5

How Do Supervillains Get So Much Money For Their Schemes?

It's not uncommon to see a supervillain suddenly pull a 30-foot laser cannon out of nowhere. Their corresponding hero is usually a titanic mix of jawline and tricep meat, so the antagonist has to even the odds somehow. These giant death rays are the only things that are keeping them from becoming a toothless bruise on Gotham's sidewalk. But how do they afford them? When the entire world knows you as "Poison Ivy," and you dress solely in leaves, it's kind of hard to pick up an extra shift at Wendy's.

As it turns out, superhero movies and TV shows usually only show us the most explode-y of villainous schemes. Sure, there are characters like the Penguin, who runs a night club called the Iceberg Lounge and presumably gets his spendin' money from Half-Off Drinks for Ladies and Killer Croc Nights. But what about the other guys? When the Joker needs money, does he do the Jack Nicholson thing and put on facepaint? That was at the beginning of the Joker's career. Everybody knows what he looks like by now, made up or otherwise. "I'm sorry, sir. But we can't give you that loan. Well, your credit is not so good. Also, you launched a laughing gas bomb at me and my family no fewer than eight times last year."

4

Why Haven't All Of The Zombies Decayed By Now?

When the zombie apocalypse goes down, it's going to fill the world with billions of fresh undead folk. And over time, due to weather conditions, or lack of flesh intake, or simple rotting, those zombies' numbers will dwindle down. Eventually, all you'll have to deal with are violent warlords and that one dude who's been holed up in a shack with nothing to listen to but post-2002 Metallica albums, so you know he's gonna be mad. And that's not so bad. I know that these shows try to teach us that humans are the REAL monsters. But I can buy a human a beer and maybe talk them out of cutting my hands off. Zombies HATE when you try to buy them a round.

3

Why Is The Lord Of The Rings One Big Deus Ex Machina?

You know the Grand Theft Auto cheat codes that let you just drop a jet plane in the middle of the streets so you can zoom out of the five-star wanted level you just dipped yourself in? That's kind of what the Eagles are in Lord Of The Rings. Whether its Bilbo and his dwarf crew being saved from goblins, them coming down to even the odds in the Battle of Five Armies, Gandalf being saved from Saruman by them, or them rescuing Frodo and Sam from Mount Doom, the Eagles kind of seem like they're there to provide a Band-Aid to the narrative problems that J.R.R. Tolkien created for himself. That way he could focus on more important things, like looking impressive while smoking a pipe. Tolkien came out of the womb with a freshly packed bowl.

This leads people to say, "Why didn't the Eagles take care of [insert dangerous task here]?" Most commonly, that hypothetical dangerous task is delivering the One Ring to Mount Doom so that it can be destroyed. And those people haven't been paying attention to any part of the movies. They were probably staring at the majesty of Liv Tyler, or wondering if Gimli gives good hugs. I bet he does. I bet it's like hugging a wool blanket, and I bet it smells like good beer, sawdust, and hope.

For instance, remember one of the most important parts of the Fellowship Of The Ring, when Frodo offers Gandalf the Ring and Gandalf tells him, verbatim, "DON'T GIVE ME THAT RING, DAWG. I'M FRIGGIN' GANDALF." He doesn't do that because the Ring will give him a rash or because it doesn't match his magic bathrobe; he does it because he's Gandalf. If that Ring gets to him and turns him evil, imagine all the damage that he could do. He'd kill Frodo, and then eat all of the delicious Hobbit cakes, and then torch the Shire with a fart.

2

Why Are The Lightsaber Battles So Bad In The Original Star Wars Trilogy?

So Luke, Han, Leia, Chewie, and the robot Odd Couple are about to escape the Death Star. Huzzah. Those rapscallions beat the odds and did it. They then see Obi-Wan in the early stages of dueling Darth Vader, and man, you better get pumped for this. Obi-Wan, this stately British gentleman, is about to go head to head with Darth Vader, a big wheezy cyborg? Sign me up for 20 minutes of this. It's gonna be so awesome ... Huh, I guess that's it. A few clunky moves, and then Darth Vader just kinda chops Obi-Wan's ghost in two. Well. That was ... a thing.

1

How Do Slasher Movie Killers Catch Up When They're So Slow?

It's a question that we've been asking ever since the first deformed masked man rose from the ocean depths, breathed in his first air, and promptly began chasing a bunch of half-nude camp counselors: How do slasher movie villains catch up? Whenever it comes time to start hunting down all of the teenagers, the teenagers usually get a sizable lead, while the slasher icons hang out in the background, halfheartedly ambling like vengeful mall walkers. And then suddenly the teenager finds that the killer is already in the house or the car or the closet or the pantry, sniffing the old bags of tortilla chips and judging you for how many tweed jackets you own.

In the mid 2000s, there was a grand wave of horror remakes, and many of them sought to "fill in" the previously bare portions of the plot. For example, how did Michael Myers become the way he is? Well, if you cared to know, his parents yelled a lot, mostly. But when they weren't being terrible, pointless, frustrating ideas, they were actually illuminating some of the points that fans had asked about for decades. And one of those points was "How do the slasher characters catch up in Friday The 13th and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre? Tunnels, bro."

When it comes to sheer size, the two biggest slasher characters are Jason and Leatherface. If there were any characters who might not have the cardio of an athletic young adult, it's the guy who sits around and listens to his mom's decapitated head all day long and the guy whose diet is solely human meat. Not treadmill or "leg day" kind of guys. So installed in the side of Leatherface's Murder n' Crafts basement office is a handy tunnel that lets him pop out on the outskirts of the house when he wants to. You'd think it would be a storm cellar or something, but nope. It's just doors attached to a bizarrely long tunnel, so that Leatherface doesn't have to stomp his bloody shoes on the living room carpet when he wants to get outside. And I'm not just suggesting that as "maybe there are tunnels." They have a literal chase scene through them in both the sequel and the 2003 remake. They're there, and he uses them regularly.

Friday The 13th's Jason, on the other hand, has tunnels that go all around Crystal Lake. First of all, kudos are in order. That is really industrious, and if this whole "disfigured unkillable psychopath" thing doesn't work out, maybe Jason has a future in public works. But any time there's a person chilling by the dock, Jason just pops out of one of his little gopher holes and takes them down. Someone near the mess hall and you don't want to risk exposing yourself from too far away? Head down into your camp-sized crawlspace and worm your way over. Drop a few mini fridges down there and you'd have a pretty solid man cave. Or a big dirt room with a mini fridge in it. Either way, you win.

Daniel has a Twitter, where he mostly talks about Pokemon. Sorry about that.

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