified for Their Job
Action and sci-fi films are filled with cool-looking jobs that we would die to have. Who among us wouldn't push down a small child for a chance to be a Jedi or a James Bond-esque secret agent? But they require a lifetime of grueling training, beyond even what we see in the montages. Hell, even Harry Potter had to spend six years in wizard school.
Fortunately, if you lack the drive and dedication for that kind of career, there are other equally awesome fictional jobs that apparently just take a few days to learn.
#5. MIB Agent in Men in Black
The Men in Black are the best-kept secret on the planet. They're here to monitor alien life on Earth, make awesome quips and shoot elaborate weapons at ridiculously designed monsters. Best of all, if they ever slip up, they get to erase the memory of anyone who might have noticed.
"You wouldn't believe how often this gets us laid."
So in the film, NYPD officer James Edwards (Will Smith) is recruited to be one of the MIB after he impressively chases an alien on foot for a couple blocks. He is recruited into a class along with other candidates from the Marines, the Navy Seals and the Air Force, all chosen because they are "the best of the best." And Will Smith gets a shot because he can run fast for short distances.
"He passes the 'have a beer' test. Let's promote him to the World-Saving Department."
But, in a "it's so crazy it just might work" moment, Edwards does get the job and becomes Agent J. Well, all right, the MIB are clearly an "outside-the-box thinking" type of organization, so maybe they spotted some innate talent in him that could be cultivated with the right training. So, he gets the job.
"I like the way you shoot children."
So What's the Problem?
From that point on in the movie, they don't teach him jack shit.
Sure, they tell him aliens exist and give him the background on the MIB in the form of a quick tour, but from the moment that J puts on the suit, K (Tommy Lee Jones) throws him into the job headfirst and just expects him to catch up or ... uh, die, we guess?
"You know what totally wouldn't result in dozens of civilian casualties? Giving an inexperienced rookie a powerful and wildly inaccurate weapon and then not telling him."
Agent J is left to figure out how to use an impractically reckless gun and how to fight a giant cockroach unarmed (and other tasks that turn out to be equally dangerous, like delivering a predatory alien baby). Any one of those tasks alone would be difficult for an expert, and J has to stumble through it without so much as a company handbook.
"You're making coffee next."
Keep in mind, it's not like the Men in Black are some ragtag crew who are trying to figure it out as they go along. It's an enormously wealthy organization with lavish facilities and lots of staff. It has been around for decades. It's the "only line of defense against the worst scum of the universe."
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And yet, there he stands.
We guess you could say that the reason Smith was partnered with Tommy Lee Jones' character is that this is how they do on-the-job training at MIB, but at the end of the movie, J gets to assume that role as the lead partner doing the training. He even gets to pick his own trainee partner, and naturally, he picks the cute lady from the morgue. What about that whole "best of the best of the best" thing? We didn't see any deleted scenes of her chasing down an alien on foot. Where did all the standards of hiring go in the course of the film?
"No, there's no manual for that thing. Just point and hope."
That can't possibly be an effective staffing model.
#4. Astronaut in Armageddon
There is an asteroid the size of Texas headed straight toward Earth that threatens to wipe out every living thing. NASA has a plan, though: Their team of astronauts will land on the asteroid, drill a hole in the middle and blow it up with a nuclear bomb. NASA knows space, but they don't know drilling, so they seek the advice of the best driller on Earth, Bruce Willis. And that's where things fall apart.
And this is where the movie itself falls apart.
Bruce Willis takes one look at the team of astronauts who have been training on the drilling equipment for five months and decides they're all terrible. He insists that his own team of drillers be allowed to do the job instead and NASA, that pragmatic, rational institution of geniuses, agrees. Now it's time for a crash course in astronaut training for these roughnecks, as the asteroid is just days away.
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NASA: We'll pretty much try anything.
So What's the Problem?
We understand that the whole thing was just the writers' excuse to get Bruce Willis and his motley crew of misfits into space. But try to follow the logic here: They replace seven men who have years of astronaut training and months of drilling experience with seven guys who have years of drilling experience but just a few days of astronaut training. The only possible reason they would even consider that is if it were easier to be an astronaut than an oil driller.
"He's got the right stuff. I can feel it."
They turn out to be right. While things go wrong almost from the start, it's the roughnecks who can improvise and find solutions while the astronauts just yell a lot and die. Adding insult to injury, the one Russian cosmonaut who ends up on the shuttle knows how to fix technical problems on an American ship better than any of the American astronauts.
For whatever reason, NASA doesn't train its people to beat the equipment with wrenches.
