# Crowning moments of stupid. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 14, 2008, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crowning-moments-of-stupid/463596 "2008-09-14T20:50:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2008, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crowning-moments-of-stupid/463596/41 "2008-09-15T19:00:26Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > Didn’t his girlfriend come with them at the end of the 1st movie? And wasn’t the beginning of the 2nd movie them arriving in the future? Was the girlfriend with them? I honestly can’t remember the answer to any of those questions with any certainty at the moment. Yes, which is what makes it a little more painful. Paraphrased due to memory, the conversation goes like this: “Marty! You have to come with me to 2015!” “Hey, Doc, cool, but I was going to head up to the lake with Jennifer.” “Well bring her along! This concerns her too!” “What are you saying, Doc?” “It’s your kids, Marty! Something’s got to be done about your kids!” And Doc bundles them both into the DeLorean and they go blasting off, ending the first movie. In the second movie, Doc reveals that he didn’t really want Jennifer along, but he had to do _something_ because there was so little time to spare. (Or she saw the DeLorean appear, or something, but I recall it as a time issue, which is rather the problem here.) ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2008, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crowning-moments-of-stupid/463596/42 "2008-09-15T22:24:52Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > The really sad thing is that all of that stupid is directly inherited from the novel. Reading “Battlefield Earth” is what made me decide to skip the ten-part series of Hubbard’s “Mission: Earth”…I’m barely maintaining the reading of the twelve-part “Wheel of Time” and Jordan was about forty times better a writer than Hubbard ever longed to be. Even without an objective editor. Oh, no. You mentioned that foul loathsome excuse for the senseless slaughter of perfectly innocent trees “Mission: Earth”! Foaming at the mouth…head beginning to rotate…SOMEONE TASE ME!!! **ZZZZZZZZZ** ---
**Author:** ![Morgyn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morgyn/32/3041_2.png) [@Morgyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgyn)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2008, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crowning-moments-of-stupid/463596/43 "2008-09-15T22:46:01Z")
> [@Sublight](#): > > I didn’t think Oedipus knew about the prophecy at all. His parents were given the prophecy when he was born and decided to have him put to death as a baby. The guy they sent to do the job took pity on the baby and it ended up being raised another family as their own. He knew. He left his foster family and went to Delphi, where he got the exact same prophecy his real parents had. He didn’t know his foster family wasn’t his real family, so he left them to be sure the prophecy couldn’t come true. Then he met his real father (a complete stranger to him) at a crossroads, killed him, answered the Sphinx’s riddle, married Jocasta, and the rest is tragedy. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2008, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crowning-moments-of-stupid/463596/44 "2008-09-15T22:54:19Z")
> [@Morgyn](#): > > He knew. He left his foster family and went to Delphi, where he got the exact same prophecy his real parents had. Perhaps he was prone to blind skepticism? ---
**Author:** ![Asylum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/53a042/32.png) [@Asylum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asylum)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2008, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crowning-moments-of-stupid/463596/45 "2008-09-15T23:19:14Z")
> [@Jolly\_Roger](#): > > Its like the movie \*\*Dawn of the Dead \*\*(the 2004 one). The survivors have try to rescue the gun store guy from across the street. They tell the one guy in their group that absolutely, positively cannot be depended on to guard the door so they can make a quick escape from the zombies when they come back (Steve). Dickweed Steve naturally doesn’t do as required and almost gets them killed because he locked the door and left it unattended. > > Seriously, it would have been obvious to a five year old that Steve wasn’t going to do jack squat. At no time in the movie did he demonstrate any traits that would make you think \*“Yeah, I can trust this guy with my life.” \*. In fact a brain damaged monkey could see that if the chips fall Steve was the first person that you could count on to stab you in the back. To make it even worse, they don’t kill him when they do make it back. (with a horde of undead on their tail.) CJ threatens him, but thats it. (Why? Steve says he has a yacht and the keys they can escape the city with…but you know, they could just kill him and take the stinking keys!) Its not that I’m saying killing him like a dog would have a hero’s job…but you know, its the End of The World and zombies are all over the place, do I need the added problem of a guy that won’t even pull his own weight, let alone help in any meaningful way about our survival as a group? I’m going to have to call this the _ **Gilligan/Doctor Smith syndrome** _. When conpetent characters in a bad situation trust the one person that everyone knows they shouldn’t. The person then turns around and either ruins any chances of escaping or gets people killed through greed or stupidity. It made perfect sense to me. Steve was an asshole, but he was an asshole they had been trapped with for a period of time. IMO, they naturally assumed that a bond had been formed between them due to circumstances. Plus, common sense would dictate that even if you were a narcissistic douchebag you’d want people you’re allied with to stay alive because it’d increase your chances of staying alive. So basically, they didn’t realize that Steve was a _complete_ narcissistic douchebag lacking common sense. ---
