# Movie WTF moments **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 19, 2006, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-wtf-moments/348954 "2006-03-19T02:04:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2006, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-wtf-moments/348954/41 "2006-03-20T17:03:15Z")
> [@HPL](#): > > I always assumed it was a take on the “Starring into the abyss” motif. The essence of evil, like the face of God, is supposed to be unknown and unknowable, too much for humans to bear. Just a little bit of contact is bad for you. Prolonged contact would probably kill you or drive you completely insane(not just evil insane). > > Kinda like how people who read the necronomican often end up going mad. Only two people exude the substance, not everyone who comes in contact with the Big Bad: the ship’s commander and the corporation head both drip the stuff, but not the others on the ship that shoots the big flaming ball, or the secretary who answers the phones when the Big Bad calls the corporate head. ---
**Author:** ![saoirse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@saoirse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saoirse)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2006, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-wtf-moments/348954/42 "2006-03-20T17:06:01Z")
> [@smiling bandit](#): > > On the Fifth Element thing: It was never explained, but I assumed it was blood. Maybe the voice of… EVIL popped a vessel? It’s boron. That’s where the movie gets its name. Evil boron looks like chocolate syrup. Ask any chemist. ---
**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2006, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-wtf-moments/348954/43 "2006-03-20T17:11:25Z")
> [@saoirse](#): > > It’s boron. That’s where the movie gets its name. Evil boron looks like chocolate syrup. Ask any chemist. Okay, I’m confused-- I thought the fifth element was supposed to be the Supreme Being, incarnated as Leelieu. ---
**Author:** ![saoirse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@saoirse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saoirse)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2006, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-wtf-moments/348954/44 "2006-03-20T17:25:51Z")
> [@Lissa](#): > > Okay, I’m confused-- I thought the fifth element was supposed to be the Supreme Being, incarnated as Leelieu. Nope. Boron. Look it up. ---
**Author:** ![DeadlyAccurate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ac91a4/32.png) [@DeadlyAccurate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DeadlyAccurate)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2006, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-wtf-moments/348954/45 "2006-03-20T17:26:14Z")
Here’s one for the movie Stealth (which ate stupidity for breakfast, lunch, dinner and between-meal snacks, but this was especially egregious): Our intrepid hero goes in to North Korea to rescue his lady love, who had to eject behind enemy lines. And ends up killing a lot of North Koreans. In NK territory. And the movie _doesn’t_ end with him being slapped in chains for **engaging in an act of war with a nuclear power**. A nuclear power that has a batshit insane dictator for a leader. A nuclear power that has a batshit insane dictator for a leader **who hates our guts!** (And that’s not even counting entering a no-fly zone over another nuclear country, Russia.) ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2006, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-wtf-moments/348954/46 "2006-03-20T17:26:26Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > Oh, and you’re right…but I find sometimes at least obsessing over those makes the movie’s pleasure last longer. Depends on what the error is, though. Like I like to think about who could have been Anakin’s real father…could it have been Palpatine, through the force? Or Sidious? It’s just interesting. 🙂 It’s fun to discuss interpretation of certain elements of a films backstory. It’s even fun to point out logical absurdities (like why would Sean Connery need to memorize the timing of some random crushing flaming passageway when he was escaping The Rock since the door apparently opens from the INSIDE?). I find it tedious to discuss minor and inconsequential continuity or historical errors. I don’t watch Gladiator or Braveheart for a history lesson. I just want to see a bunch of dudes fuck each other up with swords and give rousing speaches. It’s called ‘artistic license’ people. You’re watching a movie where Bruce Willis and a babbling clone of Milla Jovovich with funky red hair are on a mission to save the world from some ball of flaming evil using a bunch of rocks left behind by aliens that look like giant armored turkeys and your worried about why Gary Oldmen is sweating Nestle’s Quick out of his head? Here’s a WTF movie moment for you - Julia Roberts pretending to be Julia Roberts in Oceans Twelve. Talk about breaking the fourth wall. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2006, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-wtf-moments/348954/47 "2006-03-20T17:33:35Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > It’s fun to discuss interpretation of certain elements of a films backstory. It’s even fun to point out logical absurdities (like why would Sean Connery need to memorize the timing of some random crushing flaming passageway when he was escaping The Rock since the door apparently opens from the INSIDE?). Sean Connery had to go back and forth between his escape hatch and his cell many times over the course of a few… days? weeks?.. I’m not sure. But the point is, after opening the door (which you’re right, opens from the inside), he needed someway to get back to his cell. Thus the timing of the incirnerator (I know that’s spelled wrong). ---
**Author:** ![joemama24\_98](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ce7236/32.png) [@joemama24\_98](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joemama24_98)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2006, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-wtf-moments/348954/48 "2006-03-20T17:34:54Z")
From Dusk Till Dawn… …I did not know it was a vampire movie, just thought it was another “normally twisted” Tarantino flick. They don’t appear until well into the movie (and do so in a sudden eruption of gore). That was my last movie “WTF was that” moment - I had no idea. ---
**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2006, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-wtf-moments/348954/49 "2006-03-20T18:02:01Z")
> [@saoirse](#): > > Nope. Boron. Look it up. Heh. Well, I’ll be damned. ---
**Author:** ![FordPrefect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e99b99/32.png) [@FordPrefect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FordPrefect)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2006, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-wtf-moments/348954/50 "2006-03-20T18:02:25Z")
> [@fluiddruid](#): > > I had just assumed he wasn’t actually human, and it was sweat. > > My WTF moment from LOTR: The Two Towers - how on earth did it take days or longer to walk to the Entmoot, but when Fangorn sees the destruction of the trees around Isengard, he just yells and all the Ents come out of nowhere? _Why_ didn’t Peter Jackson just follow the books and make the Ents decide to go to war at the Entmoot so it would make sense? Jackson had many WTF moments in those movies, but the worst was the tipping stone staircase scene in Moria. “Lean forward”. Good grief ---