The only real screw-up on the part of the drilling team is so absurd and out of place that it feels like the writers tacked it on to show that it wasn't just astronauts fucking up right and left. Steve Buscemi, the one man on the drilling team who has Ph.D.s and can solve a Rubik's Cube, gets a made-up disorder called space dementia. He fires a machine gun at everybody and destroys all the pertinent equipment. So the big question hanging over the plot like a, well, like an asteroid is: Why wasn't anybody trained on space madness when it's that big of an issue? And more importantly, why did NASA give this group of pretend astronauts a giant gun?
"We need these for SPACE!"
#3. Avatar Operators in Avatar
If you never actually watched the movie and think Avatar is just about a race of giant Smurf people, an Avatar is actually a lab-grown alien body that can be operated by a human like a remote control toy, via mind link. It's a little like Second Life meets The Island of Doctor Moreau.
The Second Life of Doctor Moreau would be an excellent zombie movie.
So in the film, a man has been training for years to operate one of these Avatars, but he unexpectedly dies. Because the system requires the human and alien body to be a genetic match, the company running the program reaches out to the dead guy's brother, Jake Sully, to do it in his place. And Jake, as you can guess, has absolutely no training.
"And we'll let anyone ride in the suits. Literally anyone. We've got some chefs running around out there."
To give you the proper context, Jake's brother spent three years in Avatar training and five years learning the language of the Na'vi (the aliens the Avatar lets him hang around with). And, more importantly, he logged 520 hours in the Avatar just practicing using the body.
So What's the Problem?
Within two minutes of being in the Avatar, Jake is already running and jumping. The very first time out, he's using his Avatar body to shoot an assault rifle:
"Rambo training is standard for the Future Marines."
The film briefly mentions Jake's lack of experience, but other than a momentary stumble when he first stands up in the body, we never see him struggle with it. Within days or weeks, Jake is fighting, climbing, using weapons with deadly accuracy and riding flying space pterodactyls. So what the hell did his brother spend hundreds of hours learning? How to play a Na'vi banjo?
And even somebody with years of experience in an Avatar Na'vi body should still be behind the curve compared to people who, you know, were born in one. Yet the untrained Jake progresses faster than even the Na'vi themselves, especially when it comes to their most sacred rite of passage: riding a goddamn banshee. This is a flying, thrashing beast that leaves no margin for error -- if you get thrown off once, you're splattered on the rocks a thousand feet below. There is no practicing it.
Avatar's ecosystem works remarkably like Grand Theft Auto.
Then, with just a few months experience walking and breathing as a Na'vi, Jake becomes just the sixth Na'vi in history to link to Toruk, the most badass flying dragon of all. That's not the sixth Avatar, or the sixth Na'vi in their tribe -- that's the sixth of the entire Na'vi species, ever. Holy shit, being a Na'vi is easy!
I thought the movie at least hinted at the idea that Lando and Han were both put in command of their respective operations because they were they only ones brave(or stupid) enough to volunteer for leadership of what had to seem like suicide missions.
ReplyAdditionally, I think you can make a case for both Lando and Han being qualified for leadership in a military body using only the context of the movies, and without knowing anything about the expanded universe.
- Both are clearly tactically adept and have military experience(Han proved that in the first two
movies, and Lando obviously had a battle in which is exploits were legendary.
- Both are likely to be politically adept in the Alliance. They are clearly great at making deals
(even if it is just to save themselves) and its reasonable to assume they each have numerous
nefarious and shady contacts capable of resource procurement(which might be prized by a
guerilla resistance organization).
- Both are reportedly very good pilots,
- Both are instrumental in the execution of what had to be considered suicidal rescue missions.
- Both are well respected by their firends(many of whom hold major sway in the alliance).
- Both show the ability to improvise in unenviable situations to overcome great odds against them
- Both clearly understand a multitude of alien languages.
Given all of those traits, these two guys look like damn good candidates for leadership. The only real question mark about them is that they have a reputation for being scoundrels but by the time of ROTJ, both were pretty well hated by the Empire, and were thus unlikely to defect. Why not put them in command? Especially when the empire has kicked your ass in every operation that didn't involve them.
One more point, many ancient civilizations, including the Romans, put as much stock in guys that were "lucky" as they did in guys that were brilliant tactically. These individuals were seen as having the gods on their side. Even in 18th century England, people were sometimes promoted to command of a ship or arsenal because their men believed they were lucky enough to always swing things in their favor. Conversely, commanders who were believed to be cursed, often stagnated in their careers through no real fault of their own. Han and Lando had to appear very lucky or very good, either way, it isn't far fetched to think they would have many men lining up to follow them.
