# And the dumbest line of the movie is...
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-the-dumbest-line-of-the-movie-is/456498
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [July 14, 2008, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-the-dumbest-line-of-the-movie-is/456498 "2008-07-14T21:04:36Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)
#### Post date: [July 14, 2008, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-the-dumbest-line-of-the-movie-is/456498/1 "2008-07-14T21:04:36Z")
In [this post](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=9971318&postcount=24), Larry Borgia claims that Agent Smith’s line about humans being viruses is the dumbest line in a profoundly dumb movie. Larry is, only half right. While The Matrix is almost parameciumically idiiot, there are many, many stupider lines of dialogue in the movie; the assertion that humans are being used by batteries by the computers comes to mind.
What are some other incredibly stupid lines of movie dialog?
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### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [July 14, 2008, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-the-dumbest-line-of-the-movie-is/456498/2 "2008-07-14T21:07:40Z")
_Star Trek V:_ “Excuse me . . . Why does God need a starship?”
(A perfectly intelligent question which only serves to illustrate the stupidity of the plot; Kirk should not have been the first one to think of that.)
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### Author:  [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)
#### Post date: [July 14, 2008, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-the-dumbest-line-of-the-movie-is/456498/3 "2008-07-14T21:08:55Z")
The movie _Independence Day_ comes to mind – I will have to think about the absolute worst line in it – there were so many.
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### Author:  [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)
#### Post date: [July 14, 2008, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-the-dumbest-line-of-the-movie-is/456498/4 "2008-07-14T21:11:37Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
_Star Trek V:_ “Excuse me . . . Why does God need a starship?”
(A perfectly intelligent question which only serves to illustrate the stupidity of the plot; Kirk should not have been the first one to think of that.)
[/QUOTE]
Not to argue against the stupididy of Trek V, but I can’t agree with your reasoning here. Kirk wasn’t the only one to think of it; he was just the first to verbalize it. Most of that movie’s stupid was in the plot, not the dialogue.
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### Author:  [@Sateryn76](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sateryn76)
#### Post date: [July 14, 2008, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-the-dumbest-line-of-the-movie-is/456498/5 "2008-07-14T21:26:55Z")
My nomination is in Pretty Woman - a really good popcorn movie, romance and money and high living and everything else, spoiled by the last line…
Richard Gere: “What happens after he rescues the princess (paraphrase)…”
Juila Roberts: “She rescues him right back!”
Uhhh - it just grates on me! The last line of a good movie, and it’s just ruined!
I’m getting mad right now!!
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### Author:  [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)
#### Post date: [July 14, 2008, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-the-dumbest-line-of-the-movie-is/456498/6 "2008-07-14T21:32:03Z")
Ooh! Ooh! Mine!
“Do you know what happens to a toad when it’s struck by lightning? The same thing that happens to everything else.” – Storm, _X-Men_
Poor Halle. She tried to deliver the line as cool and badassed as possible, but there’s no saving it. It’s the stupidest line I’ve ever had the misfortune to hear in a movie.
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### Author:  [@Gala\_Matrix\_Fire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gala_Matrix_Fire)
#### Post date: [July 14, 2008, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-the-dumbest-line-of-the-movie-is/456498/7 "2008-07-14T21:43:05Z")
In \*The Kingdom \* (Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Garner) when Jamie Foxx’s character interrupts the Saudi policeman, whose about to bust down a door to save an FBI agent who was captured and is about to be killed, by asking, “Which side do you think Allah’s on?”
Plus every single time someone has important, time-is-of-the-essence information to convey and instead of saying it, they preface it with, “Listen to me very carefully…” _Grrrrrrr_
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### Author:  [@pinkfreud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinkfreud)
#### Post date: [July 14, 2008, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-the-dumbest-line-of-the-movie-is/456498/8 "2008-07-14T21:48:53Z")
“Love means never having to say you’re sorry,” from _Love Story_.
This line infuriated me when I first heard it in a movie theater, and I am still pissed off. I don’t want to have a relationship with someone who believes that love excuses him or her from apologizing. I think that love sometimes means saying you’re sorry when you don’t believe you’re in the wrong. Love means consciously avoiding things that would necessitate being sorry. But love does not mean never having to say you’re sorry. Not in my world, anyway.
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### Author:  [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)
#### Post date: [July 14, 2008, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-the-dumbest-line-of-the-movie-is/456498/9 "2008-07-14T21:56:48Z")
[QUOTE=pinkfreud]
“Love means never having to say you’re sorry,” from _Love Story_.
This line infuriated me when I first heard it in a movie theater, and I am still pissed off. I don’t want to have a relationship with someone who believes that love excuses him or her from apologizing. I think that love sometimes means saying you’re sorry when you don’t believe you’re in the wrong. Love means consciously avoiding things that would necessitate being sorry. But love does not mean never having to say you’re sorry. Not in my world, anyway.