**Author:** ![phungi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/phungi/32/395_2.png) [@phungi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phungi)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2006, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-wtf-moments/348954/51 "2006-03-20T18:31:33Z")
> [@FordPrefect](#): > > Jackson had many WTF moments in those movies… Let us not forget Legalos using a shield to perform a rail slide, skateboard/X-Games style to descend the staircase while shooting arrows. My major WTF moment was in _Million Dollar Baby_ when that “whole thing” happened in the corner of the ring and changed the entire focus.theme of the movie (but I have already ranted on this topic). ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2006, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-wtf-moments/348954/52 "2006-03-20T18:36:20Z")
Dungeons and Dragons. Blue lips. Or, for the more cerebral among us: At the end of the movie, the two rogues, the wizard and the elf have saved the Entire Planet, not to mention the Empire, and the Empress, and one of the rogues happened to kind of die in the process. For some reason, it’s supposed to come as a surprise to us that the Empress is willing to spring for a Raise Dead? ---
**Author:** ![Dunderman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2006, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-wtf-moments/348954/53 "2006-03-20T18:39:31Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > (like why would Sean Connery need to memorize the timing of some random crushing flaming passageway when he was escaping The Rock since the door apparently opens from the INSIDE?) Except that the door was probably locked when Alcatraz was still a prison. Still, one would think it’s easier to force a locked door open somehow than roll through those flames and metal wheels (what the hell was that place anyway?). ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2006, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-wtf-moments/348954/54 "2006-03-20T18:54:18Z")
**Gattaca** At the end, did he really turn on the incinerator from the _inside_? ---
**Author:** ![DxZero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@DxZero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DxZero)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2006, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-wtf-moments/348954/55 "2006-03-20T18:59:36Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > **Gattaca** > > At the end, did he really turn on the incinerator from the _inside_? Oh wow, I completely forgot about that. Perfect example. And I’m probably one of the few people who actually enjoyed that movie. ---
**Author:** ![DxZero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@DxZero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DxZero)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2006, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-wtf-moments/348954/56 "2006-03-20T19:07:56Z")
Maybe there was some sort of delay mechanism? I don’t recall Jude Law’s character actually flipping a switch while in the oven ---
**Author:** ![JSexton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/96bed5/32.png) [@JSexton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JSexton)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-wtf-moments/348954/57 "2006-03-21T00:00:16Z")
> [@Priceguy](#): > > Still, one would think it’s easier to force a locked door open somehow than roll through those flames and metal wheels (what the hell was that place anyway?). Reminds me of Galaxy Quest. "What is this thing? I mean, it serves no useful purpose for there to be a bunch of chompy, crushy things in the middle of a hallway. No, I mean we shouldn’t have to do this, it makes no logical sense, why is it here? " ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-wtf-moments/348954/58 "2006-03-21T00:07:25Z")
Meet the Parents There is this big scene where the guy’s efforts to board the plane are repeatedly blocked by an airline employee, despite the fact that no one is in line. Then, once he is finally on the plane and finds his spot, he finds it difficult to place his baggage due to the fact that there are plenty of passengers blocking the aisle! 😕 Or am I misremembering this? It’s such a huge plot hole I’m sure people must have thought of it beforehand. It’s also central to the humor in the first part of the situation. It’s indeed funny if your efforts to board a plane are thwarted due to overly-enforced airline policy: however, not so funny if the plane was actually congested to begin with! ---
**Author:** ![Chanteuse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9de053/32.png) [@Chanteuse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chanteuse)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-wtf-moments/348954/59 "2006-03-21T05:43:54Z")
> [@Raguleader](#): > > Eh, I don’t see anything wrong with that question, as it’s probably what a lot of folks would ask in that situation. Failing that, Cobb could, theoretically, have learned Paden’s name somewhere without meeting the guy (I haven’t seen the movie, so I’m just throwing stuff out here). It’s just that the two men greeted one another with obvious familiarity (Cobb not only knew Paden’s name, but how to spell it)–smiling and calling each other by name. And the tone of the sergeant wasn’t “Oh, you know this man and can vouch for him.” It was more like “I wonder if he knows this man?” Every time I see the movie and this part comes on, I can’t help thinking, “Well, _duh_!” (Incidentally, one of my favorite movie quotes is also from _Silverado_: Danny Glover stops some men from killing Scott Glenn–he gets their attention by firing his rifle into the air and then saying, “Now I don’t wanna kill you, and you don’t wanna be dead!”) ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-wtf-moments/348954/60 "2006-03-21T05:52:11Z")
> [@JPen](#): > > Maybe there was some sort of delay mechanism? I don’t recall Jude Law’s character actually flipping a switch while in the oven The problem with that is: [spoiler]What sort of incinerator has a delayed timer on it, one that is set so that the door isn’t automatically locked from the outside as to prevent somebody from accidentally open it? I can hear the design techs at ACME Incinerator right now: “Ya think we oughtta put a lock on the door so that it can’t be open when the timer is set?” “Of course not. Can you conceivably come up with a scenario where somebody would open up an incinerator door after setting a timer?” “Suicide?” “Not bloody likely - they’d be totally daft! They’d kill themselves!” Sorry, but when I see that the incinerator scene it just screams UNSAFE DESIGN - DO NOT USE IF YOU HAVE KIDS OR SUICIDAL HANDICAPPED GUYS. [/spoiler] [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-wtf-moments/348954.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-wtf-moments/348954.md?page=4)