To be honest, out of the 1100 or so comments about Han Solo, this is probably the first one I've read that was thought out and explained well enough to kinda persuade me.
Still wrong though.
Wasn't the main character's ability with the avatar explained at the beginning of the movie? If I recall correctly, controlling the avatar was more about the sync between the pilot and the avatar than it was about training. That was the whole premise for recruiting the brother, despite his lack of training. As the identical twin brother of the original pilot, he had the same genetic code, and therefore was the best candidate for controlling the avatar.
ReplyMy impression was that, the endless training was more experimentation for how to increase the compatibility of the avatar with its pilot. It isn't so much about controlling foreign muscles in someone else's body as it is allowing your brain to better control foreign muscles as if they were your own. If that is the case, then for an avatar that is already well primed, someone with the same genetic code would essentially pick up where his brother left off.
Additionally, I thought it was understood that his military training and adaptation to rigorous physical training regimens prior to his paralysis actually made the main character a better pilot than his brother in terms of what he could do with the avatar. In essence, because he was an elite physical performer as a human, his avatar, was also an elite physical performer, surpassing the other less athletic Navi.
In well awareness that it may have been just a joke J actally got called out for shooting the little girl target untill he explained why.
ReplyHan Solo's backstory includes training at the Imperial academy and he only got kicked out because he saved teen wolf from bullies.
Replythey missed john mcclane from die hard
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesWell... what?
Well see, he was a cop. So... I think they train those guys. Besides, John was super resourceful and dealt with terrorists who trained in talking too damn much and shooting with their eyes closed.
There was the whole barefoot, everyday man suddenly becoming the the most capable counterterrorist dude the world ever saw.
Well J, Lando, and Winston were qualified because these situations were in need of a token black guy (even though Darth Vader is actually black until the very end).
ReplyThe author's lack of Star Wars knowledge sickens me.
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesNot because of the actual lack of SW knowledge - but because it would take 5 minutes to google "Han Solo" or "Lando Calrissian" and then look at the military history on a wikipedia article. Star Wars, more than anything else, has full details of characters' lives.
And more importantly, this is the Rebel Alliance. In ANH, we see a group of 50 people take on a moon-sized weapon. Then we see hundreds/thousands fleeing for their lives on an ice planet. And then we have a group of a few more thousand being led by whoever survived the previous attacks. Lando and Han had many years of military experience - most of the others were three-years of experience pilots, and General isn't the highest rank. It's just silly to criticise it. If the Rebel Alliance were like the Empire, I'd see it as legitimate. But it's just silly.
The whole thing is laid out very clearly in my Star Wars fan fiction.
And then Han and Leia and all the aliens and the Rankor and Batman did teh sex0r. The End!
Oh but its MOVIE characters. See what they did there? They're ignoring the lore written in books that comparatively few people have read. Weird.
"He was just cruising around doing illegal s**t with teen wolf riding shotgun."
ReplyLMAO!!!!
Star Wars - Actually, the explanation for Han ranking up as fast as he did was on the cutting room floor. He was more than a cadet - he was an Imperial officer. He got ejected from service for saving Chewie - which was going to be mentioned as to the reason why they were together (in Return of the Jedi, if I recall), but it never made the cut.
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesThis really was a deleted scene that they filmed? Where can I find it?
@DavidIsGreat It's presumably on the bluray, or on Youtube.
Either way, it's mentioned in lots of novels and therefore across the internet, and would have taken 5 minutes of googling.
I was about to bring this up, and it made me mad seeing the lack of research here. The whole reason Han IS a smugger is because he AWOL'd from the Empire for refusing to kill Chewbacca or other Wookies slated to be slaves for the Empire. That's why they're partners in the first place.
oh but it isn't a deleted scene: that bit of backstory happened in the novels and even appears in graphic novel format.
Nah, five minutes of googling for you, five for me backed up with a long ass chain of events that would events to even get to google it.
In avatar they said he was unqualifed to have his own avatar, they just gave it to him becuse he was a match for it. The whole script was kinda stupid, but the visuals were awsome though.
ReplyYeah it was either let the kid try or toss a fully grown ready avatar in the trash. can't blame them for trying to salvage anything out of the loss.
MIB- It wasn't that Agent J could run short distances, but that he had a passion to invoke justice outside of his belief system and his instinct of fear of the unknown. He faced off against an alien, but worked to 'bring him in.' Also the fact that we assume any real agency that has to deal with wildly varied alien races could have a structured 'training' program might be the key to the suspension of disbelief. When dealing with the universe, training might philosophically be 'sink or swim' whereupon Agent J was able to swim.
ReplyGhostbusters- Yeah....he was unqualified.