[/QUOTE]
To be fair, Ryan O’Neill said, “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard” when the line was repeated to him in _What’s Up Doc_.
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### Author:  [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)
#### Post date: [July 14, 2008, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-the-dumbest-line-of-the-movie-is/456498/10 "2008-07-14T22:04:19Z")
_The Matrix_ isn’t **that** dumb (compare to any Michael Bay movie, any romantic comedy, anything Adam Sandler, Rob Schneider, or Seth Rogan touches, etc, ad nauseum) - it’s a really good action movie that got a little bit spoiled by obsessive fanboys drooling over it and pseudo-intellectuals carrying on about how philosophical it was.
Not unlike _Donnie Darko_ now that I put it that way.
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### Author:  [@Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sophistry_and_Illusion)
#### Post date: [July 14, 2008, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-the-dumbest-line-of-the-movie-is/456498/11 "2008-07-14T22:06:30Z")
_Sling Blade_, when Billy Bob Thornton is about to go whack Dwight Yoakam and stops by John Ritter’s place and says to him, “That Frank, he lives inside of his own heart. That’s an awful big place to live in. You take good care of that boy.” WTF does that mean? 10 years later, that’s one of the few parts of that movie I remember because it was so dumb. It reduced my enjoyment of that film by about 50%.
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### Author:  [@Speaker\_for\_the\_Dead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Speaker_for_the_Dead)
#### Post date: [July 14, 2008, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-the-dumbest-line-of-the-movie-is/456498/12 "2008-07-14T22:17:46Z")
“Noooooooooooo!”
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### Author:  [@silverfish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silverfish)
#### Post date: [July 14, 2008, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-the-dumbest-line-of-the-movie-is/456498/13 "2008-07-14T22:52:50Z")
[QUOTE=Bosstone]
Ooh! Ooh! Mine!
“Do you know what happens to a toad when it’s struck by lightning? The same thing that happens to everything else.” – Storm, _X-Men_
Poor Halle. She tried to deliver the line as cool and badassed as possible, but there’s no saving it. It’s the stupidest line I’ve ever had the misfortune to hear in a movie.
[/QUOTE]
According to Joss Whedon, who wrote that line, it was supposed to be delivered off-hand, not cool and badass at all, which I think would have worked better. [cite](http://www.avclub.com/content/node/24238)
[QUOTE=Joss Whedon]
Everybody remembers that as the worst line ever written, but the thing about that is, it was supposed to be delivered as completely offhand.
[Adopts casual, bored tone.] “You know what happens when a toad gets hit by lightning?”
Then, after he gets electrocuted,
“Ahhh, pretty much the same thing that happens to anything else.” But Halle Berry said it like she was Desdemona.
[Strident, ringing voice.] “The same thing that happens to everything eeelse!”
[/QUOTE]
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### Author:  [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)
#### Post date: [July 14, 2008, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-the-dumbest-line-of-the-movie-is/456498/14 "2008-07-14T23:04:14Z")
[QUOTE=silverfish]
According to Joss Whedon, who wrote that line, it was supposed to be delivered off-hand, not cool and badass at all, which I think would have worked better. [cite](http://www.avclub.com/content/node/24238)
[/QUOTE]
Should have been left out entirely. Whedon has a habit of putting clever, semi-clever, or pseudo-clever lines into scenes where they’re just not needed. Of course, that’s common in comic books, too, so maybe it’s appropriate for that movie.
The fantasy genre provides a rich vein of stupidity. Anybody remember the animated movie _Wizards_? Perhaps the stupidest single line was this:
> [@Stupid movie about wizards](#):
>
> They have weapons and technology. We only have love.
That’s said by somebody on the side of the good guys. At the end, the good guy wins by shooting the bad guy with a semi-automatic handgun.
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### Author:  [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)
#### Post date: [July 14, 2008, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-the-dumbest-line-of-the-movie-is/456498/15 "2008-07-14T23:32:08Z")
[QUOTE=silverfish]
According to Joss Whedon, who wrote that line, it was supposed to be delivered off-hand, not cool and badass at all, which I think would have worked better. [cite](http://www.avclub.com/content/node/24238)
[/QUOTE]
Hate to defend Whedon, because I really don’t care for the guy, but he’s so right here, and Halle Berry is so wrong, it’s embarassing.
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### Author:  [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)
#### Post date: [July 14, 2008, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-the-dumbest-line-of-the-movie-is/456498/16 "2008-07-14T23:46:37Z")
I love “stating the obvious” lines. There are very similar scenes in other movies, but I’ll use the Francis Ford Coppola/Kenneth Branagh version of _Frankenstein_ since it’s first to mind.
