I believe nukes are only referenced obliquely once. When Powers Boothe explains the recent drop in the chinese population.
Oh, to actually contribute to the thread…the Tom Bombadil excusion in Fellowship.
I know books and essays galore have been written about how important this part is to the book.
Meh. It’s presented in a really irritating and boring way.
How about the Sherlock Holmes mystery, “The Adventure of the Speckled Band”?
We’re supposed to believe tha tthe killer TRAINED a poisonous adder (despite snakes being notoriously dumb, and practically incapable of learning ANYTHING) to slither down a rope, bite the intended victim, and then climb back up when the killer whistled (even though snakes are DEAF)… all for the reward of a saucer of milk (which wouldn’t reall interest snakes in the least).
Dr No: trying to kill Bond by putting a tarantula in his room or in his bed.
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If you can get into Bond’s room to put a spider there, why not just wait until he comes back and shoot or stab him, or use any of the many other ways of hurting people that have been tried and tested for centuries?
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The only thing a spider will do in such circumstances is try to find somewhere dark and undisturbed, where it can stay perfectly still and safe for its own protection for as long as possible. The idea that it would try to ‘attack’ Bond or bite him is utterly absurd. Bond isn’t prey. Bond isn’t even close to being prey. The spider knows this.
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Tarantula bites are rarely if ever even a serious problem for healthy adults, let alone fatal. Uncomfortable and unwelcome, yes, but not a serious problem. ‘Dr No’ would know this.
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Even if this creature were dangerous (which it isn’t), and even if it were crawling towards or even over Bond in a dangerous way (which it would never do), it would be child’s play to deal with. One simple flick with the back of the hand would send it flying. Tarantulas, like all spiders, are very light and fragile. When you handle a tarantula, the hardest thing is not hurting it.
Yeah, I know it the movie it meant they could have their ‘oooh, scary spider’ scene. But this thread is about dumb ideas, and this ‘plan’ is exceedingly dumb.
I don’t see what’s so wrong with that. It was known quite early that the polar ice was drifting, and Fridtjof Nansen attempted to reach the North Pole with a wooden ship called Fram as late as the 1890’s and while doing so came closer to the geographic Pole than anyone had ever done before.
Huh? That makes perfect sense – lousy fattening foods tend to be cheaper than a proper balanced diet.
Hijack, since it’s not so much a dumb premise as a stupid depiction, but ther part where the kids gradually notice a noise behind them and turn around to find that a *Soviet Armored Division *has snuck up behind them with diesel tanks, to within 20 feet or so, was the worst moment for me. The tank engines thunder and rumble quite threateningly as soon as the kids are staring at them in dismay. Apparently they didn’t during the “sneaking up” part.
Actually, in the book it’s a centipede, which makes more sense.
To my mind the dumbest thing in the movie waas far dumber than that – it was Dr. No putting Bond in a cell with a ventilator shaft more than big enough for him to crawl through – even if he did electrify it. Then the duct gets really hot, then Bond gets sea water flooding him. Who the hell heats up a ventilator duct and flushes it with sea water? It makes no sense at all. It wasn’t until I read the book, where Bond’s crawl through the duct is actually a deliberately-made obdstacle course for him. Of course, it doesn’t make any sense in the movie as an obstacle course, either – bond is able to crawl through and then take a guard by surprise, which he shouldn’t have been able to do if there was either a sadistic obstacle course or a well-made prison.
I appear to be the only person who thinks Zeist was an appropriate idea betrayed by a horribly executed movie.
I might get flamed but I thought the premise of pre-cogs in Minority Report was stupid. (I haven’t read the book, which maybe explains it better than the film did).
So these people can see the future, but only as it relates to violent crimes, not other stuff like, say, that one of them was going to get kidnapped? (dumb!) How did they get their abilities? - mutation (dumb!) What’s their precog range? - the whole world, or just the local city? (dumb!) They often only see the future crime in just enough time for the police to race there and prevent it. (dumb!) What is everyone going to do when these pre-cogs die of old age? (dumb!). Special effects were cool though.
Actually, rather than poor but fat people in an affluent society (for example the U.S.), it’s probably more instructive to think of the North Koreans (living in an impoverished society) who as a people are stunted in relation to the relatively well-nourished South Koreans.
Maybe they could see it, but their discovery didn’t trigger the same sort of reaction as seeing a murder, so their minders didn’t notice.
They’re using a second-hand detection system - it’s hardly surprising that either stage is going to have limitations. You’re attacking the entire premise of a sci-fi movie, on the basis of it being sci-fi.
No, not dumb, realistic. People discovered something useful and started taking advantage of it. Delaying their use of pre-cogs until they can reproduce the phenomenon doesn’t make them any better off, and in the meantime people are dying.
Sunlight kills vampires. 
A pair of magical size adjusting pants that brings four friends together.
ianzin:
Of all of Bond-dom, this isn’t even in the top 5 of dumbest ways the villains try to kill Bond, while squandering better ones.
At the top of that list, IMHO, is the scene in Live and Let Die in which Mr. Big forces Bond at gunpoint to an island in the middle of his crocodile swamp, and then attracts the crocs with fresh meat. YOU HAVE A GUN ON HIM, YOU IDIOTS! KILL HIM WITH THE GUN!
That’s nothing compared to The Probability Broach by L. Neil Smith. In this “alternate history” there are two significant differences between the world in the book and reality. The United States is a typical libertopia where everything is perfect due to libertariansim. And gorillas talk.
No detailed explanation was given. Apparently the reader is supposed to accept that primates revealing they are sentient would be an obvious result of libertarianism.
It’s a refreshing change from intelligent giant cephalopods. Did the gorillas have the deed to Manhattan, too?
Maybe you have it backwards, and the sentient gorillas are the reason that the libertopia came into existence?
No, it happened after the libertopia was formed. It’s been a long time since I read the book but as I recall the “explanation” was that primates supposedly always had the ability to talk but just never used it. Until one day they just decided they should. I don’t remember why America had a noticeable population of primates in the first place.
My speculation is that Smith just thought the whole Planet of the Apes idea which was popular at the time was cool.
Somehow I forgot that one, despite still having the book somewhere I think. Probably because L. Neil Smith lacks the nastiness of Michael Z. Williamson. Talking apes and electrically heated roads, due to the wonders of Libertarianism.