**Author:** ![HubZilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ccd318/32.png) [@HubZilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HubZilla)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2008, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crowning-moments-of-stupid/463596/46 "2008-09-15T23:53:43Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > The end of Back to the Future. “We must hurry to the future and save your children.” Or we could take all the time we need to devise the perfect plan to save them and then go to the same exact point in time with a well thought up plan that actually works. And if that plan doesn’t work, go back to a few minutes earlier and try again. ---
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2008, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crowning-moments-of-stupid/463596/47 "2008-09-16T05:03:30Z")
> [@Bosstone](#): > > Even so, why the rush in 1985? “Hey Marty, hey Jennifer. You guys are going out this weekend? Great. Listen, Marty, come see me when you get back, okay? I’ve got a job for you.” > > Okay, granted, it wouldn’t have been as interesting, but still. 😛 Fanwank explanation: Doc figured out that Marty got Jennifer pregnant during the weekend at the lake, which caused huge problems for them later in life. By rushing Marty and Jen off to the future, he disrupts that disastrous timeline, but then has to play it by ear in coping with the relatively more mundane problems of the revised timeline, though that in turn had its own major complications. ---
**Author:** ![Jolly\_Roger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/91b2a8/32.png) [@Jolly\_Roger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jolly_Roger)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2008, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crowning-moments-of-stupid/463596/48 "2008-09-16T07:07:30Z")
> [@Asylum](#): > > It made perfect sense to me. Steve was an asshole, but he was an asshole they had been trapped with for a period of time. IMO, they naturally assumed that a bond had been formed between them due to circumstances. Plus, common sense would dictate that even if you were a narcissistic douchebag you’d want people you’re allied with to stay alive because it’d increase your chances of staying alive. > > So basically, they didn’t realize that Steve was a _complete_ narcissistic douchebag lacking common sense. Yes, thats a symptom of the Gilligan/ Doctor Smith Syndrome. People don’t seem to realize that this person that has never shown that he or she has common sense, good judgment or brains (Gilligan) but has demonstrated that they are selfish, don’t actually give a rats ass about you, and will do as little as possible to help survive in a dangerous place or situation (Dr. Smith) will most likely turn on you if given the chance. Now seriously, I may not have killed Steve before the door thing, but after it…come on…it’d be clobbering time. He basically left them out to die for no good reason except that he’s an idiot. . Maybe its just me, then. But you see, I would have insisted that Steve come with us and left someone else to guard the door. Because I’d figure Steve would man up a bit if he were in a position of direct danger. Then his best interest is to help us all stay alive. I’d never leave him unattended in a position where he can basically lock a door on me. But I see your point. I think anoyther stupid move was the gang banger guy that tried to keep his zombie and wife baby in their little room? Maybe you could say he lost his mind, but even crazy people know enough not to try to get near a dangerous, rabid dog. ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2008, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crowning-moments-of-stupid/463596/49 "2008-09-16T12:03:44Z")
> [@Sr\_Siete](#): > > (Possile spoilers) > > Any movie or TV show where some guy has to cut his whole hand to escape from handcuffs. You only need to cut your thumb, you dimwit. The random average guy from that Ewan MacGregor’s movie “Night Shift” knew that. How come Jack Bauer donesn’t? Or the guy from “Saw” thought of only cutting the ankle bone. I mean, he was a doctor! I actually saw that in a Swedish movie(_Nightwatch_); guy cut his thumb off to get out of handcuffs. It’s also a movie where a killer politely asks his intended victim, “Have you ever been killed before?” That’s creepy. Well, this thread is a perfect example of the complaint made in [this other thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=483425&highlight=science+fiction+fantasy), about how these discussions in Cafe Society always seem to be dominated by science fiction or fantasy works. With _Star Trek_, it’s like shooting tribbles in a barrel. How about every single episode where they send the ship’s top several officers down into an unknown environment? (Side note: since there’s no day or night in interstellar space, the ship had three shifts, which should have had an equal chance of being on duty when something happened. But it was always the same group. I’d like to see what duty was like for the other two shifts.) How about _Romeo and Juliet_, by Bill Shackleford. (I might be wrong about that last name.) The priest, who’s been instrumental in this whole coma-inducing drug scheme, suddenly gets freaked and rushes out of the tomb without simply telling Romeo what the Hell’s going on. Result? Two dead kids. ---
