# Best works with the dumbest plot elements **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 2, 2017, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-works-with-the-dumbest-plot-elements/790326 "2017-07-02T02:26:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2017, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-works-with-the-dumbest-plot-elements/790326/21 "2017-07-02T15:24:31Z")
> [@Unpronounceable](#): > > They show up in one of the books too. Where they find and test-fire a weapon labeled “incredibly stupid weapon: DO NOT USE.” They blow up the mountain they were aiming at, then the beam circles the planet and kills them all. How the fuck does a beam circle a planet? ---
**Author:** ![Defensive\_Indifference](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/defensive_indifference/32/6502_2.png) [@Defensive\_Indifference](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Defensive_Indifference)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2017, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-works-with-the-dumbest-plot-elements/790326/22 "2017-07-02T15:26:45Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > In _The Hunt for Red October_ (the movie, it’s been ages since I read the book) the U.S intelligence community freaks out because the Soviets have created an undetectable ballistic missile submarine. Except it turns out it’s not undetectable at all. The first sub to encounter it, the sonar operator figures out the sound the new drive system makes and is able to track it perfectly. As soon as that’s discovered, the U.S. priorities should change. It would become less important to capture the Red October, and much more important to get that tracking information to the rest of the U.S. fleet. You know, I love that movie, and I never thought of that :smack:. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2017, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-works-with-the-dumbest-plot-elements/790326/23 "2017-07-02T16:35:09Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > [hijack] It’s an _It’s A Wonderful Life_ with an even more relatable message: Even if you’ve never looked into the emptiness, you still have regrets, mistakes, and things you wish you’d never done. Picard, he’s had a few, but then, too few to mention… except for the one killing him right now, which Q graciously offers him a Mulligan on. So he avoids rigging a rigged game, so a Nausicaan no longer sticks a Kobayashi up his valley of the wind, and a doctor never has to tinker with his ticker… :: golf clap :: ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2017, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-works-with-the-dumbest-plot-elements/790326/24 "2017-07-02T18:06:46Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > The movie **Gattaca** , in almost its entirety. I’m glad to see a film trying to discuss such a serious sci-fi topic and it’s very well directed, but as many have noted it’s reasonable to think that the main character is pretty much a bad guy and the message of the story is all backwards. I would agree with that characterization. It’s a movie about a bad person just as much as Memento is, but it’s not clear that the director realized that point which seems like a fair reason to call it a stupid plot. Still, I think it’s a great film. Amen, brother. The entire setup falls apart if you think about it. Re: Wonder Woman It was clear that what hid the island was _fog_, not a storm. The heavy fog kept people out, especially if the charts indicated there were treacherous rocks in the area. A ship would never go near there – no visibility (or radar), potential for running aground or sinking, and nothing about them on the charts. The airplane, OTOH, didn’t have much choice but to go into the fog, since it was crashing. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2017, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-works-with-the-dumbest-plot-elements/790326/25 "2017-07-02T18:57:14Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > How the fuck does a beam circle a planet? Forget it, Jake–it’s Mediatiein Town. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2017, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-works-with-the-dumbest-plot-elements/790326/26 "2017-07-02T21:14:59Z")
> [@Aquadementia](#): > > How is Ethan Hawke’s character a bad guy? He’s probably got a heart condition and he uses illicit means to gain a job where others’ safety depends on his certified health. Fundamentally, the movie is trying to be anti-science. But science (the study of reality) is science. You can’t wish your way through a wall or magic up perfect health. If you’ve got a medical device telling you that you’ve got a heart condition, then you’ve got a heart condition. It may suck for you that everyone is assuming you’re stupid (when you aren’t) because you weren’t artificially selected for, but that doesn’t give you a free ticket to endanger the lives of other people. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2017, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-works-with-the-dumbest-plot-elements/790326/27 "2017-07-02T21:27:38Z")
There is no way in Hell rupturing the water tanks on the top floor of a 110 story skyscraper is going to put out 60 floors of solid fire. Thank God for John Williams. ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2017, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-works-with-the-dumbest-plot-elements/790326/28 "2017-07-02T23:08:57Z")
