Hold It ...

Why didn't one of the elders just go themselves?

Even though Ivy successfully snags some medication from a friendly park ranger, the whole trip runs into an array of problems. To start, the people tasked with accompanying Ivy immediately abandon her, believing the monsters would kill them. Once her guards leave, Ivy is forced to avoid the aforementioned boner-jealousy guy, who has dressed as a monster. This is sort of tough, especially because, oh yeah, she can't see s**t. So now we've got this blind woman wandering through the woods alone trying to avoid getting stabbed or falling into a hole somewhere. All so you can protect your kids from learning about Xbox Live.

Any of the elders could have grabbed a walking stick and gotten the medicine themselves real quick. There'd be zero problems. Sure, they're each about as old as Benjamin Franklin's farts, but they also know the layout of the forest and aren't -- and this is surprisingly crucial -- suuuper blind. Also, they are remarkably set in their ways. You know who has the worst chance of becoming swayed by the evil sex and sins of 2004? Someone who hasn't had an erection since the Nixon administration. They can go out, grab the medicine, and never have to worry about blossoming minds succumbing to the allure of a Black Eyed Peas album.

The only guy who appears to have the right stuff is flying bug / awful Jewish stereotype Watto, who refuses Republic credits as payment. And Qui-Gon's furious Force hand-waving doesn't work, since Watto's mind is too strong -- or too distracted by Natalie Portman -- to have any effect. However, as Watto's slave, Anakin, seems gifted in the Force, Qui-Gon wagers his ship against the repairs, and the boy's freedom, provided that Anakin can win the next podrace. Watto eagerly accepts the deal, because Anakin crashes pretty much all the time. Fortunately, Anakin somehow wins, and he's freed to go murder a bunch of younglings and plunge the galaxy into horrific, genocidal warfare. Hell of a maneuver, Qui-Gon.

Hold It ...

Why not go mind-trick somebody else or ... do anything else?

Before you say something about Qui-Gon adhering to the Jedi Code or whatever, remember that he literally tried to brainwash the first person they encountered on the planet before giving up and pinning the fate of Naboo on the racing skills of a whiny ten-year-old. Why not mind-trick some other vendor? And if that doesn't work, simply play a couple hands of space poker or do some underground street fighting. It's hard to walk two feet in Tatooine without bumping into someone who wants to rip your face off; it can't be that difficult to palm-shake your way into some high-stakes bare-knuckle boxing.

If all that feels like too much effort, why not trade the Queen's ship for a functional ship that could safely transport them through space (and hide their identity better than the Queen's personal ship, which all but screams "Abduct me!")? Why not buy passage on an intergalactic bus, or freaking hire a smuggler guy like Han Solo to transport them, like in A New Hope? All of those options would take all of a few hours to sort out. And at no point would anyone ever have to hear Anakin scream "NOW THIS IS PODRACING!" And that, my friends, is the greatest treasure of all.

But doesn't anybody notice that the winners of these races disappear a few weeks after their win? Surely, word would get around. These are some of the best and most notorious drivers in the world, and at this point, Letty has already been involved in several major heists that warranted FBI attention. Also, how many insanely talented muscle car drivers are there? The series makes very clear that Dom's gang are almost supernaturally gifted vroom-vroomers, so how long is it before Braga exhausts his supply of competent drivers? After a few runs, he's going to be trying to recruit from the delivery team at his local Jimmy John's.

Braga puts a massive amount of effort into to constantly recruiting these one-of-a-kind drivers, only to blow them away a short time later. That's like if the band Dragonforce kept holding guitar battles to find a new replacement guitarist, only to shove them offstage to their deaths every three shows. Eventually, they're going to run out of musicians capable of playing their highly technical speed metal songs without bleeding all over the place. And no, nailing "Through The Fire And Flames" on Guitar Hero won't qualify you.

Thankfully, Angier goes to meet Cracked.com's Nikola Tesla, who happens to have built a big goddamn cloning machine. In the 1890s. Totally ignoring all the wonderful masturbatory possibilities the machine offers, Angier decides to use it in his act, because he's responsible. Countering Borden, Angier uses this thing at every gig, duplicating himself and killing the most recent "original Angier" via trap door, drowning him(self) in a tank full of water. Angier then lugs his drowned clones to a big warehouse for ... safekeeping? Or to kinda look at 'em, we guess.

Thankfully, each new clone has all of Angier's memories -- along with his winning Hugh Jackman-y smile and penchant for card tricks -- so it's almost like he never horribly drowned to death at all!

Hold It ...

Why would you ever need more than one clone?

At what point does Angier realize that he doesn't need to keep duplicating himself, but rather that he could use the same damn duplicate over and over? It's got his memories and stuff, so it wouldn't take too much convincing to get his clone to participate in the best plan in the world. After all, Angier consistently chooses to love magic over everything else in his life. It'll take two seconds before his clone would say, "Oh, not just lots of money, but lots and lots of money? Consider me in, me."

This option doesn't even appear to cross Angier's mind, since at the end of the movie, when he learns that Borden's version of the trick utilizes his twin brother, it blows Angier's magical mind. Why has Angier never considered that? Hell, he could make three or four clones and do an even crazier transportation trick, with them showing up under people's seats and beside them at the urinal. Of course, Angier would never consider this, as he's the kind of magician who would surgically graft a coin to the back of your skull just so you could pull it from behind your ear.

There's also the possibility that the cloning machine is the most brilliant magic trick of all time, but even then, dude, get a job.