**Author:** ![Jello](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f05b48/32.png) [@Jello](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jello)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2008, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crowning-moments-of-stupid/463596/50 "2008-09-16T13:05:32Z")
> [@Kendall Jackson](#): > > But if you’ve got that looming prophecy and despite it you willingly decide to marry a lady more than 10 years your senior, a lady widowed in strange and mysterious circumstances, then you’re just a fucking idiot. I mean, shit, you just shouldn’t make Fate’s job so bloody easy. Jocasta also had the Necklace of Harmonia, which made keep her youthful looks. Since she and Laius didn’t have any other children, Oedipus may not have had reason to suspect her real age, and perhaps was too polite to ask. As long as we’re on the subject of queens of Thebes, I nominate Niobe. Artemis was violent enough that she had Actaeon ripped apart by dogs for accidentally seeing her naked. Apollo was no slouch in the archery department. Despite all this, Niobe decided to piss them off by claiming she was better than their mother, Leto, because she had more children. It shouldn’t have been too hard for her to anticipate what kind of punishment could result from that kind of boast. Moving from myth to spurious stories in Herodotus, I nominate the people of Athens, for believing Peisistratus was in the company of Athena when all he did was dress up a really tall woman, bribe her family to keep quiet, and ride around with her in his chariot. I always picture Peisistratus reacting like Sheriff Bart did after a similarly preposterous ruse in _Blazing Saddles_: “Oooh, baby! You are so talented! …And they are so _dumb_!” ---
**Author:** ![Kizarvexius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/da6949/32.png) [@Kizarvexius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kizarvexius)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2008, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crowning-moments-of-stupid/463596/51 "2008-09-16T13:53:18Z")
> [@Jello](#): > > Moving from myth to spurious stories in Herodotus, I nominate the people of Athens, for believing Peisistratus was in the company of Athena when all he did was dress up a really tall woman, bribe her family to keep quiet, and ride around with her in his chariot. I always picture Peisistratus reacting like Sheriff Bart did after a similarly preposterous ruse in _Blazing Saddles_: “Oooh, baby! You are so talented! …And they are so _dumb_!” Damn you! I’ll never be able to enjoy Herodotus OR _Blazing Saddles_ again without conflating the two. :mad: And thus spake Gyges, “'Scuse me, while I whip this out.” ---
**Author:** ![Jello](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f05b48/32.png) [@Jello](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jello)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2008, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crowning-moments-of-stupid/463596/52 "2008-09-16T14:13:21Z")
> [@Kizarvexius](#): > > Damn you! I’ll never be able to enjoy Herodotus OR _Blazing Saddles_ again without conflating the two. :mad: > > And thus spake Gyges, “'Scuse me, while I whip this out.” Hahaha, I like that one. How about Xerxes preparing to cross the Hellespont: “Somebody go back and get a shitload of dimes!” ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2008, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crowning-moments-of-stupid/463596/53 "2008-09-16T21:52:54Z")
God knows the show _Lost_ has plenty of stupid to go around, but a really standout moment was at the end of the third season, when Danielle gets a knife in her back courtesy of Locke. She falls down, and nobody checks to see if she’s alive or dead – including the top-flight spinal surgeon standing next to her. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2008, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crowning-moments-of-stupid/463596/54 "2008-09-19T22:37:02Z")
The final scene of [_Gattaca._](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gattaca) In the future, astronauts will fly in business suits! ---