[quote=“Elendil\_s\_Heir, post:3, topic:790326”] I agree with you about “Conscience of the King.” Surely they would have fingerprints, voiceprints, even DNA of Gov. Kodos. To be fair, identifying someone using their DNA is something that came about long after the episode aired. It’s also an example of recent real-life science actually being more advanced than that projected in a work of science fiction set hundreds of years in the future. That said, what bothered me about the episode was they made Kodo/Karidian a despotic ruler like Hitler or Mussolini. It would’ve been more believable if he was some lesser-known functionary like [John Dejanjuk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Demjanjuk) who committed numerous horrible crimes in his youth and then hid in plain sight for years in some oridnary occupation. As it is, it’s like if Pol Pot disappeared in 1979 and turned up years later under the name Pot Pal as the star of a wacky American sitcom about an Asian restaurant. ---
**Author:** ![Anise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/anise/32/21721_2.png) [@Anise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anise)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2017, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-works-with-the-dumbest-plot-elements/790326/29 "2017-07-02T23:52:44Z")
I LOVED Darmok!! There are certain aspects that probably work better if you don’t think about them too much… but I think I always assumed that the actual language was much, much more complex than anything the TNG crew was hearing from them at the time. I think that’s the best explanation we’re going to get about Wonder Woman. 😉 I still have a couple of questions about it, but at some point, suspension of disbelief has to take over. Okay, here’s one, although I’m not sure if it’s a dumb element as much as one that raises more questions once you really think about it. In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy wakes up from a head injury… coma… something… at a certain point. It’s at the very end of her entire Oz hallucination. Something that never really occurred to me before is the question of why she woke up at that exact point and not earlier. Why did she experience the entire story narrative and THEN come to consciousness? I’ve been in a coma for weeks, I’ve drifted in and out while in a hospital for months and on heavy drugs, and it doesn’t exactly work like that. You don’t go through an entire coherent narrative before the moment when you recover enough to be aware of the outside world and then fully wake up. (It was a car accident, btw.) So what did this actually mean? Was the filmmaker subtly trying to hint that the plot might have been similar to Frank Baum’s original book, where Dorothy literally went to Oz and no head injury was involved?? Was it just a plot device, because it obviously worked better for the narrative for Dorothy to wake up as soon as she finished the Oz journey? What? ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2017, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-works-with-the-dumbest-plot-elements/790326/30 "2017-07-03T00:17:42Z")
I’m gonna get roasted for this, but the entire premise of _Breaking Bad_ is simply ridiculous. Lots of real dump plot points. Flame away! ---
**Author:** ![ExTank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@ExTank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ExTank)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2017, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-works-with-the-dumbest-plot-elements/790326/31 "2017-07-03T01:01:02Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > In _The Hunt for Red October_ (the movie, it’s been ages since I read the book) the U.S intelligence community freaks out because the Soviets have created an undetectable ballistic missile submarine. Except it turns out it’s not undetectable at all. The first sub to encounter it, the sonar operator figures out the sound the new drive system makes and is able to track it perfectly. As soon as that’s discovered, the U.S. priorities should change. It would become less important to capture the Red October, and much more important to get that tracking > information to the rest of the U.S. fleet. > > I also question why everyone is afraid of the Red October because it’s a first-strike weapon. I’ve always heard that missile subs are deterrence weapons; they can hide and stay protected anywhere in the ocean, they survive the first strike and guarantee a return strike even if all land-based missiles have been destroyed. You’re misremembering/misunderstanding plot points and, more importantly, timelines. Jonesy, the super-sonar tech on the Dallas, first detected Red October, but couldn’t identify it; it was only some indeterminate time later, after he’d had time to analyze the signal off of multiple bearings, that he figured out what it was, and convinced his skipper to go off and investigate. Captain Mancuso even says something like, “This, we gotta phone in,” meaning report to higher. In the meantime, the Soviets had flushed everything that could float from their Northern and Baltic fleets, while their Mediterranean and Pacific Fleets were “business as usual,” indicating that all the northern Atlantic activity was _not_ a precursor to war, but something else. Coupled with Ryan’s presentation on the preliminary intel on Red October, indicated a sub that _was_ designed for stealthy approach and first-strike capability was “on the loose,” hence the one Admiral’s, “My God! They got a madman on their hands!” Ryan’s “Defection Theory” was not widely accepted; as the pieces of the puzzle began to come together (especially after the Soviet Ambassador changed their story from “missing sub” to “rogue sub”) it looked more-and-more likely that the “Rogue Skipper/crew” theory was correct, or that it was the “worst-possible-case-scenario,” that U.S./NATO Forces couldn’t disregard on an intel analyst’s hunch. The _real_ plot hole was how long it took to contact Dallas; if it was looking like thing were shaping up to be the biggest Naval battle in history, Dallas would’ve been warned/re-tasked long before Ryan boarded a chopper to go out and meet up with her. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2017, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-works-with-the-dumbest-plot-elements/790326/32 "2017-07-03T01:14:12Z")
Any movie where someone can ask, “Why don’t you just kill him?” Or, pretty much every James Bond movies since I graduated from high school. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2017, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-works-with-the-dumbest-plot-elements/790326/33 "2017-07-03T01:48:35Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > I also question why everyone is afraid of the Red October because it’s a first-strike weapon. I’ve always heard that missile subs are deterrence weapons; they can hide and stay protected anywhere in the ocean, they survive the first strike and guarantee a return strike even if all land-based missiles have been destroyed. Because the Red October can launch it’s missiles so close to the US that we wouldn’t be able to launch ours. Conventional subs would be detected in the Atlantic by sonar buoys or the Atlantic fleet. It disrupts the MAD status quo where NATO and USSR would be able to detect each other’s missile launches and respond in kind. Speaking of dumb submarine plot elements. Crimson Tide There aren’t protocols in place if a nuclear launch order is of questionable authenticity due to a technical issue? Like error on the side of not starting WWIII? ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2017, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-works-with-the-dumbest-plot-elements/790326/34 "2017-07-03T01:57:40Z")
The whole plot of Patrick Robinson’s \*Kilo Class \*(1998.) The United States goes to great length to sink a Russian shipment of…conventional diesel-electric submarines to China. Sending SEAL commandos into Russia and whatnot in order to do so. Not nukes, not some super spy weapon, not other WMDs. Just a few normal diesel naval subs. It’s utterly implausible. It also involves Taiwan running a nuclear-weapons program in the Kerguelen Islands near Antarctica. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2017, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-works-with-the-dumbest-plot-elements/790326/35 "2017-07-03T02:29:39Z")
> [@ExTank](#): > > You’re misremembering/misunderstanding plot points and, more importantly, timelines. > Jonesy, the super-sonar tech on the Dallas, first detected Red October, but couldn’t identify it; it was only some indeterminate time later, after he’d had time to analyze the signal off of multiple bearings, that he figured out what it was, and convinced his skipper to go off and investigate. Captain Mancuso even says something like, “This, we gotta phone in,” meaning report to higher. > In the meantime, the Soviets had flushed everything that could float from their Northern and Baltic fleets, while their Mediterranean and Pacific Fleets were “business as usual,” indicating that all the northern Atlantic activity was _not_ a precursor to war, but something else. > > Coupled with Ryan’s presentation on the preliminary intel on Red October, indicated a sub that _was_ designed for stealthy approach and first-strike capability was “on the loose,” hence the one Admiral’s, “My God! They got a madman on their hands!” > Ryan’s “Defection Theory” was not widely accepted; as the pieces of the puzzle began to come together (especially after the Soviet Ambassador changed their story from “missing sub” to “rogue sub”) it looked more-and-more likely that the “Rogue Skipper/crew” theory was correct, or that it was the “worst-possible-case-scenario,” that U.S./NATO Forces couldn’t disregard on an intel analyst’s hunch. > The _real_ plot hole was how long it took to contact Dallas; if it was looking like thing were shaping up to be the biggest Naval battle in history, Dallas would’ve been warned/re-tasked long before Ryan boarded a chopper to go out and meet up with her. I remember the timeline. When Capt. Mancuso says “this we gotta phone in”, I always took that to mean that they reported the contact, and probably something about how they were tracking it, but I’m not sure they could give the full details of what Jonesy had discovered. Adm. Painter even says that the Dallas is on a wild goose chase, following a magma displacement. So, yes, the Red October still needs to be tracked, in case her captain really has gone rogue, but its value as a wonder weapon is already neutralized. I’m sure they hope Ramius is defecting, and they’d like to get him and the boat, but it’s already less important than at the beginning of the movie. Having Jonesy accompany the team that boards the Red October is crazy. His knowledge of how to track the Red October is too valuable to risk. (I suppose he must have told someone on the Dallas what he was doing, but still.) In intelligence terms, it might have made more sense to let Capt. Tupolev sink the Red October; let the Soviets keep spending billions building subs they think we can’t track, but which we know we can. > [@msmith537](#): > > Because the Red October can launch it’s missiles so close to the US that we wouldn’t be able to launch ours. Conventional subs would be detected in the Atlantic by sonar buoys or the Atlantic fleet. It disrupts the MAD status quo where NATO and USSR would be able to detect each other’s missile launches and respond in kind. How close does a Soviet sub have to be for that to work; an unexpected missile takes out the White House and the Pentagon and the remains of the U.S. military and DoD just say “gosh, we didn’t see that coming” and does nothing? We’d figure out who fired it and retaliate. Red October might be able to start a war but I don’t think it could win it single-handedly. The whole mutually assured destruction paradigm would still be firmly in place. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2017, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-works-with-the-dumbest-plot-elements/790326/36 "2017-07-03T03:38:51Z")