The opening scene: a ship (captained by Aidan Quinn) is somehow stranded in the Arctic Circle. The terrified men are trying their best to gauge and extract themselves from the situation. As they’re on deck they hear the winds howling and then they hear a moan that is unmistakably coming from something that’s alive- possibly human, possibly not, but clearly a moan issued by some kind of big mammal.
Captain Aidan Quinn: “There’s something out there!”
* * *
A big budget movie with so much more than its share of stupid lines is Demi Moore’s _The Scarlet Letter_. I nominate three for the officially stupidest line:
1. During the long completely-missing-from-the-book courtship with Reverend Dimmesdale (Gary Oldman) he says words to the effect of 'it’s like you’re reading my mind".
Goody Demi Prynne: [giggling] Maybe I’m a witch!
Yeah… that’s something New England Puritan gals of the 17th century joked about with the new minister in town everyday.
1. Later in the same movie a townswoman remarks “It is said that she does not feel the need for a minister to speak to God!” and people are of course gasping with horror at the very notion that a woman would do this thing… which is the whole essence of the Protestant Reformation… and was particularly important to Puritans.
2. Not the line itself so much as the delivery:
One of the elders of the village is in bed with his wife discussing “The Problem of Hester Prynne” and debating what should be done to make an example of her. His wife has a light bulb (or whale oil lamp) click on as she thinks of something so nasty and terrible that they can do to her. She says “I have an idea” then leans over and whispers it in her husband’s ear, and he smiles (sadistically of course).
Okey doke— the idea involved putting a letter on her blouse cut from scarlet cloth… a scarlet letter if you will… on her blouse. That’s something you’d have never seen coming.
They’re alone- there’s nobody else in the room with them. Why does she _whisper_ it to him?
For that matter, if half the village was sharing their bedroom- it’s to be a public punishment, and it was still in the “just brainstorming here” phase- why was she _whispering_ it to him?
Trivia: Gore Vidal was offered and accepted a role in that movie (possibly the village leader above) but turned it down when he read the _treatment_- not the script, just the description.
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### Author:  [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)
#### Post date: [July 14, 2008, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-the-dumbest-line-of-the-movie-is/456498/17 "2008-07-14T23:59:51Z")
[QUOTE=silverfish]
According to Joss Whedon, who wrote that line, it was supposed to be delivered off-hand, not cool and badass at all, which I think would have worked better. [cite](http://www.avclub.com/content/node/24238)
[/QUOTE]
That does put a new spin on it. Huh.
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### Author:  [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)
#### Post date: [July 15, 2008, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-the-dumbest-line-of-the-movie-is/456498/18 "2008-07-15T00:00:58Z")
**The Covenant** is movie about boys from Ipswich, MA whose magical power is passed down through family lines.
Chase Collins: I’m going to make you my Wee-yotch!
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### Author:  [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)
#### Post date: [July 15, 2008, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-the-dumbest-line-of-the-movie-is/456498/19 "2008-07-15T00:46:48Z")
There are lost of dumb lines from dumb movies (and some good ones) however I just can’t get past the OP’s selection.
_The Matrix_ was a very good movie that got a little over-rated and a little spoiled by hype and the existence of the sequels. However it’s just not fair to say that the Sci-Fi premise is dumb. All Sci-Fi/Fantasy movies require the suspension of disbelief. Some of the premises are really strained and some create too many contradictions to work but the Humans as batteries isn’t in that category. As far as technobabble goes it works just fine, in my opinion. Plus, it’s not a "dumb movie line!, it’s a premise. Even if you think that it’s too incredulous for your liking, there’s a difference between a character having some exposition to explain the plot and a “dumb quote” that is more or less for dramatic effect.
Also, I find the quote that inspired the OP from **Larry** to be mostly OK too. Agent Smith gets some of the phrasing wrong and he’s not correct in any real scientific way but it’s not completely without support. If you take it to mean that all animals/mammals exist as a part of a self-balancing ecosystem you’d pretty much be right. In nature over-population leads to starvation and/or the destruction of vital habitat. Humans are essentially above that due to our intelligence and technology. It’s not that animals consciously limit their population, but it happens one way or another, people may or may not have that problem someday but _The Matrix_ clearly assumes that we don’t. The analogy to a virus is a little different and I’m not savvy enough about molecular biology and infectious disease to say if it’s apt, but taken as a metaphor it doesn’t seem completely dumb.
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### Author:  [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)
#### Post date: [July 15, 2008, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-the-dumbest-line-of-the-movie-is/456498/20 "2008-07-15T01:07:14Z")
The Matrix was not a very good movie. It was a piece of idiocy whose only saving grace was that the explosions were really, really pretty.
The problem with “worst” dumb lines of dialog is that they almost always are part of movies whose every line of dialog is dumb. You can usually tell within the first minute whether or not to listen to the dialog and watch with the sound off.
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