Star Wars- Desperate resistances promote desperately. The current TV program 'Falling Skies' is a good example. You get to be a 'General' because you fricking survived and you have some expertise the other survivors didn't. I doubt anyone would question Han Solo being a General when he could easily say, 'I helped take down the Death Star...you know that ULTIMATE WEAPON THAT THREATENED YOUR HOMEWORLD, and I've been running circles around the Imperials before you were born, so shaddup!' On the record, Lando got too much credit. He should have been flying a B-Wing.
Armaggedon- They weren't there to be leaders, they were just workers. The 'leaders' got nailed and fate put them in the drivers seat. Deal with it.
no. Armageddon was still stupid.
For the record, Han Solo was a very promising cadet at the Empire's Military Academy before stepping in to stop the abuse of the teen wolf riding shotgun.
Reply Hide All See All 5 RepliesGOD! Do some nerd research.
Since the bookverse wasn't even written by George Lucas, the back story you mention (revealed in the books) most likely didn't exist until after the trilogy was completed. Nerdiness overruled.
Anything not in the movies is non-canon.
Why would Kenobi hide baby Luke on Tattooine of all f*****g planets, and why would Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru not change his surname from Skywalker to Lars?
Admittedly Luke Lars is a retarded name but at least he wouldn't have stood out like dog's balls should Vader ever decided to drop in on the relatives.
Actually, the whole "Han Saved Chewie" thing was covered in the infamous "Star Wars Holiday Special" Sanctioned by Lucas, Done with all the original actors and Very, Very canon.
I have a feeling the record's going to be getting a lot of mileage on appeal.
That always got me about ghostbusters. Once life after death, hence ghosts, were proven? The US Gov't would have moved in and siezed all the GB gear under the guise of national security. Then a division of seals would be armed with them to provide for homeland defense against undefined non-corporeal threats.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesYou conveniently forget that Ghostbusters was a comedy film.
Yeah, comedy film first off, but also even in Ghostbusters 2 people still talk like they suspected them of using scare tactics or hallucinogens to trick people into seeing "Ghosts"
I'm just surprised it was only the EPA that was even remotely interested in those nuclear backpacks.
A recurrent mistake when criticizing something in the Star Wars movies is to think that the whole story is what's shown in the movies.
Reply Hide All See All 5 RepliesA recurring mistake when criticizing something in the Star Wars movies is to think that anything outside the movies are anywhere near canon.
'Splinter of a Mind's Eye' anyone???
a recurrent mistake when criticizing anything is to think that anyone gives a f**k
I would bang my head on my desk, but after a few hundred comments on this subject it's just a pile of sawdust and bone fragments.
Didn't Lucas say he didn't care who wrote what for Star Wars as long as the movies weren't contradicted?
I just have a hard time not seeing Thrawn and some others as non-canon, because frankly, they were f*****g awesome.
Han also was a captain because he owned his own ship.
ReplyOr rather, because he commanded his own ship. Owners do not automatically get called captain. They may not ever even get on their ships (or spacecraft, or whatever).
I havent read the comments yet, so somebody probably said this already, and this might be the 300th comment mentioning it, but if the Expanded Universe counts, then if I remember correctly, Han was an officer in the Imperial Army and deserted when he saved Chewbacca from slavers.
Reply Hide All See All 3 Replies(yeah i should have read the comments first...its probably more than 300)
Maybe another thing mentioned 300 times, the Stormtroopers in the original trilogy are no longer clones.
That's not to mention his various other para-military exploits (saving Nar Shadda from an Imperial fleet, infiltrating and wrecking a slavery/drug manufacturing planet, stealing whatever isn't nailed down through balls and luck).
Then Lando, who was also a part of the Nar Shadda defense and whose maneuver at Tanaab was pretty clever (though not necessarily general-worthy) is in the same boat as any number of other famous rebels, and in some cases worse. He only worked for the Empire at Cloud City for about a week. Tycho Celchu was an Imperial Officer and damn good at it until he "spontaneously" quit, joined the Rebels, was captured, possibly indoctrinated (they didn't know at first), "escaped" (again, weren't sure on circumstances), and let into the most elite fighter squadron in the Alliance. Defecting commanders were consistently permitted to maintain their Imperial rank and ship/squad/etc. in the Rebel military. Lando? He was the creme of the crop.
@gameld
Things written one-handed by dorito-fingered people don't count
Hating on Agent J, Winston, and Lando? I see how it is. Ya'll is just racist.
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesAt least we can spell "y'all".
