Let's talk about unintelligently written intelligent characters!

[Barry_From_Eastenders]

The “Squints” from Bones.

[Steve_MB]

@Der Trihs

ST : TNG’s Captain Picard in Descent, when he sends nearly the entire crew down to search the planet and gets everyone captured by Lore and his rogue Borg minions. A winceworthy moment.

When I saw that, and somebody (Geordi?) spotted the building, I called out, “Just follow the signs: ‘THIS WAY TO OBVIOUS DEATH TRAP’.”

[WhyNot]

@Johnny Angel

This TV show Bones is amusing, but Temperence Brennan’s dialogue often makes me cringe. The writers seem to think that being an intelligent, rationally-minded person means that you speak like a robot from a 1950’s b-movie. They have no idea what smart people actually sound like.

hangs head in shame

I’ve been accused, by more than one person, of being the model for Temperence Brennan’s speech patterns. I’m afraid I DO talk like that, and I’m just as vocally bewildered and amused by anthropologic/sociologic foibles of both individuals and groups as she is. And I likey the run-on sentence, as you can see.

The first time she said, “I don’t know what that means,” in utter sincerity and innocence, my husband nearly fell off the sofa laughing, because I say it just like that.

[saoirse]

I haven’t seen an episode of “Numb3rs” or, as I like to call it, “Frasier with Math” in a long time, but in the first season, the math whiz could do anything as long as it involved computations.

[DiggitCamara]

@RealityChuck

Criticizing The Core is missing the point. The film knew its science was nonsense, and made no bones about it. Complaining about that is like complaining that there was a shipwreck in Titanic.

You really should read the Bad Astronomer’s review then.

The writer even wrote him one (or several) letters, complaining that he had written the movie after he had seen how badly science was handled in supposed SF movies. And it is supposed to be (according to the writer) a model example of correct use of science in a SF movie. :smack:

[JoeSki]

@Robot Arm

There are a couple of major lapses in The Hunt for Red October.

I can think of two unintelligent characters who were written quite cleverly; Bill & Ted.

I’m going to count both of these out. The characters in The Hunt for Red October may be spouting flase information and be unintelligently written, but there’s no one particular character in it who is supposed to be utterly brilliant and who then utterly fails in convincing the audience through sloppy writing that he’s smarter than a scat obsessed chimp.

Bill and Ted were neither went out of their way to prove their intellectual superiority or lazily written.

@jjimm

“Professor of Symbology” Robert Langdon, from The Da Vinci Farce.

Yeah…that was pretty silly .

@Superfluous Parentheses

Intentional, but it cracks me up every time:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pe9Fs10IIk0 From 0:24 to 0:33

Great, great movie for anyone who’s never seen it. A glorious cheesefest.

I made my girlfriend watch this one without telling her it was all intentional until she started acting all awkward because she thought it was genuine dreck and was afraid to tell me so for fear of hurting my feelings by talking badly about one of my favorite movies

@Morbo

All computer programmers in movies type over 175 WPM w/o looking at the keyboard and without using a mouse. If you’re exceptionally talented you can hack into a government encrypted database in 30 seconds using someone else’s laptop in a dance club with a gun to your head while getting a blowjob.

Oh man! You’re talking about that guy from Project Swordfish. I can’t believe I forgot all about him; he was like a glorious reigning king of unintelligently written intelligent characters!

Though when you get right down to it, there’s always going to be at least one character from a movie with technobabble, and hackers, and firewalls is going to fit into this category.

Such as Live Free or Die Hard or anything starring a kid prodigy hacker type.

@RealityChuck

Matthew Broderick as a scientist in Godzilla.

Nice pick.

Keep 'em coming! And include examples as to why the character you’re mentioning is ridiculous.

[DiggitCamara]

@DiggitCamara

You really should read the Bad Astronomer’s review then.

The writer even wrote him one (or several) letters, complaining that he had written the movie after he had seen how badly science was handled in supposed SF movies. And it is supposed to be (according to the writer) a model example of correct use of science in a SF movie. :smack:

Couldn’t edit it in time: it seems that the letter of the writer wasn’t sent to BadAstronomy but rather to aintitcool

[Ogre]

@cactus waltz

Not to mention, wouldn’t humans not fairing well be a requisite for the insects to take over the world in the first place?

Not to mention that that particular ship sailed millions of years ago. Insects own this planet (although they’re on government assistance from the true masters, bacteria and viruses.) Humans exist largely at the sufferance of our insect lords.

[Bryan_Ekers]

@Justin_Bailey

They left the mall because they ran out of human food. There’s very little meat in gym mats.

I recall they talked about running out of certain drinks, but if there was anything resembling a food court in that place, they could’ve lived off canned food for months.

Of course, this makes for an intellectually satisfying but dull movie, hence the ridiculous chase.

[Miller]

@D_Odds

I wouldn’t say he was unintelligently written; it was, however, written comic book-style. I can even fanwank that into character. Dr. Octavius had one and only one goal in his work. Everything he did was to achieve his goal, and as long as he wasn’t achieving his goal, he didn’t see the importance of anything else he was doing. This flaw was amplified when the arms took over. So, sure, the arms were breathtakingly advanced, but they were just a tool for him to solve the real issue, and weren’t important.

I agree, it was clearly deliberatly written to be ridiculous, so probably doesn’t belong in this thread. I’m not complaining about it, it was one of my favorite parts of the movie.

[Malacandra]

@Ogre

Not to mention that that particular ship sailed millions of years ago. Insects own this planet (although they’re on government assistance from the true masters, bacteria and viruses.) Humans exist largely at the sufferance of our insect lords.

And I, for one, welcome, etc.

[smiling_bandit]

Speaking of Project Swordfish, the cops…

Alright, here are the cops, cinluding a bunch of experienced SWAT team veterans. Now, I’ll grant they’re not really “characters” in the movie, but they’re supposed to be bright enough to bring to a tense hostage situation. At the point I’m talking about, the main “baddie” (sort of, mostly) has already taken over the bank, is robbing it, and is swaggering around with a remote control detonator and a pack of fanatical killers at his beck and call.

The police grab one civilian, who has about 50 pounds of C-4 and shrapnel strapped on her, and drag her away. She’s begging them “NO” and high-ranking officers are screaming for them to stop. The bad guys have already announced that they’ve got a remote detonation system and that, in fact, any hostage who gets too far from the switch goes BOOM. But hey, the Swat guys ignore orders and drag her away. And promptly get turned into micemeat, along with two police cars and several other officers.

[Caveman]Uh, what?[/Caveman]

You better bet if I’m a SWAT officer, I’m gonna darn well listen when the tell me they’ve got multi-flavor dead-man’s switches, especially as it’s the most daring and brutal robbery in history at this point.

[flight]

@Skald the Rhymer

[fanwank]
Given that the scientist lived in a world currently being taken over by insects, it’s reasonable to stipulate that there had been previous instances of insects growing to giant size, or gaining human intelligence, or whatnot, just not on the scale that was seen in the movie in question. After even ONE such incident, I’d think there’d be a lot of talk in entomological circles about what would happen if insects went all Evil Overlord.
[/fanwank]

I am embarrassed to say that I have spent enough time thinking about this to realize that this catastrophe was entirely unprecedented.

[Johnny_Angel]

@Ogre

Insects own this planet (although they’re on government assistance from the true masters, bacteria and viruses.) Humans exist largely at the sufferance of our insect lords.

I heard it was the anelids and they just want you to think insects are running the show.