**Author:** ![A\_shameful\_cracka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ebca7d/32.png) [@A\_shameful\_cracka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A_shameful_cracka)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2008, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crowning-moments-of-stupid/463596/55 "2008-09-19T23:04:49Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > The really sad thing is that all of that stupid is directly inherited from the novel. Reading “Battlefield Earth” is what made me decide to skip the ten-part series of Hubbard’s “Mission: Earth”…I’m barely maintaining the reading of the twelve-part “Wheel of Time” and Jordan was about forty times better a writer than Hubbard ever longed to be. Even without an objective editor. It’s been about 23 years since I read Battlefield: Earth, but I’m pretty sure that they did not use human airplanes. I seem to recall that he was taught to fly Psychlo aircraft for Terl’s convenience (so he could ferry the gold himself). ---
**Author:** ![pepperlandgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f17d59/32.png) [@pepperlandgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pepperlandgirl)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2008, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crowning-moments-of-stupid/463596/56 "2008-09-20T00:11:16Z")
> [@Baldwin](#): > > I actually saw that in a Swedish movie(_Nightwatch_); guy cut his thumb off to get out of handcuffs. It’s also a movie where a killer politely asks his intended victim, “Have you ever been killed before?” That’s creepy. It’s the [same movie Sr Siete was talking about.](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119791/) Can I just nominate both Jurassic Park 2 and Jurassic Park 3 in their entirety? Granted, I’ve never seen them, but I don’t need to see them. Do you know why? Because when there’s an island full of horrible monsters that want to eat you, you don’t go back _again and again_. I mean, that’s just common sense. ---
**Author:** ![shy\_guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a6a055/32.png) [@shy\_guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shy_guy)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2008, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crowning-moments-of-stupid/463596/57 "2008-09-20T00:45:33Z")
> [@pepperlandgirl](#): > > Can I just nominate both Jurassic Park 2 and Jurassic Park 3 in their entirety? Granted, I’ve never seen them, but I don’t need to see them. Do you know why? Because when there’s an island full of horrible monsters that want to eat you, you don’t go back _again and again_. I mean, that’s just common sense. Well, I don’t remember what happens in the second really, but in the third movie the only reason Grant and his hot apprentice go to the island is to save the kid of some idiot rich tourists who lost him when their plane went down over the island. And even then, they trick him to get him onto the island. Also, I think it’s actually a different island. ---
**Author:** ![pepperlandgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f17d59/32.png) [@pepperlandgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pepperlandgirl)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2008, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crowning-moments-of-stupid/463596/58 "2008-09-20T01:35:12Z")
> [@shy\_guy](#): > > Well, I don’t remember what happens in the second really, but in the third movie the only reason Grant and his hot apprentice go to the island is to save the kid of some idiot rich tourists who lost him when their plane went down over the island. And even then, they trick him to get him onto the island. Also, I think it’s actually a different island. But that’s the thing–the crashed there because he was para-sailing so he could see the big monsters that would eat him! I was looking up summaries to see if my understanding was correct, and I see that Grant’s “hot apprentice” is Alessandro Nivola. That guy’s so hot, he makes me sexist. Crap, I might have to watch the movie now. ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2008, 9:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crowning-moments-of-stupid/463596/59 "2008-09-20T09:32:02Z")
Star Wars ROTJ: Hey, I’m the smartest evilist Emporer ever, I’m so cool I’m going to turn my back on a man while I slowly kill his son right in front of him, what could possibly go wrong! ---
**Author:** ![Earthworm\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f07891/32.png) [@Earthworm\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earthworm_Jim)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2008, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crowning-moments-of-stupid/463596/60 "2008-09-20T13:49:59Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Of course, you know I was going to mention **Alien**. There are so many possibilities to choose from, but the top is when Dallas is hunting the aliens in the air shaft. Lambert is tracking the alien. She loses the signal. And the cavalcade of stupidity begins No, this is an awesome scene. These people are a freighter crew who just watched their buddy die in a pretty gruesome manner. They’re forced to cobble together something _from spare parts_ to defend themselves from a nasty predatory killing maching. It’s perfectly reasonable that they both froze up & Dallas wound up dead. And as I remember it, Dallas was trying to move, he just picked the wrong direction. But even if he hesitates that’s understandable too. “One of these directions means certain death - which way do I go??” There may be stupid moments in the film, but this isn’t one of them. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crowning-moments-of-stupid/463596.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crowning-moments-of-stupid/463596.md?page=4)