Hollywood is racist, because it promotes the subtle notion that black people are unskilled and unlettered, and need to learn at the feet of the Wise White Man before he can act the hero.
nobody is racist anymore
racism is still funny, it's just a matter of whether or not you are going to laugh at it or give yourself a heart attack being pissed off about it chill the f**k out and learn to speak proper english you f****n monkey m**********r
I don't have a problem with most of your article. But, of course, we're not dealing with 'reality', and we know that reality is discarded in an effort to make a plot point more often then we care to think about...
ReplyI do disagree about Agent J. Accepting that what he is told is the truth is at issue. I believe you are incorrect about why Will Smith's character in MIB was chosen. It is not 'because he can run fast for short distances'. It is because he responded quickly in the face of the impossible, and it did not disuade him from doing his job, even though he had difficulty believing his eyes. He is chosen because he has that skill. He shows that again in the target exercise, looking beyond the obvious, and dealing with the strange. And we don't know if there was a handbook or not. There may have been, and he may not have taken the time to read it(which as a plot device, makes for comedic moments), or may not have had time to read it, with the global threat immediately following his assignment to K. As far as the Medical Examiner goes, she also dealt with the insanity well. That could be the main criteria for being chosen.
The 'best of the best' could well have been a test, for J. An attempt to get the character to see how 'serious' this was, and not a 'real test' at all.
Let's not forget Jek Porkins (a.k.a. "Piggy" and "Belly Runner"), the fat ass X-Wing pilot who I was surprised could actually fit inside of the goddamn thing. We all know he wasn't qualified for his job because he was too freaking heavy for the X-Wing to actually function properly.
ReplyAll body mass is weightless in space. You, sir, fail.
weightlessness aside the f****n guy looked like he had no room in that fighter he was flying. but still on that weightlessness point pasjc there is bashing on.... anything the size of the death star would in fact create its own gravity... weightless right on the surface of it? you are the failure sir
"It's true that in The Empire Strikes Back they are calling him captain, so that means he rose to that rank in the three short years since A New Hope." I thought they called Solo captain because he owned/commanded the M. Falcon. Anyone who commands their own ship/boat is it's captain, right? Doesn't have to mean your in the military.
Reply Hide All See All 6 RepliesThere is no such thing as the "M. Falcon." It's not a person. It's a ship, and an especially awesome ship at that. It's the Millenium Falcon. No, not everyone who owns a boat is a captain. Look at all the tankers in the world. They are owned by elderly businessmen who are too busy collecting fuzzy dice or whatever to go out and pilot the ships. They are not called Captain. The guy steering the boat may be called Captain, but usually it's just some helmsman. The Captain has a lot more responsiblities. You have permanently lost your Star Wars privliges. Don't even pretend that you're really a Star Wars fan. No self-respecting Star Wars fan, or even self-respecting person, would refer to the Millenium Falcon as the "M. Falcon," nor would they claim that General Han Solo was a captain just because he owned a cargo ship. He was a Captain, an officer of the Rebellion. I don't care if you like it, it was a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Fair warning, if you ever enter a room containing Star Wars items, from now until the day you mercifully die, an alarm will sound and you will be asked to leave by several uniformed Stormtroopers who have been equipped with surprisingly conventional weapons (of the 'put multiple bullet holes in your 'M. Falcon' ass variety).
Pardon me BFE1127 but I was a Star Wars nerd probably before you were born. I saw STAR WARS in '77, not Episode IV: A New Hope either, but FREAKIN' STAR WARS! Before Lucas messed them up with new 'features' and made Han a wuss by having Greedo shoot first and then creating those pre-abortions starring Jarr-Jarr Idiot. And I saw them all as a kid in the theater like intended. Sorry, no I'm not sorry, that in the last 30 years since I've grown up, married, fathered two wonderful children, and in having such a life forgot a few details about Lucas' saga. I guess living in mom's basement gives one plenty of time to fine tune the old sci-fi noggin. Won't see you at Comic-Con.
Holy s**t you guys are lame.
@bfe1127
You are f*****g pathetic.
Does BFE stand for Big f*****g Eyesore? Or Big f*****g Emo? I guess a pretentious pizzaface like yourself could be either, so I had to ask.
And yes Han Solo is a captain because he owns and operates the M. Falcon.
*sigh* When used by civilians, the term "captain can be applied to anyone who owns a ship. This is also true in Star Wars. However, considering the fact that the Alliance was basically operating as a military (including the use of ranks), it makes no sense to mix the military use of captain with the colloquial use of the word. And even if we do factor in Han's military experience for an actual rank of captain, the jump from Lieutenant (the highest rank he obtained) to Captain is still quite a jump for a man who had no military action for years.