> [@Anise](#): > > …WHY was Steve Trevor apparently the first person to ever show up on Themyscira? If some kind of magic was set up around the island to keep everyone out, then why was he able to somehow randomly get through it and be washed up on shore? Was this explained, and I just missed it? Because if not, it doesn’t make any sense at all. I don’t think Steve Trevor was really the first outsider to visit Themyscira. Either that or the Amazons had been sending small expeditions to the outside world every century or two. Otherwise it would’ve been impossible for Diana (or any Amazon) so speak modern languages so fluently. [quote=“NDP, post:28, topic:790326”] > [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > I agree with you about “Conscience of the King.” Surely they would have fingerprints, voiceprints, even DNA of Gov. Kodos. > To be fair, identifying someone using their DNA is something that came about long after the episode aired. It’s also an example of recent real-life science actually being more advanced than that projected in a work of science fiction set hundreds of years in the future. That said, what bothered me about the episode was they made Kodo/Karidian a despotic ruler like Hitler or Mussolini… The original **Battlestar Galactica** , which was made about a decade after **Star Trek** actually did have an episode were Starbuck’s possible long lost father showed up alive in the fleet. They tried to establish paternity with a DNA test, but their technology was only advanced enough to prove they were members of the same tribe and related within a certain degree of kinship. This was presented to the audience as advanced science fiction technology, but looks quaint know. Granted the original BSG took place either in the early 1950s or an indeterminate number of centuries in the future depending on if \*\*Galactica: 1980 \*\* is counted. Also it’s a fictional human civilization and while implausible it’s not actually impossible for space travel technology to develop much faster than biological technology. Especially for a culture who’s creation myths would actually be backed up by the scientific record. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2017, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-works-with-the-dumbest-plot-elements/790326/37 "2017-07-03T04:37:29Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > Any movie where someone can ask, “Why don’t you just kill him?”… My favorite bit in _Top Secret!_ is when the top East German government bad guy is given a dispatch, carefully looks among the rubber stamps hanging from the little metal tree on his desk, then selects, inks and imprints the dispatch with the stamp reading FIND HIM AND KILL HIM. ---
**Author:** ![Marci\_Al](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e47c2d/32.png) [@Marci\_Al](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marci_Al)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2017, 8:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-works-with-the-dumbest-plot-elements/790326/38 "2017-07-03T08:16:29Z")
I thought “Midnight Cowboy” had one of the dumbest, most pointless plot in movie history. But it was one of the greatest. ---
**Author:** ![erysichthon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d07c76/32.png) [@erysichthon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erysichthon)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2017, 8:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-works-with-the-dumbest-plot-elements/790326/39 "2017-07-03T08:53:02Z")
_Snowpiercer_ is a terrific film, but the central premise of a train endlessly circling the earth is completely nuts. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2017, 9:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-works-with-the-dumbest-plot-elements/790326/40 "2017-07-03T09:01:05Z")
Are we including dumb character turns in this? My Hero Academia is a cool story with a cool premise and a lot of really powerful, interesting things to say about bullying, self-esteem, power, and responsibility… …And also contains a character named “Grape Juice”, whose superpower (people here have superpowers) involves pulling sticky balls from his head and throwing them at people, with the battlecry of “taste my sticky balls”. His costume looks like he is wearing a diaper, he’s about three feet tall, and he spends 100% of the time either crying in abject terror or being just the worst kind of perverted “hentai” douchebag to the girls in his class. Every single time this character shows up, I hope someone murders him, but they never do. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-works-with-the-dumbest-plot-elements/790326.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-works-with-the-dumbest-plot-elements/790326.md?page=3)